Pop
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Tate McRae is one of pop music’s brightest rising stars, but she’s making sure to pay her respects to the genre’s greats on her way to the top. In a Monday TikTok video, the 20-year-old singer-songwriter covered a snippet of Adele‘s “Someone Like You,” which ruled at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for […]
We’re just 10 days away from the release of Justin Timberlake‘s forthcoming sixth studio album, and the “Cry Me a River” hitmaker is teasing us with snippets of some of the album tracks. On Tuesday (March 5), Timberlake took to his official Instagram page to share a snippet of the fifth track on Everything I […]
Miley Cyrus and Pharrell reportedly worked on their newly released song “Doctor (Work It Out)” circa her 2013 Bangerz era — and now, more than a decade later, they’ve gifted fans with the upbeat single and a feel-good video to match. On the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, Katie & Keith are talking about where […]
Hailing from Bath, England, PinkPantheress has quickly morphed into a global phenomenon thanks to her sleek, catchy blend of U.K. garage, drum and bass and bedroom pop. After a couple of minor hits on TikTok back in 2021, the “Break It Off” singer parlayed her proclivity for viral success into a world-conquering Ice Spice-assisted smash and a terrific debut LP.
An acclaimed producer in her own right, PinkPantheress co-produced every track on Heaven Knows — just one of many reasons she was a clear choice to be honored as Billboard Women in Music‘s Producer of the Year for 2024.
PinkPantheress first made her Billboard Hot 100 debut with the hit single “Boy’s A Liar, Pt. 2” (with Ice Spice). Although it was just her first entry on Billboard’s marquee singles chart, the track flew all the way to a peak of a No. 3. As “Boy’s A Liar, Pt. 2” scaled the charts, PinkPantheress’ production contributions netted her a No. 12 peak on Hot 100 Producers.
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Over on the Billboard 200, she has charted a pair of titles. In 2021, her To Hell With It mixtape — which featured early hits “Break It Off” and “Just for Me” — reached No. 73 on the ranking. Two years later, Heaven Knows — her debut album, featuring “Mosquito,” “Boy’s A Liar, Pt. 2” and “Nice to Meet You” (with Central Cee) — peaked at No. 61. PinkPantheress has also found some noteworthy success on Billboard’s genre charts. On Hot Rock/Alternative Songs, she has four career appearances, including “Break It Off” (No. 30) and the Willow-assisted “Where You Are” (No. 22).
With her career already yielding such impressive returns, it’s clear that PinkPantheress’ Producer of the Year honor is just the beginning for the young multi-hyphenate.
After the video, catch up on more Billboard Explains videos and learn about Peso Pluma and the Mexican music boom, the role record labels play, origins of hip-hop, how Beyoncé arrived at Renaissance, the evolution of girl groups, BBMAs, NFTs, SXSW, the magic of boy bands, American Music Awards, the Billboard Latin Music Awards, the Hot 100 chart, how R&B/hip-hop became the biggest genre in the U.S., how festivals book their lineups, Billie Eilish’s formula for success, the history of rap battles, nonbinary awareness in music, the Billboard Music Awards, the Free Britney movement, rise of K-pop in the U.S., why Taylor Swift is re-recording her first six albums, the boom of hit all-female collaborations, how Grammy nominees and winners are chosen, why songwriters are selling their publishing catalogs, how the Super Bowl halftime show is booked and more.
Reneé Rapp has postponed two upcoming performances in her Snow Hard Feelings Tour, revealing that she’s struggling to sing as a result of being sick. In a candid message to fans on X Tuesday (March 5), the Mean Girls star broke the news that she won’t be able to perform her back-to-back concerts at Vinilo […]
Madonna is in the middle of a five-night concert run at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Calif., as part of her Celebration Tour, but less than a year ago, she wouldn’t have been able to even walk onstage.
During her Monday (March 4) concert, the 65-year-old superstar revealed that the severe bacterial infection she suffered in June 2023 — which led to her hospitalization and the postponement of her current trek — at one point made it nearly impossible for her to move around. “This summer I had a surprise,” she told the crowd, holding a cowboy hat in one hand and gripping a guitar in the other. “It’s called a near-death experience.”
“It was pretty scary — obviously I didn’t know for four days because I was in an induced coma, but when I woke up, the first word I said was, ‘No,’” she continued. “I’m pretty sure God was saying to me, ‘You wanna come with us? You wanna come with me, you wanna go this way?’ And I said, ‘No. No!’”
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The “Express Yourself” singer went on to thank her doctor, who she said was in the audience and had advised her to go outside and soak up some vitamin D while she was recovering from her health scare. “It was so hard for me to walk form my house to the backyard and sit in the sun,” Madge recalled. “I know that sounds insane, but it was difficult.”
“I didn’t know when I could get up again and when I could be myself again,” the seven-time Grammy winner added. “It was a strange thing to finally not feel like I was in control. That was my lesson to let go.”
After delaying the career-spanning trek over the summer, Madonna was finally able to kick off her Celebration Tour in October at the O2 Arena in London. She’s currently scheduled to stay on the road through April 26, when she’ll conclude the six-month run with a show at Palacio De Los Deportes in Mexico City.
At a previous concert, the Queen of Pop revealed that her six children were instrumental in pulling her out of her illness. “By the way, I had to almost die to get all my kids in one room,” she joked to her Brooklyn crowd in December.
“And I was thinking, ‘What if I left my children?’” she continued, more seriously. “That would destroy me to leave my children at this moment in their lives. I wasn’t thinking about me. I was thinking about them, and I was thinking about my mother and how scared she must have been to know that she was going to leave us all behind.”
Watch Madonna reflect on her near-death experience below.
Lance Bass is opening up about the diabetes diagnosis he got during the COVID-19 lockdown, telling People that the news forced him to re-think his diet, exercise and mindfulness routines. “I’m really trying to figure out how to control that,” the 44-year-old singer and *NSYNC member told the magazine. “I’m definitely conscious of my eating […]
South Korean pop group LE SSERAFIM is officially a Billboard Hot 100-charting act thanks to the group’s new single, “Easy.” Released Feb. 19 on its new five-track EP of the same name, the song debuts at No. 99 with 5.2 million official streams and 1,000 downloads sold in the U.S. in its first full tracking […]
With the release of her 2021 debut album, if i could make it go quiet, alternative singer-songwriter girl in red blurred the line between contemplative songwriting and chaotic production, leaving the Norwegian artist born Marie Ulven with the challenging task of crafting an equally compelling follow-up. Yet I’m Doing It Again Baby! (out April 12 on Columbia Records) lives up to the difficult standard set for sophomore albums: Her songwriting cuts quicker to the core, while Matias Tellez’s production fuses even more influences.
Girl in red, 25, describes the album as an “elevated” version of her previous output. “It feels more creative,” she says, “more fun and more playful, and a little bit more confident. I’m not playing it safe, which is important … Everything is just getting pushed further.” She breaks down the inspirations that influenced I’m Doing It Again Baby!, from working alongside fellow pop superstars to refining her culinary tastes.
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Taylor Swift
While finishing her album in 2023, girl in red earned a coveted spot as one of the openers for Swift’s The Eras Tour. “It was like watching history being written in the moment — like, ‘I’m a part of history now,’” she recalls, still in awe. Opening five dates in June, she explains, was more than just a cool opportunity; it provided a career’s worth of educational experiences in less than a month. “I learned so much from watching Taylor’s shows and seeing how hard she works,” she recalls. “My new thing is I’ll ask myself, ‘What would Taylor do?,’ because I’m so inspired by her work ethic: ‘We’re not complaining, we’re just getting sh-t done.’”
Fine Dining
In the process of elevating her music, girl in red found that “my palate and my taste for food and drinks completely changed.” Embarking on gastronomic adventures at Michelin-star restaurants, and even studying to become a sommelier (“I have this delusion where I think I can be anything,” she jokes), the singer found herself taking on more complex topics in her music. “I think food is highly connected to everything you feel. So trying a bunch of really nice wines and nice foods gave me more depth to work with in production,” she explains. “I know that sounds really f–king pretentious, but it’s true!”
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1960s New York
On the final track of the album, “*****,” girl in red pines for the art scene of 1960s Lower Manhattan, specifically Andy Warhol’s iconic studio The Factory: “Six out of six, I never miss, you’ve got to be delusional to be in the biz at The Factory,” she sings. The artist says reading Patti Smith’s memoir, Just Kids, introduced her to the scene’s history and made her immediately yearn for the “electric” times she wasn’t alive for. “I just feel like we’re missing that energy now,” she says. “With Studio 54 and The Factory and all these amazing artists working together to produce great art — it’s just so cool. I wish we had more of that today.”
Cartier Watches
“I had never thought about watches in my entire life,” Ulven says with a laugh. But when her longtime collaborator Matias Tellez started explaining his love of timepieces, the singer says she adopted the same obsession. She soon developed a specific infatuation with Cartier’s brand of stylish wristwear, and convinced Tellez to buy matching engraved gold watches to commemorate the album’s release. “It’s sort of about manifesting,” she says. “All these iconic people have worn these Cartier watches, and there’s something about wanting to wear something that iconic people wore.”
A version of this story originally appeared in the March 2, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Gregg Alexander‘s music career could have taken a much different path had he not had a very bad night in Detroit 30 years ago. The reclusive singer/songwriter and leader of the New Radicals recently revealed that his band’s signature 1994 debut single, the up with (positive) people anthem “You Get What You Give,” almost didn’t make the grade thanks to an equally catchy song he ended up handing off.
“I had a moment of annoyance that I couldn’t go to the house clubs in Detroit. So he reached for the acoustic guitar in the back, channelling his emotion into a song beginning ‘It’s murder on the dancefloor, but you’d better not kill the groove,’” Alexander told the Guardian about a 1994 night when his old blue Ford Mustang wouldn’t start, depriving him of an evening of clubbing.
What he got instead, though, was the groove for “Murder on the Dancefloor,” the song that became a No. 2 hit for Sophie Ellis-Bextor in the UK and then hit the top 20 again this year after it was memorably used in the viral hit movie Saltburn. “You know how Paul McCartney originally sang about scrambled eggs in ‘Yesterday?;” Alexander said. “‘Murder on the Dancefloor’ wasn’t anything deep from my subconscious. It was just a dummy lyric that was kind of sung for fun, but then I couldn’t better it.”
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Alexander’s lost-to-time demo of the song has the same driving disco meter, but shot through with his signature keening vocals and his band’s eternal sunshine vibe, enhanced by a string section played on a keyboard. Alexander and the Radicals only released one album, 1998’s Maybe You’ve Been Brainwashed Too, which featured the equally bouncy “You Get What You Give,” which hit the top five in the U.K.
“I almost flipped a coin between the two songs,” Alexander, 53, told the Guardian. “The record company wanted something urgently and I didn’t have the time or the budget to finish both. I felt like ‘Murder’ was a monster but ‘You Get What You Give’ was a masterpiece. It was everything I’d always wanted to say inside five minutes.”
In a way, Alexander won on both accounts, since the co-write with Ellis-Bextor (Alexander also co-produced “Murder”) has now become as iconic as the New Radicals’ hit, which has more than 440 million Spotify plays to date. “A publisher told me that in January it [‘Murder’] was the most heard music on the planet,” Alexander said of the track for which he recorded a “master quality” demo at the time. “That’s just incredible.”
Just two years after writing the double dose of pop wonderment, Alexander disbanded the New Radicals and receded from the spotlight to focus on songwriting, penning a Grammy-winning track for Santana (2002’s “The Game of Love”), as well as writing and producing tracks for Enrique Iglesias, Rod Stewart, Hanson, Ronan Keating and S Club 7.
After moving to Notting Hill, England following the New Radicals’ break-up, Alexander’s demo got into the hands of Ellis-Bextor, at which point they finished the track together. “‘Murder’ was a song I always wanted the world to hear,” Alexander said, recalling that during sessions for the song he would walk down the halls at the studio and see people dancing along to “Murder,” which made him think they were on to something. “And when I met Sophie we embarked on a creative journey, the first of three or four Top 10 hits we had.”
The original demo also had the “I know, I know, I know” ad lib, which Alexander said he’d been told was a songwriting no-go. “I’d been told you can’t use the same words over and over because it’s too repetitive,” he said. “So I used ‘I know’ seven times.”
The reboot of “Murder” has also reconnected him with Ellis-Bextor, with Alexander realizing that sometimes things work out just as they were supposed to. “She’s so talented and humble but a great pop star. I think her genius, slightly deadpan delivery helped make it a hit,” he said. “Everything would have been different if I’d put out ‘Murder on the Dancefloor,’ but I feel that everything happened as it was meant to be.”
Listen to the “Murder on the Dancefloor” demo here (paywalled).