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Oliver Tree is fresh off the release of his third studio album, Alone in a Crowd, and he sat down with Billboard’s Rania Aniftos to discuss how he created a unique presence in the music industry. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news “This is really a collection […]
Wicked — the wildly successful Broadway musical about the story of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) and Glinda (Glinda the Good Witch) — celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, and rising pop stars Reneé Rapp and Lizzy McAlpine are getting in on the festivities.
At the first New York stop of her Snow Hard Feelings Tour, Rapp invited McAlpine onstage to perform an emotional rendition of “For Good,” one of the standout duets on the Wicked soundtrack.
Fan-captured footage via TikTok finds the two singers enrapturing the audience as they assume the roles of Glinda and Elphaba atop a neon-green-lit stage. Rapp choosing to perform “For Good” for the first of her four New York tour stops is unsurprising considering her Broadway roots. In 2019, The Sex Lives of College Girls star enjoyed a brief run as Regina George in the Tony-nominated Mean Girls musical. She is set to reprise her role in the forthcoming film adaptation of the musical, which is set to hit theaters Jan. 12, 2024.
The first part of the two-film adaptation of Wicked, meanwhile, is slated to hit theaters on Nov. 27, 2024. The film’s star-studded cast includes Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang and more.
Rapp’s musical theater background echoes across her music, including Snow Angel, her debut studio LP. The record, which helped Rapp land a pair of MTV Video Music Award nominations this year, debuted at No. 44 on the Billboard 200 with 18,000 units shifted — the biggest first-week total for a debut album by a female artist in 2023. On Tuesday (Oct. 31), Rapp will head to Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre for a special Halloween show where fans are encouraged to attend in costume.
As for McAlpine, the “For Good” duet comes on the heels of an exciting year for the fast-rising folk-pop singer. This year, McAlpine enjoyed the rise of “Ceilings,” which became her very first Billboard Hot 100 hit (No. 54), as well as collaborations with Noah Kahan (“Call Your Mom”) and Niall Horan (“You Could Start a Cult”).
Watch Rapp and McAlpine deliver a gorgeous “For Good” performance below:
From The Eras Tour to a gratitude tour: Taylor Swift just dropped her latest re-recorded album, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), and in all her social media activity since Friday’s release, she’s been thanking everyone who made her wildest dreams come true. She started out by thanking Kendrick Lamar for re-recording his “Bad Blood” remix verse, and […]
Two things are for sure this Halloween: every other kid (or kidult) in your neighborhood is going to be rocking some sort of Barbie-inspired costume… and the rest of them will probably wear some variation of a look from Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour.
Google Trends searches show that interest in Taylor Swift Halloween costumes went from near-zero in March — right around the launch of the first U.S. Eras Tour swing — to needle-in-the-red peak popularity beginning Sept. 20 before dropping down and then peaking again on Oct. 15 and Oct. 20, with interest remaining strong at press time. For comparison, Swift Halloween costume searches went from near-zero on Oct. 13, 2022 to a similar high-point on Oct. 25 of that year; the chart showed a similar trajectory in 2021.
A specific search for Eras Tour Halloween costumes shows a more up-and-down history, with interest spiking in late August and then shooting up again in mid-October before a steep decline as we slide into All Hallows’ Eve, with California and Texas representing the states with the highest searches.
Those Taylor-ing their looks might team-up with their partner for a couple’s costume nodding to the singer’s reported romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Searches for KelSwift couple costumes first began to trend up on Sept. 25, one day after Swift attended her first Chiefs game, then reached a 100-level search rating in the days after Taylor and a group of fellow A-listers attended the Oct. 1 KC win over the New York Jets. Searches peaked again on Oct. 15, days after KC’s 19-8 home win over the Denver Broncos. Utah and Nebraska lead the charge of spots with the most-searched couple costumes, followed by Arkansas, Kanas, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Illinois, Oklahoma, Alabama and Louisiana.
In addition, TikTok is filled with very cute videos of kids (and grown-ups) shipping the reported couple in homemade costumes chronicling their PDA and date nights.
Because there are no official Taylor (or Traylor) costumes on the market, Swifties have filled the gap with their home brews. That included Today show co-host Savannah Guthrie, who anchored the show on Tuesday (Oct. 31) dressed in a long blonde wig and sparkly blue and pink leotard, joined by her adorable nine-year-old daughter in a gold skirt and cowboy boots as they performed Swift’s “Cruel Summer.”
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos went as far as calling Tuesday’s episode of Live with Kelly and Mark “Live’s Halloween The Eras Show.” The episode had the couple dressing up as Sonny & Cher, as well as putting on their Traylor drag and opening the show with Ripa promising to run through a series of Eras looks.
If you’re still scrambling for your look and trust Prime to get you what you need, Amazon has dozens of listings for Taylor Eras-inspired costumes, from a pink 1989 two-piece sweatsuit to a gold and blue cheerleader costume, a bejeweled rhinestone bodysuit, sequined bomber jackets, an “Anti-Hero” bodysuit, a variety of glittery oversized suit jackets and Fearless jumpsuit sets.
The National Retail Federation said the historic amount of spending Americans will do this year on costumes, candy and decorations is expected to reach a record $12.2 billion. Swift costumes, however, are not on the top 10 list, which for children is topped by Spider-Man, princess, ghost, superhero and witch. The adult list is similar, with witch, vampire and Barbie taking the top spots, followed by Batman, cat and zombie.
Taylor may not have made the NRF list, but even the august New York Times predicted last week that while Barbie outfits are sure to be everywhere, Swift-Kelce costumes are poised to steal the plastic couple’s thunder in what the paper deemed an “October surprise”; it’s worth noting that SAG-AFTRA discouraged its striking members from dressing up as characters from major movie studio productions in solidarity with the ongoing actors’ strike.
The Times spoke to a number of small, Etsy-style retailers, who said that requests for the hottest pop-pigskin costumes were “surging” in the lead-up to Tuesday. “I’m up until 3 or 4 in the morning every night, customizing bodysuits,” said Etsy creator Angela George, who sold more than 300 pieces inspired by Swift in October alone.
With traditional Halloween retailers such as Halloween Express and Spirit Halloween offering no official (or even generic knock-off) Swift-related merch, Amazon — which declined to comment for this story — lists dozens of Swift-adjacent items when search terms include the singer’s name and Halloween. Among the products that come up are a number of looks parroting Swift’s stage costumes from the Eras Tour, including a flowing blue cape with hood, a shoulder-length wig with blonde bangs, “Tay Tay Cheerleader” outfits, top hats, heart-shaped sunglasses, sequined black shorts and a number of shiny dresses with flapper-like fringe.
As a bonus, many Swifties still have their Eras Tour costumes/outfits in their closets, so some might not have to look very far for inspiration, with the Times noting that throwing on a red Chiefs-style jersey and a fake mustache is pretty light lifting for couples who insist on dressing up together for parties. Another Etsy creator told the Times that she started selling a red “Taylor’s Boyfriend” jersey in September and it quickly became her best seller.
Swift is the leading finalist with nods in 20 categories at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards. You can watch the BBMAs here, and via Billboard and the BBMA’s social media channels on Nov. 19.
Despite picking up the inaugural MTV Video Music Award for best afrobeats (“Calm Down,” with Rema) and scoring her 13th top 10 hit on Pop Airplay with “Single Soon,” Selena Gomez says she’s taking a step back from social media. In a message shared to her Instagram Story on Monday evening (Oct. 30), the “Love […]
Zayn Malik had already been dreaming of making a splash in the non-alcoholic beverage industry before Kristina Roth came into the mix. All he needed was the right partner, and Roth — who last year founded Mixoloshe, a brand dedicated to mimicking adult drinks minus the hangover — fit that bill.
Now, the ex-boy-bander is the new co-owner and chief creative officer of the company. He and Roth announced the joint venture last week, at the same time unveiling Malik’s first-ever original flavor of “boozy without the booze” mock-seltzer: Lychee Martini, a fruity but floral pain-free potion described as having enough sparkle to “make a unicorn jump with joy.” Boasting 45 calories, the drink’s sleek black can is printed with designs based on the “Pillowtalk” singer’s full-body blend of bad boy tattoos.
Coming into fruition just as Malik polishes up his next batch of new music, the partnership was first teased in the music video for his July single “Love Like This” with a brief shot of one of Mixoloshe’s brightly-colored spritzers.
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“These drinks offer an array of benefits, from a healthier lifestyle to being more inclusive for various occasions,” the star tells Billboard. “I want to ensure that everyone feels comfortable and empowered to choose them without judgment.”
Below, Malik teases his upcoming new music, shares his goals for “disrupting” the non-alcoholic beverage industry and the beginnings of his partnership with Mixoloshe:
We’re told you’re busy this week in the studio. Can you give us an update on any new music?
I’m putting the finishing touches on it right now, I’m ready for this to be shared with the world. Excited and ready.
Take us through the timeline of your partnership with MIXOLOSHE. Their website says you started as a fan of their products — did you then reach out to the company with the idea of working together?
My journey into the non-alcoholic beverage industry began about six months ago when I was introduced to Kristina. I’d been interested in this industry for years, primarily due to its potential for innovation and creativity. At the same time, Kristina was actively seeking a creative partner to bring fresh ideas into her venture. In June, we officially joined forces, and we wasted no time getting down to work.
Did MIXOLOSHE’s female leadership in particular motivate you to join the company?
After hearing about Kristina, and meeting her, I was really excited about her passion and drive for the brand. Her business skills spoke for themselves, but the product still had to speak to me in different ways, and it did. Mixoloshe, its goals, its products, its positioning in the marketplace, all of it was aligned with what I wanted to jump into.
As a man, what do you hope to add to a business led and founded by women?
I think it’s just about bringing my very best to the company in every way I can, and that’s what I’m going to strive to do. We lift each other up and that’s what I love about the partnership. Sharing and embracing each other’s skills and talents. Collaboration is key, our joint aim is to deliver the very best for our Mixoloshe customer. If people are going to spend their hard earned money on our drinks I want them to be the very best in the game.
As a musician, what perspective do you hope to bring to MIXOLOSHE that the company may not have considered before your partnership?
I believe there’s a strong parallel between making music and making cocktails, and that’s the importance of striking the right balance to create harmony. The art of creating the perfect music and achieving the perfect sensory harmony are intertwined, in my opinion, as both require a careful balance and a keen sense of creativity. When you’re composing music, every note and instrument must come together in just the right way. Similarly, in the world of cocktails, it’s essential to blend different elements and flavors to create a perfect taste experience.
Zayn Malik
Dennis Leupold for MIXOLOSHE
You’ve said that the non-alcoholic beverage market is “ready for disruption.” What do you mean by “disruption,” and how do you plan to bring it?
Disruption in the non-alcoholic space is driven by innovation. Creating unique flavors that can rival their alcoholic counterparts is a game-changer. Consumers are increasingly seeking exciting taste experiences in the non-alcoholic realm.
Secondly, the quality of ingredients used in these beverages is paramount. Using premium, natural, and sustainable ingredients not only elevates the product but also meets the growing demand for healthier, conscious choices. Finally, affordability plays a crucial role in ensuring broad accessibility for our brand. Innovation in the non-alcoholic category should not only be limited to high-end products but should include options that are affordable for a wide range of customers.
Why non-alcoholic drinks? Why are sober alternatives to alcohol personally important to you and your life?
I have such a busy work schedule so I have to be switched on. I’m always trying new sodas/flavored waters, all types of drinks that are refreshing and still fun. The chance to create my own with tastes I think are missing in the current market in the way we’re delivering them with our brand is really special.
I’ve also really loved the idea that this category brings people together, no matter their drink choice. I’m all about that, and it feels good to be providing a high end product at an accessible price, which was really important for me.
What do you want your fans to understand about this new venture?
My commitment to eliminating the stigma around non-alcoholic beverages. Non-alcoholic options should not be reserved solely for those who don’t drink, and the idea that non-alcoholic beverages are exclusively for “sober” individuals is a stereotype that I’m determined to challenge. My commitment lies in both innovation and social change, creating an environment where enjoying a non-alcoholic beverage is a choice, not a label, and where these drinks become a vibrant and celebrated part of the beverage landscape.
Do you see this as a stepping stone to becoming someone like Rihanna, Jay-Z, or Justin Timberlake, all of whom are moguls that started out as musicians?
All of them have had great success, and it’s been incredible to see. I’m on my own journey though, I don’t like to look left and right. I’m on my own path from Bradford to wherever it takes me next!
Looks like Dua Lipa is signing up for a new era. Are you coming with her?
After deleting all prior posts on Instagram, the 28-year-old pop star shared a cryptic teaser video Monday (Oct. 31) full of possible clues regarding long-awaited new music. Her hair dyed bright red, Dua closes her mouth on a gold necklace with a key-shaped pendant and shows a split-second flash of a stack of Polaroids, after which a series of seemingly random numbers flash onscreen: 4, 8, 9, 9, 14, 15 and 21.
The clip is set to what sounds like a snippet of upcoming music; following a descending line of piano notes, Dua sings the words “Tell me all the ways you need me” before a funky bass line kicks in.
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“🔑✨sign up dualipa.com,” the Argylle actress wrote in her caption.
On the star’s website, fans are prompted to “Sign Up” for “happiness, passion, love, joy, optimism, energy” and “fun.” After plugging in your phone number, expect a message welcoming you to “Dua’s text community.”
The teaser comes more than three years after Dua’s last album Future Nostalgia, her massively successful sophomore effort which spawned the single “Levitating.” Though the singer has remained busy with acting projects, her Barbie soundtrack contribution “Dance The Night” and various musical collaborations — most notably “Cold Heart” with Elton John and “Sweetest Pie” with Megan Thee Stallion — fans have been antsy for a new album for months.
Many have already started decoding the elusive numbers tacked onto Dua’s teaser, with some concluding that the digits are code for the name “Houdini.” The famed magician notably passed away on Halloween, the same day Dua’s teaser went live. The key in Lipa’s mouth may also be a Harry Houdini reference. During the magician’s public stunts, his wife, Bess, would often pass him the key to his handcuffs via a kiss. The cover of Kate Bush’s 1982 album The Dreaming – which shows the art rocker kissing a chained man with a key in her mouth – is a reference to Houdini.
See Dua’s new teaser video below:
In her new music video, Sabrina Carpenter cheerfully facilitates the deaths of several obnoxious men. But don’t worry, it weighs heavily on her mind after the fact — as heavy as a feather, that is.
Posted on Halloween, Carpenter’s “Feather” music video is fittingly bloody. As the 24-year-old singer nonchalantly listens to music in her headphones, lifts weights and rides an elevator, men who catcall, mansplain and take inappropriate photos are met with instant karma. The cat-callers are run over by a truck; the fitness know-it-alls fight each other to death; and the predatory photographer gets his blood squeezed out of him in an elevator shaft — thanks to Carpenter, who jams his tie in the doors as they close without a second thought.
“I feel so much lighter like a feather with you off my mind,” she sings as she gleefully frolics around a church, presumably at the men’s collective funeral.
“Feather” is the latest song off Carpenter’s July 2022 album Emails I Can’t Send to get the music video treatment, following “Nonsense,” “Because I Liked a Boy,” “Fast Times” and “Skinny Dipping.” Upon its release, the album debuted at No. 23 on the Billboard 200, marking the rising pop star’s highest peak on the chart to date.
Much like “Nonsense,” which became Carpenter’s second ever entry on the Billboard Hot 100 in January months after its initial release, “Feather” started gaining traction this year due to it being a major fan favorite on Emails. The former Disney Channel actress addressed this on Instagram Stories prior to the new music video’s release, writing, “You guys showed ‘feather’ so much love we had to make a video.”
The project comes about two weeks after Carpenter performed “Feather” for Spotify Singles, for which she also turned in a cover of Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble.” “Well she nailed it,” Swift later praised Carpenter, one of several openers for the “Anti-Hero” singer on her Eras Tour.
Watch the “Feather” music video above.
Mariah Carey may be the Christmas queen, but she’s also no amateur when it comes to Halloween. This year, the songstress looked fabulous as Jessica Rabbit, sharing photos of her Disney-inspired costume on social media Monday night (Oct. 30).
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In the photos, Carey sports a curve-hugging red dress, purple opera gloves and flaming red hair, just like the Who Framed Roger Rabbit femme fatale. “Happy Halloween!” she captioned the pictures, adding a spooky Jack-o-lantern emoji.
The “We Belong Together” singer also seemed to wink at the upcoming holiday season, which she’s all but trademarked at this point thanks to her evergreen chart-ruling hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” “#notyet,” she hashtagged her post.
The “not yet” is an ongoing joke between Carey and her fans, as the five-time Grammy winner typically kicks off her Christmas festivities immediately after Halloween concludes. Last year, she posted a video of her in a bubble bath midway through October, teasing fans who wanted to prematurely listen to “All I Want” with the coy caption “Not yet!”
Then, on Nov. 1, the star shared a video of her channeling the Wicked Witch of the West before morphing into a Santa-inspired jumpsuit, declaring, “IT’S TIIIIIIIIME!!!!!!!!”
In years past, Carey has taken on Halloween as a heavy metal rocker, a devil, a pink-haired nurse, a bride and a mermaid. This year’s Jessica Rabbit tribute comes on the heels of the pop diva’s announcement that more dates will be added to her upcoming Merry Christmas One and All Tour, which kicks off Nov. 15 in Highland, Cali. and wraps Dec. 17 with a show at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
See photos of Mariah Carey as Jessica Rabbit below:
A video for “Now and Then,” which has been described as the “last Beatles song,” is scheduled to premiere on Friday (Nov. 3) at 10 a.m. ET., 24 hours after the track’s release on Thursday (Nov. 2). The clip was directed by Peter Jackson and is described in a release as a “poignant and humorous” visual that “invites viewers to celebrate The Beatles’ timeless and enduring love for one another with John, Paul, George and Ringo as they create the last Beatles song; the video will premiere on the Beatles YouTube channel.
“Now and Then,” which will be released by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMe, is the final song written by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and it was finished by living members McCartney and Starr more than 40 years after the group began work on it. The double A-side single will also include a touching throwback with the inclusion of the band’s 1962 debut single, “Love Me Do,” featuring the original cover art shot by Ed Ruscha. Both songs have been mixed in stereo and Dolby Atmos.
The “Now and Then” video is Jackson’s first foray into music video production and in a statement, the director behind the acclaimed 2021 The Beatles: Get Back miniseries said when Apple first approached him with the gig he was initially reluctant to say yes. “I thought my next few months would be a hell of a lot more fun if that tricky task was somebody else’s problem, and I could be like any other Beatles fan, enjoying the night-before-Christmas anticipation as the release of a new Beatles song and music video approached – in 1995, l loved the childlike excitement I felt as the release of ‘Free As A Bird’ was inching closer,” he said of the 1995 Beatles song that began as a 1977 Lennon home demo that was completed by McCartney, Harrison and Starr.
“I could have that experience once again – all I had to do was say no to The Beatles. To be honest, just thinking about the responsibility of having to make a music video worthy of the last song The Beatles will ever release produced a collection of anxieties almost too overwhelming to deal with,” the director continued. “My lifelong love of The Beatles collided into a wall of sheer terror at the thought of letting everyone down. This created intense insecurity in me because I’d never made a music video before, and was not able to imagine how I could even begin to create one for a band that broke up over 50 years ago, had never actually performed the song, and had half of its members no longer with us.”
But, as Jackson kept trying to think of new reasons to turn down the gig — to this day, he said, he still has never, technically, agreed to the job — he told Apple that the lack of “suitable footage” was worrisome because the project would require tapping into rare and unseen film of the Fab Four, not much of which is out there.
“Nothing at all seemed to exist showing Paul, George and Ringo working on ‘Now And Then’ in 1995 … There’s not much footage of John in the mid-seventies when he wrote the demo … I grizzled about the lack of unseen Beatles footage from the ’60s … And they didn’t even shoot any footage showing Paul and Ringo working on the song last year,” he said of his tortured thought process.
“A Beatles music video must have great Beatles footage at its core. There’s no way actors or CGI Beatles should be used,” Jackson continued. “Every shot of The Beatles needed to be genuine. By now I really had no idea how anyone could make a ‘Now And Then’ music video if they didn’t have decent footage to work with, and this was far from being a lame excuse. My fear and insecurity now had solid reasons why they should prevail and allow me to say no without looking too much like a chicken.”
But Jackson also knew the Beatles don’t take no for an answer once they set their minds to something, which might explain why they didn’t wait for him to decline before forging ahead. Jackson said he found himself “swept along” as McCartney and Starr addressed his worries and shot some footage of themselves that they sent to him. In addition, Apple dug up more than 14 hours of long-forgotten film shot during the 1995 sessions, including several hours of McCartney, Harrison and Starr working on the last song.
In addition, Lennon’s son, Sean Ono Lennon, and Harrison’s widow, Olivia, found some “great unseen home movie footage” that they shared with him. “To cap things off, a few precious seconds of The Beatles performing in their leather suits, the earliest known film of The Beatles and never seen before, was kindly supplied by Pete Best,” Jackson revealed of the contribution from the band’s original drummer. “Watching this footage completely changed the situation – I could see how a music video could be made. Actually, I found it far easier if I thought of it as making a short movie, so that’s what I did… My lack of confidence with music videos didn’t matter anymore if I wasn’t making one. Even so, I still had no solid vision for what this short film should be – so I turned to the song for guidance.”
Jackson described separating Lennon’s voice on the demo tape a year ago, with producer Giles Martin cooking up an early mix of the single last year that the director loved and which he’s listened to more than 50 times since. After doing a deep-dive into the song looking for ideas and inspiration for the short film, Jackson said the more he listened the more the shape of the visual began to take form, “without any conscious effort from me.”
Working with his Get Back editor, Jabez Olssen, Jackson started pulling together “little fragments, sliding pictures and music around in different ways until things began to click in.” The idea, he said, was to create a short film that would “bring a few tears to the eye,” though he began to realize that generating emotion using only archival footage was “tricky” at best.
“Fortunately, the simple power of this beautiful song did a lot of the work for us, and we finished the first 30 or 40 secs of the film fairly quickly,” Jackson said, admitting that finding an appropriate ending that could “adequately sum up the enormity of The Beatles’ legacy” proved daunting. If not impossible.
“Their contribution to the world is too immense, and their wondrous gift of music has become part of our DNA and now defies description,” he said. “I realised we needed the imagination of every viewer to do what we couldn’t, and have each viewer create their own personal moment of farewell to The Beatles – but we had to gently steer everyone to that place. I had some vague ideas, but didn’t really know how to achieve this.”
Jackson said he got lucky because Harrison’s son, musician Dhani Harrison, happened to be visiting Jackson’s home country of New Zealand at the time, and after discussing the proposed ending with him, “his [Harrison’s] eyes immediately filled with tears — so that is the way we went.”
The middle section aimed to capture the band’s legendarily silly side using a collection of unseen outtakes where the Beatles are “relaxed, funny and rather candid.”
The video will be accompanied by a 12-minute Now and Then — The Last Beatles Song documentary written by Oliver Murray, due out on Wednesday (Nov. 1). The doc will tell the story behind the track and feature exclusive footage and commentary from McCartney, Starr and Harrison, as well as Sean Ono Lennon and director Jackson.