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Blinks, the wait is finally over: Jennie has released her highly anticipated solo track, “You & Me,” on Friday (Oct. 6). “I love you and me dancing in the moonlight/ Nobody can see, it’s just you and me tonight/ I love you and me, dancing in the moonlight/ Nobody can see, it’s just you and […]
Five-time Gospel Music Association female vocalist of the year winner Natalie Grant is known for pop-leaning Christian Airplay hits including “King of the World” and “Held,” but this powerhouse vocalist distinctly remembers being four years old, with tears streaming down her face, listening to the Gospel sounds of Mahalia Jackson.
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“Listening to her sing, it just made me feel so deeply,” Grant says. “I’ve always been so influenced by Gospel music. Gospel performers sing with everything they have.”
On her new album, Seasons, out Friday (Oct. 6), nine-time Grammy nominee Grant pays homage to — and collaborates with — several of Gospel music’s top stars, along with pop and country music luminaries, covering songs that have served as musical cornerstones in her own life. CeCe Winans, Tasha Cobbs Leonard, Mary Mary, Jekalyn Carr, Jonathan McReynolds, Cory Asbury, CAIN and Country Music Hall of Famer Dolly Parton all join on the new project.
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Grant is quick to note that unlike some covers records, this isn’t run-of-the-mill — these are the songs she leaned on through heartbreaks, triumphs, battles with thyroid cancer and anxiety, and more.
“Sometimes you hear the word ‘cover record,’ and it has this connotation of ‘Oh, it’s a filler record between the last originals records and whatever’s next,’” Grant says. “But there’s no filler record with this — this is my life record.”
Gospel music icon Winans sing with Grant on a version of the 1972 Andraé Crouch-written and recorded classic “My Tribute (To God Be the Glory).”
“Andraé has forever marked Christian and Gospel music and his legacy is forever,” Grant says. “CeCe Winans has been my hero since I first heard her when I was 11 years old. I went to the BeBe and CeCe Winans ‘Heaven’ tour. CeCe has so influenced me, not just her music, but her — she’s one of the most truly beautiful people you will ever meet, inside and out. So hearing us answering each other’s verses on this song, it was just a surreal moment for me. She didn’t have to be part of this, but she chose to do that, and that speaks again to how wonderful she is.”
Grant teams with Gospel sibling duo Mary Mary on a refreshed version of their 2000 hit “Shackles (Praise You),” which reached No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.
“That was one of those songs that I remember just crossed all barriers — it didn’t matter whether you listen to gospel, pop, CCM — everybody loved that song. They’ve never remade the song in 20 years — why would they choose to remake it with an additional person? That just speaks to how amazing they are. We had so much fun singing this and just living our best lives.”
The album includes the Simon & Garfunkel standard “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with Cobbs Leonard, the Sandi Patty classic “Another Time, Another Place” (which Grant performs with McReynolds), and a version of the 2000 LeAnn Rimes hit “I Need You,” which marks another full-circle moment as Grant sang the original demo for the song before it made its way to Rimes.
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Grant makes another country connection on the project, welcoming Parton to join her in covering a Whitney Houston classic — no, not the Parton-penned “I Will Always Love You,” but rather Houston’s version of Annie Lennox’s “Step by Step,” which was included on the soundtrack for Houston’s film The Preacher’s Wife.
“This song is so special to me,” Grant says, recalling the mid-1990s when she was working a desk job handling Medicare in Nashville while pursuing music. “I would blast this song while driving my Volkswagen Golf to work. I wanted to do music but I had to do what I had to do to pay the bills.”The recording follows Parton and Grant sharing the stage earlier this year at Parton’s Dollywood themepark, where they sang the hymn “Just a Little Walk With Jesus.”
Though Parton initially turned down the opportunity to record “Step By Step” due to scheduling conflicts as she was working on her album Rock Star, Grant says that weeks later, she received a personal letter from Parton — on hot pink Dolly Parton letterhead — asking if she might still be able to sing on the song.
“It was just such a bucket list moment,” Grant says. “Who does that? Dolly Parton does that. I was blown away that she gave her time and talent to do that.”
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The album closes with a full family moment on a version of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love,” on which Grant’s husband, producer-writer Bernie Herms, recorded Grant’s 83-year-old mother Gloria singing in Grant’s childhood home. The track also features the couple’s daughters singing background vocals.
“I remember hearing that song and thinking, ‘If I could write words to my girls, it would be these.’ And to have the whole family singing on it and their grandmother, it’s a gift.”
The new album is steeped in influence from Gospel music, as was Grant’s 1999 debut self-titled album, though after moving from her native Seattle to Nashville, Grant recalls being bewildered at how separated the white-dominated CCM and the Black-dominated Gospel music industries were at the time, calling it “an eye-opening experience that some of those racial lines were very hard and fast lines.”
“I would hear back from CCM radio programmers who would say, ‘We don’t want to play this; it sounds too Gospel,’ or ‘Why is she singing like that? And why is there a Gospel choir on there?’ I was just like, ‘I’m just singing,’” she says.
In the past few years, the Christian Airplay radio charts have increasingly featured more artists of color and more Gospel influences, including Winans, Wells, Jon Reddick, Blessing Offor and Maverick City Music. “Now, 20-something years later, people are more welcoming of diversity,” Grant Says. “They go, ‘I would love to see a collaboration with a Gospel artist or a Hispanic artist.’ All of a sudden, radio and the industry is looking for those moments. But honestly, we still have a long way to go.”
Conversely, Grant says she has seen her collaborations with Winans and Cobbs Leonard included on Gospel-only playlists on Apple Music and Spotify, and in August, she honored Winans with a performance at The Stellar Awards on BET.
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“That was a dream come true for me. But even the fact that they invited me when they didn’t have to. We didn’t have any songs on the Gospel charts that the time — or any that had come out yet. But they welcomed me with open arms and I was so moved by that.”
In addition to dominating GMA Dove Awards Gospel and urban music categories, Black artists have garnered wins in top overall GMA Dove Awards categories over the decades, even if radio has historically seemed divided. Among the winners have been Larnelle Harris (male vocalist), Nicole C. Mullen (songwriter of the year and song of the year for “Redeemer”), BeBe and CeCe Winans (new artist and group of the year), Wells (new artist of the year/contemporary Christian artist of the year) and Take 6 (group of the year, new artist of the year). In recent years Lecrae and CeCe Winans have made history on the GMA Dove Awards stage; in 2015, Lecrae became the first pure hip-hop artist to win the coveted artist of the year honor, while in 2022, Winans made history as the first Black solo female artist to win artist of the year.
Grant lauds the work Jackie Patillo has done since taking on the executive director role at the Gospel Music Association in 2010, to have the GMA Dove Awards performances further reflect the breadth of sounds and styles within Christian music.
“Jackie has worked so hard to blur those lines and have inclusion and you see that when you look at the Dove Awards now — you can see those years of investments paying off,” Grant says. “We still have a ways to go, but we are leap years ahead of where we were and I’m grateful to be walking with people in making those strides.”
Earlier this year, Grant was among a group of talented women who led the all-female It’s Time worship tour alongside Cobbs Leonard, Naomi Raine and Taya, offering a soul-stirring mix of CCM and Gospel hits, along with classic hymns. Grant is hopeful these moments are just the beginning of long-lasting change.
“I think you will see a lot more tours come together — you will see worship with hip-hop, CCM with Gospel. I think you will see a lot of that in the near future.”
Olivia Rodrigo celebrated the release of her long-awaited sophomore album Guts on Tuesday night (Oct. 3), when she graced the stage at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles for a brief performance as well as an intimate, in depth conversation with acclaimed songwriter and producer Linda Perry. According to Variety, the 20-year-old superstar performed stripped back, solo […]
Ed Sheeran is ready for the afterlife. The singer revealed to GQ this week that he does have a gravesite in his backyard — but it’s not a crypt. “I wouldn’t say it’s a crypt,” Sheeran explained, adding that the area is also a chapel for friends who have gotten married there. The “Shape of […]
Two of the most daring and imaginative minds in contemporary popular music have finally linked up on a song together — but not in the way you might expect. Critically acclaimed cross-genre artists Björk and Rosalía have collaborated on a new single to raise money for the fight against fish farming in Iceland. On YouTube, the upload is titled “Help Fight Fish Farming In Iceland.”
“I am offering a song me and Rosalía sang together. The profits will to help the fight against fish farming in Iceland. It will come out in October,” Björk said in a press release. “People at the fjord seyðisfjörður have stood up and protested against fish farming starting there. We would like to donate sales of the song to help with their legal fees, and, hopefully, it can be an exemplary case for others.”
“Iceland has the biggest untouched nature in Europe, and still today it has its sheep roaming free in the mountains in the summers, its fish has swum free in our lakes, rivers and fjords, so when icelandic and norwegian business men started buying fish farms in the majority of our fjords, it was a big shock and rose up as the main topic this summer,” she continued. “We don’t understand how they had been able to do this for a decade with almost no regulations stopping them. This has already had devastating effect on wildlife and the farmed fish are suffering in horrid health conditions and since a lot of them have escaped, they have started changing the DNA in the Icelandic salmon to the worse and could eventually lead to its extinction.”
In addition to releasing a clip of the song on YouTube, Björk also posted a video to her official Instagram page featuring what sounds to be the same snippet, with the press release overlayed on a picture of a fish just like the YouTube clip. Rosalía commented a simple white heart on the post and shared it to her Instagram Story.
Björk’s reps confirmed to Billboard that a full version of the song will be released this month, with an exact date yet to be confirmed. The song’s proper title will also be revealed at that time.
“There is still a chance to safe the last wild salmon of the North. Our group would like to dare these business men to retract their farms! We would also like to help invent and set strict regulations into Iceland’s legal system to guard nature,” Björk concluded in the press release. “The majority of the nation already agrees with us, so this protest is about putting the will of the people into our rule-systems.”
The new collaboration will be Björk’s first musical release of the year, and the latest in a string of singles from Rosalía. At the top of this year, before she and Rauw Alejandro called it quits, the pair released a joint EP titled RR. Two songs from the three-track project — “Beso” (No. 4) and “Vampiros” (No. 32) — hit the top 40 on Hot Latin Songs. The Grammy winner also released “Tuya” (No. 38) and “LLYLM” (No. 22), both of which also hit the top 40 on Hot Latin Songs.
Last year, Björk unleashed Fossora, her 10th studio album, which peaked at No. 100 on the Billboard 200 and earned a Grammy nomination for best alternative music album. Earlier this year, in recognition of Record Story Day (Apr. 22), Björk released an expanded double LP edition of her 2010 joint EP with American indie rock band Dirty Projectors.
Listen to a clip of Björk and Rosalía’s passionate new duet above.
First loves are always the strongest, and Darius Rucker knows the feeling first hand. The country star spoke with People about the backstory of his song “Sara” — in which he sings fondly of his fifth-grade girlfriend — and how pal Ed Sheeran helped him write the song that is set to appear on Rucker’s […]
Francia Raisa was in attendance at the inaugural Rare Impact Fund benefit to support her longtime bestie Selena Gomez Wednesday (Oct. 4), proving once again that the two are on good terms these days.
It’s no big secret, though, that they once had a semi-public falling-out in the years after Raisa donated her kidney to Gomez — who needed a transplant in 2017 due to complications with Lupus — something the Secret Life of the American Teenager alum was candid about at Gomez’s event. “We trauma bonded, which is beautiful, but also it can get rocky and tricky,” she told Extra. “People grow, relationships change.”
“Obviously, I treat her like my little sister, she treats me like her older sister,” Raisa continued. “I don’t know any relationship that’s perfect … I am happy that we are here today, celebrating and supporting each other.”
“We had to almost go on our own journey and grow,” she added. “I am OK now, and just for the record, it had nothing to do with the kidney.”
Neither Gomez nor Raisa have shared what went down between them last year to cause the temporary rift, although fans picked up on the rough patch when Raisa unfollowed the “Single Soon” singer on Instagram. Raisa also left a comment some interpreted as shady on a post quoting Gomez, who’d said that Taylor Swift was her “only friend in the industry.” “Interesting,” the How I Met Your Father actress wrote at the time, to which Gomez responded, “Sorry I didn’t mention every person I know.”
The water was definitely under the bridge by July of this year, though, when Gomez publicly wished Raisa a happy birthday. “Happiest of birthdays to this special human being,” the Only Murders in the Building star wrote on Instagram alongside photos of the pair. “No matter where life takes us, I love you.”
Flash forward to the Rare Impact Fund benefit, and Raisa had nothing but kind words for the Rare Beauty founder. “She is bringing so much awareness to it, and we have both seen each other go through so much,” she told Extra. “I am on my own journey of finally expressing myself and what I have gone through with my mental health. I look to her to figure out how to even navigate all of this. Honestly, her sharing with the audience gave me the courage to start sharing with my audience.”
Taylor Swift has all but stolen the spotlight this season, and the NFL isn’t sorry. Following complaints from football fans that the league is oversaturating its coverage with news about the “Anti-Hero” pop star’s recent attendance at Chiefs games — as well as Travis Kelce‘s own comment that they’re “overdoing it” — a representative for […]
The first time Gracie Abrams met Aaron Dessner, at his famed Long Pond studio near Hudson, N.Y., the pair wrote over 10 songs. “We hit it off,” recalls Dessner, 47, of their first session in spring 2021. That’s a bit of an understatement, considering what followed: Dessner went on to produce and co-write Abrams’ acclaimed debut album, Good Riddance, released in February and brimming with honest reflections sung in her delicate voice that float over intriguing chord progressions and indie-rock riffs. In June, following the album’s vinyl release, Abrams topped Billboard’s Emerging Artists chart.
In early September, following appearances by both on Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (Abrams as an opener, Dessner as a guest), the duo played three sold-out, intimate acoustic shows in New York, Nashville and Los Angeles, where they performed songs of Abrams’ both old and new. The gigs bookended a recording pit stop at Long Pond. “We made a lot of music, and it feels really different than what we’ve done before… like the best stuff we’ve made,” Dessner reveals.
Abrams, 24, is one of the newest artists to become a Long Pond regular, joining an eye-popping group of talent that includes Swift, Ed Sheeran and, of course, Dessner’s band, The National — all of whom have been incredibly active in recent years, continuing Dessner’s streak as one of the most in-demand, and busiest, collaborators in music today. As such, and with Abrams a likely best new artist contender, could Dessner finally score a long-awaited nod for producer of the year, non-classical?
“I don’t know another person that could do what Aaron does,” Abrams says. “There’s a kind of sensitivity that doesn’t necessarily exist in most artist-to-producer relationships that I am aware of.”
What was it about Long Pond that felt immediately inspiring or comfortable?
Gracie Abrams: Everything. I felt really open as a result of the space feeling open, and it’s entirely a testament to Aaron’s entire personality. The place feels very inviting [for] sharing all your secrets and deepest, most private feelings without any hesitation.
When Gracie’s debut arrived, Aaron wrote on Instagram that it almost feels like you two are siblings. What’s the best example of that?
Abrams: I mean, maybe brutal truth all the time. I tell Aaron everything as soon as it happens to me, so I burden him with my life story in a way that I feel like only people who you’re related to by blood should have to take on.
Aaron Dessner: And I get to live vicariously through Gracie, which is really nice. (Laughs.) When you write songs and make music with someone — and when you make so much music as we have — it’s an intimate, vulnerable experience, so you get to know each other really well. And it’s also the thing that makes music most meaningful, I think, the friendships that you collect along the way. Because when I look back — I’m quite a bit older than Gracie, although we don’t feel so far apart — there are these friendships that I still have from different points along the way, and those are the mile markers. Because [as a musician] you don’t have a very normal life and you’re traveling all the time and kind of running on fumes and it’s so amazing but it’s also hazardous, being unstructured and not having your support system or your family close by a lot of the time. The only way I know how to do this is to grow close to people and learn from them. I always feel like I’m learning as much as anyone might learn from me.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned from each other?
Abrams: My identity now has been massively shaped by what I’ve learned in this relationship with Aaron the past couple years, not just musically — which it has entirely helped guide me in terms of self-trust — but just how to be a very decent person. Especially in the context of the music industry. I grew up in L.A. and started recording here first and it felt very different than when I went to Long Pond for the first time, and it really broadened my imagination for the kind of life that I could have if I’m lucky enough to do the thing that I love, versus what I assumed to be the blueprint that always secretly made me feel a little depressed.
Dessner: To be honest, I’ve never written songs in the room with anyone [before]. I would always make music alone or with my brother [Bryce]. Most of the time, I write the music first and then someone writes to it. That has been how The National worked and how I worked with [Swift] and other people. And Gracie came and we wrote together in the room, and it’s a scary thing because you don’t have the chance to be figuring out your brilliant idea. And I found I was even more comfortable doing it like that, where I would basically sketch [an idea] and Gracie could guide me or bounce off it in real time and write words and melodies. And then over time we got really good at it, and that’s what I ended up doing a lot with Ed Sheeran. I don’t know that I would have been able to do it had I not had that confidence from this.
Gracie Abrams photographed on September 1, 2023 at Long Pond Studio near Hudson, NY.
Wesley Mann
Aaron Dessner photographed on September 1, 2023 at Long Pond Studio near Hudson, NY.
Wesley Mann
Aaron, why do you think Gracie could be in the running for best new artist?
Dessner: Gracie is making incredibly compelling, emotionally direct songs that really resonate with her fan base. [She has] become an artist that’s clearly impacting a lot of people. And I think the record is one of the best of the year, and she’s one of the artists that should be in that discussion. I also think with all of this stuff, it’s subjective. It’s a total honor to be in any conversation about the Grammys and to win a Grammy, and of course it sounds like I have to say that, but a lot of my favorite artists have never been in that conversation. So I kind of take it with a grain of salt. I have a lot of respect for it, but at the same time if you don’t get nominated… it doesn’t diminish what you’re doing.
And Gracie, why should Aaron get a producer of the year nod?
Abrams: I don’t know another person that could do what Aaron does could make album of the year after album of the year. I can identify instantly whether or not Aaron has touched a song because you can feel it, and I can’t compare that to anything. It’s not something that I’ve found anywhere else. And I think also it’s so evident, like the songs that people fall in love with on all the albums that Aaron has made are the ones that really work. The ones that the die-hard fans want to hear and scream at the top of their lungs.
How do these sets you’ve been performing together compare to the stadium shows you both played as part of Swift’s Eras Tour?
Dessner: As much as I am close friends with and know Taylor well, you can’t believe that she pulls it off. It’s like, the best thing that has ever happened to live music in a way. And seeing Gracie play those shows [as an opening act] and seeing people in the stadium singing the songs, it’s a crazy moment in her career. It reminded me of, in a way, in 2007-8, R.E.M., on their final tour, invited The National to open for them, and that was this real moment for us because one of our favorite bands, a giant American rock band, was saying, “Come, we love you.” This is on a much bigger scale than that was, but it feels related, it feels like that really fueled us, and I can feel that in Gracie now, like there’s this confidence, and it’s exciting.
Abrams: There’s something about the scale of what Taylor has done that is unlike anything I’ve ever felt or known in my entire life, and I agree that it is the best thing that has ever happened to live music. Just to be in a place where that many people are equally moved and emotional and down to express it as loudly as possible, it’s really unbelievable. That feeling, though — being in a stadium, at least a Taylor Swift stadium, and these intimate rooms — is very connected, which sounds wild maybe. One of the many millions of things I learned this summer is, she does actually make it feel like you’re on another planet and like it’s just you and her in the room. And I’ve been lucky enough to see the show so many times and I’ve watched it from every possible place in the stadium, and that’s true every time.
From left: Gracie Abrams and Aaron Dessner photographed by Wesley Mann on September 1, 2023 at Long Pond Studio near Hudson, NY.
Wesley Mann
From left: Aaron Dessner and Gracie Abrams photographed by Wesley Mann on September 1, 2023 at Long Pond Studio near Hudson, NY.
Aaron, have you and Taylor’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff ever joked that you two could be competing for producer of the year for the foreseeable future?
Dessner: He has produced so many records and been in that really intensely for a long time, whereas I’ve been really doing all my esoteric art music with my brother and making music with The National and touring a lot. But I feel like there’s a lot of camaraderie between Jack and I, having worked on a lot of the same records now, and I think anyone that gets nominated is lucky. Some people have more notoriety for whatever reason, and I think part of the thing is like, how much do people know what you do? So, the answer is, I think we’ll think it’s funny.
For an artist or producer who wants to build what you two have, what advice would you give?
Abrams: I hope I’ve gotten less annoying about it, but [Aaron] very much encouraged following your gut, which is maybe cliché advice or feels empty, but I think I was so lucky to have had the person saying that to my face be someone whose work I have admired forever and someone who I trust. But having not heard that or believed it, a lot of the music wouldn’t exist, or I would be in a very different place in general right now.
Dessner: There are a lot of producers who franchise themselves and collect as many artists as they can, and you can see that, and I feel like the work becomes diminished or something. You also have to live and experience things. I like the way community slowly grows… I feel like people find each other for a reason.
This story will appear in the Oct. 7, 2023, issue of Billboard.
From spearheading Girl Power, landing No. 1s on both sides of the Atlantic, launching a solo career, penning books, and enjoying a front-row seat for Formula One, Spice Girl Geri Halliwell has lived a life less ordinary.
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Halliwell, or “Ginger” to generations of pop music fans, stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to promote her new book, chat about her love of Americans’ can-do attitude, and talk us through where it all took off for her — with the Spice Girls.
As a member of the pioneering British girl group, Halliwell and her bandmates were a phenomenon, one that spawned a feature film, every type of imaginable merch, and hits – including nine No. 1 songs in the U.K. and a four-week stint at the summit of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Wannabe,” at the start of 1997.
Speaking with Fallon on Tuesday night’s episode (Oct. 3), Halliwell confirmed she actually missed the audition for what was to become Spice Girls (she was climbing a mountain, got sunburnt, phoned weeks later and still got the gig). Also, she admitted the name Spice Girls came to her in an exercise class in the 1990s, though the name Ginger, “some magazine made it up.” And, yes, before they became Simon Fuller’s Spice Girls, the project was briefly called Touch.
The iconic Union Jack dress that she wore on stage at the 1997 Brit Awards was a Gucci, which she altered with a tea towel. And those flashy red boots, she told Fallon, were juiced-up with spray-on car wax, an idea from the mind of her mechanic dad.
Geri has a place in her heart for the U.S. “I don’t think I’d be as successful as I was, and I have been, if it wasn’t for America. You say, ‘you can do it.’” And she did it. After leaving Spice World, Halliwell went solo. During a stretch from 1999 to 2001, she enjoyed four consecutive No. 1s in the U.K., including her cover of The Weather Girls’ “It’s Raining Men,” which appeared on the soundtrack for Bridget Jones’s Diary.
Spice Girls reunited last year to cerebrate Geri’s 50th birthday, an event that doubled-up as the 25th anniversary of their sophomore album Spiceworld, released back in 1997. There’s no talk, however, on the famous five hitting the studio or the road anytime soon.
These days, Halliwell is a happily married mom, and familiar to millions of sports fans through her husband Christian Horner, principal of Red Bull Racing, and the Netflix series Formula One: Drive to Survive, in which they regularly appear.
Halliwell’s second book, Rosie Frost & the Falcon Queen, was officially released on Tuesday (Oct. 3) on Amazon, Walmart, Barnes & Noble and Target.
Watch the interview below.
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