Pop
Page: 250
Matty Healy is rumored to be one of the tortured poets on Taylor Swift‘s new album, but he doesn’t seem to be affected by it. The 1975 frontman was approached by paparazzi in Los Angeles on Wednesday (April 24), where he was asked how he felt about his “Taylor diss track,” according to People. “My […]
Tate McRae slowed things down at her recent concert in London for a stripped-back cover of Ariana Grande‘s “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love).”
In a clip from the Canadian singer/songwriter’s pair of sold-out shows at the Apollo Theatre on April 22-23, McRae wears a green tracksuit while sitting on a stool, accompanied by a simple electric guitar. “Know that you made me/ I don’t like how you paint me, yet I’m still here hanging,” she sings, her delicate voice bringing out a different side of Grande’s belted track. “Not what you made me/ It’s something like a daydream.”
Released as the second single from Grande’s latest album Eternal Sunshine, “We Can’t Be Friends” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The pop star released a music video for the song in March co-starring American Horror Story‘s Evan Peters, aptly inspired by the plot of the 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Trending on Billboard
At her London shows this week, the “Greedy” singer also performed songs from her 2023 LP Think Later, which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard 200. In the crowd of thousands during her tenure at the Apollo, McRae’s bestie and fellow pop star Olivia Rodrigo attended, along with the “Vampire” musician’s rumored boyfriend, actor Louis Partridge.
“2 sold out nights in london i luuurrreevveeeeee u guys,” McRae wrote on Instagram afterward, sharing photos from the performances. “with ALL MY HEART THANK U.”
The 20-year-old rising pop star will next take her Think Later Tour to Manchester, followed by Wolverhampton in the U.K. The European leg of her trek will continue through the first week of May, with stops in Germany, Sweden, Norway and more.
Earlier this month, schedules aligned so the “Exes” artist could attend one of The Kid Laroi’s concerts in Dublin. At one point, the “Stay” singer told the crowd as McRae blushed backstage, “I need everybody in here to sing this as loud as they can because my girlfriend’s here tonight, and I don’t want to look lame.”
Watch McRae cover “We Can’t Be Friends” below.
Taylor Swift‘s The Tortured Poets Department is now the only album in Spotify history to surpass one billion streams in a single week, the streaming service announced Wednesday (April 24) — and it only needed five days to do it. The pop star’s 11th studio record arrived at midnight Friday (April 19), bringing with it […]
Joe Alwyn probably can’t go to The Black Dog pub in London anymore. That’s because Swifties have been flocking to the establishment ever since Taylor Swift referenced it in a song of the same name on her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department, leading a representative for the bar to hint in a new interview […]
Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games” ascends to No. 1 on Billboard’s Top TV Songs chart, powered by Tunefind, crowning the March 2024 survey after a synch in the new Netflix series 3 Body Problem.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Rankings for the Top TV Songs chart are based on song and show data provided by Tunefind and ranked using a formula blending that data with sales and streaming information tracked by Luminate during the corresponding period of March 2024.
“Video Games” bows following the premiere of 3 Body Problem’s full first season on Netflix on March 21. The song is heard in the show’s sixth episode.
In March 2024, “Video Games” accumulated 8.2 million official on-demand U.S. streams and 1,000 downloads, according to Luminate. The song was Del Rey’s breakout track and her first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, debuting and peaking at No. 91 in January 2012.
Trending on Billboard
“Video Games” leads a trio of songs from 3 Body Problem onto Top TV Songs, giving the new series an admirable coronation on the first chart for which it’s eligible. Echo & the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon” follows at No. 4 (1.5 million streams), and The Rolling Stones’ “Moonlight Mile” also makes the tally at No. 8 (310,000 streams). “The Killing Moon” is from the series premiere, while “Moonlight Mile” can be heard in episode two.
The top non-3 Body Problem song, meanwhile, belongs to Resident Alien, following its usage of Harry Chapin’s “Cat’s in the Cradle.” The track bows at No. 2 thanks to 4.2 million streams and 1,000 downloads.
Resident Alien, a Syfy series that premiered its third season in February, boasted “Cat’s in the Cradle” in the seventh episode of the season, which premiered March 27. It was a No. 1 hit for Chapin on the Hot 100 in 1974, his only ruler.
See the full chart, also featuring music from Young Royals, Invincible, Will Trent and The Gentlemen, below.
Rank, Song, Artist, Show (Network)
“Video Games,” Lana Del Rey, 3 Body Problem (Netflix)
“Cat’s in the Cradle,” Harry Chapin, Resident Alien (Syfy)
“Arcade,” Duncan Laurence, Young Royals (Netflix)
“The Killing Moon,” Echo & the Bunnymen, 3 Body Problem (Netflix)
“Dream Team,” Aidan Knight, Invincible (Amazon Prime Video)
“Breaking Point,” Leon Thomas, Will Trent (ABC)
“Count Your Blessings,” Mattiel, The Gentlemen (Netflix)
“Moonlight Mile,” The Rolling Stones, 3 Body Problem (Netflix)
“Genesis,” Justice, The Gentlemen (Netflix)
“Baby Drummer,” Bad Nerves, Invincible (Amazon Prime Video)
Billie Eilish had a major revelation last year while working on her new album, Hit Me Hard and Soft: she loves women. Like a lot. “I’ve been in love with girls for my whole life, but I just didn’t understand — until, last year, I realized I wanted my face in a vagina,” the 22-year-old singer tells Rolling Stone in a new cover story.
The profile delves into some of the songs on the album, including the second one, “Lunch,” described as a “sexy, bass-heavy banger where Eilish is crushing on a girl so hard she likes sex with her to devouring a meal.” It was while recording that song that Eilish says she became acutely aware of who she really is, recording some of it before she’d ever been with a woman and the rest after her first same-sex experience.
“I was never planning on talking about my sexuality ever, in a million years. It’s really frustrating to me that it came up,” she says of a 2023 Variety magazine interview in which she mentioned that she was attracted to women “for real.” The quote went viral around the globe and on a red carpet a month later Eilish was asked if she had intentionally come out in that story, telling the interviewer, “no, I didn’t,” but then thinking to herself, “‘wasn’t it obvious?’”
Trending on Billboard
She followed up with an Instagram post thanking the magazine for her Hitmakers award and also for “outing me on a red carpet at 11 a.m. instead of talking about anything else that matters. I like boys and girls leave me alone about it please literally who cares.” Eilish has typically kept her love life private and was only ever publicly linked with men, including The Neighbourhood’s Jesse Rutherford, who she broke up with in May 2023.
Now, Eilish says, she think the post was a bit of an overreaction. “Who f–king cares? The whole world suddenly decided who I was, and I didn’t get to say anything or control any of it,” she says. “Nobody should be pressured into being one thing or the other, and I think that there’s a lot of wanting labels all over the place. Dude, I’ve known people that don’t know their sexuality, or feel comfortable with it, until they’re in their forties, fifties, sixties. It takes a while to find yourself, and I think it’s really unfair, the way that the internet bullies you into talking about who you are and what you are.”
For such a global megastar, Eilish is refreshingly candid in the cover story about sex, saying it is what she likes to do to decompress. “I basically talk about sex any time I possibly can. That’s literally my favorite topic,” she says. “My experience as a woman has been that it’s seen in such a weird way. People are so uncomfortable talking about it, and weirded out when women are very comfortable in their sexuality and communicative in it. I think it’s such a frowned-upon thing to talk about, and I think that should change. You asked me what I do to decompress? That s–t can really, really save you sometimes, just saying. Can’t recommend it more, to be real.”
And then, Eilish goes on a deep-dive into another favorite, often taboo topic for women: masturbation. She says pleasing herself has boosted her confidence and is an “enormous, enormous part of my life, and a huge, huge help for me. People should be jerking it, man. I can’t stress it enough, as somebody with extreme body issues and dysmorphia that I’ve had my entire life.”
In case you had questions, Eilish also describes liking to masturbate in front of a mirror, partly because “it’s hot,” but also because it allows her to have a “raw, deep connection” to herself and her body. “And have a love for my body that I have not really ever had,” says Eilish, who notes that at this point she should basically have a “Ph.D.” in onanism. “I got to say, looking at yourself in the mirror and thinking ‘I look really good right now’ is so helpful. You can manufacture the situation you’re in to make sure you look good. You can make the light super dim, you can be in a specific outfit or in a specific position that’s more flattering. I have learned that looking at myself and watching myself feel pleasure has been an extreme help in loving myself and accepting myself, and feeling empowered and comfortable.”
Having lived in the hot spotlight for nearly her entire adolescence and young adulthood, Eilish says while others have been dissecting and contemplating her sex life for “years and years,” she is only now figuring it all out. “And honestly, what I said was funny, because I really was just saying what they’ve all been saying,” she says.
Given the chance for a do-over, the singer says she would have ignored the question, even though she knows it could have been way worse. “I’m lucky enough to be in a time when I’m able to say something like that and things go OK for me,” she says. “And that’s not how a lot of people’s experience is.”
The interview also touches on how her upcoming third album is a return to the darker sounds of her 2019 debut, When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Hit Me Hard and Soft is due out on May 17.
Billie Eilish is coming home to herself. In her new Rolling Stone cover story published Wednesday (April 24), the 22-year-old pop star revealed that her third album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, is a return to the darker sounds and styles she introduced on her debut LP When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
“I feel like this album is me,” she told the publication of her latest project, which arrives May 17. “It’s not a character. It feels like the When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? version of me. It feels like my youth and who I was as a kid.”
“This whole process has felt like I’m coming back to the girl that I was,” she continued. “I’ve been grieving her. I’ve been looking for her in everything, and it’s almost like she got drowned by the world and the media. I don’t remember when she went away.”
Trending on Billboard
Released in March 2019, Eilish’s debut album spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and spawned her first No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, “Bad Guy.” Later, the projects won her song, record and album of the year at the 2020 Grammys, where she also picked up best new artist.
Two years later, she followed it up with her sophomore effort, Happier Than Ever, about which she said, “I was with myself so much that I couldn’t see myself objectively anymore … And then I dyed my hair blonde and I immediately was like, ‘Oh, I have no idea who I am.’”
Now, she’s working to resurrect what she refers to as “2019 me.” Finneas, Eilish’s older brother and longtime collaborator, corroborates this. “I feel like this album has some real ghosts in it, and I say that with love,” he told the publication. “There’s ideas on this album that are five years old, and there’s a past to it, which I really like. When Billie talks about the era of When We All Fall Asleep, it was this theatricality and this darkness. What’s the thing that no one is as good at as Billie is? This album was an exploration of what we do best.”
The two-time Oscar winner first announced Hit Me Hard and Soft earlier this month, sharing its underwater cover art and release date on social media. Later, she unveiled the project’s 10-song tracklist, featuring titles such as “Skinny,” “Lunch,” “L’Amour De Ma Vie,” “Blue” and “Wildflower.”
She said from the beginning, however, that she wouldn’t be releasing any singles from the new record, something she touched on again in her new interview. “Every single time an artist I love puts out a single without the context of the album, I’m just already prone to hating on it,” she said. “I really don’t like when things are out of context. This album is like a family: I don’t want one little kid to be in the middle of the room alone.”
Taylor Swift‘s Punk’d episode was over a decade ago, but fans are still laughing — even Travis Kelce.
On the Wednesday (April 24) episode of his and brother Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end spoke about the pop star’s 2012 appearance on Ashton Kutcher’s prank show with guest comedian Andrew Santino. The Ricky Stanicky star was one of the writers and actors who helped pull off an elaborate joke on Swift, which found the “Anti-Hero” singer’s former friend Justin Bieber tricking her into setting off fake fireworks that appeared to destroy a private wedding ceremony in Malibu.
Travis couldn’t stop laughing as Santino recalled the sequence of events that left Swift in tears before she realized Bieber had been pranking her the whole time. “So good,” the three-time Super Bowl champion said. “I gotta ask Taylor about that one.”
Santino, who played the fake groom in the Punk’d scenario, explained to the Kelces how he’d yelled at Swift for “ruining” his wedding as the then 22-year-old star tried to assure the fake bride that the incident hadn’t been a “sign” to call their nuptials off. “I’d set the boat on fire, and there was a wedding party on the boat … and we blamed her for ruining our wedding,” he explained. “[Bieber] was like, ‘I have these fireworks from Japan … Let’s set them off.’ And Taylor, obviously, to her credit, who’s always on point, was like, ‘I don’t know if I wanna do that.’”
Trending on Billboard
On the new episode, Travis also spoke about his post-Chiefs game ritual. “I thoroughly enjoy going up to the suite after football games and seeing all the friends and family,” he gushed. “Being so grateful for getting to where you are in this world and being able to share that excitement and success with the people that you grew up with, man, and the people that you’re with now, man, it’s just the absolute best.”
During the 2023-24 season, Swift was a mainstay in the Kelce family suite at Arrowhead Stadium. She was also at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium to help Travis celebrate after his third Super Bowl win in February, joining the team on the field and kissing the Ohio native.
The scenario sounds a lot like the one described by Swift in her new song “The Alchemy,” which appears on her April 19-released album The Tortured Poets Department. With lyrics such as “When I touch down, call the amateurs and cut ’em from the team” and “Where’s the trophy? He just comes running over to me,” Swifties are convinced the 14-time Grammy winner penned the triumphant track about Travis.
Watch the new episode of New Heights above, and check out Swift’s 2012 Punk’d episode below.
[embedded content]
As she winds down her American Idol run Katy Perry is gearing up for her next pop era. And to hear tell it, the best is yet to come. Earlier this week while doing Idol promo, Perry snuck in a tantalizing tease about her upcoming single, which, low key, she think is among her greatest work to date.
Perry said the unnamed track — whose release date has not yet been revealed — is “one of my biggest songs that has yet to come out.” The track was co-written by 28-year-old Canadian-Congolese singer Lu Kala, best known stateside for her feature on Latto’s 2023 song “Lottery.”
“But it’s coming out,” Perry, 39, says excitedly, counseling Kala, “don’t say anything!” as she covers her mouth in mock horror.
Trending on Billboard
Kala, of course, could hardly contain her excitement, sharing a roll of pics with Perry from her visit on Tuesday (April 23) with the caption, “To know me is to know that I’ve been a Katy fan FOREVER!! You can’t spell Pop without @katyperry and as a Pop gurlll, this means the WORLD TO ME!!!!🥹💕 brb, still crying.” The pics include Kala standing arm-in-arm with Perry, as well as a slide with the caption featuring Perry’s tease.
“I was not expecting any of this, wow😭 Thank you @katyperry for letting me be the tiniest part of what you have coming. I can’t wait for the world to hear it🥹💕,” Kala captioned the video post. Kala, who was named a Vevo #DSCVR Artist to Watch for 2024 just released her aching new ballad “Nothing But Love.”
On the same night, Perry further pulled back the curtain on the long-awaited follow-up to her 2020 album Smile, telling Access Hollywood that her as-yet-untitled LP is one of her happiest to date. “I just have yet to make a record from a place of feeling really happy and whole and full of love,” she said. “Sometimes artists are like, ‘Oh, that’s boring, you want to make music from kind of like a tougher place,’ but actually it’s very bright and joyful, like pure joy and fun and playful and celebratory and a party.”
Check out Kala’s post below.
“Stop” what you’re doing right now: All five of the Spice Girls were back together Saturday night to celebrate Posh Spice’s birthday, and they even gave us a mini-performance. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking all about how the legendary girl group — Victoria Beckham, Geri Halliwell-Turner, Emma Bunton, […]