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Couples who play sold-out stadiums together, stay together. At Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour concert in London Sunday (June 23), Travis Kelce surprised the crowd at Wembley Stadium by appearing on stage during his superstar girlfriend’s The Tortured Poets Department set, and in a new Instagram post, the pop star revealed that she still has heart eyes because of it.
Sharing photos of the Kansas City Chiefs tight end joining her under the spotlight — including one of him carrying her in his arms, modeling a tuxedo and top hat — Swift wrote, “I’m still cracking up/swooning over @killatrav’s Eras Tour debut 🥰.”
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The “Anti-Hero” singer also posted a video of her beau’s full appearance, in which he joins two of her dancers in playfully forcing her to perform “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” even after she’s dramatically collapsed following “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.” In the clip, he picks her up, carries her over to a couch, fans her and dusts her face with a makeup brush, all while coaching her on how to sing and dance ahead of the next number.
Though Kelce’s hilarious performance was definitely the biggest, Swift’s trio of London shows were full of surprises. At one point, opener Hayley Williams joined the 14-time Grammy winner on stage for an acoustic performance of their Speak Now (Taylor’s Version) duet “Castles Crumbling,” and Grace Abrams later came out to sing new song “Us” with her The Secret of Us collaborator.
“Acoustic sections went OFF,” Swift continued in her post. “I got to sing ‘Castles Crumbling’ with @yelyahwilliams for the first time – hadn’t performed with her since 2011 and man my heart was just so full of love for her and our friendship. Then the impossibly gifted and wonderful @gracieabrams came and surprised the crowd with the first performance of our song ‘us.’”
The pop star will next perform three nights in Dublin starting Friday (June 28), after which she’ll travel through Amsterdam, Milan and more European cities before closing out the leg with five more nights in London in August. In October, she’ll begin the Eras Tour‘s final leg with a string of shows in the U.S. and Canada.
“Wembley Stadium round one was so surreal,” she added. “Looking out into crowds of 90,000 fans each night and hearing that VOLUME… Those were some of the loudest crowds I’ve ever heard … Never going to forget these shows.”
What happens when two queer icons meet in the flesh? According to Sir Elton John and Chappell Roan, they throw a pizza party.
In a post to his Instagram on Monday (June 24), John revealed that he and the “Good Luck, Babe!” singer — as well as John’s husband David Furnish and Roan’s collaborator Dan Nigro — met up on Sunday night for a pizza dinner party. “The BEST evening of pizza and outrageous laughter with the fiercely fabulous @chappellroan,” John wrote in the caption. “Love her, love her, love her.”
While the post marked the first time the pair had met in person, John and Roan had previously spoken to each other as part of the “Rocket Man” singer’s Apple Music show Rocket Hour. During her appearance in late May, the pair discussed Roan’s ascent to stardom, with John letting her know just how happy he was to see her thriving.
“I rang you the other night and said, ‘Listen, I’m not stalking you, but I’m as excited about your album’s success as you are,’” he said. “It’s wonderful to see true talent being recognized.”
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Roan, giggling at John’s compliments, said that the sudden success was “pretty overwhelming,” but added that “it’s also affirming … pushing through the hard times is worth it.”
Roan recently added a fourth single to this week’s Billboard Hot 100, as “Pink Pony Club” joins her other tracks “Red Wine Supernova,” “Hot to Go!” and “Good Luck, Babe!,” the latter of which ascended to No. 16, marking the singer’s first top 20 hit on the chart.
John, meanwhile, wrapped his record-setting Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour in July 2023, and recently spoke with Billboard about his husband’s game-changing work as his manager.
Sabrina Carpenter is on track to secure another U.K. No. 1 single, while Chappell Roan looks set to break into the national top 10 for the first time.
Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” (via Island) holds top spot on the midweek U.K. chart and is positioned to take top spot for a second week — positioning Carpenter for another significant career milestone.
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The track, produced by Jack Antonoff, is the second single from Carpenter’s sixth studio LP, Short ‘n’ Sweet, which was released June 6, following her previous U.K. No. 1 hit with “Espresso.”
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Last Friday, June 21, Carpenter achieved a remarkable feat when “Please, Please, Please” dethroned Eminem’s “Houdini” to secure her second U.K. leader in less than two months, while “Espresso” held strong at No. 2.
The achievement set a new Official Chart record, with Carpenter becoming the youngest female solo artist in history to simultaneously hold the No. 1 and No. 2 spots on the Official Singles Chart, at age 25 years, 1 month, and 10 days old, surpassing Ariana Grande’s previous record.
Grande was 25 years, 7 months, and 20 days old when she achieved the same feat in February 2019 with “7 rings” and “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored” respectively leading the chart.
Meanwhile, Chappell Roan is making a strong bid for her first U.K. top 10 entry with her single “Good Luck, Babe” (Island), up 16-9 on the chart blast.
The single recently topped the Official Trending Chart, showcasing its growing popularity in the U.K. “Good Luck”, along with her previous hit “HOT TO GO!” from her 2023 debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, has solidified her status as a rising star in the pop scene. “Good Luck, Babe” has spent six consecutive weeks in the top 40, peaking at No. 18.
Roan’s strong social media presence has played a significant role in the single’s success, with “Good Luck, Babe” gaining substantial traction on TikTok with thousands of users featuring the track in their videos.
The Official U.K. Singles Chart will be revealed late Friday, June 30.
Rising singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams is set to claim her first No. 1 album on the Official U.K. Albums Chart with her second studio effort, The Secret of Us.
Midweek sales and streaming figures from the Official Charts Company indicate that the Californian singer’s heartfelt and introspective songs are resonating strongly with U.K. fans, putting her in prime position to clinch the top spot.
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The 23-year-old Californian is currently outpacing her closest rival, Taylor Swift – who coincidentally features on the album’s track “us.” – by a margin of more than 2:1.
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The Secret of Us (Interscope) follows Abrams’ debut LP, Good Riddance, which peaked at No. 3 last year. The new album was preceded by the single “Close To You,” which recently became Abrams’ first U.K. Top 40 hit, reaching No. 35.
Amid her collaborative track with Taylor Swift dropping on June 21 alongside her 13-track sophomore album, Abrams took to Instagram to share a video of the duo playfully creating their collaborative number, calling the evening “some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
She also included a video of Swift extinguishing an apartment fire. “Now we know how to use a fire extinguisher. I love you,” Abrams wrote.
As Swift wraps up a three-night stint at London’s Wembley Stadium on her The Eras Tour, several of her former chart-topping albums are also present in the U.K. top 40 midweek.
Other notable appearances on the chart blast include The Mysterines’ second album Afraid of Tomorrows (Fiction) eyeing a No. 3 debut, Charli XCX’s BRAT (Atlantic) looking to log a third consecutive week inside the top 5, and Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess (Island) potentially reaching a new peak inside the top 10, at No. 8.
Outside the Top 10, Avril Lavigne’s Greatest Hits (Sony Music CG) is on track for a top 20 debut, Ed Sheeran’s X (Asylum) could re-enter the chart thanks to a 10th-anniversary reissue, and Jethro Tull’s Bursting Out (Parlophone) is predicted to become their 26th U.K. top 40 album.
Joe Bonamassa’s Live At The Hollywood Bowl With Orchestra (Provogue) could become his 17th top 40 collection, Kate Nash’s 9 Sad Symphonies (Kill Rock Stars) approaches her highest-charting LP in 14 years, and The Story So Far are expected to enter with I Want To Disappear (Pure Noise).
All will be revealed when the Official U.K. Albums Chart is published late Friday, June 28.
It’s officially the Summer of Sabrina, and she’s taking some time to celebrate. On Monday (June 24), Billboard announced that Sabrina Carpenter scores her first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit this week, with “Please Please Please” rising from No. 2 in its second week. And to add some whipped cream to the top of […]
As Chappell Roan continues to take the pop world by storm, Billboard is taking a look back through the singer’s career thus far to see how she got here in the latest edition of Billboard Explains.
After growing up in Willard, Mo., Kayleigh Rose Amstutz (Roan’s birth name) began uploading covers and original songs to YouTube as a teenager. Signing her first major-label deal with Atlantic Records at age 17, Roan went on to release her debut EP School Nights in 2017 with the label’s support. But after dropping her single “Pink Pony Club” in 2020, Roan was dropped from Atlantic’s roster.
Forming a writing partnership with superstar songwriter Dan Nigro, Roan kept releasing new music, leading to her Billboard chart debut in October 2023, as she debuted at No. 8 on the Emerging Artists chart. She would later top the chart for three weeks starting in May 2024.
In recent months, Roan has performed at increasingly larger stages to increasing attention from fans. After serving as an opener for part of Olivia Rodrigo’s Guts World Tour, Roan made headlines with her performance at Coachella. Since then, her music has quickly risen up the charts — four of her songs recently entered the Billboard Hot 100 (her breakout hit “Good Luck, Babe!” hits No. 19 on the chart dated June 29), while her debut album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time nine months after its release.
After the video, catch up on more Billboard Explains videos and learn about RM’s chart success, Stray Kids’ chart success, Peso Pluma and the Mexican music boom, the role record labels play, origins of hip-hop, how Beyoncé arrived at Renaissance, the evolution of girl groups, BBMAs, NFTs, SXSW, the magic of boy bands, American Music Awards, the Billboard Latin Music Awards, the Hot 100 chart, how R&B/hip-hop became the biggest genre in the U.S., how festivals book their lineups, Billie Eilish’s formula for success, the history of rap battles, nonbinary awareness in music, the Billboard Music Awards, the Free Britney movement, rise of K-pop in the U.S., why Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums, the boom of hit all-female collaborations, how Grammy nominees and winners are chosen, why songwriters are selling their publishing catalogs and more.
Gracie Abrams and Taylor Swift made fire when they teamed up for their new collaboration, “Us” — literally.
Abrams sat down with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to discuss how the songwriting session for her The Secret of Us track led to Swift putting out a fire in her apartment after an all-nighter. “It’s dramatic. We almost burned her house down. Literally. […] We went to dinner and we drank a lot of alcohol and we were talking about our lives, and then we were talking about our albums, and she was in the middle of Tortured Poets and I was in the middle of [The Secret of Us],” the 24-year-old singer recalled. “We were just getting so excited talking about all of it. And she was like, we have to go back to the house and I want to play you the songs and blah, blah, blah. So we went back to her house and we opened a bottle of wine and we went song for song in the kitchen, and we were being like theatre kids, standing and running around the center island. It was so funny. The whole time I was like, ‘This is ridiculous. This is crazy.’”
She continued, “At this point, it’s like two in the morning and we, off the back of playing song for song for song for song, for I don’t know how long, we were listening through sketches that Aaron [Desnner] had sent us and the guitar part for “Us” came on, and immediately we ran to the piano, and we had no plan to make any [song], but it felt just like a Nashville writing session. We sat at the piano, just found the key, and then wrote the whole song from two to six AM. We filmed the whole thing, not because we were like, ‘We need to film this,’ but we just needed to get it all down, whatever. It was so full body, it was dramatic but it was so much fun.”
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Of the fire, Abrams recalled that she heard a “crack” from the other room, which Swift thought was her cat. “We finished the bridge and we went into the kitchen to get probably wine, and there was a bonfire on her center island. Truly a huge ball of flame. There had been a candle that we had lit when we got home, and it was so hot that it burst. And the base of the candle was this wooden, like a tree trunk kind of a thing,” she shared. “I don’t know how she knew where this was, but she runs and grabs a fire extinguisher and for minutes is trying to get it to work and it won’t work. And I was just like, I’m crying, but I had had a similar problem earlier. I had weirdly had a candle burst and I learned that if you put water on it because wax, oil and water…. Anyways, eventually she put it out. Extinguished it.”
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She continued, “We both had crazy chest coughs for weeks after because the whole kitchen was covered in smoke. ‘Us’ came from that night. That was a really good night. No one got hurt. We actually both got burned from the wax and all that stuff. It was gnarly, but it was funny.”
Last week, Abrams took to Instagram to share a video of the duo playfully creating the song, calling the evening “some of the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.” She also included a video of Swift extinguishing an apartment fire. “Now we know how to use a fire extinguisher. I love you,” Abrams wrote.
The 24-year-old Abrams spent the summer opening for Swift’s The Eras Tour, a role she’ll reprise on select dates in North America later this fall. She’ll head out on her very own headlining tour of theater-sized venues across the United States, starting Sept. 5 in Portland.
The Secret of Us features the previously-released tracks “Risk” and “Close to You,” which debuted at No. 49 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and it’s the followup to Abrams’ debut record Good Riddance, which arrived February 2023, peaking at No. 52 on the Billboard 200.
Watch the full interview below.
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It’s a circus out there! Corey Feldman has dropped a colorful ’80s inspired music video for his latest single, “The Joke,” and Billboard is premiering the visual directed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.
“‘The Joke’ is more than just a song — it’s a statement. For years, I’ve faced criticism from those who want to undermine my dedication to music. This single is my way of reclaiming the narrative and showing that my commitment to my art is unshakeable,” Feldman tells Billboard. “Fred and I have a long history of working together. We originally recorded ‘Seamless’ as a feature in 2016 on my Angelic 2 The Core album, which will be re-released digitally on July 4th weekend. We co-wrote and co-produced that song, but working with Fred Durst as a director on the music video has been an incredible experience. He had a clear concept in mind and I relinquished the creative to him, and although it wasn’t how I saw it, his version surprised me and delivers the laughs. I can’t wait for my fans to see the energy and vision we’ve brought to life”
The video kicks off with actor-singer on stage bouncing around to circus music, his dancers and band behind him, everyone dressed in the decade’s brightest duds. The tune then takes a creepy turn as Feldman laughs like a maniac before the band — complete with headbands and hair inspired by the likes of Robert Smith and Alice Cooper — begins to jam.
The video slows down during the bridge, when The Lost Boys actor rips open his multicolored tracksuit’s jacket to reveal the Goonies T-shirt underneath, paying homage to the 1985 Steven Spielberg-directed classic in which he starred as he sings, “Maybe there are times, I second guess myself/ The pain outweighs the wealth?/ Maybe it is time, to crawl back in my shell, contemplate farewell?/ Well …”
A familiar “hee hee!” is heard as the former child star covers his eyes, then re-emerges dressed as his late friend Michael Jackson. “Let’s give ’em hell!” Feldman sings as he busts out some moves by the King of Pop.
The Limp Bizkit frontman makes a cameo at the end, clapping as the video ends and Feldman — still dressed as Jackson — joins him on the set. “Fantastic!” the rocker praises, but the actor has a few concerns about the video they just filmed.
“Listen, I love that you’re directing this. I think it’s gonna be amazing; everything looks great,” Feldman starts before gesturing to his sequined Michael Jackson outfit. “I really don’t know about this whole thing, though.”
The rocker assuages his fears by saying, “Brother, look at me. It’s not going in the video.” Guess “The Joke” is on Feldman!
Ahead of the video’s premiere on Billboard.com, the singer-actor performed the song on the Howie Mandel Does Stuff podcast and talked to the host about his music and influences. “I grew up studying from Michael. I learned from Michael,” he shared. “So a lot of the stuff I design musically … has gotta have that same kind of drive, it’s gotta have that thing that makes me dance, that makes me want to move so that it comes alive when I perform it.”
Watch the music video for “The Joke” above, and check out Corey Feldman when he joins Limp Bizkit on the Loserville tour, which kicks off July 16 in Somerset, Wis.
Dave Grohl has been a longtime fan of Taylor Swift, but a recent comment he made hasn’t sat well with Swifties. The Foo Fighters rocker seemingly took a jab at Swift’s Eras Tour while performing at London Stadium on Saturday (June 22), which happened to take place at the same time as the pop superstar’s nearby […]
Sabrina Carpenter’s “Please Please Please” is the newly minted biggest song in the world, as it rises to No. 1 in its second week on both the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts.
The track becomes Carpenter’s second leader on each list, dethroning her first on each ranking, “Espresso,” which a week earlier ascended to the Global 200 summit and logged a fifth week atop Global Excl. U.S.
Carpenter is just the second artist to notch new Global 200 No. 1s in consecutive weeks, after Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” and “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault]” reached the top spot in back-to-back frames in November 2023.
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Elsewhere, Trueno earns his first Global Excl. U.S. top 10 with “Real Gangsta Love.”
The Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. charts rank songs based on streaming and sales activity culled from more than 200 territories around the world, as compiled by Luminate. The Global 200 is inclusive of worldwide data and the Global Excl. U.S. chart comprises data from territories excluding the United States.
Chart ranks are based on a weighted formula incorporating official-only streams on both subscription and ad-supported tiers of audio and video music services, as well as download sales, the latter of which reflect purchases from full-service digital music retailers from around the world, with sales from direct-to-consumer (D2C) sites excluded from the charts’ calculations.
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“Please Please Please” crowns the Global 200, lifting from No. 2, with 119.2 million streams (up 14%) and 9,000 sold (down 10%) worldwide June 14-20.
The song by the Quakertown, Pa.-born singer-songwriter-actress was released June 7, alongside its official video, and she performed it during her set at New York’s Governors Ball the following day. On June 18, acoustic, a cappella, instrumental, sped up and slowed down versions of the single were released. On June 20, Carpenter announced her 29-date Short n’ Sweet Tour, set to start Sept. 23 in Columbus, Ohio. Her album Short n’ Sweet, featuring both “Please Please Please” and “Espresso,” is due Aug. 23.
“Espresso” dips to No. 2 on the Global 200 as Carpenter becomes the first woman to hold the chart’s top two spots in consecutive weeks. Among all acts, she joins only Peso Pluma, who achieved the feat for two weeks in June 2023.
Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” rises 4-3 for a new Global 200 high; Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” lifts 5-4 for a new best; and Tommy Richman’s “Million Dollar Baby” rebounds 7-5 after it spent two weeks at No. 1 earlier in June.
On Global Excl. U.S., “Please Please Please” vaults 5-1 with 69 million streams (up 26%) and 2,000 sold (down 11%) outside the U.S. June 14-20.
“Espresso” ranks at No. 2 on Global Excl. U.S. – making Carpenter the first solo woman to claim the chart’s top two spots simultaneously. Among all acts, Jung Kook (two weeks in 2023), BLACKPINK (one, 2022) and BTS (one, 2020) have also earned such a double-up.
Carpenter is also the first solo woman to place at Nos. 1 and 2 on both the Global 200 and Global Excl. U.S. concurrently. Overall, Jung Kook (“Standing Next to You,” “Seven,” featuring Latto; Nov. 18, 2023) and BLACKPINK (“Shut Down,” “Pink Venom,” Oct. 1, 2022) previously made such a mark in the charts’ top two ranks simultaneously.
Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” wings 4-3 for a new Global Excl. U.S. high; FloyyMenor and Cris Mj’s “Gata Only” drops to No. 4 from its No. 3 peak; and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” bumps 6-5 following eight weeks at No. 1 beginning in February.
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Plus, Trueno scores his first Global Excl. U.S. top 10 as “Real Gangsta Love” soars 26-10 with 41.5 million streams (up 43%) outside the U.S. The track by the Argentinian singer and rapper rules four tallies in Billboard’s Hits of the World menu (Bolivia Songs, Ecuador Songs, Peru Songs and Spain Songs) for a second week each and has hit the top five on the Billboard Argentina Hot 100.
The Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. charts (dated June 29, 2024) will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, June 25. For both charts, the top 100 titles are available to all readers on Billboard.com, while the complete 200-title rankings are visible on Billboard Pro, Billboard’s subscription-based service. For all chart news, you can follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram.
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.