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Michael Fitzpatrick, singer for rock band Fitz & the Tantrums, doesn’t envy the younger generation of artists trying to catch a break in the music business.
“I’m so grateful my career happened and flourished before TikTok came,” Fitzpatrick tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast. “I feel for these new artists. They’re not even making music. They’re just content creators. They’ll work a whole year on an album and [if] their label doesn’t see enough viral s–t, they’ll literally shelf their album.”
Fitzpatrick is hardly alone in his criticism of TikTok. Last year, Halsey blasted her record label for holding the release of a new track “unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok.” Lizzy McAlpine, who debuted on the Hot 100 chart in February thanks to the success of the track “Ceilings” on TikTok, told Billboard she has “a love/hate relationship” with the app. “I feel like I can see the benefits of it, which is why I post,” said McAlpine. “But if I didn’t have to post, I would not be posting on TikTok.”
Not that Fitz & the Tantrums hasn’t had a bit of TikTok success; the band’s song “Out of My League,” which reached No. 13 on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart back in 2013, has been given added longevity by being used in nearly 165,000 TikTok videos. But artists and labels can’t summon a viral hit on command, and Fitzpatrick isn’t sure lightning will strike twice. “I would say in the law of averages, we already had our viral moment on TikTok. So what’s the chance I’m going to get two? I’m not so sure.”
The trick is coming up with what Fitzpatrick calls “quotable” moments in music. He cites Meghan Trainor’s “Made You Look” as a good example of a song that wasn’t necessarily written with social media in mind but is perfectly built for viral potential. Trainor and her co-writers Sean Douglas and Federico Vender wrote “vibrant, neon-colored lyrics” with brand names — Gucci and Louis Vuitton — to go with “a cool dance,” he says. “I think if you can find a lyric that really feels makes a statement or says something profound in a clever way and is succinct enough, that’s not a bad idea to consider in your songwriting because it gives your song a quotable moment.”
If there’s a song from the latest Fitz & the Tantrums album, Let Yourself Free from 2022, with TikTok potential, it could be a track called “Ahhhh.” The lyrics — Fitzpatrick songs “I could be someone when I grow up” in the pre-chorus — have already attracted some TikTok users. “What I realized is we weren’t trying to create that moment, but it might be the most quotable part of the whole record,” says Fitzpatrick. “People went out, they felt that lyric, felt that message and they’re creating.”
But will “Ahhhh” resonate with a larger swath of TikTok users? “We’ll see,” Fitzpatrick says cautiously. “It’s such a tricky thing.”
Listen to the entire Behind the Setlist interview with Fitzpatrick at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Stitcher or Amazon Music.
Forget Ozempic, or the Hollywood 48-hour miracle diet. If you really want to get superstar fit, Coldplay singer Chris Martin suggests you do what he does: listen to The Boss. In his case that’s 73-year-old miracle of biology Bruce Springsteen, from whom Martin has learned a very important diet tip.
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“I actually don’t have dinner anymore,” Martin told Conan O’Brien on this week’s episode of the former late night host’s podcast, Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend when O’Brien asked what important lessons the singer has learned from meeting, and breaking bread, with so many of his rock idols. “I stop eating at 4 [p.m.] and I learned that from having lunch with Bruce Springsteen.”
O’Brien, in his best Springsteen grunt, joked, “what happened? You were having lunch with him and he said, ‘after this NO MORE! That’s it!’”
Martin explained that he got to share a mid-day meal at home with Bruce and wife/bandmate Patti Scialfa the day after Coldplay performed in Philadelphia earlier this year, which is where the rock icon known for his age-defying stamina during sometimes three-plus-hour concerts dropped a few pearls of diet wisdom on his young charge.
“I was on a really strict diet anyway,” Martin continued. “But I was like, ‘Bruce looks even more in shape than me’ and Patti said he’s only eating one meal a day. I was like, ‘Well, there we go. That’s my next challenge.’” They both had jokes about what that one meal is, with O’Brien suggesting it was an 8-foot-long sub sandwich and Martin matching his punchline by revealing that it’s an entire buffalo.
“And then you see it’s this giant vat of beef chili,” O’Brien chuckled. “The chef came out and said, ‘today we have flank of buffalo with a steroid sauce,’” Martin quipped.
Martin will keep burning those calories on Coldplay’s massive Music of the Spheres world tour, wrapping up the current South American leg with a run of shows at Estadio Nilton Santos Engenhao in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil on March 25, 26 and 28 before moving on to another European swing that will run from May 17 through July 19. A final North American string of dates in September wraps with an Oct. 1 gig at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles.
Watch Martin’s interview with O’Brien below.
Lance Bass sat down with Billboard News on Tuesday (Feb. 7) to spill all the tea about his new podcast, Lance Bass Presents: Frosted Tips, and whether *NSYNC fans might ever get the reunion they’ve always wanted.
Chatting with Billboard‘s own Tetris Kelly, the boy band veteran said he initially conceived of the project as a podcast that “really celebrated the fandom out there,” and it’s the perfect excuse for fans to take a time-traveling trip back to the heyday of the early 2000s.
According to the *NSYNC star, his other goal for the show was to use it as a vehicle for “telling stories we were never allowed to tell before.”
“We had to keep it very PG back in the day,” he said. “And there was a lot of stuff going down behind the curtain. There’s definitely a lot of secrets being told. It’s a really great look at the music industry, especially in that era. You know, how everything went down, what we all experienced. There’s so many similarities. A lot of the issues we were dealing with at the time were kept out of public view because we didn’t want the fans to know.”
So far, the podcast has featured Bass’ bandmates J.C. Chasez and Joey Fatone, as well as A.J. McLean of Backstreet Boys, Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees and Jonathan Knight of New Kids on the Block.
When Kelly asked about whether a reunion might ever be in the boy band’s future — especially after four-fifths of *NSYNC joined Ariana Grande onstage at Coachella in 2019 — Bass left the door open.
“Never say never,” he said. “I mean, who knew we were going to be doing Coachella a few years ago? I think it just has to be the right time; we all have to be inspired in the moment. But I do think the world needs something again from *NSYNC. I always feel bad that there was no ending, because we didn’t have a final show, we didn’t have a final tour, because we didn’t know it was the final days. I think we owe it to the fans to give them something at some point. I just hope it’s before I’m 80 years old,” he laughed.
Watch more from Bass’ interview with Billboard News, including his thoughts on modern boy bands like BTS, his favorite memories from his *NSYNC days and more, above.
Hulu shared a first glimpse of its original docuseries based on Spotify’s popular RapCaviar playlist on Tuesday (Feb. 7).
RapCaviar Presents will tackle some of the most provocative issues surrounding hip-hop today through conversations with the genre’s emerging and chart-topping artists, including City Girls, Jack Harlow, Polo G, Roddy Ricch, Coi Leray and more. All seven episodes will premiere via Hulu on March 30.
In the nearly two-minute clip, Tyler, the Creator and Pharrell Williams separately sit down to discuss the impact they’ve had on one another. Tyler recalls meeting with his idol in the studio during his Cherry Bomb European tour in 2015 and the words he shared with him that instigated a significant “switch” in the rapper’s music. “Make something undeniable, and make it equally as infectious,” Pharrell advises in his own interview. “Why are you doing music? Is it just because you just want to look cool? ‘Cause that will burn out. When it becomes purpose-oriented, it can be as cool as the flashy sh–, but it will be much more meaningful.”
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“Oh f—!” Tyler exclaims in the next frame. “OK. No more being silly. … Music first. And at that moment, I went home. I just wanted to change everything. I just wanted to switch, and the switch f—ing happened.”
“Spotify continues to find ways to innovate and grow the influence of our playlist brands. We’re excited to expand the RapCaviar universe through this docuseries with our partners at Hulu,” said Carl Chery, Spotify’s head of urban music and creative director of the series, in a statement. “Using hip-hop as a vehicle to examine society, we’re revealing stories through the lens of visionaries like Tyler, The Creator, and the City Girls. Through RapCaviar Presents, we’re hoping to entertain and educate hip-hop fans and spark meaningful conversations about music and culture.”
Karam Gill serves as the executive producer of the series, with Steve Rico as the showrunner. Chery and Liz Gateley are both overseeing creative for the show on behalf of Spotify, with Eli Holzman and Aaron Saidman handling on behalf of The Intellectual Property Corporation (IPC), a part of Sony Pictures Television. Av Accius, Jeremiah Murphy and Marcus A. Clarke serve as co-executive producers. Gill, Quan Lateef-Hill, Peter J. Scalettar, Wendy J.N. Lee, Farah X and Mandon Lovett will direct the episodes.
Check out the first clip from RapCaviar Presents below.
“We would tend to start off with a bang,” says Kim Thayil, guitarist for Soundgarden, a pillar of the Seattle grunge scene in the late ‘80s and a 2023 nominee for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Often, the first song of a set was “Searching With My Good Eye Closed” from the band’s 1992 album Badmotorfinger. At the Detroit’s Fox Theatre on May 17, 2017, the band reached back farther into its catalog for “Ugly Truth” from its 1989 major label debut, Louder Than Love.
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Whichever song began a Soundgarden concert, the intent was the same. “Let’s hit them with something energetic and fast and aggressive,” Thayil tells Billboard‘s Behind the Setlist podcast.
As far as the music, the Detroit show was just another gig on a U.S. tour that snaked through the Southeast and Midwest. The band delved deep into its catalog, playing its biggest hits from the ’90s (“Black Hole Sun,” “Spoonman” and “Blow Up the Outside World”), a highlight from its early catalog (“Hunted Down” from its 1987 EP, Screaming Life) and deep cuts from a six-times platinum album (“Mailman” and “Kickstand” from Superunknown). It was anything but a typical show, however. The Fox Theatre show would be the band’s final performance. Singer Chris Cornell tragically died early the following morning.
Looking back at the career-spanning set from that final show, Thayil believes the four songs from the band’s final studio album, 2012’s King Animal, hold up well next to its more celebrated, earlier catalog. “Certainly a different time in the lives of many of our fan base who may have followed us for 30 years,” he says. “A different time in our lives. But I think those those songs were all fairly strong and fun to play live.”
The King Animal cut “By Crooked Steps” was one of those newer songs Thayil enjoyed playing live. Like “My Wave” from 1994’s Superunknown, “By Crooked Steps” is an energetic, physical and compelling song that departs from the standard 4/4 time signature. “That was a song that [drummer] Matt [Cameron] brought in,” he says. “It was his initial groove and riff. And then [bass player] Ben [Shepherd] and I wrote a few things around that groove to add to it. That was certainly dear to us because it’s one of the first things that that we had written. And all of us were collaborating on that, which was definitely the most fun in working on a song.”
An encore would typically end with “Slaves & Bulldozers” from Badmotorfinger “because it was it was kind of a jam song,” says Thayil. “There was a basic framework that we play in order to support the vocals and the lyrics. But then certain sections are just that could meander and go on — the jam sections with guitars. And the bass would jam. Matt would jam. It would meander. Sometimes we’d go off in different directions and Matt would have to play a gatekeeper and bring everyone back in to the yard. Like, OK, we’re we’ve lost this one, let’s come back in. Sometimes we’d all be on the same page and it’d be trippy, transcendent jam. And we just let that happen.”
The band would leave the crowd with a sustained blast of noise and feedback, “a sort of ritualistic ending” that began before original bass player Hiro Yamamoto left the band in 1990, says Thayil. The cacophony was turned into a separate, four-minute track at the end of the 2019 live album, Live from the Artists Den, and given the title “Feedbacchanal.” “It had always been part of our set as a set feedback jam like some kind of weird noise-jazz-improv trip-out with delays and squealing and humming,” says Thayil, “and ‘Slaves & Bulldozers’ feeds into that pretty well.
Listen to the interview with Thayil at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, Audible or iHeart.
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J Prince has garnered a reputation that seems larger than life in some respects, prompting many to hold the Texas native’s name in both reverence and fear. The Rap-A-Lot and Mob Ties honcho was a recent guest on the Million Dollaz Worth of Game podcast and took a swipe at Offset, prompting a reply along with civilian Twitter seemingly knowing the ins and outs of how gangsters move.
J Prince, J Prince Jr., and other members of the Prince family sat down with Gillie and Wallo to chop it up over a number of topics. Gillie rightly opened up the chat by offering condolences to Takeoff, who was shot and killed in J Prince’s native Houston during a dice game that went left.
Fans on Twitter noted that Gillie, typically viewed as an interviewer who asks tough questions, didn’t dig for details and clarity to the level his co-host and cousin Wallo demonstrated. However, the Prince family used the moment to defend themselves against allegations that they had something to do with the death of Takeoff and it appeared they named other individuals in a bid to clear their own involvement according to observers.
There was one point of serious contention as it relates to the Migos collective overall with J Prince saying that Offset was not as close to his blood cousin, Takeoff, in recent times. Mike Prince also got emotional when he spoke about the fateful evening of Takeoff’s death and decried the rumors that the Prince family was connected.
As it stands, J Prince and the Prince family find themselves trending on Twitter while Offset is fuming over the mishandling of the emotional nature of the passing, mentioning his cousin’s mother during his video.
On Twitter, folks are speaking from vantage points that are clearly not cut from the cloth and some folks are throwing flags on the play. Check out those reactions below along with the podcast episode in question.
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The second season of the acclaimed podcast hosted by Dave Chappelle, Yasiin Bey and Talib Kweli has launched with its first episode.
Fans of The Midnight Miracle podcast which is hosted by Chappelle, Bey, and Kweli on the Luminary platform, dropped the first episode of their second season Monday (Dec. 19). The episode, entitled “A Magnificent Day for an Exorcism,” follows the same format as the first season where listeners are greeted with an audio collage of hosts and guests.
The trailer for the launch features Bey conducting a prayer, which serves as the backdrop for a montage of video and images featuring the trio over the past year. Those featured in the first episode of the new season include cinematographer Arthur Jafa, Bill Murray, Q-Tip, Monie Love, Pharaohe Monch and Jon Stewart. In addition to being available on Luminary, the new season will also be available to listeners who are subscribed to Apple Podcasts.
The Midnight Miracle is a true audio masterpiece led by Dave Chappelle, Talib Kweli, and Yasiin Bey. They represent some of the most thoughtful voices of our generation and together deliver a forum that addresses the world as it’s happening today, with nuance and grace,” said Rishi Malhotra, CEO of Luminary.
The release of the episode was anticipated by many after the release of a trailer last month, which preceded the comedian hosting SNL with Black Star as the featured musical guest. Chappelle had also teased the possibility of the new season launching while headlining a show with Chris Rock out in Los Angeles.
At that same show – which marked the first in the city for Chappelle since he was attacked by a fan onstage – Kweli and Bey came out to perform for the crowd. The attacker, Isaiah Lee, pleaded no contest to charges of battery and entering a restricted area during a live event last week in a courtroom and received a sentence of 270 days in jail.
Check out the trailer for the new episode below.
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John Mayer stopped by Call Her Daddy for the hit podcast’s first-ever holiday special and spilled some major tea about his breakout hit “Your Body Is a Wonderland.”
The topic came up when host Alex Cooper asked the rocker what he was like in high school, in an episode that dropped Tuesday night (Dec. 20). “I didn’t have a presence,” Mayer admitted. “So I think that one of the bigger misnomers about me is that there’s like a jocky-ness to me, you know? Like there’s an alpha, musician jocky-ness to me and the bottom line is, like, I went to school to get it over with. And my life began at 3 o’clock in the afternoon when I came home and played guitar.”
Cooper was quick to point out that just a few years after graduating from high school, he was winning his first Grammy for 2002’s “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” And yet, Mayer insisted that — contrary to the mythos surrounding his love life — he was hardly a Hollywood playboy at the time.
“That was about my first girlfriend,” he said of his sophomore single. “That was about the feeling, which I think was already sort of nostalgic… I was 21 when I wrote that song and I was nostalgic for being 16.”
When Cooper pressed that she always thought the sensual smash was about a certain, unnamed celebrity, he responded, “No, that’s one of those things where people just sort of formed that idea, it gets reinforced over the years, no, no, no. I had never met a celebrity when I wrote that song.”
Next year, Mayer will embark on the final Dead & Company tour, starting May 19 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles.
Stream Mayer’s Call Her Daddy episode on Spotify below.
When Alessandra Alarcón was named president of SBS’ entertainment division in 2019, she became, at 31 years old, the first woman to ever lead the Latin media company’s very lucrative live events division.
“We have a sweet little nickname at corporate for my division,” she says with a laugh. “They call us the ‘profit center.’”
“The profit center,” as Alarcón calls it, puts together SBS Entertainment’s many highly regarded and successful music events, including Los Angeles’ Calibash, the urban fest that takes place every January. In the three years since Alarcón took over, Calibash has gradually pared down the number of acts and emerged with a more star-studded lineup. “I thought the audience would be okay, because I would be okay with there being less acts but more quality sets. And I’m happy to report that I was right,” she says.
Garnering success was especially important for Alarcón given that she’s the granddaughter of SBS founder Pablo Raúl Alarcón and one of the daughters of SBS Chairman Raúl Alarcón.
In this episode of the Billboard podcast “Latin Hitmaker,” Alarcón, in her first in-depth interview since being appointed to her post, spoke about the importance of legacy, the new U.S. Latin market and balancing work and motherhood. Below you can find some highlights from the conversation.
On bringing a bilingual, bicultural perspective to a Spanish-language media company: “It gives me a very unique perspective on business and how business is done. There are a lot of deep relationships [in Latin] and there’s a certain way of thinking of how things have to get done, because that’s the way it was always done. And I think that being born in L.A., and then [living] in New York and raised in Miami […] and having that more bicultural view of business and how things get done has certainly helped me accomplish a lot of things and not getting lost in the noise, which sometimes happens.”
On her negotiating style: “I’m definitely more of a velvet hammer. This is a very male-dominated industry. Women are making strides, but it is a very male-dominated industry. There’s a time and a place to be tough, but I always like to come in, hearing someone out, making them feel heard and respected. But certainly there’s a hammer that has to come down every once in a while.”
On work advice from her dad: Raúl Alarcón always imparted on his daughter the importance of being respectful to others. “He said, ‘There’s nothing worse than having an enemy that works for you. The solution is going to come to you, but you’re not going to get it by berating someone or making them feel bad about themselves.’”
On balancing work with her six and four-year-old children: “This [is a] piece of advice I got from my aunt. She worked and she had two children and she said: ‘You can have it all, just not at the same time.’”
On her advice to those new in the business: “The obstacle is the way. There is a way through anything. There’s a solution to every problem. It might not be the exact thing that you want, and that’s where the humbling and the flexibility comes in. You know, you have to be limber and ready to adapt because if you don’t adapt, you die. You have to pivot.”
Listen to the full episode of Latin Hitmaker here:
Audible is launching a new eight-part audio series called Origins that will feature a number of A-list musicians answering the question “Where are you from?” Billboard can exclusively announce. The show will feature everyone from Billie Eilish, Doja Cat and Camilo to Koffee, Mickey Guyton, King Princess, Flying Lotus and artist-rapper Tobe Nwigwe interpreting the central query, with all episodes slated to drop on Nov. 17 on Audible.
“Audible has been fortunate to work with some of the most beloved and iconic musicians of our time through our ‘Words + Music’ series – one that focuses on the work of immensely talented artists and their incredible and varied impacts musically and personally, and has struck a chord with Audible listeners,” said Rachel Ghiazza, Audible’s vp and head of U.S. content, in a statement. “As we continue to dive head first into our expanding music vertical, we are thrilled to introduce Origins, a transcendent audio experience. This series breaks down the barrier between artist and human, as we get up close and personal with these remarkable contemporary musicians and find the source of each of their creative drives.”
The show promises that each episode will bring listeners closer to “the moments that shaped some of today’s most notable artists through a mix of spoken narrative, immersive sound design, and original music performance.”
Thinking about her own origin story, Oscar-winner Eilish said in a statement, “It was so weird to me when I was first coming up and, and the thing everybody said was, like, ‘Billie Eilish’s music is so depressing and it’s so sad and it’s too dark,’ and I was like, ‘What are you talking about? Have you listened to The Beatles and ‘As My Guitar Gently Weeps,’ and ‘Yesterday’ and Lana Del Rey? Like, what the hell?’ It was so surprising to me that people thought anything I was creating was dark. I mean, it’s real.”
Doja also said the question inspired some deep thoughts. “I’ve always tried to bring my fans into my world,” she shared. “I am more interested in being myself than what others want me to be. I want people to get a real understanding of who I am, and I think Origins will help them do that.”
Audible Original Origins
Courtesy of Audible*
Origins follows on the heels of Audible’s acclaimed Words + Music series, which has featured deep dives with artists including Pete Townshend, Beck, John Legend, Chuck D, Eddie Vedder, Alice Cooper, Rhiannon Giddens and more.
Check out the descriptions of each episode below:
Billie Eilish challenges origin, resists definition, and rejects the very idea that who she was yesterday is who she has to be tomorrow.Doja Cat rediscovers her origin through a process of reinvention.Camilo lives and breathes origin, not only as the source of everything he has ever known, but also as his most inspiring teacher.Koffee reflects on the importance of trusting instinct and her love of the island that nurtured her creativity.Tobe Nwigwe, whose origins have led him far from his initial ambitions, recalls the path that led him to his true calling.Flying Lotus looks at origin through the lens of loss and longing to consider if the most powerful lessons are those that encourage us to return to the simplest version of our story.King Princess takes on origin in the frame of identity, a place where we are formed, informed, and then transformed.Mickey Guyton, whose story is full of triumph in the face of rejection, unpacks origin with survival as her only point of reference.