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Artists, music executives, songwriters and more descended on Los Angeles’ Nightingale Plaza on Wednesday night for the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and Billboard Grammy Week Showcase.
Throughout the star-studded night, Demi Lovato, Sabrina Carpenter and Jimmie Allen each performed an intimate set, highlighting the work of a particular songwriter who helped each craft the sound of their latest studio set. Carpenter, the rising star behind Emails I Can’t Send, put a spotlight on Amy Allen, with whom she duetted on their co-written single “Vicious.”
Later in the evening, Allen performed a brand-new track titled “Small Town Anthem” as well as his 2022 hit “Down Home” before posing alongside Nashville powerhouse Liz Rose, who sits on the NMPA board of directors and was awarded song of the year during the party for co-writing “All Too Well” hand-in-hand with a certain superstar by the name of Taylor Swift back in 2012.
Lovato eventually closed out the musical festivities with back-to-back performances of “Feed” and “4 Ever 4 Me” from their 2022 album Holy Fvck — both of which were penned by Laura Veltz along with 11 more of the album’s 16 pop-punk-infused tracks.
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. and NMPA president David Israelite were both on hand for the soiree, as well as songwriters from Makia, Nija Charles and Alex Raphael to Amber Mark and Patty Smyth. Heading into the 2023 Grammys on Sunday, Charles, Veltz and Allen are all among the inaugural pack of nominees for the first-ever award for songwriter of the year, non-classical.
Check out Billboard‘s exclusive gallery of the NMPA and Billboard Grammy Week Showcase below.
Merci, Paris! Celebrities and musicians descended on the City of Light in January 2023 to attend the shows of Paris Fashion Week. As the major fashion houses and luxury brands sent their latest haute couture and ready-to-wear collections down the runways, famous faces sat in the front row to experience the highest fashion Paris has to offer.
One of the most attention-grabbing shows of the season was by Schiaparelli, where Doja Cat mingled with Kylie Jenner’s giant (faux) lion’s head and other attendees while wearing a crimson ensemble made up of 30,000 hand-applied Swarovski crystals. The rapper completed her otherworldly look with a bustier of red silk faille, a hand-knit skirt of lacquered wooden beads and “Trompe l’œil” toe boots.
Meanwhile, Dove Cameron and Sabrina Carpenter were both pretty in pink as they sat side by side for the Giambattista Valli Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2023 presentation. Both rising stars opted for feminine, off-the shoulder looks, with the “Boyfriend” singer accenting her billowy sleeves with gold, and the “Emails I Can’t Send” artist going for a color-blocked outfit in two shades of pink.
The French fashion capital also drew out K-pop stars in full force, from BTS’ Jimin and J-Hope sitting front row for the Dior Homme menswear show (J Balvin was there too!), BLACKPINK’s Jisoo supporting Dior in her role as the brand’s global ambassador, to Hoshi, Jeonghan, Rowoon Kim, Jackson Wang and more attending presentations by the likes of AMI – Alexandre Mattiussi, Yves Saint Laurent, Loewe and Louis Vuitton. Plus, Taeyang took a break from promoting his new Jimin-assisted hit “VIBE” by taking in the Givenchy show.
Scroll through Billboard‘s gallery for a look at all the musicians at Paris Fashion Week 2023.
Madonna kicked off 2023 by announcing an incredible global tour to honor her four decades of hits.
The Celebration Tour will kick off Saturday, July 15, at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver and will make additional stops in Phoenix, Detroit, Atlanta, Toronto, Montreal and more before concluding at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Oct. 8. The tour’s European leg will pick up with a pair of dates at The O2 arena on Oct. 14-15 and will make stops in Paris, Barcelona, Milan, Berlin and more before concluding in Amsterdam on Dec. 1 at the Ziggo Dome. Bob the Drag Queen will be a special guest on the tour.
As of Jan. 20, only a handful of tickets are still available — the tour is 98% sold out — after fans bought up 600,000 tickets in a matter of hours to see Madonna’s retrospective run in North America and Europe.
To celebrate the upcoming string of shows, we at Billboard have compiled photos from all of Madonna’s beloved tours, spanning from all the way back to 1985, when Madge hit the road for The Virgin Tour in support of her first two album, to the 2019 Madame X tour.
See below.
It was a break, not a breakup. But the way the screaming, flailing fans — ranging from teens to those teetering on the brink of middle age — at New York’s sold-out Beacon Theatre are reacting to frontwoman Hayley Williams, guitarist Taylor York and drummer Zac Farro ripping through their spiky new single, “This Is Why,” you’d think Paramore had just risen from the dead.
“It’s funny — everyone always thinks we’ve broken up,” Williams says. It’s a week before the Nov. 13, 2022, Beacon show, and the members of the trailblazing pop-punk band are seated on shabby vintage chairs in an old house in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park on a sunny afternoon. “It’s always like, ‘Will they or won’t they come back?’ ”
“Love to keep ’em guessing,” Farro quips.
“It surprises us every time,” adds York.
“At this point, I don’t understand how we’re still doing it,” Williams continues. “Because it just feels like against all odds every single time — which, honestly, I feel like we’re the most annoying band in the world because it’s always like, ‘Oh, we overcame this, and now we’re making this album.’ ”
Williams, 34; Farro, 32; and York, 33, met as kids with musical ambitions and Christian roots in Franklin, Tenn. Over the next two decades, as Paramore, they released five albums and survived internal band drama, from lineup changes to lawsuits, any of which could have sounded the death knell. But the group’s sixth album, This Is Why — a tight, post-punk juggernaut that zeroes in on pandemic-fueled anxieties, scheduled for release Feb. 10 — marks the first time the lineup has been consistent between two albums, as well as the end of its contract with Atlantic Records, the only label the band has ever known.
“It feels surreal,” York says.
Read the full Billboard cover story, written by Christine Werthman, here.
It’s always a big loss when the world loses a talented artist, and unfortunately, 2023 kicked off with several notable deaths in music. It began with Gangsta Boo, the pioneering Southern female rapper formerly of hip-hop group Three 6 Mafia, who was found dead on New Year’s Day at age 43.
The next day, Alan Rankine of post-punk New Wave act The Associates, who also produced the Cocteau Twins and pursued his own solo music, died at age 64. Since then, we’ve also lost rock guitar legend Jeff Beck — who died at age 78 on Jan. 10 — and singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Presley, who suffered cardiac arrest and died on Jan. 12 at age 54.
While their loved ones and fans around the globe mourn the loss of these artists, they will not be forgotten. Here, Billboard remembers the musicians who left us in 2023.
The 2023 Golden Globes took place on Tuesday (Jan. 10), and featured a host of musicians and actors stepping out to honor the past year’s achievements in film and television. Taking place at Los Angeles’ The Beverly Hilton, the industry’s biggest and brightest stars walked the red carpet and attended the show — and Billboard‘s star-studded afterparty — in style.
Rihanna and A$AP Rocky were among the guests to grace the Globes, appearing in matching black ensembles. The “Work” singer — whose song “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was nominated in the best original song in a motion picture — wore a fitted black column gown with velvet panels and larger sleeves, while the “Fashion Killa” rapper was in a classic black-and-white suit with satin lapels.
Selena Gomez was also among the musicians to grace the Globes. The Rare beauty founder stepped out on the red carpet with her 9-year-old sister Gracie Elliott Teefey in tow. The 30-year-old, who was nominated for best actress in a TV series comedy or musical nomination for her portrayal of Mabel Mora in the hit Hulu comedy series Only Murders in the Building.
The fun didn’t stop there. Billboard‘s Golden Globes afterparty saw stars mingling with each other. Wednesday‘s Jenna Ortega and Percy Hynes White looked stunning in black ensembles; Abbot Elementary‘s Quinta Brunson posed for photos alongside Pose‘s Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Jennifer Coolidge lit up the room with Heidi Klum, who brought husband Tom Kaulitz (of Tokio Hotel) as her date.
See the stars at the 2023 Golden Globes afterparty powered by Billboard below.
Bad Bunny, BLACKPINK and Frank Ocean were announced as headliners for the 2023 iteration of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. The trio of acts are certainly history-making and, in the case of Ocean, long-anticipated, which makes it the perfect time to look back at Coachella’s many headliners throughout history.
Founded in 1999, the very first Coachella took place at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, Calif., with Beck, Tool and Rage Against the Machine topping the lineup. And for the next decade, the festival became a go-to destination for rock fans as the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys, Radiohead, Coldplay and The Cure delivered memorable headlining sets from the California desert.
By the early 2010s, hip-hop heavyweights had become synonymous with the festival, with Jay-Z and Kanye West each dominating a headlining slot in, respectively, 2010 and 2011. The following year brought together an all-star show for hip-hop heads led by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, who were joined by special guests Eminem, 50 Cent, Wiz Khalifa, Kendrick Lamar and a holograph of the late Tupac Shakur.
The tone of Coachella changed forever, though, in 2017 after Lady Gaga was named a headliner alongside Radiohead and Lamar. Mother Monster’s arrival to the Empire Polo Club attracted an entirely new type of festivalgoer, as Little Monsters flocked to the desert to witness a 90-minute spectacle that included hits across each of the superstar’s eras just months after she headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, as well as the debut of new song “The Cure” for the occasion.
The following spring, Beyoncé transformed Coachella into Beychella with a history-making set documented for her 2019 concert film Homecoming and its companion live album. In 2019, Ariana Grande took over for Arichella, even trotting out four-fifths of *NSYNC for a boy-band reunion years in the making. After being canceled in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic, Coachella came roaring back to life in 2022 thanks to headliners Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Swedish House Mafia with The Weeknd.
Click through Billboard‘s gallery of past Coachella headliners below.
Beloved British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood died on Thursday (Dec. 29). She was 81 years old.
The style icon’s fashion house shared the news via Twitter, revealing that Westwood died “peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, South London.” The statement added, “The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better.”
The designer rose to prominence in the fashion world in the 1970s, thanks to her anti-establishment punk styles and controversial, androgynous designs. The new wave style icon was also a passionate activist, and frequently channeled issues like climate change into her runway looks.
Over the years, Westwood has been the go-to designer for a number of stars, who have turned to her funky, daring collections for their red carpet appearances, magazine covers and more.
To honor the late fashion legend, we’ve compiled some of our favorite photos of musicians wearing Vivienne Westwood, from Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo and Halsey to Lady Gaga and Adele. See below.
Over the course of the past year, the music industry has lost some of its brightest behind-the-scenes stars: corporate executives, songwriters, managers, producers, engineers, lawyers, promoters, inventors and more.
Between them, these individuals penned hit songs (“Crazy for You,” “Elvira,” “My Whole World Is Falling Down,” “The Way We Were”); helped launch important careers (Metallica, Prince, Little Richard); masterminded iconic cultural events (Woodstock); founded enduring labels (Stax, Impulse!); built empires (Clear Channel); created and/or produced iconic Broadway musicals (Hair, Dear Evan Hansen); helped popularize burgeoning musical genres (hip-hop, alternative rock); and even changed the way people listened to music.
While they may not have enjoyed the high profile or public adoration of their artist counterparts, these individuals played just as important a role in keeping the business humming – or at least dissecting it, in fire-breathing fashion. Some worked in the industry across decades and eras; others passed on far too soon, but left their mark nonetheless. Some created new and important spaces for underrepresented voices; others paved the way for those who came after them. They have been remembered as dreamers, visionaries and jokesters, and described as “magnetic,” “legendary” and possessing “a rock and roll heart” by those who knew and loved them.
To celebrate those who have passed on, Billboard is highlighting these often-unsung movers and shakers, all of whom made a difference in the music industry in ways both large and small, across every aspect of the business.
Here are the behind-the-scenes players we lost in 2022.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup officially concluded Sunday (Dec. 18) when Argentina and France faced off for the esteemed soccer title. Lionel Messi led Argentina to victory in the game, which came to a close after the team beat France 4-2 following a penalty kick shootout. The World Cup also resulted in a series of thrilling performances from some of the world’s biggest musicians, which continued throughout the monthlong tournament.
The opening ceremony of the 2022 World Cup took place Nov. 20 at the Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, and sent BTS ARMY into a tizzy, as Jung Kook appeared on the stage — notably without the rest of the K-pop septet to accompany him — to perform “Dreamers,” one of the many official songs that appear in the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Official Soundtrack. During the performance of “Dreamers,” the BTS singer was joined by Fahad Al Kubaisi.
Latin music stars were also in attendance at the World Cup, notably Maluma and Ozuna. Maluma took the stage with Lebanese singer Mryiam Fare for their song “Tukoh Taka,” which also features Nicki Minaj and serves as one of the official FIFA Fan Festival songs. Ozuna took the stage alongside French-Congolese rapper Gims (in a mash-up performance including Davido and Aisha) to perform a live rendition of their track “Arbho” at the games’ closing ceremony.
See photos from all the musicians featured in this year’s FIFA World Cup below.