State Champ Radio Pop
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Ariana Grande is rethinking what touring looks like as she heads into a new chapter of her career.
In a newly published conversation with Nicole Kidman for Interview magazine on Nov. 24, the singer and actress opened up about her upcoming Eternal Sunshine world tour, revealing that the run will be intentionally smaller than the massive global treks she’s mounted in the past.
“We’re doing a small amount compared to what I used to do back in the day. I think it’s 45 shows,” Grande said. “It’s not that small, but it’s at least half of what I used to do.”
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The 2026 tour follows her Billboard No. 1 album Eternal Sunshine, released earlier this year, and marks her return to full-scale live performance after stepping away from music to film the two-part Wicked movie franchise. That period, Grande said, played a transformative role in reshaping her relationship with fame, creativity and the pressures that accompany commercial success.
“I’ve just been healing my relationship to music and touring over the past couple of years,” she told Kidman, explaining that acting helped her reconnect with the joy of creating without the intensity that once accompanied her pop stardom. She described Eternal Sunshine as an album that allowed her to rebuild her process: “I think the time away from it helped me reclaim certain pieces of it and put certain feelings that maybe belonged to my relationship to fame… in a box somewhere else.”
Grande said her time playing Glinda in Wicked and Wicked: For Good helped her “take baby steps toward healing,” particularly around the anxiety she felt early in her pop breakout. “I think it just held some traumas for me before, and I feel those dissipating,” she said. “That is such an extraordinarily beautiful thing.”
She also reflected on how she has learned to detach from public commentary and criticism, saying that she now relies on meditation rather than internalizing negative reactions. “Should that dance have to be a part of being an artist,” she wondered, “or should that just be put in a box far away from me?”
Grande’s Eternal Sunshine tour will launch in June 2026 in Oakland, Cali., before heading through North America and Europe, concluding in London in late August.
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In early November, one cluttered corner of the NPR office in Washington, D.C., received a new type of memento. As global superstars SEVENTEEN became the first K-pop group to make their official Tiny Desk debut in the U.S., their light stick took its rightful place on the set’s iconic bookshelf alongside a hoard of trinkets left by previous musical guests, including Sabrina Carpenter’s bedazzled martini glass — and Billboard was once again on hand to witness it all, from rehearsal to goodbyes.
While a few offshoots of NPR’s concert series have welcomed K-pop acts in the past, SEVENTEEN members Joshua, Mingyu, Seungkwan, Vernon and Dino were the first to perform behind the actual desk. And filming in the office base meant the most rigorous of standards were set in place: no floor monitors, no in-ears, no post-production magic or vocal touch-ups. Taken together, these are no small asks, even for veteran performers now a decade into their careers.
Then there’s the matter of size. “Any group with a large number of lead singers is hard to bring to the desk,” says Suraya Mohamed, executive producer for NPR Music, who adds that vocalist DK was originally supposed to attend the shoot before losing his voice. While a sprawling ensemble in its entirety may technically be able to squeeze into the space, she explains, that’s without accompanying band members and several instruments. Plus, only around five or six people comfortably fit in the front of the desk.
All these challenges combined, beyond creating the raw, authentic atmosphere that Tiny Desk has come to be known for, stretch artists to reach new highs, say its producers. And trust SEVENTEEN to rise to the occasion. All the world’s a stage for K-pop’s main theater kids, who recently wrapped the U.S. leg of their NEW_ world tour. Whether they’re playing to 18,000 cheering fans or an office of public media employees, it’s hard not to walk away from one of their shows inexplicably and irrevocably charmed.
In the video posted to NPR’s YouTube channel on Monday (Nov. 24), the group confesses to having experienced some nervousness before the shoot. But while working through a medley of nine songs spanning years of their catalog — from blistering hits “Hot” and “Clap” to beloved b-side “To You,” with a fair share of stellar high notes sprinkled in — those nerves were more than melted away by the warm reception in the room. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a response on Tiny Desk,” Vernon says, visibly blown away by the energy the crowd gives them throughout. “This is awesome. Thank you so much.”
Given all that went on behind the camera, here’s a roundup of 3 things you didn’t see in SEVENTEEN’s Tiny Desk debut.
The Rehearsal
Trending on Billboard Taylor Swift’s diaristic writing lends itself to the poignant and emotive songs that run through her catalog. In particular, the tracks positioned in spot five on her albums have customarily been seen by fans as her most sensitive – something she later grabbed onto and ran with. “Track five is kind of […]
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Charli xcx is not gonna lie: being a pop star is freakin’ awesome. The parties, the free stuff, meeting other famous people, swanning to the front of every line, hearing amazing new music from other pop stars before anyone else, thousands (or if you’re lucky) millions of dedicated fans, never having to book your own travel and did we mention the tons of free, fancy stuff?
But in a lengthy Substack post last week, the “360” singer also weighed in on some of the less glitzy “Realities of Being a Pop Star,” as she titled her essay. “Being a pop star has its pros and cons like most jobs in this world but before I state some of them I want to clarify that firstly I don’t view what I do as a ‘job’ and I secondly don’t really view myself as purely a pop star, I’m just using that terminology specifically for this piece of writing,” Charli wrote, noting that she’s always gone in-and-out of different creative zones “adjacent” to music, including her recent dive into movies and acting, but that for the purpose of the essay she is focused on her “original dream” of being a pop star.
“Because it’s the role in my life I have the most experience navigating and because it’s also the most ridiculous one,” she said. “One of the main realities of being a pop star is that at a certain level, it’s really f–king fun. You get to go to great parties in a black SUV and you can smoke cigarettes in the car and scream out of the sunroof and all that cliche s–t. At these parties you sometimes get to meet interesting people and those interesting people often actually want to meet you. You get to wear fabulous clothes and shoes and jewelry that sometimes comes with its own security guard who trails you around the party making sure you don’t lose the extortionate earrings sitting on your lobes or let some random person you’ve just met in the bathroom try on the necklace around your neck that is equivalent to the heart of the ocean.”
And then there is the free stuff: phones, laptops, vinyl, trips, shroom gummies, headphones, clothes and that killer electric bike that has been sitting untouched in her garage for nearly five years. Don’t forget entering restaurants through the back entrance and smiling at the sweat-drenched chef and waiters who are toiling away at their service sector job while you “strut through the kitchen with your 4 best friends who are tagging along for the ride.”
Being a pop star, she mused, means you get to feel special, but also sometimes embarrassed by “how stupid the whole thing is.” You also get to hear tons of incredible music that is likely to shift the culture and public perception way before anyone else, like that time Addison Rae played Charli “Diet Pepsi” for the first time while driving around New York after a posh dinner. “Sometimes you get to help out your other pop star friends by providing an opinion or lending an ear or a helping make a decision relating to their work which allows you to feel a part of a interconnected community of people you love and respect,” wrote Charli, who has worked with everyone from Troye Sivan to Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, BTS, Iggy Pop and Selena Gomez, among many others.
“You also get to have fans and their dedication to your work makes you feel like they will be there for you until the end of time, even though in reality they won’t. You get to stand on stage and feel like a God. You get to make people cry with happiness, you soundtrack their break ups, their recovery, their crazy nights out, their revenge, their love, their lives,” Charlie said. “You get to travel the world and see all kinds of different places and you never even have to worry about booking a single element of the travel yourself because you have an amazing tour manager to do that for you. You get to call in sick whenever you want and you never have to worry about bailing on work last minute because you know for certain that there’s another pop star out there who’s actually way more unreliable and flakey than you. Thank God.”
But, of course, there is also the not so fun downside of global fame. Among the items Charli mentioned were the endless hours in “strange and soulless liminal spaces,” from holding areas at arenas, to airport lounges, visa offices, claustrophobic tour buses, greenrooms with no windows, the space under a stage or the set of your music video, all spaces she described as a soul-deadening “in-between.”
Those transit places are often where she depicted spending hours while on a journey that takes up most of the time of the experience. Most troubling, she wrote, was that when you are a pop star, some people are determined to prove to the world that you are stupid.
“I’ve always been completely fascinated by this and think it has something to do with self projection. Being a pop star has always been partially about being a fantasy and obviously the fantasy is decided mostly by the consumer,” she noted. “Marketing and strategy and packaging and presentation can do it’s best to guide a viewer to the desired outcome but at the end of the day the consumer gets to decide whether a pop star is a symbol of sex, or anarchy or intelligence or whatever else they wish to see. Sometimes people don’t like to be lumped in with general consensus, they like to go against the grain of public opinion and that’s when a totally opposite defiant stance is born.”
That’s when instead of being considered a “sex symbol,” Charli said, the artist is sometimes labeled “a whore,” or instead of “anarchic” they are dubbed a “f–king drug addict.” Intelligence becomes “pretentious,” prompting the singer and producer to wonder why one’s success triggers such “rage and anger” in other people.
“I think it probably all boils down to the fact that the patriarchal society we unfortunately live in has successfully brainwashed us all,” wrote the Grammy-award winner. “We are still trained to hate women, to hate ourselves and to be angry at women if they step out of the neat little box that public perception has put them in. I think subconsciously people still believe there is only room for women to be a certain type of way and once they claim to be one way they better not DARE grow or change or morph into something else. Also people obviously want the clicks and an opposite stance is more likely to get that.”
And if she’s really being honest, sometimes, Charlie wrote, being a pop star can be “really embarrassing, especially when you’re around old friends of family members who have known you since before you could talk.” The more success you notch, the more you notice the lifestyle discrepancy and the more paranoid you become. “As a British person the longer you stay in LA the more you lose touch with the realities of certain things, but that’s why being a pop star can also be seriously humbling too, especially when your old friends mock and ridicule you for caring about something absolutely pointless,” she wrote.
“In ways being a pop star makes me think about the person I used to be compared to the person I am now. How is that person different? Or is she still the same?” Charli asked, recalling a visit a few weeks ago from rapper Yung Lean, who came to her house and had a discussion about some “industry adjacent friends” of theirs and whether they had changed after some success.
“The next day my brain was stewing and so I text him to ask him whether he thought I had changed. I knew he would be honest because he always is and I know he sees through everything, all the persona and all the facade,” she said. “He is probably one of the wisest people I know. I’m sat there waiting for his response and the three speech bubble dots kept appearing and disappearing on my phone screen which was sending me into a total spiral. When he finally pressed send his message said that he thought I had not changed from the person he knew when we were younger and that he didn’t think I would in the future but also that I definitely do have ‘yes people’ around me that blow smoke up my a–. I said I could see the truth in that but luckily he went on to say that generally speaking I’m too British and self deprecating to actually believe any of the wild compliments the ‘yes people’ might pay me so I was probably safe.”
In conclusion, she wrote, being a pop star is about having an expectation that you will be “entirely truthful all the time.” But, again, if she’s being honest, that phantom thread between fame and moral responsibility has never made sense to her, especially considering that all her favorite artists were “absolutely” not role models, nor would she want them to be.
“I want hedonism, danger and a sense of anti establishment to come along with my artists because when I was younger I wanted to escape through them,” Charli said. “I don’t care if they tell the truth or lie or play a character or adopt a persona or fabricate entire scenarios and worlds. To me that’s the point, that’s the drama, that’s the fun, that’s the FANTASY.”
Naturally, then, she ended with a link to one of her favorite interviews with punk godfather Lou Reed, a 1974 Meet the Press chat in which the legendarily cantankerous Reed steadfastly refused to tell the truth the interviewer was desperate to foist onto him.
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Sabrina Carpenter hit an appropriately cheeky milestone on Saturday during her fifth of six nights at Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena: Her 69th concert of the Short n’ Sweet Tour.
“My friends wanted me to inform you: This is our 69th show,” Carpenter announced while sitting on her heart-shaped stage, sending the crowd into wild cheers over the spicy stat.
It’s a fitting marker for the trek: Since its September 2024 kick-off, the Short n’ Sweet Tour has been known for its little suggestive moments, like Carpenter’s nightly “Juno” sex positions (“have you tried this one before?”), the voyeuristic “Bed Chem” video camera (“I bet the thermostat’s set at six-nine”), and the elevator that ticks up the floors until “SC” comes just after the 68th.
“We knew we’d get there eventually, and tonight’s the night,” Carpenter said of the 69th show. “And it’s Saturday, and we’re just like, we’re living!”
In one more nod to Night 69, Carpenter emerged for the final song, last year’s top five Billboard Hot 100 smash “Espresso,” in sparkly blue go-go boots and an oversize Los Angeles Dodgers jersey, with her last name emblazoned on the back and the jersey number of — you guessed it! — 69.
Another tongue-in-cheek nightly tradition is Carpenter arresting someone in the crowd for the crime of being “too hot,” and Saturday night’s offender was actress and Saturday Night Live legend Maya Rudolph, who Carpenter asked: “Whoa, whoa, whoa — what’s your name, gorgeous?” After Rudolph mouthed back “Maya,” Carpenter responded, “Maya, you’re stunning. Where are you from?” She mouthed “Los Angeles” and made her best attempt at throwing up an “L.A.” hand sign, but Carpenter didn’t think the crowd had a big enough reaction. “Scream louder — that’s here!”
Then she got down to business: “Maya, I don’t know the situation you’re in currently romantically, but I was sort of hoping that I could lock you down tonight, if possible.” (Let’s hope Rudolph’s partner of almost 25 years and the father of her four children, acclaimed filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, isn’t feeling threatened.) She then tossed some fuzzy pink handcuffs out into the crowd to officially lock Rudolph down.
Previous L.A. arrestees included SZA on Thursday night and actress sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning on Monday.
Carpenter returns to Crypto.com Arena on Sunday (Nov. 23) to play her sixth night in L.A. and the final night of her 70-date Short n’ Sweet Tour. Find the full setlist for Los Angeles Night 5, including the special “spin-the-bottle” surprise song and the newly added Man’s Best Friend additions, below.
“Taste”
Some of the tunes feature the pop superstar, others ended up as vault tracks when she released her Taylor’s Versions.
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From Tim McGraw to 50 Cent, here are all the musicians Swift references across her 12 studio albums.
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Stray Kids put on a dance clinic in the cinematic video for the title track to their just-released five-song DO IT EP, the latest effort in their SKZ IT mixtape series. The visual opens with a scene of a grey, dystopian city in ruins, with thunder cracking and ominous black birds soaring over crumbling buildings overgrown with vegetation.
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The scene then shifts to the inside of one of the dilapidated structures, revealing an army of figures dressed in white robes, their faces obscured by masks as rapper Changbin floats down from the ceiling on a souped-up flying broom, his outfit accented by a black cowboy hat and matching leather jacket.
He busts a rhyme as the rest of the eight-man boy band come into frame and singer Seungmin croons the song’s yearning refrain, “Oh baby trust our instincts/ Feel the rhythm of our bodies moving, baby/ Right this instant.” The mysterious figures in white remain frozen, scattered around the room in statue-like poses as the black-clad boy banders bust out some group chroeo, kicking the palette from black and white to full technicolor, bringing the dancers to life as singer Felix exhorts, “Do it, do it, do it, do it.”
The funky bilingual song continues shifting between rapping in South Korean and the English choruses, with members Han, Lee Know, Hyunjin, Bang Chan and I.N hopping in at various points with spotlight dance breaks and gang vocals. With hints of Harry Potter-like magic afoot, the clip zooms to a close with a glimpse of a giant fireball glowing inside the building as confetti rains down on the group during a final, all-hands on-deck dance routine.
The follow-up to August’s KARMA album — which landed the group their seventh No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart — is the second in the band’s SKZ IT mixtape series and it features the title track (and a “Festival” version of same), as well as parallel single, “Divine,” and the tracks “Holiday” and “Photobook.”
Watch the “Do It” video below.
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It’s an SOS! Sabrina Carpenter “arrested” SZA at her Los Angeles show on Thursday night (Nov. 20). The New Jersey-bred singer pulled up to night four of six in L.A. on the final leg of the Short n’ Sweet Tour, and SC made SZA her Juno girl.
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The Crypto.com Arena sirens went off and the crowd erupted when SZA appeared on the Jumbotron in a red corset top. “What’s your name, gorgeous?” Sabrina asked. “SZA, I got some competition, s—t.”
Carpenter had a laugh as the audience cheered loudly when SZA said she was from New Jersey. “They don’t always scream for their city, so I love that. OK, New Jersey,” she added.
With temperatures dropping, SC brought up that cuffing season was around the corner and referenced SZA’s 2022 album. “SZA, you know what they say — it’s cuffing season,” she said. “I’m getting flustered, oh s—t, SOS for real … This one’s for SZA, my Juno girl.”
Earlier this week, Carpenter threw the handcuffs on actresses Elle and Dakota Fanning and arrested the Hollywood sisters for committing the crime of being too attractive at Monday night’s (Nov. 16) show. “It’s like, one of you is cute, but two though? Damn,” SC said at the time.
The “Espresso” singer has arrested plenty of celebrities while on the road, including Drew Barrymore, Millie Bobby Brown, Gigi Hadid, Anne Hathaway and TWICE.
Sabrina’s Short n’ Sweet Tour is wrapping up after kicking off more than a year ago, with two final shows in Los Angeles on Saturday (Nov. 22) and Sunday (Nov. 23). Carpenter’s next performance is slated for the desert when she headlines Coachella 2026 in April.
Watch the clip of SZA’s arrest here.
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Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week: Getting Closer to the full picture with Tate McRae, flying high again with the Wicked: For Good soundtrack and hearing Stray Kids Do It to ’em one more time.
Tate McRae, So Close to What??? (Deluxe Edition)
“Don’t know what country I’m in, but I know how I’m feeling,” testifies Tate McRae to kick off “Trying on Shoes,” the first track on her newly reissued So Close to What??? — yes, now with three question marks — deluxe edition. It feels like a snapshot release for the still-rising superstar, with some of the most detailed writing and specifically pitched performances of her career. Likely adding inspiration: Her recent split with fellow pop hitmaker The Kid LAROI, who of course is thought to be the subject of her top five Billboard Hot 100 hit “Tit for Tat,” and who appears to make his presence felt here a couple additional times, particularly on the spiteful “Anything But Love” (“My dad hates you, my dog hates you, my brother hates you, and I do too…”)
Wicked Movie Cast, Cynthia Erivo & Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good — The Soundtrack
Happy Wicked: For Good release day, everyone! The much-anticipated second half to the John M. Chu-helmed film adaptation of the legendary musical — whose first half was greeted with robust box office and major acclaim, particularly for stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande — is out now, along with the 11-track soundtrack. Of particular note for fans in this back half is the introduction of two brand-new songs to the musical’s world, penned by original composer Steven Schwartz: the bitter-but-resilient Erivo solo “No Place Like Home,” and the soaring Grande showcase “The Girl in the Bubble.”
Stray Kids, DO IT
It’s only been three months since Stray Kids released fourth Korean-language studio album Karma, but the octet is back this week with new release DO IT. The five-track release is being officially branded as a mixtape — the group’s first since last year’s Billboard 200-topping HOP — and features two versions of its explosive title track. The big question for chartwatchers with DO IT: Will this be the release that knocks Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl, currently in the midst of a six-week run atop the Billboard 200, from its No. 1 perch? History would certainly say not to bet against the group, who in seven charting releases has never missed the top spot.
Tainy & Karol G, “Ünica”
After dropping her Tropicoqueta album in June, Latin pop superstar Karol G is checking in at leat one more time before the end of the year, with “Ünica,” her new collaboration with A-list producer Tainy. The song, whose title of course means “Unique” in Spanish, Karol recalls a night of passion that still burns singularly in her memory, casting any past or future lovers in its shadow. The song’s gentle reggaetón shuffle is augmented by some lovely harp plucking, and backing vocals that seem to be sighing in agreement.
BigXthaPlug, I Hope You’re Happy (Deluxe)
A couple days after making his CMA Awards debut, rapper BigXthaPlug is back with the deluxe edition to his first full-length country release, I Hope You’re Happy. The set adds three new songs: the hard-hearted “Cold” with fellow recent country convert Post Malone (which feels like it could be “All the Way” Pt. 2), the acoustic, fame-ruing “Holy Ground” alongside top 40 regular Jessie Murph, and the set’s first totally solo track, triumphant closer “From the Bottom” — which drops most of the Nashville, but ends by reminding: “I just made me some millions off country.”
The Kid LAROI, “A Perfect World”
What timing: Right as Tate McRae releases her So Close to What??? deluxe — with multiple Earth-salting tracks firmly turning her back on her past relationship — here comes The Kid LAROI, perhaps dreaming about a reconciliation: “In a perfect world/ We’d have it all figured out, baby, you would be my girl.” It’s not exactly a take-me-back song, but it’s definitely an I’ll-stick-around-just-in-case ballad, as LAROI reminds his ex, “Coz I’m still here, for what it’s worth, baby.” Hopefully he’s not checking out Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist this week.
