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The BRIT Awards has announced that A.G. Cook is the recipient of this year’s producer of the year award.
The British musician was an executive producer for Charli XCX’s Brat LP, which hit No. 3 on the Billboard 200, and No. 1 on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart.
Cook has had co-writing and co-producer credits on a number of albums, including Beyoncé’s Renaissance in 2020, but he is best known for his working relationship with Charli XCX. Cook has played executive producer on several of Charli’s projects: 2017 mixtapes Number 1 Angel and Pop 2; 2019 LP Charli; and 2020’s How I’m Feeling Now.
Speaking on the news, Cook said, “As someone who’s always felt like a bit of an outsider, I’m very flattered to be recognized by The BRITs. From the early PC Music days to the Charli mixtapes and beyond, I’ve been lucky to work on so much music that I truly believe in. In particular, I’d like to dedicate this moment to Sophie, whose vision and artistry is still a driving force for producers everywhere.”
The honorary producer of the year prize was first awarded in 1977 to The Beatles producer George Martin, and in recent years has been won by Fred Again.. (2020), Inflo (2022), David Guetta (2023) and Chase & Status (2024). Cook was selected for the prize by a panel of expert judges.
Cook has been a key player in the British and international pop scene for the past decade. In 2013, he established the influential PC Music record label, which is credited with spearheading the hyperpop sound. In 2024, he released his third studio album, Britpop, which appeared on Billboard U.K.’s albums of the year list, with Sophie Williams writing that the LP “felt like a safe, uplifting, candy-striped wonderland where one could hide from growing global anxiety.”
The BRIT Awards ceremony will take place Saturday (March 1) at London’s O2 Arena, and will be hosted by comedian Jack Whitehall. Performances on the night will come from Sabrina Carpenter, Sam Fender, Teddy Swims, Shaboozey and more, and the ceremony will be broadcast live on ITV and on streaming service ITV X from 8:15 p.m. GMT.
Hank Azaria‘s Bruce Springsteen tribute band has gotten The Boss’ stamp of approval.
The Friends actor joined Live With Kelly and Mark on Monday (Feb. 24), where he discussed his Springsteen tribute band, the EZ Street Band, and what inspired its formation. “I’m from Queens. Queens is just like Asbury Park but less water,” he joked of his and Springsteen’s different hometowns, before explaining while imitating the rocker, “I’ve been imitating Bruce since I was a teenager. A lot of my early impressions are based on hero worship, Bruce being at the top.”
When asked if Springsteen knows about the band, Azaria revealed that he does — thanks to his friend, who is an oral surgeon in New York City. “He texted me one day, ‘Text me your favorite video of the band.’ So, I text him ‘Thunder Road’ — he’s a big Springsteen fan,” he recalled. “Later that night, he texted me that Patti Scialfa, Bruce’s wife, was in his chair. I said, ‘Oh, dear, if I had known that, I really wouldn’t have sent the video.’ Then he sent me a text that Patti showed it to Bruce, and they had watched it twice, actually. What he got is that it’s a loving tribute, which is what it is. I was like, ‘Please make sure they know it’s all for charity.’”
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While Springsteen hasn’t made it to a show yet, Azaria said that “is a goal of ours.”
Azaria and the EZ Street Band went on to perform Springsteen’s 1985 hit “Glory Days” on the show, with Azaria looking and sounding exactly like the superstar. Watch the performance here.
The EZ Street Band are touring throughout the spring, with a full list of tour dates and ticket information available on the group’s website here.
Watch Azaria’s full Live With Kelly and Mark interview below.
From now on, the Yankees will celebrate being the kings of the hill only if they’ve earned it. As announced this week, the Major League Baseball team has decided to end its tradition of playing Frank Sinatra‘s “New York, New York” over stadium speakers at the end of each game, win or lose, now opting […]
Kevin Durant wants rap fans to stop arguing and enjoy the music. Over the weekend, the Phoenix Suns star took to X to share his opinion on J. Cole‘s latest song “Clouds” in a since-deleted tweet. “I don’t care about none of that fake tough guy sh–,” he quote-tweeted over a post sharing the song. […]
Chilean icon Myriam Hernández headlines Day 2 of the 2025 Viña del Mar International Song Festival, performing Monday night (Feb. 24) at the Quinta Vergara amphitheater in the coastal city of Viña del Mar in Chile.
The Chilean singer has charted 13 singles on Hot Latin Songs and six times on Latin Pop Albums. In 2024, she was recognized as a Fundamental figure of Chilean music by the Sociedad Chilena de Autores e Intérpretes Musicales.
The singer, known for a roster of love standards that spans over three decades, will perform in her first full-length show at the celebrated festival in over a decade. In 2023, headliner Karol G invited Hernández to sing “El Hombre Que Yo Amo,” a Hernández hit Karol G had long professed to love. Hernández also hosted the festival for five consecutive years, from 2001 to 2006, but hadn’t performed a full set since 2001.
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Hernández is slated to perform at approximately 7:30 p.m. ET, followed by Ha*Ash, the duo made up of sisters Hanna Nicole and Ashley Grace, born in Louisiana but raised in Mexico. The duo, known for their dramatic pop fare with a dollop of country, are slated to perform at at approximately 11:15 p.m. ET, closing out the show.
Both performances are part of the six-day lineup of the 64th annual Viña del Mar broadcast, which year after year is Chile’s highest-rated television show. Each night features a headliner, a supporting artist, a comedian and an international song festival in folk and pop categories, where contestants compete every night for a winner in each.
Viña will continue Tuesday (Feb. 25) with Colombian’s Morat headlining and Sebastian Yatra closing; Wednesday (Feb. 26) with Carlos Vives headlining and Carín León closing; Thursday (Feb. 27) with Incubus, Juan Carlos López and The Cult; and Friday (Feb. 28), urban night, with headliner Duki, Eladio Carrión and Kid Voodoo.
All nights will be livestreamed in the United States on Billboard.com and Billboard Español. Performances can be viewed on the player in this story beginning at 7:15 p.m. ET, or throughout billboard.com and billboardespañol.com.
Roberta Flack, the chart-topping, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter whose string of hits bridged sophisticated pop and vintage soul, died Monday (Feb. 24) at age 88. A product of piano-based classical training and the gospel stylings of the AME Church, Flack signed with Atlantic Records in 1968 after years as an educator and club performer around Washington, D.C.
In January 1970, Flack’s debut album, First Take, arrived on Billboard’s charts, including a No. 195 start on the Billboard 200. Among its eight tracks was a cover of a popular folk song, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which emerged as a mainstream hit after Clint Eastwood borrowed it for his film directorial debut, Play Misty for Me, in late 1971. The track became Flack’s fourth career hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1972, and by mid-April, became the singer’s first No. 1. Six weeks at the summit fueled “Face” to the year-end No. 1 Hot 100 honor, and it won Grammy Awards for record and song of the year in 1973. First Take, too, enjoyed spoils, pushing to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 for a five-week reign.
The following year repeated many of the same triumphs, with another No. 1 Hot 100 single, “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and the record of the year Grammy Award. Flack nearly landed both victories for a third consecutive year, as her third and final Hot 100 leader, 1974’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” was also nominated for record of the year.
In all, Flack achieved 18 Hot 100 hits in her career, including six duets with her most frequent collaborator, Donny Hathaway, with classics “The Closer I Get to You” (No. 2) and “Where Is The Love” (No. 5) finding the strongest success. Her last appearance came in 1991, with the Maxi Priest collaboration “Set the Night to Music,” which peaked at No. 6.
Her material touched a new generation, too, through the Fugees’ rendition of “Killing Me Softly” from their seminal album, The Score. The hip-hop trio’s version soared to No. 2 on the Radio Songs chart from chart-topping results across multiple formats, including Pop Airplay and R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, and won a Grammy Award for best R&B vocal performance by a duo/group.
To review the legend’s impact across popular music, here’s the official recap of Roberta Flack’s biggest hits on the Billboard Hot 100.
Roberta Flack’s Biggest Billboard Hot 100 Hits ranking is based on weekly performance on the Hot 100 from its Aug. 4, 1958, start through Feb. 22, 2025. Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates during various periods.
“If Ever I See You Again”
WNBA star Cameron Brink probably never thought an answer to a red-carpet question would eventually produce the “highlight of her life.” Brink, along with other WNBA future stars, was asked by Complex last April to choose between Kendrick Lamar and Drake at the WNBA draft, and the Stanford alum was the only one to stand […]
A certain Material Girl is still a Jimmy Kimmel Live! virgin, and the late-night host is holding out hope to have Madonna on his show for the very first time. In a new interview with People, the comedian revealed which A-list celebrity he most wants to have as a guest on his show, despite never […]
Disturbed is walking down memory lane and starting a new era at the same time.
The Chicago-formed heavy rock quartet kicks off The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour on Tuesday (Feb. 25) in Nampa, Idaho, celebrating its five-times platinum debut album, which spent 106 weeks on the Billboard 200. Meanwhile, it’s just released “I Will Not Break,” a characteristically defiant track that is the first taste of Disturbed’s ninth studio album, which will be followed by additional singles before the full-length’s release — most likely in 2026, according to frontman David Draiman.
“We’re going to release track by track over a set course of time,” Draiman, who now resides in Miami, tells Billboard. “We have so many strong songs in this collection of material, so many single contenders, we’re just gonna push ’em out bit by bit. Every musician is most in love with their newest creation, but this body of work was so inspiring it made us want to change our strategy. We have some incredible surprises, too — not all meat and potatoes, stereotypical Disturbed, either, definitely a lot of left turns for us. We’ll see when those actually get to see the light of day. We can’t wait for all of it to be out.”
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Guitarist Dan Donegan feels the same way, describing what’s coming as “a well-rounded body of work. There’s some interesting stuff in there, some really great ideas, some very cool moments. It’s a good blend of everything that’s become Disturbed — some of those old-school moments, those animalistic moments. We’re always gonna have those big, melodic moments with David to showcase showcase some of his vocal jobs, some great, heavy riffs — some of my favorite riffs I’ve written so far. I think fans will be pleased.”
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The heavy-hitting (and certainly familiar-sounding) “I Will Not Break” makes its intent clear with its title. Draiman — whose vocal follows a minute and 16 seconds of hard grooving by Donegan, drummer Mike Wrengren and bassist John Moyer — says it was inspired by “the darkness that I had to go through during the last touring cycle,” which included a 2023 divorce and learning to single-parent his son, as well as aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel and the rising antisemitism he saw surfacing around the world.
“It’s definitely a song I think is very needed right now — definitely I needed it,” Draiman explains. “It’s an empowerment tune. It’s about overcoming adversity. It’s about coming out the other side of the darkness, about not letting the pressures that mount in your life break you.” He adds that the song — produced by Drew “WZRD BLD” Fulk (Lil Wayne, Knocked Loose, NLE Choppa), who helmed 2022’s Divisive — was one of the last to surface in the process.
“We were definitely in a stride of sorts, and definitely feeling it,” Draiman says. “I said to the guys, ‘Give me something, give me an idea that has the old school, head-bobbing feel, that familiar rhythm that I can get really syncopated with and do what they do. So they gave me that. Too easy.”
While fans wait for more new tracks and the eventual album, Disturbed will deliver a 25th anniversary edition of The Sickness on March 7, adding B-sides, demos and previously unreleased songs to flesh out the package, which housed the No. 5-peaking Mainstream Rock Airplay hit “Down With the Sickness” and the Alternative Airplay top 10 “Stupify.”
For the tour, Disturbed will be playing The Sickness, which was produced by Johnny K, in its entirety and in sequence, which Draiman describes as “weird” since those hits, usually saved for the end of the night, will come significantly earlier. “We’ve never done anything like this. I think it’s going to be really cool,” Donegan adds. “It’s our biggest album and our big debut, so we want to honor it from start to finish, playing some of these songs we haven’t played in a long time, and then have a second set of things we did after that.”
Disturbed has plenty to draw from there as well, with 27 top 10 Mainstream Rock Airplay hits — a dozen of which hit No. 1, including remakes of Genesis’ “Land of Confusion” and Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.” All told Disturbed has scored five platinum-or-better albums.
“I remember when we were playing local, before we were touring outside of Chicago, we used to say, ‘I hope we get to the point where we can fill the Riviera Theatres of the world’;…maybe 2,000 seats,” Draiman recalls. “Now we’re playing arenas and packing them with 10, 15, 20,000 at a time. It’s very surreal. It never loses its luster, and it’s still amazing to experience the nice, steady, gradual ascent we’ve been able to have over the course of our career.”
Donegan’s take is that Disturbed “weren’t reinventing the wheel, but we weren’t trying to emulate a certain band, either. We just took all our influences and improvised and wrote the songs, and it started becoming something. But we weren’t chasing anything else; we were just writing the music that we wanted to write.”
The guitarist considers “Down With the Sickness” illustrative of that philosophy. “We were just going into the rehearsal room in the late ‘90s, jumping on our instruments and warming up,” Donegan remembers. “Mikey did this tribal beat…it was never intended for anything, just warming up, and I said, ‘Keep doing that for a minute’ and just started improvising the riff and developing it. David’s listening to what we’re doing and we put that little pause in it, before it kicks in heavier, and out of nowhere in the break he does the signature ‘wa-ka-ka-ka!’ thing and we’re looking at him going, ‘What the hell…?!’ It was just an instinct, just a reaction to this tribal beat and the riff. We were taken aback by it; we didn’t know if he was gonna turn it into words or what, but it just kinda stuck. We were trying to find our own identity…and that definitely helped.”
For The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour Disturbed is also putting together a museum of sorts for VIP package buyers, including instruments and stage outfits, concert posters and vintage t-shirts and merchandise. The group has also announced a European leg of the trek with 17 dates kicking off Sept. 29 in Copenhagen. For Draiman, Donegan and their bandmates, the nostalgic dip has been an invigorating reminder of where the band came from as well as jet fuel for its future plans.
“I just love the fact we’re still hungry,” Donegan says. “We’ve bene very blessed and fortunate to check off bucket list items. We’ve played with pretty much all our heroes — Metallica, Judas Priest, Pantera, Queensrÿche, all these classic rock/metal bands we’ve grown up to. We just played with Iron Maiden in Mexico City in November; that was a huge bucket list show for us. And there’s been a lot of bucket list venues. And we still love doing it. There’s an incredible addiction to performing, to being on stage and that interaction with the crowd, to going into the studio and making new music, all of it.”
Draiman will check off another item of his own on July 5, when he’ll be part of the Back To The Beginning concert in Birmingham, England, where Ozzy Osbourne and the original lineup of Black Sabbath will play its final show supported by a who’s-who list of heavy metal and hard rock acts. “I’m elated to be part of it, humbled and honored,” he says, noting Disturbed’s appearances on Ozzfest tours helped break the band. “It’s the most seminal frontman and band for hard rock and heavy metal; the second record I ever bought, right after Kiss Destroyer, was (Sabbath’s) We Sold Our Soul for Rock ‘n’ Roll. I love Ozzy. I love the Osbourne family. They’ve been so supportive, such a huge part of we’ve become who we’ve become. We could not have done it without them, so I’m intensely grateful. We all are. I hope that I can just do my little part to pay tribute to their legacy.”
The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour North American itinerary includes:Feb 25 Nampa, ID Ford Idaho Center Arena*Feb 27 Denver, CO Ball Arena*Mar 02 St. Louis, MO Enterprise Center*Mar 04 Milwaukee, WI Fiserv Forum*Mar 06 Minneapolis, MN Target Center*Mar 08 Chicago, IL United Center*Mar 10 Detroit, MI Little Caesars Arena*Mar 12 Louisville, KY KFC Yum! Center*Mar 14 Boston, MA TD Garden*Mar 17 Washington, D.C. Capital One Arena*Mar 19 Montreal, QC Centre Bell*Mar 21 New York, NY Madison Square Garden*Mar 29 Cincinnati, OH Heritage Bank Center^Mar 31 Cleveland, OH Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse^Apr 02 Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center^Apr 04 Buffalo, NY KeyBank Center^Apr 05 Pittsburgh, PA PPG Paints Arena^Apr 07 Toronto, ON Scotiabank Arena^Apr 09 Indianapolis, IN Gainbridge Fieldhouse^Apr 12 Charlotte, NC Spectrum Center^Apr 14 Raleigh, NC Lenovo Center^Apr 16 Birmingham, AL Legacy Arena at The BJCC^Apr 18 Sunrise, FL Amerant Bank Arena^Apr 23 Duluth, GA Gas South Arena^Apr 25 San Antonio, TX Frost Bank Center^Apr 26 Fort Worth, TX Dickies Arena^Apr 28 Oklahoma City, OK Paycom Center^May 05 Seattle, WA Climate Pledge Arena^May 07 Portland, OR Moda Center^May 09 Sacramento, CA Golden 1 Center^May 10 San Francisco, CA Chase Center^May 13 Inglewood, CA Kia Forum^May 15 Phoenix, AZ Footprint Center^May 17 Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena^*with special guests Three Days Grace and opener Sevendust^with special guests Daughtry and opener Nothing More
Drake and producer Elkan are giving fans a glimpse of how one of the standout tracks on $ome $exy $ongs 4 U came together. Reposted from Elkan’s Instagram, Drake shared a video on his plottttwistttttt IG account of the producer crafting the beat to “Nokia” in a studio in Freetown, Sierra Leone, timestamped on Wednesday, […]