Pop
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From “I Love It” and “Fancy” to “Speed Drive” and “Boom Clap,” Charli XCX has been upending pop music with boisterous production and gigantic hooks for over a decade. On Thursday (Feb. 29), the Grammy nominee officially launched her newest era with the delightfully rambunctious “Von Dutch” and its accompanying music video. “I’m just living […]
It’s Friday night in Las Vegas, and Voltaire, the intimate art deco-meets-Studio 54 new performance venue within the Venetian, has transformed into an extremely lit gay club. Beneath countless sparkling disco and glass balls, the crowd of 1,000 dances to the DJ’s mix of a who’s who of dance–pop — Jessie Ware, Spice Girls, ABBA, Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s recently revived “Murder on the Dancefloor.” Intermittently, elastic-limbed burlesque artists enter to striptease, dance and execute feats of dazzling flexibility. This is Voltaire’s Belle de Nuit “preshow.” And it’s just the warmup to the main event.
“It’s almost time for Kylie Minooooogue!” the evening’s MC declares. “Yeah, that’s right — Mother is coming!”
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The screams become truly deafening when, roughly 10 minutes later, the curtain opens to reveal the diminutive 55-year-old Australian pop star clad entirely in metallic gold. She launches into “Your Disco Needs You,” a rousing track from her 2000 album, Light Years: “Let’s dance through all our fears, war is over for a bit,” she sings. “The whole world should be moving, do your part, cure a lonely heart!”
For the next 70 minutes, Minogue follows her own command, belting songs from her three decades-and-counting career that have united listeners with their infectious dance-pop melodies and lyrics that, whether ebullient or bittersweet, are always anchored by a deep, sincere sense of joy. She shimmies to her cover of Gerry Goffin and Carole King’s “The Loco-Motion,” one of her earliest hits from 1987 (and still her highest-charting Billboard Hot 100 entry, peaking at No. 3); she rises above the stage in a flowing red cape like some disco high priestess to sing her seductive current smash, and her biggest in the United States in more than 20 years, “Padam Padam.” She’s a consummate pop diva, stomping down the stage’s catwalk and striking poses — until each song ends. Then, she simply becomes Kylie: giggling, kicking up her stiletto heels in a happy dance and, at one point, speaking into her water bottle when she mistakes it for a microphone.
These two sides of Minogue — the glamorous, charismatic performer who has somehow also remained deeply relatable — have helped her to maintain a remarkably consistent yet organically evolving career amid the shifting waters of the music industry. “A feeling you get from Kylie’s music is that from an artistic point of view, she enjoys her place in pop culture. She doesn’t challenge it or try to run away from it — she looks to innovate herself and develop within that space,” says Stuart Price, the British electronic music producer who executive-produced Minogue’s pivotal 2010 album, Aphrodite. “And it’s infectious to see someone enjoying being themselves. There’s an openness there that creates a connection between Kylie and her fans.”
Richard Wilbraham dress, Magda Butrym jacket, Saint Laurent boots and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
Much of that core fan base feels connected to Minogue because they actually grew up with her. They met her as the feisty teenager Charlene on Australian soap opera Neighbours; followed her first era of pop stardom in the late ’80s as one of the flagship teen idols from the Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW) “hit factory” that also produced Rick Astley and Bananarama; watched her break out of that mold in the ’90s on British label Deconstruction, exploring more experimental dance-pop on 1997’s Impossible Princess; and embraced her evolution into global star in the 2000s, especially in the United States, with the release of 2001’s Fever, her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 (No. 3), which yielded “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the song with a hypnotic “la-la-la” chorus that was a self-fulfilling prophecy and propelled it to No. 7 on the Hot 100.
Over all those years, Minogue has stayed both impressively prolific and commercially viable. Eleven of her albums — including her last nine studio releases dating back to Fever — reached the Billboard 200, and 10 appeared on the Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart, including Disco, a highlight of the dance-pop renaissance of 2020 that went to No. 1 on the latter. She has notched seven Hot 100 and five Mainstream Top 40 Airplay hits. It helps, of course, that her songs tend to “help people to smile and forget their daily problems for a bit as only a good piece of dance-pop music can do,” as disco legend Gloria Gaynor puts it. (She joined Minogue for “Can’t Stop Writing Songs About You” on an expanded rerelease of Disco.) But her releases also always feel fresh, genuine and intentional. “Every time she delivers an album, to her it’s like the first,” says Jamie Nelson, senior vp of new recordings U.K. at BMG, Minogue’s label, who is also her longtime A&R executive. “There’s nothing lazy or dialed-in about it.”
Minogue has long been considered pop royalty in the United Kingdom (she’s about to receive the BRIT Awards’ Global Icon honor), Europe and Australia, where she’s the highest-selling female solo artist born in the country of all time; still, her U.S. audience has never quite reached that level. But she has remained popular — and at the front of pop culture consciousness — for long enough that while her older fans stateside remain loyal, younger ones continue to discover her. And that happened in a big way last June, when she released one very unusually titled single and experienced the kind of bona fide U.S. breakthrough that few artists manage in their mid-50s.
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“Padam Padam” — an onomatopoeia for the sound of a heartbeat — went viral on TikTok, with everyone from actress Suki Waterhouse to employees of the British art supply chain Hobbycraft making videos with it; to date, videos using “Padam Padam” have been viewed over 1.3 billion times on the platform. Simultaneously, “padam” became part of the pop lexicon, thanks in large part to Minogue’s LGBTQ+ fans who encouraged use of it as a noun, verb, exclamation or really any part of speech that called for it.
The song was such a runaway hit that, Minogue says, BMG delayed releasing Tension’s title track as a second single, “because ‘Padam’ just kept… Padaming.” With that momentum, Tension became her highest-charting album on the Billboard 200 since 2010 (peaking at No. 21) and her second Top Dance/Electronic Albums No. 1. “Padam Padam,” which is now her second-most-streamed song in the United States after “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” became her first Mainstream Top 40 Airplay hit since 2004, her highest-peaking (No. 32) since 2003 and just garnered Minogue her second Grammy Award — the inaugural win in the new best pop dance recording category and her first since “Come Into My World” took home best dance recording two decades ago.
Now, with the Tension train still going strong (Xtension, an album of extended dance mixes, arrived in September) and her Vegas residency a coveted ticket, Billboard’s 2024 Women in Music Icon is energized and determined to make the most of this moment. “I told someone at my label: It’s happening now. There’s no snoozing,” Minogue says firmly. “I am wildly inspired right now. I’m at a point in my life where I know it’s not eternal. I just want to maximize this brilliant wave. If you’re not out paddling for when that wave comes along, you’ve got no hope.” And, she promises, she paddles — constantly.
The afternoon following the show in late January, Minogue is in her favorite sweats, sipping tea in the empty Voltaire space and looking surprisingly awake. She doesn’t go onstage each night until after 11, and a two-show weekend renders her “kind of the amoeba version of myself,” she admits, crumpling her tiny 5-foot frame up, amoeba-style. “I’ll have a momentary internal dialogue with myself like, ‘OK, try to go a bit cruise control tonight?’ But it doesn’t work.”
Autopilot has never been Minogue’s thing. When she started out with Stock Aitken Waterman, she found the hit factory’s way of doing things a natural fit — “It’s like working on a TV show: ‘Here’s the script, you know what to do, here’s some direction, do it’ ” — but once her four-year contract ended in 1992, “I was gone. I’m a curious person, and I wanted to do more.” She had observed how the trio of songwriters of SAW worked, seen the craft and diligence it took to create “that song” — but becoming one herself? “That took a bit of haggling,” she says. “It wasn’t easy to make that segue.”
Tony Ward Couture dress and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
Thanks to signing with Deconstruction, and particularly her second album with the label, 1997’s Impossible Princess, Minogue escaped the “normalness” of the SAW starlet image, Price recalls, and public perception of her started to shift to “Kylie the Artist.” When he met her around 2009 — a match made by her label at the time, Parlophone, where she had moved in 1999 — Price saw up close one way in which her soap opera training had benefited that artistry.
“She was able to so consistently deliver great performance after great performance,” he recalls — a skill, Minogue matter-of-factly told him, she supposed might come from the days when she would drive to set with a script she had just received and memorize her lines at traffic lights. “Her memory and recall is incredible, and it was the same when we were writing things together,” Price continues. “If she came up with a melody, it was just there — we could go eat a meal, then she’d bring it straight back up.”
“There’s probably a misconception out there that she’s not a traditional songwriter, but she’s phenomenal,” BMG’s Nelson says. “She’s got a belief that the song is God. She’ll really scrutinize her own music in comparison to outside songs, and anything that’s not up to scratch will get dismissed.” Minogue’s collaborators describe her as a fount of fully formed ideas. “The last three albums I’ve done with her, she has been coming up with whole ideas on her phone,” says Richard “Biff” Stannard, who co-wrote the 2002 hit “Love at First Sight” and, more recently, seven Tension tracks with Minogue. “She’s really confident to say, ‘I’ve got this melody that’s bugging me, I’ve got to get it out.’ It’s proper songwriter stuff.”
Oscar de la Renta dress and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
That said, Minogue has never been precious about accepting material from other writers — “Padam Padam” was co-written by Norwegian singer-songwriter Ina Wroldsen and producer Lostboy — and she relishes figuring out not just whether a song presented to her is a likely hit, but a hit for her. “Songs like ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ and ‘Padam,’ I can’t reply fast enough,” she says. “Not only is it an amazing song, but it and me… it’s like, ‘I can do this!’ If someone else performed ‘Padam’ it could’ve been great, but it would have been different.” Lately, she has been spending time in Los Angeles (her home base is Melbourne), working with two entirely new collaborators she won’t reveal quite yet, other than to say she has long wanted to work with them. “I was on cloud nine for like the next couple of days” after their most recent sessions, she says, grinning.
But since 2020, Minogue has also become a lot more independent in the studio: By necessity, amid pandemic isolation, she taught herself Logic and other essential tools of production. “It’s so liberating,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable moments [in the studio]. No one would have known because I just pretended my way through it. But to have my own mic and do it on my own time? It’s amazing. I could go for hours.”
Minogue’s manager, Polly Bhowmik of A&P Artist Management, says Minogue’s infatuation with studio tech has gone so far that “there is now very much ‘studio engineer Kylie’ as well as artist Kylie.” (Minogue has vocal engineering credits on much of Disco and Tension.) At Stannard’s suggestion, I ask about her personal mic collection (“She’s really geeky about microphones now”), and she quivers with excitement describing her current favorite. “It’s a Telefunken 251, and it’s beautiful,” she gushes. “It’s more to carry, but it’s like graduating to the big leagues.”
Her new studio skill set has been both empowering and freeing (she can now record herself and work on music from her Vegas hotel room, for instance), as well as impressive to her collaborators. “She’s actually useful in the studio!” exclaims singer-songwriter Sia, who co-executive-produced Minogue’s 2014 album, Kiss Me Once, and just released the duet bop “Dance Alone” with her. “She’s actually good at her job. And I would say she’s one of the most prolific idea generators of all the artists I’ve worked with.”
Richard Wilbraham dress, Magda Butrym jacket, Saint Laurent boots and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
It has also helped her to achieve more vocal precision. “She’s very forensic about getting her vocals exactly how she’s happy with, and this has given her that ability,” Stannard says. On Tension, the strikingly wide range of Minogue’s voice — she goes from a sultry purr to full belt to stratospheric whistle tones, and at one point even raps — is on full display. The confidence she now has in her voice took time, Minogue says, and voice lessons starting in 2001 taught her techniques that have helped her preserve and develop it.
“Maturing as a person and my voice maturing too, add to that these past two years of self-recording — [my process] is becoming more vacuum-sealed, and that’s so pleasing to me,” Minogue says. “And to accept that I don’t have that big voice, but being proud I have my voice, and really owning that? That has again taken a long time. But I can adapt and be many voices, just like my [visual] presentation. I’m chameleon-like,” she concludes, satisfied. “That is who I am.”
The morning after her “Padam Padam” Grammy win in early February, Minogue still seems to be wrapping her head around what happened.
“I don’t think I’ve touched down yet,” she admits over the phone. She wore a bright “Padam red” gown; she marveled at Miley Cyrus’ hair (“Amazing. She absolutely smashed it”); she sat with Karol G at the ceremony (“I don’t assume anyone knows who I am, but she’d been on my radar for the last year”); she finally met fellow Aussie Troye Sivan. She was embraced by fans new and old, including Olivia Rodrigo, Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa, who invited Minogue to appear in her Studio 2054 pandemic-time livestream and, shortly after, featured on a remix of Minogue’s Disco track “Real Groove.”
As for the award itself: “It’s a big win for longevity — let’s put it that way,” Minogue says. It’s also concrete proof to both Minogue and her team that she has, as Sia puts it, “broken her glass ceiling” in the United States. “I’ve had this kind of to-and-fro thing with America,” Minogue reflects. “I was the ‘Loco-Motion’ girl for a long time, then I was the ‘la-la-la’ girl, and I guess I’m ‘Padam’ now. But now that we’ve got streaming, the algorithms will take you to discover more of my music.”
Kylie Minogue photographed on January 27, 2024 at Voltaire in Las Vegas. Tony Ward Couture dress, Christian Louboutin shoes and David Yurman jewelry.
Austin Hargrave
Nelson says BMG has seen “an uplift on the catalog” since the Vegas residency began in November (it runs through early May), but is careful to note that it’s the culmination of a gradual increase in listenership — beyond the devoted core fan base that already buys multiple vinyl and cassette versions of Minogue’s records — over the past few years. “We are firmly seeing a new audience embracing Kylie,” Bhowmik says, pointing out that 60% of “Padam Padam” and Tension streams have come from listeners under 35 and that her audience on TikTok has grown 43% since the song’s release.
And that expanded audience includes the U.S. market, where Minogue hasn’t done a major tour since 2011’s spectacular Aphrodite trek. Considering the momentum behind her now and the fact that the pandemic prevented her from touring Disco, the time seems ripe for a major Minogue tour hitting America — and indeed, UTA just signed her for representation in the United States and Canada. Bhowmik says that with “more opportunities and accolades than ever before,” there are plans for her to perform across the United States and internationally “in the not-too-distant future.”
It’s a rebirth for Minogue — but really just the latest of many she has had throughout her career. “It’s a continuation, not a comeback,” Price says. “Everything from [Tension], it’s just a short steppingstone away from every other hit she has had. They all sound like innovative pop records made in the year they were released that are ahead of their time. And what they all have in common is that Kylie fever.”
That ineffable Kylie essence is always present regardless of whether Minogue wrote on a song or not. It’s the fizzy effervescence that makes “Love at First Sight” a euphoric dance party starter. It’s the very adult, subtle magnetism that makes songs like “Hands” and “Tension” sexy rather than ridiculous. And above all, it’s the true joy — the kind that’s all the more meaningful because you’ve known sadness, too — that suffuses every moment of anthems like Aphrodite’s “All the Lovers,” Disco’s “Say Something” or Tension’s “Hold On to Now.”
“Joy can come from a dark place,” Minogue says. “But if someone’s able to feel that joy and they might not have felt it this morning? It’s a moment of release. I want the audience to feel…” She searches for the right word, waving her hands excitedly, and then just exclaims: “Feel! I’m a conduit for all the emotions.”
This story will appear in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
It’s Friday night in Las Vegas, and Voltaire, the intimate art deco-meets-Studio 54 new performance venue within the Venetian, has transformed into an extremely lit gay club. Beneath countless sparkling disco and glass balls, the crowd of 1,000 dances to the DJ’s mix of a who’s who of dance-pop — Jessie Ware, Spice Girls, ABBA, Sophie […]
Fans will finally get to see Paul Simon dive into his songwriting legacy and the high points of his nearly seven-decade career in music when the biopic In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon hits streaming next month.
“People used to say, ‘Oh, you have your finger on the pulse,’” Simon says in voiceover in the 90-second trailer for the “definitive” musical doc chronicling the 82-year-old singer’s legendary career; the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and will bow as a two-part series on MGM+ on March 17 and 24. “No, I don’t have my finger on the pulse… I just have my finger out there and the pulse is running under,” Simon says.
In addition to taking viewers behind the scenes of the making of Simon’s 2023 album Seven Psalms, the Alex Gibney-directed doc promises to includes never-before-seen footage from throughout Simon’s storied career, from his days in Simon & Garfunkel to the global success of his landmark 1986 world music album Graceland.
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The opening montage says it all, bouncing from footage of a fresh-faced Simon at the beginning of his career in the mid-1950s, to his historical free 1981 Concert in Central Park benefit show with former partner Art Garfunkel for 500,000 and the sessions for the meditative Psalms song cycle.
“I’ve never wanted to be anything other than a singer and songwriter,” says Simon, author of such indelible hits as “Homeward Bound,” “The Sound of Silence,” “Mrs. Robinson,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” “Loves Me Like a Rock” and the South Africa-inspired Graceland, which won the 1987 Grammy for album of the year.
His collaboration with Garfunkel — which began when they were teenagers performing as Tom & Jerry — spawned dozens of hits and classic albums during the 1960s until their acrimonious split in 1970. The pair reunited several times over the next three decades for one-off shows and a 1993 world tour, though they would never again record a full album together.
“Artie, that was a good friendship,” he says lovingly about Garfunkel in the trailer. “We thought we should express what our generation felt.”
Watch the trailer for In Restless Dreams below.
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At this point, Adam Sandler has likely met just about every major celebrity you could imagine. But there is one A-lister that makes the perpetually casual comedic A-lister a bit anxious. “Taylor Swift, because what she means to my kids, I get it a little jumpy,” Sandler told pal Conan O’Brien on this week’s episode […]
It takes around 30 minutes, but eventually, TWICE relaxes enough in their New York City hotel room to chitchat and laugh out loud among their nine-member huddle — a stark difference from the professionally guarded and admittedly “nervous” girl group that Billboard spoke with at their first U.S. appearance in 2016.
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Ever the humble professionals, the K-pop heroines and their loyal fans have earned the right to comfortably settle into a new, happier routine after growing for nearly nine years together.
Nearly immediately following TWICE’s entry into the K-pop scene in late 2015, members Jihyo, Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Mina, Sana, Momo, Dahyun, Chaeyeon and Tzuyu became reliable chart-toppers and commanded the industry’s attention with every release. Not only did they set the standard for their generation of K-pop acts with nine consecutive No. 1 singles on South Korea’s Circle Chart, the nontet replicated their prominence in the Japanese market (with 20 top 10 entries in the Billboard Japan Hot 100) with a next natural step in cracking the world’s largest industry, the United States.
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With a lineup from South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, the U.S. is a trickier and far less obvious market to embrace TWICE. In K-pop’s ongoing global crossover, where more acts have fluent English speakers and Billboard-charting girl groups are trending towards six or fewer singers, TWICE remains strong with all nine of its original members. After taking over K-pop with the viral performances and dances accompanying singles like “Cheer Up” and “TT,” and solidifying a deeper connection with tracks like their biographical “Feel Special” and the encouragement anthem “Talk That Talk,” now is the moment for the group to let the material strengthen the bond with U.S. audiences.
“‘I Got You’ was influenced by TWICE,” leader Jihyo explains of their latest original English single that kicked off their new era in early February. “It’s us speaking to each other and encouraging each other, which is really great that we can do this together because there are members who can help me when I’m having a hard time, there are members who see me when I’m in a good mood — just being together is encouraging…just like how PD [producer-director J.Y. Park] first made ‘Feel Special,’ the album concept itself is putting together our story. We wanted to showcase how the fans look at our teamwork, and that’s why we chose this song.”
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The JYP Entertainment founder and producer behind TWICE hits like “Signal,” “What Is Love?” and “Alcohol-Free,” Park previously told Billboard how a teary meeting discussing relying on their team mates through the hardships of K-pop idol fame inspired him to write the No. 1 single on the spot in 2019. But if “Feel Special” was birthed from TWICE’s hardships and growing pains, “I Got You” and its quick-selling accompanying mini album EP With YOU-th comes from reaching a point of happy stability.
“Up ’til now, we’ve never done a song like this before,” Jihyo adds. “We’ve always been singing songs about the theme of love, and this is more about our friendship, kind of similar to ‘Feel Special,’ and it was really comforting to us because of that…It was actually one of the songs on the album that the members reacted to really well. I thought it was new, but it also felt comfortable. We liked the lyrics [for] the fans and thought the fans would like the lyrics as well.” Momo adds, “While we were performing this song outside [in Mexico City] on tour, the weather was nice, it went so well with the song — just seeing the fans’ expressions was really great to see.”
The sentiment extends to their upbeat lead single, “One Spark,” released alongside With YOU-th on Feb. 23, originally in Korean before the English version dropped days later for maximum global consumption. Lyrics in both versions speak to a unique, undeniable ally through an effervescent tempo-hopping pop jam: “If I lose my rhythm/ Then your beat goes on and on,” Mina and Tzuyu sing on the pre-chorus, with the English version’s chorus shouting out “My favorite person, it’s our golden days/ My heart is burning, burning, burning/ Don’t lose this spark, baby.”
“Actually, we were thinking a lot about which title song [single] we should do between ‘One Spark’ and ‘I Got You,’” explains youngest member Tzuyu, sharing the group’s opinion heavily influences their musical path today, but joke they’ll take 100 percent creative control at 10 years. “We voted between the two songs of what should be the title track single. I think ‘One Spark’ is actually a great song performance-wise and we can put on quite a powerful stage performance.”
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“Compared to, let’s say, ‘Set Me Free,’ the choreo is a bit more complicated with a lot more movement to consider with our stage outfits,” Chaeyoung adds about bringing the new single to life. “It’s a faster song. It’s tough, but we worked hard on this choreo and felt like we grew, so I’m glad we’re doing it. Even in the music video, once we’re together and partying, the mood explodes. Of course, people can take it in this way, and others might see it a little bit differently, but overall, we just wanted to showcase the good energy among us and how much synergy we have within the group.”
But alongside the celebratory mood, a poignant moment in the music video comes during a flashback when viewers see Dahyun crying in the dance studio with several members trying to cheer her up. While Dahyun admits she had a tear dropper on set just in case, she ultimately “really wanted to express my own emotions, so I just cried by myself without any tools.”
“The music video shows us in their past during our trainee times when we were going through a hard time,” Jihyo says. “We wanted to showcase how we push each other throughout those hard times working as a team.”
Admitting that the trip down memory lane brought back “sad emotions,” Nayeon adds how “even if this didn’t happen during that trainee time exactly, we thought about how, throughout our history, there were a lot of these kinds of moments.”
Momo says the new album process brought back her experiences with Sixteen, the 2015 singing competition show that created the group. “I was actually remembering when I was first eliminated on Sixteen and crying,” she shares. “All the members were there with me. And when we were filming, one of us had to go to the emergency room and all the members were together.”
Exploring a deeper connection with each other and their loyal fans — affectionately known as ONCE — is a central theme in With YOU-th.
A teaser video previewing all six new tracks on the EP shows what one might imagine a longtime superfan’s room may look like, with different memorabilia, imagery, and visual references from past eras accompanying the audio. With YOU-th is not just a message of togetherness but marks them moving and maturing through the years.
“Around our debut, or even a few years ago, many of our fans still went to school and now go to work. Or there may have been a few in middle school and now in high school,” Sana reflects. “We take a lot of pride in seeing them and how they grow. We’re really thankful that we have fans who have been with us throughout their time as we grew with our career.” TWICE even know two ONCEs who ended up marrying each other.
TWICE
Courtesy of JYP Entertainment
Three B-side tracks on With YOU-th feature three TWICE members as sole songwriters sharing their experience of growing more mature and fearless in their creative processes.
“‘Bloom’ is a song about asking someone to wait,” Jeongyeon shares of the track she wrote. “Referencing a flower, the last step would be when the flower blooms, meaning I will come to grab you then and hold you.”
Chaeyoung felt inspired by alt-pop star PinkPantheress while writing “Rush.” “While I was listening, I felt like a Jersey Club rhythm, kind of like PinkPantheress’ music, and thought the sound itself was quite cute and lovely, so I wanted to bring that in the emotions in the lyrics in a fun way,” the Seoul native says. “Lyric-wise, it’s about approaching something or someone, so I wrote it in a more fun way.”
Bringing the record full circle, With YOU-th closes with the Dahyun-penned “You Get Me” that connects to “I Got You” by expanding on a relationship more profound than words.
“The lyrics say how ‘even if we don’t say anything, you already know me,’” explains Dahyun. “It’s a warm, easy-listening song, and I really wanted to write the lyrics as soon as I heard it. I was able to do that, so I’m really happy about that and can’t wait for the fans to listen.”
While teasing that “ONCEs are going to be really busy this year,” there is certainly a concerted focus on ensuring TWICE can and will keep developing.
“The biggest thing is that K-pop has become so global,” reflects Mina, as TWICE moves into contention for their first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 — an arguably overdue feat as they hold the largest U.S. sales week for a female K-pop act when Ready to Be earned 153,000 equivalent album units last year. “I think that teams’ lifespans have generally been extended a lot and that we’ll be able to do much more in the future. There have been a lot more opportunities to take advantage of because of the global expansion of K-pop. If there’s something wrong, we’ll tell the company, but as long as the fans want to meet us, we want to go until the end.”
“There’s not so much meaning behind setting goals now; we put a bigger priority on promoting longer and spending meaningful time with the fans,” Jihyo adds. “Of course, the company might have a goal. But personally, we think that having a happy time with fans is the goal right now.”
Despite the warm contentment felt inside With YOU-th, and within the TWICE members’ tight-knit cluster after nearly an hour of chatting, there’s one quick glimmer of hesitancy from Jihyo after a mention of their exciting chart prospects in their latest crossover push into America.
“You know how you mentioned, ‘Isn’t it time for America to focus on TWICE?’” the group leader says quietly but firmly, as their final word. “Please do focus on us.”
Cat Janice, a singer-songwriter whose “Dance You Outta My Head” went viral on TikTok earlier this year, died on Wednesday (Feb. 28). She was 31 years old.
Janice’s brother posted the news to her Instagram page, writing in the caption, “This morning, from her childhood home and surrounded by her loving family, Catherine peacefully entered the light and love of her heavenly creator.”
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The statement continued, “We are eternally thankful for the outpouring of love that Catherine and our family have received over the past few months. Cat saw her music go places she never expected and rests in the peace of knowing that she will continue to provide for her son through her music. This would not have been possible without all of you.”
According to the statement, new music will be released posthumously. “Per Cat’s request, there is some more art that she wants to share too. All in due time,” the statement concludes.
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Janice was diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare cancer that develops in the bones and soft tissues, after noticing a lump in her neck, as she explained on TikTok. She underwent surgery, chemo and radiation before being declared cancer-free on July 22, 2022.
Earlier this year, Janice shared with her followers that the cancer had returned, and she entered hospice. The singer then transferred all of her songs to her seven-year-old son Loren, so that all proceeds from the tracks would go to him.
In a devastating TikTok shared on Jan. 6, she revealed that the cancer had “won” and that she’d be releasing one more song, “Dance Outta My Head,” for her birthday that month. “I want my last song to bring joy and fun! It’s all I’ve ever wanted through my battle with cancer.”
“Please please share this, I need to leave this with [Loren]. If there is anything you need to know, is that the only opinion of yourself is your opinion. Love yourself and be gentle with others. I hope to make it through this but if not, to all a good night,” she captioned the post.
Since then, “Dance Outta My Head” topped the TikTok Billboard Top 50 dated Feb. 17. “Dance You Outta My Head” concurrently reached the top 10 of Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart for the first time, lifting 11-10. It earned 5,000 downloads Feb. 2-8, good enough for its first week at No. 1 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales list, and 1.2 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate.
Buckle up, *NSYNC fans! There’s more new music on the way. It all started earlier this week when Justin Timberlake took to TikTok to show fans the vinyl packaging for his upcoming album, Everything I Thought It Was, which will arrive on March 15. While displaying the cinema-inspired cover art and all the goodies that come inside, […]
The Kid Laroi gets more vulnerable than ever with fans on his newest Prime Video documentary Kids Are Growing Up: A Story About A Kid Named LAROI, and in the film, the 20-year-old Australian star opens up about his relationship with Justin Bieber, from friendship and musical collaborators to mentorship.
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“From the moment I met Justin, it was just all about positivity coming in here. No judgment zone, let’s all have fun,” Laroi says in the doc, before Bieber recalls: “He plays me this song, ‘Stay,’ and it was him on it by himself. He was like, ‘I don’t think I’m gonna use it for my album.’ I was like, ‘Well, if you don’t use it, give it to me. I’ll use it. This is a great song.’”
“Stay” spent seven non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, and the diamond-certified anthem won Top Hot 100 Song as well as Top Collaboration honors at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards.
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Elsewhere in the documentary, Bieber offers Laroi encouragement while he’s rehearsing. “When you’re singing, believe everything you’re saying while you’re singing,” he tells him. “It helps so much. Sing it and really think about what you’re saying. I’m sure you do that.”
In another scene, Bieber is seen laying on the floor, shouting: “That’s a f—ing great song. You wrote that, bro. That’s f—ing sick!”
Directed by Michael D. Ratner and produced by OBB Pictures, the documentary takes viewers on a journey following The Kid LAROI — born Charlton Howard — and how he deals with fame amid the massive commercial success of “Stay” leading into his The First Time debut album, which arrived in November and included the singles “Love Again” and “Too Much” with Jung Kook and Central Cee.
Kids Are Growing Up: A Story About A Kid Named LAROI is streaming on Prime Video now.
Miley Cyrus‘ new collaboration with Pharrell has a release date. One day after she first teased the single on social media, the 31-year-old pop star confirmed when exactly “Doctor (Work It Out)” is set to arrive, and treated fans to a snippet of the track Wednesday (Feb. 28). In a 20-second clip shared to Cyrus’ […]