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Joshua Bassett is following the yellow brick road on a headlining tour this year, with stops planned for 39 cities across North America and Europe in support of his upcoming album The Golden Years.
The 23-year-old High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star announced Friday (June 7) that he’ll hit the road starting July 30 in Phoenix. After one month of stops in Houston, New Orleans, Nashville, Chicago, New York, Toronto and more North American cities, he’ll head overseas for a few weeks in Europe, traveling to Dublin, London, Amsterdam, Paris and more.
“I’M GOING ON TOUR IN NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE !!!!” Bassett captioned an Instagram video of past performance clips. “RSVP NOW FOR PRESALE TICKETS AVAILABLE JUNE 11 AT JOSHUATBASSETT.COM !!!!!”
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The tour will kick off just four days after the singer/actor releases his debut studio album The Golden Years, which he announced last month. So far, he’s shared just one single from the project, a soft rock number that serves as the LP’s title track.
“If I would’ve known those were the golden years/ I would’ve held you longer that night when you kissed me goodbye through your tears,” he sings on “The Golden Years.” “If I would’ve known those were the golden years/ I would’ve never left you alone when you needed me most, my dear.”
See Bassett’s announcement and The Golden Years Tour dates below.
The Golden Years 2024 Tour dates
North America:
July 30 — Phoenix, AZ — Arizona Financial TheatreAug. 1 — Irving, TX — The Pavilion at Toyota Music FactoryAug. 2 — Houston, TX — 713 Music HallAug. 3 — Austin, TX — Austin City Limits Live at The Moody TheaterAug. 5 — New Orleans, LA — Fillmore New OrleansAug. 6 — Jacksonville, FL — Daily’s PlaceAug. 8 — Atlanta, GA — Coca-Cola RoxyAug. 9 — Birmingham, AL — Avondale Brewing Co.Aug. 10 — Nashville, TN — Ryman AuditoriumAug. 12 — Raleigh, NC — Red Hat AmphitheaterAug. 13 — Charlotte, NC — Skyla Credit Union AmphitheatreAug. 14 — Baltimore, MD — Pier Six PavilionAug. 16 — Philadelphia, PA — The Met Presented by HighmarkAug. 17 — Boston, MA — MGM Music Hall at FenwayAug. 20 — New York, NY — Radio City Music HallAug. 21 — Toronto, ON — Massey HallAug. 23 — Rochester Hills, MI — Meadow Brook AmphitheatreAug. 24 — Chicago, IL — Byline Bank Aragon BallroomAug. 25 — Minneapolis, MN — ArmoryAug. 27 — Denver, CO — Fillmore AuditoriumAug. 28 — Sandy, UT — Sandy AmphitheaterAug. 30 — San Francisco, CA — Bill Graham Civic AuditoriumSept. 1 — San Diego, CA — Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre at SDSUSept. 3 — Los Angeles, CA — YouTube Theater
Europe:
Sept. 16 — Dublin, IE — 3Olympia TheatreSept. 17 — Belfast, UK — Ulster HallSept. 19 — Glasgow, UK — O2 AcademySept. 20 — Birmingham, UK — O2 AcademySept. 22 — Manchester, UK — O2 ApolloSept. 23 — London, UK — Eventim ApolloSept. 25 — Brussels, BE — La MadeleineSept. 27 — Amsterdam, NL — MelkwegSept. 29 — Paris, FR — Salle PleyelOct. 1 — Barcelona, ES — RazzmatazzOct. 3 — Milan, IT — FabriqueOct. 5 — Munich, DE — MuffathalleOct. 6 — Cologne, DE — Carlswerk VictoriaOct. 7 — Berlin, DE — Huxleys Neue WeltOct. 9 — Copenhagen, DK — Vega
Raye likely brightened the days of many a commuter by performing her new song “Genesis” on an unconventional stage: a Selhurst train station platform. In a video posted by the British pop star Thursday, shortly before the sprawling, seven-minute track dropped, Raye looks glamorous in a polka-dot gown while singing just a couple of feet […]
When Charli XCX presented her creative team with her idea for the brat album artwork – black pixelated text splashed across a green backdrop – “we were skeptical,” says creative director Imogene Strauss. “She had a very clear vision for what she wanted, though…The goal wasn’t to make something that everyone is going to like, it was to make something that will make people think about why they don’t like it.”
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And with time, Charli’s prediction that fans would have a strong reaction to the cover image proved correct. “There was a moment in this campaign where the public consensus online was that Charli’s album cover was lazy and ugly, which of course was her whole goal,” adds photographer Terrence O’Connor. “Charli’s natural instinct is to go against the grain, which is why she’s so inspiring.”
From the start of her career over a decade ago — when she notched three top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100 from 2013-2014 — Charli XCX has not just leaned left of center, but over time has become a new center entirely. And not only does her sixth album brat (out on Atlantic today, June 7) solidify as much, but it celebrates that fact — while also occasionally bemoaning it. (As she sings on “Rewind”: I used to never think about Billboard/But, now, I’ve started thinking again/Wondering ’bout whether I think I deserve commercial success.”)
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Even before the album arrived, its rollout was accompanied by praise from pop peers across the spectrum. While backstage at Billboard’s Women In Music event this March, Katy Perry expressed her love for Charli, complimenting how “amazing” she sounded during her performance. (More recently, fans online have cited Charli as a reference point for Perry’s own album rollout, from the hyperpop typeface of KP6 to her fashion and photography). And just yesterday (Thursday, June 6), after listening through brat, Lorde wrote on her Instagram Stories that, “There is NO ONE like this b—h.”
As the creative team around Charli says, that singularity is exactly what drew them to her in the first place. “I’ve always been a hardcore pop music fan, but I never totally align with the aesthetics,” says Strauss. “I want something more challenging.” Stylist Chris Horan, who started working with Charli before the 2022 release of her fifth album Crash, shares a similar attraction. “We bonded over references of what makes a main pop girl not only iconic but immediately recognizable,” he says of meeting Charli. “Her look is bitchy and distinct. It’s never fully polished – there’s always something a little f–ked up.”
By riding on the outskirts of pop music for so long – dating back to her early days performing as a teen at illegal raves in London – Charli has ultimately paved a parallel path where counterculture can coexist with the genre. For her, the challenge is in deciding how much she cares about how that coexistence is received. As she told Billboard earlier this year in her Women In Music Powerhouse interview, “My big struggle is deciding whether I care more about being the biggest artist I can be commercially, or being critically sound. Then sometimes I land in this place of not caring about either of those things.”
Yet, that ambivalence is exactly what defines her influence and aesthetic, from the “lazy” brat album art to her “never fully polished” look. As Strauss believes, Charli is particularly resonating so much right now because fans and artists alike are over the “play it safe aesthetic of the 2010s.”
Charli, on the other hand, is not only comfortable with risk, but could teach a master class in curated mess, whether she’s trolling fans on X (formerly known as Twitter) or alluding to copycats on TikTok. As O’Connor says: “It really doesn’t matter if people copy our ideas, because next week we’ll have a whole batch of new ones… We just laugh and move on – unless we’re feeling fun and annoying, then she does something that gets her in trouble, but that’s also cool.”
But no matter how Charli’s every move has been received or replicated, it has all fueled the hyperpop hyperdream that was the brat rollout – from her viral Brooklyn Boiler Room rave in February, dubbed Party Girl (for which she wore an oversized shirt that read: “CULT CLASSIC”) to her widely-discussed “360” music video that arrived in May, in which she and her friends (including Chloe Cherry, Quenlin Blackwell, Julia Fox, Rachel Sennott and more) are pressed to find “a new hot internet girl” — or in other words, an influencer to join their ranks.
Strauss recalls the premiere for the video well, in large part because of something Charli said: “It’s hard to be ahead.” Reflecting on the remark now, Strauss says, “I think this is very true. Doing things first almost never means you’re going to be the biggest or most famous. Being the reference means you have to make choices that go against the status quo.”
Which is exactly what Charli has always done. And now, as a result, she has not only managed to make being anti-cool cool, but perhaps more importantly made an album undeniably assured and contagiously cocky. With lyrics like, “It’s okay to just admit that you’re jealous of me” (“Von Dutch”), the point of brat is not whether such declarations are true, but that an artist like Charli XCX is saying them at all.
As the opening lyric of “360” goes: “I went my own way and I made it.”
“She doesn’t need to abide by anyone’s rules – that makes her career so enviable to other artists,” says Horan. “A lot of people want to replicate the essence of Charli, but she truly is one of one.”
As usual, the week has offered up a smattering of new music releases — but this time, it’s a particularly delicious one for pop music fans. Starting with Sabrina Carpenter, the rising star served up the shimmering second single off her upcoming album Short & Sweet, “Please Please Please.” Accompanied by a playful video starring […]
Halle Berry is purring for Ariana Grande‘s take on Catwoman. Shortly after the pop star released her new music video for “The Boy Is Mine” — in which she dresses up just like the DC Comics femme fatale — the actress shared her approval on social media Friday (June 7). Retweeting a clip of Grande […]
The fruits of Taylor Swift‘s work ethic are pretty much inescapable, from the chart dominance of her music to the attention her billion-dollar Eras Tour trek commands nearly every week. And in a new BBC story exploring the pop star’s success published Friday (June 7), Lana Del Rey offered her thoughts on how her friend […]
In an upcoming primetime interview with the Today Show‘s Hoda Kotb, Celine Dion describes the agonizing pain she’s suffered while battling the rare neurological condition Stiff Person Syndrome. “It’s like somebody is strangling you,” Dion said in an excerpt of chat that aired on The Today Show on Friday morning (June 7), the first broadcast interview the singer has done since revealing her diagnosis in 2022. “It’s like somebody is pushing your larynx/pharynx this way [raises voice]. “It was like talking like that, and you cannot go high or lower. It gets into a spasm.”
In fact, Dion, 56, said, the spasms caused by the disorder can get so intense that they have caused painful physical injuries. “I have broken ribs at one point because sometimes when it’s very severe it can break some ribs as well,” she said.
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The rare disorder can cause uncontrolled muscle spasms that make it hard to move and it forced Dion to cancel her planned 2023 tour after her sister revealed that the singer had “no control” over her muscles. Her long road managing the disease is the subject of the upcoming documentary I Am: Celine Dion, which will debut on Prime Video on June 25.
In addition to affecting her voice, Dion said the muscle spasms and stiffness associated with Stiff Person Syndrome can migrate to other parts of her body, including her spine, feet and abdomen. “It feels like if I point my feet, they will stay in a (stuck position), or if I cook — because I love to cook — my fingers, my hands, will get in a position. It’s cramping but it’s in a position like you cannot unlock them.”
Dion told Kotb that she first began having difficulty controlling her voice after noticing symptoms in 2008, saying that initially she thought things would be “fine.” But when the muscle spasms and stiffness in her hands and feet became more prominent she realized something serious was happening with the disease that is chronic and progressive, but which can be managed with medication. “She’s on the fight of her life right now,” Kotb said in Friday morning’s preview.
In an interview with Vogue France in April, Dion said she has therapy five days a week to strengthen her voice and work on moving her joints, but she still doesn’t know if, or when, she’ll return to the stage. “I can’t answer that… Because for four years I’ve been saying to myself that I’m not going back, that I’m ready, that I’m not ready,” she told the magazine. “As things stand, I can’t stand here and say to you: ‘Yes, in four months.’”
The full interview will air as a primetime one-hour special on NBC on Tuesday (June 11) at 10 p.m. ET. Watch the preview of Kotb’s Dion sit-down below.
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When Myles Smith initially posted a teaser of what would become the soaring folk-pop hit “Stargazing” to his TikTok in early April, he had no idea what would become of it — both in terms of its overwhelming fan response, but more pressingly, how the then-still-unfinished preview would sound when it ultimately became a completed product.
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“As the song was gaining momentum, I was like, ‘Oh snap, I’m gonna have to finish this thing,’ ” Smith tells Billboard. A week after making that initial post, which featured him singing a stripped-down rendition of the song’s captivating hook over a simple acoustic guitar, Smith unveiled a studio demo of “Stargazing,” which he continued to use as a teaser — generating 80 million views across several videos — until its official release on May 10.
Soulful melodies, heartfelt lyrics and an online following of fans hungry for more made the perfect recipe for the 26-year-old Luton, England native’s debut on the Billboard charts. With 6.7 million official U.S. streams in its opening week, according to Luminate, the track became Smith’s first-ever Billboard Hot 100 entry at No. 77 on the chart dated May 26. And the song is continuing to heat up as summer rolls in — it reaches a new No. 51 high on this week’s list, boosting Smith into the top five on Billboard‘s Emerging Artists chart for the first time as well.
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As “Stargazing” continues to shine, Smith is taking it all in, without abandoning his go-to strategy: sharing glimpses of unfinished projects with fans along the way. In the past few weeks alone, Smith has already posted demos of the pop-infused folk ballad “Whispers” and the charming love song “Be Mine” to his TikTok. “It could be a ‘Stargazing’ part two,” he teases of the latter track. “You never know with these things. I was itching to get it out.”
Below, Smith opens up about the cosmic growth of “Stargazing,” balancing social media with mental health, his experience being on tour, his dream collaboration list and more.
Where did you get the idea for “Stargazing,” and how did it come together?
It was something that was birthed out of being with the people that I loved in a space that I loved. I was out in Malibu in L.A. [in January], my first time ever there, and distinctly different from where I grew up. I was with songwriter Jesse Fink and a songwriter-producer Peter Fenn, who I’ve collaborated with before. I just signed with my label [RCA Records], and I was like, “I want to write something that’s really warm, fun and happy.” I came up with the hook pretty instantaneously.
It was just us jumping around, about day five into writing — looking at each other with guitars and having the time of our lives. It came from the idea of the people that you love, the things that you love, always being present in your life, maybe in a way you don’t recognize or see. And then that coming into light later in the day, and that euphoric moment of realizing that. The whole song wasn’t finished on that day, but the embers of it definitely were. From the very moment that that melody was found, the warmth in the room was infectious.
Where did the “Stargazing” metaphor come from?
It jumped out of nowhere. It was getting late in Malibu, and we’re looking over at the ocean and the sun setting, and in that beautiful moment, I stood there and it was quite cathartic. I was like, “Damn, I’m doing the thing that I’ve really wanted to be doing while looking at this beautiful night sky setting.” We were like, “Oh snap, is this what it’s called?” We threw the word in and it found its life there.
How much did the initial recording change from the final product?
At the time, it was just really the hook and the bare bones of the verse and melody. I think that’s the exciting part of where we are now in music. Not everything has to be done, and not everything has to be perfect. In fact, the process of getting there was very much a reciprocal relationship between me and my fans. Watching them react to it, I was even more inspired to finish the song. We kept the bones of the demo in there, and we embellished it to bring it to studio standard. We wanted to not step too far away from the magic that had been created.
So when you posted that initial snippet on TikTok, you didn’t have the whole song done yet?
No, the whole song was not done by that point but it was something that we knew was special. “Solo” and “My Home” — my two songs before that — were a similar process. I just fell in love with the bare bones of the song. I’ve got this really itchy finger in which I can’t wait to put something out. I know for a lot of artists, it’s about putting out what’s perfect. But for me, there’s so much beauty in imperfection.
A big part of why I love the audience that I have is that they bear with me as I get through things and as I explore what something should sound like. Them being part of my creative process is integral to the music being what it is and to it connecting the way that it connects. I’m forever thankful to the feedback online. It really matters in that final mastering and finishing of any song that I make.
Has there been any reaction to its chart success from friends or family that stands out?
My mum was exactly like me, and was like, “Is this real? Are you being scammed?” [Laughs.] We got on FaceTime and I got about 50 texts from friends and family because my mum had gone mental on all the group chats. Especially here in the U.K., the reality of a U.K. artist being on the Billboard [charts] isn’t very big, so when you hear it, it does sound a little bit like a dream. Then it happened, and we were like, “Oh my word. We’re making waves across the pond.”
It’s so fulfilling and so inspiring, the fact that I’m able to do this, and follow so many great British artists. To have support across the water and feel like I have a home away from home has just been so humbling, and such a privilege of an experience. Charting on the Hot 100 has such a profound impact on an artist’s journey, to really gain confidence and validity in how they think and feel about their art and their music.
Do you have a favorite interaction or use of the song on TikTok?
The ones that really get me are the wedding ones. This is someone’s biggest day of their life to this point, potentially. And they’ve chosen my voice, a kid from a million miles away who grew up in a town that no one’s ever heard of, as their soundtrack. It stops me in my tracks every time that I see it, and it reminds me that the thing that we do as artists really does have an impact on people’s lives.
Sometimes on the internet, you can be so distracted by the things that don’t matter. When you’re pulled back into reality by those moments, it really amplifies the role of an artist — but also the beauty of the music industry and moving towards social media in a global perspective. I’m so lucky to be a part of a generation of artists who are doing that.
What is your current relationship with social media like?
My relationship is healthier than what it was. We naturally compare ourselves to people so much and look at people doing amazing things. For a long time, I took that as a reflection of what I wasn’t doing. That wasn’t great for me. But I started to use social media, for lack of a better word, in a more selfish way — like, “Hey, I want to use this as a tool to find my community, build relationships and network.” I started focusing on what was important to me, and it became such an incredible part of my artist journey.
Now I have a community that thinks, feels and expresses themselves in such similar ways and teaches me things about myself and the world that I didn’t know. I see it now as an opportunity to connect with people across the world.
You’re currently on tour in Europe. What’s that experience been like?
I did a mini-run of shows at the start of this year, and that was my first moment of bridging the gap between online and real life. It was such a surreal moment. Being on stage and being in cities I’ve never been and people singing lyrics back to me, it stopped me in my tracks every single night. This tour is that, just a little bit bigger. It’s still the exact same feeling. It feels like I’m living a dream. People ask me, “Is this normal yet?” For me, it’s not. I don’t ever want it to be normal.
The magic of living your dream and seeing it every night is what I think what music’s all about. To see people in real life, hear their stories and hardships and sing, laugh, cry in a room together is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I’ve loved every moment of this tour. I can’t wait to go to the States and run it back.
What’s next for you after tour?
After tour I will be taking… I’m lying. I’m not gonna be taking a break. I don’t have time to take a break! I’m going to be straight back in the studio, writing and recording more music. The part I love about what I do, and the part about working with the people I work with and the label that I now call home at RCA, is that they really support my vision of being able to put out music, and not always having to wait.
Who are some of your dream collaborators?
I’m a huge Mumford & Sons stan. I love Noah Kahan — I think what he does is just unbelievable. I can’t think of someone who’s a better songwriter at this current stage. Hozier is a GOAT of GOATs. But if I had to pick an all-time dream, it’d be Chris Martin. I will forever be a Coldplay stan.
A version of this story originally appeared in the June 1, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Ariana Grande‘s claws come out in her new “The Boy Is Mine” music video, which arrived Friday morning (June 7) featuring surprise cameos from Brandy and Monica.
The visual begins with Grande watching a press conference introduced by TV news anchors played by Brandy and Monica, who sang the original 1998 hit “The Boy Is Mine” together. The iconic song spent 13 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the year it was released, and served as the clear inspiration for the “Into You” singer’s track of the same name.
Ariana Grande “the boy is mine”
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It then cuts to the mayor of their Gotham-esque city, portrayed by Penn Badgley, proposing a new idea for getting rid of the area’s rat infestation — rounding up stray cats and setting them loose on the vermin — which leads the singer to hatch a plan to transform herself into a sort of Cat Woman and sneak into his apartment.
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While there, she attempts to seduce him, ensnares him in a lasso and comes close to injecting him with love potion. Badgley, however, distracts her by removing her mask and staring sensuously into her eyes before throwing the potion against the wall.
Grande has been teasing the new video all week, and at one point fueled rumors that Badgley would be her male lead by posting a TikTok video of him dancing to “The Boy Is Mine.” The night before the visual dropped, she performed the sultry track on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, where she also opened up about her love for the Gossip Girl alum.
“I’ve been a fan of [him] my entire life,” she told Fallon. “It was just so amazing to work with him. I’m such a fan.”
“The Boy Is Mine” is the third single off Grande’s Billboard 200-topping album Eternal Sunshine, as well as its third track to get the music video treatment. She previously released a Paula Abdul-inspired, choreography-filled visual for lead single “Yes, And?,” which was followed by an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind tribute starring Evan Peters for “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love).” Both tracks hit No. 1 on the Hot 100.
Watch Grande, Badgley, Brandy and Monica in “The Boy Is Mine” music video above.
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, we have the long-awaited new album from Charli XCX and the longer-awaited debut album from Tems, as well as a musical swerve from Sabrina Carpenter and a theatrical epic from RAYE. Check out all of this week’s picks below.
Sabrina Carpenter, “Please Please Please”
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If you’ve fallen for Sabrina Carpenter over the course of her past couple sublime disco-pop smashes, you might be a little taken aback by “Please Please Please.” The song still has a good amount of the dancefloor snap of “Feather” and “Espresso” — down to the guitar chops and handclaps on the chorus — as well as the cleverly snappy lyrics (“Heartbreak is one thing, my ego’s another/ I beg you don’t embarrass me, motherf–ker”). But there’s a melodic unpredictability at play here, along with a near-country twanginess to the guitar picking and Carpenter’s yearning vocal, that makes “Please” a truly fascinating and surprising listen. It won’t likely interrupt any kind of Song of the Summer bid for “Espresso,” but it might make you even more excited for her full Short n’ Sweet album this August. (Also: rumored real-life paramour Barry Keoghan appears in the music video.)
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Tems, Born in the Wild
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Tems has already proven to be such a major part of the pop landscape of the past few years — with star-making guest appearances on global smashes by Wizkid and Future, and her own solo favorites like “Free Mind” and this year’s “Love Me JeJe” — that it can be tough to remember that she’s still yet to release a full-length solo album. That LP arrives this week with Born in the Wild, her 18-track debut, and it’s safe to say it was worth the wait: The set is full of the kind of blissful grooves, piercing lyrics and heart-melting melodies fans have come to expect from the Nigerian singer-songwriter, along with special guest appearances from fellow Afrobeats hitmaker Asake and star American rapper J. Cole.
Charli XCX, Brat
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It feels like Charli has been teasing her Brat album for years, drumming up excitement with singles like “Von Dutch” and “360,” and now the full set is finally upon us. Already attracting some of the best reviews of her highly acclaimed career, Brat spans future-club bangers, emotional synth-pop ballads and countless shades in between, whipping through its 15 tracks at near-breakneck speed. It’s fun, it’s flirty, it’s often bitchy and it’s occasionally incredibly poignant, and it feels like the album that most of the past decade of Charli XCX has been building towards.
RAYE, “Genesis”
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Turns out the winding, cinematic, five-minute drama of RAYE’s 070 Shake-featuring 2023 smash “Escapism” was only the beginning. “Genesis,” the new song from the singer-songwriter born Rachel Agatha Keen, is a seven-minute, three-part epic, produced by R&B legend Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins and evolving from a self-flagellating orchestral intro to a dark and decadent R&B shuffle to a swinging and scatting (and nearly optimistic-sounding) big-band outro. It’s a lot, and none of it is expected — meaning it might not quite have the pop appeal of “Escapism” — but it will certainly find its audience, and for many it will likely end up being nothing short of a revelation.
Zach Bryan feat. Noeline Hofmann, “Purple Gas”
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Just a week after his “Pink Skies” scored a No. 6 debut on the Billboard Hot 100, Zach Bryan is back with a new duet. Noeline Hofmann might not have the name recognition of previous partners Maggie Rogers or Kacey Musgraves — the 20-year-old singer-songwriter, who wrote and originally recorded “Purple Gas” solo as “The Belting Bronco,” has no other songs even officially available on Spotify — but the sharpness and clarity of her Emmylou Harris-like delivery makes for one of the most lovely harmonic blends yet with Bryan’s gruffly unassuming croon.
“This song brought me to tears the first time I heard it so it was really important for me that Noeline gave me the privelage to sing it with her,” Bryan wrote on Instagram. “I have never covered another musician on an album, and it’s because I was waiting on someone to write a song like this. Noeline resonates like Gillian Welch to me and Gillian is one of my favorite musicians to ever live; now Noeline is too.”
Jung Kook, “Never Let Go”
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Following a 2023 in which he became a global solo star in his own rights, with a trio of top five Hot 100 hits — “Standing Next to You,” the Jack Harlow collab “3D,” and the Latto featuring (and chart-topping) “Seven” — BTS alum Jung Kook is back with the new single “Never Let Go,” which may be ticketed for similar pop success. The song rides a bit of an Afrobeats bounce, with a melodicism borrowed from The 1975 and even the sentence-punctuating snaps of Tame Impala’s “New Person, Same Ol Mistakes,” as Jung Kook belts with clear-eyed sentimentality, “And when the days gеt longer/ You fill my world with wonder.”
Gracie Abrams, “Close to You”
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With Abrams long functioning as your favorite pop singer-songwriter’s favorite pop singer-songwriter, she’s seemed for most of the 2020s to be right on the verge of a major mainstream breakthrough. “Close to You” feels like her bid to complete that crossover, a storming, synth-driven declaration of love and lust that sounds reminiscent of Pure Heroine-era Lorde covering 1989-era Taylor Swift, with all the radio-ready implications baked into that. Whether or not it reaches those chart-topping heights, it should set the stage nicely for her new album The Secret of Us, due out in just two weeks (June 21).