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Madonna is giving the people what they want. The singer announced on Thursday morning (June 5) that she will release the long-rumored Veronica Electronica collection, an album featuring rare and unreleased remixes of songs from her beloved 1998 Ray of Light album. The eight-track LP will be released digitally and on silver vinyl on July […]
Like David Lee Roth’s drum riser leaps or Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar arm swing, Benson Boone‘s backflips are seemingly going to be part of his stage show until his ortho, or insurance company, say otherwise. So it was no surprise that Boone’s acrobatic signature came up not once, but twice on The Tonight Show on Wednesday (June 4).
First, in the cold open, host Jimmy Fallon met Boone backstage and bragged that he can also pull off Benson’s signature trick. “You know, I can actually do a back flip too,” Fallon said. “Yeah, I just kind of jump and turn around all the way in the air. Just kind of always had a knack for it, if that makes sense. Flippity Floppities is what I call them.”
Boone appreciated the gesture, but warned Fallon that he doesn’t have to flip out to impress him, adding that he wouldn’t want the host to hurt himself. Fallon laughed it off and promised it was “very easy” for him, as the camera cut to a stunt double hurling himself backwards into a table covered with snacks and crashing out after zero rotations.
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Later in the show, Boone said “there’s no guaranteed flips” when Fallon asked if the iconic move would be part of Boone’s upcoming arena tour. When Fallon wondered if Boone practices and plans out his flips, the singer sighed and said he didn’t, since he’s been doing the trick his whole life. “I’ve been doing them forever,” he said. “Like, if you knew me growing up and you saw a video of me now and you hadn’t seen anything else — if you went to preschool with me and then you just had not heard the name Benson Boone since them — and then you see a video of me doing a backflip, you’d probably be like, ‘He’s still doing this?’”
So, of course, at Fallon’s request, he stepped up onto the host’s desk and pulled off a perfect one to the studio audience’s delight.
The 22-year-old also singer sat on the couch and played a game where he gave one-word reactions to some of high highest highlights from his breakthrough last year. For instance: the Grammys (“whooo!” with crotch grab and a “wow, that’s tight”), Coachella (“crowd”), MTV VMAs (“it was very sparkly”), Eras tour (“whoa!”), Lollapalooza (“I still don’t think I can spell it”) and the American Music Awards (“… moonbeam ice cream…”).
He then joked about trying to gin up some buzz on the internet for “Mystical Magical,” the first single his upcoming sophomore album, American Heart (June 20) by attempting to make the confounding “moonbeam ice cream” lyric a meme. “Nobody knows [what it means], I don’t know,” he said of his hope to spark some interest in the album by teasing the intriguing phrase. “So it went downhill quick. People started doing ‘what is ‘moonbeam ice cream?’… I hate Benson Boone!’” he said, admitting that even with the hate it kind of worked out for him.
Boone returned later in the show to perform the American Heart single “Momma Song” accompanied by a string quartet, crooning the moving ballad on a sundown-colored stage with zero flips. He will play CMAC in Canadaigua, NY on Thursday night (June 5) and New York City’s Governor Ball on Friday (June 6).
Watch Boone on the Tonight Show below.
Miley Cyrus says she knew she was going to win her first Grammy last year for “Flowers” when she saw another “MC” in the crowd. “The reason that I never got a Grammy before was because it was never my compass. It was not my North Star,” the singer told Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon on Wednesday night’s (June 4) show.
That’s why she was so genuinely surprised when she did win, even though she almost didn’t make it because she got stuck in traffic in the rain on the way to the broadcast. “Once I saw Mariah Carey I knew I was going to win,” she said. “Because I had this whole idea in my mind of, like, the butterfly and that metamorphosis. And she is the butterfly. Her [1997] album Butterfly has been such a North Star for me. And so when I saw her I kind of knew I was going to win because that was… it was an M.C. to M.C. I knew I had to get it.”
The singer once again described how her new Something Beautiful album was almost a very different kind of project until her old pal Harrison Ford stepped in with some sage advice when they met up at the Disney Legends Awards ceremony last summer. He asked her what she was up to, so naturally Cyrus pulled out a PDF with her grand plan for Something Beautiful, which at that point included her dream tour of “magical places” for a project then called Somewhere Beautiful that would have had her playing shows in the forest or in front of the pyramids.
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“And he looked at it and goes, ‘Looks expensive… not sure if it’s worth it,’” she said, adding that she took the note to her management, who 100% agreed.
The pair talked about running into each other at the SNL 50 special earlier this year, with Cyrus, 32, admitting that she was a “little bit nervous” before the show “because everyone that I’ve ever looked up to or watched on TV or loved was there.” Cyrus performed a stunning cover of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” with Tonight Show house band the Roots and Brittany Howard on the show and she said Fallon looked “crazy” before his breathless opening musical bit.
“You got a little out of breath,” she teased him. “We’re working on that… I’m getting you snatched for the summer.”
Part of that work included Miley teaching Jimmy how to dance in stacked heels after he praised her for a video in which she rehearsed the choreo for her song “Easy Lover” in what he said were the highest heels he’s ever seen. “If I were rehearsing this show… I’m in sweatpants,” he said, as Miley warned, “Not once I get you that summer body.”
Admitting he needs help to get that beach ready, Miley busted out a little treat she brought for the host: a pair of black chunky boots with four-inch heels. “Stage one: a chunky booty,” she said as she presented the shoes. “Which by the way, is your new drag name. Here you go, Miss Booty.”
Fallon was game, so he slipped on the boots and came out from behind the desk to learn the steps to the “Easy Lover” dance, teetering on the heels and getting a lesson on why you need to rehearse in the shoes you’re going to perform in.
The companion Something Beautiful film will be in theaters for one night only on June 12.
Watch Cyrus on The Tonight Show below.
SEVENTEEN found their way back to The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday (June 4) to perform “Thunder,” the lead single from their just-released fifth studio album Happy Burstday. The off-site performance takes place in an industrial warehouse, and it starts with THE 8 answering a ringing payphone branded with the logo of The Kelly Clarkson […]
Cardi B, Bhad Bhabie & Lily Allen have all made accounts on the platform.
It’s an understatement to say it was a dream come true for Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying to write and record the new song “Great Rainbow” for the 70th anniversary of the Disneyland Resort.
The Grammy winner tells Billboard he’s a “Disney stan, deep down.” But Hoying didn’t stop with one song: He can be heard throughout the new Disney California Adventure Park nighttime spectacular World of Color Happiness!, including harmonizing on new renditions of familiar Disney favorites like “I 2 I” (from A Goofy Movie) and “Nobody Like U” (from Turning Red).
World of Color Happiness! is a razzle-dazzle show that, per Disney, “explores happy through a kaleidoscope of emotions,” as told through visual projections on choreographed fountains enhanced with lighting, lasers, flames and of course, a musical soundtrack.
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The entire show, staged on Paradise Bay, is hosted by Joy and the other Emotions from the animated film Inside Out 2, while a pre-show moment kicks off with The Muppets – who, like Disneyland, celebrate their 70th anniversary in 2025. (In the show, Boyz II Men are heard singing The Muppets’ iconic tune “The Rainbow Connection.”) Then, following the show, Hoying’s soaring “Great Rainbow” is heard in full while the fountains and lights in the Bay dance along to the tune. The track was created by an army of more than 100 musical individuals – including an orchestra, choir and a team of production technicians and wizards.
Much of the music from World of Color Happiness!, including “Great Rainbow,” can also be found on the recently released album from Walt Disney Records, Music From Disneyland Resort 70th Celebration.
So what does it feel like for Hoying to quite literally be part of a show at a Disney park, where his voice is heard by guests most every night?
“I don’t even have the words to accurately explain. It is such a dream of mine. There’s videos of me at [age] 3 singing ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ [from The Lion King] for anyone that would listen. I am such a Disney stan, deep down. I know the catalog through and through.
“To help create the soundtrack to such amazing memories that kids get to have – it’s just a dream,” he adds. “It gives me a sense of purpose and fulfillment that’s really, really meaningful.”
Hoying found his way to World of Color Happiness! thanks to his work on Walt Disney World’s Epcot spectacular Luminous: The Symphony of Us. That show, which premiered in December 2023, featured a song Hoying co-wrote (with A.J. Sealy and Sheléa, performed by Sheléa) titled “Heartbeat Symphony.” Perhaps surprisingly, the song was selected for the show in a “blind” audition, so to speak, where the writers were not revealed during the initial selection process.
Stef Fink – who was the music producer for Luminous and World of Color Happiness! – invited Sealy and others to “blind submit” songs for Luminous. Sealy called up Hoying (whom Fink did not know personally at the time), and the pair submitted a track, which was among the songs the Disney team initially selected for consideration. Then, Sheléa teamed with Hoying and Sealy, and the three tinkered with the track and added Sheléa’s vocals to the demo, and Disney ultimately selected the song for the show.
So when it came time for World of Color Happiness! to begin production, the relationship Hoying and Fink had built with Luminous graduated to a new level. Knowing that World of Color Happiness! was going to be a “more vocal-forward and a more pop-forward show,” Fink thought of bringing Hoying into the creative process. “I like to surround myself with people who are smarter and musically better than I am, so I was like, ‘Scott, what are you doing?’”
On this show, Scott “stepped into so many different roles creatively, by himself and alongside me,” Fink says. “He’s not just a singer on the show and he’s not just a vocal arranger – he really informed a lot of our fun decisions, along with our incredible creative director Steve Davison and our entire team over at Disney Live Entertainment.”
The creative synergy between Fink and Hoying extended to the new song “Great Rainbow,” which the pair wrote and produced together, with Hoying singing the track alongside an orchestra and choir.
Recording the song with a live orchestra was “one of the best parts of the whole experience and why I have so much respect for the Disney Music team, because they don’t cut corners,” Hoying says, stressing the lengths Disney will go to for authenticity and accuracy in their music production.
“It’s so cool to work on a project that has so much integrity for music. … I don’t get to record with an orchestra very often – obviously, Pentatonix is a cappella – and it was so magical. As magical as you’d think it’d be. I was just bawling [in the studio] to the point where I was like, ‘All right, it’s kind of cute to cry for a second, but now it’s kind of getting crazy.’ [Laughs] I was just so moved. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard.
“And the concept of the show is about connection, and to see 70 people who all dedicated their life to their instrument come together and play an arrangement that I worked on and they loved to play, and it made this beautiful sound… and I was like, ‘Humans, we’re all connected!’ I was just in my feels and just going through it. It was just magical.”
ABBA‘s Björn Ulvaeus is working on a new musical using artificial intelligence. According to Variety, during a talk at SXSW London on Wednesday (June 4), the 80-year old Swedish pop legend said he’s tapping into AI because he believes it is an excellent creative tool.
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“Right now I’m writing a musical, assisted by AI,” Ulvaeus said, noting that he’s about three-quarters of the way through the creative process on the unnamed project, the follow-up to the hugely successful pop quartet’s avatar stage show, Voyage.
“It’s fantastic. It is such a great tool,” Ulvaeus raved of AI. “It is like having another songwriter in the room with a huge reference frame. It is really an extension of your mind. You have access to things that you didn’t think of before.” Unlike many in the industry who fear that AI is an existential threat to their existence and the traditional creative process, Ulvaeus is aware of the bugs in the system, which he said have helped him to merge AI with his already formidable songwriting skills.
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“It’s lousy at [writing a whole song]” and “very bad at lyrics,” he said about his AI helpmate, which has allowed him to navigate through some creative dead-ends. “You can prompt a lyric you have written about something, and you’re stuck maybe, and you want this song to be in a certain style,” he said. “You can ask it, how would you extend? Where would you go from here? It usually comes out with garbage, but sometimes there is something in it that gives you another idea.”
Ulvaeus is part of an eclectic lineup for 2025 SXSW London, whose lineup includes Erykah Badu (as DJ Lo Down Loretta Brown), Tems, Mabel, Alice Glass and many more. Penske Media Corporation (which also owns Billboard) and the film and production company MRC invested in SXSW in 2021 following the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic; two years later, Penske took majority ownership of SXSW.
The AI project, whose ultimate form has not yet been announced, is part of Ulvaeus’ ongoing partnership with Pophouse Entertainment, the company behind the ABBA Voyage production. The Voyage virtual residency opened in London in May 2022 and is slated to run through January 2026. The show is a combination of 10 live performers and digital avatars of the four ABBA members, who have not performed live since their split in December 1982; the group, which also features Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, released their first album in 40 years, Voyage, in November 2021.
Though Ulvaeus is happy to use AI in the creative process, he is also adamant about fighting for artists’ rights in the rapidly evolving digital age. “These AI models wouldn’t exist without the songs that we wrote,” he said.
Swifties aren’t the only ones celebrating the news that Taylor Swift purchased the masters to her Big Machine albums last week. Less than a week after the singer bought back the rights to her first six studio albums from Shamrock Capitol — the private equity firm that purchased them from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings in late 2020 — for what sources told Billboard was around $360 million, her longtime boyfriend Travis Kelce weighed in on the news.
In a trailer for Wednesday’s (June 4) new episode of his New Heights podcast with brother Jason Kelce, the siblings host former NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal, who just can’t help himself when Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble” comes on. Playing the Red hit on his phone and mouthing along to the lyrics “Once upon a time/ A few mistakes ago/ I was in your sights/ You got me alone,” Shaq was clearly feeling the news.
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As the hardcourt legend enthusiastically lip synchs to the tune, Travis and Jason bop along and smile, with Travis matching Shaq’s hand gestures. “That’s my favorite song in the world brotha,” Shaq tells the duo. “I love it.”
Both Kelces clap and laugh at the news. “You know it,” Shaq adds. “Shout out to Tay Tay,” Travis says with a big smile on his face. “Just got that song back, too,” he adds as Jason fist-pumps and shouts “Hell yeah!”
“Just bought all her music back. So it’s finally hers too man. I appreciate that dog,” Travis tells Shaq. It was the first public comment from Travis since the news broke last week via a letter from Swift about regaining control of Taylor Swift (2006), Fearless (2008), Speak Now (2010), Red (2012), 1989 (2014) and Reputation (2017).
In her note, Swift wrote, “I almost stopped thinking it could ever happen, after 20 years of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away. But that’s all in the past now. I’ve been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music I’ve ever made… now belongs… to me.”
While it took a few days for Kelce to weigh in, Swifties wasted no time in celebrating the news. Billboard reported that following the 11:30 a.m. ET announcement on Friday, early data showed U.S. activity around the singer’s whole catalog — her six Big Machine albums, her subsequent albums and re-recordings on Republic — jumped to averaging nearly 35,000 consumption units for that day and Saturday (May 31), a 72.3% increase from the average daily activity in the previous 12 days from an average of 20,000 units.
Watch the New Heights preview below.
Netflix has released the first official video of Lady Gaga’s spine-tingling Tudum 2025 performance — and it’s as theatrical as fans would expect from the 14-time Grammy winner.
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The newly released clip, filmed at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on Saturday (May 31), captures a snippet of Gaga’s eight-minute Wednesday-themed set, which saw her end the set in an upright coffin emblazoned with the words “Here Lies the Monster Queen.”
Backed by Addams Family-inspired dancers, she launched into a medley that included Mayhem album standouts “Zombieboy,” “Bloody Mary” and “Abracadabra.” The performance was part of Netflix’s Tudum 2025: The Live Event, a star-studded celebration of fandom and pop culture.
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The moment came directly after Netflix premiered the first six minutes of Wednesday Season 2. During the event, the streamer also confirmed that Gaga will appear in the upcoming season as Rosaline Rotwood, a mysterious Nevermore teacher who crosses paths with Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega).
According to Netflix, Gaga’s character will feature in Part 2 of the new season, which premieres Sept. 3. Part 1 arrives on Aug. 6.
Wednesday is the latest acting credit for the singer, who led the films Joker: Folie à Deux, A Star Is Born and House of Gucci, and was in two seasons of FX’s American Horror Story. Gaga won an Oscar for best original song and was nominated for best actress for A Star Is Born in 2019.
Gaga’s album Mayhem, released in March, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and has remained in the top 10 for 11 consecutive weeks.
Tudum 2025 featured an all-star lineup, with appearances from Daniel Craig, Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor, Jenna Ortega, Mia Goth, and rapper Hanumankind, alongside previews for Frankenstein, Happy Gilmore 2, Squid Game, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery and more.
Lady Gaga’s full performance is now available to watch via Netflix.
British singer Jessie J has revealed that she had been recently diagnosed with “early breast cancer.”
The musician (born Jessica Cornish) shared the health update on social media on Tuesday (June 3), telling her followers that the diagnosis came shortly before the release of recent single “No Secrets” in April. “I’m highlighting the word ‘early,’” she explained. “Cancer sucks in any form but I’m holding on to the word ‘early.’”
As she continued, she revealed that she’s been “in and out of tests” in the time since, but has decided to share her story with the world in an attempt to be more open about her journey, and also to give herself a chance to process the reality of her situation.
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“I also know how much sharing in the past has helped me with other people giving me their love and support, and also their own stories,” she explained. “I’m an open book. It breaks my heart that so many people are going through so much – similar and worse.”
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“I’m getting to keep my nipples, that’s good,” she continued. “It’s a weird topic and a weird situation. And I know the press are going to say crazy stuff but you know what, to get diagnosed with this as I’m putting out a song called ‘No Secrets’ right before a song called ‘Living My Best Life,’ which was all pre-planned before I found out about this, I mean, you can’t make it up.”
Indeed, Jessie J’s news comes shortly after the release of her single “Living My Best Life,” which arrived on May 16. In the caption to her Instagram post, the singer added levity to her situation, writing “No (more) Secrets and is it too soon to do a remix called ‘Living my breast life’?”
In closing her video to fans, Jessie J explained that she will “disappear for a bit” to undergo surgery following her performance at the Summertime Ball in England on June 15.
Jessie J’s decision to be open and honest with her health journey aligns with her comments from July, in which she revealed a recent diagnosis of obsessive compulsive behavior (OCD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity (ADHD).
“It’s empowered me and honestly sometimes has overwhelmed me all at the same time,” she explained, noting that the information had made her think about her life in a whole new way. “If there is one thing social media has given me, it’s the chance to relate, connect and heal with strangers that have kind hearts and are going through a similar thing.
“I have always been honest in the journey I’m going through in life.”