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15 Dec 2022

10 Weird Christmas Songs You Probably Haven’t Heard

Look, there are a LOT of holiday songs out there. And we have our chart-based list of the 100 Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs, as well as our staff picks for 100 Best Christmas Songs of All Time. And even that’s just scratching the seasonal surface. For every “All I Want for Christmas Is You” or “White Christmas,” there are a hundred half-assed holiday songs you hear once and happily let jingle off into oblivion. Songs that would have better served the public by exemplifying what is described in “Silent Night.”

But this list isn’t about the seasonal songs that soar or the ones that bore. This roundup is about the freaky festive fare that hits you like a fruitcake: It might leave you with a queasy feeling in your stomach, but its distinct flavor is going to linger for a while. And sometimes it’s the oddball tunes that light up the cloudy night like Rudolph’s nose.

Which is why we’re pressing pause on tasteful recordings from artists such as Bing Crosby and Vince Guaraldi for a moment and spotlighting these 10 Weird Christmas Songs. That means everything from a metal version of a religious classic (by a British knight!) to an instrumental Xmas reggae by a Beatle (who is also a British knight!).

Here are 10 bizarro holiday tracks that will either enrapture your wondering eyes or send you fleeing up the nearest chimney for escape. And if you dig these but want to go even deeper into the wild wintery world of Xmas oddities, check out this Christmas mixtape where long-lost gems and stone-cold classics sit comfortably side by side at the fireplace.

15 Dec 2022

For King & Country Notches 20th Top 10 on Christian Airplay With ‘Joy to the World’

For King & Country, the sibling duo of Luke and Joel Smallbone, achieves its 20th top 10 on Billboard‘s Christian Airplay chart (dated Dec. 17). In the week ending Dec. 11, the pair’s rendition of “Joy to the World” rises 11-7, up 13% to 1.7 million audience impressions, according to Luminate.

Of For King & Country’s 20 Christian Airplay top 10s, 11 have hit No. 1. The act earned its first top 10 in its first appearance, as “Busted Heart (Hold On to Me)” hit No. 3 in 2012, and first led with “Fix My Eyes” in 2014. The act reigned most recently with “For God Is With Us” for three weeks in July.

Concurrently, the twosome’s current non-holiday single “Love Me Like I Am,” with Jordin Sparks, holds at its No. 6 Christian Airplay high (1.7 million). The song became Sparks’ second entry and first top 10.

For King & Country ties Big Daddy Weave for the seventh-most Christian Airplay top 10s, and the third-most among duos or groups. Chris Tomlin leads all acts with 31, followed by Casting Crowns, MercyMe (29 each), Jeremy Camp, tobyMac (26 each) and Matthew West (24).

For King & Country also claims its first top 10 on Billboard‘s Adult Contemporary airplay survey as “Do You Hear What I Hear?” climbs 13-10 (up 47% in plays). The act previously peaked at a No. 13 AC best, among eight entries, with “Amen” in August 2021.

‘Call’ Gets Patched Into No. 1

Jor’dan Armstrong and Erica Campbell’s “Call” rises to No. 1 on Gospel Airplay, up 6% in plays. Co-written by Armstrong, the song becomes his second leader, following “My God,” which ruled for two frames beginning in December 2021.

Campbell – who is half of duo Mary Mary with sister Trecina – also adds her second Gospel Airplay No. 1 as a soloist, after “Positive” for three weeks in August.

Mary Mary boasts three Gospel Airplay No. 1s, among nine top 10s. Its initial entry, “Heaven,” dominated for 15 frames beginning in June 2005. The pair led again with “God in Me,” featuring Kierra “Kiki” Sheard (seven weeks, beginning in June 2009), and as featured, with Le’Andria Johnson, on PJ Morton’s “All in His Plan” (one week, September 2020).

15 Dec 2022

TikTok Is Driving Fewer Streams to Its Biggest Hits

In 2019 and 2020, promoting music on TikTok often meant paying prominent influencers to use a song in their videos. The concept was straightforward — cash for exposure — and on a good day, the results were easy to notice: Streams shot up. “All you needed was those [popular] people to post and a song flew,” one digital marketer reminisced earlier this year. 

If this strategy once helped a track fly, it is now more likely to flop. “Bigger influencers actually don’t move the needle on music consumption” anymore, another digital marketer told Billboard in April. Lately worry has been spreading in the music industry that the link between song usage on TikTok more generally and consumption on streaming platforms appears to be losing potency. “For a while it was like, ‘All you gotta do is get a song going on TikTok, and it’s outta here!’” one major label executive says. “It’s not a guarantee anymore” that a song will become a hit.

This sentiment was reflected in a year-end report that TikTok published last week outlining the most popular songs and artists on the app. The top 10 TikTok tracks in the U.S. were streamed far less in 2022 than they were in 2021, according to data from Luminate. And the winners in 2021 were streamed far less than they were in 2020.

This indicates that the correlation between TikTok usage and U.S. streams is weakening. And it offers supports for a growing chorus of marketers who whisper that TikTok video usage isn’t “translating” as well to streams as it did in years past.

In 2020, being a top TikTok track in the U.S. practically ensured streaming success: Luminate data shows that nearly every song in TikTok’s top 10 earned more than 250 million on-demand plays Stateside. Just two years later, that no longer appears to be the case: See Luclover’s “L$d” (20.4 million, No. 2 on TikTok in the U.S.), Yung Lean’s “Ginseng Strip 2002” (71.1 million, No. 3), and Duke & Jones and Louis Theroux’s “Jiggle Jiggle” (82.5 million streams, No. 8). Now “There’s a bunch of stuff going off [on TikTok] that’s not even a hit,” says one A&R.

The overall streaming totals for TikTok’s biggest songs show a sharp decline year over year. Back in 2020, the top 10 singles on TikTok in the U.S. — from Doja Cat’s “Say So” to Roddy Ricch’s “The Box” — collectively amassed more than 4.9 billion Stateside streams. The top 10 songs on TikTok in the U.S. in 2021 — think back to Doja Cat’s “Kiss Me More” and Cardi B’s “Up” — garnered only a little more than 3 billion streams between them in America. And the top 10 TikTok songs in the U.S. in 2022, ranging from Lizzo’s “About Damn Time” to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God),” amassed just 1.9 billion Stateside streams combined. That’s a drop of roughly 3 billion streams, or 61%, in two years.

A representative for TikTok declined to comment for this story. In the platform’s year-end report, Ole Obermann, Global Head of Music, said that “13 out of 14 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1’s were supported by viral trends on TikTok.” “Our platform continues to unlock real-world opportunities for artists and labels,” Obermann added, “helping talent to secure record deals, brand collaborations, chart success, or be re-discovered decades later.”

But TikTok has changed markedly in the last few years, making it harder to turn success on the app into those opportunities — at least in the world of streaming. The first challenge for the music industry is saturation. “There’s so much noise; it’s harder to cut through,” says one manager whose acts have been at the center of multiple bidding wars following viral moments. “Once upon a time there wasn’t a lot of money pouring into TikTok. Now the music business, Hollywood, fashion, retail, beverage, everybody is trying to use TikTok to drive their product.” Music is competing for attention not only with other music, the huge amount of new songs and user-generated remixes that pop up each day, but with Marvel movies and canned cocktails.

And as TikTok’s user-base has swelled, it’s splintered into smaller communities that share the same interests, meaning that capturing everyone’s eyeballs — and ears — is increasingly difficult. “More users means TikTok’s ‘For You’ page algorithm has more content to offer, and it also means more data that allows it to be more targeted with its content recommendations,” one digital marketer told Billboard earlier this year. “People are less likely to see the same thing, like Charli D’Amelio dancing, and are more likely to see content from niches the algorithm recommends specifically for them.” As a result, “trends are siloed when they used to be community-wide,” a digital marketing company owner explained recently.

In addition, a handful of executives posit that TikTok is addictive enough that some users, especially younger ones, are starting to “use it as their music service,” according to one indie label-head, rather than leaving the app to go stream music elsewhere. Obermann hit back against this idea in November: “Our community comes to TikTok to watch videos,” he told Billboard, “not to listen to full-length tracks.”

It’s not clear that everyone wants to listen to full-length tracks these days. What is clear is that the interactivity that users find so compelling on TikTok threatens to undermine the traditional streaming experience. When music encountered on the app in a goofy or galvanizing video “is listened to [later] on streaming, it is stripped of all that creative and cultural context,” Mark Mulligan, managing director for music consultancy MIDiA Research, wrote recently. “It is like only listening to the soundtrack of a movie.” Some users may prefer to hear the music along with the video clips, even if it comes in short bursts.

The music industry views TikTok as a means to an end, and the equation has always been simple: More videos on the app using our music = more streams for our music. If the connection between the two weakens, it will have notable implications for A&R and marketing strategy. “There’s very little predictability now,” says one A&R. “You just can’t know how long something will sustain anymore.”

15 Dec 2022

The Deals: WMG Partners on Digital Collectibles Platform; Music Bigwigs Sign Franchise Agreement With Bojangles

Warner Music Group signed a multi-year partnership with blockchain companies LGND.io and Polygon Companies to launch LGND Music, a new collaborative project set to debut in January 2023. Through the partnership, select WMG artists will launch digital collectibles on LGND Music’s app and desktop platform, which will be built on Polygon, a blockchain development network. WMG’s Spinnin’ Records is one of the first label collaborations under the deal.

The Bojangles restaurant franchise signed a franchise development agreement with Melanbo, a group partly owned by music execs Mel Carter and Kevin “Coach K” Lee. Melanbo will develop 14 new Bojangles locations in greater Atlanta, building upon their acquisition of 18 existing Bojangles restaurants in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina — making Melanbo the largest Black-controlled Bojangles franchise. In the music sphere, Carter recently signed a joint venture deal with Warner Music for his label, Second Estate Records. Lee currently serves as COO at Quality Control Music, which he co-founded in 2013.

UMG-owned rock label Spinefarm Records (Bullet for My Valentine, Atreyu, Killing Joke) joins the [PIAS] Group‘s roster, effective Jan. 1; Spinefarm will be distributed on a global basis through the [PIAS] services division [Integral]. The deal marks the first significant repertoire partnership following UMG’s purchase of a 49% stake in [PIAS] last month. Spinefarm will continue to operate as a standalone label from its New York headquarters under the leadership of GM Jonas Nachsin. Existing Spinefarm teams across the world will continue to handle all A&R, marketing and promotion activities for the label.

TSX Entertainment — owner of a 74,000 square foot space in New York that includes recording studios, a supper club, galleries, restaurants, bars, rooftop terraces and immersive experiences integrated with the TSX Metaverse — signed a long-term partnership with Roc Nation. Under the deal, the companies will collaborate on tentpole performances and annual events out of the TSX space — which also includes a massive digital billboard connected to the TSX app — spanning music, fashion, film, sports, gaming and lifestyle.

Warner Music Group’s WMX is launching three FAST channels exclusively on The Roku Channel: WMX Pop, XMW Rock and WMX Hip-Hop. All three will feature music videos and concerts from WMG’s global catalog, as well as original programming from WMG media brands including UPROXX, HipHopDX, Songkick, Cover Nation, The Pit and Lasso Nation.

Warner Music India (WMI) signed popular Indian singer King. The label recently released King’s third studio album, Champagne Talk.

Connect Music, which provides distribution and publishing administration services, acquired London-based artist and label services provider MTX Music. Connect co-founder Askia Fountain will lead MTX Music’s operations as managing director, focusing its services on the hip-hop and R&B community in the U.K. Under the agreement, Connect is granting MTX Music access to its $10 million credit facility (backed by Preserver Partners) to support the development of emerging U.K. talent, with up to $1 million available per artist. Fountain will look to grow MTX Music’s A&R and marketing teams over the coming months. MTX Music’s roster includes Judith Owen, Lost Society and Jonathan Antoine.

Downtown Music Services signed several new artists out of Los Angeles: Colbie Caillat, Francis Karel, Lily Meola, Loren Gray, Rebecca Black and Yung Bae. All will utilize Downtown’s suite of services including global distribution, creative marketing and synch licensing.

B2B distributor FUGA partnered with U.S. indie label Polyvinyl Record Co. (Alvvays, of Montreal, American Football). Through the deal, Polyvinyl will utilize FUGA’s suite of distribution and marketing services. Polyvinyl is also entering a partnership with Downtown Neighbouring Rights, a recently-launched division of Downtown Music that brings Downtown Music Services,
Downtown Neighbouring Rights and FUGA together into a single offering that aligns, tech solutions, label & artist services and distribution.

Merlin signed two new partnerships: one with Supernatural, a VR fitness app for Meta Quest headsets, and the second with STYNGR, a B2B technology platform that offers a turnkey music licensing solution for video games and the metaverse. Under the deals, both Supernatural and STYNGR will be provided with music released by Merlin members.

NOFX founding member Fat Mike launched a new record label, Bottles To The Ground. According to a press release, the label will serve as a “halfway house” for Fat Mike’s new band, Codefendants, and a home for British punk duo The Meffs and Melvinator, the EDM project from NOFX’s Eric Melvin. The label, a collective owned by all members of NOFX, is an imprint of Fat Wreck Chords and will house bands that don’t fit the traditional Fat sound.

Indie label Dirty Hit (The 1975, Wolf Alice, Rina Sawayama) extended its worldwide distribution deal with Ingrooves Music Group.

British-Nigerian rapper, MC, producer and label owner Skepta signed with Los Angeles-based Wasserman Music agent Brent Smith for global representation. Skepta launched his own label and creative agency, Big Smoke, in October.

Session, the developer behind music collaboration app Session Studio, signed a one-year partnership with Brazil’s largest collection society, the Brazilian Union of Composers (UBC). Under the deal, Session will offer UBC members free access to the Session Studio app, which allows creators to capture song and recording data at the point of creation and deliver it downstream to managers, labels, publishers, CMOs and digital service providers while ensuring all participants are properly credited.

B2B streaming company Tuned Global announced two MedTech clients, MediMusic and Nue Life Health, who will use Tuned’s music APIs to provide streaming music to patients in a variety of settings. MediMusic customizes therapeutic playlists for patients to reduce resting heart rate, anxiety and stress responses via biofeedback and machine learning. Nue Life Health offers ketamine therapy to people with PTSD and treatment-resistant depression; music is one component of an app-supported therapeutic experience that guides Nue Life patients through the ketamine sessions. Tuned Global will provide the companies with metadata, music content and streaming service functionality.

Oliver Sim, Romy and Jamie xx — collectively The xx — signed with Huxley‘s brand partnerships division. The company will represent the members of the band and support on-brand relationships for their individual and creative projects. Also signing with the division is Alastair McKimm — creative director, design consultant, i-D editor-in-chief and founder of creative agency MCKIMMCORP.

15 Dec 2022

The Weeknd Unveils ‘Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)’ Off ‘Avatar’ Soundtrack

Avatar: The Way of Water is finally hitting theaters on Friday (Dec. 16), and a day before the release, The Weeknd dropped his cinematic contribution to the soundtrack, “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength).”

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“I thought I could protect you from paying for my sins/ You give me strength/ I would do either way/ Nothing’s lost/ No more pain, just you,” he sings on the Swedish House Mafia-produced track, which was released on Thursday (Dec. 15).

“Nothing Is Lost” was previously teased in the Avatar: The Way of the Water trailer which dropped on Dec. 7, in which the singer’s soft vocals are heard throughout the 45-second clip.

It’s been an exciting week for The Weeknd (real name Abel Tesfaye), who was recently named the 2022 recipient of the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award in honor of the singer’s impressive commitment to charitable causes. Tesfaye is the first musician to receive both the organization’s Humanitarian Spirit Award and the Allan Slaight Impact Award, with the latter presented the star during his 2014 Canadian Walk of Fame ceremony.

“That this is a Canadian award sits deep with me. Allan and The Slaight Family Foundation are known across the country for their generous philanthropy, and it means a lot to be acknowledged, and is an honor to be recognized along with the legendary Canadian artists who received this award before me,” Tesfaye said in a press statement following the honor.

Listen to “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” below.

15 Dec 2022

GIMS Earns First No. 1 on a Billboard Chart With World Cup Song ‘Arhbo’: ‘I Can’t Even Believe It’s Real!’

Rapper GIMS celebrates a new career achievement thanks to “Arhbo (Music From fhe FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022),” his collaboration with Ozuna, which leads Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart (dated Dec. 17). The song ascends 8-1 and becomes Congolese-French rapper GIMS’ first No. 1 on any Billboard U.S. chart.

“To be a French artist that is No. 1 on a Latin Billboard chart is a great honor, it’s amazing,” GIMS tells Billboard. “I can’t even believe it’s real! It was something that I always dreamed to achieve, and I can’t believe it happened. I’m also very proud and happy to have achieved this goal with Ozuna, who is a great artist whom I respect and cherish.”

“Arhbo” takes the Greatest Gainer honor of the week boosted by a 48% in audience impressions, to 9.5 million, earned in the U.S. in the week ending Dec. 11, according to Luminate. It becomes GIMS’ first leader on a Billboard U.S. chart a week after the rapper secured his first top 10 on a Billboard Latin chart when the song lifted 29-8 (Dec. 10).

As “Arhbo” lands at No. 1 on the all-genre Latin Airplay ranking, it trades places with another of Ozuna’s tracks: “Monotonía,” with Shakira, after two weeks in charge. Plus, the new champ secures Ozuna a 31st No. 1, six of which arrived in 2022. Here’s a look at the leaderboard since the chart’s inception in 1994:

  • 35, J Balvin
  • 32, Enrique Iglesias
  • 31, Ozuna
  • 27, Daddy Yankee
  • 22, Maluma
  • 22, Wisin
  • 21, Romeo Santos

“Ozuna and I worked on a track in the past that was never released, but then we were caught up in a World Cup offer so we decided to work together again and focus on this project,” GIMS adds. “We can find many similarities in our music such as with reggaeton sounds. For a sound to work and be a success, you must make the right choice. The combination of Redone, Ozuna and I was the perfect match.”

Further, Ozuna ensures his fifth straight year with at least four No. 1s on Latin Airplay. Here’s the Puerto Rican’s scoreboard:

  • 7, 2018
  • 9, 2019
  • 4, 2020
  • 4, 2021
  • 6, 2022

About the song, GIMS adds” “I was supposed to sing with different artists, names changed a lot before the final decision. Then the whole discussion in regard to the FIFA World Cup started again, and ultimately, RedOne asked Ozuna and I to be on the soundtrack. Fun fact, the partnership wasn’t decided until the very end. You should know that this song may have never seen the light of day!”

15 Dec 2022

Beyoncé Reached Out to Meghan Markle After 2021 Oprah Interview

Amid the negativity, Beyoncé brought some positivity into Meghan Markle’s life.

In Netflix’s second volume of Harry & Meghan released on Thursday (Dec. 15), the Duchess of Sussex receives a text message from the “Break My Soul” superstar in March 2021, a day after her groundbreaking interview alongside husband Prince Harry with Oprah Winfrey.

“Beyoncé just texted,” Markle says, as she’s sitting next to the Duke of Sussex in their home office in Montecito, Calif. “Just checking in,” the former actress reads the message with a smile. “I still can’t believe she knows who I am!”

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“Go and call her,” Harry said, to which Markle declined. “[Bey] said she wants me to feel safe and protected,” she continued. “She admires and respects my bravery and vulnerability and thinks I was selected to break generational curses that need to be healed.”

In response to the touching message, Harry replied, “That’s well said.”

After the Oprah interview, Beyoncé also took to her website to extend support to Markle, who opened up during the interview about just how challenging her time in the royal spotlight was. “Thank you Meghan for your courage and leadership,” Beyoncé wrote next to a photo of the pair meeting for the first time — alongside their famous husbands — at the London premiere of The Lion King in the summer of 2019. “We are all strengthened and inspired by you.”

In the prime time interview, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex unleashed a string of allegations against the royal family, including that Markle had asked the Palace for help because of suicidal thoughts and was turned away and that an unnamed member of the royal family had expressed concern to Harry about how dark the couple’s first-born child’s skin might be.

15 Dec 2022

Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022: No. 3 — Taylor Swift

For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 3, we remember the year in Taylor Swift — who got started a little late in the calendar, but certainly didn’t need long to make up for lost time.

After back-to-back years of releasing two full-length projects, Taylor Swift began 2022 on a relatively low-key note – well, as low-key as things can ever be for a global superstar still at the peak of her powers, at least.

There was the out-of-nowhere feud with the frontman of Blur and Gorillaz (yes, Damon, she really writes her own music), the first of two college courses announced in her honor (one at NYU, the next at Texas), a nostalgic reunion with one of her musical besties (Ed Sheeran’s “The Joker & The Queen” remix) – and let’s not forget the Virginia Tech scientists who cemented their Swiftie status in April by naming a new species of millipede “Nannaria Swiftae.” In May, the singer/songwriter emerged to make her biggest public appearance of the year so far to give the NYU commencement address, urging the Class of 2022 to hold on to their enthusiasm, coolness be damned. “Never be ashamed of trying,” she said in the 20-minute pep talk. “Effortlessness is a myth.”

Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:
Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo | No. 5: Drake | No. 4: Beyoncé

Things started to pick up in the Swift cycle in the late spring/early summer, when the pop auteur continued to make strides in the film and TV worlds, including three new soundtrack moments: “This Love (Taylor’s Version)” was re-recorded for Netflix’s teen drama series The Summer I Turned Pretty, the woodsy “Carolina” was written specifically for the book-to-big-screen adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing, and “Bad Blood (Taylor’s Version)” was brought out of the kennel for DC League of Super-Pets. She also kicked off a still-ongoing film-festival circuit, promoting her self-directed All Too Well: The Short Film at June’s Tribeca Film Festival.

So now that we’ve reviewed the first eight months of our reigning 2021 Greatest Pop Star, forget everything you just learned about Taylor’s 2022 — because the Swift Calendar Year didn’t truly begin until Aug. 28. That’s when she hit the MTV Video Music Awards – a stage where she’s made more than a few headlines over her 16-year career – to not only collect the evening’s highest honor, but also to announce that she had a brand-new album called Midnights coming in October. All year, fans had been speculating about which of her Big Machine releases she’d re-record next (all signs pointed to either 2010’s Speak Now or 2014’s 1989 as the likely contenders), never stopping to think that they might get a whole new album instead.

Thus began Swift’s master class in modern-day album promotion, during which she set out to hit every corner of the music-buying public. There were the TikTok song-title reveals that kicked off on Sept. 21; then Midnights lyrics popped up on billboards from New York to London to Sao Paolo, Brazil, starting Oct. 17; and on Oct. 18, she began unveiling five things “that kept me up at night and helped inspire the Midnights album” via Spotify, also in daily doses. But if you’re not on TikTok or Spotify and missed the global billboards, do you watch football? Because Swift’s final pre-release push was an album teaser that premiered during Thursday Night Football, hours ahead of the album’s arrival.

With all of these teasers and previews, there was one thing that wasn’t revealed ahead of midnight on Oct 21: any music. Despite almost two months of lead time, no lead singles or music videos were released — which only bolstered the intrigue surrounding the album. Would it be stripped-down and understated like her most recent original albums, 2020’s folklore and evermore? Would it channel the adrenaline-rush pop of the trio of projects before that, 2019’s Lover, 2017’s reputation and 2014’s 1989? Or would Swift be newly inspired by revisiting the young country songwriter behind 2008’s Fearless and 2012’s Red for her pair of 2021 re-recordings?

The answer was really all of the above. You could recognize bits and pieces from all of Swift’s eras throughout the project, with songs that are alternately dreamy (“Snow on the Beach” with Lana del Rey, “Sweet Nothing” written with boyfriend Joe Alwyn), dancey (the shiny “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled”), and razor-sharp (“Vigilante Shit”). A lot of the familiarity could be attributed to the omnipresence of Jack Antonoff, who’d  worked with Swift since 1989 and was the lone co-producer credited on the 13 songs. In the headline for its review, The New York Times said Swift was “caught between yesterday and tomorrow” on the album, but it feels more apt to look at Midnights like a massive snowball that has all of Taylor’s previous albums rolled up inside it, while still glistening and new on the outside.

And to keep that snowball rolling, only three hours after the standard album’s release, Swift surprised fans with the expanded 20-song 3am Edition, this time teaming up with her other go-to producer, Aaron Dessner, for six of the seven songs. Fans who had already had time to listen to the 44-minute original at least four times since midnight were thrilled to have even more lyrics to decode and soundscapes to live in – including the buzziest bonus track “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” which fans speculated was about her brief relationship with John Mayer and their 13-year age gap. Five hours after that, Swifties had yet another new release to devour: The “Anti-Hero” video – the first of many Midnights Music Movies promised in the Thursday Night Football teaser – dropped at 8 a.m. ET on Oct. 21 and features the pop star attending her own funeral, with Mike Birbiglia, John Early and Mary Elizabeth Ellis playing her adult children. That wasn’t the only release-week music video either: On Oct. 24, the appropriately blingy clip for “Bejeweled” arrived, co-starring Laura Dern and Haim as the wicked stepmother and stepsisters in Swift’s very own Cinderella story.

While all of this is a lot, even by Swift’s overachieving standards, the full-court press paid off in spades when Midnights scored the largest week for any album since Adele’s 25 in 2015, moving 1.578 million equivalent album units in its debut frame, and the biggest sales week since Taylor’s own reputation in 2017, with 1.14 million in traditional album sales. The blockbuster easily conquered the Billboard 200, and over on the Billboard Hot 100, Swift became the first artist in history to hold all top 10 slots, led by the chart-topping “Anti-Hero”; in addition, all 20 songs from the project hit the tally.

In the month-plus since Midnights’ release, Swift has continued to fend off some pretty fierce competition on the chart, with the catchphrase-spawning “Anti-Hero” besting new music from both Rihanna and Drake to hold strong at No. 1 on the Hot 100 for six weeks – only falling to Mariah Carey’s perennial Christmas chart-topper this week. In the early frames, she got a sales boost from a series of “Anti-Hero” remixes, including one featuring Antonoff’s band Bleachers. (Drake seemingly took notice of his Republic labelmate’s aggressive strategy, covering up Swift’s No. 1 slot with emojis when he re-posted the Hot 100 top 10 the week that Her Loss, his joint album with 21 Savage, hit the chart.)

While this year has been another monumental one for Swift, 2023 is shaping up to be even more massive, with the Nov. 1 announcement of the Eras Tour, her first proper trek in nearly five years, which is setting out to encapsulate all the material she’s released in the past decade and a half. The overwhelming demand to be at one of Taylor’s 52 shows just about broke Ticketmaster (in both the immediate and long-term senses), which is currently being sued by disgruntled Swifties locked out of the ticket-buying process and was even taken to task by Swift herself. “It’s truly amazing that 2.4 million people got tickets, but it really pisses me off that a lot of them feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” she said in an Instagram statement on Nov. 18. Following her crusades to get better pay for artists from Apple Music and grant ownership of master recordings to musicians, perhaps reforming Ticketmaster can be Swift’s next pet project.

In addition to her tour and whatever Taylor’s Versions that may await her, Swift has several major awards shows to attend next year too. After being the top winner at the 2022 American Music Awards, MTV EMAs and People’s Choice Awards – and being named songwriter-artist of the decade at the Nashville Songwriter Awards – Swift has a shot at winning her first Golden Globe in January (original song for “Carolina”) and could nab four more Grammys in February to add to her 11, including one Big Four possibility: song of the year for “All Too Well (10 Minute Version) (The Short Film).” Then there’s her new side hustle as a filmmaker: After getting a taste of directing with her music videos and All Too Well (The Short Film), Swift is set to make her directorial debut with an unnamed Searchlight Pictures production for which she wrote the original script.

Given Swift’s staggering accomplishments in 2022, it might be hard to believe that she doesn’t repeat as Billboard’s Greatest Pop Star this year — but the wildest part is just how much of her year was piled into these past few months. Looking at what’s on the horizon, it looks like she’s ready to snatch the crown right back in 2023. Remember what she told those college kids: “Never be ashamed of trying.”

15 Dec 2022

SEVENTEEN’s Vernon Is Releasing a Debut Solo Mixtape: Here’s When ‘Black Eye’ Arrives

Vernon is the next member of SEVENTEEN who’s gearing up to go solo. On Thursday (Dec. 15), the rapper announced that he will be releasing a debut solo mixtape titled Black Eye, making him the third of the 13-member group to drop a solo project.

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The news was shared to SEVENTEEN’s social media accounts along with the official cover art, which is a faux poster that features the title of the project written in bold red graffiti lettering and a photo of Vernon standing atop a smoking monster truck. Flames and stark lighting also decorate the poster, as well an order to “turn up the radio!” for the project’s release date — Dec. 23.

Vernon’s solo mixtape comes after the release of Hoshi’s Spider mixtape, which arrived in April 2021, and Woozi’s Ruby mixtape, released in January.

Vernon’s most recent release was his February collaboration with Charli XCX for the remix of the pop star’s single “Beg for You” featuring Rina Sawayama.

The remixed version of the song, which included production from producer A.G. Cook, features the K-pop idol thinking hard about a future with his lover. “All the endless conversations about us been going on in our head/ In the night, we dream a future together and I feel bad in your bed/ I beg for you, please stay, I can’t go a day without/ No, I can’t go a day without you,” Vernon sang on his verse.

See the announcement and art for Vernon’s mixtape below.

15 Dec 2022

XXXmas: 10 Inappropriate Christmas Songs and Albums

Considering that Christmas music takes over the airwaves, streaming services and charts for much of December, it’s only fitting that Christmas music has expanded over the years to include a whole lot more than just carols and church hymns. Even beyond the expansion of Christmas music into the pop culture realm, holiday music sometimes takes us beyond ice sheets and into the bed sheets. Yes, we’re talking about XXXmas – and that includes dirty holiday tunes that needn’t come just once a year.

When you think about inappropriate Christmas songs, your mind probably wanders to those bluesy Christmas jams about Santa wantin’ some satisfaction. Or maybe you think of parody tracks from LGBTQ artists who do their damndest to make the yuletide gay. Of course, there is also a myriad of hip-hop and rock songs that gleefully inject sex n’ swears into seasonal fare. And sure, we have all those on our list, but we also have a lot more… okay, we have a little bit more (including one erudite takedown of crass Christmas commercialization) but don’t get greedy. More than 10 songs would put us on Santa’s naughty list.

If you want the biggest Christmas songs, check out our Greatest of All Time Holiday 100 Songs list. If you want the best of the season, from classics to deep cuts, dive into our staff list of the 100 Best Christmas Songs of all Time. But if you want some seasonal songs that aren’t exactly appropriate for your family’s fireside, check out 10 XXXmas tracks below.