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Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet rises 3-1 on the Billboard 200 chart (dated Oct. 12), notching its fourth nonconsecutive week atop the list. It earned 100,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending Oct. 3 (up less than 1%), according to Luminate.
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Short n’ Sweet debuted at No. 1 on the chart dated Sept. 7, spent its first three weeks at No. 1, and then stepped away for two weeks as Travis Scott’s Days Before Rodeo rode to the top (Sept. 28 chart) and Future’s Mixtape Pluto debuted in the penthouse (Oct. 5 chart).
Also in the top 10, Billie Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft returns to the top five for the first time in more than a month, as it ascends 8-5. The No. 2-peaking set was last in the top five on the Aug. 31 chart, when it ranked at No. 5. The album’s ascent — with a 10% unit gain — is concurrent with the launch of Eilish’s tour on Sept. 29 and the premiere of the official music video for the album’s single “Birds of a Feather” on Sept. 27.
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The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new Oct. 12, 2024-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (Oct. 8). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
Of Short n’ Sweet’s 100,000 equivalent album units earned in its third week, SEA units comprise 85,000 (up 1%, equaling 114.24 million on-demand official streams of the album’s 12 songs; it holds at No. 1 on the Top Streaming Albums chart), album sales comprise 14,000 (down 3%) and TEA units comprise 1,000 (down 2%).
Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is steady at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 for a fourth nonconsecutive week at its peak (63,000 equivalent album units earned; down 40%). Future’s Mixtape Pluto falls 1-2 in its second week (55,000; down 57%), Morgan Wallen’s chart-topping One Thing at a Time rises 5-4 (50,000; down 5%), and Eilish’s Hit Me Hard and Soft steps 8-5 (nearly 50,000; up 10%).
Post Malone’s former leader F-1 Trillion falls 4-6 (47,000 equivalent album units; down 11%); Taylor Swift’s chart-topping The Tortured Poets Department is a non-mover at No. 7 (44,000; down 5%); Noah Kahan’s Stick Season climbs 10-8 (37,000; down 1%); Zach Bryan’s The Great American Bar Scene moves 11-9 (just over 32,000; down 8%); and Wallen’s former No. 1 Dangerous: The Double Album rises 12-10 (32,000; down 5%).
Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.
Madonna‘s younger brother, Christopher Ciccone, has died at the age of 63.
Christopher passed away after a battle with cancer on Friday (Oct. 4) in Michigan, his representative confirmed to TMZ.
The Queen of Pop has faced many deaths in her family as of late. Christopher’s passing arrives less than two weeks after the death of Madonna’s stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, who also had cancer. The pop superstar’s oldest brother, Anthony Ciccone, also passed away in February 2023 of respiratory failure and throat cancer. He was 66.
Madonna hadn’t publicly commented on Christopher’s passing at press time. Billboard has reached out to her reps for comment.
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Christopher — one of Madonna’s seven siblings — began his entertainment career as one of his sister’s backup dancers before moving on to direct music videos for such stars as Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett. He also served as the art director for Madonna’s 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour and was the tour director for her 1993 The Girlie Show.
Madonna and Christopher, who was also an artist and interior designer, had a falling out that was documented in his 2008 book, Life With My Sister Madonna, which reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list. He claimed that the singer outed him in a 1991 interview with The Advocate, saying, “My brother Christopher’s gay, and he and I have always been the closest members of my family.”
Christopher later addressed his relationship with Madonna in a 2012 interview with The Evening Standard. “As far as I’m concerned, we’re good. We are in contact with each other, although I haven’t seen her for a long time. We’re back to being a brother and sister. I don’t work for her, and it’s better this way,” he said at the time.
“I couldn’t be more proud of her. She is a force to be reckoned with. Does she have Barbra Streisand’s voice? No,” Christopher added about his sister. “Can she dance like Martha Graham? Probably not. But the combination of her abilities has made her great, and left a huge legacy for her, and through her, for me. So yeah, God bless her.”
Christopher married British hairdresser Ray Thacker in 2016.
Taylor Swift was not at Kelce Car Jam, Travis Kelce’s event on his birthday (Saturday, Oct. 5) — but she is expected to attend his next game, the Chiefs player says.
“She will not be here. I know she’s coming in for the game,” the tight end answered when asked about his girlfriend on Saturday, according to Page Six‘s coverage of the event.
Swift, who was last spotted with Kelce the weekend of the U.S. Open (Sept. 8), wasn’t seen at the Kansas City Chiefs’ last two away games. The Chiefs are scheduled for a home game against the New Orleans Saints on Monday (Oct. 7) at Arrowhead Stadium.
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People reports Kelce was joined by parents Donna and Ed, brother Jason and sister-in-law Kylie at Kelce Car Jam. Guests included Patrick Mahomes and his wife, Brittany.
Kelce Car Jam is an annual car exhibition that helps raise money for underserved youth in the Kansas City and Cleveland areas with 87 and Running, Travis’ nonprofit organization.
On a recent episode of New Heights, the podcast he hosts with his brother Jason, Travis described the day: “This year is the second year we’ve done a car show, basically a block-party style event, that will showcase some of the city’s top automobiles from the Fuel House, a fun car club out here. And then I guess a bunch of others that are lined up. It’s gonna be fun. I should have my old school ’70 Chevelle all revved up and ready to rock and roll. But if not, I’ll bring one of the other cars that I have.”
Swift recently thanked Kelce in her video of the year acceptance speech at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, held on Sept. 11.
“This video seems very sad when you watch it, but it was actually the most fun video to make,” she said of “Fortnight.” “I would always just hear someone cheering, like, ‘Whoo!’ from across the studio — that one person was my boyfriend, Travis. Everything this man touches turns to happiness and fun and magic, so I want to thank him for adding that to our shoot.”
She’ll soon be back to The Eras Tour for its final leg, with dates in Miami, New Orleans, Indianapolis, Toronto and Vancouver. The career-spanning show has its last performance on Dec. 8. The “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” star has kept quiet about whatever she has up her sleeve for the remainder of 2024 and early 2025.
Cue “Anytime You Need a Friend.” Mariah Carey was asked to give advice to younger artists like Chappell Roan, the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer who’s been grappling with the negative side of a sudden ascent into celebrity. The pop legend didn’t hesitate to commiserate and share what she’s learned.
Roan has been all over newsfeeds after drawing criticism for not endorsing a candidate in the 2024 election, and then canceling two festival performances in order to prioritize her health while things “have gotten overwhelming”; she also was the subject of the most talked-about SNL sketch last weekend. She continues to top charts with her The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess album.
The Associated Press turned to Carey for comment on adjusting to fame, from the perspective of someone who’s been through it.
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Carey didn’t address Roan specifically, but was kind enough to give general guidance to the new generation of pop stars in her response.
“Well, I have been through my share of dramas,” Carey said to the AP. “And it’s not fun because you grow up thinking, ‘I want to be famous.’”
She continued, “I mean, really with me, it was always, ‘I want to be a singer. I want to write songs.’”“But ‘I want to be famous’ was right there with it,” admitted Carey. “I feel like it was probably because I didn’t feel like I was good enough on my own because of the things I went through growing up. And that’s not a good way to feel, you know?”
“My advice would be try your hardest to go into this industry with a love of your talent or what’s really real for you,” said Carey.
“You know, if it’s like, ‘I want to be famous. I want to run around with those people, whoever they are, the famous people,’ then it’s probably not the best idea,” she added.
Chappell does seem to focus on her love for art and performance. But she’s made it known she finds some parts of fame unbearable, particularly the behavior of “superfans” who lack boundaries.
“I chose this career path because because I love music and art and honoring my inner child,” she said to in August. “I do not accept harassment of any kind because I chose this path, nor do I deserve it.”
She asked fans to “please stop touching me. Please stop being weird to my family and friends. Please stop assuming things about me. There is always more to the story. I am scared and tired.”
Roan returned to the road for the remainder of The Midwest Princess Tour following last weekend’s show cancelations. She’s scheduled to wrap the tour in Austin this week.
Jung Kook is still with us! Following the overwhelming popularity of the BTS superstar’s documentary, Jung Kook: I Am Still, Trafalgar Releasing and HYBE are releasing a new version of the film.
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The new trailer for Jung Kook: I Am Still – Party Edition shows Jung Kook performing “Standing Next to You,” complete with stylish outfits and impressive choreography. The updated version of the hit film includes the complete documentary with an additional 20 minutes of singalong videos for fans to enjoy.
The Junsoo Park-directed film captures the BTS star’s development as a solo artist, starting with the historic ascent of his single “Seven (feat. Latto)” to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July 2023. Three months later, he dropped his debut album Golden, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
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“Delving into his creative process, unwavering work ethic and the unique challenges faced by a global superstar, the film presents exclusive, never-before-seen footage and interviews alongside electrifying concert performances,” reads the release. “This poignant portrait showcases Jung Kook’s unwavering dedication and artistic evolution.”
Marc Allenby, CEO of Trafalgar Releasing, added in a press statement, “We’re delighted with the phenomenal response to the opening of Jung Kook: I Am Still. This success is a testament to Jung Kook’s artistry and dedication, underscoring the power of shared cinema experiences for fans. We look forward to October 4th and bringing ‘The Party Edition’ to cinemas around the globe to give fans another opportunity to gather together, sing, and celebrate.”
Watch the Jung Kook: I Am Still – Party Edition trailer below. The film will be released on October 11 in select cinemas across the USA, Mexico, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore and Hong Kong. Tickets are on sale now here. Details for South Korea and Japan will be announced separately.
It was a historic trip to the Grammy stage for Taylor Swift on Feb. 4, when she accepted her second and final award of the evening: album of the year, for her 2022 blockbuster set, Midnights. The win was her fourth in the category, breaking her out of a four-way tie and leaving her alone in the record books as the performing artist with the most album of the year wins in Grammy history. But by that point in the evening, Swift had already ensured that her fans were thinking more about the future — and perhaps AOTY trophy No. 5.
“I want to say thank you to the fans by telling you a secret that I’ve been keeping from you for the last two years — which is that my brand-new album comes out April 19,” Swift had revealed two hours earlier while accepting her first award of the night (best pop vocal album). “It’s called The Tortured Poets Department.”
A year after that announcement, Swift may indeed end up making more treks to the Crypto.com Arena stage thanks to the record-breaking Poets. While Midnights bowed with a jaw-dropping 1.6 million first-week units upon its October 2022 release (according to Luminate) and topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks — setting off the historic, globe-trotting Year of Taylor that followed in 2023 — it paled in comparison with Poets, which debuted with over 2.6 million units and spent a whopping 15 weeks atop the Billboard 200. Given that Swift has secured AOTY nominations for each of her three brand-new albums released this decade (including two wins, for Midnights and 2020’s folklore, of her four career total), Poets seems a lock for one of the eight AOTY slots at the 2025 ceremony.
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Whether Swift will win, however, is another question entirely — in part because of a remarkably strong and high-profile slate of likely competitors, including one particularly legendary perennial AOTY bridesmaid. But perhaps the most interesting question of all: After four AOTY wins, already unmatched in Grammy history, how much more does Swift really have to gain by adding another such statue to her collection?
While Swift has already triumphed among some strong fields this decade, it’s likely that the category’s 2025 slate of nominees — with its expected mix of huge critical and commercial successes from veteran A-listers and emergent superstars — will be the most formidable she has faced yet. Alex Tear, vp of music programming at SiriusXM and Pandora, mentions Billie Eilish (Hit Me Hard and Soft), Chappell Roan (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess) and Sabrina Carpenter (Short n’ Sweet) as strong contenders for the marquee award, calling Carpenter “a force” in particular. “It’s really going to be a highly competitive year,” he says.
Still, the narrative surrounding the AOTY race will likely boil down to two names: Swift and Beyoncé, whose Billboard 200-topping country and Americana pivot, Cowboy Carter, will almost certainly also vie for the prize. Cowboy did only a fraction of Poets’ flabbergasting first-week numbers — though at press time, it still had the year’s second-highest debut total, at 375,000 units — but it received widespread acclaim, as well as immense media attention for its genre explorations and for the music history Beyoncé illuminated on it.
And of course, Carter’s candidacy comes with extra intrigue, given that Beyoncé — one of the most celebrated album artists of her era — has still never won album of the year, despite her four career nods for it (and record 32 total Grammy wins).
One longtime Recording Academy member who considers both Swift’s and Beyoncé’s new albums worthy contenders calls the latter “the prohibitive favorite” due to her careerlong shutout in the category. “I think that there’s a feeling in the industry, which was certainly encouraged via last year’s Grammys” — when her husband, Jay-Z, called attention to her AOTY shutout in a televised speech — “that [Beyoncé] has been overlooked for too long,” the member says.
Swift may well have less at stake in this year’s AOTY race than her storied competitor. In fact, because Swift is at the overall height of her career success and exposure (and therefore at risk of generating a backlash), it’s worth considering whether she stands to lose more than she does to gain by netting a fifth trophy, especially over a competitor with such a strong case — and such a strong sentimental pull for so many.
And public perception about a potential Swift victory could be colored by her own philosophy about the Grammys and awards shows in general. “She looks at record-making as a competitive sport in a way that other artists don’t,” the academy member says. “Other artists are competitive and would like to win Grammys, but she really, like, thinks about that stuff going in [to recording her albums].”
Swift has admitted as much over the years. In 2015, she explained in a Grammy Pro interview that when her Red lost AOTY in 2014 (to Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories), it set in motion her plan to make a more cohesive pop album with 1989, which won the award two years later: “You have a few options when you don’t win an award — you can decide, ‘Oh, they’re wrong…’ [or] you can say, ‘Maybe they’re right,’ ” she said. Similarly, her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana, captured her reaction when her 1989 follow-up, 2017’s Reputation, failed to garner even a nomination in the category: “I just need to make a better record.” (Two albums later, she would win the category again in 2021 for the stylistic left turn folklore.)
Competitiveness, of course, doesn’t equate to outright making Grammy bait, Tear points out — noting that it seems to have inspired Swift to grow artistically, while at the same time, “we’ve grown into her evolving as a person and the choices that she wants to make as an artist… The projects of late are not chasing where the puck is going — it’s already there.”
And though the Recording Academy member gives Beyoncé the edge in this particular race, it simply makes sense to them that the biggest pop star on the planet should be one of the favorites every time she’s in the mix.
“Look, [Swift] is the most popular recording artist on earth, and therefore she’s likely to win more often than not,” the member says, citing the famous Muhammad Ali quote, “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.” And Swift “can do it, God bless her. She should keep doing it. Maybe she’ll win album of the year several more times.”
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Selena Gomez got quadruple the amount of maternal love recently when the 32-year-old superstar stopped by the set of Glamour‘s Women of the Year cover shoot to greet the mothers of Travis Kelce, Beyoncé and Billie Eilish.
Posted Thursday (Oct. 3), the clip finds Gomez entering the shoot and walking directly to her own mom, Mandy Teefey — who posed on the front of Glamour‘s latest issue with Donna Kelce, Tina Knowles and Maggie Baird, the respective mothers of the aforementioned stars — and wrapping her in a big hug.
“Hi mom, good job!” says the Only Murders in the Building star and executive producer, dressed in head-to-toe black. “You look beautiful.”
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Gomez then moves on to give Donna — who’s already well acquainted with the Rare Beauty founder’s best friend, Taylor Swift — a hug as well. “It’s nice to meet you,” she says before embracing Knowles, whom Gomez tells, “You look beautiful.”
Finally, the “Lose You to Love Me” singer moves on to hug Baird. “It’s so good to see you,” she says, picking up a lock of the Support + Feed co-founder’s silver hair. “I love your hair.”
In the publication’s cover story featuring the four women, it is revealed that Gomez had been right next door at a nearby studio shooting a campaign for her beauty business. During their own shoot, Teefey, Donna, Knowles and Baird opened up about their experiences raising superstar children, with the Wondermind co-founder and Cécred chairwoman especially finding common ground when it came to making sure that Gomez and Bey didn’t become divas despite getting famous as teenagers.
While on the topic, Teefey recalled one particular moment during which she drew the line with Gomez. “She was getting out of the trailer, and there was an umbrella, and they were holding it for her, and then they were bringing her food and all this stuff,” the producer told the other three moms. “I was like, ‘She can hold her own umbrella.’ She needs to learn how to pump her own gas in her car. She needs to be a person first.”
Watch the moment Gomez met Donna Kelce, Knowles and Baird below.
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, Coldplay shoots for the moon, LISA nods to the ’90s and Rich Homie Quan is honored the right way. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
Coldplay, Moon Music
For a stadium rock act, Coldplay takes more far-out chances than they’re given credit for: new album Moon Music features both an Afrobeats-tinged collaboration with Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI, as well as a six-minute instrumental with spoken-word Maya Angelou snippets, but the British quartet also tucks in plenty of alt-rock radio fare, like the lovely lead single “feelslikeimfallinginlove.”
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LISA, “Moonlit Floor”
As she forges ahead with her solo career, BLACKPINK star LISA has revived an indelible ‘90s hit, Sixpence None the Richer’s “Kiss Me,” for “Moonlit Floor,” which functions more like a modern pop jam than an alternative foray in spite of its interpolation.
Rich Homie Quan, Forever Goin In
At 100 minutes, Forever Goin In, the first posthumous Rich Homie Quan release following the rapper’s tragic passing last month, is knowingly uncut, offering fans an extended toast at his brilliant delivery and linguistic skills; across 35 songs, however, the project rarely feels overstuffed, a nod to his greatness.
Finneas, For Cryin’ Out Loud!
Although Finneas’ younger sister Billie Eilish has enjoyed record-setting success since her first album — he’s opening on her latest arena tour, after all — the songwriter and producer has also carved out a niche of his own, continuing the promise of 2021’s Optimist with more pop dynamism and a greater emphasis on live-band arrangements with this sophomore LP.
Various Artists, Joker: Folie à Deux Soundtrack
Can’t get enough Joker: Folie à Deux? One week after co-star Lady Gaga unveiled Harlequin as a project inspired by the blockbuster film, the official soundtrack boasts plenty of the spark between Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix that will be featured on the big screen.
Toosii, Jaded
Toosii continues morphing into one of hip-hop and R&B’s most promising rapper-crooners on Jaded, a breezy project on which he often shines on his own but is best showcased alongside other stars, like the head-knocking Gunna team-up “Champs Élysées” or the soulful Muni Long collaboration “I Do.”
Tucker Wetmore, Waves on a Sunset
Rising country star Tucker Wetmore has a warm, honest twang that trembles at the end of every line, and new EP Waves on a Sunset does a nice illustrating how he can someday join the genre’s elite, on songs like the hit “Wind Up Missin’ You” and the charming “When I Ain’t Lookin’.”
A$AP Ferg feat. Future & Mike WiLL Made-It, “Allure”
As Future once again tops the Billboard 200 chart, this time with his Mixtape Pluto project, A$AP Ferg has been on something of a hot streak himself, which he continues over a thunderous Mike WiLL Made-It beat on “Allure,” which begs to be blasted out of a car stereo at nighttime.
James Bay, Changes All the Time
It’s been 10 years since James Bay broke through with the still-potent hit “Let it Go,” and on Changes All the Time, the veteran singer-songwriter places his most earnest impulses front and center, scooping on positivity amidst sunny hooks and delicate guitar strums following the rousing opener “Up All Night,” featuring The Lumineers and Noah Kahan.
Editor’s Pick: Allie X, “Bon Voyage”
Setting aside the apt description “dark Fleetwood Mac” offered in the press release for Allie X’s new single “Bon Voyage,” the veteran pop auteur’s latest is a spellbinding collection of melodies and lingering space, leaning into the restlessness of Allie’s voice and captivating by refusing to find resolution.
“People call it Brat Summer — it should be called ‘artist development summer,’ ” Jack Antonoff jokes on a mid-September afternoon, sitting on the rooftop of New York’s Electric Lady Studios and reflecting on the past few months in pop music. Charli XCX, whose brat album helped define the season, is an old friend of Antonoff’s — they co-headlined a 2015 tour called Charli and Jack Do America — and he points out that her 2024 success speaks to a larger movement of artists creating their own mainstream niches instead of latching on to trends.
“Sabrina [Carpenter], Charli and Chappell Roan — the three of them have had this shared experience of artists who have been crystallizing, and that’s where you get gems,” Antonoff says of a trio of pop talents who have dominated recent cultural discourse. “And that’s the story of being an artist. That’s true artist development. And it doesn’t matter where we are in tech or streaming or anything — the only way to win is to create your own language.”
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This year, Antonoff has had a direct hand in abetting artistic evolution at different levels of stardom — helping a longtime collaborator, Taylor Swift, shape-shift while staying on top of the pop world, as well as a rising artist, Carpenter, secure her place on the A-list. For the latter, Antonoff produced and co-wrote four songs on Carpenter’s new album, Short n’ Sweet — including her first Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, “Please Please Please” — allowing the pop singer’s sardonic tics to shine on her way to arena-headliner status.
“No one deserves it more,” Antonoff says of the former Disney Channel star, who has released six albums by the age of 25. “Sabrina’s been quietly growing, and her albums have been getting more awesome, and she’s been honing her sound and performances. It’s not like she just popped onto the scene — this has been a decade of grinding toward it.”
During the week that Short n’ Sweet was released in August, Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department — on which Antonoff contributed to 16 songs across both of its volumes — spent its 15th week atop the Billboard 200, the longest run at No. 1 of any Swift project. Swift announced The Tortured Poets Department on the night of the 2024 Grammys, where previous full-length Midnights was awarded album of the year and she set the record for the most career wins in the category.
Amy Lombard
This year, Antonoff’s work with Swift and Carpenter — along with the self-titled fourth album from his long-running band, Bleachers, which arrived in March — could help him notch his sixth consecutive Grammy nomination for a producer of the year, non-classical, a category that he has won the past three years. If Antonoff takes home the trophy at the 2025 ceremony, he would set a record as the only four-peat in the 50-year history of the award.
“It would be a really [nice] resolve to a really special period,” says Antonoff’s manager, Jamie Oborne. “If it’s based on the work alone and the broad spectrum of work, I can’t imagine anyone else winning.”
Instead of functioning as a victory lap for Swift, The Tortured Poets Department was emotionally unguarded and knowingly messy, dividing critics and inspiring immediate fan devotion on its way to the biggest first-week debut of her career. “The best bodies of work are when people drill into the most personal, the most if-you-know-you-know kind of stuff,” Antonoff says. “I think the depth of [Tortured Poets Department] was surprising to people because I think people are constantly surprised when artists continue to be artists. You see so many people take the wrong turn and pander and become terrified of what they could lose. That’s the recipe for all the worst music, and I can only relate to people who don’t give a f–k. That next body of work — it doesn’t matter how big your audience is, it either comes from the depths of you or it doesn’t. And I love that album so much because the whole thing is so remarkably vulnerable.”
That ethos helps explain why, in the midst of a record-setting run as a pop studio whiz, Antonoff keeps pushing his creativity into unfamiliar areas. After producing the April soundtrack to the Apple TV+ fashion drama The New Look, which included Antonoff pals like Lana Del Rey and The 1975 covering early-20th-century songs, he also signed on to provide original music for a Broadway revival of Romeo + Juliet, which began previews in late September. More recently, he unveiled early plans for his Public Studios initiative, which, with the help of The Ally Coalition, will build studios in LGBTQ+ youth shelters and create a network of engineers to help train those interested in production — free of charge.
Jack Antonoff photographed September 10, 2024 at Electric Lady Studios in New York.
Amy Lombard
Antonoff also deconstructed the first Bleachers album, 2014’s Strange Desire, for a 10th-anniversary rework dubbed A Stranger Desired, released in September. And amid all of the projects, he foremost describes 2024 as “a touring year,” having led Bleachers on a global trek that will culminate with a headlining gig at Madison Square Garden in New York on Oct. 4.
He admits that he gets asked about his schedule by the people around him — friends curious about his balancing act and why he hasn’t zeroed in on the more successful pieces of his artistry. “My hunger to make things hasn’t changed since I was like 14,” Antonoff says with a chuckle, “but the context for people has changed.” When asked about the idea of winning four consecutive Grammys for producer of the year, Antonoff returns to the idea of artist development — that even when he’s receiving what he describes as “a huge honor,” his priority remains “protecting that zone” that allows him to grow as an artist and person.
“I really don’t let anything get in the way of that,” Antonoff says. “I keep my head down and I go back to work.”
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.
A collaboration between Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga was always going to have lofty expectations, but when the two wrote and recorded “Die With a Smile” at the latter’s Los Angeles studio earlier this year, there was no talk of topping the charts. They only wanted to follow where the song was naturally taking them, remembers hit-making songwriter-producer Andrew Watt, who previously worked with Gaga on The Rolling Stones’ 2023 Hackey Diamonds track “Sweet Sounds of Heaven.”
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“This was a pure, organic thing that both these artists who respect each other so much wanted to do together,” says Watt, who helped with the hit alongside D’Mile and James Fauntleroy. “This was about the love of making great music.”
That desire led to a sweeping, cinematic duet that has spent multiple weeks atop the Billboard Global 200 and racked up 625 million on-demand official streams worldwide since its Aug. 16 release (through Sept. 26), according to Luminate.
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“Seeing people reacting positively to it and it hitting them in their soul… it’s special,” Watt says. “This is a ballad with all-live instruments made to the human heartbeat. It’s not a formulaic song.”
He adds that Gaga and Mars were in the studio together within 24 hours of agreeing to collaborate, with Mars bringing in the initial idea for the song’s haunting vibe. Gaga fleshed it out on piano with Mars on guitar — exactly as they appear in the song’s retro Western music video (minus the costumes) — and stayed overnight until it was perfect.
And while Watt says the session was a blur, he recalls a key component to that night: finding a melodic structure that let Mars and Gaga sound like co-lead vocalists rather than one person harmonizing with the other. “When Gaga put her voice on top of Bruno’s, that’s the moment I remember… hearing their two voices together, you get lost in it.”
It had the same effect on Mars’ concert crowd at L.A.’s Intuit Dome the night the song dropped in August. As Gaga stepped onstage for the duet’s live debut, Watt recalls watching the moment unfold: “It was this wow factor of ‘Holy crap, [they’re] like the Avengers of music.’ “
This story appears in the Oct. 5, 2024, issue of Billboard.