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It’s fair to say the three members of Imagine Dragons are over the moon about their new concert film Imagine Dragons: Live From the Hollywood Bowl (with the LA Film Orchestra), showing in theaters March 26 and 29. The fact that it comes in the wake of the band’s music actually being on the moon makes it even better.
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On March 5, Imagine Dragon’s “Children of the Sky” — which the Las Vegas-formed group co-wrote with Inon Zur and others in 2023 for the video game Starfield — was embedded in Athena, a ship the space startup Lonestar Data Holdings sent to Earth’s moon. And while music had previously arrived there on other voyages, it marked the first time a song was transmitted back to Earth — albeit a day later because the Athena craft landed on its side, and short of its target, so some adjustments had to be made.
Imagine Dragons’ guitarist Wayne Sermon is still stoked that “Children of the Sky” skied its way back to its home planet. “I was here, and I was following the mission live on YouTube,” Sermon tells Billboard via Zoom from Los Angeles, where he now resides. “I’m very much into space exploration, I’m into anything NASA’s doing. I’m very fascinated with that kind of stuff…It was one of the easiest yeses we had. Things looked a little dicey there for a minute…but (Athena) was able to still do a couple of things and one of them happened to be beaming our song.
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“We were happy just to be part of it. It’s a crazy thing. Put it up on the list of things that are just surreal, having your music beamed from the moon. It’s like alright, sure, that sounds reasonable, OK.”
Sermon says he hasn’t had a chance to flex any bragging rights over the achievement, however. “I haven’t used it once, man. Unbelievable,” he says. “It hasn’t come up in conversation, casually. Once it does I have an ace in the hole at a dinner party — ‘So, how about the moon…?’”
Sermon says the filmed Hollywood Bowl experience was also otherworldly. Filmed Oct. 27, 2024, at the last of four shows Imagine Dragons performed at the venue (and the final date of the North American leg of its Loom World Tour), the concert found the band — also including frontman Dan Reynolds and bassist Ben McKee — playing with a full orchestra conducted by Zur, whose video game scoring work the group has long admired.
“We saw these Hollywood Bowl shows coming down the pipeline while we were on tour,” Sermon recalls. “We just felt like something needed to happen there. We’d sold out four shows, which was kind of crazy to us, and it seemed to be special, so we thought, ‘Why don’t we do something with an orchestra, a one-night-only thing.’” The group recruited Zur to create orchestrations and then watched it grow from a handful of numbers to the entire 22-song concert.
“We’d keep getting emails from (Zur), ‘OK, send me another one,’ and the next day we’d have an arrangement and ‘Send me another one,’” Sermon says. “This kept happening until he’d arranged every single moment of the show. From start to finish it was a complete collaboration, which I think is pretty rare in a show like that.”
Among the concert moments that most stand out is “Radioactive,” for which Zur created a duel between violin and cello players in the orchestra. “Children of the Sky” was another highlight, according to Sermon. “That was a song conceived in the studio, and we weren’t present for when (Zur) came up with the orchestration for it,” Sermon says. “We wrote our part, he wrote his part and we got ’em together remotely. We never actually played that song together in the same room with an orchestra before. So for that song to come to life at (the Hollywood Bowl) felt like a full-circle moment. (Zur) wrote a really incredible intro to it where he could stretch out and show some of his chops. It was great to do that song and have it represented and documented forever.”
The film, however, was not part of the initial discussion and only decided upon “probably a couple of weeks before the show,” according to Sermon. “It was just going to be this thing that happened, that you just had to be there for. In this day and age, where everything is documented and overshared, it was maybe something that just lived for a night and was gone, and maybe there’s something beautiful about that. But the more we thought about it, so many people who would like to see it couldn’t. With Inon being involved and hearing his arrangements…we felt it would be a real shame for people not to hear it. Luckily our management scrambled to find some extra cameras and we threw it together and willed it into existence so people could see it.”
Live From the Hollywood Bowl was directed by Vincent Adam Paul and will be screened in CJ 4DPLEX, ScreenX, 4DX and Ultra 4DX as well as standard formats. Theater and ticket information is available via ImagineDragonsMovie.com.
Sermon plans on catching one of the big-screen showings himself but anticipates the film will eventually go to streaming as well. “The whole point of filming it was so people can see it,” he says. “Seeing it in theaters, especially in 4DX formats, is gonna be mind-blowing for people, but eventually it will be streamed.”
Imagine Dragons will resume the Loom World Tour on April 4 in China and then begin a European run on May 27 in Italy. The trek is set to wrap up July 25-26 in London, while he, Reynolds and McKee are “just starting to write our new album now. We are exploring a lot of different options, including parting things back a lot — just trying new things and seeing what sticks. We don’t really know what we’re doing for next things until we just do it.”
Kendrick Lamar & SZA’s old-school R&B smash “Luther,” now is in its fifth week atop the Billboard Hot 100, sounds like a natural to receive Grammy nods for record and song of the year when the nominations for the 2026 awards are announced later this year. The song, a nod to R&B legend Luther Vandross, contains a sample of Vandross and Cheryl Lynn’s 1982 rendition of “If This World Were Mine,” which was originally recorded in 1967 by another legendary pair, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. Its multi-format success in 2025 shows that old-school R&B songwriting values can still be embraced in today’s hip-hop-dominated R&B culture.
But while “Luther” may find favor next year with Grammy voters, Vandross had to wait nine years from his first Grammy nominations in 1982 until he finally won. His Grammy track record stood at 0-9 until he finally scored a W with “Here and Now,” which was voted best R&B vocal performance, male in 1991.
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Vandross was nominated for best new artist at the 1982 ceremony, but lost to Scottish pop singer Sheena Easton (who got off to a faster start, with a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, “Morning Train (Nine to Five),” and another top five hit with the Oscar-nominated James Bond theme “For Your Eyes Only”). More surprisingly, Vandross was nominated for best R&B vocal performance six times before he finally won in that category. That’s striking because Vandross is regarded as one of the premier R&B male vocalists of his time, and of all time.
Vandross, who suffered a severe stroke in 2003 and died in 2005 at age 54, won four Grammys during his lifetime. He won four more in the year following his death, including song of the year for “Dance With My Father,” which he co-wrote with Richard Marx.
Vandross isn’t the only R&B veteran who had to wait a good long while to finally win a Grammy. Gaye, who both wrote and recorded the original version of “If This World Were Mine,” had to wait even longer (15 years from the time of his first nomination) to win his first Grammys in 1983. His Grammy track record stood at 0-8 before he finally won best R&B vocal performance, male for his smash “Sexual Healing” and best R&B instrumental performance for an instrumental version that appeared on the B-side of that smash. Tragically, he was killed by his father less than 14 months after his belated double-Grammy triumph.
Vandross and Gaye have nothing on Lionel Richie, whose Grammy track record was a dismal 0-18 before he finally won best pop vocal performance, male, for “Truly,” also in 1983. Richie went on to win album of the year (for Can’t Slow Down) and song of the year (for “We Are the World,” a co-write with Michael Jackson), so we tend to think of him as Grammy royalty, but he had to wait a long while to be admitted to the club.
Lamar’s “Squabble Up” is also a strong candidate for Grammy nods in marquee categories. If either “Luther” or “Squabble Up” wins record or song of the year, coming on the heels of his wins in both categories on Feb. 2 with “Not Like Us,” Lamar would make Grammy history. He would become the fourth artist to win back-to-back Grammys for record of the year (following Roberta Flack, U2 and Billie Eilish), and only the second songwriter to win back-to-back Grammys for song of the year (following Dernst “D’Mile” Emile II, who won for co-writing H.E.R.’s “I Can’t Breathe” in 2021 and Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open” the following year).
The nominations for the 68th annual Grammy Awards are expected in November. The ceremony is expected in February 2026.
ROSÉ and Bruno Mars’ “APT.” rebounds for a record-extending 18th week at No. 1 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart. The collaboration first inhabited the penthouse in November 2024.
Meanwhile, Lady Gaga and Mars’ “Die With a Smile” scores a 13th week atop the Billboard Global 200 chart, dating to its first frame at No. 1 last September.
Plus, Playboi Carti debuts two songs in the Global 200’s top 10 and one in the Global Excl. U.S. top 10 and Chappell Roan’s “The Giver” arrives in the Global 200’s top tier.
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The Billboard Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts, which began in September 2020, rank songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Luminate. The Global 200 is inclusive of worldwide data and the Global Excl. U.S. chart comprises data from territories excluding the United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of audio and video music services, as well as download sales, the latter of which reflect purchases from full-service digital music retailers from around the world, with sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites excluded from the charts’ calculations.
“APT.” rises from No. 2 on Global Excl. U.S. with 76.7 million streams (down 3% week-over-week) and 6,000 sold (down 12%) outside the U.S. March 14-20.
“Die With a Smile” drops to No. 2 after 11 weeks atop Global Excl. U.S. beginning last September; Doechii’s “Anxiety” jumps 7-3 for a new high; JENNIE’s “like JENNIE” backtracks to No. 4 from its No. 3 best; and Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” falls 4-5, after three weeks on top in August.
Playboi Carti’s “Evil J0rdan” debuts at No. 6 on Global Excl. U.S., led by 36.8 million streams outside the U.S. The rapper adds his fourth top 10 on the chart.
“Die With a Smile” continues atop the Global 200 with 102.1 million streams (down 12%) and 8,000 (down 19%) worldwide. At 13 weeks, the song ties for the third-longest No. 1 run since the chart began, matching Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers.” The only hits to lead longer: Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (19 weeks) and Harry Styles’ “As It Was” (15).
Notably, “Die With a Smile” has drawn more than 100 million streams worldwide each week since the Global 200 chart dated Sept. 14, upping its record total on the latest list to 29 such weeks.
“APT.” holds at No. 2 on the Global 200, following 12 weeks at No. 1 starting in November, and Doechii’s “Anxiety” ascends 6-3 for a new best.
Playboi Carti’s “Evil J0rdan” and “Rather Lie,” featuring The Weeknd, debut at Nos. 4 and 6 on the Global 200 with 67.1 million and 54.1 million U.S. streams worldwide, respectively. Playboi Carti pushes his career count to six top 10s on the chart and The Weeknd to 15.
Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” descends to No. 5 from its No. 3 Global 200 high.
Plus, Chappell Roan’s country track “The Giver” moseys onto the Global 200 at No. 10 with 40 million streams and 8,000 sold worldwide March 14-20, following its March 13 release. The singer-songwriter earns her second top 10, after “Good Luck, Babe!” hit No. 5 in September.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated March 29, 2025) will update on Billboard.com tomorrow, March 25. For both charts, the top 100 titles are available to all readers on Billboard.com, while the complete 200-title rankings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s subscription-based service. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
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Kanye West has set his sights on Jim Jones as his latest target, airing out grievances in a fiery social media rant.
In an all-caps tweet, Ye didn’t hold back, writing, “F*CK JIM JONES.” The outburst stems from allegations that Jones pocketed a $2 million payment for introducing Ye to a crypto specialist known as Mr. Pink without ever informing him.
Ye never one to shy away from dramatic storytelling, likened the situation to a Quentin Tarantino film, tweeting: “I KNOW THIS GONNA SOUND LIKE SOME TERRENTINO [Tarantino] MOVIE BUT HERE GOES.” He then detailed his frustration, claiming that Jones facilitated the introduction under the guise of friendship but secretly collected a multi-million-dollar fee behind his back. “SOOO JIM JONES GOT PAID 2 MILLION TO INTRODUCE ME TO A GENTLEMAN NAME MR PINK TO DISCUSS MY CRYPTO COIN AND NEVER TOLD ME HE WAS GETTING 2 MILLION AND NEVER CUT ME IN.”
Jim was quick to clear the air:
Despite the explosive accusations, Ye surprisingly softened his tone toward the end of his rant. The Chicago rapper clarified that he actually has love for Jim Jones and promised not to go “full Ye mode” on him. Given Kanye’s history of high-profile feuds and unpredictable social media behavior, it remains to be seen whether this is the last we’ll hear about his beef with Capo or just the beginning of another wild chapter in Ye’s ever-unfolding saga.
Recently, Kanye West was spotted in Tokyo with rapper Jim Jones, and their appearance has sparked curiosity among fans and media alike. The two were seen hanging out, with Jones also making a guest appearance during Kanye’s interview with Justin LaBoy.
Mt. Joy have awaken from their winter hibernation with a new single, “Coyote,” an infectious homage to the energy and excitement one experiences on the cusp of breaking through.
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The track is the first from the Philadelphia indie rockers’ fourth studio album, Hope We Have Fun (out May 30 on Futures x Bloom Field). It arrives ahead of the April 19 kickoff to their 2025 North American tour.
Frontman Matt Quinn tells Billboard the first single was inspired by the sounds of coyotes in Los Angeles’ San Rafael Hills and the energy found in young groups of coyotes, commonly called a band. Quinn says the song is a celebration of the make-it-or-break-it energy the band experienced grinding it out on the road and the surprising paradigm shifts that followed their crossover success.
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Last year, the five-piece group hit a number of touring milestones, performing at both New York’s Madison Square Garden and Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater and selling more than 180,000 tickets on their biggest tour yet.
Success has brought changes to the way the band tours, Quinn tells Billboard. “The shows have gotten quite a bit bigger and that changes the day pretty dramatically for us. We don’t have to set the whole thing up ourselves which gives us a lot more time to work on new things we want to try to incorporate into the live shows,” he explains.
“I will say, though, there is something awesome about the adventure of being in a van and pulling over at random roadside attractions and being late to a venue load-in because you took a detour and saw a random man’s petting zoo,” Quinn added. “Now we drive in the middle of the night so it’s just truck stops and Nintendo Switch.”
A complete list of tour stops from the band’s 2025 run can be found below. Listen to “Coyote” here.
HOPE WE HAVE FUN TOUR
04/19 – John Paul Jones Arena – Charlottesville, VA
04/21 – KEMBA Live! – Outdoors – Columbus, OH
04/25 – Skyla Credit Union Amphitheatre – Charlotte, NC
04/26 – High Water Festival – North Charleston, SC
05/04 – BEACHLIFE FESTIVAL – Redondo Beach, CA
06/06 – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre – Sterling Heights, MI
06/07 – Stage AE – Outdoors – Pittsburgh, PA
06/08 – The Governors Ball Music Festival – New York, NY
06/10 – Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley Expo – Essex Junction, VT
06/12 – MegaCorp Pavilion – Newport, KY
06/13 – Merriweather Post Pavilion – Columbia, MD
06/14 – Bonnaroo – Manchester, TN
06/17 – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park – Indianapolis, IN
06/19 – Thompson’s Point – Portland, ME
06/20 – Green River Festival – Greenfield, MA
06/20-06/22 – Mountain Jam Music Festival – Highmount, NY
06/28 – BST Hyde Park – London, UK
07/04-07/05 – Zootown Festival – Missoula, MT
07/23-07/27 – FloydFest – Floyd, VA
07/27 – Newport Folk Festival – Newport, RI
08/09 – Scotiabank Saddledome – Calgary, AB
08/10 – Edmonton Folk Festival (Gallagher Park) – Edmonton, AB
08/12 – Twilight Concert Series at Library Square – Salt Lake City, UT
08/14 – Red Rocks Amphitheatre – Morrison, CO
08/15 – Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre – Denver, CO
08/17 – Ford Idaho Center Amphitheater – Nampa, ID
08/19 – Deer Lake Park – Burnaby, BC
08/20 – WAMU Theater – Seattle, WA
08/22 – Hayden Homes Amphitheater – Bend, OR
08/23 – The Greek Theatre – Berkeley, CA
08/24 – Santa Barbara Bowl – Santa Barbara, CA
08/26 – The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park – San Diego, CA
09/11 – Budweiser Stage – Toronto, ON
09/12-09/14 – Borderland Music Festival – East Aurora, NY
09/13 – United Center – Chicago, IL
09/16 – The Armory – Minneapolis, MN
09/17 – Kohl Center – Madison, WI
09/20 – TD Garden – Boston, MA
09/23 – Koka Booth Amphitheatre – Cary, NC
09/24 – ExploreAsheville.com Arena – Asheville, NC
09/26 – TD Pavilion at The Mann – Philadelphia, PA
09/27 – TD Pavilion at The Mann – Philadelphia, PA
Playboi Carti, Chappell Roan and Doechii have entered the top 10, but will any of them claim the No. 1 spot? Tetris Kelly: With new top 10s from Chappell Roan, Doechii and Playboi Carti, this is the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 for the week dated March 29th. Making her top 10 debut is our […]
Travis Scott officially announced that the Cactus Jack label compilation album JACKBOYS 2 is “on the way.” La Flame hit the stage at LIV nightclub in Miami early Monday (March 24) when he hopped on the mic during Chase B’s DJ set and proceeded to state that JACKBOYS 2 is in motion before playing some […]
Rick Ross has shown himself to be a good businessman. The Miami rapper is already synonymous with chicken wing chain Wingstop, owning around 30 franchises, and now he’s trying his hand at teeth. That’s right, the biggest boss that we’ve seen thus far is opening up a dentist office in a suburb of Atlanta. Late […]
Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther” leads the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart for a fifth total and consecutive week. The single, whose title is a tribute to late R&B icon Luther Vandross, who is sampled on the track, became Lamar’s sixth No. 1 and SZA’s third. Both Lamar and SZA extend their longest career Hot […]
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Kendrick Lamar has captured the eyes and ears of many after many believe he handily vanquished his rival, Drake, in their highly publicized audio feud. With Los Angeles announced as the site of the 2028 Summer Olympics, a booking agent for Kendrick Lamar suggested that there might be an appearance from the pgLang honcho at the sporting event.
As seen in an Associated Press report, the 2028 Summer Olympics organizing committee chairman, Casey Wasserman, has the hope that the major sporting event will help revitalize Los Angeles and the region itself. Wasserman spoke at the International Olympic Committee’s annual meeting last Thursday and mentioned how the recent rash of wildfires across California and the impending summer games could help push innovation.
“The rebirth, the rebuild, maybe reimagining LA 2.0 — and the Olympics as a catalyst for all those things — we think is really part of our ethos,” Wasserm. an said to The Associated Press ahead of the IOC gathering.
What also turned heads in the AP’s report was Wasserman suggesting that Kendrick Lamar, a native son of Compton and a potent unifier of the Los Angeles creative scene, could also be involved in the 2028 Summer Olympics. While it wasn’t officially confirmed that Lamar would be involved, Wasserman’s insider status with the rapper is as strong a cosign as any.
“Fortunately in my day job I represent Kendrick Lamar,’ said Wasserman, who heads the Wasserman Media Group and is the booking agent for Lamar. “He is truly an LA icon so I think it would be a pretty fair bet that Kendrick will be involved in the Olympics in Los Angeles in some way.”
The 2028 Summer Olympics will begin on July 14, 2028.
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Photo: Focus On Sport / Getty