News
Jordan Davis’ Radio ‘Spins’ Lead to Fourth Country Airplay Chart No. 1
Jordan Davis banks his fourth leader on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart, as “What My World Spins Around” rises from No. 3 to No. 1 on the list dated Jan. 21. In the tracking week ending Jan. 12, the song increased by 14% to 29.9 million impressions, according to Luminate.
Davis co-wrote “World” with Matt Dragstrem and Ryan Hurd. It’s the second single from Davis’ sophomore album, Bluebird Days, due Feb. 17.
“It feels like yesterday I was praying for that first one to ring the bell,” Davis tells Billboard of his latest Country Airplay coronation. “Huge thanks to my friends at country radio and [the MCA Nashville] promo team for believing in this song. When Ryan, Matt and I wrote this song, there was always that little feeling in the back of my mind that this one might be special. Pumped that it’s connected the way it has.”
On the streaming-, airplay- and sales-based Hot Country Songs survey, “World” hit a No. 8 high in December.
For the 34-year-old Davis, from Shreveport, La., “World” follows “Buy Dirt” (featuring Luke Bryan), which dominated Country Airplay for two weeks beginning on the ranking dated Jan. 29, 2022. (The song marked Bryan’s 26th No. 1.) “Dirt” controlled Hot Country Songs for four weeks beginning the same frame, awarding Davis his first No. 1 (and Bryan his most recent of 12 leaders).
Davis notched his first No. 1 on Country Airplay with his launch release “Singles You Up,” which led for a week and reached No. 4 on Hot Country Songs in April 2018. “Take It From Me” followed, peaking at No. 2 on Country Airplay and No. 4 on Hot Country Songs in March 2019; “Slow Dance in a Parking Lot” became the singer-songwriter’s second Country Airplay leader, for a week in April 2020, and hit No. 6 on Hot Country Songs that month; and “Almost Maybes” rose to No. 5 on Country Airplay and No. 7 on Hot Country Songs in July 2021.
Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson’s Best Music Moments
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson quickly became one of the biggest names in Hollywood due to his multifaceted career as a former professional wrestler and football player, Teremana tequila founder and, of course, an actor. He’s known for his roles in Jumanji, The Game Plan, Get Smart, Black Adam, DC League of Super-Pets, the Fast & Furious franchise and so many more.
However, a lesser known fact about the 50-year-old star is that he’s also proficient in the music world. He has shared his musical talents on talk shows, on social media, in films and on actual studio recordings.
As a result, we at Billboard have compiled our favorite music moments by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. See them below in chronological order.
Nicolas Cage ‘Heartbroken’ Over the Death of Ex-Wife Lisa Marie Presley
Nicolas Cage broke his silence Friday (Jan. 13) about the sudden death of his ex-wife Lisa Marie Presley following a heart attack.
“Lisa had the greatest laugh of anyone I ever met,” the Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent actor said in a statement to E! News. “She lit up every room, and I am heartbroken.”
Going on to call the news of Presley’s death “devastating,” he added, “I find some solace believing she is reunited with her son Benjamin.” In July 2020, Lisa Marie’s 27-year-old son Benjamin Keough died by suicide in Calabasas, Calif.
Cage and Presley were married for three and a half months from August to November 2002, though their divorce wasn’t technically finalized until two years later. The actor was Presley’s third husband after musician Danny Keough, to whom she was wed from 1988 to 1994, and Michael Jackson, whom she married just 20 days after her divorce from Keough. She would later go on to marry one more time — to guitarist Michael Lockwood from 2006 to 2021, though they legally split in 2016.
Throughout her life, Presley released three albums: 2003’s To Whom It May Concern, 2005’s Now What and 2012’s Storm & Grace. Both her freshman and sophomore studio sets landed in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 while her 2003 single “Lights Out” peaked at No. 34 on the Pop Airplay chart.
Other stars who have spoken out to remember Presley include Questlove, LeAnn Rimes, Elvis director Baz Luhrmann, Dolly Parton and more.
What Is ChatGPT? & Why Are Teachers Worried About It
Source: NurPhoto / Getty / ChatGPT
Technology, explicitly using artificial intelligence in the classroom, is not a novel idea. It’s welcomed in most cases, but this one form of A.I. called ChatGPT has teachers across the country worrying.
Right off the bat, we know you are asking what ChatGPT is; well, it’s an OpenAI-developed chatbot that is fully capable of writing complete essays plus can, solve math and science problems, oh and can also create working computer code.
That all sounds great, and it is, but the chatbot is already causing educators to panic following its November release. As expected, cheating has become an issue with ChatGPT use among students.
Students are using the A.I. generated essays and passing it off as their work forcing teachers and school administrators to try and weed out the ChatGPT abusers. There are also fears it can also affect their lesson plans.
Cheating is not the only issue. Educators are also worried that ChatGPT will eventually make them no longer needed. Per a New York Times article, one teacher used ChatGPT to evaluate his student’s work, and he found it to be more thorough than he could.
Per The New York Times:
Can ChatGPT Be Beneficial To Education?
Outside of trying to catch students using ChatGPT to cheat, some schools in New York City and Seattle are just blocking it on school computers, networks, and devices.
In the same article, the author argues that blocking ChatGPT is futile mainly because students now have smartphones while arguing how ChatGPT could become a valuable tool for educators if appropriately embraced.
Cherie Shields, a high school English teacher in Oregon, instructed her students to use ChatGPT to create outlines for the essays comparing and contrasting two 19th-century short stories touching on gender and mental health.
What she learned from using ChatGPT in her lesson plan “deepened students’ understanding of the stories. It had also taught them about interacting with A.I. models, and how to coax a helpful response out of one,” the NYT’s article states.
So, while ti is problematic, don’t bet on it going away. It could prove to be very useful.
—
Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
Viola Davis Really Wants to Win at 2023 Grammys to Complete EGOT Status: ‘Throw Me a Bone!’
Viola Davis is one award shy of achieving EGOT status, and at this year’s Grammy Awards, she could get it done. On Thursday night’s (Jan. 12) Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the actress made it clear that she’s not ashamed to campaign for herself.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“I have to tell you — the Grammy thing…I’m a serious actor. I am,” she told the late-night host. “I went to Juilliard [School of the Performing Arts], I feel it’s about the work. [But] it’s like my niece Annabella who had a meltdown at Circus Circus [Las Vegas] when she was 6 years old, snot dripping and crying, and all she was saying was, ‘I wanna win! I wanna win!’ In my brain with the Grammy, I’m like, ‘I wanna win! I wanna win!’”
Davis is nominated at this year’s Grammy Awards in the best audio book, narration & storytelling recording category for her audio book Finding Me. “There’s something in me that says that I deserve it,” she continued. “All of them have already won it!”
She’s right: The other four nominees in the category are all past Grammy winners. Questlove, nominated for Music Is History, is a six-time Grammy winner. Mel Brooks, nominated for All About Me!: My Remarkable Life in Show Business by Mel Brooks, is a three-time Grammy winner – as is Lin-Manuel Miranda, nominated for Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World. Jamie Foxx, who rounds out the category with Act Like You Got Some Sense, has won one Grammy.
Davis tells Kimmel that the Recording Academy “could throw me a bone.” Unfortunately, Davis’ Kimmel appearance came too late to have any impact on the vote: Grammy voting closed Jan. 4.
The actress has previously won a Primetime Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a dramatic series for How to Get Away With Murder (2015), an Oscar for best supporting actress for Fences (2016) and two Tonys – featured actress in a play for King Hedley II (2001) and lead actress in a play for Fences (2010). Should Davis win at the Grammys, she would be the 18th person to achieve EGOT status.
Watch Davis’ interview with Kimmel in the video above.
Madonna to Embark on Career-Spanning 40th Anniversary Tour
Madonna is planning a massive 40th anniversary tour later this year with her longtime concert promotion partner and producer Live Nation and music manager Guy Oseary, sources tell Billboard.
The 64-year-old pop icon will perform music from her entire catalogue, dating back to her 1983 self-titled debut album through her most recent studio album, 2019’s Madame X. The world tour will be Madonna’s first ever career retrospective, featuring a compilation of her biggest hits across four decades of music and will reportedly include a multi-night run at the O2 in London.
“It’s going to be the biggest tour she’s ever done,” one executive familiar with her plans tells Billboard. The tour will include both stadium and arena dates, the source says, and include over-the-top production that delivers both “Material Girl” kitsch and occasionally outrageous sex appeal with plenty of show-stopping moments made for social media.
Billboard has also learned that Oseary will continue to serve on Madonna’s management team, despite stepping down from his role at mega-management collective Maverick in 2020 and splitting with longtime clients U2 in 2022.
The tour buzz comes just months after the “Hey You” singer released her career-spanning compilation album Finally Enough Love: 50 Number Ones, spanning her entire dance club career, featuring remixes by top producers including 20 rare recordings officially released for the first time. In 2021, Madonna signed a deal with Warner Music Group for an “extensive, multi-year series of catalog releases that will revisit the groundbreaking music that made her an international icon.”
Madonna last toured in 2019 and early 2020 on her Madame X tour, a theater run that was struggled through production delays and Madonna’s recurring hip and knee injuries. While the Madame X tour earned strong critical reviews in the press, its habitually late start time often angered ticket holders and prompted two class actions lawsuits from fans.
When it comes to choosing her nightly set list for this new tour, Madonna will have no shortage of songs to choose from with 57 titles charting on the Billboard Hot 100, 38 top 10 hits and 12 No. 1s, including 1990’s “Vogue,” and 2000’s “Music,” released a decade apart and each spending 24 weeks on the Hot 100. Madonna’s “Borderline” from 1984 spent 30 weeks on the Hot 100. She followed that impressive feat a decade later with the ballad “Take a Bow,” which held the No. 1 spot on the Hot 100 for seven weeks.
Madonna’s 2008-2009 Sticky and Sweet Tour is the highest grossing tour by a female artist ever, according to Billboard Boxscore, netting $407 million. Her most recent Madame X theater run grossed $36.4 million with 124,655 ticket sold.
Reps for Madonna could not be reached for comment at time of publishing.
Lisa Marie Presley’s History on Billboard’s Charts: Two Top 10 Albums & More
Lisa Marie Presley made her mark on Billboard’s charts in her lifetime, highlighted by two top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 in the 2000s.
As announced by Priscilla Presley, her mother, the singer-songwriter and only child of Elvis Presley, and ex-wife of Michael Jackson, died Jan. 12, at age 54, after being hospitalized earlier in the day.
Presley made her Billboard chart debut when “Lights On” entered the March 8, 2003-dated Adult Pop Airplay survey. The single went on to hit a No. 18 high, as well as No. 34 on Pop Airplay, that May.
Parent album To Whom It May Concern launched at its No. 5 best on the Billboard 200 in April 2003.
“There is some searing depth to rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous princess, and she has some estimable chops both as singer and songwriter,” Billboard praised in a review of the album a week before it entered the Billboard 200. “Musically, this is sultry, surly mainstream rock with a cutting, contemporary edge. ‘Lights Out’ is a real powerhouse. As a singer, Presley is alternatingly snarling, exposed and defiant. Lyrically, she’s even better – raw, wounded and often pissed off. This project stands on its own.”
Presley followed with Now What, which debuted at its No. 9 Billboard 200 high in April 2005, while the album’s “Dirty Laundry” reached No. 36 on Adult Contemporary. The single updated Don Henley’s critique of a callous media that hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1983 (a cover choice that Billboard’s review of Presley’s version referred to as “telling”).
Both albums were released on Capitol Records. In June 2012, Presley’s Storm & Grace, on XIX/Republic Records, hit No. 45 on the Billboard 200, as well as No. 21 on the Top Rock Albums chart.
Presley’s album sales stand at 836,000, while her songs have drawn 9.5 million official streams (audio and video combined) in the U.S. through Jan. 5, according to Luminate.
Also among Presley’s chart history, she charted two virtual duets with her father: “In the Ghetto,” a reworking of The King’s No. 3-peaking 1969 Hot 100 hit, rose to No. 69 on Digital Song Sales, and “Where No One Stands Alone” reached No. 22 on Christian Digital Song Sales.
DeeDee Kearney, founder/CEO of marketing agency The Moxi Group and formerly Capitol northeast regional promotion manager, shared on Facebook Jan. 12 that she was “incredibly saddened” by the news of Presley’s death. “I worked with her in 2003. We drove to many radio stations together, had lovely dinners, visited five cities and had lots of wonderful talks. Her security guards were next-level, and she dealt with crazy fans in every city we visited. She was kind [and] humble.
“One night, while getting off stage at [Boston’s] Paradise [Rock Club], she came right over to me (me!) and asked if her performance was good. I’ll never forget that moment. I just adored her.”
Watch U2’s Bono & The Edge Return to Dublin With David Letterman in ‘A Sort of Homecoming’ Teaser
Disney+ premiered its first teaser for Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman on Friday (Jan. 13).
“Dublin is a real part of our story,” Bono tells Letterman, adding, “It’s in our songs” before the clip cuts to a live performance of 2004’s “Vertigo.” As a montage of the rockers’ journey back to their homeland flashes across the screen, the U2 frontman’s voice can be heard singing, “Hello, hello/ I’m at a place called Vertigo/ It’s everything I wish I didn’t know/ Except you give me something/ I can feel.”
For his part, a bushy-bearded Letterman seems more than happy to be along for the ride, telling the U2 members, “Many nice things have happened for me in my life; this is right at the top of that list.”
Directed by Academy Award winner Morgan Neville, the documentary will debut March 17 on Disney+ and showcase Bono and The Edge‘s special concert performance in Dublin. A release announcing the special promises it will be “part concert movie, part travel adventure plus a whole lot of Bono and The Edge, with Dave’s humor throughout.”
“Recently, I won a radio contest,” said Letterman in a statement. “Winner gets to visit Dublin with Bono and The Edge (radio contest part not true, but I feel like a winner). They showed me around, introduced me to their musician friends, and performed some of their greatest songs in a small theater. It’s a great tour. Get in touch with them ― I’m told there are still availabilities. I’m the luckiest man on the planet. (There are no availabilities).”
The release of A Sort of Homecoming also happens to coincide with the release of Songs of Surrender, the upcoming compilation of 40 tracks selected from U2’s storied discography — including “One,” “Where the Streets Have No Name,” “Walk On (Ukraine)” and many, many more — which have been re-recorded and entirely reimagined by the band.
Watch the teaser for Bono & The Edge: A Sort of Homecoming, With Dave Letterman below.
Miley Cyrus’ Lead Singles, Ranked: Critic’s Picks
When Miley Cyrus announced that she would be kicking off 2023 with the release of “Flowers,” a new single to precede her forthcoming album Endless Summer Vacation, the news was exciting on two levels: a new Cyrus single was coming, but perhaps more importantly, a new Cyrus lead single was coming.
After all, Cyrus has spent the majority of her recording career deploying lead singles as hints to upcoming shifts in her sound and style, with clear demarcations between album eras and the tweaks in public persona that the pop superstar adopts for each. From her Disney days — when songs like “See You Again” and “7 Things” pointed toward the commercial aspirations of the teen star — to the devil-may-care flare-ups of her Can’t Be Tamed and Bangerz periods, the first five years of Cyrus’ career featured sharp pivots in sound and attitude, often to denote how “adult” how projects at the time should be considered.
As Cyrus continued to evolve, full-length explorations of psychedelica, country-pop and retro-rock were given coming attractions befitting their sounds. Now, “Flowers” nods toward where Cyrus, currently one of popular music’s most fascinating shape-shifters, is headed next.
So which lead singles illustrate Cyrus’ pop power most effectively, especially now that there’s a new one to consider? All eight of Cyrus’ lead singles have their charms — truly, not a flat-out dud in the bunch — but some of her songs excel as both previews of their host albums and standalone gems in her catalog. And while it’s still early days for “Flowers,” we tried our best to consider its place among Cyrus’ lead singles to date, and humbly rank the new track among the seven that have stood tall for years. (One note before we begin: 2015’s Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz did not have an official radio single as an independent release, but it does have a song that’s considered its lead single, so that’s the one we ranked.)
Here are Miley Cyrus’ lead singles, ranked.
