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The 65th annual Grammy Awards took over Crypto.com Arena on Sunday (Feb. 5) evening for Music’s Biggest Night. Trevor Noah returned to host the Grammys for the third consecutive year, orchestrating a first-time meet-up between Adele and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson during the show’s first few minutes.
But that was far from the only unexpected celebrity pairing at the 2023 Grammys. Lizzo and Adele hung out, Bonnie Raitt and Taylor Swift posed for pics, and Mary J. Blige and HER chatted with each other. Plus, there were plenty of knockout on-stage pairings, from Chris Stapleton joining Stevie Wonder on a scorching run-through of the latter’s classic “Higher Ground” and an all-star coterie of hip-hop GOATS joining forces for a 50th anniversary salute to the culture-shifting genre.
Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Smokey Robinson, Kendrick Lamar, DJ Khaled, Nile Rodgers, Cardi B, Jennifer Lopez with Ben Affleck, Harry Styles and many more music stars were present — including Sam Smith and Kim Petras, with Petras making Grammy history on Sunday night as the first openly trans woman to win a Grammy (for best pop duo/group performance for “Unholy”). In her speech, Petras paid homage to the late SOPHIE and living icon Madonna for helping to inspire and encourage her.
The ‘in memoriam’ segment was a musical three-parter, with Kacey Musgraves performing the classic “Coal Miner’s Daughter” from the late Loretta Lynn, who passed away at age 90, during the first part. Then, Quavo took the stage with Music City Collective to perform a memorial tribute to Takeoff, his Migos bandmate who was tragically killed last year at age 28. Finally, Mick Fleetwood, Bonnie Raitt and Sheryl Crow joined forces for a tribute to Christine McVie, the Fleetwood Mac legend who died at 79 years old.
The 2023 Grammy Awards are here, and the stars have hit the red carpet outside Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles in full force.
Ahead of Sunday’s (Feb. 5) prime-time telecast, the stars were shining bright, from Doja Cat in all-black to Lizzo in cascades of red.
During the show, Lizzo is set to hit the stage for a performance, alongside fellow performers Bad Bunny; Brandi Carlile; DJ Khaled with Fridayy, Jay-Z, John Legend, Lil Wayne and Rick Ross; Harry Styles; Luke Combs; Mary J. Blige; Sam Smith & Kim Petras; Steve Lacy; Stevie Wonder with Smokey Robinson and Chris Stapleton.
A 50th-anniversary salute to hip-hop is also planned for the broadcast, with LL Cool J hosting, Questlove producing and musical directing, The Roots providing music and Black Thought narrating. Performers for the hip-hop salute include Big Boi, Busta Rhymes with Spliff Star, De La Soul, DJ Drama, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Missy Elliott, Future, GloRilla, Grandmaster Flash, Grandmaster Melle Mel & Scorpio/Ethiopian King, Ice-T, Lil Baby, Lil Wayne, The Lox, Method Man, Nelly, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, Rahiem, Rakim, RUN-DMC, Salt-N-Pepa and Spinderella, Scarface, Swizz Beatz and Too $hort.
Finally, there will be three individual In Memoriam tributes, including Kacey Musgraves honoring Loretta Lynn; Bonnie Raitt, Mick Fleetwood and Sheryl Crow honoring Fleetwood Mac’s Christine McVie; and Maverick City Music and Quavo honoring Migos rapper Takeoff.
But before all the show action, there was the red carpet. Find all the pre-show action in the gallery below.
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.
From her days as a Disney star and her chart-topping Bangerz run to present day, Miley Cyrus‘ sense of style has remained fiercely idiosyncratic. In 2006, the music industry progeny burst onto the scene as the star of Hannah Montana and became known as a Disney Channel supernova in Hannah’s trademark blonde wig.
After trying in fits and starts to establish her own identity outside of Hannah Montana, Cyrus used the release of 2012’s Bangerz to officially make a clean (or rather naughty) break from her roots with the House of Mouse. When the music video for lead single “We Can’t Stop” premiered, the pop star showed off a completely new side to herself, complete with a blonde pixie cut, red lip, ever-present stuck-out tongue and a parade of in-your-face, skin-baring ensembles.
Cyrus’ wild-child era continued to evolve into hippie territory through the release of 2015’s Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz, and by the time the singer unveiled Younger Now in 2017, she had adopted a much softer aesthetic inspired by the ’70s-era chic of Laurel Canyon. For the Plastic Hearts era, the 30-year-old channeled the glam rock of precursors (and collaborators) like Joan Jett and Billy Idol by growing out a punk-inspired shag and draping herself in leather and latex.
Cyrus broke new records with the release of her No. 1 hit “Flowers” at the start of 2023, and the self-empowerment anthem also turned a new leaf in her stylistic journey. As she crooned, “We were good, we were gold/ Kinda dream that can’t be sold,” the star emerged in a vintage gold lamé sheath dress by YSL in her most natural form yet, equally at home in La Perla lingerie as she is in a bold, oversized black pantsuit.
Here’s a photographic look back at Cyrus’ fashion over the last decade-plus of her career.
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.
With more representation than ever, stars from the K-pop world took over the City of Light for Paris Fashion Week with multiple head-turning moments made just from the first week of menswear shows for the Fall/Winter 2023 season.
One of the earlier shows this year, Saint Laurent on Jan. 17, 2023, had a double dose of boy-band power as SEVENTEEN’s Jeonghan and TEN of NCT and WayV made their Fashion Week debuts, seated alongside Wednesday star Jenna Ortega, Billboard Hot 100 hitmakers Conan Gray and Steve Lacy, as well as Korean singer-songwriter (and BLACKPINK collaborator) LØREN.
The Jan. 20 Dior Homme show was graced not only by the fashion house’s new global brand ambassador Jimin, but his bandmate J-Hope, who sat front row with the likes of Naomi Campbell and J Balvin. Afterward, Jimin told fans via Weverse that he was less nervous and could immerse himself at his first fashion show because of J-Hope’s presence. Undoubtedly, the Jack in the Box rapper brought comfort and confidence after taking over PFW, strutting through several menswear shows throughout the week, including Louis Vuitton and Hermes shows during his first Fashion Week.
Another star making multiple stops through Paris was BM of KARD. After previously walking a Milan Fashion Week, the Korean-American rapper (aka Big Matthew) is no stranger to the fashion world and attended shows for Loewe, Kenzo and Sacai during his return to Paris Fashion Week.
That’s just the start of the K-pop star power making appearances for the menswear half for the Fall/Winter 2023 season for Paris Fashion Week. See below for all the stylish looks from members of BTS, SEVENTEEN, NCT, KARD, BIGBANG, GOT7, SF9 and more.
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.
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.
