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Source: Sucker Punch Productions / Ghosts of Yotei / PlayStation
Nintendo announced the Switch 2 very subtly, Xbox had a bomb a** Developer_Direct showcase, and now PlayStation reportedly is gearing up to show us what they got in store for 2025.
Word on the video game streets is that PlayStation is dropping a State of Play broadcast next week. The tip comes from none other than NateTheHate, the same person who accurately called the Nintendo Switch 2 announcement.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, NateTheHate responded “Yes” when a follower asked, “Is the first State of Play of the year still coming in February?”
When the follower asked if the State of Play was coming either early, mid, or late February, NateTheHate responded, “What does your heart tell you?”
https://x.com/NateTheHate2/status/1885748440132456877
Eurogamer reports that we could expect to see the State of Play sometime around Valentine’s Day and points out that Sony has held a State of Play broadcast every February since 2021.
What Games Will PlayStation Show?
It remains a mystery what games we can expect to see. One good guess is that we will definitely see more of Ghosts of Yotei, the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima, which is slated to arrive sometime this year.
We could also get an update on Insomniac’s Wolverine game, which we haven’t heard anything official about since it was announced during a September 2021 PlayStation Showcase.
Keep in mind that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was also announced. The game has come out and was just released on PC last week.
Leaked footage from an early build of the game did hit the web.
We could also see more of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding 2 On The Beach or his next Tactical Espionage Action game, Physint.
We’ll just have to wait until PlayStation hits us with the official announcement.
Rauw Alejandro is taking his 2025 Cosa Nuestra world tour to Europe, unveiling his visit across 11 cities including Paris, Amsterdam, Milan, Madrid and more. The European leg of the tour, produced by Live Nation, kicks off June 17 at The O2 in London, and will wrap on July 11 at the Palau Sant Jordi […]
With RuPaul’s Drag Race bringing back their Rate-a-Queen system for season 17, Billboard decided to rate each of the new queens every week based on their performance. Below, we take a look at the show’s compilation album challenge to see how the queens performed in the first group challenge of the season. Spoilers ahead for […]
The Super Bowl is less than a week away, meaning championship rings are on a lot people’s minds — but is Travis Kelce thinking about another type of ring for Taylor Swift?
While speaking to reporters at the Super Bowl’s opening night in New Orleans Monday (Feb. 3), the tight end was asked whether he plans on popping the question to his superstar girlfriend at the Kansas City Chiefs’ ultimate game against the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend. In response, Kelce smiled coyly.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he replied cheekily.
Trending on Billboard
Engagement rumors have surrounded the New Heights podcaster and Swift since early on in their relationship, which began in the summer of 2023. In fact, this latest bout of ring-related speculation mirrors similar questions Kelce dodged ahead of last year’s Super Bowl, which Kansas City went on to win against the San Francisco 49ers.
But while he didn’t clear anything up at Monday’s press conference, Kelce did gush about the “Fortnight” singer’s culinary abilities. “Oh, she is quite the cook,” he said at one point before revealing his favorite dish Swift makes: “Her Pop Tarts are unbelievable.”
“I better hold up my end of the bargain, right?” Kelce added of Swift’s work ethic elsewhere in the Q&A session. “She’s up there being the superstar that she is and never taking no for an answer and always working her tail off. I better match that energy for sure.”
The opening night press junket comes one day after the musician attended the 2025 Grammys, to which Swift arrived solo in a Chiefs-red dress with a “T” charm attached to the hem. She didn’t win any out of her six nominations, but the “Karma” artist did inspire several viral moments during the ceremony’s broadcast, from snagging Janelle Monáe’s jacket to dancing with Alicia Keys’ son Genesis.
The award show marked Swift’s first Grammys since closing out her billion-dollar Eras Tour in December. At one of the run’s final stops, the songwriter played at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome — the very same stadium where the Super Bowl will take place Sunday (Feb. 9).
While performing “Midnight Rain” at the venue Oct. 28, Swift did one of her boyfriend’s signature dance moves and held up three fingers, seemingly hoping to prime the stadium for a record third Chiefs Super Bowl win in a row. On Monday, Kelce was asked about the gesture.
“We both, we love to manifest things,” he replied, smiling. “Whatever she was doing, I’m sure it helped. And for me, not being able to be here supporting her during those weeks, it made me feel like I was there.”
Fans tuning in to the Super Bowl this weekend will hear a familiar voice, as Shania Twain lends her voice to an all-out “foam party” in the new Coffee Mate Cold Foam Creamer ad, which will air during the Super Bowl on Feb. 9, when the Philadelphia Eagles face off against the Kansas City Chiefs at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
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The five-time Grammy winner is the voice behind the ad’s uptempo pop song “Gimme Cold Foam,” which serves as a love letter to coffee, punctuated by the lines “Gimme cold foam! Gimme cold foam!/ I’m a dancing tongue, and I like the taste of cold foam.” The ad, in which Twain voices a tongue that not only sings and dances, but even does flips, was created by Wieden+Kennedy New York and directed by Dan Streit.
“The song is just so catchy,” Twain tells Billboard of “Gimme Cold Foam.” “It is just very danceable and fun and it just sticks in your brain. It is one of those catchy songs, so I just think it’s a really great little bop.”
Trending on Billboard
Twain laid down her vocals for the track in a hotel room in Mexico, as she was taking part in Brandi Carlile’s Girls Just Wanna Weekend. “It was so fun. I really get into character singing it, which made it a blast,” Twain recalls of recording the song.
Billboard caught up with Twain to discuss her role in the upcoming Coffee Mate Cold Foam Creamer Super Bowl ad, her hopes for the Super Bowl, and who she would love to see sing the national anthem.
Had you seen the footage for the commercial by the time you recorded the song?
No, I heard the music before I saw the video, which I think was a good idea because I was just attracted to the catchiness of the song. It was this cool, boppy tune and then watching the video, I just laughed. It was cheerful, quirky, funny–and I’m a dancing tongue, man!
What is your favorite coffee?
I’m one of these seasonal coffee people where in the cooler weather I want a hot coffee and in the summer I want a cold brew. And talking about this cold foam, for me, hot coffee, black with cold foam on top and then spoon up the rest. Coffee with the cold foam is more like an ice cream dessert.
You performed at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2003. What do you recall about the performance?
It was a very hectic environment, which I wasn’t expecting, but it wasn’t just your normal, “Okay, you’re on in five minutes.” There was so much rehearsal and a lot of the rehearsal was just getting from the backstage to across the field to the stage and all the security involved and all of this convoy of equipment and everything. It was a huge production and that just built the hype up for me so much more. So it felt like a very epic moment.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, who are you rooting for this year?
I’m not really rooting one way or the other. I really hope it’s a good, strong game, just so that makes it a very exciting game for everyone. I think this game has more anticipation than others because of Taylor [Swift]’s association with the [Kansas City] Chiefs. And of course, I don’t want my friend to go home disappointed. I want her to be happy and feel that joy.
Who would you love to see either sing the national anthem or do the halftime show at the Super Bowl?
I want to see Brandi Carlile. I don’t think she’s ever done the national anthem. It would be the ultimate.
See the Coffee Mate Cold Foam Creamer ad below:
The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) announced on Tuesday (Feb. 4) that it would issue takedown notices to Spotify for 2,500 podcast episodes on the platform that allegedly contain “unlicensed musical works” from 19 NMPA member publishers.
“Spotify has thousands of unlicensed songs in its podcasts, which it has done nothing to remedy. This takedown action comes as no surprise, we have warned of this issue for some time,” says NMPA president and CEO David Israelite of the takedown notices. According to the NMPA, this is just the start of the takedown requests, and the demands will continue to roll out.
This is the latest of many retaliatory actions the NMPA has taken against Spotify since last March, when Spotify significantly cut payments to NMPA’s members for premium subscriptions. By adding audiobooks into its premium subscription tiers, Spotify argued it qualified for a discounted royalty rate, known as “bundle,” given it would now have to pay for books and music from the same price tag that was once just for music. Israelite said at the time that he would “declare war” on Spotify for this move, and launched a number of actions to fight back.
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This included sending cease and desist notices for podcast and video content on its platform that were allegedly infringing on music IP; a legislative proposal, asking for the overhaul of the statutory license; complaints to the FTC and nine state attorneys general; and more. Around the same time, the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) also fought back by filing a lawsuit against Spotify for the move to bundle premium subscriptions, calling it “unlawful.”
On Sunday, Jan. 26, the Spotify bundling issue was brought back into the headlines when Universal Music Group announced a new direct deal with Spotify which included changes both to the recorded music and publishing royalty rates. This marked the first direct deal between Spotify and a publisher since the passage of the Music Modernization Act (MMA), and sources close to the deal say that the agreement included improved remuneration for UMG’s publishing company, Universal Music Publishing Group, and its songwriters.
Still, all other publishers, most of which are members of the NMPA, remain on the baseline bundle rate. The NMPA told Billboard at the time that the deal was “good news for the entire industry” and that “a rising tide lifts all boats, and this signals that Spotify is coming back to the table,” but the organization also added it had no plans to stop any of the actions it had already set in motion against Spotify, and neither did the MLC.
A few days later, on Jan. 29, the MLC’s lawsuit against Spotify was dismissed, with a federal judge saying that Spotify’s move to bundling was supported by “unambiguous” regulations. The judge is not giving the MLC a chance to refile and said the law is clear. Still, if the MLC wants to, it can challenge the ruling at the federal appeals court.
These takedown requests make it clear that the NMPA is not ready to bury the hatchet with Spotify. Among the 2,500 takedown requests are podcasts that allegedly contain unlicensed musical works from publishers like ABKCO, Anthem Entertainment, Big Machine Music, BMG, Concord Music Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Hipgnosis Songs Group, Kobalt, Mayimba Music, peermusic, Primary Wave Music, Reservoir, The Royalty Network, Inc., Sony Music Publishing, Spirit Music Group, Ultra Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, and Wixen Music Publishing.
Israelite adds: “Podcasts are a growing source of revenue for songwriters and publishers, and it is essential that podcasts provide lawfully produced entertainment. This is not hard to do, and Spotify knows, and has known, how to fix this problem for their users. We hope podcast hosts will stand up for their fellow creators and demand that Spotify do better. Spotify will stop at nothing to undervalue songwriters on behalf of its bottom line. Look no further than its recent bundling scheme and its ill-conceived appeal of songwriters’ rate increase in CRB III. We will not stop until the platform fixes its podcast problem, and all other areas where songwriters are not earning what they deserve.”
“It’s almost like, an anti-pop song,” María Zardoya, the leader of The Marías, says of “No One Noticed.”
Considering the sighing production, murmured harmonies and somber lyrical tone as Zardoya pleads with a lover for attention and reassurance, “No One Noticed” understandably did not lead the indie-pop band’s second album, Submarine, upon its release last May. Yet in the months since, the song has transformed into a viral breakthrough and the band’s biggest hit to date.
Zardoya says that none of the band members expected “No One Noticed” to become The Marías’ first solo Billboard Hot 100 entry. Its success not only strengthened the band’s commercial footprint — it validated their entire aesthetic.
“It gets you in your feels — it’s pretty emotional, and kind of slow,” she says of “No One Noticed.” “It gives me hope that people are still open to listening to a song over and over that makes them cry.”
Trending on Billboard
The Marías photographed on January 15, 2025 in New York.
Caroline Tompkins
The enduring hit isn’t the bilingual, Los Angeles-based quartet’s first visit to the Hot 100, previously reaching the chart thanks to Bad Bunny: in 2022, the band was a featured act on “Otro Atardecer,” a buoyant Spanish-language album cut from the superstar’s Grammy-winning album Un Verano Sin Ti that peaked at No. 49. “That was always our No. 1 song on our Spotify page, by far, and we thought it was going to be forever,” says drummer/producer Josh Conway with a laugh. “That was a pretty big pinch-me moment, when ‘No One Noticed’ surpassed it. And now it’s surpassed it by a lot.”
The origin of “No One Noticed” predates the Bad Bunny collaboration — as well as The Marías album that came before Submarine. Zardoya, a Puerto Rico native who grew up in Atlanta, formed The Marías in 2016 when she started writing songs with L.A. native Conway, before recruiting Jesse Perlman on guitar and Edward James on keys. Following a pair of indie EPs and steady work as a touring band, The Marías signed an Atlantic Records deal in early 2021 and released their debut album, Cinema, that June.
Zardoya says that the band started writing “No One Noticed” during the pandemic in 2020, chipping away at a demo before ultimately “putting it on the back burner for a while,” then revisiting it as a potential addition to Submarine. Part of the reason why it was shrugged off for years was because as the group searched for a breakthrough single, they thought that meant something with a quicker pace than the viscous dreaminess of “No One Noticed.”
“We were understandably getting a little pressure from the label, and I think that the first thing labels look at as being a ‘hit’ is something with tempo,” Zardoya explains. So the band focused the Cinema campaign around the sleek dark-pop single “Hush,” and released the danceable electro-funk track “Run Your Mouth” as the lead single to Submarine last year. Both made the lower reaches of the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
The Marías photographed on January 15, 2025 in New York.
Caroline Tompkins
Meanwhile, Mick Management’s Jonathan Eshak, the band’s manager who started working with The Marías between their two albums, identified a sizable live base for the band and prioritized streamlining their touring agenda for Submarine. “They could play pretty large rooms — not just in New York or L.A., but in markets that are a little less traveled,” Eshak says. “But a big mission statement from María, Josh, Jesse and Eddie was they didn’t want to be viewed as just a domestic act — they really wanted to speak to fans who are either Spanish-speaking, have ancestral roots in Latin America, or are in Latin America.” As such, The Marías kicked off their tour in support of Submarine with a four-night residency at Foro Puebla in Mexico City last June, before headlining across North America throughout the summer.
As they began presenting Submarine on tour, The Marías found it interesting that “No One Noticed” would elicit some of the evening’s biggest cheers; similarly, the band would hear from friends, and read fan comments, declaring the moody track as the album standout. By July, TikTok users had adopted the song — particularly its “Come on, don’t leave me, it can’t be that easy, babe/If you believe me, I guess I’ll get on a plane” breakdown — and when Billie Eilish posted a clip of herself singing along to “No One Noticed” on her Instagram story on July 17, streams began to skyrocket.
By early September, “No One Noticed” had reached the top 10 of the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. As the band was prepping for its first proper European tour for the fall, it was announced as an opener on the December leg of Eilish’s arena tour. “Billie showed love for ‘No One Noticed’ really early on,” says Zardoya, “so it was cool to perform that song live at her shows — I would dedicate it to her before we performed it, every single night.”
And as the crowd sizes increased, so did the song’s audience. Since serving as a summertime-sadness anthem thanks to its initial TikTok pickup, “No One Noticed” has crossed over to streaming platforms and even to radio. The song has 215.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams through Jan. 30, according to Luminate, and reached No. 4 on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, No. 11 on Streaming Songs and No. 26 on Pop Airplay, where it hits a new high this week. “No One Noticed” has also peaked at No. 22 in 18 weeks on the Hot 100 and reentered the top 40 on the Feb. 1-dated chart.
The Marías are slated to perform at three South American editions of Lollapalooza in March before playing Coachella in April. Eshak says that, as the band prepares to play Submarine in front of oversized festival crowds, the rising interest in their catalog beyond “No One Noticed” demonstrates how much more growth they can achieve in 2025.
“There’s so much runway for this band,” he says. “Obviously a hit song’s a hit song, and we’ll take them where we can find them, but what I’m so excited about is how people are engaging with the band’s entire world.”
That world will also expand when the follow-up to Submarine arrives: The Marías spent some time at New York’s famed Electric Lady Studios in January and are planning on more sessions following their festival gigs in the spring.
“We were pretty surprised at how experimental things were in the studio,” says Conway of the recent sessions. “I think ‘No One Noticed’ helped pave the way for us to let our guard down a little and do whatever we want.”
Caroline Tompkins
This story appears in the Feb. 8, 2025, issue of Billboard.
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Source: Marvel Entertainment / Marvel
With the Marvel Cinematic Universe struggling to drum up any kind of interest from it’s hardcore fanbase (Captain America: Brave New World is not helping whatsoever), it seems like they just might’ve finally raised quite a few eyebrows as they’ve just released the first teaser trailer for their highly-anticipated film, The Fantastic Four.
Source: Marvel Entertainment / Marvel
Earlier today (Feb. 4), Marvel Studios gave fans a first look at what they can expect when the Matt Shakman directed feature premiers in theaters later this year and it’s looking like one helluva ride. Starring Pedro Pascal (Mr. Fantastic), Vanessa Kirby (Invisible Woman), Joseph Quinn (The Human Torch) and Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Thing), the trailer finds the heroic foursome already well established heroes in their reality with a fanbase before facing off with the devouerer of worlds, Galactus (Ralph Ineson).
Now that Galactus has stumbled upon earth with an insatiable appetite, it’ll be on our heroes to try and stop big G from consuming earth and saving the day, but will they?
With rumors running around that The Fantastic Four will tie directly into Avengers: Doomsday and will ultimately lead to them traveling to the main Marvel timeline, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out and whether or not they can actually stop Galactus from destroying their world or if they have to save themselves by escaping his wraith.
There’s even word that this is the reality in which Doctor Doom resides and will be making his cinematic debut.
Either way, Marvel’s got our money for this one already. Captain America: Brave New World? Probably not. Just sayin.’
Check out the trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps below and let us know if you’ll be checking it out when it hits theaters on July 25 in the comments section.
Beyoncé had plenty of company when she celebrated her long-sought, first-ever album of the year win at Sunday night’s (Feb. 2) 67th Grammy Awards. The top prize went to Bey’s Cowboy Carter, but the trophy for second-most excited in the room definitely went to GloRilla, who was absolutely losing it when Queen Bey’s name was […]
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Source: Emma McIntyre / Getty
It’s not enough for anti-Trump voters and activists to speak out against the bigoted, oppressive, exclusionary and white nationalist-friendly agenda that President Donald Trump is forcing on the federal government, and, by extension, the nation.
We need our Democratic leaders, the people who are in the closest position to resist Trump’s policies, to speak out and do so without mincing words and using soft language. And, for that, we have Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett.
On Friday night (Jan. 31), the Trump administration began a purge of federal law enforcement employees, including prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases, officials involved in prosecutions against himself and FBI agents involved in investigations against him. Basically, we put a child-like bully back in the White House and now he’s exacting his revenge like he’s pretending to be his favorite cartoon villain. (In real life, he’s half the country’s least favorite cartoon villain.)
https://x.com/repjasmine/status/1885504967538004025
Anyway, Crockett kept it a buck.
From Raw Story:
The D.C. Field Office, in particular, has seen a wave of firings. It comes as the acting head of Trump’s Justice Department is also moving to eliminate the jobs of prosecutors who handled the Jan. 6 cases and worked with special counsel Jack Smith.
“Trump’s DOJ Deputy AG is ordering the FBI Acting Secretary to create a blacklist of officers for termination because they LAWFULLY INVESTIGATED an insurrection at the Capitol that resulted in severe injuries and deaths, including of law enforcement,” wrote Crockett, a former public defender, on X. “Instead of respecting the acts and contributions of the FBI for holding people to account for desecrating the hallowed halls of Congress, my Republican colleagues are now cheering for their removal.”
“LET’S BE CLEAR: Firing these experienced law enforcement officers is a victory for lawlessness, organized crime, and corruption,” she continued. “It is a get out of jail free card for the drug smugglers, human traffickers, child exploiters, and violent extremists that the FBI investigates.”
“But most importantly, tonight is a tragedy for the rule of law,” Crockett concluded.
That’s right, y’all. The so-called “party of law and order” who constantly deride their Democratic counterparts as being “soft on crime” are out here behaving disorderly as if they’re above the law and reminding us daily that they decide which crimes matter.
One would think Trump and his GOP goons were actually masters of manipulation, but, truthfully, white supremacy and idiocracy had already done all the work for them in the backward-ass country.
But MAGA, right?