Pop
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Britton Moore made a lasting impression on The Voice Monday night (Feb. 10), delivering a stunning performance of Coldplay’s “Yellow” during Blind Auditions that earned him a coveted four-chair turn.
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The 21-year-old singer from San Antonio wasted no time winning over coaches Adam Levine, John Legend, Kelsea Ballerini, and Michael Bublé, setting off a heated battle for his talent.
Levine, who was the first to turn his chair just seconds into Moore’s audition, made it clear he saw something special in the young singer. “When I heard you go into your falsetto, I was like, ‘Okay, I need to coach this guy,’” the Maroon 5 frontman told Moore.
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“There’s definitely something in your voice that reminded me a little of how I do it. I just felt an instant connection, and I pushed really early because I thought, ‘Man, this kid’s gonna be special,’ and I was right. You’re amazing, dude!”
Legend was equally impressed, praising Moore for his control. “Singing falsetto is actually really hard in a live setting,” he said. “I always tell my artists, ‘Your falsetto will betray you when you need it most.’ And it did not betray you, and you sounded so effortless and you really took some creative leaps.”
“I think nobody sounds like you on the show, and that will be exciting. And it would be so fun to coach you.”
Ballerini, in her first season as a coach, said, “Can I call you Britt? Perfect. We go way back. You’re from Texas, I’m from Tennessee. Similar. You’re 21, I respect my elders.” She also played a snippet of her song “Dibs” via a button on her chair, attempting to secure Moore for her team.
In the end, Moore chose Team Adam, marking Levine’s second four-chair turn victory of the season. “Almost half my team is four-chair turns,” Levine remarked backstage.
Moore’s song choice was no small feat—“Yellow” served as the Stateside lead single for Parachutes, the band’s landmark Grammy-winning debut studio album (it won Best Alternative Music Album at the 2002 awards show). On the Billboard Hot 100, “Yellow” climbed to No. 48, while Parachutes reached No. 51.
Watch Moore’s performance below.
When BLACKPINK was gearing up for its highly anticipated debut in 2016, rising creative director SINXITY was adamant the group needed an unexpected sound to distinguish itself. Alongside the group’s explosive EDM-trap banger “BOOMBAYAH,” the young exec at YG Entertainment pushed for a secondary, simultaneous single in the minimalist-yet-emotionally tinged “Whistle” to show their wider, “magical” range to distinguish them from YG’s other female outfit, 2NE1. Nearly a decade later, BLACKPINK remains one of the most successful acts from South Korea, and SINXITY is overseeing a new female quartet made for the global stage while emphasizing that “identity and diversity are important.”
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Seven years after exiting YG Entertainment and launching AXIS as a multi-operational label, production house and creative incubator for internationally minded projects, SINXITY (neé SJ Shin) is the executive producer for the freshly debuted cosmosy. The act consists of four Japanese singers who trained in Korea under the K-pop system and sing in a mix of English, Japanese and Korean to appeal to the global pop market. Two members, De_Hana and Kamión, rose to recognition after competing on Produce 101 Japan The Girls (a local spin-off of the Korean singing competition series that created Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart-toppers JO1, INI and ME:I), are joined by relative newcomers Himesha and A’mei, respectively the eldest and youngest member, who trained in dance since childhood (while idolizing the likes of British superstar Dua Lipa and BLACKPINK’s Thai icon Lisa).
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Executing the internationally minded group brings NTT Docomo Studio & Live (the entertainment wing of Japan’s major mobile carrier) together with Sony Music Korea (the Seoul-based label that recently signed multilingual Monsta X member I.M in 2022 for his solo work). The move isn’t entirely without precedence with XG (the Japanese girl group based in South Korea that sings in English with a mix of U.S., Japanese and Korean management), or the likes of HYBE’s KATSEYE and JYP Entertainment’s VCHA girl groups (both Los Angeles-based acts sing in English but have performed across Asia and the Americas). Leading all of cosmosy’s creative and professional decisions, SINXITY proudly says this is a group where the members’ “natural talent should be what’s emphasized.”
“I really want to open up a new path for the girls for them to be able to do a lot of different genres and try different concepts,” he shares during an afternoon video call when he’s taking a break from putting the final touches on cosmosy’s first music video before it goes live at midnight. “Inevitably, people are gonna compare the girls to groups like XG, NiziU, and the other Japanese girl groups, but I want to do something for them that is new and different. Whether it’s K-pop, J-pop, pop, hip-hop, R&B, I want to incorporate various music genres and create a new path for them.”
SINXITY and cosmosy both describe the group as having a “girlish crush” concept, inspired by the girl crush image that K-pop acts like BLACKPINK, ITZY, and (G)I-DLE embody with cosmosy peppering in additional sprinkles of mystique, innocence and even a little devilishness blended into “a group that has never existed before,” according to De_Hana.
“Unlike the typical girl crush everyone knows, our concept includes both cool and cute elements,” explains Kamión, an Osaka native who spent time studying abroad. “There is also a touch of mystery, which evokes the atmosphere of Japanese horror or anime.” Meanwhile, Himesha and A’mei use “mysterious” to describe the group.
After unveiling cosmosy’s debut single “zigy=zigy” alongside its music video on New Year’s Eve, the track was released globally on Feb. 7 to kick off the first of multiple digital singles the act will drop throughout the year with an EP potentially eyed for spring. With Korean television appearances and fashion-magazine features on the horizon, SINXITY emphasizes that as important as new cosmosy content is, the next, urgent priority is to meet fans in person.
“They’re super talented, really pretty, such nice and charming girls; I really want people and fans to meet them directly,” the producer adds. “The key factor is how to meet core fans.”
Showing up to work as one’s true self and connecting to others authentically is personally important for SINXITY, who says he’s finally at ease in a professional environment where he’s comfortable to fully focus his energy on the work at hand.
“The Korean entertainment industry has become safer than in the past,” he shares. “Because I am gay, identity and diversity are very important to me and something I’m trying to build on…it’s still not widely accepted to be in the LGBT community since there are restrictions and laws for gay people, but it’s more accepted and it’s a safer, better space compared to others. But it’s still not a thing to come out and be openly gay.”
Noting the three women assisting him during this video call in Seoul, SINXITY estimates that 90 percent of the crew that works with cosmosy are women. That’s a rarity in Korean entertainment, and an even bigger percentage than AXIS’ division focused on producing Boy Love (also known as BL) television, the popular genre of same-sex drama series that boasts majority female audiences. With works including the 2022 breakout hit Semantic Error and FC Soldout currently airing, SINXITY and AXIS are inevitably shifting the norms of what and how Korean-pop entertainment operates simply in the name of creativity — and openly support other industry shakers.
“I’ve worked overseas, I’ve done a lot of projects with YG in Japan and Korea,” says SINXITY, who also worked with YG Entertainment’s actors roster during his time. “I have a unique identity, so I can’t help but talk about it and share myself here anyway. I just want to be free to create, reach more people and show them even more in these creative areas.”
SINXITY smiles before asking to include an additional note before the call wraps and he goes back to color-correcting the “zigy=zigy” video.
“One more thing: wait for NewJeans and stand up for Min Hee-jin,” SINXITY says, with a visibly surprised translator noting that he may be the first Korean executive to support the embattled former CEO of ADOR publicly. “I really admire Min Hee-jin and respect her. She’s the one and only best producer in this K-pop industry, so I really [want to] stand with her and really pray for NewJeans to have more free activities. We’re in some of the same networks, but I’m really just a fan. She’s really the one-and-only qualified producer.”
It’s been a near-year-long road to the Big Game for Kendrick Lamar, whose 2024 crescendoed from March onward, to the point where the rapper — who had long seemed conflicted about the idea of crossover success — ended the year as our editorial staff’s pick for the year’s Greatest Pop Star. He’s picked up right […]
02/10/2025
Check out the music moments you might have missed if you weren’t in the building on Sunday.
02/10/2025
Donald Trump became the first sitting President to attend a Super Bowl on Sunday (Feb. 9), when he watched two quarters of the Philadelphia Eagles’ dismantling of the Kansas City Chiefs on their way to a decisive 40-22 victory. The second termer also became the first commander in chief to post a nasty taunt of […]
Before becoming a Billboard Hot 100-topping singer/songwriter, Teddy Swims was dominating in a different arena: the football field. But just like Zac Efron’s High School Musical character before him, Swims had to take a break from sports to follow his musical dreams.
On the next episode of Mythical Kitchen’s Last Meals web series, premiering Tuesday at 6 a.m. ET, Swims sits down with host Josh Scherer to eat their way through some of the musician’s all-time favorite foods and talk about his life story. When Scherer compared Swims’ teen days growing up in Conyers, Georgia, to High School Musical — in which Efron’s Troy Bolton is the basketball star who harbors secret musical aspirations — Swims immediately related to the Disney analogy.
“I call myself the fat Troy Bolton, you know?” Swims laughed. “I wanted to quit football to do music, focus on theater. I remember my mom was so bummed out about it. She had [saved] all my stuff, all my trophies … since 6 years old. She was like, ‘Baby, we’re a football team. We’re a football family. Why would you do this to us? We’ve always done football!’ She was so confused. I just told her, ‘I want to do music. I really like music.’”
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His mom’s mind changed when she saw him onstage for the very first time. “I remember her coming to my first performance. We did this show called Damn Yankees, and I had, like, all of two lines in it. As soon as it got done, I remember her coming to me and saying, ‘Baby, I’m so sorry. This is where you belong. You’re a superstar.’ It just flipped. Just watching me onstage, it just flipped it upside down for her.”
Last month, Swims shared the news via Instagram that he’s expecting his first child with his partner, fellow musician Raiche Wright, and he sees fatherhood as an opportunity to revisit the world of sports.
“We’re gonna get back on that field,” he tells Scherer. “I just want to be the coach of something. Hopefully I’m gonna have a son and I can coach a football team. I want to do the Snoop Dogg, like, youth league Netflix series. That’s what I’m trying to do eventually: Teddy Swims little league, and like coach my son. Hopefully I get that opportunity. Maybe a daughter wants to play football, or maybe I’ll do the Teddy Swims cheerleading league … chess league. Whatever they’re into, I’m into.”
Teddy Swims released his second studio album, I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 2), on Jan. 24 — debuting atop Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart and at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 — ahead of his Feb. 2 performance at the 2025 Grammy Awards, where he was nominated for best new artist.
Lady Gaga cast a spell at the 2025 Grammys with “Abracadabra,” and for the 2025 Super Bowl, she showed up to bring audiences together with another rousing performance.
In a special segment ahead of Super Bowl LIX, Gaga appeared alongside sports legends Tom Brady, Michael Strahan, Terry Bradshaw and others in a pre-filmed segment on New Orleans’ iconic Bourbon Street to pay tribute to the victims of multiple disasters over the last year, including the New Orleans terror attack, Hurricane Helene and the Los Angeles wildfires.
“Here on Bourbon Street, always the heart and soul of New Orleans, this year began with a terror attack that tried to shatter its spirit,” Strahan said while walking down the iconic thoroughfare sporting a “NOLA Strong” shirt. Brady, wearing an L.A. Fire Department T-shirt, joined in, adding that New Orleans’ resilience is “matched by the resolve of our country. When tragedy strikes, we don’t break — we come together, we rise above and we never let evil win.”
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The camera then cut to Gaga — sporting a wide-brimmed white hat and long white lace dress — seated at a piano and surrounded by a crowd in the middle of Bourbon Street. The singer launched into a stripped down performance of her Top Gun: Maverick single “Hold My Hand.” With various police officers and firefighters looking on, Gaga drove home the song’s inspirational message: “So cry tonight/ But don’t you let go of my hand,” she sang. “You can cry every last tear/ I won’t leave ’til I understand/ Promise you’ll just hold my hand.”
The segment aired just before the Philadelphia Eagles squared off against the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2025 Super Bowl. Music fans around the world will be tuning into the program to watch as Kendrick Lamar takes center stage at Caesars Superdome for the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show, featuring special guest SZA.
In the pre-show, meanwhile, in addition to Gaga, performers included Ledisi, Harry Connick Jr., Lauren Daigle and Jon Batiste to deliver annual renditions of the national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and “America the Beautiful.”
Watch Gaga’s performance of “Hold My Hand” above.
The first week of February concludes with a smattering of new music, featuring releases from LISA, Doja Cat and Raye, Anitta and more. To start with what is already one of the biggest team-ups of the year, the BLACKPINK star has released her latest single, “Born Again,” featuring a heavy lift from two all-star collaborators. […]
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
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This week, LISA is reincarnated alongside Doja Cat and Raye, while Anitta sets forth on a new era. Check out all of this week’s picks below:
LISA feat. Doja Cat and Raye, “Born Again”
Opulence and religious imagery abound on LISA’s new team-up with Doja Cat and Raye, as the BLACKPINK star settles on disco elegance for the pop-star summit: “I would’ve made you a believer / Would’ve showed you what it’s like,” she sings as a kiss-off, while her guest stars flaunt biting rhymes and oversized vocals on the second verse and bridge, respectively. Anitta, “Romeo”
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The first Anitta release of 2025 kicks off a new era in style — moving on from Funk Generation, the Brazilian superstar continues exploring propulsive dance on “Romeo” but with more restrained production and emphasis on her vocal delivery, as if Anitta, not the beat beneath her, is the star of the show.
Pardison Fontaine & Cardi B, “Toot It Up”
Over a masterful sample of Nas’ “Made You Look,” Pardison Fontaine and Cardi B aim for a chest-thumping anthem for a new generation on “Toot It Up,” with both artists trading rhymes on the hook and finally delivering a long-in-the-works collaboration to official streaming services.
GELO feat. Lil Wayne, “Tweaker (Remix)”
GELO’s “Tweaker” has been one of the first surprise smashes of 2025, a viral hit that has earned LiAngelo Ball a label deal and lots of raised eyebrows; that quick rise continues with this Lil Wayne-assisted remix, as Weezy (who just announced an album of his own) gets in on the basketball metaphors: “I cross your ass up like Jesus, baby.”
Dom Dolla feat. Daya, “Dreamin’”
Australian DJ Dom Dolla has been linking up with various pop stars for a while now, and Daya, the Pittsburgh native of “Don’t Let Me Down”/“Hide Away” fame, makes for a perfect muse on “Dreamin’,” a hypnotic club track in which Daya deploys the smokiness of her voice and repeats the refrain until it gets lost in the rhythms.
Editor’s Pick: Rema, “Baby (Is It a Crime)”
Revamping Sade’s 1985 classic “Is It a Crime,” Rema returns with an immediately memorable piece of rhythmic pop: the Nigerian star has demonstrated crossover potential in the past, most notably with “Calm Down,” but the contours of “Baby (Is It a Crime)” are more subtle, his flow bridging the 40-year gap in styles.
K-Pop girl group NewJeans announced that they’ve changed their name to NJZ in the midst of their long-running dispute with their label, ADOR. Singer Hanni spoke to CNN about the change, saying that the five-member group decided to rebrand as a means of “turning this rough period of time into something more exciting.”
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The first public outing under the new banner will come at the three-day ComplexCon Hong Kong in March, where Hanni, Haerin, Minji, Hyein and Danielle said they will debut a new song.
“We are working a lot to resolve everything so that we can go… back to normal,” Hanni, 20, added, saying that the band doesn’t want their legal spat with ADOR to “be the focus of our careers.”
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In a statement announcing the name change and upcoming gig, Minji said, “We are thrilled to be stepping onto the stage for the first time as NJZ and share something new with everyone. It’s a big moment for us and we can’t wait for fans to be a part of this journey with us and show the world our new music that we have been eagerly waiting to share.”
Back in November, NewJeans announced that they were parting ways with ADOR, a subsidiary of the K-pop management firm HYBE, over allegations that the label violated their contract. “Once we leave ADOR, we’ll aim to proceed freely with the activities that we really desire,” Danielle said at the time. “We really wish to be able to release new music for Bunnies, next year, as soon as possible, whenever,” she added, in reference to their fan group nickname. “We really hope that we have the opportunity to meet you guys from all around the world.”
They also noted in November that due to their contract termination, they might no longer be able to use the group name they’ve performed under since 2022. ADOR responded to the news, maintaining that its contract with NewJeans “remains in full effect,” urging the group to continue collaborating with them on upcoming projects. ADOR has disputed the allegations from the group, who’ve accused the label of “manipulation,” “deliberate miscommunications” and workplace harassment and have filed a lawsuit against NewJeans, and, according to CNN, filed for a court injunction that would prevent NJZ form signing advertising deals.
The band’s announcement of their split came after months of rancor in a management dispute between HYBE and ADOR’s former CEO, Min Hee-jin, who also serves as the group’s creative director. Last year, HYBE accused Hee-jin of attempting to take the company independent, a claim he denied; NewJeans said in November that they would like to continue working with Hee-jin.
In response to NewJeans’ announcement of their new name, ADOR told CNN, “we regret the escalation of this matter to court and believe that most claims advanced by NewJeans members thus far have arisen from misunderstandings… We worry that announcing an unauthorized new group name or engaging in entertainment activities before a legal judgement is reached… could constitute a material breach of the exclusive agency contract.”
CNN reported that the group began posting content under the new name on the jeanzforfree Instagram page, which at press time had a “sorry, this page isn’t available” note.
A preliminary court hearing for the injunction is scheduled for March, with the lawsuit set to be heard by a judge in April. While they wait, Haerin said the group are working on making and performing their new music, which she described as having a “very unique and different sound… there’s nothing holding us back anymore.”
Hanni added that they thought long and hard about the new name, considering fans’ suggestions and landing on a moniker that retained the “essence” of their original one. “Even though we have to leave our previous name behind us for a bit, we’re not fully moving on from it,” she said. “And we don’t want to either, because (being NewJeans) was still a very special period of time to us, and it’s something that our fans also probably hold really dear.”
She also said their new era will be “very different” from what fans have come to expect from the group whose 2023 Get Up EP hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Hanni promised that the new image will also come with “different types of performances,” explaining, “Beforehand, we were very focused on being the kind of ‘girl next door’… So, we’re going for a (look that’s) a lot more sharp, a lot more bold,” said the singer, who along with her bandmates serves as an ambassador for global luxury brands Chanel and Louis Vuitton.
“And fashion wise: We love wearing streetwear and non-gendered kind of clothing. I think that concept and aspect is going to play a really strong role in our (new) fashion as well.”