State Champ Radio Music
Page: 469
Lady Gaga is joining her Little Monsters on a new dance trend inspired by her recently released album, MAYHEM. The superstar took to TikTok this week to share a 12-second video featuring the chorus from a track off the project, “Zombieboy.” In the clip, she convulses her body to the beat, before stretching her arms […]
Take it from Dax Shepard: Dancing to Sabrina Carpenter‘s music with your kids is super fun. The PG-13 conversations that her songs might inspire afterward? Not so much.
On the latest episode of his Armchair Expert podcast, the actor — who shares 13-year-old Lincoln and 10-year-old Delta with wife Kristen Bell — started out by saying that despite being “so late to the party,” he’s now “an enormous Sabrina Carpenter fan.”
“It started with ‘Bed Chem,’” he shared, referencing one of the steamier tracks on the Girl Meets World alum’s Billboard 200-topping album Short n’ Sweet. “I was driving with Delta to school today, and we listen to it every morning … If a song, it hits, you can’t resist dancing with your shoulders. We were really getting our shoulders active this morning, it was a blast.
Trending on Billboard
“It’s really fun now that I love her favorite artist,” he added. “It’s fun for her. ‘Cause now I’m on the Sabrina train.”
That said, Shepard isn’t quite as big a fan of one of the other tracks on Carpenter’s LP: “Juno,” the aphrodisiacal chorus of which is inspired by the 2007 film of the same name about a high schooler, played by Elliot Page, who gets pregnant. “I don’t wanna tell [Delta] it wasn’t my favorite, ’cause it’s her favorite — but I’m not gonna lie to her,” he said before explaining the awkward parenting moment the racy song’s lyrics inspired.
“She goes, ‘But do you know what Juno is?’ and I go, ‘No…,’” Shepard recalled. “And she’s like, ‘Well, it’s a movie,’ and I go, ‘The movie Juno? Yes, I know.’ She goes, ‘Yeah … It’s a story about a girl who gets pregnant.’”
“I go, ‘That’s a little nasty,’” he continued. “And she goes, ‘What’s nasty about wanting to have a baby with somebody?’ I go, ‘Well, it’s a teenager. She’s in high school.’”
“The way she phrased it was like, ‘Wait, what’s nasty about wanting to have a baby with someone you love?’” Shepard added. “And I was like, ‘Oh no, there’s nothing nasty about that, I’m just saying, ‘I wanna get pregnant in high school’ is kind of a nasty, fun lyric. It’s a positive ‘nasty,’ I’m saying.”
Full of NSFW lyrics and double entendres, “Juno” is one of the biggest fan favorites on Short n’ Sweet. That’s thanks in part to the fact that each night on Carpenter’s ongoing tour in support of the album, she strikes a different pose on stage to coincide with the suggestive lyric, “Wanna try out some freaky positions?/ Have you ever tried this one?”
At one of her recent shows in Paris, for instance, she paid tribute to the city by contorting her body into the shape of the Eiffel Tower with the help of two male backup dancers.
Listen to Shepard recount his and Delta’s conversation about Carpenter on Armchair Expert below.
Kazuma Kawamura, a member of the 16-piece Japanese dance and vocal group THE RAMPAGE, has now made his solo debut as L.E.I. with the double A-side single “Delete/Enter.”
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
While he’s done some rapping on THE RAMPAGE songs and in live shows, with L.E.I., rap is at the very heart of his art. In an interview with Billboard JAPAN, he discussed the background behind this solo debut. “From the very start, when THE RAMPAGE was formed, our concept always included elements of hip-hop. We’d just assembled as a group, and everyone had different musical tastes, so we made hip-hop one of the cores of the group. That got me interested in hip-hop, and our leader, LIKIYA, knew a lot about U.S. hip-hop and R&B, so I learned a lot from him. Yamasho (Shogo Yamamoto) had been talking about the movie 8 Mile, so I watched it, and it also had a huge impact on me. So I discovered the world of hip-hop a bit at a time, and the more I explored it, the more I got hooked.”
“But it’s not like I’m super-knowledgeable about hip-hop music or artists. I’m still learning. I’ve been really influenced by the culture and philosophy of hip-hop, but not the so-called rapper lifestyle. Drink, drugs, women, partying, violence—those aren’t appealing to me. I’m not interested in bragging about how bad I am or boasting about violence. Instead, I’m interested in the philosophy of hip-hop that’s focused on changing the world. Making it better.”
Trending on Billboard
“Of course, there have been a lot of rappers who’ve influenced me. Busta Rhymes influenced me with his fast rapping style, while A$AP Rocky has just been an overall huge presence for me. And my long-time favorite, who I still find amazing, is Kendrick Lamar. Needless to say, of the four elements of hip-hop, dance has also had a big impact on me. For example, the krumping of Tommy the Clown and Tight Eyez, who was influenced by Tommy, just reached out and grabbed a hold of my heart. It was like it was saying, ‘Don’t just stand there, get moving!’”
On “Delete,” one of the songs on the single, L.E.I. expresses his frustration and anger with society and the state of things through serious, fiery rap verses, set to a dark trap beat. It has a distinctive structure, challenging the listener about their own beliefs and pushing them to tackle these problems together. “It’s my first song as L.E.I., so I didn’t want to make any compromises. Putting rap front and center, I knew I needed to make something that caused a stir. ‘Delete’ is a powerful representation of that idea. There’s a lot I want to communicate, but the first was a feeling of release from what’s got you trapped, which is why I wrote this song.”
“It’s easy to just shout ‘No!’ But if you want to convince listeners, if you want to convey an effective message, I think you need to raise issues. To get people who listen to the song to think and be more aware, you need to ask questions. I don’t just want to stroke my own ego by spouting things off. And I think the society we live in is one that stops thinking. That’s dangerous. But I didn’t just want to say ‘No!’ or ‘Think!’ Instead, I wanted to reach out to the listener, saying ‘I think this situation is messed up, what about you?’”
The rapping in “Enter,” the theme song of the anime I Left My A-Rank Party to Help My Former Students Reach the Dungeon Depths!, has a lot of variety in its flow. “I tried to change up the flow. I think people will have more opportunities to hear this song, such as through the anime, so I wanted to surprise people, like ‘All these different rap parts are being done by one guy?!’ By changing my approach in each part of the song, I was able to achieve a wider range of artistic expression. It’s like the entire repertoire of my flow as a rapper, all in one song. I did it simply because it’s fun to have a song made up of all these different kinds of rap.”
It’s an anime-themed song, but L.E.I. put his true thoughts into the lyrics. “Sure, there are dark aspects of me, like in ‘Delete,’ but the anime theme brought out the sunnier parts of my personality. I think ‘Enter’ represents my bright side, and the lyrics are all heart-felt. I have a lot of respect for the anime, and I linked keywords that inspired me with my own feelings to create the lyrics. In that sense, as well, I also want to write positive songs that fill you with optimism.”
On inspirations behind his work, he notes, “I’m not the best speaker, but I read a lot of books and manga, more than the average person, and also read a lot through games and anime. So there’s a lot of input, both in the sense of vocabulary and of the beauty of language, and I bring those out in the lyrics. The foundation of the song consists of my own feelings, and then I sift through my vocabulary to come up with ways to express those feelings through rap. When I do that, I think really deeply about what the lyrics will sound like when I rap them. I might write a line a certain way because in that part I’m more focused on conveying my message directly than in the sounds of the words, while in another part I might focus more on the vibe of the sounds.”
Kawamura’s vision is to continue as both a member of THE RAMPAGE and as a solo artist. “Right now, Kazuma Kawamura, member of THE RAMPAGE, is linked to L.E.I., but they may move away from each other over time. I’m also curious and excited to see what form this will eventually take. But as Kazuma Kawamura or as L.E.I., one thing that won’t change is that I’ll always be 100% direct with the people hearing my lyrics. If there’s anyone out there for which L.E.I.’s approach resonates—anyone who I can help through my music—then I want to share my music with them, first. Reaching a wider audience can come later. I want to be an artist that is, first and foremost, a person capable of expressing his own values. I feel like if I can truly accomplish that, then I’ll be unparalleled. I’m striving to be a true rapper with a true message.”
—This interview by TAKAGI “JET” Shinichiro first appeared on Billboard Japan
Tokyo-born singer-songwriter TOMOO — pronounced “tow-mow-oh” — has been playing the piano since she was a child and began working on music in earnest in middle school when she began writing original songs. Her voice has been praised by top Japanese artists and her first full-length album, TWO MOON, reached No. 15 on Billboard Japan’s Hot Albums chart after dropping in Sept. 2023. She was featured in many music programs the following year, and in her MONTHLY FEATURE interview with Billboard Japan, she looked back and shared, “Rather than there being a milestone somewhere like a major change or turning point, 2024 felt like a year when a lot of my activities advanced another step or another level as an extension of the year before, whether it’s about live shows or TV appearances.”
When asked how she would introduce “what kind of artist TOMOO is,” the 29-year-old musician replied, “Yin and yang, old and new. Sometimes people who listen to my music say I seem to have a lot of life experience, but other times they say I still have a boyishness or girlishness about me. That’s an attribute I want to keep. Even when it’s bright, a shadow comes along with it, and even in shadow, a hint of light can be seen in the distance. Having both light and shadow is also my individuality.”
Trending on Billboard
“Rather than always having something I want to express, I want to be able to give form to the things that come into my mind at any given time,” says the “Grapefruit Moon” artist, explaining that she tries to be like a transparent vessel instead of dyeing herself a particular color. “When I was a teenager, I wanted something that would make it easy to visualize my individuality, but recently I’ve started to think that maybe that’s not necessary. I have the 12 years I’ve been doing this. At the time, I didn’t have a past to look back on and my way of thinking was still very superficial. So I used to think that if I worked hard at something or suffered more, I’d be able to figure out who I am. But it didn’t work that way. I guess that’s why I thought, ‘Then maybe that’s just the way it is.’”
Her latest single, “Contrast,” is currently being featured as the ending theme for the anime series Blue Box Season 2. The show is based on a manga series currently being serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump, and tells the coming-of-age love story of high school students devoted to their club activities. ”I started reading the original manga after being tapped to write the song. I wasn’t sure if I could relate to the transparency and freshness of the story, and to the feelings of the characters who are about 10 years younger than me,” TOMOO admits. “But I really did write songs like that when I was a teenager, and wanted to sing the theme song for a work like that, so I was happy when they asked me to do it.”
“Some people said that the character of the song seemed simpler than usual, and that makes sense in a way,” she explains. “It’s the simplicity of high school students concentrating on the moment in front of them within the limited ‘box’ of their time, season and environment, and it’s also the simplicity of feeling both happy and sad with your whole body when you haven’t yet developed emotional immunity. I thought about the lyrics while reading the original manga, trying to evoke the feelings I had when I was around 15 years old.”
For TOMOO, creating “Contrast” was an experience that took her back to her youth. “I wrote the chorus and the music pretty much at the same time, but wrote the first verse (A-melody) from scratch at the piano,” she shares about the writing process. “It was just like how I used to write music when I was a teenager. It turned out a lot more somber than I’d expected, but I figured that was fine because it was the result of the memories of my five senses having seeped out and not something I’d come up with in my brain. It was like I was facing the piano with nothing in mind, and my senses and the honest spirit of the song took the lead. It’s been a while since I’ve written music like that.”
The singer-songwriter worked with Ryo Eguchi, a music producer and arranger who has worked on numerous Japanese pop, idol and anime songs, for the first time on the song’s arrangement. “I’d been aware of Mr. Eguchi since I was around 20 years old. When I was in elementary and junior high school, I liked a lot of anime music that he’d arranged, so I’ve always wanted to ask him to arrange something for me if I ever had the chance to be involved in anime,” TOMOO recalls, going on to say that “Contrast” started out with a solid band-based sound but turned out to be a dramatic piano ballad with deep, resonant synth and cello tones. “Because it was quite heartfelt when I was composing it, I wanted to add elements that would evoke a sense of environmental coolness, like the wind, the sky, and the shadows of buildings. I asked him to add in some programmed rhythms and electric guitar strumming that sounds like strings in the distance, to give it a slightly structured, cool feel, to balance out the sense of temperature.”
The “Super Ball” singer is set to headline a solo concert in May at the historic Nippon Budokan for the first time in her career. She expresses enthusiasm for the upcoming show, saying, “I want to make this concert even more meticulous than my previous ones. I’ve always done my best within the schedule laid out for each show, but this time we’ve talked it over and set aside as much time as possible to prepare.”
“I always thought that the Budokan would be a kind of culmination, a milestone, a goal of that sort,” the singer-songwriter adds. “But I’ve started to feel that it’s not like that, now that I’m actually going on that stage. I realized it’d be better to leave it up to the feelings and mindset of each person who comes to see me. So I’m going back to my roots. Psychological closeness and sounds. When I first started out, I did a show on the floor. With the audience all around me, it was a bit scary before the show started, but I was really focused during the performance and there was tension in every moment. I want to recall that feeling of being nervous and excited at the same time when I perform at the Budokan.”
—This interview by Takuto Ueda first appeared on Billboard Japan
Shakira will have her own museum in Mexico and sooner than you think. The pop-up “Shakira Estoy Aquí Experience Mexico City” will open its doors this Friday (March 21) in the Mexican capital.
Located in Roma Norte, on Frontera 88 Street, Shakira’s museum — which celebrates her career through different experiences — will remain open for 10 days (until March 30) with free admission. It coincides with the Mexican leg of the Colombian superstar’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour, which kicked off on March 12 in Monterrey, Nuevo León and arrives Wednesday (March 19) at the GNP Seguros Stadium for a historic series of seven concerts at the capital’s venue (formerly known as Foro Sol). It is Shakira’s first visit to the country in almost seven years.
Exclusively for Billboard Español, Juan Martín Salazar, CEO and creative director of 9F, the company in charge of setting up this experience, tells us in detail what fans will be able to find in each room of the exhibition, from costumes to photographs and instruments, and more.
“There’s something very particular about Shakira,” says Salazar, who was featured this month in our “Stars Behind the Stars” franchise for planning creative campaigns for artists that also include Bad Bunny, Karol G and Beyoncé. “There is a difference or in comparison with other artists. It’s that she is very fond of knowing how to play the instruments, so we wanted to elevate that part.”
Shakira’s Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran world tour — in support of her album of the same name — kicked off on Feb. 11 in Brazil and has passed through Peru, Colombia, Chile and Argentina. Following her engagements in Mexico, the artist will begin the North American leg of the stadium tour on May 13 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and will make stops in Montreal, Toronto, Miami, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and other cities, concluding on June 30 in San Francisco. (To see all dates in the U.S. and Canada, click here.)
Below, Salazar describes the new “Shakira Estoy Aquí Experience Mexico City” museum room-by-room:
First Room
Lady Gaga is over a decade and a half into her superstar career, and with this March’s Mayhem she’s proving to still be one of the most reliable performers in pop music.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The acclaimed new set debuts atop the Billboard 200 this week (dated Mar. 23) — her seventh time topping the chart, albeit with a smaller first-week number (219,000) than her previous set of originals, 2020’s Chromatica (274,000), according to Luminate. “Die With a Smile,” Gaga’s smash duet with Bruno Mars, also holds at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, while pre-release hit “Abracadabra” returns to the chart’s top 20, and eight other songs from the set populate the chart’s lower half.
How should Gaga feel about her latest set’s entrance? And where do we rate it within her catalog? Billboard staffers answer these questions and more below.
Trending on Billboard
1. Mayhem debuts atop the Billboard 200 with 219,000 equivalent album units. On a scale from 1-10, how happy should Gaga be with that first-week performance?
Katie Atkinson: 9. There are no guarantees in the music industry, even with a track record like Gaga’s, so to secure the No. 1 spot with a hefty first-week number can only be seen as a win. Considering this album rollout ostensibly began with the release of “Die With a Smile” back in August, the way she’s been able to build interest over the last eight-ish months — reaching a pop culture crescendo with the interest around last month’s “Abracadabra” — is honestly a master class in pre-release buzz.
Stephen Daw: I’d say a 9 is appropriate here. A No. 1 debut is a No. 1 debut, and to do it with the biggest numbers from a female artist thus far in 2025 — and the biggest streaming week of Gaga’s career — is a pretty incredible feat for a performer who is nearly 20 years into her career. The only reason I’m not immediately going to 10 is simply because of the number itself — the album did better in its first week than 2016’s Joanne, but is still behind all of her other studio albums in first-week gains. I’m sure it would have been nice for Gaga to break the 300,000 mark for the first time since Born This Way’s release, but Mayhem‘s success is still a huge deal.
Kyle Denis: A solid 7. Coming back with an acclaimed record that opened with 200k+ after a year of flop movies and soundtracks is a win, plain and simple. Now that final number being below the opening week totals for Chromatica is a bit curious – especially considering there seems to be more passion for the music of Mayhem versus its predecessor – but still nothing to scoff at.
Jason Lipshutz: A 9. Longtime pop purveyors have lived through various reports of Lady Gaga’s commercial demise — from the 99-cent Born This Way price tag to the multimedia mixed bag of Artpop to the slow start of Joanne to the two-thumbs-down response to Joker: Folie a Deux — and they have all been greatly exaggerated. As she approaches the two-decade mark of her breakthrough, Gaga is not only still collecting hits, but can command enough attention around a new full-length that it debuts with a six-figure total, the best bow of 2025 by a woman artist. This strong opening week number should be treated as a marker of continued longevity, and be celebrated.
Andrew Unterberger: Let’s say an 8. The number isn’t overwhelming, but it’s very solid — and we should note that the superior Chromatica number came when ticket and merch bundles were still counted towards the Billboard 200, which certainly helped that debut performance. Mostly, Gaga should be thrilled that fans are as excited about the album as they are, and that in a pop era overrun by stars who bear both her direct and indirect influence, she still makes a big impact every time out.
2. “Die With a Smile” remains the best-performing song on the set, holding at No. 2 on the Hot 100 this week. The song’s placement as the album’s final track has proven controversial among fans — do you think it earns its inclusion on the set?
Katie Atkinson: I think the end of the track list is the exact right spot. In interviews, Gaga has compared Mayhem to “one night out,” so that would make “Die With a Smile” the point in the night when you exit the club, shield your eyes from the early-morning sun, and fantasize about going to the ends of the earth (or the end times, in this case) with someone you only just met. Tacking what could have been a one-off duet onto your track list could look calculated, but I think Gaga putting it in the final spot makes it feel like an artistic choice instead.
Stephen Daw: Not really, and that’s okay! “Die With a Smile” was not conceived as a Mayhem track, and it does show. While the album’s final run of songs with “The Beast” and “Blade of Grass” does help transition into the song’s romantic balladry, “Die With a Smile” stands out on this album as more of an epilogue than anything else. But, because the track doesn’t show up until the very end of the album, it ultimately isn’t the biggest deal that it’s a bit misplaced — by the time you arrive at Gaga and Bruno’s megahit, you’ve already gotten the full Mayhem experience.
Kyle Denis: Sure? It’s really a symptom of the chart world that we live in that an artist can’t just let a monster standalone single remain standalone. Nonetheless, to Gaga’s credit, she does make a valiant effort to sequence the album in a way that connects “Die With a Smile” with the rest of the tracklist, but it’s still a bit jarring hearing Bruno’s voice out of the blue when you listen to the album from front to back.
Jason Lipshutz: Of course! It’s the definition of a victory lap on Mayhem — removed tonally from the uptempo electro-pop, but a current smash that concludes the full-length on a triumphant note, and is too important to Gaga’s career trajectory to simply float on as a single without a host album. This deep into the streaming age, it’s hard to quibble with any artist tacking a big single onto the end of an album to help boost streaming totals… but in this instance, the decision feels artistically sound, and is well-earned.
Andrew Unterberger: Not particularly, but it’s forgivable.
3. Of the set’s other tracks, “Abracadabra” also peeks its head back into the top 20 (at No. 19, after previously reaching a No. 12 peak) while another eight of the album’s tracks can be found in the Hot 100’s bottom half. Do you think “Abracadabra” has cemented itself as the album’s biggest Gaga-only hit, or do you think one of the newer songs will eventually come to challenge it?
Katie Atkinson: On my first listen, “How Bad Do U Want Me” was so undeniably catchy that I would be surprised if it doesn’t eventually find its way to pop radio. A lot of the release-week headlines focused on whether Taylor Swift might have been involved in the song, thanks to fan theories online, and it makes sense that a song that recalls the radio-dominating Swift – but is undeniably Gaga at the same time – would fit right in at top 40.
Stephen Daw: If Gaga chooses not to give any of her other tracks the single treatment, then “Abracadabra” is going to be Mayhem’s big solo hit for Gaga, no question. Fans love the song, her performance of the track on Saturday Night Live is being rightfully praised, and the gothic music video continues to inspire new trends online.
But I would bet on Gaga having at least one more single up her sleeve for this album’s release — Gaga historically loves to put out a post-album single just a couple weeks after the set’s release (see Joanne’s “Million Reasons,” Chromatica’s “911,” Born This Way’s “Marry the Night,” and so on). If she were to put together a splashy music video ahead of her Coachella performance next month for fan-loved tracks like “Garden of Eden” or “Shadow of Man,” Gaga could easily have another hit on her hands — one that might even make “Abracadabra” disappear.
Kyle Denis: For the time being, “Abracadabra” is definitely the album’s biggest Gaga-only hit, but it’s not like “Disease” put up much of a fight. I know “Perfect Celebrity” and “Killah” are getting a lot of love right now – and “Garden of Eden” snagged the key F1 sync – but my money is on “Vanish Into You.” It’s got that kind of wistful-but-still-danceable feel that sent tracks like Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends” to No. 1 around this time last year.
Jason Lipshutz: I prefer other vibes on Mayhem to the maximalist pop of “Abracadabra,” from the downhill motion of “Shadow of a Man” to the slinkiness of “Killah” to the icy arena-rock of “Perfect Celebrity,” and we’ll see where this album campaign goes in the coming months. But for now, “Abracadabra” has clearly struck a chord, harkening back to Gaga eras of yore while also unfurling an enormous new hook and brash visuals. At this moment, I’d be surprised if another solo Gaga song from Mayhem overtakes it as a bigger top 20 hit on the Hot 100.
Andrew Unterberger: It’s been a pretty long time since a Gaga album produced a major post-album-release hit — the only one I can think of in the past 10 years is “Bloody Mary,” which of course came from an album released a whole decade earlier. So I’m guessing “Abracadabra” will reign pretty unchallenged, but I’m certainly rooting for “How Bad Do U Want Me” or “Perfect Celebrity.”
4. Gaga’s media approach to this album was very old-school in its zone-flooding, with the pop star embracing both newer and traditional forms of media and promotion and generally making herself unmissable in the leadup to the set. From the early response to the album, do you think that approach has proven to be a successful one — and why did or didn’t it work?
Katie Atkinson: Oh, it worked. And it maybe its my own personal fondness for Gaga, but it never felt oversaturated. I think it was the variety of appearances – from a lie-detector test, to hosting SNL, to eating hot wings – that kept the audience from getting bored of her. In short, I think she nailed it.
Stephen Daw: As someone who had the honor of interviewing Gaga for this project, I am unbiased and 100% objective in saying that this strategy worked and she should definitely keep doing it.
Big press tours like this can be risky today because fans can smell desperation — if you come across looking too much like you’re selling a product, they will push back against the appearances as advertisements. But Gaga never appeared even slightly insincere in her various interviews ahead of Mayhem; she seemed genuinely stoked for her fans to get to hear her new songs. Had another, less engaged artist attempted a similar run with their media appearances ahead of an album drop, it probably wouldn’t have worked. But because it was Gaga, making herself as available as possible to a fanbase that really wanted to hear from her, this full court press worked wonders.
Kyle Denis: I think it’s definitely proven successful. Her SNL performances really sold the full scope of Mayhem, and she leaned into fan service by teasing a “Telephone” continuation multiple times. With her biggest streaming debut ever, another Billboard 200 No. 1 and yet another 200k+ opening week, it’s hard to argue against the strategy. Retrospectively, however, I do wish Team Gaga rallied around one song to pull off a release week top 10 debut on the Hot 100; “Smile” being the only current top 10 hit from the album isn’t the best look.
Jason Lipshutz: Everyone is aware of Lady Gaga — who she is, what she stands for, where to listen to her ubiquitous smash with Bruno Mars. But what the media blitz leading up to Mayhem accomplished was making even the most casual fan aware that Gaga was back with a new album on March 7, via performances, interviews, promotional opportunities and viral sound bites. Flooding the zone gave the entire mainstream a heads-up to check out her new album when it arrived on streaming services earlier this month, and based on the No. 1 debut and equivalent albums unit total, that strategy worked very well.
Andrew Unterberger: We’ve covered this pretty extensively elsewhere, but yeah — the entire campaign was an unquestioned W for Gaga and her team.
5. After getting to live with it for about a week and a half, where are you currently rating Mayhem within the Gaga catalog?
Katie Atkinson: Whew, this is tough. I think I have it in an arm-wrestling match with Chromatica for the No. 4 spot, after The Fame Monster, The Fame and Born This Way. Right now, Mayhem has the edge, because I’m really feeling its more throwback vibes, but catch me on another day and Chromatica could jump back up.
Stephen Daw: Mayhem is Gaga’s best album in over a decade, period. I would still put it just below her earliest studio projects — The Fame, The Fame Monster and Born This Way are considered modern pop masterpieces for a reason — but above the rest of her discography.
Kyle Denis: In terms of her solo studio albums, this is comfortably in a distant third behind The Fame Monster and Born This Way for me. If we’re adding in the Tony Bennett collab albums, Cheek to Cheek might have something to say. But don’t let me get to talking about the soft spot I have for Harlequin!
Jason Lipshutz: Pretty high! I loved Chromatica as a return to the bold pop of her early days, and while I think her 2020 album had higher peaks, the more time I spend with Mayhem, the more consistent it sounds. For now, I’d probably slot behind The Fame/Fame Monster and Chromatica, and on the same plane as Gaga’s most underrated album, Artpop.
Andrew Unterberger: Just a half-notch below Chromatica for me as far as her best album since her opening trio goes — but together with its predecessor, a really great reclamation of her pop legacy and confirmation that she’s still one of the all-time greats.
JoJo Siwa has had her fair share of viral moments over the past year, but now she’s in on the joke.
The “Karma” superstar walked the red carpet at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on Monday night (March 17), where she spotted Billboard‘s Tetris Kelly, with whom she had a controversial interview where she claimed she founded “gay pop.”
“I’m not talking to you,” she playfully told Kelly, before explaining, “You know what today is? It’s not only the iHeartRadio Music Awards, which is where I said ‘dream guest on my podcast’ but it’s also the one year anniversary of GLAAD Awards, which is where with your a— I said, ‘It’s called gay pop.’
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
In her original Billboard News interview with Kelly, Siwa said that when she originally signed to Columbia Records, she told the label, “I want to start a new genre of music … it’s called ‘gay pop,’” before going on to compare the genre to the jazz-funk genre of dance. The online community quickly began criticizing Siwa for saying she wanted to “create” this “new genre,” with queer icons Tegan and Sara literally offering the 20-year-old singer some side eye on their TikTok page.
However, Siwa is moving forward, sharing that she has a “big announcement that involves a lot of people all over the world” coming on March 22. She joked that her next musical era will include “something that nobody has ever done before.”
Trending on Billboard
Her “unexpected” moves she’s planning include that she’s “going to sing,” and “maybe even write my own song for once,” referencing the backlash surrounding songwriter Brit Smith, who recorded Siwa’s track “Karma” back in 2012.
Wrapping up their interview, Kelly told Siwa that another viral moment is likely on the horizon. “We’ll see y’all on TikTok,” Siwa joked, looking into the camera. Watch the full interview below.
Tropical hitmaker Elvis Crespo is back on the Billboard charts as “Nuestra Canción,” with Jerry Rivera, debuts at No. 10 on the Tropical Airplay chart (dated March 22). The new version of his 1998 track marks his return to the ranking’s top 10 after more than five years.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“I’m grateful to God for the opportunity to experience this new life and feel the love of radio” Crespo tells Billboard upon his first top 10 since 2019. “Being back and sharing a song with an artist like Jerry Rivera is an honor that fills me with emotion, due to the respect and admiration I have for him. Without a doubt, this new chapter begins in an incredible way.”
Trending on Billboard
“Nuestra Canción” debuts at No. 10 on Tropical Airplay with 2 million audience impressions registered in the U.S. during the March 7-13 tracking week, according to Luminate. It gives Crepo his first top 10 since 2019 and 34th overall.
For Rivera, the collab brings rewarding results. He achieves his third top 10 so far in 2025. Previously, “Te Buscare” peaked at No. 8 in February. Meanwhile, “Volver a Enamorarnos” matches his previous best at No. 8 high and meets “Nuestra Canción” in this week’s top 10. Overall, the Puerto Rican amasses 35 top 10s spanning four decades of career entries, dating back to his first top 10, “Me Estoy Enloqueciendo Por Ti” in 1994. (No. 2 high).
The New York-born, Puerto Rican-raised vocalist first came to prominence with the 1999 hit “Suavemente,” which held strong at the summit on Tropical Airplay for nine consecutive weeks then. That same year, he broke the barriers as one of merengue’s most successful singer-songwriters, placing two other radio top 10s, including the five-week ruler “Tu Sonrisa.”
Crespo followed suit in 1999, positioning four other songs on the tally. While he spent one week at No. 1 with “El Cuerpo Me Pide” with Victor Manuelle, seven-week champ “Píntame” earned him a first Grammy for best merengue performance that same year.
Among those four ranked Tropical Airplay songs, “Nuestra Canción,” composed by Homero D’ Rodríguez, took him to a No. 17 high in April 1999. The song was the fourth single from Crespo’s debut studio album Suavemente, his first No. 1 on Top Latin Albums, which also gave him his first appearance on the all-genre Billboard 200 in 1999, where it remained for 43 weeks.
The new version of “Nuestra Canción” is composed by Crespo and Francisco “Pulpo” Barbosa. It has already become a new favorite across tropical stations. The song will become available across digital platforms on March 20 as announced by Crespo on TikTok.
While Crespo’s resurgence on Tropical Airplay earns him a 35th top 10 overall, Rivera enters a tie with Prince Royce for the fourth-most top 10s since the tally launched in 1994, both with 35 top 10s. They trail only Victor Manuelle (65 top 10s), Marc Anthony (57) and Gilberto Santa Rosa (37).
Crespo’s new achievement sets as the Puerto Rican prepares for his Poeta Herío Tour, which begins at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico on June 21.
Billboard’s Dance Moves roundup serves as a guide to the biggest movers and shakers across Billboard’s many dance charts — new No. 1s, new top 10s, first-timers and more.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
This week (on charts dated March 22, 2025), Zeds Dead, Lady Gaga, GT_Ofice, David Guetta and others achieve new milestones. Check out key movers below.
Zeds Dead
The Canadian electronic duo hits Billboard’s Top Dance Albums chart for the first time in nearly a decade thanks to its new album, Return to the Spectrum of Intergalactic Happiness. Released March 7 via the act’s Deadbeats label, the set debuts at No. 14 with 4,000 equivalent album units earned in the U.S. its opening week, according to Luminate. The pair last appeared on the chart in November 2016 with its No. 6-peaking Northern Lights. Zeds Dead has charted four additional projects on the ranking, including the top 10 Somewhere Else (No. 4 peak, 2014).
Plus, Zeds Dead’s “One of These Mornings” reenters the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart at No. 21, boosted by the new album’s release. The track debuted at its No. 15 high in February, becoming the pair’s highest charting entry. – XANDER ZELLNER
Trending on Billboard
Lady Gaga
As previously reported, the superstar has a monster week on Billboard’s charts thanks to her new album, MAYHEM. The set soars in at No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and Top Dance Albums charts with 219,000 units. It becomes her seventh No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and her record-breaking eighth leader on Top Dance Albums, as she passes Louie DeVito for the most in the chart’s 24-year history. Notably, her 2008 debut, The Fame, has spent a record 193 weeks at No. 1.
Gaga also charts nine songs from MAYHEM on the Hot Dance/Pop Songs chart, including seven in the top 10. “Abracadabra” rules the ranking for a fourth week. –X.Z.
GT_Ofice
GT_Ofice earns his first leader on a Billboard chart as “Someone Else” ascends a spot to No. 1 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay. The DJ-producer (real name Caine Sheppard; the first three letters of his moniker stand for “good times only”) has charted four songs — all self-released– dating to 2023, reaching a previous No. 26 peak with “Every Thought of You” (with ALWZ SNNY). He also hit No. 30 with his other sole-billed entry, “Never Together.”
“Someone Else” is receiving support on stations including Pulse Radio in San Francisco (more than 850 plays to date, according to Mediabase), Pulse 87 (Hudson Valley, N.Y.; 600 plays) and Revolution 93.5 (Miami; 550 plays). “Dance radio has helped introduce me to listeners who might not be in the club or festival scene,” GT_Ofice says. “I generally mix poppy vocals with dance pop beats. My sound is just a little different.” –GARY TRUST
David Guetta & Sia
Both artists return to the top 10 of Hot Dance/Electronic Songs with their new collaboration, “Beautiful People.” Released March 7, the song debuts at No. 8 with 1.2 million U.S. official streams earns in its opening week. It earns Guetta his 26th career top 10, the second-most in the chart’s history, after Kygo’s 27, and Sia her sixth. It’s also Guetta’s record-extending 94th overall entry. The song concurrently starts at No. 30 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay.
“Beautiful People” marks the latest charted collaboration between Guetta and Sia. The pair previously appeared together on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs (which began in 2013) with “She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)” (No. 8 peak in 2013); “Bang My Head,” also with Fetty Wap (No. 5, 2016); “Flames” (No. 9, 2018); “Let’s Love” (No. 9, 2020); and “Floating Through Space” (No. 11, 2021). They first linked up for the smash “Titanium,” which hit No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2011. –X.Z.
Frank Walker & Alexander Stewart
The pair’s single “Crossfire” rises 13-10 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, reaching the top 10 thanks to a 9% gain in spins. Walker adds his fourth top 10 and first since “I Go Dancing” (with Ella Henderson), which spent a week at No. 1 in 2023. Stewart scores his second top 10, and overall entry, after his team-up with Two Friends, “Wrong Way,” which spent a week at No. 1 in November. –X.Z.
The depth and detail in the 464-page Heartbreaker: A Memoir (Grand Central Publishing) is impressive — and surprising.
To Mike Campbell as well.
The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers guitarist tells Billboard that he was actually keeping a journal when the band (then known as Mudcrutch) moved to Los Angeles in 1974 from the members’ native Florida. “I did it for the first couple of months,” Campbell recalls. “Every day the entry was, ‘We went into the studio. We couldn’t get the track. We couldn’t get the track.’ It was so depressing I just quit writing it down. But the stuff was still stuck in my memory.” And he credits his co-author, novelist Ari Surdoval (Double Nickels), with helping to pull those out of him.
“As I started thinking back on my memories, a lot of things just popped out that I didn’t know were in there,” Campbell says. “It’s kinda crazy how the mind works.”
Heartbreaker offers the proverbial long, strange trip through the 75-year-old Campbell’s life from an impoverished, single-parent upbringing in Florida through his discovery of guitar and music, the Heartbreakers’ ascent and his own success as a sideman and songwriter (starting with Don Henley’s “The Boys of Summer” in 1984), right up through his current endeavor leading the Dirty Knobs, a band he formed as a side project more than a decade ago which has become Campbell’s primary musical outlet since Petty’s death in 2017. It’s spirit-lifting in spots, heart-breaking in others, and it offers a deep and revealing dive that will please Petty fans and guitar geeks alike.
“I didn’t want to write a sex, drugs and rock n’ roll book,” Campbell says. “I wanted to talk about the creative energy for the songs and the personal relationships between me and my bandmates. And I wanted to show the struggle it took to get where we got; it wasn’t just handed to us, and I wanted to tell the whole story of how we started out really poor and sacrificed for many years before we saw any income. So that was my basic thing.
Trending on Billboard
“Mostly I wanted to touch base on the creative mystery of songs and where they come from. I set those boundaries at the beginning — we’re not gonna talk about stupid things that every rock star writes about. I don’t find that very interesting.”
Campbell does check off all those boxes with Heartbreaker. There’s minimal sex; he’s been married to his wife Marcie for nearly 50 years, and their meeting at a Halloween party is sweetly recounted in the book. There are some drugs — his own use as well as his bandmates, including Petty’s heroin addiction — and plenty of rock n’ roll, documenting not only the Heartbreakers but also Campbell’s Forrest Gump-like connection to the likes of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac (whom he toured with during 2018-19), Johnny Cash and more.
“I did find myself just looking around and going, ‘How did I get here?’ a lot,” Campbell says with a laugh. “When a song would come, ‘Why me? How did I get so lucky that this song came out of the air to me, of all people?’”
Amidst his positive intentions, however, Campbell is also brutally honest about the sometimes-turbulent inner workings of the Heartbreakers, ranging from Petty’s ascent to frontman status and the group’s business structure to the delicate dynamics exacerbated by forceful personalities.
Mike Campbell ‘Heartbreaker’
Courtesy Photo
“I wanted to be real, and I wanted to be truthful,” says Campbell, who co-produced several Heartbreakers and Petty solo albums, as well as the posthumous 2022 box set Live at the Fillmore 1997. He also co-wrote Billboard Hot 100 top 40 hits such as “Refugee,” “You Got Lucky,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream’ and others. “I don’t want to dwell on other people’s drug and alcohol problems. I have not read the book Tom put out (Conversations with Tom Petty, 2005), but I understand he talks about all that himself. I wanted to illuminate my relationship with my brothers in the Heartbreakers. We all come from the South and we grew up in a very similar way, and I wanted to show how special that brotherhood was. I wanted to let people look behind the curtain, see a little bit about what it’s like being in a band like this.
“Bands are very delicate creatures. It doesn’t take much to break a band up. You have all the egos and personalities and sometimes wives or girlfriends get involved, money…. But our group, the music always outweighed it. It was so important to keep the music alive that nobody’s wives or arguments over money, as far as I was concerned, was ever going to break it up. It was too special…and we cherished it.”
To that end Campbell says he shared excerpts of the book with those who were mentioned, including Petty’s daughter Adria, who’s been running the estate, keyboardist Benmont Tench, Dylan, Roger McGuinn, Jeff Lynne and others. “I wanted them to sign off that they were comfortable with it,” Campbell says. “Nobody had anything but thanks for how I treated them. Nobody said, ‘No, you can’t put me in the book.’”
“The parts that I read I thought were great,” says Tench, who’s waiting for the audio version of Heartbreaker, which Campbell recorded himself, to come out. “Mike’s memory is much more reliable than mine; I’m glad he’s writing it, and not me.”
Campbell’s great affection for Petty and the other Heartbreakers aside, he considers Dylan — whom he met during sessions for Dylan’s 1985 Empire Burlesque album before the Heartbreakers joined him on tour during 1986-87 — the most surreal character in the book. “He is a mystery genius, a beautiful creature,” Campbell notes. “He’s so enigmatic, but so brilliant. I’ve met a lot of my heroes, from George Harrison to Johnny Cash; they’re all intimidating and have the aura. But Bob has this special thing around him that’s intriguing ’cause he’s so brilliant and he’s so mystical and so hard to read. But he’s so good.”
A surprising thread throughout Heartbreaker, however, is Campbell’s professed insecurity, an inferiority complex that finds him taking much of the blame for any of the band’s shortcomings of failures. “That’s a therapist question,” he says when it’s pointed out. “I think maybe if I dig deep and look at it, maybe my parents’ divorce affected me in a very deep way, where my whole world was broken apart. Throughout my whole life I’ve tried to build a world that won’t break up, and keep it together — my band and my marriage. So maybe that’s why. Maybe it’s genetics. I don’t really know the answer, but…I’m still here doing it, so I think I’m dealing with it alright.”
Campbell has three author appearances slated so far for Heartbreaker: March 19 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark; March 20 at the Powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn; and March 21 at Strand in New York City. Meanwhile, he’s been working on songs for the Dirty Knob’s follow-up to last year’s Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits, with, he says, “several songs I’m excited about” already in hand. The quartet, which now includes former Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone, will join Chris Stapleton for All-American Road Show stops on June 12-13 in Grand Rapids, Mich., and will be playing a selection of summer shows with Blackberry Smoke starting July 25-26 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.
“I’m just busy,” Campbell notes. “I love my band and I love the songs I’m doing and the crowds we have so far. I’m writing all the time, and I’m happy. I’m really blessed. It’s been a great life, and it’s not nearly over.”
