State Champ Radio Pop Shop
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Miley Cyrus and Pharrell reportedly worked on their newly released song “Doctor (Work It Out)” circa her 2013 Bangerz era — and now, more than a decade later, they’ve gifted fans with the upbeat single and a feel-good video to match. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about where […]
Dolly has spoken! Last week, Dolly Parton posted a message to social media congratulating Beyoncé for her first Hot Country Songs chart-topper with “Texas Hold ‘Em,” writing, “I’m a big fan of Beyoncé and very excited that she’s done a country album. So congratulations on your Billboard Hot Country number one single. Can’t wait to […]
With her dreamy pop songs and sky-high whistle tones, Ariana Grande has drawn comparisons to Mariah Carey since her music debut back in 2013. Of course, in the decade-plus since, Grande has made a massive, marquee name for herself — so it’s a bit of a full-circle moment that the two chart-topping divas have joined […]
When Usher was announced as the headliner back in September, we all knew the 2024 Super Bowl halftime show was going to be epic. What we couldn’t have possibly predicted is all the other epic music moments to go down on Sunday. From Beyoncé starring in a Verizon Super Bowl commercial and then surprise-dropping two […]
With nine Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits from 18 top 10s, Usher has no shortage of material to pick from when choosing the setlist for Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show. He’ll have his work cut out for him in trimming things down to a mere 13-minute set. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, […]
The year in pop has officially kicked into high gear. On Friday, pop fans got a pair of new songs and videos from two Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers: Ariana Grande and Lil Nas X. Grande released the ’90s-pop-inspired “Yes, And?” alongside a music video that paid tribute to Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted,” while Nas dropped […]
Just how high can Sophie Ellis-Bextor dance up the Billboard Hot 100 with her resurgent, Saltburn-powered hit “Murder on the Dancefloor,” 20 years after the song’s initial release? On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about the buzzy early-aughts song, which this week debuts at No. 98 on the Hot […]
Starting with his teenage days in the U.K. boy band Take That, Robbie Williams was thrust into the spotlight, with cameras following his every move. That constant presence of cameras offered the British pop superstar a unique opportunity: to sit down and revisit his decades as an entertainer, watching footage of himself over the years and his rollercoaster ride of a career, from the euphoric highs to the traumatic lows.
In a new interview with the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen in full below), Williams talks about the four-episode Netflix docuseries Robbie Williams — from director Joe Pearlman and Ridley Scott Associates — that finds the singer/songwriter sitting on his bed in his undies, watching his life back through eye-opening archival footage.
“When Netflix and Ridley Scott’s company come and say, ‘We’d like to do a documentary about you and have it be on the platform Netflix,’ you know, I’m an attention seeker by trade,” Williams says. “And I’m honored. What else would an attention seeker say other than: ‘Yes, please’”
Even though it was an easy yes for Williams, that doesn’t mean it was an easy process, with filming taking place over 25 straight days for up to six or seven hours a day. “Not many people on the planet have done anything like that, so there’s no support groups for, you know, a trauma watch,” he says. “But it was very interesting, sort of leaving the room each day and then going to get in bed with my wife and trying to explain how it feels. It’s only become therapeutic since it’s been released. It wasn’t therapeutic at the time. It was just, it was traumatic.”
One of the biggest takeaways from the film is how much Williams battled mental health issues over the years and how his struggles often fell on deaf ears.
“Mental health wasn’t really talked about,” he says. “And when I talked about it back then, I was derided for moaning or complaining. And that isolated me even more in a place of isolation and depression and anxiety and body dysmorphia. And agoraphobia. And all of the obias, you know, to then on top of that be told that you shouldn’t talk about it, because how dare you? It made it even worse.”
Williams’ biggest challenges came when he was touring the world, often taking frequent steroid shots just to survive the physical toll that performing took on his body — and then dealing with the aftermath of those drugs the next day. We asked him about artists like Taylor Swift taking that challenge a step further by playing three-hour-plus concerts, and he was flabbergasted at the length of those shows.
“Why would you do three-and-a-half-hour sets?” he asks. “Listen, I love Taylor Swift. But if you take Taylor out of the equation, and whoever — Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, Taylor, whoever — why would you do that to yourself? And why would you do that to an audience?
“It’s mind-blowing that they’re able to do that, especially people in their 80s,” he adds. “But, you know, what do I want, as a fan? I want to hear all of the hits. And I want to be entertained for 90 minutes to 100 minutes. And then I want to go home happy. I haven’t got the attention to watch anything for three hours. If I look at a film that is now a two-and-a-half-hour, three-hour film, I don’t watch it. I haven’t got it in me.”
The Robbie Williams docuseries ends with Williams heading back out on the road for his XXV World Tour — which, along with a new greatest-hits collection, celebrates 25 years of his solo career and just wrapped last month — and the artist says he’s still coming to terms with life as a performer. “This tour that I’ve just done has been the most successful for me mentally and emotionally,” he says. “And I think that a great deal has to do with the fact that I can override or make friends with the anxiety. But I’m still not there. When it comes to touring. I don’t know how to not let it damage me in some sort of way. Now listen: It’s not complaining, because financially, it’s incredible. Emotionally, it’s incredible. Physically and mentally, it’s no wonder that people sort of end up in emergency rooms or rehab after tour or during tours. The toll that it takes out of you is still a phenomena that I’m trying to overcome.”
Our interview also addresses his new perspective as a father of four (“When my kids are 16 … I think there will be a stark realization of exactly what I should and shouldn’t have been going through at that particular moment,” he says of his Take That days), his life of relative anonymity in America (“I could be Bruce Wayne in Los Angeles and Batman in the rest of the world”) and his New Year’s resolutions heading into 2024.
Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, for the first Pop Shop Podcast of the year, Katie & Keith are also sharing some of our pop music resolutions, including our hopes for Dua Lipa, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Barbra Streisand and more.
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 managing director, charts and data operations, 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 you’ve released nearly 100 holiday songs, as Pentatonix has, it’s no easy task having to narrow down that hefty list to a concise greatest hits album. But that’s just what the vocal group has done on its latest release, the 31-track The Greatest Christmas Hits.
“We put all the bangers” on the album, says the group’s Scott Hoying. And there’s “basically a whole new album [on Hits] as well, with eight new songs” added. In total, the album sports 23 previously released favorites plus eight new tunes. The set has found chart success on Billboard’s tallies, as it marked the act’s 10th top 10-charting effort on the Top Holiday Albums chart and its 12th top 20-charting set on the all-genre Billboard 200.
The vocal group (comprising Hoying, Mitch Grassi, Kirstin Maldonado, Kevin Olusola and Matt Sallee) has supported the new album on the road with The Most Wonderful Tour of the Year, which wraps on Dec. 21 in Austin, Texas. Fans who missed the trek can tune in to The Most Wonderful Tour of the Year: Live From Orlando on Dec. 22, exclusively on Veeps.
With so many holiday albums in its discography, how does Pentatonix select songs when planning a new holiday project?
“Honestly, there’s only so many Christmas songs, and we’ve released 94 of them,” Hoying tells the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen to our interview, below). “So we do the ones that are popular that we haven’t done yet. But then also we like to get creative and do songs that are more wintry and have lyrics that involve the wintertime, like ‘Kiss From a Rose.’ I don’t think anyone’s ever thought of that as a holiday song, but in the pre-chorus it does say ‘when it snows,’ and we were like, ‘That sounds good to us!’ So we get creative like that.
“When curating [the songs on] The Greatest Christmas Hits … from so much touring and releasing so many albums, we’ve [done] subconscious internal research of what moves people and what moves us and what we love to sing, and what we feel would make the best soundtrack for people’s Christmas festivities and opening presents.”
Among the new songs on The Greatest Christmas Hits is the original song “Please Santa Please,” co-written by Karen Kosowski and Emma Lee along with the group’s Olusola and Maldonado. The song, which served as the lead single from the album, recently hit the top 10 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, landing the group its seventh top 10 hit.
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Classics They’ve Yet to Record: While Pentatonix has recorded nearly 100 holiday songs, there are still familiar favorites they haven’t put their spin on… yet. “I have this new obsession with ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas,’” Hoying says, “because I realized it’s one of the top streaming [and] selling Christmas songs of all time, in the top five or something, and we haven’t done that song yet, weirdly.”
“Or like ‘Silver Bells,’” Olusola adds. “We’ve never done that one either. There’s definitely songs we haven’t done, but you know we also have to pace ourselves, because there are only so many Christmas songs left. [Laughs] And we also want to get creative about how we go about Christmas songs.”
Looking to the future, Olusola says, “We’ve done pop Christmas albums, and so we’re thinking ‘are there different directions we can go that create a theme that allows for us to have a different feel on Christmas than we normally do?’ Which I think will be cool, so, I think we’re thinking about that right now, as we think about the future.”
A Dozen Years of Hits & a New Grammy Nom: 2023 marks the 12th consecutive year Pentatonix has released at least one new album, stretching back to its chart debut with PTX: Volume 1 in 2012. Through those years, the act has topped the Billboard 200 twice (with its self-titled full-length album and A Pentatonix Christmas) and won three Grammy Awards (among four nominations). The act scored its fifth Grammy nomination just last month for best traditional pop vocal album for its 2022 album Holidays Around the World. The set saw Pentatonix collaborate with a bevy of guest artists to highlight sounds and voices from all over the globe.
“We put so much heart and time and effort into this album,” Hoying says, “and we got to collaborate with the most iconic artists from all over the world. It was just such a beast to make … the logistics alone. It was such a creatively fulfilling project — to see it honored in this way [with a Grammy nomination] is really beautiful.”
“You never go into an album project thinking about Grammys,” Olusola adds. “You just want to make the best possible product that you feel speaks to your heart at that time and hopefully reaches people. … So I feel so thankful and honored and blessed that we could even have that opportunity to be recognized by the Recording Academy again.
‘Candy Cane Lane’ & Home for the Holidays: Pentatonix makes an appearance in the new holiday film Candy Cane Lane, starring Eddie Murphy, which premiered Dec. 1 on Prime Video. In the comedy, Pentatonix portray, naturally, carolers. But there’s magic afoot, and the group is seen mostly as enchanted miniature figurines in the film.
“The director [Reginald Hudlin] had been a fan of ours for a while,” Olusola says. “He gave us the premise of what he wanted us to do and we were in. … I don’t think we realized the magnitude of what we were creating. … It was really cool to see the end product. It was cool how they actually created us [as figures].”
“Because we’re figurines,” Hoying says, “it was a really easy process. We just went into the studio and sang these 10-second clips, knocked it out in a couple hours. But then we get to be in so much of the movie because we’re animated. It was a perfect scenario too, because we obviously would want to be on set and have our real likeness in the movie, and we got to do that at the end. So it was so special all around, and I’m just so happy it’s doing so well and people are loving it. The whole cast and crew and director and everyone were so kind and such good vibes. You just want good things to happen to good people, so it’s awesome to see it thriving.”
As families watch Candy Cane Lane during get-togethers this season, certainly many will also be playing holiday songs by Pentatonix around the house too. With so many households soundtracking their holidays with Pentatonix’s tunes, what does Pentatonix itself play around the house during the season?
“When I go home,” Hoying says, “my parents always put on Pentatonix, because they just are so excited that I’m home. I honestly listen to a lot of Pentatonix too during the holidays. But my go-to is a playlist of classic old songs from old Christmas movies, [like] Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. Anything that’s orchestral and one-track, mono. It really puts me in the Christmas spirit. If I’m looking at Christmas lights with [my husband] Mark or we’re driving around or something, we’ll put on the oldies.”
Olusola, too, has Pentatonix playing around the house at home, but for a different reason. “I have a 2-and-a-half-year-old and she’s obsessed with our band. Truly obsessed. She loves watching [the videos for] ‘You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch,’ ‘Please Santa Please,’ ‘12 Days of Christmas.’ She asks for it all the time during this time of the year. So in our house, it really is mainly Pentatonix during this time of the year. … I think also its kind of subliminally a way for her to stay in contact with dad, especially while he’s gone on tour. So I really love that. My wife has texted me so many times, where she goes, ‘She said, ‘I miss daddy, play Pentatonix.”‘ I love that. That really means something to me that I have such a close bond with her that she actually yearns for me, and so I’m very very thankful to be playing Pentatonix in our household because that keeps the connection.”
Also on the new edition of the Pop Shop Podcast, we’ve got chart news on how Nicki Minaj lands her third No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the female rapper with the most chart-toppers in history, and how Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” jingles its way back to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
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 managing director, charts and data operations, 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 all know and love the Christmas classics, but you might need to find some extra room on your decorated mantel for some new holiday hits this year. On the latest episode of the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen below), Katie & Keith are chatting about five brand-new Christmas songs for 2023: Cher‘s “DJ Play […]
