State Champ Radio Pop
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Trending on Billboard Demi Lovato’s “Here All Night.” The singer returns to her pop roots for her ninth studio album, It’s Not That Deep, which hits streaming services on Friday (Oct. 24). Explore See latest videos, charts and news After seemingly throwing a funeral for her pop era with the rock-tinged Holy Fvck in 2022, […]
Trending on Billboard Justin Vernon was a near-immediate critical sensation upon his late-’00s emergence with his first album as Bon Iver, the alt-folk opus For Emma, Forever Ago. With his unique falsetto, emotional delivery and irresistible backstory — retreating to a cabin in the woods following a pair of personal and professional breakups to record […]
Trending on Billboard Like Adele, Lorde has leaned into taking time off to live her life out of the spotlight between album releases. And, also like Adele, the “Man of the Year” singer has been fine with long gaps between those releases. But after the usual four-year gap between this Virgin and her previous LP, […]
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Justin Bieber has been on our screens for more than half of his life. But starting Wednesday (Oct. 22) the “Daisies” singer promised that we’re about to see even more of him. Bieber made his debut on Twitch yesterday with a stream that included footage of the singer playing basketball, shooting pool with friends and teasing his upcoming Coachella dates.
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The live feed from a giant warehouse space decked out with a mini half-pipe, a recording studio, ping-pong table and lounge area — with a pack-and-play bed for son Jack Blues — included an extended bit where JB put up short jumpers while talking about focusing on his health and “friendships, relationships, the ability to connect with each other,” all cued to Partynextdoor’s “Come and See Me.”
Long stretches of the stream were taken up with Bieber’s crew wandering around the space or just chilling as the singer played DJ and cued up some favorite mellow R&B, including Leon Thomas’ “Yes It Is,” as they played a lengthy game of Horse on the court. At one point, Justin hit a long shot from near the foul line while seated in a chair. The action then moved to a pool table, with Bieber yawning as he prepared to chalk up his cue.
After the game, Bieber took control of the camera and provided the first bit of actual news in the otherwise action-lacked feed with a tease about his April 2026 Coachella headlining gig, the only concerts he’s booked so far following the release of his Swag and Swag II collections and his first full live shows since 2022.
“This is our space for the next few months, so excited,” Bieber said. “I’m gonna be putting on a hell of a show for you guys at Coachella. I can’t wait. So getting ready, getting the gang together, get inspired. So Beautiful.” Speaking directly to camera, Bieber promised that the Twitch stream will be live “pretty muchevery day,” encouraging fans to tune in. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
In addition to the singer hopping on his skateboard and working the half-pipe, the feed also included a section with a shirtless Bieber playing ping pong. While not playing around, Bieber has been busy lately dropping music videos and topping charts, including a visual for “Bad Honey” and a No. 1 spot on the Pop Airplay Chart with “Daisies,” which tied him with Bruno Mars for most leaders among solo males in the chart’s history.
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This holiday season is about to be particularly golden. As announced Wednesday (Oct. 22), the singing voices behind KPop Demon Hunters girl group HUNTR/X will reunite on stage for iHeartMedia’s Jingle Ball 2025.
Though the trio consisting of EJAE, AUDREY NUNA and REI AMI has previously performed together on stage, their showcase at the annual 102.7 KIIS FM event will mark their first-ever live concert appearance. They join a bill that also features Alex Warren, Audrey Hobert, Conan Gray, Feid, Jackson Wang, Jessie Murph, The Kid LAROI, Leon Thomas, Renee Rapp and Zara Larsson.
This year’s Jingle Ball will ring in Christmastime at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. Fans can purchase tickets to the event now on Ticketmaster.
The festive news comes as the momentum behind KPop Demon Hunters continues to ramp up. The group’s signature song, “Golden,” has spent a total of eight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 so far, marking the first time an all-woman K-pop group has reached the chart’s summit. The Netflix film’s full soundtrack also reached the top of the Billboard 200.
In the movie, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA and REI AMI respectively sang for characters Rumi, Mira and Zoey, who form a fictional band called HUNTR/X that slays demons on the side. In the months since KPop Demon Hunters premiered in June, appetite for the three ladies’ music has only grown, leading to them making their real-life performance debut on The Tonight Show on Oct. 7.
Still, the question remains: Will there be a sequel?
“The sequel has not been confirmed,” REI AMI told Billboard in a recent interview. “We are, you know, looking forward, and we will know once we get that email.”
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Ed Sheeran is used to playing for tens of thousands of rabid fans in stadiums around the world. But how does his emotional music play in a New York classroom of third graders? Check out the latest episode of the heart-warming series Celebrity Substitute, in which Sheeran pops into PS20 in Brooklyn to teach students how to transform everyday sounds into fully fledged songs.
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Host Julian Shapiro-Barnum sits down with Sheeran in the Clinton Hills classroom’s small chairs to observe as the singer teaches his young charges about rhythm and sound using his trusty loop rig, even as Ed laments that perhaps he’s “not the best substitute teacher.” Or, he offers, maybe he is just that because, he recalled (before the students arrived), sometimes when a sub comes in you feel like, “‘f–k, you’re not my real teacher… don’t tell me what to do!’”
Well aware that he doesn’t command authority and is basically a big Pokemon-loving adult kid himself, Sheeran recalled the nasty names he got called in school, helping to prove Shapiro-Barnum’s credo that “weirdos make the coolest adults.” (See the full video below.)
After getting affixed with his official “Mr. Ed” sub name tag — and getting warned by teachers Mr. Chung and Mr. Hampton that his lesson plan was “ambitious” at best — Sheeran dug into his curriculum of teaching the importance of rhythm, finding your own sound and, most importantly, rehearsing.
Sheeran got right to work, playing his 2015 Billboard Hot 100 No. 15 hit “Photograph,” which was met with mixed reviews from kids who were fans, some who were not so much, and one girl who recalled seeing him in a book about Taylor Swift once, but having no idea why he was in it. “I like the music… a lot,” said one young man named Theo, who admitted that he wasn’t familiar with Sheeran’s ouvre, but does love soccer and had a friend who was the fastest player on his team before he moved to England.
After teaching the kids the basics of the waltz and 4/4 rhythms by noting that pal Swift’s “Style” is in 4/4 by clapping his hands in time, Sheeran set about making sure the kids were picking up what he was laying down by asking them to clap their hands and stomp their feet at the same time in rhythm.
One-by-one the students came up to the mic to say silly phrases that Sheeran looped together to form a rhythm, earning praise from the teachers for his pedagogical skills. Busting out a box of instruments that turned the room into a riot of noise, Sheeran then encourage each student to share their unique sound into the mic, from saxophone bleats to fart sounds.
The 15-minute clip ends with a command Show & Tell performance of “The PS20 Kids and the Morning Routine” original song about brushing your teeth which is guaranteed to be the cutest thing you see all day.
Watch Sheeran on Celebrity Substitute below.
LAS VEGAS — While New Kids on the Block might seem like a perfect fit for Las Vegas, the veteran boy band had somehow never found themselves with a Sin City residency — until Friday night (June 20).
The Right Stuff residency kicked off night 1 at Dolby Live at Park MGM, with NKOTB gracing a stage previously headlined by Usher, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Mariah Carey and more superstars. But when the Boston boys were getting started 40 years ago, they had a different perception of Vegas than the entertainment destination it’s become.
“When you’re young, you think you’re really cool,” Jordan Knight told Billboard on Friday ahead of the residency kick-off. “And if somebody said, ‘You guys are going to be doing Vegas in your 50s,’ my thought probably back then would be like, ‘Oh no, no. That’s so corny. … That’s where acts just retire.’ But us doing this right now, I feel like we’re being true to ourselves, really. I don’t think we’re selling out to commercialism or Vegas or whatever it may be. I think we’re just being really true to ourselves. Yes, we have some bells and whistles, but I think we’re just using it really tastefully.”
There were definitely bells and whistles — like the high-flying moment that saw all five members hoisted up among the rafters in individual telephone booths to get as close as possible to every fan in the 5,000-capacity venue — but at its core, this was the New Kids show that their Blockhead superfans have come to expect. That is, the once-teenybopper pop stars (now ranging in age from 52 to 56) left every drop of energy, enthusiasm and love they had on the stage to put on a fun, escapist show in their new home of Vegas, with dates through February. That included the megahits, of course — “Step by Step,” “Hangin’ Tough” and the residency’s namesake “You Got It (The Right Stuff)” — but it also included gems from every one of the band’s seven non-Christmas studio albums, all the way back to their 1986 self-titled debut.
For his part, Jonathan Knight is finding that he’s able to enjoy things at this stage of the band’s career more than those chaotic early days. “When we started, we were just kids,” Jonathan told Billboard just before the show. “I think when we look back at that, nobody prepares you for this. I mean, I would never think at 56 years old, I would be in Vegas, when I was 20. Just being able to, for me personally, just being here, being in the moment, I mean back then, it was just such a blur.”
To keep Friday night’s show from becoming a blur, Billboard has rounded up the five best moments from New Kids’ nonstop fun opening night.
Using Every Inch of the Stage — And Beyond
LAS VEGAS — For New Kids on the Block‘s first-ever Las Vegas residency — which kicked off Friday night (June 20) at Dolby Live at Park MGM — the veteran boy band had a lot of ground to cover in their night 1 setlist. As they explained onstage, Joey McIntyre officially joined the group in […]
Since blasting onto the scene with his breakthrough hit “Beautiful Things,” Benson Boone has become the internet’s favorite punching bag. But instead of trying to prove them wrong, the singer decided to lean in with his latest music video.
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On Friday (June 20), Boone dropped the tongue-in-cheek music video for his new song “Mr. Electric Blue,” off his just-released LP American Heart. From the start of the clip, Boone goes out of his way to play with all the worst things the internet has to say about him when he walks into “Industry Plant Records” wearing a t-shirt that simply says “one hit wonder” for a frank conversation with his sleazy agent (played by his frequent songwriting collaborator Jack LaFrantz).
“Have you not been on the internet? Everything is terrible, Benson! We put all of our money into ‘moonbeam ice cream’ and the backflip, and it’s done absolutely horrible,” LaFrantz’s character tells an exasperated Boone. He informs the singer that he owes his faux label $10 million, and suggests that he find “a new gimmick” like “good songwriting.” At the suggestion, Boone deflates: “You know I can’t do that.”
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What ensues is a madcap montage, where Boone takes as many odd jobs as he can to raise the money. He walks dogs (while wearing another T-shirt that says “”), mows lawns (for a company called “Auto-Tune Trimmers”), washes cars (with bumper stickers declaring “mustaches are lame”) sells his sparkly jumpsuits and even opens a moonbeam ice cream truck. Of course, that still doesn’t stop the criticism from coming — when he’s recognized by a little girl as “the guy who sings ‘Beautiful Things,’” she quickly humbles him: “Your music is terrible.”
For his hustling and hard work, Boone makes a grand total of $168, but begs LaFrantz’s agent to give him another chance. But his agent assures him that he found a better solution, saying he “sold your entire catalog to retail chains, fast food chains and movie theaters,” promising that “you’ll be the most overplayed artist in the world, and I’ll be rich.” A dejected Boone sighs and smiles, saying “that’s all I’ve ever wanted,” before celebrating his ubiquity.
It’s far from the first time Boone has commented on the way people perceive him. The singer posted a TikTok back in April, explaining that he could understand people not liking him or his music if there were more people offering concrete reasons for their distaste. “I just read a comment that said ‘idek why I hate Benson Boone but it feels right,’” he wrote on the video. “Like WHAT!!? how am I supposed to improve after reading that? At least say something valid like ‘he low key just flips everywhere can he [do] anything else?’”
Watch the full video for Boone’s “Mr. Electric Blue” above.
There’s no question that Broadway‘s Hamilton was (and still is) one of the most engrossing musicals on the Great White Way, but according to an original cast member, Madonna herself had other things to focus on. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news During his Thursday (June 19) appearance […]
