Pop
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07/29/2024
The group’s latest Billboard 200 chart-topper shows SKZ’s determination towards experimentation while remaining true to their core messages.
07/29/2024
While the past weekend’s KCON festival offered K-pop fans the rare opportunity to see their favorite artists in person through three days of convention and concerts, ZEROBASEONE took full advantage of the Los Angeles audience by surprise announcing a new album on the fest’s final day on Sunday (July 28).
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After the nine-member boy band performed the singles “Feel the POP” and “In Bloom” at the Crypto.com Arena, a mysterious video appeared across the KCON marquee with the phrases “Cinema Paradise” and “August 2024” below it. The guys quickly confirmed that the tease was a “comeback spoiler” to the audience.
Cinema Paradise will be ZB1’s fourth K-pop release since debuting just over a year ago on July 10, 2023, with their Youth in the Shade EP. See the comeback spoiler “film” below:
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ZEROBASEONE wasn’t the only artist to utilize KCON LA to tease new music.
Not long after ZB1 made the surprise album announcement, next KCON performer Jeon Somi revealed at the end of her set that she would be returning to the K-pop scene with “a “fun summer song.” The soloist shared the melody and lyrics from the upcoming track, telling the audience to sing along with the call-and-response lines: “Come and get your ice cream… / Too cold!”
Somi’s agency, THEBLACKLABEL, quickly confirmed that the singer’s new single “Ice Cream” would drop on Aug. 2 and shared the following photos.
Elsewhere during KCON, Billboard 200–charting boy band P1Harmony hyped up fans when leader Keeho shared the group’s “comeback is coming faster than you think” during the “red carpet” ceremony on Saturday, July 27.
Plus, the Japanese girl group ME:I (created on Produce 101 Japan The Girls, a local version of a K-pop singing competition developed by KCON organizer CJ E&M) shared a live performance of their new single “Hi-Five” ahead of its official release on Aug. 28. Previously, the 11-member outfit peaked at No. 2 on the Japan Hot 100 so far with their debut single “Click” in April.
The music video to “Hi-Five” dropped a few hours after making its live debut to KCON-ers in attendance.
KCON reports that a combined 5.9 million fans showed up in person and online from more than 170 countries across the three days of this year’s festivities, which is in line with the 5.9 million viewers from 176 regions from last year’s fest. With the bonus of surprise announcements and new song reveals this year, the upcoming KCON Germany 2024 in September should also boast millions of fans tuning in.
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STAY have made their way to the 2024 Paris Olympics. Team Mexico’s Alexa Moreno took the mat on Sunday for the ultimate Stray Kids-themed gymnastics floor routine. In a now-viral clip, the 29-year-old athlete is seen performing a series of flips, twists and rolls to the K-pop superstars’ hits including “S-Class,” “Maniac” and “LALALALA.” It’s […]
Directioners had the ultimate throwback moment on Saturday night (July 27), when Niall Horan performed One Direction’s “Stockholm Syndrome” during his show at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “Oh, baby, look what you’ve done to me/ Oh, baby, you got me tied […]

The morning of the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Summer Games, NBC Olympics prime-time producer Rob Hyland woke up a little before 7 a.m. in his Paris hotel room and had a sinking feeling. “I had some breakfast, looked out the window and noticed the rain falling,” he recalls to Billboard. “My first thought was, ‘Wow. This may literally put a damper on an unbelievably ambitious production.’”
In just a few hours, the eyes of the world would witness the grand opening of the Paris Summer Olympics, a gargantuan undertaking that has been in the works for years. An array of highly speculated moving parts hung in the balance, including headline-grabbing appearances from Lady Gaga (who helped open the festivities) and Celine Dion in a stunning comeback performance on the Eiffel Tower to wrap the kick-off celebration.
“Our first meeting about Paris took place the second Tokyo ended,” explains Hyland of the previous Summer Games, which wrapped in August 2021. “When it came to the Opening Ceremony itself, production planning started two years ago with a number of meetings with the creative team who presented this incredibly intricate plan.”
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At the helm was creative director Thomas Jolly, an accomplished French theater director who envisioned the banks of the Seine River as the focal point, with athletes from around the world sailing down its waters and a series of al fresco stages along the way, including on the bridges.
“But even back then, we understood that the presentation was secretive,” says Hyland. “Everyone who’s done an opening ceremony as a host nation wants there to be this element of surprise.”
Organizers held their plans so close that even Hyland and his NBC team in charge of broadcasting the spectacle in America had no inkling of specific plans until the relative last minute. “So although we’ve been planning this for a number of years, it wasn’t until a week or two up to the event that we started getting more details and breadcrumbs as to what the night was going to be like and who exactly was going to perform.”
For Hyland, a 20-time Sports Emmy winner who is also the coordinating producer for the popular Sunday Night Football broadcast, it was a delicate dance as rumors flew. “By the midpoint of the week, we did get to see two dress rehearsals without any performers, just stand-ins,” he shares. As a result, he planned his coverage around that. “Seeing the choreography and creative associated with the various performances, I was encouraged to see what it’d look like with whatever top performers Jolly enlisted.”
For a host country’s creative director, it’s an unenviable task. The veteran director and choreographer Kenny Ortega, who masterminded opening and closing ceremonies of the Atlanta Summer Games of 1996, as well as the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games, is one of the few people who understands the undertaking.
“You have many creative goals including creating a ceremonial pageantry that would excitedly welcome the world, that would celebrate the magnificence of the games history, and to honor the world of athletes coming together in a peaceful competition,” Ortega tells Billboard. He adds of the “exciting and tense” workload: “I remember napping under my desk in our ceremony tent on the cool concrete floor in Atlanta.”
For his own broadcast in Paris, Hyland had a surprise of his own independent of the actual ceremony: enlisting Beyoncé to help introduce Team USA’s highly anticipated appearance on the Seine River during the Parade of Nations, a special video package that aired only in primetime during NBC’s coverage. (A live, uncut version of the festivities aired live on NBC on Friday afternoon in the United States, sans Beyoncé’s appearance.)
“It was a complete collaboration with NBC and her creative team to help bring that to life,” says Hyland of the video featuring the superstar in a call-and-response with Team USA stars including Simone Biles, Lebron James and Noah Lyles set to the superstar’s Cowboy Carter track “Ya Ya.”
“The first time I saw it, I literally wanted to run through a wall with red, white and blue,” jokes Hyland of the video that was directed by Beyoncé herself, styled by frequent collaborator Shiona Turini. Bill Kirstein, who previously co-directed the star in her videos for “Rocket” and “Blue,” served as director of photography.
“What a vision to behold, what a team to believe in, what a night to celebrate,” the star cooed into the camera to help introduce the team, which then cut to the excited group sailing majestically down the river. Said Hyland: “If that doesn’t get you excited for the Olympics, I don’t know what will.”
At 3:30 p.m. on Friday, NBC had their final production meeting. And at 7:30 p.m. Paris time, everyone was in their places for the ceremony, including commentators Kelly Clarkson (in the host booth with Peyton Manning and Mike Tirico) and Snoop Dogg (positioned on the ground).
“In terms of the performances, in my opinion the rain really added to a lot of them, even the raindrops on top of the piano during Gaga’s performance,” said Hyland of the star who belted out a version of “Mon Truc en Plume” in lush French, a song made famous by the cabaret star Zizi Jeanmaire. “Seeing her walk down the steps and perfectly hitting her mark despite the rain was a moment,” says Hyland. In fact, the only casualty from the wet weather, with the rain picking up as the night went on, was an elaborate host of drone cameras to capture overhead shots, all grounded due to the downpour.
The nearly four-hour ceremony represented a variety of genres from the host country, including French rapper Rim’K, the jazz vocalist Axelle Saint-Cirel (who sang the French National Anthem) and singer-songwriter Juliette Armanet covering John Lennon’s “Imagine.” One of France’s most popular stars, Aya Nakamura, performed her hits “Djadja” (a No. 1 French track) as well as “Pookie.” Of course there was some controversy, too.
But it was Celine Dion — in a comeback performance since announcing her diagnosis with Stiff Person Syndrome — who perhaps garnered the most attention. To close the ceremony, she delivered a heartfelt rendition of French icon Edith Piaf’s “Hymne à l’amour” while on the first level of a glistening Eiffel Tower. “We have a camera dedicated to the host’s position at all times, and I couldn’t help but watch Kelly during Celine’s performance,” Hyland says of Clarkson’s emotional reaction. “She was crying and it was a very authentic reaction to an incredibly moving performance. I got emotional just watching Kelly watch Celine. It was very powerful.”
By the time the ceremony wrapped by 11:30 p.m. Paris time, Hyland and his team breathed a sigh of relief. By Saturday, he was on a plane back to NBC Olympics headquarters in Stamford, Conn., to produce from afar. Then, it’s on to the Aug. 11 closing ceremony, and then plotting the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Get ready, Los Angeles.
Looking for some motivation to help power you through the start of another work week? We feel you, and with some stellar new pop tunes, we’ve got you covered. These tracks from artists including Jorja Smith, Amy Shark, Tiësto and more will get you energized to take on the week.
Coolest Pop Song of the Week: XG, “Something Ain’t Right”
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It’s been quite a few weeks for fans of Asian pop music in the U.S., with the historic Billboard 200 bows of Stray Kids and Jimin’s respective projects this week (following the No. 2 debut of ENHYPEN’s new album the prior week), YG Entertainment’s announcement that 2NE1 will reunite for a world tour, and the return of KCON L.A. boasting a mix of new and veteran stars. There’s a lot of new music to appreciate now, and more to look forward to; let’s add XG’s high-velocity new single, “Something Ain’t Right,” and the J-pop girl group’s second mini-album, which is due out Nov. 8, to that list.
XG arrived in 2022 with a healthy amount of promise, as singles like “Tippy Toes” and “Mascara” demonstrated the Japanese collective’s ability to combine hip-hop, dance, pop and R&B in ways that recalled the modern K-pop superstars but felt specifically tailored to their singular skills. Cocona, Maya, Jurin and Harvey can rap their faces off as needed, and Juria, Chisa and Hinata possess the vocal power to trade off hooks and harmonies. “Shooting Star” and “Left Right” elevated XG (short for “Xtraordinary Girls”) ahead of their first mini-album, last year’s New DNA, and after a handful of stopgap singles in 2024, “Something Ain’t Right” announces the invigoration next iteration of the group’s identity.
The single nods toward garage and house music, but “Something Ain’t Right” most viscerally harkens back to late ‘90s rhythmic pop, with a beat that artists like Mya, 3LW and Blaque would have devoured back in the day. Instead, XG revamps that workout-ready bounce for a new take on “Say My Name”-esque relationship suspicions: “Something ain’t right/ You’ve been acting funny lately/ You ain’t gotta lie/ Got mе out here looking crazy!” Chisa wails, the final word spinning upward and out of her grasp.
“Something Ain’t Right” hits the gas early and glides through rolled-eyes rap verses and pleading bridges, efficient in its synthesis of romantic betrayal. Yet the strongest aspect of the track is how much more we understand XG, and the way that its seven members are deployed individually and collectively. After ramping up their streams and followers over the past two years, the group has returned with an established sense of self and an understanding of the pop mode in which they can best operate. It’s a crowded landscape, but XG is worth seeking out and appreciating.
Here are some more new pop songs worth checking out this week…
Jorja Smith, “High”
Baby, baby, baby do the Biebers seem so excited to welcoming their first child together! As Justin Bieber and wife Hailey Bieber appear to be sharing their final moments of alone time on a babymoon before the upcoming arrival of their first born, Justin posted an adorable video of the happy couple. In the brief […]

Though it definitely made for a soggy journey down the Seine, the steady rain in Paris during Friday night’s lavish opening ceremonies for the 2024 Summer Olympics did not deter Lady Gaga from stealing the show early in the four-hour spectacle. And while Gaga’s eye-popping take on Zizi Jeanmaire’s “Mon Truc en Plumes” (“My Thing With Feathers”) appeared to dodge the raindrops, that’s because it was pre-taped to avoid any potential weather-related issues according to choreographer and head of dance for the Olympics and Paralympics Maud le Pladec.
Le Pladec spoke to Variety about the intense preparations for the song-and-dance routine, explaining that Gaga filmed her performance hours before the athletes’ elaborate boat trip down Paris’ iconic river due to safety reasons. Gaga’s vocals were performed live as she made her way up and down a giant set of stairs along with dancers carrying oversized pom poms.
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Gaga’s was one of a dozen original performances created by Le Pladec and Olympics artistic director Thomas Jolly, with Le Pladec saying that the singer’s four-minute set was easily the “most artistically challenging” of the bunch. “Unfortunately, it was the only [performance] that, for safety reasons, we had to pre-record late in the afternoon, once we knew for sure that it was going to rain — we had minute-by-minute updates, we had never watched the weather forecast so closely in our lives,” Le Pladec said. “We assessed that it was going to be too dangerous for performers, even with a few drops of rain. [Gaga] wanted to do it absolutely so we preferred to pre-record it rather than cancel it.”
Le Pladec said the performance surface, including that giant set of stairs, would have been too slippery for Gaga — who was wearing high heels — to perform on. “We had to be extremely cautious,” Le Pladec said, noting that while she didn’t play live, Gaga was on site during the opening ceremonies and watched her bit on screen from her dressing room before returning to her hotel.
Not long after, Gaga wrote on X, “I am also humbled to be asked by the Olympics organizing committee to sing such a special French song—a song to honor the French people and their tremendous history of art, music, and theatre… Although I am not a French artist, I have always felt a very special connection with French people and singing French music—I wanted nothing more than to create a performance that would warm the heart of France, celebrate French art and music, and on such a momentous occasion remind everyone of one of the most magical cities on earth—Paris.”
Gaga noted that her team rented the pom poms from a “real French cabaret” theater’s archive, collaborated with Dior to create the custom costumes using naturally molted feathers and that she studied French choreography to put her “modern twist” on a French classic. “I rehearsed tirelessly to study a joyful French dance, brushing up on some old skills—I bet you didn’t know I used to dance at a 60’s French party on the lower east side when I was first starting out! I hope you love this performance as much as I do,” she added. “And to everyone in France, thank you so much for welcoming me to your country to sing in honor of you—it’s a gift I’ll never forget! Congratulations to all the athletes who are competing in this year’s Olympic Games! It is my supreme honor to sing for you and cheer you on!! Watching the Olympic Games always makes me cry! Your talent is unimaginable. Let the games begin!”
In keeping with her perfectionist streak, Le Pladec said that the singer was adamant about delivering a spectacle that would feel “authentic” and pay tribute to the French performance tradition. That explains her decision to do a cabaret-style act featuring singing and dancing with a mix of humor and glamour. The choreographer said Gaga — a “workhorse and a perfectionist” — was working until the final moments on her vocals and steps after training for weeks in Los Angeles with a number of dancers who flew in from Paris.
“She wanted to make a show à la Française,” Le Pladec said. “She puts so much effort and thought into everything she does and she has a very developed creative process.”
The party didn’t end after the performance, either. Over the weekend, Gaga also surprised French Little Monsters when she blasted what she said were two new songs from her as yet untitled seventh studio album from a laptop while dancing through the roof of her limo. At press time no additional information was available on those songs.
Rita Ora was forced to cancel her planned appearance at the Campus Fesztivál in Hungary over the weekend due to a doctor’s order to rest. The “Praising You” singer revealed to fans on Saturday (July 27) that she would be unable to perform at the event that night due to an unspecified illness. In a […]
Surely you didn’t think Lady Gaga would fly all the way over to Paris for just one Summer Olympics performance? After the singer lit up the Sienne on Friday night when she wowed the rain-drenched crowd along the banks of the river and all those watching from the dry comfort of their homes around the […]