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All eyes are on Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce as the tight end’s team prepares to go to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years. And while the Kansas City Chiefs more than earned their ticket to Feb. 11’s Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas with excellent play and one of the best records in the NFL this season, there are some who think it’s all a conspiracy, man.
Jimmy Kimmel broke down the QAnon-like meltdown currently racing through the conservative media world on Tuesday night (Jan. 30), pointing out the outrageous tin foil hat-esque theories being amplified on Fox News and other right-wing outlets. “You expect to hear this from a couple of nuts and then it disappears, but if anything it’s picking up steam,” Kimmel said of the phantom dot-connectors he dubbed the “Not-Too-Swifties.”

The host read a Jan. 28 tweet that helped kick off the fantasy football fiction, which posited, “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce). All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA. Calling it now, KC wins goes to the Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield. It’s all been an op since day one.”

He also ran down another tweet suggesting that the Super Bowl is “rigged,” featuring a complaint about the “unneeded” and “unwarranted” Swift coverage during games and calling the Chief’s path to the big game “totally scripted.” That one also conjured a similar image of TNT at the game together and announcing their support for Biden.

For clarity, while Swift has attended a number of Chiefs games this season to support her beau Kelce, and Kelce has appeared in a series of commercials encouraging Americans to get the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine, neither has made any political endorsements in this year’s presidential campaign. And it is still unclear if Swift can, or will, make it back from her Eras Tour show in Japan on the night before the Super Bowl to cheer the tight end on.

In Oct. 2020, Swift made a rare political endorsement when she announced that she would be voting for Biden.

Kimmel continued, reading a tweet suggesting that the Super Bowl will be “rigged [just like our elections],” parroting the incessant refrain from one-term former president Donald Trump falsely claiming that he actually won the 2020 election over President Joe Biden. The bit included a tweet from failed GOP presidential nominee Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who suggested that “there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”

“Let me get this straight,” Kimmel said. “The same people who think that Joe Biden has dementia and needs [Vice President] Kamala Harris to feed him butterscotch tapioca every night also believe that he has somehow planned and executed a diabolically brilliant scheme to fix the NFL playoffs so the biggest pop star in the world could pop up on the JumbTron during the Super Bowl in between a Kia and a Tostitos commercial to hypnotize her 11-year-old fans into voting for Joe Biden.”

Kimmel then ran a series of Fox News, Newsmax and OAN clips from the network’s talking heads begging Swift to “not get involved” in politics, suggesting the whole relationship is a “massive psyop [psychological operation]” and, most outrageously, that her music is a form of “witchcraft” and that “the devil owns her [Swift’s] soul.”

Trump even seemed to get on the Taylor-bashing train, with Rolling Stone reporting this week that unnamed sources said the four-times-indicted former reality TV host has been telling people in his inner circle that he is “more popular” than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does.

Watch Kimmel’s MAGA meltdown mash-up below (Swift bit begins at 2:49 mark).

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The unlikely second act of Sophie Ellis-Bextor‘s 2001 dance pop jam “Murder on the Dancefloor” will get one more spin in the spotlight when the singer performs the song at the upcoming BAFTA Film Awards 2024. The English singer/songwriter’s tune got an unexpected boost when it was featured in the BAFTA-nominated hit Saltburn.
The 23-year-old song co-written by Ellis-Bextor and New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander for the singer’s debut album, Read My Lips, matched its U.K. chart heights earlier this month when it hit No. 2 on the British pop charts while also debuting at No. 98 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated Jan. 13.

“I am so excited. I will be performing at the EE BAFTAs 2024,” the singer said in an Instagram video announcement. The BAFTA Awards will air on Feb. 18 on BBC One and iPlayer and BritBox in North America. “I’m already practicing some looks and I cannot wait,” she added.

The nudisco jam “became one of the most talked about moments in cinema this year and a viral sensation, taking the song back into the music charts 22 years after the first release of the song,” BAFTA said in a statement according to The Hollywood Reporter. “Old and new fans are streaming the track which is being used as a trending audio for millions of videos on Instagram and TikTok and [it] continues to mark new achievements on Spotify, YouTube and TikTok globally alongside newfound success in America, where it entered the Billboard Top 100 for the first time and continues to climb.”

The divisive murder sex drama starring Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike and Richard E. Grant was nominated for five BAFTA Awards, including best actor in leading role for Keoghan, best supporting actor for Elordi, best actress for Pike, best original score for Anthony Willis and outstanding British film.

Speaking to Billboard earlier this month about the unexpected revival of the tune, Ellis-Bextor said, “That song took me places I’d never been before, and it was always quite a special one for me. [It] took me to Latin America and Southeast Asia and all around Europe — it was already a song I associated with adventure and new things and a friendly, glorious chapter of my life.”

But the song crashing the Billboard charts, she said, was “glorious, it’s magical, really. But it’s very hard to process, if I’m honest.”

Watch Ellis-Bextor announce the good news below.

Mark Ronson has five nominations heading into Sunday’s Grammy Awards, all stemming from his work on the soundtrack and score for the Barbie film, including a Big Four nod for song of the year for co-writing Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night.” The wildest Grammy category he’s competing in has to be best song written for visual media, where four of the five nominees are all from Barbie.
It speaks to just how Greta Gerwig’s film dominated pop culture this past year. And on the new Grammy preview episode of the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast, we inform Ronson that it’s actually the first time a single project has landed four songs in that category since its inception in 1988.

“I think my mom Googled that the day nominations came out. She was very proud,” Ronson tells the Pop Shop with a laugh (listen to his full interview below). “I didn’t know that, and the other thing is that the Grammy category is for film and TV, you know? And there’s so many great songs from TV shows, like I think of all the Only Murders in the Building songs and everything else — there was some real moments for songs. So yeah, it’s crazy that Barbie took up so many.”

The lone non-Barbie song in the category is Rihanna’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever ballad “Lift Me Up.” “Rihanna can do anything she wants, so we can’t take anything for granted,” Ronson notes of their formidable competition on Sunday night.

Below, find highlights from our chat with Ronson, who’s also up for best original song at the Oscars on March 10 for “I’m Just Ken” with co-writer Andrew Wyatt — a prize Ronson won alongside Lady Gaga in 2019 for “Shallow” from A Star Is Born — and is already a seven-time Grammy winner, starting with his 2008 wins for producing Amy Winehouse’s landmark album Back to Black.

On being recognized at the Oscars again:

“Obviously in our field of music, we’d have to say the Grammys is the highest honor. What’s so crazy is that there’s this award [the Oscar] that’s sort of the most prestigious award in the world that gives out one award for music, so it’s so crazy. I don’t believe that it means that your song is better than somebody else’s song or any of that stuff, but of course it is amazing. We worked so hard on this film and for a long time and also on the score and everything because we loved it, not because we were like, ‘OK, we better get an Oscar nomination!’ But it is nice to be recognized for the work, for sure.”

On the Oscar rules allowing just two songs from a single film in the song category, so “I’m Just Ken” and Billie Eilish and Finneas’ “What Was I Made For” made the cut, but Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and others were left out:

“I don’t know how they even pick what the two are, but it is [bittersweet] because Dua’s song is still the biggest song from the soundtrack and Dua was really the first artist of anywhere near her stature that committed to the film. So it was almost like once we knew that we had a Dua song that was going to be in this big thing, it really set the bar for what the whole soundtrack could be. Dua … being like, ‘I’m down with this’ and writing this incredible song was what got us all excited, like, ‘Wow, this really could be something where this feels like this superstar level of musicians and singers and pop stars on it.’ So Dua definitely deserves all the credit for that, and you know it would have been lovely to have her as well. So it’s, you know, it is a shame.”

How Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World” accomplished the goal of including both Nicki and Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” on the soundtrack:

“We knew that with Nicki and her fans being called the Barbz and everything, as soon as I had been brought in for the soundtrack, I was like, ‘There’s no way in hell that we can have this soundtrack without a Nicki song on it.’ And then the fact that Ice [Spice] just became, like, her meteoric rise the entire time that we were even just working on the soundtrack from when we first got her involved, so yeah, it’s everywhere. … The two thoughts are like, ‘There’s no world in which we can’t have Nicki and that we can’t have some version of Aqua,’ you know? So we were always thinking, is it a cover? Is it an interesting flip? And then the Nicki and Ice [song] just came through with Riot[USA]’s beat and just handled the whole thing for us.”

On making the Christmas version of “I’m Just Ken” and whether he might make more music with Ryan Gosling:

“We definitely had a lot of fun, especially making the Christmas version that we did, because we had made that record and then I, the first one, I recorded a vocal with him. And then I probably hadn’t spoken to him for about a year till the movie was wrapping up. And I was like, ‘Hey, we finished the version actually, Slash is playing on it, I just want to make sure you’re happy with it before we mix it’. And he really loved it. And then we started to talk over the past couple of months, and we’re just talking about different kinds of music and things that he loved and [British singer/songwriter] Scott Walker and this stuff, and I was like, ‘Well, we should do a version of “Ken” that just does something a little different, like a different arrangement.’ Because, you know, there was a lot of talk like the ’80s power ballad and this, and I mean, it has all those things, but I think some of my pride as a songwriter, I wanted to prove that it wasn’t just that. So Ryan … he’s got amazing taste and great ideas, and he’s an extremely funny and talented musician and singer. So we made this version and then we started to hang, and definitely, I would love to make more music. You know, I think it would be great. And we’ve talked about it a little bit.”

On his first time at the Grammys:

“I was a seat filler [as a teenager] because I wanted to write about it. I wrote and reviewed concerts for my high school paper. My mom would only let me go to shows … if I could convince her it was something to do with school, so I got this job writing for the paper who definitely didn’t need a music reviewer. [Laughs] But I convinced them, and it was this paper called City News that was for high school kids, a bunch of different schools. So I got into the Grammys by being a seat filler. And I remember you’re sitting all over the place. At one point I was in front of Vanilla Ice. The other moment I was sitting next to that singer Alannah Myles who won that year for ‘Black Velvet.’ And then I went with my friend Rhymefest, a rapper who co-wrote [Kanye West’s] ‘Jesus Walks.’ I went with him as his plus-one in like 2003 or whenever that was, and then next time I went was for Amy.”

On his whirlwind first Grammys as a nominee in 2008 — and his Zoolander moment in the crowd:

“I remember it really well. I took my mom and I remember when they read my name for producer of the year, it was such a blur that it was like a movie. My friend Rich, my best friend, was nudging me and going, ‘They said your name! Go!’ I went up, and it was just so surreal. … Me and my mom were behind Tony Bennett at the main ceremony, and I think I was actually a little bit hungover because I was enjoying myself that weekend, my first time at the rodeo. And they came up to me before they announced record of the year, the cameras, they want to make sure, like, ‘Are you Mark Ronson?’ Just in case you win, they’ve got the camera on you. And so when they said, you know, ‘And the Grammy for record of the year goes to… “Rehab” for Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse!’ And so I got up to walk towards the stage, because I figured like, ‘So that’s why the guy’s filming me.’ And as I start to walk up the first few steps, this giant screen starts to get lowered and it’s Amy live from Camden to accept the award. And I suddenly realized like, ‘Oh my God, I’m gonna look like such an idiot just standing there next to this screen.’ So I try to like subtly as possible reverse-step down the stairs in front of everybody in the Staples Center, and I kind of fell backwards and I just sat like at the feet of Amber Rose and Kanye for like 10 minutes while Amy spoke, and I just said, ‘Sorry, guys, I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.’ But it was, like, a very Zoolander moment.”

On writing a book about DJing at hip-hop clubs in the ’90s and how it’s inspiring his follow-up album to 2019’s Late Night Feelings:

“I’ve been writing a book about DJing, specifically about DJing in hip-hop clubs in the ’90s in New York City. And it’s a little bit about that time. It’s a mini-memoir, but it’s also about the art of DJing. And maybe some of that art is a little bit bygone now, because you don’t walk into places and see turntables and mixers everywhere. So it’s a bit about all those things, and just about a really great time, because it was this moment where Jay-Z and Biggie and Puff started to come out in downtown New York. And that suddenly changed the whole thing of where people wanted to be and where people wanted to hang out. And because I was their DJ, I had a front-row seat to it all in some ways. So I’m writing that book, and then I’m sure that the book will influence this record a little bit. I’m sure it’ll a little bit remind me of that era. But yeah, that’s where I’m at with it.”

Also on the podcast, we’ve got chart news on how Green Day scores its 12th top 10 charting album on the Billboard 200 with Saviors, nearly 30 years to the week after the band made their Billboard chart debut in 1994. Plus, how Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” makes a beautiful start on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart and how Justin Timberlake, Jennifer Lopez and Sophie Ellis-Bextor all debut on the Pop Airplay chart with their latest hits. And since it’s our special Grammy Awards preview episode, we’re also reviewing the nominees in the six general field categories and highlighting who our very own awards editor, Paul Grein, along with his crack team of advisers on staff at Billboard, thinks will win in each of the categories.

The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s managing director, charts and data operations, Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)

Kelly Clarkson knows how to add even more emotion to an already emotional song, and she did just that on Tuesday (Jan. 30) when she delivered a heartstring-tugging rendition of Miley Cyrus’ “Jaded” during her talk show’s popular Kellyoke segment. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “I’m […]

When *NSYNC returned with “Better Place” for the Trolls Band Together soundtrack in September, it was the first new music fans had heard from the boy band in 20 years – but it probably won’t be the last. 
In his Monday (Jan. 30) appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Justin Timberlake strongly hinted that he and bandmates JC Chasez, Lance Bass, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick are cooking up a follow-up to their comeback single. “That was fun,” he began, recalling how the guys reunited for “Better Place.” “It’s kind of crazy — there’s so much that picks up right where it left off as far as chemistry.” 

“We’ve been in the studio,” he continued in the clip. “So there may be a little something in the future.” 

*NSYNC first sparked reunion rumors last year at the VMAs, where the group surprised fans by appearing onstage together to present Taylor Swift with the night’s best pop award. A few weeks later, the quintet dropped “Better Place,” which debuted at No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

Then, in November, *NSYNC made its post-reunion red carpet debut at the Trolls premiere in Hollywood. 

While fans wait for the new *NSYNC material to come to fruition, Timberlake is offering up his own solo comeback to enjoy in the meantime. Last week, the Friends With Benefits star dropped a new single, “Selfish,” and announced that his first album in six years, Everything I Thought It Was, will arrive March 15. And during his musical guest appearance on Saturday Night Live Jan. 27, he debuted another new song, “Sanctified.”

As if the ‘90s vibes weren’t strong enough, Britney Spears and Timberlake’s names have once again been making headlines together in the aftermath of the “Toxic” singer’s 2023 memoir. The autobiography didn’t necessarily paint Timberlake – whom Spears dated from 1999 to 2002 – in a particularly flattering light, but earlier this week, the pop star posted on Instagram that she is “so in love with Justin Timberlake’s new song ‘Selfish.’” 

She also offered a blanket apology “for some of the things I wrote about in my book.” “If I offended any of the people I genuinely care about I am deeply sorry,” she added at the time. 

Watch Timberlake tease new *NSYNC music above. 

A group of artists in Sweden, this year’s Eurovision host country, are requesting that Israel be barred from participating in the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest over the nation’s “brutal” war in Gaza. In an open letter signed by more than 1,000 Swedish musicians published in the Swedish paper Aftonbladet, the artists decried the “humanitarian disaster” in Gaza in the wake of Israel’s punishing response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel that saw militants killing more than 1,200 Israelis — mostly civilians — and taking more than 250 hostages.

“We who sign this are 1,000 artists who believe in music as a unifying force. The Eurovision song contest began as a peace project with the ambition to unite countries and citizens through music,” read the letter. “Allowing Israel’s participation undermines not only the spirit of the competition but the entire public service mission. It also sends the signal that governments can commit war crimes without consequences. Therefore, we appeal to the EBU: Exclude Israel from the Eurovision song contest 2024.”

Among the signers of the letter published on Monday (Jan. 29) are such acts as Robyn, Fever Ray and First Aid Kit and Malena Ernman, the opera singing mother of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, as well as hundreds of other dancers, artists, DJs and choreographers. The letter notes that the now 115-day-old war has reportedly led to the deaths of more than 25,000 Palestinians — including 10,000 children — leading to the destruction of “civilian infrastructure, caused inhumane living conditions and forced 85 percent of the population to flee.”

It noted that the International Court of Justice in the Hague recently took up the case of alleged genocide brought by South Africa, ruling that Israel must act to prevent and punish any public incitements to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, to preserve evidence related to any allegations of genocide in the territory, as well as improve humanitarian conditions for Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

“The fact that countries that place themselves above humanitarian law are welcomed to participate in international cultural events trivialises violations of international law and makes the suffering of the victims invisible,” the Swedish letter stated. The missive joins earlier similar requests to exclude Israel from more than 1,400 artists in Finland and Iceland. This year’s Eurovision contest is slated to take place in Malmö from May 7-11.

The earlier Finnish note asked the Finnish Broadcasting Company to boycott the competition and refuse to send a Finnish delegation if the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) — which runs Eurovision — doesn’t weigh in to take action. The various efforts are similar to ones made in 2022 following Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine; Russia was subsequently banned from that year’s contest after organizers said inclusion would “bring the competition into disrepute.” That year’s edition was won by the Ukrainian rap/folk group Kalush Orchestra. At press time a spokesperson for Eurovision 2024 had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on the Swedish letter.

“We believe that by allowing Israel’s participation, the EBU is exhibiting a remarkable double standard that undermines the organization’s credibility,” read the Swedish letter.

According to The Guardian, the EBU previously announced that Israel would not be excluded from this year’s contest, while emphasizing that the wildly popular, often outrageous musical contest is apolitical and that it is a battle between public service broadcasters, not states. The paper also reported that Iceland’s national broadcaster, RÚV, said its decision on whether to boycott or participate in Eurovision will be made in mid-March by the winner of its song competition, Söngvakeppnin.

Israel, which has been participating in Eurovision since 1973, has won the competition four times, including in 1978 (Izhar Cohen and the Alphabeta, “A-Ba-Ni-Bi”), 1979 (Milk and Honey, “Hallelujah”), 1998 (Dana International, “Diva”) and 2018 (Netta Barzilai, “Toy”). A recent article in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz noted that despite its track record of wins, Israel is no longer the oddmakers’ favorite to win Eurovision this year amid the growing calls for a boycott over the Gaza war; the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation and Keshet are in the process of choosing this year’s Eurovision act via the competition show HaKokhav HaBa (Rising Star).

NMIXX is officially the top up-and-coming artist in the United States as the group re-enters Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart (dated Feb. 3) at No. 1, thanks to its new EP, Fe3O4: Break.

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The project, released Jan. 15 via JYP Entertainment/Imperial/Republic Records, debuts at No. 2 on the World Albums chart and No. 171 on the Billboard 200 with 8,000 equivalent album units earned in in the U.S. in its opening week (Jan. 19-25), according to Luminate.

Emerging Artists marks the first currently active Billboard chart that NMIXX has topped. (The group hit No. 1 on the since-discontinued Hot Trending Songs chart in March 2023 with “Young, Dumb, Stupid.” The group charted five other songs on the ranking during its run.)

NMIXX is the first K-pop group to lead Emerging Artists in 2024. Nine K-pop acts reigned in 2023: BOYNEXTDOOR, (G)I-DLE, IU, NCT Dream, NewJeans, P1Harmony, The Rose, V and xikers.

NMIXX is also the first JYP act to hit No. 1 on Emerging Artists. The company’s other signees to reach the chart include Day6, Itzy, Stray Kids and Xdinary Heroes.

NMIXX previously charted on Billboard’s album rankings with its EP Expérgo. The set reached No. 5 on World Albums and No. 122 on the Billboard 200 in April 2023.

NMIXX, from South Korea, has been active since 2021. The group is comprised of members Bae, Haewon, Jiwoo, Kyujin, Lily and Sullyoon. Last April, Billboard named NMIXX a K-pop group to watch.

The Emerging Artists chart ranks the most popular developing artists of the week, using the same formula as the all-encompassing Billboard Artist 100, which measures artist activity across multiple Billboard charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200. (The Artist 100 lists the most popular acts, overall, each week.) However, the Emerging Artists chart excludes acts that have notched a top 25 entry on either the Hot 100 or Billboard 200, as well as artists that have achieved two or more top 10s on Billboard’s “Hot” song genre charts and/or consumption-based “Top” album genre rankings.

“A talent to watch.”
In the Jan. 30, 1999, issue, Billboard reviewed Britney Spears’ debut album, …Baby One More Time, released on Jive Records. “The teenage heartthrob who cut through the fourth-quarter clutter with the pop/R&B single ‘…Baby One More Time’ delivers her debut album – a top 40-ready workout filled with hook-laden songs from the same bag as the title cut,” Billboard praised, noting that Spears “already tasted the limelight in a two-year run on Disney’s Mickey Mouse Club.”

“Blessed with a sweet voice and a wholesome, girl-next-door image,” the review continued, “Spears has hit a nerve among a teen fan base primed by the likes of Hanson, ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys.”

The same week, the album and its title cut concurrently hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and Billboard Hot 100 charts, respectively.

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The coronations sparked Spears’ robust chart-topping history. To date, she boasts six No. 1s on the Billboard 200: …Baby One More Time, Oops!…I Did It Again (2000), Britney (2001), In the Zone (2003), Circus (2008) and Femme Fatale (2011). She banked her 10th and most recent top 10 with Glory (No. 3) in 2016.

Spears has scored five No. 1s on the Hot 100: “…Baby One More Time,” “Womanizer” (2008), “3” (2009) and two in 2011, “Hold It Against Me” and as featured on Rihanna’s “S&M.” Spears added her 14th and latest top 10 with “Hold Me Closer,” with Elton John, in September 2022.

Spears’ initial Hot 100 No. 1 likewise marked the first as both a writer and producer for Max Martin. With the chart-topping launch of Ariana Grande’s “Yes, And?” on the Jan. 27, 2024, survey, Martin passed George Martin for the most leaders among producers in the Hot 100’s history.

Spears’ memoir The Woman in Me arrived in October 2023. The book recaps Spears’ rise to fame, her relationship with Justin Timberlake and her life under a 13-year conservancy. According to the Associated Press, it sold 1.1 million copies in the U.S. in its first week.

“I’ve been involved with a lot of different projects over the years, and with Britney, we’ve got a real special artist here,” mused Jack Satter, then-Jive senior VP of pop promotion, in the Oct. 24, 1998, Billboard, issue. “I really feel that she’s like a young Madonna. Our goal is to make her into a huge pop-rhythm crossover artist. I think she’s got longevity.”

Jennifer Lopez dropped the summer-ready video for her remix of “Can’t Get Enough” on Monday (Jan. 29). The new visual cooked up by JLo and director Tanu Muiño for the bouncy first single from the singer/actress’ upcoming This Is Me… Now album features a guest verse from Latto, with both women taking it to the street in the dance-heavy clip.
In keeping with the narrative arc about love addiction in Lopez’s upcoming This Is Me… Now: A Love Story Amazon original film, the new video opens with Lopez getting harassed by a group of sharply dressed reporters bombarding her with probing questions. “’What are you chasing?’,” one asks, while another wonders, “‘What’s it all about?,’” and a third inquiring mind shouts, “‘Jennifer, what really matters to you?’”

Lopez’s answer, of course, is “Love.”

Cue the track and Lopez writhing in a gauzy white robe on a bed — with a killer view of the city through her giant picture windows — as she stares lustily into a mirror. The camera then follows Lopez outside, where she walks confidently onto a city street, loses her tan jacket and struts through the middle of traffic. This, naturally, leads to a Jenny on the block dance routine, with Lopez and an impromptu group of male dancers busting moves in an intersection.

Lopez then slips under a dinner table on a night out with her man, crawling across the floor sensually while also walking toward Latto on a soundstage, with both women dressed in deep red, body-hugging dresses. “Call the doctor, I don’t see nobody but you/ Do I still love you? Baby, is the sky blue?/ Spoil a b–ch down and he faithful to me too/ You know you the reason why they hatin’ on me, boo,” Latto raps as Lopez rubs up on her.

The rest of the video appears to compile footage from the short film, much of it consisting of Lopez in various thong-baring outfits, including a sure-to-be-GIFFed sequence in which she takes an outdoor shower in a black string bikini for an audience of shirtless hunks floating in a reflecting pool.

The original version of “Can’t Get Enough” dropped on Jan. 10 as the first taste of Lopez’s long-awaited ninth studio album, which will be released on Feb. 16. An accompanying film directed by Dave Meyers will hit Amazon Prime Video the same day.

Watch the “Can’t Get Enough” remix video below.

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Forever No. 1 is a Billboard series that pays special tribute to the recently deceased artists who achieved the highest honor our charts have to offer — a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 single — by taking an extended look back at the chart-topping songs that made them part of this exclusive club. Here, we honor Melanie, who died on Jan. 23 at age 76, by looking at the pop star’s lone No. 1 hit as a recording artist: the charming (but risqué for its time) “Brand New Key.”
Melanie’s sing-song pop smash “Brand New Key” seems pretty innocuous today, but when it was released in 1971, it was considered fairly risqué. “Skates” and “key” were pretty obvious sexual metaphors, and this stanza was rife with sexual innuendo: “Don’t go too fast, but I go pretty far/ For somebody who don’t drive/ I’ve been all around the world.”

You have to keep in mind that this was a full decade before Olivia Newton-John’s sexually provocative “Physical,” which the Grease star fretted was going too far practically until the moment it was released. In 1982, Madonna arrived, eventually bringing gender parity to the whole notion of songs about lust. “Brand New Key” might have been the first step down the road that took us to Anita Ward’s “Ring My Bell,” Cyndi Lauper’s “She Bop,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and countless more.

Melanie (whose full name was Melanie Safka) acknowledged the possibility of fans hearing sexual innuendo in the lyrics, but has denied that was her intent. The oldies site Superseventies.com quotes Melanie as saying that she wrote the song in about 15 minutes one night: “I thought it was cute; a kind of old [1930s] tune. I guess a key and a lock have always been Freudian symbols, and pretty obvious ones at that. There was no deep serious expression behind the song, but people read things into it.”

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In addition to helping to make top 40 radio safe for racier songs by female artists, “Brand New Key” changed Melanie’s image. Prior to “Brand New Key,” she had been seen as cool by contemporary pop and rock audiences. She was one of just three solo women on the bill at the Woodstock festival in 1969, along with Joan Baez and Janis Joplin (who was backed by the Kozmic Blues Band).

As it began to rain during her performance on the opening night of that epic, three-day festival, hundreds of candles suddenly appeared, which inspired Melanie’s breakthrough hit, “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).” In July 1970, that song became her first top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 6. The Edwin Hawkins Singers, best known for their 1969 hit “Oh Happy Day,” were featured on the record, giving it a gospel quality that balanced her folkie sound.

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In September 1970, Melanie made the top 40 on the Hot 100 with her follow-up, “Peace Will Come (According to Plan).” The following month, The New Seekers landed a top 15 hit on the Hot 100 with another Melanie song, “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma.” (Melanie had recorded the song under the title “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” on her 1970 album Candles in the Rain.) The New Seekers followed that hit with their versions of two more Melanie songs, both of which also made the Hot 100 – the flower-power anthem “Beautiful People” (No. 67) and “Nickel Song” (No. 81), which Melanie would later have a No. 35 hit with.

Melanie performed at the Isle of Wight festival in August 1970 as well as the Glastonbury Festival (then dubbed Glastonbury Fayre) in June 1971. So, Melanie was a star even before the song that became her biggest hit.

People who just know Melanie from “Brand New Key” might be surprised to hear her other songs, which she sang in a husky voice and in an idiosyncratic style. “Brand New Key,” which Melanie wrote by herself, smoothed out the rough edges of her other records. It is more of a pure pop record, which is probably why it did so well.

The song, produced by Melanie’s husband Peter Schekeryk, was the first release on their own label, Neighborhood Records, following her departure from Buddah Records. The song (arranged by Roger Kellaway) opens with a simple piano intro, before Melanie lays out her predicament. She needs a key and she needs it bad. Her frustration is apparent as she sings, “It almost seems like you’re avoiding me/ I’m OK alone, but you’ve got something I need.” More than 40 years later, in “Call Me Maybe,” Carly Rae Jepsen would capture that same sense of frustration, pining for a disinterested guy.

The chorus of “Brand New Key” is very sing-songy, which some found charming and others found grating. The wordless bridge lends some interest, “Oh, yeah, yeah/ Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah…” And in the final repetition of the chorus, Melanie omits the lines “I’ve been looking around awhile/You’ve got something for me” and replaces them with “La-la’s.”  

In the week ending Oct. 30, 1971, “Brand New Key” entered the Hot 100 at No. 87. Eight weeks later, it dethroned Sly & the Family Stone’s “Family Affair” to become the No. 1 song in the land. It held the top spot for three weeks, bridging 1971 and 1972. Incredibly, it held Don McLean’s instant-classic “American Pie” to the No. 2 spot for two weeks before “Pie” was able to dislodge “Key.” And then “Key” stayed at No. 2 for three weeks, giving it a total of seven weeks in one of the top two positions – longer than any other song by a female solo artist in the first three years of the ’70s.

“Brand New Key” is a very short single — it runs just 2:26, shorter than any other No. 1 hit of 1971 or 1972. It’s ironic that “Key” was followed in the No. 1 spot by “American Pie,” which ran 8:37, which made it the longest No. 1 hit in Hot 100 history until recently. “Brand New Key” also reached No. 1 in Canada and Australia and climbed as high as No. 4 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart.

“Brand New Key” is easily Melanie’s best-remembered hit, but it was hardly the sum total of her chart impact that year. In the week ending Feb. 26, 1972, Melanie had three songs in the top 40 on the Hot 100: “Brand New Key” dropped from No. 14 to No. 24, “Ring the Living Bell” (the proper follow-up to “Key”) jumped from No. 39 to No. 34 and “Nickel Song” (which Melanie’s former label Buddah Records released to capitalize on her newfound success) leaped from No. 43 to No. 36. Melanie was just the second solo female to have three songs in the top 40 at one time (following Mary Wells in 1964), and the only woman to achieve the feat in the ’70s.

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Critic Paul Gambaccini led his Singles column in Rolling Stone (March 16, 1972) with a discussion of Melanie’s three simultaneous hits. Under the headline “Melanie laughs all the way to the bank,” Gambaccini wrote “It has long been fashionable for rock critics to knock the recorded efforts of Melanie, but the woman with the little girl’s voice now has the last laugh. While most artists consider themselves fortunate to have one hit single, she has three.”

In his weekly American Top 40 countdown for week in question, Casey Kasem made note of Melanie’s triple play and said words to the effect that “Last year was the year of Carole King. It looks like this year will be the year of Melanie.”

In one sense, Casey was right. On Billboard’s year-end charts for 1972, Melanie was No. 1 on the Top Singles Female Vocalists chart, ahead of three legends – Cher, Roberta Flack and Aretha Franklin, who held down the next three spots. But if Casey was suggesting that Melanie was moving up to superstardom, as it appeared at that moment, that didn’t come to pass. After those three early 1972 hits dropped off, Melanie logged just one more top 40 hit, “Bitter Bad,” which reached No. 35 in the spring of 1973.

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Some of Melanie’s original fans had disdain for the novelty-shaded pop direction of “Brand New Key,” while her newfound pop fans proved fickle. Widely read industry pundit Bob Lefsetz wrote an assessment following Melanie’s death in which he opined that he “had some respect for her” prior to “Brand New Key,” but lost it with that one song. “Melanie had been a deep thinker, anything but light,” he wrote. “And now she’s released this adolescent, no, strike that, kiddie song about roller skating.”

Melanie made her final Hot 100 appearance in the first week of 1974 with a fine cover version of Carole King and Gerry Goffin’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” She made her final appearance on the Billboard 200 in her lifetime that June with Madrugada.

In 1990, “Brand New Key” appeared on Vol. 7 of Rhino Records’ 25-volume Have a Nice Day series, which collected pop songs from the 1970s. I wrote the liner notes for that entire series (as well as the Grammy-nominated 1998 box set Have a Nice Decade, on which “Brand New Key” also appeared.)

Here’s what I wrote in 1990 about “Brand New Key”: “Melanie, whose ‘Brand New Key’ hit #1 in December 1971, wasn’t a one-hit wonder. She is, however, Exhibit A in the case of artists whose careers were hurt more than they were helped by hit records that projected the wrong image. The whimsical, nostalgic nature of ‘Brand New Key’ gave Melanie a lightweight, novelty image which was at odds with the contemporary pop/rock persona she had cultivated with her 1970 hit, ‘Lay Down (Candles in the Rain).’ It didn’t help that the follow-ups ‘The Nickel Song’ and ‘Ring the Living Bell,’ were also very light. Still, one imagines that the coy innuendos of ‘Brand New Key’ resonated for, say, Madonna, in a way that Carole King or Roberta Flack never did. In fact, it’s a small step from the tongue-in-cheek sass of ‘Brand New Key’ to ‘Like a Virgin.’”

In one interview, also featured in that Superseventies.com piece, Melanie expressed some ambivalence about the song. “I used to love singing ‘Brand New Key,’ at first,” she said. “It had great shock value, dropped in the middle of one of my concerts. I’d be singing along about Suffering and the Trials of Man, and then suddenly, ‘I’ve got a brand-new pair of roller skates…’ It had a great effect. After it became a hit, though, the fun kind of wore off, at least for me. Some things, I think, are better left a surprise.”

While Melanie struggled commercially after “Brand New Key,” the song itself has had an afterlife. A parody version titled “Combine Harvester,” recorded by a comedy folk act dubbed The Wurzels, topped the Official U.K. Singles Chart for two weeks in June 1976. The song depicts two farmers with one saying to the other, “I’ve got a brand new Combine Harvester/ And I’ll give you the key.” (If “Brand New Key” is novelty-shaded, this loopy track goes all the way.)

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Melanie’s original recording was heard in the acclaimed 1997 film Boogie Nights, which was set in the 1970s. The song was used as an informal theme for Heather Graham’s Rollergirl character. (Roller skating became a genuine pop-culture fad during the disco era, long after Melanie’s song had run its course.) Country singer Deana Carter covered the song on her 1998 album Everything’s Gonna Be Alright, which went gold. The song has also been featured in the TV shows Family Guy and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Melanie’s legacy extends beyond “Brand New Key,” however: “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma,” which she also wrote, was a much-admired and much-performed song of that era. The great Ray Charles recorded a marvelously funky and fresh version of the song that reached No. 65 on the Hot 100 in August 1972 and received a Grammy nod for best R&B vocal performance, male. In October 2012, Miley Cyrus released a video of an acoustic version of that song as part of her Backyard Sessions series. In 2015, Melanie joined her to duet on the song, in addition to “Peace Will Come.”

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Melanie had other successes. too. In 1989, she won a Primetime Emmy (in tandem with Lee Holdridge) for outstanding achievement in music and lyrics for the “The First Time I Loved Forever.” They wrote the ballad for the CBS series Beauty and the Beast (not to be confused with the later film of the same name).

In 2010 and 2011, Melanie performed at 40th anniversary editions of famous festivals she had performed at originally – Isle of Wight and Glastonbury, respectively. She also endured as an avatar for Woodstock, playing a big part in the informal revival of Woodstock ’89. According to Variety, Melanie was in the studio earlier this month working on her 32nd album, Second Hand Smoke, a collection of cover songs. 

Melanie died on Jan. 23 at home in central Tennessee. She is survived by her three children, daughter Leilah (named after the Derek & The Dominos classic “Layla”), daughter Jeordie and son Beau Jarred. Schekeryk, her husband of 42 years, died in 2010.

“She was one of the most talented, strong and passionate women of the era and every word she wrote, every note she sang reflected that,” her kids posted on Facebook. “Our world is much dimmer, the colors of a dreary, rainy Tennessee pale with her absence today, but we know that she is still here, smiling down on all of us, on all of you, from the stars.”