Pop

Ariana Grande‘s “Focus” music video has now captured people’s undivided attention more than a billion times.

The 2015 visual has joined YouTube’s billion views club, as confirmed by the platform. It marks her eighth time reaching the milestone, following “Into You,” “No Tears Left to Cry,” “Break Free,” “Side to Side” with Nicki Minaj and more.

In the video, a platinum-haired Grande models several crop top/miniskirt combos, and nails high-energy choreography with a group of backup dancers, at one point pretending to play a silver trumpet. In some scenes, she appears alone in a spinning, circular tube, the lighting showing only the shape of her silhouette.

“Let’s find a light inside our universe now/ Where ain’t nobody keep on holding us down,” she sings on the track. “Just come and get it let them say what they say/ ‘Cause I’m about to put them all away.”

Released in 2015, “Focus” was originally believed to be the lead single off Grande’s third studio album Dangerous Woman, although Republic Records later confirmed it had been cut from the tracklist. It peaked at its debut spot of No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The news comes as Grande’s most recent music video, “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” from her new album Eternal Sunshine, rules at the top of YouTube’s U.S. Trending Music Videos chart. The emotional video stars Evan Peters and finds the Grammy winner recreating the premise of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet’s 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind — also a huge inspiration for the singer’s new LP — getting brain surgery to erase her every memory of a lost love.

Revisit Grande’s “Focus” music video above.

Olivia Rodrigo is walking the walk. At her concert in St. Louis Tuesday night (March 12), the 21-year-old pop star welcomed the Missouri Abortion Fund to Enterprise Center to hand out free emergency contraceptive pills to fans who wanted it – just the latest step she’s taken to back up her support for reproductive rights. 

One fan thanked the star on X and shared a photo of two packets of the Julie morning-after pills as well as information on how to find abortion care she received at the show. “It’s brutal out here in Missouri, but we are here for abortion access,” tweeted the state’s official fund shortly afterward, reposting the picture. 

Another fan wrote, “To have the new generation of mainstream pop girls be this brave and this willing to be 100% clear about an issue that is SO polarizing … I have tears in my eyes it’s awesome to see.” 

“at the [Charlotte] concert they told us she was donating to abortion funds at every stop of her tour and they gave out tons of free condoms/plan b/etc,” someone replied. “it made me so incredibly happy especially for somewhere it’s so rare to see !!” 

Billboard has reached out to Rodrigo and Julie for comment. 

The pop star has been vocal about her support for women’s healthcare for almost as long as she’s been performing, blasting the Supreme Court at her Glastonbury set on June 22 for overturning Roe v. Wade before dedicating “F–k You” to the justices with Lily Allen. In February, she kicked off the launch of her Fund 4 Good, which will funnel a portion of her Guts Tour proceeds toward reproductive rights organizations such as the National Network of Abortion Funds in North America. 

“The fund will directly support community-based nonprofits that champion things like girls’ education, support reproductive rights and prevent gender-based violence,” she said in a video on Instagram Stories at the time. “Thank you so much for supporting this cause that I care so deeply about.” 

See tweets about Rodrigo’s latest reproductive rights initiative below. 

After channeling her inner rage and nu-metal bona fides on the 2022 album , Willow is going in the opposite direction on her just-released meditative new single, “Symptom of Life.”

In an Instagram post announcing the song’s release on Tuesday (March 12), the 23-year-old daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith described the video for the song as something “for all the beautiful people who have ever gone into nature with their friends & been guided to a deeper understanding of life together by plant medicine ?? I hope this song and visual can bring catharsis to anyone who experiences them.”

The nature-forward visual — which Smith directed — begins with Smith and two friends strolling in a forest, where the singer finds, and discards, a snail shell before laying on her back in the leaves to begin her Tori Amos-like musings about the mysteries of the universe. “Pushing and peeling myself out of my disguise/ Looking at you now I am wondering who am I/ If I could try to take you back/ I couldn’t define feeling/ Absence of time/ Knowing all is decided there’s nothing here left to find/ The story’s all in my mind/ Pushing and peeling the layers that cover my mind/ Looking into the shadow now I notice the light/ Magic is real when you see it inside,” Willow sings over a loungey backing track that trades the guitar-heavy sound of her previous effort for piano and jazzy drums.

By video’s end, Willow is smiling while laying on a patch of grass surrounded by a forest of colorful flowers. Earlier in the week she posted the lyrics, explaining to fans that she wanted to give them time to “deeply digest the words before diving into the whole composition.” At press time Willow had not revealed if “Symptom” is a one-off like her equally introspective, jazz-influenced November single “Alone,” or if the songs are destined for what would be her sixth full-length solo studio album.

Watch the “Symptom of Life” video below.

Former Little Mix singer Perrie Edwards is gearing up to release her debut solo LP. The singer announced the title of her first solo single, “Forget About Us,” on Tuesday (March 12). “‘Here’s the truth of it…’ Wow [crying eyes emoji] it’s happening! My first solo single ‘Forget About Us’ is coming,” the singer wrote.

While Edwards had not revealed any additional information about the LP at press time, Official Charts reported that she recently hosted a series of private listening parties for fans and industry pros in London where the singer previewed six new songs while telling the stories behind each. Though the song titles are being kept secret, the album’s first single was reportedly co-written by Ed Sheeran and was described as sounding like a “road trip with your besties, windows down, belting the chorus at the top of your voice” kind of track with a “Kelly Clarkson-meets-Katy Perry” vibe; Sheeran also reportedly co-wrote a second song on the album.

The album also reportedly features a collaboration with RAYE, who took home the album of the year award at the March 2nd BRIT Awards for her debut album, My 21st Century Blues. At press time a spokesperson for Edwards’ label had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on the details of the album, whose release date has not yet been announced.

Edwards burst onto the music scene in 2011 when she, Leigh-Anne Pinnock, Jade Thirlwall and Jesy Nelson were put together on the British X Factor. The group released six albums before Nelson left the group in 2020 after the release of their final album, Confetti, with the remaining members going on hiatus in Dec. 2021; their final show, an April 2022 gig at the O2 Arena in London, was livestreamed.

Check out Edwards’ single announcement below.