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Comedian Larry Wilmore will host this year’s Podcast Academy Awards, known as the Ambies.
The awards show will take place March 7 in Las Vegas at the International Theater, with the ceremony and awards pre-show being livestreamed on Twitch beginning at 4:30 p.m. PT.
Wilmore is currently the host of Black on the Air, a show on The Ringer Podcast Network that has featured guests like Kerry Washington, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Regina Hall, B.J. Novak, Wanda Sykes and Judd Apatow, among others. He is the co-creator of Insecure, with Issa Rae, and Grown-ish, with Kenya Barris.
“Larry’s prolific body of work and unique humor spans the stage, screen and podcasting. To say that we are lucky to have him host this year’s Ambies is an understatement,” said Donald Albright, chairperson of The Podcast Academy and CEO of Tenderfoot TV. “He’s an icon in his own right. We cannot wait to see — and hear — what he will bring to the ceremony.”
At the 2022 Ambie Awards, the podcast 9/12 (Pineapple Street Studios, Amazon Music and Wondery) took home the top prize for podcast of the year. Other winners included Rosamund Pike for her performance in QCode’s Edith and former NPR host Sam Sanders for his work as a host on It’s Been a Minute. The ceremony was hosted at the Mayan Theater in Los Angeles.
The Hollywood Reporter is a sponsor of The Podcast Academy alongside Wondery, Sonoro, Audible, The Podcast Show, Stitcher, PRX, Tenderfoot TV, Castbox, Loeb & Loeb and Paramount.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Over her 40-plus-year career, Madonna has gone on a steady 11 tours, so what is it about her just-announced 12th trek — The Celebration Tour — that is creating so much buzz?
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Well, for one, she’s promising an all-hits setlist – which for Madonna takes some narrowing down, given her 38 Billboard Hot 100 top 10s and 50 Dance Club Songs No. 1s. And while she’s played a lot of her hits in concert before, as far as we know, this is the first time she’s not touring around a new album — so she truly only has her back catalog to choose from.
On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie peppers Madonna superfan Keith with questions about the buzzy new global tour — like what lesser-known nuggets are fans dying to hear? And why now for this retrospective tour? Listen to the latest episode now:
Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on how SZA’s SOS is unstoppable at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, notching a fifth straight week atop the tally, while Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” captures an eighth week at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, making it the Swift song with the most weeks at No. 1. Plus, Zach Bryan’s slow-burn hit single “Something in the Orange” reaches the Hot 100’s top 10 more than eight months after its release.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
With 10 nominees apiece in each of the Big Four categories at the 2023 Grammy Awards, predicting the night’s winners is tougher than ever — but that won’t stop the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast from trying.
On the latest episode, Katie & Keith are breaking down Billboard awards editor Paul Grein’s Big Four predictions — in the record of the year, song of the year, best new artist and album of the year categories. Will Harry Styles and Lizzo snag their first Big Four wins, thanks to nods in three of the four categories each? And after years of being passed over for album of the year, could Renaissance be Beyoncé’s golden ticket — or will Bad Bunny continue on his unstoppable path toward global domination and take the top prize with Un Verano Sin Ti instead?
There’s a lot to discuss ahead of the Feb. 5 awards show, so let’s get to it in the brand-new episode of the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast below.
Also on the show, it’s a rather exciting week on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, as both The Weekend and Beyoncé notch new top 10 hits, David Guetta and Bebe Rexha’s “Blue (I’m Good)” hits a new peak, and Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” jumps back to No. 1 for a seventh week — tying for the most weeks any Swift song has spent atop the chart. Plus, on the Billboard 200, SZA’s SOS clocks a fourth straight week at No. 1 — becoming the first R&B album by a woman to spend its first four weeks atop the list in nearly 30 years.
Plus, we happened to get some breaking pop news while we were recording the podcast: The 2023 Coachella headliners have arrived! And Keith shares his experience attending ABBA’s Voyage concert in London — what it was like to see he virtual concert in person?
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
We’re just a few days into the new year — but it’s never too early to look ahead to the Year in Pop.
On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are sharing their pop predictions and new year’s resolutions about what we know is coming and what we hope to see. Will Beyoncé tour around Renaissance — or do we have to wait until Act II‘s arrival to see her live? Will Taylor Swift release any re-recorded music ahead of the March launch of her Eras Tour? And might we see new albums or tours from Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, Madonna or all of the above?
Listen to the new episode to take a peek into our pop-music crystal ball.
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Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on how both the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 charts are still very festive, with half of the top 10 albums and eight of the top 10 songs all Christmas efforts, as the charts’ latest tracking week included Dec. 23 through 25.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
Chris Isaak doesn’t just dabble in holiday music — he’s loved it since growing up in Stockton, in California’s Central Valley, listening to Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Vince Guaraldi, Gene Autrey’s “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and Roy Orbison’s version of the Willie Nelson song “Pretty Paper.” Those influences come through on his latest album, Everybody Knows It’s Christmas, released Oct. 14 through Sun Label Group.
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“I guess whatever you listen to when you’re a kid, that’s in your head and that’s really Christmas — because you’re never going to beat that excitement,” the singer tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast.
Everybody Knows It’s Christmas is Isaak’s second studio album of holiday music. Ever since the first, 2004’s Christmas, Isaak has donned a red custom suit and gone on a brief holiday tour that mixes Christmas music with songs from his four-decade career, including “Wicked Game,” a No. 6 Hot 100 hit in 1991, and “Somebody’s Crying” from the 1995 album Forever Blue. “I’m terrible on dates, but it’s been a long time,” jokes Isaak about his holiday touring. “I’m on my second or third red suit.”
Isaak does justice to some beloved holiday standards. His cover of Chuck Berry’s “Run Run Rudolph” (titled “Run Rudolph Run” on the album) remains faithful to the original, hard-rocking version. His take on the normally upbeat “Winter Wonderland” creates a slow, shimmering ode to winter romance. The album closes with a moving rendition of “O Holy Night,” a suggestion by the album’s producer, Dave Cobb, who worked with Isaak in Nashville’s RCA Studio.
But Isaak bucked the tradition of covering someone else’s holiday songs and wrote eight out of the album’s 13 tracks. “When I’m writing [holiday songs] I’m thinking about — now, this doesn’t sound like me, but it’s me — I actually picture a family sitting around and listening to the thing. I hope that it’ll be something they can all listen to. And it’s kind of enough upbeat energy that they can put it in the background while they’re eating dinner and they can have their argument at the table and say, ‘Turn up the music,’ you know?”
Isaak’s sense of humor comes out in “Help Me, Baby Jesus,” one of the standout tracks on Everybody Knows It’s Christmas. In the song, thieves took off with a camera, the three wise men, Mary, the manger, floodlights and an extension cord. “Where I grew up, everybody would steal everything off your front yard,” he explains. “People had to watch the baby Jesus.
“That song will not be a hit,” Isaak continues. “But somewhere in America, there will be somebody who gets a nativity scene stolen, and their friend will go, ‘Hey, there’s a song for you.’”
Listen to the entire conversation with Chris Isaak in the Behind the Setlist podcast at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Stitcher, Amazon Music or Audible.
It was 1985 and Simple Minds were in the recording studio with famed producer Jimmy Iovine trying to follow an unexpected hit after finally breaking through in the U.S. “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” was featured in the movie and soundtrack to The Breakfast Club and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in May of that year.
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Iovine, whose resume at the time already included Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedos and Stevie Nicks’ debut solo album, Bella Donna, was brought aboard for the sessions for the band’s eighth and most successful album, Once Upon a Time. He was pushing the band hard to create something special, singer Jim Kerr tells Billboard’s Behind the Setlist podcast from his home in Sicily while the band was on break from touring following the release of its 21st studio album, Direction of the Heart, on Oct. 21 through BMG.
“We were already feeling the pressure,” remembers Kerr, “but Jimmy was relentless. ‘You’ve got to come up with something special,’” Iovine told the band. “’You have to come up with something. We have to have something special.’
One result from those sessions with Iovine was the song “Alive and Kicking,” which became the group’s second-biggest U.S. hit and peaked at No. 3 on the Hot 100 in Dec. 1985. Like its predecessor, “Alive and Kicking” ends in a sing-along Kerr says was borrowed from The Beatles’ “Hey Jude.” “It’s almost like a hymn at the beginning. And just when you think you’ve heard it all, the ‘la la la’ comes in at the end — which, coincidentally, ‘Don’t You’ had, too.”
In recent concerts, Simple Minds strategically paired “Don’t You” with “Alive and Kicking” in the encore. Not only are the songs the band’s biggest hits and from the same era, “they’re the sing-along moments,” says Kerr, an opportunity for the audience to participate. “That’s when the whole place sings in tune and where we just stand back and the night belongs to them. It’s a wonderful thing to behold.”
In fact, says Kerr, the genius of those songs is their lyrical simplicity. “The great thing about those choruses is anyone in the world can sing ‘la la la.’ You can sing it in Japan, you can sing it in Oslo. That’s the most intelligent lyric we ever wrote,” says Kerr with a chuckle. “Think about it. The whole world can sing that.”
Listen to the entire interview with Simple Minds’ Jim Kerr at Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, iHeart or Audible.
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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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While it may seem like most every major artist has released a full-length holiday album, there are still quite a few superstars that have yet to drop a seasonal project – including such chart-topping acts as Adele, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga and Ed Sheeran.
On the latest Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen below), hosts Katie and Keith discuss a dozen artists that are missing from the holiday cannon and debate whether we’ll ever actually get a seasonal album from them. (We’re looking at you, Paul McCartney!)
Also on the show, the Pop Shoppers chat about SZA scoring her first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with SOS (and securing one of the biggest debuts of 2022) and how Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reaches double-digits at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, spending its 10th nonconsecutive week atop the list.
Katie and Keith also take a stroll down chart memory lane in the chart stat of the week feature, revisiting the all-star charity album A Very Special Christmas and what became the start of a mega-successful holiday music series.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
When Alicia Keys set out to make her first holiday album, Santa Baby, she wanted to make sure it sounded like a project she would put out at any time of year.
“It has a soulfulness, a rawness, it has that New York energy in it too, but it just feels like something you could play from top to bottom,” Keys tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen below) about the Apple Music-exclusive album. “And I recorded it like that; we recorded it very consistently over about seven days, and it all really feels cohesive and great. And so I love it. I think now is the time.
“And it’s my first release off of my own independent record label, Alicia Keys Records, so it makes it even better.”
“Soulfulness” was the vibe Keys kept returning to for the album, which was released last month, saying, “It really does harness a sound, and that sound is always going to have that soulfulness. Everything that I touch is going to have a soulfulness, it’s gonna have something that feels warm, I want it to feel meaningful, I want the lyrics to be things that you never forget. I want to create memories.”
The album’s lead single, “December Back 2 June,” is the perfect example of an original on the album, which Keys co-wrote with Tayla Parx, that could really fit in on any year-round Keys project. But there is one Yuletide touch from producer Tommy Parker that gives the song some festive flair.
“I was like, ‘Where did he find this Christmas Jackson 5 song that I’ve never heard in all my life?’” Keys recalls thinking when she heard the high-pitched “It’s just Christmastime” line in the production. “And so I talked to him, and I’m like, ‘Is this a sample? What is this?’ And he had actually created that voice and that kind of sample-sounding pitch. And I fell in love with it, because to me it felt like a ‘You Don’t Know My Name’ or one of these songs that are my style, like that kind of ’70s sample, we’ll put a modern approach on it. And so it totally was 100% me, and he said that he created it with that in mind.”
As for the album’s namesake song, Keys has always appreciated the 1953 original for its ahead-of-its-time boldness. “‘Santa Baby’ by Eartha Kitt is like, by far to me, one of the best-written songs of all time,” she says. “I just love that cheekiness, the flirtiness. I love the way that she approached it, especially … as a woman in that time, that she was totally bold, brave, she wasn’t trying to meet anybody else’s standards. She set her own direction and journey and lane, and so … I was very excited to bring that out, in my style.”
But Keys is most thrilled to become part of people’s holiday traditions with her addition to the Christmas catalog. “There’s timeless music that, every year, you’re gonna hear it and you need it and you love it,” she says. “And I really want to be a part of that group of timeless compositions that you can just forever love, forever depend on, and forever create memories with your family and your loved ones.”
Listen to the full interview with Keys above, in which she also names some of her all-time favorite Christmas music, including Boyz II Men’s 1993 album Christmas Interpretations; Vince Guaraldi Trio’s 1965 soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas (she covers “Christmas Time Is Here” on her new album); So So Def’s 12 Soulful Nights of Christmas from 1996 (on which Keys performs “Little Drummer Girl” — the then-teenager’s first album appearance); George Winston’s 1982 project December; 1973’s A Motown Christmas; and, last but not least, James Brown’s holiday albums, including her personal favorite song “Santa, Go Straight to the Ghetto.”
Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” returning to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart and producer Metro Boomin scoring his third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 with the chart-topping debut of Heroes & Villains.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
The Billboard charts are getting ever more festive in the march to Christmas.
On the Billboard Hot 100 songs and Billboard 200 albums charts (both dated Dec. 10), the lists are looking very merry and bright. On the Hot 100, Mariah Carey’s evergreen chart-topper “All I Want for Christmas Is You” vaults to No. 2 and Michael Bublé’s former No. 1 album Christmas jingles up the Billboard 200 into the top five. Christmas was released in 2011 and spent five weeks atop the list late that year and in early 2012 and has returned to the top 10 in every subsequent holiday season.
Speaking of Bublé, earlier this year on the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, he joined hosts Katie and Keith to discuss his then-new album Higher (a recent Grammy Award nominee for best traditional pop vocal album). Well, the latest Pop Shop Podcast (listen below) has a special unheard moment from that interview, where Bublé was asked about his Christmas album and what it means to know that the ever-popular set has become a favorite in homes around the world each year, soundtracking family gatherings.
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“Well, can you imagine how lucky I feel to be invited into all of that?” Bublé tells the Pop Shop Podcast. “I mean, I knew what I was doing when I made the record. I had high hopes. I was quite ambitious. Because I really genuinely love the songs. I never had any idea that it would be like this ever, ever.”
“And it’s funny, years ago, I would complain about it [the album’s success], and I would say [exasperated] ‘Well, you know, they keep talking about the Christmas album,’” he recalled. “But it was when my son got sick, I remember sitting in the hospital, and I just remember thinking how lucky I was. I just remember thinking so clearly, you know, how wonderful this is, that this is a part of your legacy. …
“What’s interesting, too, is it’s become less about what religion you are and it’s become about just a time when us human beings might need a bit of a break. And there’s a little more empathy and kindness. And I thought, man, to be connected to something so beautiful, there are much worse things in life.”
Also on the latest Pop Shop Podcast, Katie and Keith discuss the death of singer-songwriter Christine McVie and the pop sensibility she brought to her work with Fleetwood Mac. Plus, the Pop Shop team chats about Amber Riley (spoiler alert!) winning The Masked Singer and what it could mean for her career in the future. They also talk about her Dec. 5 guest appearance on The Jennifer Hudson Show, where Riley and Hudson duetted on “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
