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Rapper BigXthaPlug’s team-up with featured artist Bailey Zimmerman, the genre-bending “All the Way,” debuts at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart (dated April 19).
Released April 4, the collaboration launches with 24.1 million official U.S. video and audio streams, 30,000 in radio airplay audience and 8,000 sold in the week ending April 10, according to Luminate.
The track concurrently opens atop the all-genre Streaming Songs and Digital Song Sales lists, and at No. 3 on Hot Rap Songs.
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As previously reported, “All the Way” soars in at No. 4 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100, marking BigXthaPlug’s first top 10 and Zimmerman’s second.
BigXthaPlug (real name Xavier Landum), from Dallas, tops Hot Country Songs in his first appearance, while Zimmerman, from Louisville, Ill., earns his initial leader among five top 10s. They each crown Streaming Songs and Digital Song sales for the first time.
BigXthaPlug has notched 16 titles on Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, beginning in late 2023. He has sent three tracks to the chart’s top 20: “Mmhmm,” his first entry (No. 11 peak); “The Largest” (No. 16); and “2AM” (No. 18). On Hot Rap Songs, the No. 3 start for “All the Way” marks a new career best, joining two other top 10s of his: “Mmhmm” (No. 8) and “The Largest” (No. 10).
The new track, which is being promoted to pop radio, previews BigXthaPlug’s forthcoming country-focused collection.
“It gives me a better feeling how they’ll feel about the [country] project,” BigXthaPlug tells Billboard about the first-week reception for “All the Way.” “I knew that song was gonna do something.”
Additional reporting by Michael Saponara.
Former Judas Priest drummer Les Binks, who held the spot in the metal band’s lineup for a few crucial years in the late 1970s, had died at 73.
The group members announced their bandmate’s death on Tuesday morning (April 15), writing on Instagram, “We are deeply saddened about the passing of Les and send our love to his family, friends and fans. The acclaimed drumming he provided was first class – demonstrating his unique techniques, flair, style and precision – Thank you Les – your acclaim will live on…..”
Born in Portadown, Northern Ireland, on Aug. 8, 1951, Binks (born James Leslie Binks), spent time drumming with Eric Burdon and the Animals and War, as well as the pop group Fancy before joining Judas Priest in 1977. The band formed in Birmingham, England, in 1969 and fronted by leather-loving singer Rob Halford released its debut album, Rocka Rolla, in 1974, followed by 1996’s Sad Wings of Destiny.
Binks made his first appearance with group in time for 1977’s Sin After Sin, the band’s major label debut. The sessions saw the exit of early drummer Alan Moore, who was replaced by Simon Phillips for the recording. But, with Moore unavailable to tour, Binks was tapped to hit the road with the band after bringing his signature double-bass barrage to the bonus track cover of The Gun’s “Race With the Devil.”
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The drummer made his biggest mark on 1978’s Stained Class, where his massive, double kick drum sound and blitzkrieg style is a standout from the very first seconds of opening track “Exciter,” one of the songs that set the stage for the speed and thrash metal of the 1980s. The album, considered by many fans to be one of the group’s finest efforts, featured a rare co-songwriting credit for Binks on the ominous prog-metal shouter “Beyond the Realms of Death.”
Binks also appeared on the follow-up, 1978’s Killing Machine (which was released as Hell Bent for Leather in the U.S.), the most commercially oriented collection to date from the Priest, and the LP that would also mark his swan song with the group. Anchored by meaty rock anthems such as “Rock Forever” and the raucous “Hell Bent For Leather,” the album set the stage for what would become the band’s commercial breakthrough on 1980s British Steel, which featured the hits “Living After Midnight” and Beavis and Butt-Head favorite “Breaking the Law”; Binks was replaced on that album by former Trapeze drummer Dave Holland.
Binks’ final record with Judas Priest would be the band’s 1979 Unleashed in the East live album recorded in Tokyo earlier that year, after which he split following a reported dispute with band manager Mike Dolan over compensation for the live LP.
The drummer played with a series of other bands throughout the 1980s and ’90s (Lionhearted, Tytan) and formed the all-star Priest cover band Les Binks’ Priesthood, in 2017. In a testament to the crucial role he played in the development of Judas Priest’s sound, Binks was on stage with the rest of Priest in 2022 when the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and performed as part of their three-song set in one of his final public appearances before his death.
Check out their performance at the RRHOF ceremony below.
Netflix’s Adolescence has got the world talking. The four-part drama covers the fallout from a brutal murder of a teenage girl by her male classmate following his radicalisation by misogynistic content online. The Guardian called it “the closest thing to TV perfection in decades” and the topics raised on the show – incel culture; Andrew Tate’s influence on young boys; the dangers of the manosphere – are brought back to the forefront of U.K. and global political discourse.
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That’s without mentioning the technical triumph the show achieves. Directed by Philip Barantini (Boiling Point), the show uses one-take shots for entire episodes, allowing tension to build and to demand viewers attention; to pick up intimate moments of doubt, fear and sadness. It is a show of rare brilliance and massive U.K. success story; upon release, episode one pulled the largest ever audience for any streaming TV show in the UK in a single week.
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The show – spoilers ahead – culminates with a devastating moment. Stephen Graham (This is England, Boiling Point), whose son is accused and convicted of the aforementioned murder, is trying to keep the family together amidst the turmoil. In the final scene of episode four, Graham’s character heads to his son’s bedroom and breaks down in tears full of sorrow, rage and despair. The scene is soundtracked by Aurora’s 2016 single “Through the Eyes of a Child,” which was first released via Decca Records on her debut LP All My Demons Greeting Me as a Friend.
The song has been boosted with over five million streams since the show’s release, and had success on the Global and U.K. Shazam charts. A decade down the line, the Norwegian’s poignant track is now resurging with new meaning and reaching fans all over again.
In an exclusive chat with Billboard U.K., director Barantini and Aurora discuss the song’s place in the show, the vital conversation the show has renewed and the possibility of a second season of Adolescence.
Philip, when did you first hear Aurora’s song?
Philip: Well, I have been a fan for a long time of yours, Aurora. I think you’re incredible. We were in the writing stage of Adolescence and we’d had a first script written for the first episode. We were driving to look at some locations actually, and the song just came on in the car on a playlist from my phone.
The timing of it… it was like something in the air. I’d heard the song before, but the words didn’t really hit me as much because we were talking about this adolescent child and this whole thing. I listened to it, and honestly, I could not stop crying in the car; so in my head, I knew that was going to be in the show.
How does that make you feel, Aurora? I mean, to know that it was so integral to the writing process so early…
Aurora: It’s absolutely beautiful. I feel very honored. It’s always so nice when something that you’ve created from your soul, and obviously kind of at the same age of the characters in Adolescence — which is also very heartwarming, to hear the vocals of me from such a long time ago being sung almost like a classmate, like one of them in the show.Also the fact that this show, the actors and the dialogues and the music and the way it was filmed, it’s a piece of art. It’s so deep. You can sit and discuss it for hours and hours, which I love because there are a few things now I feel that come out and touch you, because we are so used to consuming things without being deeply disturbed or moved these days.
Did you have a feeling you were onto something special?
Philip: Of course you never know. You sort of hope, don’t you? I always wanted it to be a conversation starter, or certainly for people to take different things away from it and have their own experience with it. There was definitely that feeling when we were on set. When we screened it to people, the audience were having the same reaction, but I did not think for one second it would be doing what it’s doing and still continues to do.
Aurora, the song that was first released in 2016. How does it feel to see it be repurposed almost a decade later?
Auroa: That’s the curse and the gift in making things and giving them to the world. They’re no longer yours and belong to everyone, which also makes it possible for them to be revived again and again through different emotions and through different eyes and ears. I love the way this show kind of has changed a bit now what the song means to me. I’m very grateful to have the fire in me reignited when I sing this song now, and I feel very, very grateful that this show has done that.
It’s like every song has arms that stretch out and wants to hold the whole world. But every song kind of finds a group to hold at the time. And I feel like this show and you, Philip, have helped this song stretch its arms even further to hold a new group.
AURORA
Wanda Martin
How did it feel when you saw the final scene and your song came in?
Aurora: I didn’t know how the song was going to be there, or if it was going to be in the scene, or just at the end. So I kind of had forgotten by the last scene, because obviously the show had such a hard grip on me that I couldn’t leave the screen. I don’t think I blinked either as the scene just kept going and going without cutting. It had such a hold on me, which was beautiful to be held like that by a show. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this gripping feeling. But then I had forgotten by the end of the show that I was going to be on it because I was just completely taken away and apart by the show.
I almost didn’t feel like it was me [singing]. I just felt like it was a child who knows how it is to be at the age of losing childhood. It’s a weird balance for people that age. I felt like I heard it from a child singing to me as well, for me to also relearn something I had forgotten as an adult. So it felt like it wasn’t me, if that makes sense. The universe kind of just chooses for you.
Needle drops are always difficult to get right. Did you feel that pressure Philip?
Philip: We talked about music a lot in this show, and whether we were going to have any music at all because I’d done a movie called Boiling Point, which we didn’t have any music in. That was also shot in one take, and it was a very conscious decision to not have music in it. But with Adolescence, it became apparent quite early on that music is going to help us here. I always knew that I wanted to have the needle drop at the end of episode, two with the choir and the kids’ voices. But then with this, “Through the Eyes of a Child” at the end of episode four — it was just like, that is the perfect song to end the whole show on.
How does it feel to lead on a conversation around topics like incel culture and violence towards girls and women?
Philip: We started the discussions about making something because of a couple of things that we’d seen over the last few years. What drives a young boy to pick up a knife and kill a young girl at that age? We did a lot of research into the incel culture and toxic masculinity and all of these things, and it was really deeper than what I thought. I didn’t understand it at the beginning. I thought I had a small understanding of it — but Jack Thorne, one of our writers, went on a real deep dive. It’s absolutely terrifying.
It’s a terrifying state that we’re in at the minute with our children. I would hate to be a teenager in this day and age. Obviously, the internet can be a very amazing thing, and social media too, but it also can be really dark as well. I’m just incredibly proud and honored to be part of this because we have started a conversation and not just in the U.K. but globally. This is a big global issue. I think it has been a part of a tiny little stone that we’ve dropped into the middle of the ocean and now the ripple effect is doing what it’s doing. It really does hurt my heart, but it also melts it as well.
Aurora, what have you seen from the response from people towards the show and the topics that are raised in it?
Aurora: I’m just happy to see people discussing, even arguing because it’s all engagement. Hidden issues like this only reach the public when it’s too late. Every time this happens, it’s already too late to bring it up, because it should never have been an issue in the first place. But the way the world is, is that we’re so in touch with each other and things are quite unfair in this world. It’s quite an unjust world. We are also so aware of how unjust it is, and then we’re being misled in who’s to blame for why we’re sad and why we are feeling like we’re being treated in an unjust way.
There’s a report on Deadline that a second season could be in the works. What’s your feeling on that?
Philip: Look, there are so many stories to tell about adolescence: boys and girls. It is a minefield. So I’m sure there’s more stories to tell, but whether we do… I’ll be honest with you, we’ve been talking for a long time about whether we should do another one or how we do another one. Obviously with the success of this one, it’s something we will look at and see what we can come up with. But there’s nothing set in stone or anything like that.
HipHopWired Featured Video
Source: Julia Beverly / Getty
Houston rapper Mike Jones is back in the spotlight, not with a new single but with a legendary reminder of one of hip-hop’s most iconic phone numbers.
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Over the weekend, he linked up with rising Bay Area star LaRussell for a live show where they performed Jones’ 2004 hit “Still Tippin.” As the crowd roared and chanted the unforgettable “281-330-8004,” Mike grabbed the mic and confirmed what fans had long speculated: “And I still got that number today / 20 years in this b*tch, LaRussell, I don’t play!”
“Still Tippin,” the breakout single from “Who Is Mike Jones?“, catapulted Jones into national fame alongside fellow Houston rap icons Paul Wall and Slim Thug. Which dropped in November 2004, the track was a Southern anthem that brought chopped and screwed culture into the mainstream. The chopped and screwed hook and slow-rolling beat became an INSTANT classic, earning the track platinum status and solidifying its place in Hip-Hop history.
Following the success of his debut album, Jones released The American Dream EP in 2007 and his second studio album, The Voice, in 2009, featuring tracks like “Cuddy Buddy” and “Next to You.” Though his stardom has faded, his influence on Southern Hip-Hop remains strong. While not extensive, the Texas rappers’ discography captures the raw energy of Houston’s rap scene in the 2000s. Whether he’s dropping new music or proving he still owns the most famous number in rap, Mike Jones continues to hold a respected place in Hip-Hop culture.
Check out the full Mike Jones backyard performance with LaRussell below:
Fiddler Deanie Richardson was about to go onstage for a sound check at the Grand Ole Opry in 2023 when she got word that her father had died.
He had abused Richardson verbally, physically and — during her teens — sexually. She had longed for his passing for years, but now that the moment had come, she experienced a complicated mix of emotions. She was sad to have never had the kind of supportive dad that she deserved. But she simultaneously sensed something new and hopeful.
“It felt like all the chains [were broken],” says Richardson, a founding member of all-female bluegrass group Sister Sadie. “I felt like a prisoner to him my whole life. But that moment, I felt free, and for the first time in my life, I got onstage and I felt like I was playing for me.”
Her father had been abused by his father, and when he got Richardson’s mother pregnant at age 16, he resented the marriage and the child. He dealt with his anger in the same way he had learned from his father, doling out severe levels of abuse to the family.
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After his death, Richardson, Erin Enderlin and Sister Sadie lead singer Dani Flowers co-wrote “Let the Circle Be Broken,” bending the title of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” a country standard that has been shared through multiple generations. They wrote it in a way that was “less about what I experienced and more about how I chose to stop it,” Richardson says. “It can die right here.”
Sister Sadie released the song on April 4. It captures Richardson taking control over her life and demanding to tell her story, which she believes can help other females in similar situations. But it also parallels the way that women in country have evolved creatively.
“I think Deanie’s story can be a powerful metaphor for what is happening with women in country music,” says Middle Tennessee State University College of Media and Entertainment dean Beverly Keel, a co-founder of Change the Conversation, a Nashville organization that supports women in the music business. “They are reclaiming the narrative and sharing things from their perspective.”
Murder Ballads: Illustrated Lyrics & Lore (April 29, Andrews McMeel/Simon & Schuster), authored by Katy Horan, documents some of the most horrific male aggression toward women. It compiles the histories of numerous early folk and country songs about stabbings and drownings, including songs in which men kill women, usually to hide an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. The perpetrators prioritize their reputations in the community over the life of their girlfriends, who would have been viewed more like an accessory than an equal partner in that era.
“These songs were used to force women to control their behavior,” Horan notes, “but they never hold men accountable.”
Caroline Jones‘ first BMLG release — “No Tellin’,” out March 28 — finds her mining an abusive relationship from her youth, demonstrating how bringing oppression out of the shadows can deflate its power.
“The shame and the manipulation around secrets is the way that people are able to stay in abusive situations,” Jones notes. “The song is about the freedom of telling the truth, because as long as something is a secret, there’s no oxygen around it, and the only story that you know is the one that you’ve been told. Once you tell the story to other people, you can get a different truth from people that truly love you.”
Richardson carried the secret that inspired “Let the Circle Be Broken” for years as she became a prominent Nashville musician. She toured with the likes of Patty Loveless, Bob Seger and Vince Gill, and regularly plays fiddle during the Country Music Hall of Fame inductions as a member of the Medallion All-Star Band. Sister Sadie became the first all-female ensemble to win the International Bluegrass Musicians Association’s entertainer of the year award. Richardson, after first playing the Opry at age 13, became a regular member of the show’s band. Her father inevitably haunted those performances.
“I knew every night he was listening, and I knew I was going to get the same reaction on the way home from the Opry,” she recalls. “I would call him and I would just ask if he had been listening, hoping to get some sort of encouragement, hoping that one day he’s going to say, ‘Wow, you really killed it tonight.’ But it was always some sort of little jab, you know — it was always ‘not good enough’ or ‘never going to measure up.’ But I was always trying, at least before he died, to get that one moment where he said, ‘Wow, you’re really fucking good.’ “
Abuse, she would discover, has affected a number of people that she knows, but was allowed to flourish in silence.
Hiding the violence, as they did in her house, mirrors the way society treated it until the late 1800s, when laws were first enacted in some states that made domestic assault a crime. Though discussed rarely in everyday conversations, the subject found its way into murder ballads such as “Ommie Wise,” “Delia’s Gone” or “Knoxville Girl,” covered by The Louvin Brothers in 1956.
“They’re so damn chipper when they’re singing that song,” Horan says. “It’s so weird.”
The women in the murder ballads were almost uniformly desirable, and they were pitied in their deaths, but also blamed for them. By killing them, the murderers were able to gain full control since the dead women could no longer act of their own accord.
“The dead white woman is almost like this image of perfection,” Horan says. “She has no agency. She cannot transgress any rules. She is perfect in her stillness.”
The threat of violence is one of the methods that abusers use to control others. Richardson witnessed that in her father.
“He controlled how I wore my hair, the clothes I wore, who I talked to at school every single day,” she remembers. “As a teenager, my stomach was just in knots knowing at 3:30 he was going to walk through that door and I was going to have to endure all these questions: ‘Who’d you talk to today?’ ‘Who’d you sit with at lunch?’ ‘Did you talk to any boys?’ There was anxiety every single day, just living with him.”
She knew the penalties if she didn’t please him.
“He would crush my fingers if I didn’t play the way he wanted me to play,” she says. “He was just very, very abusive on all fronts.”
Several generations of women have retaliated against that kind of abuse, though progress is typically gradual. That was particularly true in country music. Kitty Wells was the first female to earn a No. 1 single in 1952 with “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels,” an “answer song” to Hank Thompson‘s “The Wild Side of Life,” which blamed a man’s heartbreak on female philandering.
Women were, for years, widely referred to condescendingly in country as “girl singers.” Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, Martina McBride, The Chicks and Carrie Underwood were among those whose music supported females claiming their independence, in some cases taking revenge for domestic violence.
During the bro-country era in the last decade, women were often reduced to sexual objects, and their voices were mostly silenced as airplay waned for many females. Those who broke through — particularly Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves — embraced empowerment themes.
By building on the strength of the women who preceded them, country females in 2025 continue to push the boundaries. A trio of current songs — Ella Langley‘s “you look like you love me” (a collaboration with Riley Green), Dasha‘s “Not at This Party” and Chappell Roan‘s “The Giver” — feature women in frank discussions about their most private moments. Instead of repressing their personalities, as they would have likely been forced to do in previous generations, they are operating in control of their own stories and their relationships.
“They’re owning all the aspects of their life: their needs, their desires, their hurts, their pains, their dreams, and they’re not ashamed by any of it,” Keel says. “Shame and blame have been so strong in so many women’s lives.”
These songs would have likely been poorly received in previous eras. But instead of being shunned, Langley is the Academy of Country Music’s top nominee and Roan earned a No. 1 single on Hot Country Songs. Dasha, an ACM nominee for new female vocalist of the year, is insistent that women should fight for their full expression.
“No one else is going to do it,” Dasha says.
The current generation of country women is addressing difficult topics more readily than ever, pushing the envelope in their frankness about relationships, but also increasingly pulling the curtain back on the family secrets.
“A lot of these things are being addressed as never before, so I think it makes for a much more open conversation,” Jones says. “And I feel very lucky to be living in a time when that’s possible, because we’re going to help a lot of people.”
Women may need to fight to maintain that possibility. Recent national developments — from the Supreme Court’s rulings on abortion to the dismissal of several women in leadership roles — have reduced the gender’s autonomy and influence.
“We’ve got the federal government erasing the history, experiences and accomplishments of women on their websites and in their language,” Keel says. “Female military leaders are getting fired, so we need to hear about the entire female experience.”
Richardson personifies country females’ creative development. After hiding the misery of her family’s abuse for most of her life, she has publicly shared her story in “Let the Circle Be Broken,” conquering her father’s domination each time Sister Sadie plays it.
“When we do this song every night, it’s coming out of my fiddle, which is so ironic and so therapeutic because the fiddle was a thing that he tried to control,” she says. “And now I’m up there playing this song about him, and every night we do this improv thing at the end of it where I just play as long as I want to play. Some nights I just cry and play. And some nights I play for five minutes. It just depends on what I need.”
Just as Richardson has claimed the freedom to tell her story in recent years, the women of country have fought for the same privilege.
“We’ve gone from women being impregnated and killed, and everything blamed on them, to women singing about, ‘Hey, I’m going to rock your world tonight,’ ” Richardson says. “That feels very empowering to me.”
All Things Go festival will return to the Washington, D.C. area this fall with headliners Noah Kahan, Lucy Dacus and Doechii, who will be performing her first-ever festival headlining slot. The three-day festival will also feature performances from Clairo, Kesha, The Marías, MARINA, DJO, Julien Baker & Torres, and Lola Young.
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Set for Sept. 26-28, the festival returns to its iconic venue Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md. The 11th edition of the festival promises another year of incredible performances from established and emerging artists across a myriad of genres, with the majority of artists identifying as women or non-binary. With a welcoming and diverse environment, the festival has been dubbed “Gay-chella,” “All Things Gay” and “Lesbopalooza” over the years.
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Additional performers include The Last Dinner Party, Faye Webster, Role Model, Wallows, Griff, Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory, Lucius, The Beaches, Joy Oladokun, G Flip, The Backseat Lovers, Hippo Campus, Orion Sun, Bartees Strange, Gigi Perez, Ashe, Rachel Chinouriri, MICHELLE and Molly Grace.
In 2023, the festival expanded from one to two days with performances from Lana Del Rey, Maggie Rogers, boygenius and Carly Rae Jepsen. In 2024, All Things Go added a simultaneous weekend in New York. The lineup announcement for ATG Festival 2025 in New York at Forest Hills Stadium will be announced soon.
Tickets for the Merriweather Post Pavilion edition of the festival will go on sale Thursday at 10am ET. Public on sale will begin on Friday. Head here for tickets and the full DC-area lineup.
Sam Fender has shared that he once turned down the opportunity to perform alongside Joni Mitchell.
In a new interview at Coachella with radio station KROQ, the North Shields songwriter revealed that he was once offered the chance to perform with the seminal folk artist as part of her “Joni Jams” series, but turned down the slot down due to nerves.
Fender went on to explain that Mitchell — who has a long history of hosting jam sessions in her living room with musicians — invited him to perform at her home in California. “Can I tell you something mental? I got offered to go to a ‘Joni Jam.’ You know how people were going to Joni’s house, and I didn’t go,” he told KROQ.
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“Honestly, it was nerves. I was like, ‘There’s no way I can sit next to Joni Mitchell and be like do you want to listen to this?’” he added. “I was like, ‘Does she even want these people around?’ Obviously, she did, but yeah, I got offered the chance to go, and I bottled it. I completely bottled it. It’s one of my great regrets, it really plays on my mind.”
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The Joni Jams began as an intimate performance series after Mitchell suffered a stroke in 2015. Organized by fellow singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, close friends and collaborators would play her music for Mitchell as she recovered, with everyone from Elton John, to Paul McCartney, Harry Styles and others rumored to have been involved over the years.
The sessions later expanded to include public performances. In 2023, the 27,000-capacity Gorge Amphitheater in Quincy, Washington, played host to a Jam featuring appearances from Mitchell and Carlile, plus a star-studded guest list including Marcus Mumford, Annie Lennox, Allison Russell, Sarah McLachlan and Lucius.
At the time, it had been 20 years since the “Blue” singer had performed live due to several health issues that plagued the 81-year-old icon, leading to her staying out of the public eye for nearly two decades.
Mitchell made headlines again earlier this year when she took to the stage as part of the LA FireAid charitybenefit show. She was joined by Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes, Lucius, Taylor MacKall, Blake Mills and Abe Rounds, following a moving set at the 2024 Grammy Awards ceremony.
Fender, meanwhile, has enjoyed a banner year. The singer and guitarist shared his third LP, People Watching, in February, which Billboard U.K. described as “as a grand, emotional record which has the potential to become an instant British classic.”
According to data from the Official Charts Company, the record landed the biggest U.K. opening week for a British solo act since Harry Styles‘ Harry’s House in 2022. It also marked Fender’s biggest-ever opening week, selling more units than his 2019 debut Hypersonic Missiles and 2021’s Mercury Prize-nominated Seventeen Going Under combined.
In recent months, Fender has gone on to win a BRIT award for alternative/rock act, and has taken People Watching on tour across Europe and the U.S., including his debut appearance at Coachella over the weekend (Apr. 12).
This summer, he will perform a string of headline stadium shows in the U.K., with dates in London and Newcastle. £1 from every ticket sold on the run will be donated to select cultural organizations such as Youth Music and Sunday for Sammy to support the arts in the North East of England.
Check out the KROQ interview below.
Los Angeles-based Interscope Geffen A&M (IGA) Records has set down roots in Nashville with the relaunch of the iconic Lost Highway imprint.
Former Thirty Tigers executive Robert Knotts and Universal Music Group Nashville (UMGN) executive Jake Gear will serve as co-heads and executive vps of the resurrected label.
“Lost Highway carved out a special place in the remarkable musical legacy of Nashville. It was a left-of-center label with one-of-a-kind artists who, at their core, were great songwriters and moved culture,” John Janick, chairman/CEO of Interscope Capitol and IGA, said in a statement. “Similarly, Interscope has always been a beacon to artists who don’t fit into a box yet are destined to inspire what comes next. With this new chapter in Lost Highway’s history, we are devoted to empowering the next generation of trailblazers, both artists and executives.”
The revered label, which takes its name from the song made famous in 1949 by Hank Williams, had been dormant for 13 years after being launched by then-UMGN head Luke Lewis in 2000, who retired in 2012.
From the start, Lewis and his team curated a tasty roster focused on roots-leaning music from artists including Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Ryan Bingham, Hayes Carll, Mary Gauthier, Lyle Lovett and Kacey Musgraves, who signed with the label in 2011, shortly before it was folded into Mercury Nashville.
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Lost Highway was also home to soundtracks, including the T Bone Burnett-produced, Grammy-winning O Brother, Where Art Thou.
Lost Highway
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Janick says he picked Knotts and Gear because their musical aesthetic matches the imprint’s storied history. While at Thirty Tigers, where he rose to senior vp of artist and label services, Knotts worked with such artists as Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Sturgill Simpson, Turnpike Troubadours, Muscadine Bloodline and more.
“Over the course of my career, my goal has always been to operate in service to the artist’s vision while understanding the emotional connection to their art. It is with this same spirit that Lost Highway left a lasting impact on the Nashville community — providing a home for artists who aren’t defined by genre and recognizing that the artist’s vision ultimately shapes culture itself,” Knotts said. “I am honored to carry that approach forward alongside one of my closest friends, Jake Gear. With John Janick’s guidance, and support from the entire Interscope team, we have an incredible opportunity to combine an artist-first mentality with Interscope’s remarkable ability to help build worlds around an artist’s vision.”
Gear was most recently vp of A&R at UMG Nashville, where he signed and/or developed upstarts Tucker Wetmore and Vincent Mason and A&R’d projects by Parker McCollum, Dierks Bentley, Jordan Davis, Sam Hunt and Brothers Osborne, among others.
“Lost Highway has a rich history. Many of these releases and artists were formative in developing my own appreciation of the craft of songwriting,” Gear said. “The label was a pioneer in taste, representing an ethos of artistry first, an openness to taking creative risks and shining a light on artists who drifted on the fringes of the major label defined ‘mainstream.’ Together with my friend, Robert, and with the backing of John Janick and Interscope, I look forward to curating the roster.”
Lost Highway was briefly resurrected earlier this year by UMG Nashville’s chair/CEO Cindy Mabe, who exited the label in February, in partnership with iconic producer Burnett. Their first release under the revamped Lost Highway was Ringo Starr’s country album, Look Up, which came out Jan. 10. Burnett will now work with the IGA iteration, including on a 25th anniversary edition of the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. A release date on the reissue, artists on the roster and staffing are expected to be announced shortly.
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Donald Trump is arguably the most hated man in the world right now (Elon Musk is a close second), and though he has the support of some artists in the Hip-Hop community, Lizzo has just let it be known that she isn’t one of them.
On Saturday night (April 12), Lizzo was the musical guest star on Saturday Night Live and during her performance she threw a little shade at the tariff obsessed dictator and for that we love her that much more. During her musical set she performed “Love In Real Life” and “Still Bad” in a crop top with one simple word: “TARIFFIED,” a clever play on the word that’s been the topic of discussion for the past few weeks and how Americans (and the world) have been feeling in general ever since Trump took office. The shirt is an obvious jab at Donald Trump and his administration’s continuous assault on democracy and everything decent about America.
Though Trump’s back-and-forth decisions on his unnecessary tariffs on China and islands of penguins is being called “market manipulation” and has spurred allegations of insider trading by his inner circle, expect more of the same in the coming future as the 90-day pause on tariffs leaves much room and time for more chaotic “negotiation” methods on Trump’s behalf.
In other words, be “tariffied” of what’s to come as Donald Trump continues to do what he can to tank the American economy to enrich his millionaire and billionaire buddies.
Check out Lizzo perform in her clever shirt and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
Katy Perry brought a few earthbound things with her during her 10-minute trip to outer space. After blasting off in a Blue Origin rocket on Monday morning (April 14) as part of an all-female crew that briefly achieved weightlessness at approximately 62 miles above Earth, Perry posted a video from her space adventure on Tuesday morning (April 15).
The clip shot inside the nose cone of the flight from Amazon owner Jeff Bezos’ rocket company showed the singer and her fellow space voyagers — CBS Morning co-host Gayle King, pilot and Bezos fiancée Lauren Sánchez, bioastronautics research scientist and astronaut Amanda Nguyen, NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe and filmmaker Kerianne Flynn — gathering in the middle of the ship as they floated around in their body-hugging custom blue space suits.
The women, their hair floating freely behind them, give the camera a loud “whooo!” before approaching the lens to show off the special tokens they brought with them on the journey. Perry, 40, showed of a single daisy, which she brought along to honor her four-year-old daughter with fiancé actor Orlando Bloom, Daisy Dove. The couple have kept Daisy out of the spotlight to date, but the preschooler who showed up in her own silver space suit to the launch was beaming in footage of the rocket ride as she said, “My mama!”
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Right after the crew marveled at their view of the moon, Perry floated by once again with a butterfly-shaped piece of paper that featured what she said is the setlist for her upcoming Lifetimes world tour. Though the print was a bit too small to read, Katy Cat sleuths pulled out their magnifying glasses and sussed out a few titles, including: “Chained to the Rhythm,” “Teary Eyes,” “Dark Horse,” “Harleys in Hawaii,” “OK,” “I Kissed a Girl,” “Has a Heart,” “Last Friday Night,” “Teenage Dream” and others. The video was cued to the the song “Wonder” from Perry’ 2024 143 album; the global Lifetimes tour will kick off in Mexico City on April 23.
In the caption to the video, Perry wrote, “One day when you’re older, will YOU still look up in wonder? Still processing this incredible journey ✨ Thank you @blueorigin and to my space sisters, taking up space AND making room in space for all – 143. See you on tour (when I come down, figuratively).”
According to King, Perry sang a bit of the Louis Armstrong classic “What a Wonderful World” as the space tourists strapped back into their seats for the descent, with the singer trying to sum up the wonder of the moment afterwards. “I feel super connected to love,” she said after kissing the ground following touchdown. “So connected to love. I think this experience has show me you never know how much love is inside you, how much love you have to give, and how loved you are until the day you launch.”
Describing the launch and return, Perry said it was “the highest high. It is surrender to the unknown, trust. This whole journey is not about just going to space. It’s the training, the team, it’s the whole thing. I couldn’t recommend this experience more.” Asked to rate it, she gave the trip a “10 out of 10,” saying it was second only to becoming a mom.
Check out the video below.