Pop
Page: 158
On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are opening up the mailbag to answer your burning questions – starting with a question about why radio is still important (and valuable) in the streaming age. Listener “yaelkaa” asks: “I’m still unclear about the point of (a) radio-released single in the time of streaming.” […]
Try and come for her job. In the midst of the European leg of her global Eras Tour, Taylor Swift has announced which song from The Tortured Poets Department will serve as the album’s next single: the deceptively cheerful “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.” The news arrives via a message on Taylor […]
Adele will wrap up her Weekends With Adele residency in Las Vegas on November 23. That means her superfans have exactly 10 chances left to catch the singer’s long-running stay-put show before, as she recently revealed in an interview, she goes away for a while.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Speaking to Germany’s ZDF, Adele, 36, dropped the bombshell, “I don’t have any plans for new music at all.” In fact, the star who said she “doesn’t like being famous,” added, “I want a big break after this and I think I want to do other creative things, just for a little while.”
Adele kicked off her Weekends run in November 2022 and plans to call the show at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace quits with her final scheduled performance on Nov. 23. Before then, she will play a series of gigs in Munich at a specially built 80,000-capacity venue on August 2, 3, 9, 10, 14, 16, 23, 24, 30 and 31.
Trending on Billboard
She said that the run of 100 live shows over the past two years have left her feeling as if her “tank is quite empty.”
After announcing the initial run of Munich shows, Adele wrote on Instagram, “So a few months ago I got a call about a summer run of shows. I’ve been content as anything with my shows in London’s Hyde Park and my residency in Vegas, so I hadn’t had any other plans. However, I was too curious to not follow up and indulge in this idea – a one off, bespoke pop-up stadium designed around whatever show I want to put on.”
The singer — who has not gone on a world tour since her 2016-2017 run in support of her 25 album — has made a habit of taking time for herself between albums and tours. Those stretches out of the public eye have increased over time, from three years between her 2008 debut, 19, and 2011’s 21, to four years until her 2015 LP 25 and six between that album and 2021’s 30.
Back in December, the mother of 11-year-old song Angelo told The Hollywood Reporter, ” I have nothing to say yet. I haven’t even thought about it… I have to wait for a feeling. If I get antsy, that’s when I know I have to go to the studio, and I am the opposite of antsy right now.” Speaking of new endeavors, in that same interview, Adele said that there was one unnamed movie she wants to do, but, “the guy whose movie it would be, he’s not mentally ready to write the script for it… I bug him every now and then about it, but he’s just not there yet. But that’s the only role I ever want. Because I think I’d nail it. I think I’d do really, really, really good at it.”
Then, in January during one of her Weekends shows, Adele told the audience “I just don’t think I’m gonna write an album for quite some time,” teasing that when she does she may be ready to hit the road properly again. At press time a spokesperson for Adele had not returned Billboard‘s request for additional comment on her future plans.
Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom have been singing each other’s praises since first getting together more than eight years ago. But in a recent Instagram Live chat with fans to celebrate her new single, “Woman’s World,” Perry got super candid about one of the reasons the couple have managed to stay together for so long.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
“Tell us about Orlando’s ‘magic stick,’” Perry read with a smile on her face while scrolling through fan questions during the session. Perry let out a hearty raspberry and smiled at someone off camera, appearing to be thrown by the intimate nature of the query. “Well, we’ve been together for a while,” she said while chewing gum and signing promotional items.
“So I guess he’s got the magic in him,” she finally replied, singing the last bit to the tune of B.o.B.’s 2010 hit “Magic.” Cracking herself up with the NSFW-adjacent response, Perry then got serious about Bloom, with whom she shares four-year-old daughter Daisy Dove.
Trending on Billboard
“No, it’s really his heart,” she said. “And he gave me my greatest gift ever… Daisy Dove,” she whispered.
Over the weekend, Perry appeared to respond to a wave of criticism for the “Woman’s World” video, sharing behind-the-scenes clips to explain her intentions for the visual that mixes feminist tropes and lyrics with lots of cheeky visuals. “YOU CAN DO ANYTHING! EVEN SATIRE!” Perry captioned her Instagram post.
Between criticism that Perry’s song misfired in its attempt to be a feminist anthem and her team-up with track co-producer Dr. Luke — who was accused of sexual misconduct by Kesha before the singer and producer settled a bitter, nine-year legal battle in 2023 before it went to to trial — “Woman’s World” did not appear to land the way the singer intended.
“We’re kind of just having fun being a bit sarcastic with it, it’s very slapstick, and very on the nose,” Perry says says in the first half of the video that seemed to anticipate some potential backlash. “With this set, it’s like, ‘We’re not about the male gaze but we really are about the male gaze,’ and we’re really overplaying it and on the nose because I’m about to get smashed, which is like a reset, a reset for me, and a reset for my idea of feminine divine, and it’s a whole different world we go to after this.”
“Woman’s World” is the first single from Perry’s upcoming follow-up to her Smile album from 2020, 143, which is due out on Sept. 20.
Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco are continuing to prove that they’re Hollywood’s cutest couple. The “Single Soon” star took to TikTok to partake in a couples-themed trend with the producer, in which they answer a series of “Who’s Most Likely To?” questions about their relationship. The duo revealed who eats the most (Blanco), who takes […]
Brat summer is here to stay — and not even the strongest of national disasters could wipe it out. Twisters castmates Glen Powell, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Anthony Ramos have become some of the latest stars to try out TikTok’s viral dance to Charli XCX‘s “Apple,” posting a video of the choreography that earned a seal […]
Glass Animals would never look a gift hit in the mouth. After all, the group landed one of the biggest chart singles by a British group since the Spice Girls in 2021 when their slinky track “Heat Waves” went viral thanks to TikTok.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Surely you remember it? The one with the hypnotizing chorus, “Sometimes, all I think about is you/ Late nights in the middle of June/ Heat waves been fakin’ me out/ Can’t make you happier now.” Though the single from the Oxford-bred band was released in June 2020 in the heat of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, it took an epic 59 weeks to make its way to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 2022, where it stayed for five weeks; the song also set a record by hanging around on the Hot 100 for a total of 91 weeks, making it the longest-charting hit in the Hot 100’s then-64-year history.
Now, four years later, the group is prepping their return with their fourth studio album, I Love You So F***ing Much (July 19), and in an interview with The Independent singer Dave Bayley revealed that the band’s signature smash almost went to another artist with much more chart-topping experience.
Trending on Billboard
“I had hoped it would be someone else’s song,” Bayley told the paper about an attempt to get Rihanna to record it. “It got so far that I was sitting in the Roc Nation offices, playing the song for her manager,” he explained. “I ended up sending them parts of the song, but I’m grateful it didn’t go further.”
Don’t get him wrong, either way would have been just fine with him. “But at the same time, obviously, I’m a huge fan – I would’ve loved it,” Bayley said of the possibility of RihRih taking a swing at “Heat Waves.”
After “Heat Waves” passed the 90-week Hot 100 run of The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights,” Bayley told Billboard he was blown away. “Wow, all I can say is wow,” he said at the time. “Many of you know when I wrote this song I was writing about missing someone I loved very dearly. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would lead to so much love and connection across the globe.”
Though she obviously didn’t take them up on the offer, the possibility that the song could have ended up in Rihanna’s hands would surely have thrilled her Navy. The mother of two toddlers and founder of the billion-dollar Fenty Beauty brand has not released a new album since 2016’s multi-platinum Anti and with the exception of a handful of features — as well as her 2022 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever Oscar-nominated hit “Lift Me Up” — has kept a low musical profile for much of the past seven-plus years.
Watch the “Heat Waves” video below.
[embedded content]
Harry Styles, Stevie Nicks and thousands of people at London’s BST Hyde Park gave the most touching birthday salute to the late Christine McVie Friday (July 12).
In honor of her friend — who would’ve turned 81 that day — the Fleetwood Mac frontwoman invited the “As It Was” pop star to join her on stage for an emotional duet of her 1975 masterpiece “Landslide.” “I asked Harry to do this,” she told the crowd at the festival. “It’s always heavy to ask someone to come and sing the song with you when you’re singing about your best friend that died so suddenly and so sadly.”
“What I want you to know is that Christine was Harry’s girl, she was my girl, she was your girl,” Nicks continued as Styles, wearing a songbird pin on his lapel, nodded solemnly. “She was from here. And she loved all of us. And today was her birthday.”
Trending on Billboard
The pair performed the ballad while making sustained eye contact, the “Edge of Seventeen” musician taking the lead as the One Direction alum sang harmony. “And if you see my reflection in the snow-covered hills,” their intertwining voices belted. “Well, the landslide will bring it down.”
The tribute comes over a year and a half after McVie died at the age of 71 in November 2022, having suffered a stroke with her secondary cause of death being listed as cancer. “She was truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure,” wrote Fleetwood Mac in a joint statement at the time. “She was the best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life. We were so lucky to have a life with her.”
Nicks has been open about her grief since losing her bandmate, telling Vulture last fall that she doesn’t anticipate full-band activities continuing in McVie’s absence. “She was like my soul mate, my musical soul mate, and my best friend that I spent more time with than any of my other best friends outside of Fleetwood Mac,” she told the publication. “Christine was my best friend… Who am I going to look over to on the right and have them not be there behind that Hammond organ? When she died, I figured we really can’t go any further with this. There’s no reason to.”
Styles also previously honored McVie on his own by singing “Songbird” at his December 2022 concert in Chile. He and Nicks have performed together several times in the past, including at his 2019 One Night Only show at Los Angeles’ The Forum.
Watch Styles and Nicks perform “Landslide” in McVie’s honor below.
SEVENTEEN singer/producer WOOZI has responded to a British news feature claiming that the K-pop group is using artificial intelligence when recording its music. WOOZI, who also co-writes the group’s songs, reportedly had thoughts after a BBC News story posted last week claimed that SEVENTEEN’s most recent single, “Maestro,” was an example of the group’s dive […]
BTS‘ Jin has seen and done some amazing things during his band’s rocket ride to global fame over the past decade. But when he was tapped to be South Korea’s official representative in the Paris 2024 Olympic torch relay the 31-year-old K-pop star was beside himself with excitement. Explore See latest videos, charts and news […]