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Justin Timberlake spent four years recording upcoming Everything I Thought It Was album, so it’s no surprise that the “Selfish” singer had some energy to spare when he jumped on the couch on Thursday night’s (Jan. 25) Tonight Show. From his sprinting up to the cheap seats rumba line entrance with old pal host Jimmy Fallon, to a greatest hits run classroom instruments bit, Timberlake seemed eager to kick off his EITIW era after several years of being mostly off the radar.
Introducing JT at the top of the show, Fallon went on an extended news-inspired riff in the opening monologue ticking off just how close the pair are. “He is the Taylor to my Travis,” Fallon joked. “He’s the missing bolt to my Boeing plane… He’s the recall to my exploding Tesla… Yeah, he and I are besties. We got together like a soccer mom and a Stanley tumbler… That’s right, we’re quite a team. Think of us like Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but with chemistry… I’m so glad he’s here. Last week when it slowed a little in New York, I looked at the grass and I saw those frosted tips and I thought, ‘I should call Justin.’”
The pair then crammed into the Tonight Show schoolroom for a round of Classroom Instruments, with the Roots gathered around as Timberlake struck a triangle to kick off a funky, unplugged version of his just-released new single, “Selfish.” They only got a verse in, though, before diving into a quick-hit run through JT’s solo catalog of hits, pivoting to a snippet of hip-swiveling “Señorita,” before jumping into “SexyBack,” “My Love,” “Suit & Tie,” “Rock Your Body,” and a raucous “Can’t Stop the Feeling.”
Timberlake, 42, made a proper entrance by roping Fallon into doing a dance up the steps into the audience and then busting some disco moves before hoofing it back down to the stage and declaring himself “exhausted.” Fallon said he’d never seen anyone work harder on anything than Timberlake did on EITIW, describing Timberlake’s work ethic in the studio, while Justin copped to how strange it was to be explaining the new album’s origin to Jimmy, with whom he said he’s already discussed it ad nauseam in private.
“I feel like we’ve already had this conversation, but we have to have it so you guys can hear the story,” Timberlake said, of the difficulty of recording during the pandemic, having his second son, Phinneas, with wife Jessica Biel, and tracking 100 songs over different runs across several years. In describing the sound, Timberlake suggested that the Tonight Show should have a spin-off called Jimmy Fallon Listens to Your Album.
Timberlake then described what a kick he got out of watching Fallon listening to the album. “What was I doing?” Fallon asked in perfect rehearsed confusion. “A lot,” Timberlake laughed, as Jimmy described himself as totally “cool” and “chillin’ out” in the studio. Justin then proceeded to jump on the couch and channel Fallon by shouting “what is this song?!” “OH! What?!,” “OH My GOD!” before busting out some goofy dance moves.
JT also revealed the upcoming Forget Tomorrow World tour, which kicks off April 29th in Vancouver, with stops in Seattle, Phoenix, Fort Worth, Raleigh, Miami and New York, with dates and venues to announced soon.
The segment ended with Fallon recalling an unlikely bunker shot he nailed while playing at Timberlake’s 8AM Golf Invitational tournament last year, where the friends were paired with Kansas City Chiefs dynamic duo Travis Kelce and QB Patrick Mahomes. Jimmy described Timberlake giving him some meticulous swing advice, before cueing up the video of Fallon sinking the shot and getting lifted up into the air by an overjoyed Kelce.
It got better, though. In an extended view of the special moment, after Timberlake sprinted around in circles, he made his way over to congratulate the two and Justin said that was nearly the end of him. “Travis Kelce almost… I saw my life flash before my eyes,” Timberlake said of his abject fear when jumping up to do a hip bump with the 250-pound NFL tight end.
“I was like, ‘he’s doing it! I have to do it!,’” Timberlake recalled thinking, forgetting that the professional baller has about 80 pounds on him. As the tape kept rolling, it showed Kelce hip-checking Timberlake flat onto his sexy back on the green.
Timberlake will be back as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend and will play a free show at 1,100-capacity Irving Plaza in New York on Jan. 31.
Watch Timberlake on The Tonight Show below.
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First the single, then the album, now Justin Timberlake completes his solo return with confirmation of a world tour.
The former boybander announced the big news when he stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, for a stint surfing the guest couch.
The Forget Tomorrow World Tour will support JT’s forthcoming collection Everything I Thought It Was, his first solo album release in more than six years.
Due out March 15, EITIW is Timberlake’s sixth studio LP, and the followup to Man of the Woods which peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 following its release in February 2018, for his fourth consecutive solo leader.
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As a warm-up, the pop singer will play a small-capacity show in New York on Wednesday, Jan. 31, the 1,100-capacity Irving Plaza.
Fallon teased the touring news out of JT, in a totally above-board, pre-rehearsed kind of way.
Was there anything more to announce, the late-night show host prompted his musical guest? Well, yes, “we are still putting the setlist together for Irving Plaza,” noted Timberlake.
But wait, there was more.
“I’m going on tour,” was the dry response.
The 10-time Grammy Award winner gave fans a taste of things to come earlier this week with the release of “Selfish,” the first cut from EITIW. He’ll be back on our screens when he serves as musical guest on Saturday Night Live this weekend, with Dakota Johnson hosting.
Though his solo music career has been in deep freeze, Timberlake did return to his boy band roots last year when he reunited with *NSYNC for “Better Place,” which accompanied the JT-starring animated family film Trolls Band Together. The track started at No. 25, for *NSYNC’s lucky 13th appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 and first appearance on the tally since “Girlfriend” featuring Nelly reached No. 5 — way back in 2002.
As a solo artist, Timberlake has landed 19 titles in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, including five No. 1s.
Details of the Forget Tomorrow World Tour have yet to be announced. Watch the big reveal on Fallon’s late-night show below.
He came back like “J Christ” — now Lil Nas X wants to figure out what happens next. On Friday (Jan. 26), the pop singer unveiled his latest song “Where Do We Go Now,” a poignant slow-jam that poses its titular question to remarkable effect. Stepping away from his signature tongue-in-cheek braggadocio, Lil Nas X […]
Dua Lipa may have pulled off a vanishing act with “Houdini,” but now she’s reappearing for yet another pop banger. On Thursday (Jan. 25), the pop singer announced the release of her new single, “Training Season.” In a clip posted to her TikTok, Lipa lip syncs along with a short clip of the new track, […]
Over the course of a few years, Lil Nas X went from a college kid scared about his future to an internationally-acclaimed, record-breaking star. His fans know him as the funny, terminally online, occasionally controversial pop-meets-rap-meets-country artist next door. They even know a bit about Montero Lamar Hill, the man behind the moniker, thanks to more than a few revelatory lyrics on his debut album.
But with Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero, the new documentary debuting on HBO this Saturday (Jan. 27), the “Industry Baby” singer is done trying to prove anything — he’s simply letting the audience see him in all lights possible.
The 95-minute feature follows Lil Nas X over the course of 60 days as he embarks on the North American leg his first-ever headlining tour in late 2022. Unlike Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour before it, the documentary gives fans only a peek into the star’s live show, occasionally showing off minute-long snippets of the titular concert before cutting away to backstage footage.
The rest of the movie, though, serves as a glimpse inside the mind of a blossoming artist looking to manage his impact on a career he crash-landed into. Hill opens up about everything from his upbringing, to his start in the industry, to the grueling process of putting together a tour . But most of all, Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero watches Hill learn, in real time, what it means to be one of the most publicly visible members of the LGBTQ+ community, and how that public perception impacts his own search for meaning.
“Some people think my music is dope, but they think I do too much as far as videos and the things I do online go. And some people think the things I do online are cool, but they don’t like my music. Some people still see me as the kid-friendly artist, and some people see me as this Satanic devil that’s gonna ruin the world, or who’s part of some big agenda,” he says at one point in the documentary. “People feel a lot of things about me. But me? Boy, do I love this kid.”
Below, Billboard takes a look at five of the biggest revelations throughout Long Live Montero, from the rapper opening up about his relationship with his family, to a tribute for the music icon that continues to inspire him to this day.
Lil Nas X: Long Live Montero premieres on HBO Saturday, January 27 at 8 p.m. ET.
The ‘Ghost’-ly Sample Haunting ‘Old Town Road’
Ariana Grande earns her fifth No. 1 on Billboard’s Streaming Songs chart with “Yes, And?,” which starts atop the Jan. 27-dated tally. In the Jan. 12-18 tracking week, “Yes, And?” earned 27.2 million official U.S. streams, according to Luminate. It’s Grande’s first ruler since “Die for You,” her collaboration with The Weeknd, led for a […]
K-pop girl group ITZY announced the dates for their second world tour on Thursday (Jan. 25). The spring/summer outing will find the quartet hitting 18 countries across Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Europe and North America on the BORN TO BE swing that is slated to kick off at Jamsil Indoor Stadium in Seoul, South Korea on Feb. 24.
The follow-up to their 2022 debut world tour, CHECKMATE, will have the group performing in Latin America, the U.K., Europe, Australia and New Zealand for the first time. The 27-city tour produced by JYP Entertainment and promoted by Live Nation will touch down in North America on June 6 for a show at WAMU Theater in Seattle, WA.
It will then run through shows in Oakland, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Newark and Chicago before winding down on June 28 with a gig at the Theatre at Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The final run will feature shows in Taipei, Taiwan (July 20), Manila, Philippines (August 3) and Hong Kong (August 10).
The dates will feature the debut live performances of songs from the group’s recent 10-track Born To Be mini album, which is their first release to feature solo songs from each member of the group. The eighth EP from the group comprised of Yeji, Ryujin, Chaeryeong and Yuna — fifth member rapper Lia is currently on hiatus from the group dealing with health issues — includes the title track, as well as “Untouchable,” “Mr. Vampire” and “Dynamite.”
Tickets for the Asian dates can be found on the local promoter’s websites, with the Mexican date presales beginning on Feb. 5, followed by a general onsale beginning Feb. 6 at 11 a.m. local time here. The Santiago date presale begins on Jan. 29, followed by the general onsale on Jan. 31 at 12 p.m. local time here. European and U.K. date presales will begin on Feb. 1, with the general onsale beginning at 10 a.m. local time on local Live Nation site on Feb. 2 and the North American ticket general onsale beginning Feb. 2 at 3 p.m. local time here.
Check out the ITZY BORN TO BE tour dates below.
Feb. 24 – Seoul, KOR @ Jamsil Indoor Stadium
Feb. 25 – Seoul, KOR @ Jamsil Indoor Stadium
March 16 – Bangkok, Thailand @ Impact Arena
March 21 – Auckland, NZ @ Spark Arena
March 24 – Sydney, AUS @ ICC Sydney Theatre
March 26 – Melbourne, AUS @ Margaret Court Arena
April 6 – Singapore @ Singapore Indoor Stadium
April 15 – Mexico City, MX @ Pepsi Center WTC
April 18 – Santiago, Chile @ Movistar Arena
April 24 – London, UK @ OVO Arena Wembley
April 26 – Paris, France @ Zénith Paris – La Villette
April 28 – Berlin, Germany @ Velodrom
May 1 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ AFAS Live
May 4 – Madrid, Spain @ Palacio Vistalegre
May 18 – Tokyo, Japan @ Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium
May 19 – Tokyo, Japan @ Yoyogi National Stadium First Gymnasium
June 6 – Seattle, WA @ WAMU Theater
June 8 – Oakland, CA @ Oakland Arena
June 11 – Los Angeles, CA @ Kia Forum
June 14 – Sugar Land, TX @ Smart Financial Centre at Sugar Land
June 16 – Irving, TX @ The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory
June 18 – Atlanta, GA @ Fox Theatre Atlanta
June 20 – Fairfax, VA @ EagleBank Arena
June 23 – Newark, NJ @ Prudential Center
June 26 – Chicago, IL @ Rosemont Theatre
June 28 – Toronto, ON @ The Theatre at Great Canadian Casino Resort
July 20 – Taipei, Taiwan @ Taipei Arena
August 3 – Manila, Philippines @ SM Mall of Asia Arena
August 10 – Hong Kong, China @ AsiaWorld-Arena
Justin Timberlake wanted only the best of the best for his newly announced album, Everything I Thought It Was. In a new interview with Zane Lowe for Apple Music 1, the 42-year-old pop star revealed he had to make some drastic cuts to his collection of songs recorded in the years since his last project in order to whittle them down to just 18 for his highly anticipated upcoming record, which finally arrives March 15.
“I worked for a long time on this album and I ended up with 100 songs,” he said. “So narrowing them down to 18 was a thing, and then, yeah, I’m really excited about this album. I think every artist probably says this, but it is my best work.”
“I think there are moments that are incredibly honest, but also, there’s a lot of f–king fun on this album,” added the former boy bander.
The new interview comes on the heels of Timberlake’s new single “Selfish,” released Thursday (Jan. 25), just days after the star debuted the track live at his concert in Memphis. Everything I Thought It Was will mark his first solo LP since 2018’s Man of the Woods, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
“I think that’s where I came up with the album title, with everything I thought it was,” the Trolls star told Lowe. “I was playing it for people around me. They’re like, ‘Oh, this sounds like everything we know you for.’ And then another friend of mine was like, ‘Oh, this sounds like everything I thought I wanted from you.’ It was like that sort of phrase, in one way or another, was in the air.”
“I thought to myself about how some of the songs are more introspective and some of them are more what I think people know me for,” he added.
Timberlake will help usher in his new era by serving as musical guest on this weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, which will be hosted by Dakota Johnson. The “SexyBack” singer teased that while he decided against helming the show, he might just appear at other points throughout the show.
“I flirted with the idea of, should I host or ask to host? And then I just thought, ‘No, this album is really special to me in a different, different way,’” he said. “I also cannot imagine that I won’t get pulled into a sketch or two. It’s only natural — and I’m here for it. That’s always fun, SNL, for me, in any capacity. I’ve hosted five, but I don’t even know how many times I’ve been on the show.”
As two of the music industry’s most in-demand studio engineers, Serban Ghenea and his son Alex Ghenea are accustomed to being grilled about their signature techniques, as if making a hit record is about following some mysterious magic recipe.
The truth, says Serban, 54, is both simpler and a bit more complicated than that. “It always comes down to what the artist is looking for, or the producer, and how to get there. And that means a lot of different things for different artists.”
It’s reasonable enough to think the Gheneas have some secret sauce. With a credit list that spans the mightiest voices in pop past and present — including Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, Adele, Bruno Mars and Justin Timberlake — and a staggering 19 Grammy Awards, Serban is one of the most prolific engineers in the world.
Alex, 28, has been a rising star ever since he remixed Adam Lambert’s “Better Than I Know Myself” in 2012 at age 15; since then, he has amassed a résumé of blockbuster credits with the likes of Ariana Grande, Khalid, blackbear, P!nk, Katy Perry and Selena Gomez.
These days, the Gheneas — who take on projects independently, though they informally weigh in on each other’s work — both are based at MixStar Studios, a private facility in Virginia Beach, Va., operated by Serban and Grammy-winning engineer John Hanes. Recent MixStar projects include The Rolling Stones’ “Angry” (mixed by Serban) and Halsey and Suga’s “Lilith (Diablo IV Anthem)” (remixed by Alex).
At this year’s Grammys, the two have eight nominations between them — including competing nods (two for Serban, one for Alex) in the new best pop dance recording category. That’s already cause for celebration for the duo, who are characteristically humble when considering the possibility of both father and son taking home trophies. “We’ll figure that out if that happens,” Serban says. “I don’t want to jinx it.”
Alex, you grew up in the studio, watching your dad. Serban, what did you think when he started to express an interest in the work?
Serban Ghenea: From way back in the day, I would check my mixes in the car, listen to what I was working on the day before. It’s part of the process. He was in a car seat, and he’d be sitting there, listening, and asking, “What’s that sound?” And I’d be, “Oh, that’s a triangle.”
And he was interested in music. He played drums; he started playing early. By the time he was 16, I got him Logic and a Mac, just to learn to mess with it. I didn’t expect much, but next thing I know, I come in one day and he’s working on something that sounded familiar.
Alex Ghenea: A Demi Lovato song.
Serban: Yeah, “Skyscraper.” He found an a cappella [recording] online and built a whole new track around it, just with Logic. I was like, “Holy sh-t, what are you doing?” He said, “I’m just playing around.” I said, “Here, listen to these songs and see if you can figure out how they make them and try to re-create it.” And so, he did a remix. I never explained how to do that, and never expected it. We sent it over to Disney —
Alex: It led to an Adam Lambert remix.
Serban: That opened the door for him doing a ton of remixes.
Alex: I think I was about 15 years old.
Did your dad have to explain to you that this wasn’t the typical career trajectory?
Alex: When I was a kid, I remember specifically, he said, “Forget about music; you should go study business or go be a lawyer,” and I actually ended up going to business school and studying marketing and I married a lawyer. So, I kind of took his advice.
Serban: He was on a path of doing remixes, and he was collaborating with a bunch of different people. Then, when COVID-19 happened, he was living in Los Angeles, and he came back [to Virginia Beach] that March and then the lockdown happened. He never went back to L.A. A lot of people that he was working with were writers; he would do the demos and rough mixes. So, when he was here, he just started to do that work, and it turned into mixing. And then, next thing you know, he was doing… What was the first big one?
Alex: [Blackbear’s] “hot girl bummer” with Andrew Goldstein, whom I’d met many years prior, during a writing-producing phase when I was living out in L.A.
Serban, in what ways have you passed your craft on to Alex?
Serban: The technical part of it he kind of just absorbed, being around and seeing it being done. I’d let him pick apart sessions and look at how things were put together. And I mean, anyone can learn that. The hard part is the aesthetic and trying to figure out what you should do. What do you like? What do you think people like? What do you react to? You only get that through experience and through listening.
Alex: Some of that early advice he gave me was, “Listen to a lot of music. Listen to stuff you like, listen to stuff you don’t like, listen to new stuff, old stuff.” You have to have a very wide palette of things to reference when you’re working on all sorts of songs and genres.
How much do you work together in the studio?
Alex: We don’t specifically work together, but now we’re sometimes on the same albums. Like with Tove Lo [Dirt Femme], I did a good bit, and he did some. Troye Sivan [Something To Give Each Other], that was about half and half. So, we’re working on the same projects, but it’s more of, I’d say, a collaborative thing. If I’m working on something and I’m like, “I think I’m at a good stopping point,” or, “I don’t know where to go next,” it might be cool to go play it for my dad.
Serban: We have the same manager, but Alex has his own clients. I have my own clients.
Alex: The biggest collaboration is probably figuring out what we’re eating for lunch at the studio.
Serban and Alex Ghenea have extensive mixing resumes — including shared clients like Ariana Grande, P!nk and Halsey.
blackbear: Gilbert Flores for Variety. Bruno Mars: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images. Cardi B: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images. Cyrus: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images. Francis: Sela Shiloni. Grande: Trae Patton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images. Halsey: Samir Hussein/WireImage. Jepsen: Jasmine Safaeian. P!nk: Weiss Eubanks/NBCUniversal/Getty Images. Rapp: Santiago Felipe/Getty Images. Swift: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images. Surfaces: Stefan Kohli. Swims: Steve Granitz/FilmMagic. The Weeknd: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.
How do you balance serving someone’s vision with stretching yourselves creatively?
Serban: It’s so different now than it was when I first started mixing on a console. People are very attached by the time it’s approved and ready for us to mix; the direction of the record is kind of set. You can’t go crazy and take it off the rails, so you need to figure out, like Alex said, what needs to be improved. What do you not want to mess with, because you don’t want to break it?
Every song’s got its own signature thing that makes it unique and attractive. Sometimes it’s a little riff; sometimes it’s the way the whole beat feels. Or there’s a melodic thing in there, or the sound of the vocal, or sometimes it’s all of the above. But, at the end of the day, you’re just trying to facilitate and help get it across the line depending on what [the artist is] looking to do.
Serban, you have seven Grammy nominations this year, and Alex, you’re nominated for the first time. What does that mean to you?
Serban: Back in the day, I was a guitar player. My perspective was always, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do something as a musician and get a Grammy?” I never thought I’d be doing what I’m doing now. It’s the highest level of recognition. It never gets old. It’s hard to describe, but it’s definitely an exciting and appreciative feeling, because so many amazing musicians don’t get the opportunity.
Alex: I remember at age 16 or 17, being able to go with my dad and see the whole thing and watch him win a few. Being around all the musicians and producers and seeing what that world is like, I remember always wanting to be a part of it, thinking, “Man, I hope one day I get to be up on the stage, or at least have a shot at being nominated.” To actually see that come to fruition is pretty humbling.
You’re up against each other for best pop dance recording — Serban for Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s “One in a Million” and David Guetta, Anne-Marie and Coi Leray’s “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” and Alex for Troye Sivan’s “Rush.” How does that feel?
Serban: Well, I hope he wins.
Alex: Just to be up there with [nominees] Calvin Harris and Kylie Minogue and all that, that’s already a win.
Serban: Yeah, the Grammy itself is not the end goal. It’s a nice recognition and pat on the back and makes you realize that maybe what you’re doing may be on the right path, but it’s not the end-all.
Alex: It’s confirmation that what you’re doing is in the right direction.
This story will appear in the Jan. 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.
On the Friday before his Saturday Night Live debut, Noah Kahan is still nursing the wounds from an L he took at 30 Rock earlier in the week.
Kahan, the show’s next musical guest, was filming SNL’s obligatory midweek ads alongside cast member Sarah Sherman and host Emma Stone. “I always thought that I could be, like, a funny actor,” says the rising singer-songwriter — who is, indeed, pretty funny on social media. “Did not go down like that.” While Sherman and Stone easily bantered, the usually witty and loquacious Kahan stood stone-still, giving wooden readings of his couple of short lines.
“I was definitely super-nervous and just kind of like, ‘Oh, my God,’ ” recalls Kahan, 27, still in slight disbelief at his own frozenness. “I feel like I’m usually able to navigate through [moments like that] and make it look OK. But that one, I was like, ‘Man, I just got dominated by Emma Stone and Sarah Sherman.’ ”
It’s a minor loss worth noting — simply because Kahan has had so few over the last year-and-a-half. After an occasionally frustrating first seven years on a major label — he signed to Mercury Records/Republic Records in 2015, recording two albums in more of a folk–pop, James Bay-esque mold — Kahan finally struck pay dirt with 2022’s Stick Season, following both a sonic pivot to alt-folk and a thematic shift to more personal, geographically specific writing based on his experiences growing up in northern New England. The rousing title track went viral on TikTok that summer, and the album debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 in October, Kahan’s first time making the chart.
But 2022 was just the warmup for the cold-weather singer-songwriter, whose sepia-toned ballads and stinging-throat stompers — as well as his breakout hit, named for the time of year in the Northeast when the trees go barren — have made him something of an unofficial ambassador for late autumn. Kahan’s crossover became undeniable in June with the release of his Stick Season deluxe edition, subtitled We’ll All Be Here Forever.
The reissue shot the album to No. 3 on the Billboard 200, largely on the strength of seven new tracks — one of which, the barnstorming, back-of-a-cop-car lament “Dial Drunk,” became his first Billboard Hot 100 hit, after an extensive tease on TikTok. That song went top 40 following the release of its remix featuring fellow Mercury/Republic star Post Malone — which also kick-started a run of new Stick Season remixes, with guests like Kacey Musgraves, Hozier and Gracie Abrams, who boosted their respective tracks onto the Hot 100 for the first time.
Noah Kahan photographed on December 1, 2023 in New York.
Wesley Mann
As Kahan talks to Billboard in December, he’s also ending 2023 with a number of notable firsts: his first Grammy Award nomination (for best new artist at the Feb. 4 ceremony), the announcement of his first major festival headlining gig (Atlanta’s Shaky Knees this May) and, of course, that SNL debut — which he had originally manifested in a 2021 tweet (“I wanna perform on SNL I don’t even care if it’s a off-brand version called Sunday Night Live”).
And in the end — even if his underwhelming teaser performance didn’t lead to any acting opportunities on his episode — his ripping performances of “Dial Drunk” and “Stick Season” still made for an overall win. Now, with winter on the horizon as we speak, the self-aware Kahan jokingly wonders if his appropriately dominant late-year run may be coming to its seasonal close.
“My time is ending, and we’re going into Bon Iver era now,” he says with a laugh. “He gets the baton.”
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Much like the trees’ gradual-then-sudden shedding of their autumn leaves, Stick Season’s takeover may seem — to anyone who wasn’t paying attention — like it came out of nowhere.
But Kahan had been growing his audience steadily, albeit slowly, for nearly a decade. It helped that he had the continued faith of Mercury/Republic, which longtime co-manager Drew Simmons says believed in Kahan’s talent from the first moment he auditioned for the label.
“He just played a couple of songs acoustic for them in their lounge space — and I remember [Republic founder and CEO] Monte Lipman popped in for a minute and was basically like, ‘Sign this kid tomorrow,’ ” Simmons recalls. “He said to Noah, ‘You have no idea how good you are.’ ”
Kahan’s first two albums, 2019’s Busyhead and 2021’s I Was / I Am, showed his talent and promise — particularly his ability to build worlds within a song and his ease with writing and performing shout-along choruses — but their brand of folk-pop aimed perhaps a little too squarely for a top 40 crossover bull’s-eye and suffered for their studiousness. But though both sets’ commercial performance was underwhelming, they allowed Kahan to develop his chops as a road warrior, gigging constantly around the country at midsize venues and developing a devoted following. “Noah’s story is one of proper artist development,” Simmons says. “He’s eight, nine years into his career, but those were really important years for his personal growth, his songwriting growth, his ability to own a live stage.”
Noah Kahan photographed on December 1, 2023 in New York.
Wesley Mann
But it was Kahan’s Cape Elizabeth EP, released between his first two albums in 2020 at the early height of the COVID-19 pandemic, that offered a blueprint for his later Stick Season success. He pulled back on the busy top 40 production and penned four of the EP’s five intimate tracks without co-writes — and while Cape Elizabeth made minimal mainstream impact, fans’ immediate connection to it showed that Kahan was on to something.
“The path he is on now started during the pandemic while he was home in Vermont and we were all trying to figure out what to do,” says Ben Adelson, executive vp/GM at Mercury. “He had written a lot of great folk songs that he wanted to self-record at home and that became Cape Elizabeth. We fully supported it, and that really helped set the stage for what has come.”
It also helped that around the same time, the mainstream winds were starting to blow back in Kahan’s direction. TikTok’s rise to prominence had provided the world a new, effective communal space for sharing music. And as the global pandemic forced everyone indoors (and inward), Kahan’s brand of introspective, reflective songwriting suddenly found an audience in listeners yearning for simpler times.
That shift could be seen in the slow-building success of organic-sounding, Americana-leaning country singer-songwriters like Tyler Childers and Zach Bryan, both of whom grew star-level followings in the last few years. And of course, no one forecast (or accelerated) the changing tides more than Taylor Swift, whose pair of rootsy 2020 surprise releases (folklore and evermore) put up equivalent numbers to her more pop-oriented releases and effectively raised the commercial ceiling for main-character alt-folk, a more Gen Z-friendly revival of the folk-pop boom of the early 2010s.
“The biggest artist in the world is writing very grounded folk music that tells stories,” recalls Kahan of Swift’s pivot. “And it allowed a huge new audience to find interest in that and to tap into that world. You know, some of these kids might not have been listening to music when Mumford & Sons, when Lumineers [were first around]. Taylor doing that brought that new generation to folk and folk-pop. And I definitely think that helped bring visibility, and some sort of significance, to what I was doing.”
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Nearly a decade since the commercial heyday of those strum-and-stomp hit-makers, they remained core influences on Kahan — “I never stopped f–king listening to Mumford & Sons,” he says — so when he decided to head in a new creative direction, alt-folk was a natural home for him. But while most of those groups tended to go lyrically broad with their arena-aimed anthems, Kahan narrowed his writing focus to his own experiences: growing up in Strafford, Vt., and Hanover, N.H., and the struggles with anxiety and depression he’s still navigating today.
“I like to think that storytelling is something that can always bring success, if you tell it in the right way and if you tell it with the right intention,” he says. “And so my intention behind this project actually was really pure — just to talk about New England and to talk about my childhood and my family. I wanted to examine those things, and I wanted to think about my hometown and think about my parents and think about my journey with mental illness — and I have a hard time doing that without writing songs.”
Unlike the previous generation of alt-folkies, Kahan is also, well, funny. His brand of humor is unmistakably influenced by his Jewish heritage on his father’s side — he refers to himself as “Jewish Capaldi” at live shows and says “sometimes I just feel like Larry David walking around” — and makes for a marked contrast from his avowedly straight-faced, chest-pounding antecedents, many of whom sang implicitly or explicitly about Christian themes.
“Growing up half Jewish and having this face on me… it has kind of been a big part of my identity,” he says, laughing. “I’m not going into a song, ‘Let’s get this one extra Jew-y.’ But I think it plays into the cultural aspect of [my music] — into the humor. And down to my diet. Like, I got the acid reflux stomach, just like my dad.”
Noah Kahan photographed on December 1, 2023 in New York.
Wesley Mann
Religion aside, Kahan’s mannerisms — the mile-a-minute speaking, the gently anxious energy, the self-deprecating and filter-free humor — should be familiar to anyone burdened with both an overachiever’s self-confidence and a late-bloomer’s insecurity. Ultimately, the biggest factor in Kahan’s leap to stardom might be the generation of terminally online, oversharing introverts that recognizes itself in his personality (both onstage and on social media) as well as in his lyrics. And that manifests at his shows, which are increasing in size — beyond festival headlining, Kahan will embark on his first amphitheater and arena tour this summer — without losing their immediacy and intensity, as crowds in the thousands now shout Kahan’s incredibly personal words back at him.
“No one else can tell my own story,” Kahan says. “And if people want to hear your story, then you’re in a really awesome position, because you hold the key to your own memories and people are interested in what those memories mean to you — and find connections to their own memories, to their own lives.”
While Kahan may have joked in December about passing the folk torch to Justin Vernon — the genre’s esteemed dead-of-winter representative — Stick Season actually has no end in sight. Kahan’s touring in support of the album will take him through Europe and Canada the next few months, before bringing him back to the United States this summer. Meanwhile, the remixes continue to roll out, most recently one with Sam Fender — maybe the closest thing to Kahan’s northeast England equivalent — on late-album highlight “Homesick.”
Most remarkably, the title track that kicked off this Kahan era a year-and-a-half ago is still growing on the Hot 100, recently hitting the top 20 for the first time, while the album it shares its name with snuck back into the Billboard 200’s top 10. Kahan also just announced a new Stick Season (Forever) reissue, due Feb. 9, which will include the entirety of his latest deluxe set, plus all of his previously released recent collaborations, two fresh ones and a new song, “Forever.” “We’ll All Be Here Forever” is starting to sound less like a lament and more like a premonition.
At a time when most albums struggle to maintain listener attention for a full month, let alone a year or longer, the extended impact of Stick Season is stunning — and Kahan and his team have savvily maximized its longevity, resulting in one of the biggest glow-ups a new artist has experienced this decade. He now counts superstars like Bryan and Olivia Rodrigo as both friends and peers; the latter covered “Stick Season” for BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge and even sent him flowers after his best new artist Grammy nod, an award she herself won two years earlier. (“It was so incredibly sweet… she’s just a star, and she’s so nice,” Kahan says.)
It’s reasonable to wonder, at this point, if there’s a Stick Season saturation point — both for fans and for Kahan himself. He played over 100 gigs in 2023, and at press time, already had almost 80 on the books through September, with more likely on the way. With the number of opportunities available to him increasing along with his popularity, it’s a potentially perilous time for an artist who has been open about his mental health struggles — particularly while on the road — and who has waited for his moment as long as Kahan has.
“I have a real scarcity mindset,” he says. “Who knows when this will come again? So you have to take advantage of every opportunity. I think that mindset makes sense in a lot of ways, but in some ways it hurts you. Sometimes I overextend and feel like I’m overpromising and not able to deliver when the moment actually comes.”
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To that end, Kahan and his team have focused on how to balance his drive and his overall well-being. “We are saying no to a lot more than we ever have in the past,” Simmons says. “But I think he wants to make the most of this. He wants to be around for a long time, and he wants to put the work in, and he’s not afraid of that. So he’s kind of applying the mentality he had from the first seven or eight years of his career… it’s a grind, and it’s a lot of travel, a lot of work. But he is up for it.”
When Kahan does finally leave Stick Season behind, he’ll do so with the kind of established rabid fan base and artistic freedom to make him the envy of nearly every current performer not named Taylor Swift or Beyoncé, and plenty of room still to grow. Still, Kahan is ambivalent about how much bigger he even wants to get. He cops to being “super-competitive” both creatively and commercially, but also recognizes that “the level of microscopic attention that that next level seems to bring” might not necessarily be the best thing for him.
“Some days I’m like, “Man… I want to play f–king Gillette [Stadium] next!’ And then sometimes I’m like, “Whew, let’s just go back and play [New York’s] Bowery Ballroom and, like, chill out and play a bunch of acoustic songs,” he says. “I have to fight back against the next ‘more more more’ thing sometimes. Because it never really brings you whatever you think you’re going to get from it. It never brings you the total satisfaction and, like, self-peace that you think it would.”
Ultimately, though, he’s satisfied with his hard-earned level of current success and somewhat Zen about what may follow — even accidentally echoing the subtitle of the latest Stick Season edition while explaining his mindset.
“I think it’s about being optimistic about the future, but also being realistic about what you’re going to feel when you get there. And realizing that if you feel good here — and we’re here forever — then we’d be OK.”
This story will appear in the Jan. 27, 2024, issue of Billboard.