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10 Nov 2023

George Birge Hits Country Airplay Top 10 on His First Try With ‘Mind on You’

George Birge’s rookie solo hit on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, “Mind on You,” hits the top 10, rising to No. 10 on the survey dated Nov. 18. It drew 19 million audience impressions, up 6%, Nov. 3-9, according to Luminate.

Birge, who is based in Nashville and originally from Austin, Texas, is formerly half of the duo Waterloo Revival, with Cody Cooper. The pair released two singles on Big Machine Records, “Hit the Road” and “Bad for You,” which reached Nos. 51 and 52, respectively, on Country Airplay in 2015. Birge signed his solo deal with RECORDS Nashville in June 2021.

“Mind on You,” which Birge co-wrote with Colt Ford and Michael Tyler, marks the first freshman entry to reach the Country Airplay upper tier since Megan Moroney’s “Tennessee Orange,” which hit No. 4 in June.

Among solo men before Birge, Corey Kent last sent a first Country Airplay hit to the top 10 with “Wild as Her,” which climbed to No. 3 in May.

Not Their First ‘Rodeo’

Garth Brooks and Ronnie Dunn’s “Rodeo Man” arrives on Country Airplay at No. 26 with 6.6 impressions after four days of airplay. Dunn is, of course, half of Brooks & Dunn with another notable Brooks, Kix Brooks.

The single arrived Nov. 6 and was helped by hourly plays that day on participating iHeartMedia stations. It’s the lead single from Brooks’ new album, Time Traveler, which was released Nov. 7 as part of his latest Limited Series collection. The seven-disc set was issued exclusively through Bass Pro Shops.

“Rodeo Man” marks Dunn’s 10th solo Country Airplay entry and highest entrance. Brooks banks his 93rd career title on the survey, the third-most dating to the chart’s January 1990 inception, after George Strait (100) and Kenny Chesney (96).

Another Ride for ‘Pickup Man’

Also entering Country Airplay is the late Joe Diffie’s “Pickup Man,” featuring Post Malone, at No. 56 with 826,000 audience impressions. The original by Diffie became his fourth of five leaders in December 1994. In one of the highlights of the 56th Annual Country Music Association Awards (Nov. 8), HARDY, Post Malone and Morgan Wallen performed “Pickup Man” in a medley after HARDY and Wallen sang “John Deere Green,” a No. 5 hit for Diffie in March 1994.

Diffie and Post Malone’s virtual-duet “Pickup Man” (with Diffie’s vocals recorded in 2006) and Wallen and HARDY’s version of “John Deere Green” were both released Nov. 9, and preview HARDY’s full Diffie tribute Hixtape Vol. 3: Difftape, due March 29.

Diffie passed away on March 29, 2020, from complications due to COVID-19. He was 61.

Pop star Post Malone makes his first appearance on Country Airplay. He boasts 10 No. 1s on the Rhythmic Airplay chart and five leaders on Pop Airplay, among other chart achievements.

All Nov. 18-dated Billboard charts will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

10 Nov 2023

Miley Cyrus Celebrates Her Grammy Nominations: ‘Watching Women Win & Rule the Music Industry Makes Me Proud’

Miley Cyrus scored her first Grammy nomination for her own music in over a decade on Friday (Nov. 10). Hours after the Recording Academy’s announcement of the 2024 Grammy nominations, the “Used to Be Young” singer took to X (formerly Twitter) to share a message of gratitude.

“Congratulations to all of this [year’s] Grammy nominees. Watching women win & rule the music industry makes me proud,” she wrote. “It’s fun to be nominated & exciting to win but having my music be LOVED around the world is the real trophy.”

“To my Smilers – I celebrate YOU today. Your joy is my bliss,” she continued. “My team + all of my collaborators are irreplaceable & priceless pieces of this puzzle. I love you all. Thank you for making my Endless Summer Vacation so sweet.”

The 2024 Grammy nominations were dominated by women, with SZA (nine), Victoria Monét and Phoebe Bridgers (seven each) leading the pack. Cyrus scored six nods, including album of the year for Endless Summer Vacation, best pop duo/group performance for her Brandi Carlile-assisted “Thousand Miles” and three nominations — best pop solo performance and record and song of the year — for her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 smash hit “Flowers.”

Cyrus’ six new Grammy nominations are a sweet bookend to what has been a dominant year for the chameleonic pop star. At the top of the year, “Flowers” spent eight weeks atop the Hot 100, while its parent album, Endless Summer Vacation, climbed all the way to No. 3 on the Billboard 200, becoming her 14th top 10 entry on the ranking. An additional Hot 100 top 10 hit arrived in September by way of “Used to Be Young” (No. 8), a bonus track added to an Aug. 25 digital reissue of Endless Summer Vacation.

Check out Miley’s full message below:

10 Nov 2023

Amazon’s Portable Fireplace Provides ‘Amazing Ambience’ & It’s 10% Off

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

Not every space is granted a the luxury of a built-in fireplace, and as the weather cools down, the heating bill usually goes up. Rather than bump up your heater or throw on an oversized parka, a portable fireplace offers a compact solution you can use indoors or outdoors, while potentially helping you save money on your electricity bill — and Amazon’s got one from Houswise that reviewers claim provides “amazing ambience” and “heats up quickly.”

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Bring coziness to your home without having to bundle up with layers of blankets using Houswise’s tabletop fireplace. It’s not only available in two sizes — a large rectangle and small round version — but is currently 10% off, dropping the price down to less than $100. You can also opt for the smaller version at $35. Each use can be personalized to your needs, whether you want to set a comfy ambiance on a cold winter’s day or toast some marshmallows around the fire with your friends.

You can even choose between three different colors — black, gray and white — to help it fit your home’s aesthetic.

Keep reading to shop the deal.

gray rectangular portable fireplace on top of wooden table

Amazon

Houswise Tabletop Fire Pit

$89.99

$99.99

10% off

The tabletop fire pit comes designed with a durable concrete material to insulate the heat and keep the fire from escaping. The bottom is made from a ceramic material to protect your furniture and keep it in pristine shape. No batteries are required when using it, either! Just add in the brand’s fire fuel and it will emit an odorless and toxic-free flame for up to one hour. As an added bonus, you’ll also receive a couple of roasting sticks for s’mores.

For more product recommendations, check out our roundups of the best portable grills, cookware deals and dorm essentials.

10 Nov 2023

Watch Travis Barker Drum to His Newborn’s Heartbeat

Who needs a metronome when you have your newborn baby’s heartbeat? That appears to be Travis Barker‘s line of thinking based on a new video uploaded to TikTok on Thursday (Nov. 9).

“Practicing to my babies heartbeat ?,” the blink-182 drummer captioned the post — which featured him beating a drum pad with a rapid rhythm based on the sound of his newborn’s heartbeat. Barker sits in what looks to be a hospital room or doctor’s office, with medical equipment all around him in the clip, driving home the recent arrival of his latest bundle of joy.

On Nov. 4, sources confirmed to People that Kourtney Kardashian had given birth to her first child with husband Barker. A baby boy, the couple’s first child joins Kardashian’s three elder children from a years-long relationship with reality TV personality Scott Disick: son Mason, 13, daughter Penelope, 11, and son Reign, 8. Barker has two older children from a previous marriage to model Shanna Moakler: son Landon, 19, and daughter Alabama, 17, as well as stepdaughter Atiana.

In the days leading up to their baby boy’s arrival, Barker visited the One Life One Chance podcast to reveal that he and Kardashian had chosen to name him Rocky Thirteen Barker. “I was like, ‘He’s going to come out of my wife’s vagina doing front kicks and push-ups,’” Barker quipped, also confirming that his wife was due on Halloween or “the first week of November.”

That projected due date happened to include two very special milestones for Barker. In addition to the birth of his baby boy, the 47-year-old rocker collected a bevy of new Billboard chart achievements. On the Billboard 200 chart dated Nov. 4, Blink-182’s One More Time bowed at the summit with 125,000 equivalent album units.

With that lofty debut, the pop-punk icons now have a Billboard 200-topping album for each decade of the 2000s so far: 2002’s Take Off Your Pants, 2016’s California and this year’s One More Time. The new set also features two back-to-back Alternative Airplay No. 1 hits in “Edging” and its title track, cementing the One More Time era as something of a third career wind for the beloved rockers.

Check out Travis Barker’s heartwarming new TikTok below:

10 Nov 2023

The Beatles Are Back in the Top 10 of a Billboard Airplay Chart With ‘Now and Then’

The Beatles return to the top 10 of a Billboard airplay chart for the first time in 28 years thanks to “Now and Then,” which debuts at No. 9 on the Adult Alternative Airplay tally dated Nov. 18.

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The song marks the legends’ first time in the top 10 of a radio ranking since “Free As a Bird” debuted and peaked at No. 8, in the song’s lone week in the top 10, on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart dated Dec. 9, 1995.

The Beatles chart their first top 10 on Adult Alternative Airplay, which began in 1996. The Beatles placed on the inaugural tally (dated Jan. 20, 1996) with “Free As a Bird,” which peaked at No. 11; follow-up “Real Love” peaked at No. 16 that March, marking the other of their three charted titles on the survey.

Concurrently, “Now and Then” bounds 37-23 in its second week on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart; it debuted on the Nov. 11 ranking following one day of airplay, logged on its release on Nov. 2. The song earned 1.7 million audience impressions in its first full week (Nov. 3-9), according to Luminate. (It drew 1.1 million in reach Nov. 2.)

That first day of streams, airplay and sales enabled “Now and Then” to debut at No. 11 on the Nov. 11-dated Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. In addition to its radio airplay, the song garnered 2.3 million official U.S. streams and sold 17,000 downloads Nov. 2.

The first full week of activity for “Now and Then” (Nov. 3-9) will be reflected on the Nov. 18-dated Billboard charts, which will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Nov. 14.

“Now and Then” is billed as the final Beatles song, first recorded as a demo in 1977 by John Lennon and initially meant for the band’s three-edition Anthology series in the mid-‘90s before being shelved by the surviving members of the band. (“Free As a Bird” and “Real Love” were released from the first and second Anthology editions, respectively.) It was completed and released this year after new technology helped extract Lennon’s vocals from the original demo while also using guitar recordings from George Harrison from the initial attempt to finish the song.

10 Nov 2023

U2 Retakes Sole Possession of Adult Alternative Airplay No. 1s Record Thanks to ‘Atomic City’

U2 returns to the top of Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart for the first time since 2017 and pulls ahead of Coldplay for the most leaders in the chart’s history as “Atomic City” jumps from No. 3 to No. 1 on the ranking dated Nov. 18.

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The song becomes U2’s 14th No. 1 on Adult Alternative Airplay (which began in 1996; the band formed in the 1970s). The Bono-fronted quartet first ruled with “Staring at the Sun,” a seven-week leader beginning in March 1997. The band had last led with “You’re the Best Thing About Me,” also a seven-frame topper, starting in October 2017.

With 14 rulers, U2 surpasses Coldplay for the most No. 1s in the chart’s history.

Most No. 1s, Adult Alternative Airplay:

  • 14, U2
  • 13, Coldplay
  • 11, Jack Johnson
  • 11, Dave Matthews (solo and with Dave Matthews Band)
  • 8, Death Cab for Cutie
  • 8, John Mayer
  • 7, The Black Keys
  • 7, Counting Crows
  • 7, Sheryl Crow
  • 7, R.E.M.

In between “You’re the Best Thing About Me” and “Atomic City,” U2 appeared on Adult Alternative Airplay with four songs, paced by the No. 3-peaking “Get Out of Your Own Way” in 2017-18.

Concurrently, “Atomic City” rises 18-15 on Alternative Airplay, marking the band’s top-charting song since “Get on Your Boots” peaked at No. 5 in February 2009. The new single also lifts 39-35 on Mainstream Rock Airplay.

On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, “Atomic City” ranks at No. 9, after reaching No. 5, with 2.9 million audience impressions Nov. 3-9, according to Luminate.

The song is currently a standalone single amid U2’s Las Vegas concert residency. The band’s most recent full-length album of new material, Songs of Experience, was released in December 2017. Songs of Surrender, a collection of re-recordings covering much of U2’s catalog, arrived in March.

10 Nov 2023

Victoria Monet’s Daughter Hazel, Age 2, Becomes Youngest Ever Grammy Nominee

Hazel Monét, the 2-year-old daughter of budding R&B star Victoria Monét, is now officially the youngest Grammy nominee in history. Hazel Monét is nominated for best traditional R&B performance as a featured artist on her mom’s “Hollywood,” which also features the legendary Earth, Wind Fire.

Monét was born on Feb. 21, 2021, which means she’ll still be a little shy of her third birthday when the 66th annual Grammy Awards are presented at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Feb. 4, 2024.

Leah Peasall had held the record as the youngest Grammy nominee (and winner) as one of The Peasall Sisters, who were credited artists on O Brother, Where Art Thou?. That surprise-hit soundtrack was awarded album of the year on Feb. 27, 2002. Leah was 8 at the time. The rest of the trio consisted of her sister Hannah, then 11, and Sarah, then 14.

The youngest person before this to receive a Grammy nod as an individual – not as a part of a group or duo – was formerly DeLeon Richards, who was 8 years and 161 days in 1985 when she was nominated for best soul gospel performance, female for her Myrrh/Word album DeLeon.

The youngest person ever to win a Grammy as an individual (again, not as a part of group or duo) is Blue Ivy Carter, daughter of Beyoncé and Jay-Z. Blue Ivy shared in the award for best music video for “Brown Skin Girl” on March 14, 2021, when she was 8 years and 322 days old. She was one of three credited artists on the video, along with her mom and Wizkid.

If “Hollywood” wins best traditional R&B performance, Hazel Monét will become the youngest Grammy winner in history, either as a part of a group or duo or as an individual.

Hazel Monét is also credited as a co-writer of “Hollywood,” along with her mom and the song’s producers, D’Mile and Tim Suby. But the song isn’t nominated for a songwriting award.

“Hollywood” is featured on Victoria Monét’s first studio album Jaguar II, which is nominated for best R&B album, one of seven nods Monét received. She is also nominated for record of the year for “On My Mama” and best new artist, among others. Little Hazel also appears in the “On My Mama” music video, which you can view below:

10 Nov 2023

How Taylor Swift’s ‘1989 (Taylor’s Version)’ First-Week Sales Compare to Every Other No. 1 Album Debut This Year

No matter how you Style it, Taylor Swift‘s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) is a juggernaut. The re-recorded set debuted with 1.653 million equivalent album units (EAUs) in the United States in the week ending Nov. 2, according to Luminate, making it far and away the biggest debut for an album so far in 2023. To give a sense of just how phenomenal its performance is, we’ve stacked it up against every other No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 so far this year — a list comprising 15 additional titles in all.

It bears reiterating that first-week EAUs for 1989 (Taylor’s Version) dwarfed those of all other No. 1 albums released this year, topping every other debut week by more than double. That includes her own Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which had the second biggest debut week of the year with 716,000 EAUs in July, as well as the third-place finisher, Morgan Wallen‘s One Thing at a Time, which racked up 501,000 EAUs in its first week. Swift’s top-two placement on the list is a remarkable feat, underlining the fact that in some ways, the megastar’s only real competition these days is herself.

Case in point: In its first week, 1989 (Taylor’s Version)‘s 1.359 million in traditional album sales — a metric that encompasses physical sales (vinyl, CD, cassette) and digital downloads — quickly surpassed 2023’s previous best-seller, Swift’s own Midnights, which dropped in October 2022 and had racked up 791,000 in sales so far this year. Swift also has the third most-sold album of the year with Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), which has racked up sales of 755,000 since its July release. All three got to those numbers due to Swift’s strategy of offering multiple collectible physical formats; in the case of 1989 (Taylor Version), that includes five color vinyl variants, eight CD editions and two cassette editions — not to mention two digital download editions (standard and deluxe).

The strategy of offering multiple physical variants is one that’s also successfully employed by many of today’s top K-pop acts, including three who enjoyed No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 this year: TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Stray Kids and NewJeans. As a result, like Swift, the majority of those acts’ first-week EAUs consist of traditional album sales. The first-week sales of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) comprise a whopping 82.2% of total EAUs — more than any other No. 1 debut album this year aside from TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation EP (94.41%) and Stray Kids’ 5-Star (94.38%). NewJeans’ Get Up EP had nearly as high of a sales percentage at 80.6%. The only other non-K-pop act to boast a similar first-week sales-to-streams ratio was blink-182‘s One More Time…, whose first-week sales made up 81% of total EAUs thanks to the band’s offering of 11 vinyl variants, as well as a CD, cassette and deluxe boxed set.

In fact, the first-week sales of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) were larger than the next five biggest first-week sales tallies of 2023 combined: Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) (507,000), Travis Scott‘s Utopia (252,000), Stray Kids’ 5-Star (235,000), TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s The Name Chapter: Temptation EP (152,000) and Olivia Rodrigo‘s Guts (150,000).

Unlike these top-selling K-pop acts, whose first-week streaming units tend to hover in the low-five-digit range, Swift’s streaming game stacks up well against the heaviest hitters on that metric. 1989 (Taylor’s Version) racked up 294,000 streaming units in its first week, third only to Drake‘s For All the Dogs and Wallen’s One Thing at a Time, which drew 392,000 and 390,000 streaming units, respectively.

10 Nov 2023

Ice Spice, Jelly Roll, Boygenius & More React to Their 2024 Grammy Nominations

2024 Grammy nominations have officially rolled in, which means the stream of ecstatic reactions from artists around the world has begun.

Announced by the Recording Academy on Friday (Nov. 10), this year’s group of nominees spans seasoned Grammy veterans as well as exciting newcomers. Taylor Swift, Jon Batiste, Miley Cyrus, Olivia Rodrigo and SZA are each nominated in the Big Three categories: record of the year, song of the year and album of the year, while other top contenders include Lana Del Rey, Janelle Monáe and Billie Eilish.

Particularly competitive is this year’s best new artist pool, which finds 2023 breakout stars such as Ice Spice, Noah Kahan, Gracie Abrams, Jelly Roll, Victoria Monét and more competing for the coveted trophy. Overall, SZA scored the most nominations with nine total, while Phoebe Bridgers, Monét and engineer-mixer Serban Ghenea follow with seven each.

With the ceremony not until February of next year, all that’s left for artists to do now is sit back, relax and of course, tweet. Many have already taken to social media to thank the Academy, fans and collaborators, marking one of the biggest days in the music industry.

“FOUR GRAMMY NOMINATIONS ?! are u sh—-n me!!! thank YOU ?” tweeted Ice Spice, who’s also up for best pop duo, best rap song and best song written for visual media.

“I haven’t cried like this since it father died,” wrote Jelly Roll in an emotional post. “I literally can’t believe it – as of today I have officially been nominated for 2 Grammys – I am trembling with tears …”

See more artist reactions to the 2024 Grammy nominations below:

10 Nov 2023

Candlebox Frontman Kevin Martin Explains Decision to End Group’s 30-Year Run

Kevin Martin knew there was a chance he might come off ungrateful detailing his many qualms with the music business on the 30th anniversary of Candlebox‘s debut album and its monster single “Far Behind.”

But he did it anyway.

“The industry is completely f***ed,” the 54-year founder and sole original member of the American rock group explained, laying out a litany of indignities and double-standards ruining rock and irritating him as he makes his final trek across the U.S. for Candlebox’s Long Goodbye Tour.

“This tour bus is costing me $1,500 a f***ing day. It’s bullshit. I would’ve paid $400 for this 10 years ago,” he said during an interview with Billboard while parked at the Orange County fairgrounds in Costa Mesa, Calif. “The air conditioning doesn’t work and they hadn’t cleaned the vents or changed the carpets ever. I’m living in a petri dish and it’s disgusting. But of course I’m really grateful for everything,” he jokingly trails off, laughing and smiling as he acknowledges the moment.

Martin then clarifies that he is genuinely grateful to his core fans who have long supported the band, his wife and adult son who he spends months away from each year, and the guys in his band who recorded Candlebox’s seventh and final album, also named The Long Goodbye, which Martin believes is some of the group’s best work.

“I want it to be the defining moment of the band’s career, whatever the f*** that means,” Martin says.

“I don’t know what legacy means in this band’s whole realm because Candlebox has seen so many different incarnations and been pulled in so many different directions.”

Martin grew up in San Antonio and moved to Seattle in 1983 at the age of 14, eventually meeting Scott Mercado and then later guitarist Peter Klett and bassist Bardi Martin. Candlebox was signed by Guy Oseary to Madonna’s Maverick records in 1992 and released their self-titled debut album in 1993, eventually going quadruple platinum, selling more than 4 million albums thanks to heavy radio and MTV play for megahits “Cover Me,” “You” and “Far Behind.”

Despite their success, Seattle’s music scene didnt openly embrace the group with some labeling the band as derivative of the grunge rock scene, while others falsely claimed the band had moved to Seattle to ride the coattails of bands like Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. Martin says that it was Oseary who filled the role of mentor and champion of the band, which Candlebox needed early on.

“As an artist I was at top of my game in the nineties and Maverick was killing it for Candlebox,” Martin said. But drug and alcohol abuse by bandmates “very quickly snuffed out our career” and after recording two more albums – 1995’s Lucy and 1998’s Happy Pills, the band decided to break up. Thanks to a key man clause in Martin’s contract that required him to turn in a fourth album, Martin became trapped in a legal battle for his band and a larger fight between Warner and Maverick. Martin today owns the band and makes decent money collecting royalties but says it took him 13 years to repay Warner Music to recoup a $250,000 advance.

Today, most Candlebox revenue comes from the $2.5 million per year the band generates on tour, playing headline shows and opening for bands like Three Doors Down, who’s support of former President Donald Trump is a frequent punchline on Martin’s bus.

Between the cost of his bus, the wages he pays to his band members and crew, and the non-stop nickel-and-diming he says he faces on a daily basis, he estimates his take home will be between $125,000 to $175,000.

“That’s a pretty shitty return,” he says. “I can’t take it anymore, missing my wife and my son, for this?”

He adds that he finds rock radio to be “pretty vanilla” noting, “You want to know why rock radio sucks? Because every f***ing band on it sucks.” As for labels like Round Hill where Candlebox found a new home, Martin comments that “they’re fine but no one does actual A&R work these days.”

Martin says he doesn’t plan to stop writing music and says the songs on Candlebox’s final album The Long Goodbye, like the track “Cell Phone Jesus,” are a preview of what’s ahead.

“Organized religion to me is the most fucked up thing in the world,” he explains. “We’re more concerned about drag queens than we are about kids getting murdered in f***ing school with assault weapons. It’s terrible we allow kids to go through that because we’re so desensitized by it now. The advice to the artist is don’t say anything . Don’t take a stand. Well I don’t care. F *** you. It’s my last record. What are you going to do to me?”