Pop
Jessica Simpson is stepping back into the music world. The superstar announced on Friday (Feb. 21) that she’s making her highly anticipated musical return with a brand new EP, Nashville Canyon, which is set for release on March 21. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Simpson celebrated […]
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are teaming up for their new musical era, and the engaged couple dropped their newest song, a collaboration with Gracie Abrams titled “Call Me When You Break Up,” on Thursday (Feb. 20).
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Gomez, Blanco and Abrams joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1 this week to discuss the team-up, where the “That’s So True” singer opened up about how natural the song’s creation was. “For as long as I’ve cared about music, both of their work has been in my life,” Abrams said of Gomez and Blanco. “So anything that they want from me is a yes forever. And I just felt really grateful for the opportunity. And also just the song was immediately so stuck in my head as soon as I heard it for the first time. And of course, the opportunity to write my verse on it just happened so quickly, which I think is such a testament to how addicting the song is I think.”
“Call Me When You Break Up” is set to be featured on Gomez and Blanco’s upcoming joint album, I Said I Love You First, which is scheduled to arrive on March 21. The newly engaged duo announced the project last week, while also dropping its lead single, “Scared of Loving You.”
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Gomez discussed working with her fiancé in the interview with Lowe, sharing, “It just felt like it was a little taste of what we are and how we made this together, and how much we loved it and how much we love each other. And it just felt like it was meant to be.”
Blanco then gushed over Gomez, noting, “She’s had such a journey in life, both personally, medically, so many other things. She makes you just believe it. She’s like, ‘I’m not scared of dying young or anyone,’ but she’s scared of the fact of losing someone that she’s finally created a bond with where she feels comfortable enough. And somehow by God’s grace, I happen to be that person. I have no idea why, but I am.”
Watch the “Call Me When You Break Up” music video here.
“Basically, I disappeared from the industry for almost two years,” Dove Cameron tells Billboard over a Zoom call, half-laughing. For patient fans of the singer-actor (as well as the less-than-patient ones clamoring for new music in the comments section of her Instagram), the wait is finally over.
Cameron unleashes “Too Much” on Friday (Feb. 21), a danceable kiss-off to a less-than-supportive lover. “If you say I’m too much/ Baby, go find less,” Cameron scoffs over throbbing synths and a dark, pounding beat, evoking the camp-drenched classics of Lady Gaga’s early years. “I’m sending warm regards/ And a box of your things in a black car.”
Though sonically divergent from her Billboard Hot 100 top 20 hit “Boyfriend,” “Too Much” is similarly inspired by a real-life incident of a guy being a dick. Several years ago, after a “beautiful night” out with a bunch of friends, Cameron and her then-partner got into a car. “I was like, ‘Wasn’t that such a nice night?’ And he said, ‘You know, people like you better when you talk less.’” At the time, Cameron panicked, thinking “Oh my God, did I totally read that wrong? Maybe everybody hates me.”
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In that sense, “Too Much” is a bit of a retcon re-do for Cameron, giving her the chance to say today what she wishes she could have told him at the time. “I had a realization one day that it’s not my job to make myself smaller to fit into a shape that you’re more comfortable holding,” she muses. “I just hope that anyone who’s young and struggling with feeling like they are too huge, too big wherever they go, they would hear this.”
The singer-actor says her break from the industry “churn,” during which she took the time for therapy and some serious “digging and excavation” into her personal pain and depression, helped give her the needed perspective to craft her next musical chapter — which will not be a sequel to 2023’s Alchemical: Volume 1. “I’m in such a different place in my life,” Cameron explains. “At this point in my life, I feel so, so seen and so loved, especially by my all my friends and my current partner.”
Cameron and Måneskin frontman Damiano David have been dating since at least Feb. 2024, and she says the relationship helped reorient her life. “We met, and it was just like, ‘This is exactly the path, and this makes sense. This person is going to be very important in my life in some way.’ And I started to find new sort of inspiration and step into myself in a way that I had never really done before,” Cameron says. David, who is currently promoting his own solo music apart from the Italian rock band, even inspired one of the songs she recorded during her recent “nine-to-five, five-days-a-week” studio sessions.
Although it’s hardly lighthearted, frothy pop, Cameron’s new material finds her dipping a toe into dance music, a genre she previously thought would be “incongruous” with her personality. “I didn’t think I could make happy music as a previously unhappy person, and this record was really healing for me in that way,” she says. “I just granted myself permission to remove all the judgments that I had around pop music and dance music,” she says, citing artists like Lady Gaga, Marina and Robyn as touchstones for her. “I’m having more fun than ever.”
Cameron also branched out and cleared another creative hurdle on the set of her latest acting project, an upcoming psychosexual thriller for Amazon Prime. “[Any acting project] has to have a challenge, and it sent me into a little bit of an anxiety crash because there’s nudity involved. I had always known that was something I wanted to tackle,” she explains. “If there’s anything I feel like I can’t do, then I feel like I have to do it in order to get to the next level of my own evolution. I was excited to prove myself wrong…. I basically just went into it blindly, super terrified, but knowing that it was the right thing to do, and very excited.”
While the project, based on the book 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard, doesn’t have a release date yet, Cameron is eager for people to see it. “Oh girl, I’m begging. I’m banging down the Amazon door,” she laughs. “I say ‘yes’ to very few acting projects lately, simply because it takes so long to get an album done and off the ground and mixed and mastered and all that, but this was very different and special to me. The script was so strong; I love a concept based on a novel because there’s so much source material to look at; and the character, Ciara, is incredible. She’s a dream character to play.”
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, Tate McRae seizes her moment, Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco find healing with Gracie Abrams, and JENNIE and Doechii run the world for the girls. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Tate McRae, So Close to What
Tate McRae’s success story is one of perseverance: the Canadian pop star has spent grinding out singles and projects, honing her sound and point of view, and collecting enough crossover hits to build palpable buzz around her latest full-length. So Close to What doesn’t deviate too much from McRae’s proven aesthetic — the 15 tracks rarely exceed the three-minute mark — but also features a more mature perspective, as McRae asserts her fears and desires within each slick hook.
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Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco with Gracie Abrams, “Call Me When You Break Up”
Longtime Selena Gomez fans understand the appeal of her stream-of-consciousness pop — verses blurted out, vulnerabilities on full display — and Gomez (alongside fiancee Benny Blanco and her pal Gracie Abrams) releases a winner in that template with “Call Me When You Break Up,” as she and Abrams play ride-or-die friends and emotional foils.
JENNIE feat. Doechii, “ExtraL”
While the latest preview of JENNIE’s forthcoming solo album Ruby features a delightfully aggressive performance from the BLACKPINK star and a bullet-time guest verse by Doechii, the female empowerment anthem is highlighted by a refrain peppered throughout the song, and sure to elicit shout-alongs at clubs in the coming months: “Do my ladies run this?”
Don Toliver & Speedy feat. J-Hope & Pharrell Willams, “LV Bag”
“LV Bag,” which premiered at Pharrell Williams’ menswear show during Paris Fashion Week, boasts a stacked lineup — Don Toliver headlines the affair, and he corrals J-Hope of BTS to navigate the opulent opening verse — but the melody that snakes throughout the track is a classic Williams earworm, as undeniably catchy as some of his early Neptunes smashes.
Coco Jones, “Taste”
Ahead of her newly announced debut album, Why Not More?, which is due out in April, Coco Jones has established herself as an effortlessly talented star in the R&B world — but new single “Taste,” which is built around an interpolation of Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” serves a nice reminder of her pop panache as well.
Sam Fender, People Watching
The title People Watching should be taken literally — for Sam Fender’s third studio album, the British rock star shifts his perspective toward his family and friends as well as strangers, perceiving the world (and himself) as they might — but the songwriting exercise yields some of Fender’s most accessible tracks yet, including standouts like “Little Bit Closer,” “Nostalgia’s Lie” and the title track.
Burna Boy, “Update”
A few months after Kendrick Lamar sampled the club classic “When I Hear Music” on “Squabble Up,” Burna Boy has returned, ahead of upcoming eighth studio album No Sign of Weakness, with a similar approach on “Update,” re-contextualizing Soul II Soul’s “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)” as the foundation of a effervescent Afrobeats track.
Editor’s Pick: Anxious, Bambi
If Anxious’ 2022 debut Little Green House sounded like a breath of fresh air from the punk-leaning emo scene, the Connecticut quintet’s follow-up represents an exciting artist achieving greatness: Bambi sharpens the band’s formula in every conceivable way, with songs like opener “Never Said” fine-tuning the band’s defiant cries, “Some Girls” and “Next Big Star” offering spectacular pop hooks, and the entirety of the project’s lyrics capturing the growing pains leading up to this moment.
Justin Bieber had an uplifting message in an Instagram Story he posted on Thursday (Feb. 20) about growing up and taking responsibility. The 30-year-old singer shared the inspirational note in a post cued to John Mayer’s acoustic cover of Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin.’” Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts […]
Canadian pop icon Chantal Kreviazuk sent a subtle, but unequivocal, message to Donald Trump on Thursday night (Feb. 20) with her tweak of the lyrics to the Canadian national anthem at the 4 Nations Face-Off championship game between the U.S. and Canada. “In true patriot love that none but us command,” she sang instead of the line, “true patriot love, in all of us command,” while performing “O Canada” before the game at Boston’s TD Garden; Canada won the thriller 3-2 in overtime.
In a lengthy Instagram post afterwards, Kreviazuk explained her motivation, writing, “i am sorry if my performance of our national anthem rubbed you the wrong way. if i was a little off pitch or if it wasn’t perfect in its tone. i am sorry if i messed up the french line i inserted to bring some balance to our nation’s history without losing those words ‘glorious and free’ in english,” she said.
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“i am sorry if you think that we’d be better off annexed. here is the thing. art to me is an expression of our truth. and in this very peculiar and potentially consequential moment i truly believe that we must stand up, use our voices and try to protect ourselves,” she added. “no – we should express our outrage in the face of any abuses of power. i was raised in part by music that was inspired by brave voices committed to peaceful conflict resolution. Canada , not unlike ukraine is a sovereign nation. period. we have a culture individual to others. we are united in our values. we care. we’re kind. We are strong.”
The post included a picture of the singer’s hand with the lyric “that only us command” written on it in mascara with emoji of a Canadian flag and a flexed muscle alongside.
Former Canadian First Lady Sophie Trudeau applauded Kreviazuk’s statement, writing in the comments: “You stand in the beauty of your art, your presence and your love of humanity. We need MORE like you!”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — who has repeatedly and unequivocally shut down Trump’s obsession with annexing Canada — sent a clear message about the American President’s imperialist fantasy after the game in an X post where he stated, “You can’t take our country — and you can’t take our game.”
In a statement to the Associated Press, Kreviazuk explained her protest action by saying she did it “because I believe in democracy, and a sovereign nation should not have to be defending itself against tyranny and fascism.” Trump reportedly called the U.S. team before the game to wish them well and posted on his social media site that he would be watching, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying that he would be “watching for the United States to win.”
She added, “and we look forward to the United States beating our soon-to-be-51st state, Canada.” Trump has referred to Trudeau as “Governor Trudeau” in press briefings, suggesting that a U.S. takeover of Canada is a realistic agenda item during what has been a shock-and-awe first month in office in which he has once again flouted democratic norms. Both Trudeau and Canadian Public Safety Minister David McGuinty have thrown cold water on the bizarre notion, with McGuinty telling reporters before the game that, “Canada is a sovereign and independent country. It has been for over 150 years and will remain so. This discussion of 51st state is a non-starter.”
Earlier in the tournament, the crowd at Montreal’s Bell Centre could be heard booing during the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner,” in the first face-off between the U.S. and Canada. The unusually hostile action from our stereotypically polite neighbors to the north was another sign that they do not find anything funny about Trump’s repeated musings about incorporating their sovereign nation into the U.S.
Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that Trudeau said he did not think of Trump’s fantasies about incorporating Canada as a joke, but a serious threat as the American President continues apace with his attempts to disrupt what has for more than a century been one of the U.S.’s most stable, profitable international relationships.
“I suggest that not only does the Trump administration know how many critical minerals we have, but that may be even why they keep talking about absorbing us and making us the 51st state,” Trudeau told a group of business leaders in Toronto.
The White House appeared to lean into Trump’s imperial aspirations on Wednesday when it shared a fake TIME magazine cover altered to feature the President’s name with the caption “long live the king” alongside a picture of Trump wearing a crown. Since taking office, Trump has threatened to take over another sovereign nation, Greenland, as well as sparking serious concern in the Middle East with his musings about seizing the Gaza Strip and forcing out its Palestinian residents in order to turn the devastated territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” with no announced plan for where the region’s two million residents will live during or what he has described as a real estate make-over.
One way in which Trump has attempted to put pressure on Trudeau and Canada is by threatening to impose 25 percent tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S., a one-sided strategy that economists say will result in higher prices for American consumers at a time when inflation is beginning to rise again. Though Trump had promised to lower prices on goods immediately upon taking office, he acknowledged this week in a Fox News interview that inflation is rising again after former President Biden brought the rate down from a disastrous 9.1% in June 2022 — the highest rate in 40 years — to just over 3% when he left office in January.
Just over one year ago, in Dec. 2023, Tate McRae released her celebrated second album, Think Later. The punchy pop project debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 – and introduced fans to McRae’s alter ego: Tatiana. She said in her Billboard cover story at the time that Tatiana is her tour persona, and described her as being “ballsy, so loud and obnoxious.” Those traits came alive on Think Later, especially on breakthrough hit “Greedy,” which became McRae’s highest-charting Hot 100 hit, peaking at No. 3.
On So Close To What, McRae dives deeper into that charismatic cool-girl confidence. She previewed the album with a three-peat of hits: “It’s Ok I’m Ok,” which hit No. 20 on the Hot 100; “2 Hands,” which hit No. 41; and “Sports Car,” which has hit a peak of No. 21 so far. The 15-track set, which clocks in at just under 45 minutes, features just two guests: Flo Milli on “bloodonmyhands” and McRae’s boyfriend The Kid LAROI on “I Know Love.” McRae teamed back up with songwriter-producer Ryan Tedder for much of the album, alongside collaborators including Amy Allen, Julia Michaels and Blake Slatkin, among others.
Earlier this week, Spotify hosted an intimate listening party of So Close To What in Los Angeles. McRae was not only in attendance, but also spoke with her friend and social media personality Jake Shane about the album’s inspiration and challenges. “The album title encapsulates how I felt turning 21,” she shared, “feeling like you’re finally a woman while also wrestling with how the media portrays you.”
She also confessed that “Tatiana, my alter ego, wrote a lot of the songs on the album – including ‘Sports Car.’”
Come March, McRae will head out on her second world tour, named after this album’s lead track, “Miss Possessive.” The outing begins in Mexico City and includes dates across Europe and North America, wrapping in September.
Until you can catch McRae in your city, So Close To What is out now. Below, find Billboard’s ranking of the album’s 15 tracks.
“Purple Lace Bra”
Tate McRae‘s new musical era has arrived. The pop star dropped her highly anticipated third studio album, So Close to What, on Friday (Feb. 21). The project features previously released viral singles “It’s ok I’m ok,” “Sports Car” and “2 Hands,” as well as a collaboration with Flo Milli titled “Bloodonmyhands.” Additionally, the album features […]
JENNIE is continuing the roll-out of her debut solo album, Ruby, with another A-list collaboration. The BLACKPINK star teamed up with Grammy winner Doechii for the confident new single, “ExtraL,” which arrived on Friday (Feb. 21). Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Do my ladies run this?” the […]
Exactly three years after the death of Jane “Nightbirde” Marczewski, her music and legacy live on, with her family issuing the posthumous album Still Got Dreams on Thursday (Feb. 20).
Marczewski, who died of cancer at age 31 in 2022, rose to widespread fame in June of the previous year when she performed her original song “It’s OK” as part of the 16th season auditions for America’s Got Talent. The singer revealed during the audition that she had a 2% chance of survival from cancer that had spread to her lungs, spine and liver. The video garnered millions of views on YouTube and her performance warranted a standing ovation from all four judges.
She would exit the show just weeks later to focus on her ongoing cancer battle, with a virtual update in August seeing Judge Howie Mandel labeling her the “poster human for courage in the face of adversity.”
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Following her death in 2022, Marczewski’s family have continued to share her work, with a handful of singles arriving in recent months ahead of the release of her posthumous album, Still Got Dreams. The Geoff Duncan-produced release comprises tracks written by Marczewski, and interwoven with “nuggets of wisdom” from the late singer.
Singles such as “Gold,” the Konata Small-featuring “Empire,” and the record’s title track (which features uplifting vocals from the Mzansi Youth Choir) showcase the songwriting talent of Marczewski, while the lyrics offer a powerful insight into the singer’s enduring wisdom.
Notably, the songs featured on the album were unable to be recorded before Marczewski’s untimely death. Determined to bring her musical vision to life, the Nightbirde Estate, Nashville Unsigned and Duncan turned to the use of “ethical AI” vocal production to complete the project.
Per a press release, the team trained an AI voice model on her tone, style and emotional delivery to craft a 360-degree mapping of her voice, resulting in the late artist being given a chance to realize the music she was unable to record herself. The release also notes that only “specific pieces of AI vocal production” were utilized for the record, with the remainder of the project being “built entirely from the ground up” by Duncan.
The album also sees Marczewski’s estate positioned as the only artist estate to have used AI vocal production in a way that is legal, ethical and undertaken with full authorization.
All proceeds from the record (alongside Nightbirde’s art, books, merchandise and licensing) benefit the Nightbirde Foundation, which aims to uplift and support women battling breast cancer.