Pop
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Miley Cyrus and Pharrell have been working together for more than a decade, with their most recent collaboration “Doctor (Work It Out)” arriving Friday (March 1), 10 years after the pair first wrote it.
Over the course of that time, Cyrus has gone through some major changes — perhaps most notably, her transition from teen Disney Channel starlet to the pixie-haired, sometimes controversial 21-year-old who released Bangerz in 2013. And in a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1, the pop star revealed that Pharrell has been there for her through it all.
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“He was really the only one that I could kind of tell him what I really wanted, what I really wanted to make, who I really wanted to be, what I really wanted to do,” Cyrus recalled of meeting the producer back when she was still best known for starring in Hannah Montana. “I think Pharrell was perfect because it was almost like he could be a bumper for me, but he wasn’t going to be a bridle.”
The “Flowers” singer also said that Pharrell was one of the only people who encouraged her famous, drastic haircut in 2012, when she chopped off her long brunette waves and sported a platinum dye job. “I was like, ‘Pharrell, I really want to change. I really want to have a big change,’” Cyrus told Lowe.
“He was kind of the only one — I knew that everyone around me would tell me no — and he was really the only one that I asked, ‘What did he think?’” she added. “And he was like, ‘Go for it today, tomorrow, as soon as you can. That sounds like exactly the perfect thing to do.’”
“I’ll never forget just meeting her at a time where people had pegged her to be one thing particularly,” chimed in the “Happy” musician. “She was Hannah Montana at the time, and she was growing up and really wanting to experience life no matter how far the precipice was, that was her … I just remember her just being in a place where no one really understood what she was, and I got it.”
During the interview, the duo also confirmed that “Doctor (Work It Out)” started as an outtake from Bangerz, which featured a few other Pharrell-produced tracks such as “4×4” featuring Nelly and “#GetItRight.” Earlier this year, they decided to finally give it a proper release.
“We just believe so much in timing and in everything happening when it’s supposed to,” Cyrus told Lowe. “Around the Grammys, Pharrell and I were talking about putting the song out, and it just felt like it was so serendipitous, and there were so many alignments and so many moments that made me know that now was the perfect time.”
“And then sometimes things in our past make more sense in our present than they ever did then,” she continued. “And so this song, I think the nature, the celebration, the feeling, especially with the video, the joy, the dancing, the letting go, it’s what this song really always needed. I don’t think I could have delivered that at that time [in 2013] … It completely embodies my spirit and my essence at this exact moment.”
My big struggle is deciding whether I care more about being the biggest artist I can be commercially or being critically sound,” Charli XCX says. “Then sometimes I land in this place of not caring about either of those things.”
For most of her decade-plus career as both a songwriter for other pop stars (Gwen Stefani, Camila Cabello, Selena Gomez) and a beloved solo performer herself, Charli has managed to strike an enviable balance between the two pop poles she has just described. The 31-year-old British artist has made inescapable hits like her 2014 Iggy Azalea collaboration, “Fancy,” which spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and more sonically experimental pop — including her celebrated pairings with SOPHIE, with whom Charli pioneered hyperpop — while establishing herself as a tastemaker with a track record for working with cutting-edge artists like Yaeji, Rina Sawayama and Caroline Polachek before the industry fully catches on.
Tough, playful and whip-smart, her track “Speed Drive” from the Barbie soundtrack is classic Charli and also her biggest commercial success since 2014’s “Boom Clap.” Now she’s gearing up for her sixth studio album, BRAT. (On Wednesday, Charli posted on social media to expect the album this summer.)
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The follow-up to 2022’s Crash is, she says, a club record evoking the illegal London rave scene where she started performing “when I was 14 or 15,” produced from a tight collection of sounds to create “this unique minimalism that is very loud and bold.”
“Loud and bold” could well describe the entire career of Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Powerhouse honoree. As she chats over Zoom (wearing a white hoodie and a single gold star sticker on her chin) she’s characteristically frank, admitting she finds the time between albums challenging — “probably the reason why I eventually won’t be a musician.” But for now, with a new one finished, she’s gearing up for her life to return to a pop star pace.
YSL jacket and scarf, David Yurman earrings.
Joelle Grace Taylor
Beaufille jacket and skirt, Abra shoes.
Joelle Grace Taylor
What’s the concept of the new album?
This album is very direct. I’m over the idea of metaphor and flowery lyricism and not saying exactly what I think, the way I would say it to a friend in a text message. This record is all the things I would talk about with my friends, said exactly how I would say them. It’s in ways very aggressive and confrontational, but also very conversational and personal. And not in that boring way where artists are like, “This is my most personal record.” To me, it feels like listening to a conversation with a friend.
Do you feel like you’re in a unique position to showcase ideas and sounds from the club world to more mainstream audiences?
I think I’ve had a pretty big impact on popular music; I won’t lie. But it feels weird even saying that in a subtle way in this interview, to be honest. I don’t think it has ever been [my or my collaborators’] intention to transport elements of club or underground music to a wider audience; I think we’ve just been instinctual. There’s a spontaneity within my music that feels off the cuff, blunt and at the same time outlandish. It’s just this fearlessness, too. I don’t mean to sound arrogant, but I see it when I write in sessions for other people or with people that I don’t really write much with. It’s like … I don’t follow a rulebook of how to write a song.
Acne shirt, MM6 bra, Beaufille belt, Abra pants, YSL shoes.
Joelle Grace Taylor
For Crash, you intentionally stepped into the role of a major-label pop star, like cosplay. Is the new album’s direct approach a reaction to that?
It’s definitely related. The pendulum always swings for me. I think a good artist always has to re-form, reformulate and reclothe themselves, quite literally. You’re right, Crash was about me being signed to a major label [Asylum Records UK/Warner Music UK] and feeling like I’d never played that traditional, stereotypical major-label pop star game. I wanted to play this satirical role, so I was hypersexualizing myself, taking songs other people had written for me and using an A&R person for the first time in my career.
This record is the polar opposite. It’s not collaborative. It’s not me playing a character. It’s direct and honest. I really tried not to write love songs or songs about my romantic relationship. [She got engaged to The 1975’s George Daniel in late 2023.] There are a couple, but generally speaking, I wanted it to feel more gossipy, so it is a reaction to Crash. I’m quite a reactionary person.
You’ve written with and for a lot of other women. Has that been intentional?
There are a couple of songs I’ve written that have been for male artists, but it’s not a conscious decision. It just happened like that. I honestly don’t know that I would be able to write from a male perspective.
YSL jacket and scarf, Diesel skirt and shoes, David Yurman earrings.
Joelle Grace Taylor
Charli XCX photographed on November 27, 2023 in Los Angeles. Beaufille jacket.
Joelle Grace Taylor
You’re receiving the Powerhouse award. What’s your relationship with power?
Some days you wake up and feel very powerful, or empowered, or in control, or confident, or whatever positive words that are related to power or a woman in power. But some days you wake up and feel worthless and small and insecure and not good enough. I don’t think that’s specific to me or my industry; I think that’s just human nature. It’s impossible to feel powerful all the time. For me, at least, that would feel like a lie.
There’s also a lot of power in vulnerability. This is cheesy, but I think when I’m most honest and true to myself, that makes me feel most powerful. Sometimes that upsets people, whether that’s people I work with or my fans or my family. There’s always someone to upset. You just have to ask if it would feel like a sacrifice to not make this decision the way you want to make it. That’s what I ask myself.
Are there specific moments in your career when you stepped into a greater level of power?
When I started working with [producer] A. G. Cook, when I started working with SOPHIE, there was this kinship and understanding that made me feel very powerful because I felt like we were on this unspoken journey together that not many other people could be on.
And then working with my friends — not weird Los Angeles friends that I’ve picked up at parties, but my friends I’ve had since I was 11. That feels powerful because there’s a level of grounding. To them, I’m not this person who is a pop star. I am their friend Charli who was once not very cool.
This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
My big struggle is deciding whether I care more about being the biggest artist I can be commercially or being critically sound,” Charli XCX says. “Then sometimes I land in this place of not caring about either of those things.” For most of her decade-plus career as both a songwriter for other pop stars (Gwen Stefani, […]
The doctor will see you now. Miley Cyrus‘ long awaited collaboration with Pharrell “Doctor (Work It Out)” went live on streaming services Friday (March 1), marking the singer’s first release since her 2023 single “Used to Be Young.” The groovy dance track — which has Pharrell’s stylistic fingerprints all over it — finds Cyrus taking […]
Justin Timberlake is just two weeks away from unveiling his highly anticipated sixth studio album, Everything I Thought It Was, and the star took to Instagram on Thursday (Feb. 29) to share the behind-the-scenes of making the album’s most recent single, “Drown.”
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“‘Drown’ happened very quickly,” Timberlake is seen telling his fans in a casual video sitting at the piano. “Myself, Kenyon Dixon, Amy Allen along with Cirkut and and Louis Bell. It’s the first one I actually wrote with Lou Bell and Cirkut. The song wrote itself so quickly. It kind of annoyed me, because sometimes you have this thing like, ‘Oh, if you didn’t struggle to write the song, maybe it’s not worth it.’”
He continued, “The more I listened back to it and the more I played it for people, the more it was like, ‘No, this sounds like you.’ When I think back to songs like that, where I kind of underestimated that ability to have that familiarity or catch on with people, the last time was ‘Mirrors.’ I sat on that song for, like, five years.”
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Timberlake added another “fun fact” to the mix, sharing, “The vocal that you hear is the demo vocal. I recorded it line by line as we were writing it, just to demo it out. The most we listened back to it, the more it had this honesty to it that I didn’t want to change anything.”
“Drown” serves as JT’s official follow-up to “Selfish,” which debuted at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100, earning Timberlake his highest debut in six years on Billboard’s marquee singles chart. The lead single from Everything I Thought It Was also marked Timberlake’s 29th top 40 hit as a soloist.
In support of his new LP, Timberlake is set to embark on a headlining North American arena tour. The tour will kick off April 29 at Rogers Arena in Vancouver, B.C., and visit major cities such as Las Vegas (May 10-11), New York (Jun. 25-26) and Atlanta (Nov. 16), before concluding Nov. 20 at KFC Yum Center in Louisville, Ky.
Watch his rundown of “Drown” below. Everything I Thought It Was is out March 15.
Go big or go home — Rihanna has landed in India ahead of the nuptials of Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchant, whose pre-wedding party she’s set to perform at. Joining the pop superstar are her many large pieces of luggage — something she hilariously joked about with fans on Instagram Thursday (Feb. 29). Recent snaps […]
Jennie’s first solo single outside of BLACKPINK, fittingly titled “Solo,” has officially hit one billion YouTube views. Within five hours of its release on YouTube back in 2018, the video had surpassed four million views. “This is not a touching love story/ No romance, no sincerity/ I’m sorry, but I’m not sorry/ From today on I’m […]
Ahead of her upcoming new album Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran, set to drop March 22, Shakira has unveiled the LP’s tracklist. The 16-track album includes eight new tracks plus previously released singles such as “TQG” with Karol G, the Rauw Alejandro-assisted “Te Felicito” and “El Jefe” with Fuerza Regida. A remix to her Bizarrap-produced […]
Taylor Swift fans are famously passionate people, as demonstrated in that viral video of one Swiftie sobbing over the pop star’s surprise song performance of “Exile” at one of her Eras Tour shows in Sydney.
But while some people may criticize such displays of emotion, especially where celebrities such as Swift are concerned, Madison Blackband — the fan featured in the clip — feels no need to apologize for being herself. “There’s no point letting it upset me,” the 20-year-old Brisbane local told Rolling Stone Wednesday (Feb. 28) of the negative reactions she’s encountered since going viral. “I reacted the way I reacted.”
“That’s just me,” she continued. “I’m just a passionate person. The opinion of people thinking that it’s embarrassing and stuff doesn’t mean anything to me because I never thought it was and I’m not going to think it is now just because someone says I should. I understand why people are laughing at it. I laughed at the video myself once I first watched it back.”
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In the video, which has since been critiqued and repurposed into various memes countless times on X, Blackband sits outside of Accor Stadium between two friends. When she hears Swift play the opening notes of her Folklore Bon Iver duet, she collapses into one friend’s lap and starts bawling loudly and uncontrollably.
“My reaction to Taylor singing Exile (also known as the song that saved my life),” she captioned the video, which she originally posted on TikTok Sunday (Feb. 25).
“I posted it intending it for like 200 people, not millions,” Blackband explained to the publication. “[Exile] means a lot to me. It’s a song I’ve listened to when I needed anything, as a distraction or to keep me focused. It’s like a safety blanket.”
Swift wrapped up her four-night stint in Sydney Monday (Feb. 26), closing out the Eras Tour‘s Australian leg, which also included three shows in Melbourne the week prior. Next up, the “Anti-Hero” singer will set up shop in Singapore for six nights beginning March 2 at National Stadium.
In a recent Instagram post, Swift reflected on her stay in Sydney, which she described as “a whirlwind of endless magical moments.” “I’m so grateful that we got to be the first tour to play Accor Stadium 4 times,” she wrote. “I’ll never forget singing with Sabrina [Carpenter], the chaotic acoustic mashups, and the crowds that were louder (singing AND screaming) than I thought humanly possible.”
See Blackband’s viral video below.
Olivia Rodrigo is bringing her Guts World Tour to Texas, so naturally, she’s turning up Beyoncé‘s chart-topping new ode to the Lone Star State. In a TikTok posted ahead of her Wednesday (Feb. 28) show in Austin, the 21-year-old singer-songwriter sports a purple cowboy hat and springs in and out of a hollow, oversized birthday […]