Pop

22 May 2023

Olivia Rodrigo Pinky Promises That She Is ‘So So So So Close’ To Finishing Second Album

Olivia Rodrigo had a lot to celebrate over the weekend. The singer marked the second anniversary of the release of her full-length 2021 debut, Sour, as well as some good news about her in-the-works follow-up.

“oh man oh man oh man. SOUR turns 2 years old today. no words could ever describe how much this album means to me and how insanely grateful I feel for every blessing it has brought into my life,” she wrote in a post that first appeared as a hand-written note via her newsletter and then migrated to her socials.

There she added some home behind-the-scenes photos and video from the sets of the videos for her debut, as well as a video of her freaking out and running down the street screaming upon seeing a massive billboard promoting Sour.

Back in January, Rodrigo told fans she was back in the studio with producer Dan Nigro in a brief video in which she banged her head along to Nigro’s piano playing, writing, “working on so many new songs I’m excited to show u. Thank u for everything.”

In November, fans got the first hint that new music from the singer was on the horizon when she sent a video message out through Spotify Wrapped. “Hey, it’s Olivia! I just wanted to say thank you so much for listening to my music this year,” she said. “I really, truly couldn’t be more grateful and I’m so excited for next year, and all of the new things and new music that 2023 will bring. So I’m sending so much love your way and thank you again! Bye!”

Rodrigo’s Sour album went to No. 1 upon its release, spending five weeks atop the chart in 2021, and featured the Hot 100 No. 1s “Drivers License” and “Good 4 U.”

See Rodrigo’s post below.

21 May 2023

Here’s Why Miley Cyrus Fans Probably Won’t See Her on Tour Anytime Soon

Miley Cyrus likely won’t be hitting the road in support of her latest album, Endless Summer Vacation.

During an interview for British Vogue‘s latest cover story, the 30-year-old superstar singer revealed that she doesn’t see herself going on tour in the near future.

“It’s been a minute,” Cyrus said. “After the last [headline arena] show I did [in 2014], I kind of looked at it as more of a question. And I can’t. Not only ‘can’t’, because can’t is your capability, but my desire. Do I want to live my life for anyone else’s pleasure or fulfillment other than my own?”

The singer’s last global tour arrived in support of her 2014 album, Bangerz, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The extensive trek included concerts in North America, Europe, Latin America, New Zealand and Australia. Since then, she has played only a handful of solo shows and performed at dozens of prominent music festivals, including Glastonbury, Austin City Limits and Lollapalooza.

The “Flowers” singer told British Vogue that she prefers performing for close friends and loved ones instead of large-scale arenas.

“Like singing for hundreds of thousands of people isn’t really the thing that I love,” Cyrus said. “There’s no connection. There’s no safety.” She added, “It’s also not natural. It’s so isolating because if you’re in front of 100,000 people then you are alone.”

Cyrus didn’t have any live dates scheduled as of press time.

On Tuesday (May 16), the singer dropped the music video for “Jaded,” the third single off her March-released eighth studio album, Endless Summer Vacation, which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. The set’s lead single “Flowers” spend eight weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and became the quickest song to reach 1 billion streams in Spotify history.

21 May 2023

Fans Choose Kesha’s ‘Gag Order’ as This Week’s Favorite New Music

Kesha’s Gag Order has topped this week’s new music poll.

Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (May 19) on Billboard, choosing the pop singer’s fifth album as their favorite new music release of the past week.

Gag Order brought in more than 68% of the vote, beating out new music from Post Malone (“Mourning”), Bad Bunny (“Where She Goes”), Lewis Capaldi (Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent), Kaytraminé (Kaytraminé), and others.

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Kesha’s 13-track collection is the singer’s long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s High Road. The Rick Rubin-produced set was preceded by dual lead singles “Fine Line” and “Eat the Acid,” both of which demonstrate a hard-fought evolution from her early days as pop’s reckless party girl in the early 2010s.

Prior to the album’s release, Kesha also dropped the frenetic “Only Love Can Save Us Now,” which hits the senses as equal parts country, rap and gospel confessional.

“I feel like I’m giving birth to the most intimate thing I’ve ever created,” the star confessed in an interview with Rolling Stone when she announced the album. “I really dug into some of my uglier emotions and sides of myself that are less fun. It’s scary being vulnerable. The fact that I have compiled an entire record of these emotions, of anger, of insecurity, of anxiety, of grief, of pain, of regret, all of that is so nerve-racking — but it’s also so healing.”

Trailing behind Gag Order on the poll is the “other” category, with 11% of the vote, Post Malone’s “Mourning” with 8% of the vote, and Bad Bunny’s “Where She Goes,” with nearly 7% of the vote.

See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.

21 May 2023

Harry Styles Celebrates 1-Year Anniversary of ‘Harry’s House’: ‘I’ve Never Been Happier Than Making This Album’

Harry Styles is fondly looking back on his Grammy-winning album, Harry’s House.

The 29-year-old pop superstar took to social media on Saturday (May 20) to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his blockbuster third album, which was released on May 20, 2022, through Columbia Records.

“One year of Harry’s House. I’ve never been happier than making this album, thank you for everything,” Styles captioned a photo on Instagram of himself sporting a mustache.

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On Harry’s House, the English singer offered some of his most personal and intimate work, pairing candid yet unfussy lyrics with occasionally jazzy and heavily leaning synth-pop instrumentation. The 13-track set found the former One Direction member getting incredibly vulnerable with his audience on tracks like “Matilda,” but amped up the party vibes on “Music for a Sushi Restaurant,” “Cinema” and others.

Earlier this year, Styles took home the Grammy for album of the year at the 2023 Grammy Awards. Harry’s House spent two weeks at. No. 1 on the Billboard 200, while his hit single “As It Was” spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Styles also took home the best pop vocal album award for Harry’s House.

The set logged six non-consecutive weeks atop the Official U.K. Albums Chart in 2022, more than any other album, and “As It Was” topped the U.K.’s year-end singles survey.

Check out Styles’ post on Instagram here.

19 May 2023

Miley Cyrus Raves About Her ‘Endless Summer Vacation’ Cover Outfit: ‘This Look Is Just a Little Bit Too Good’

Everybody say “archival museum-quality”! Miley Cyrus sat down with Vogue to reflect on her style evolution and some of her most famous looks in the fashion bible’s series “Life in Looks.”

In the video published May 18, the pop star gave insight on everything from her time as Hannah Montana and punk-inspired appearance at the 2013 Met Gala to the “extremely controversial” teddy-bear bodysuit she wore to perform at the MTV Video Music Awards that same year.

Later, even Miley herself was blown away when revisiting the stunning cover of her latest album, Endless Summer Vacation. B—h. It’s f–king archival museum-quality Alaia, b—h, it’s better than I ever remembered,” she raved before getting the entire room to applaud. “This look is just a little bit too good. This is one of those looks where, you know, I didn’t have to go this hard. But I did.”

She then revealed that she shot the cover art on the grounds of the Frank Sinatra estate in Palm Springs, Calif., though she was quick to deadpan, “We’re not gonna talk about the shoe” before turning the page.

Cyrus also broke down the vintage gold lamé Yves Saint Laurent dress that took the world by storm when she released the music video for “Flowers” (again, “1991 museum-quality archival — hoo!”).

“Listen, b—h, we shot the video before the runway with all the hoods,” she dished, “and currently they are in Paris at the Yves Saint Laurent museum; it is the ‘Gold Exhibition,’ which we had no idea that was gonna happen. I did it first. I mean, Yves Saint Laurent did it first and then I did it second and then they copied us. It wasn’t saying too much. It spoke for itself, but it also allowed me to speak. It completely captured what the song is about.”

Watch Miley run through her “Life in Looks” for Vogue above.

19 May 2023

Chart Rewind: In 1990, Madonna Was in ‘Vogue’ Atop the Hot 100

One of Madonna’s biggest hits, her 1990 Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 dance anthem “Vogue,” had surprisingly humble beginnings.

“The whole thing was done on a shoestring budget,” Shep Pettibone, the track’s co-writer and producer, told Billboard in 2015. Allotted just $5,000 by Warner Bros. (now Warner) Records to create what was initially slated as a B-side, he finished the song in three weeks, recording the then-31-year-old pop star’s vocals in a “basement on West 56th Street” in New York, where, he said, a closet had been converted into a vocal booth.



The song starts with suspense-building synths before kicking into “Philly Salsoul”-style house music, and its lyrics and sumptuous black-and-white video — directed by future Academy Award nominee David Fincher (Gone Girl, The Social Network) — celebrate voguing, a style of dance popularized in New York’s mostly gay ballroom club scene in the 1980s that mimics fashion-shoot poses.

Released as an A-side, “Vogue” topped the Hot 100 dated May 19, 1990. Madonna and Pettibone also collaborated on the singer’s 1992 No. 1 ballad, “This Used to Be My Playground,” but Pettibone left the music business in the late ’90s.

In June 2019, Madonna released her latest album, Madame X, which arrived as her ninth No. 1 on the Billboard 200. “Vogue,” meanwhile, continues to be a staple of her live shows.

A version of this article first appeared in the May 23, 2015, issue of Billboard magazine.

19 May 2023

Friday Music Guide: New Music From Bad Bunny, Summer Walker, Post Malone, Kesha and More

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, Bad Bunny has a summer banger to offer, Summer Walker checks in between full-lengths, and Post Malone is working at a furious pace. Check out all of this week’s picks below:

Bad Bunny, “Where She Goes” 

Bad Bunny is not satisfied with simply dominating one summer: after Un Verano Sin Ti was released last May and proceeded to take the world by storm, the superstar bursts back into view with “Where She Goes,” a new single that, unlike his recent Grupo Frontera team-up “un x100to,” is clearly designed to conjure summertime perspiration. After about 40 seconds of stormy synths and emotional crooning, the clubby percussion kicks in, and Bad Bunny morphs into a master of ceremonies, his energy never flagging even as the tempo of the track shifts around him. Bad Bunny is in a Midas-touch phase of commercial success — but even divorced from the timing of its arrival, “Where She Goes” sounds like a surefire smash, ready to pounce upon the season with hungry melody.

Summer Walker, Clear 2: Soft Life EP 

At the beginning of 2019 — a year that would be momentous for Summer Walker, thanks to the October release of her Over It album — the R&B singer-songwriter released and EP, Clear, which would continue the momentum from her Last Day of Summer mixtape and set the parameters of her artistic formula. While fans await the proper follow-up to 2021’s Still Over It, Walker returns with Clear 2: Soft Life, a nine-song stopgap defined by her uncompromising perspective, whether it’s applied to yearning for company (like on the Childish Gambino collaboration “New Type”) or rejecting easy comforts (like on the spectacularly performed “Hardlife”).

Post Malone, “Mourning” 

“Got a lot of s–t to say, couldn’t fit it in the chorus,” Post Malone declares at the end of the “Mourning” hook, and he’s correct, even outside of the context of the song: after 2022’s Twelve Carat Toothache marked Posty’s first full-length in three years, he’s already back next month with Austin, his fifth studio album, which was preceded by the single “Chemical.” Unlike that more pop-leaning offering, “Mourning” finds Post Malone operating within singsong rap, yelling at God and refusing to sober up while grappling with the excesses of fame; in this prolific period, the superstar is prodding at his sound and identity, and the results are intoxicating.

Kesha, Gag Order 

The reinvention of Kesha’s pop career during her years-long legal battle against Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald has simultaneously been heartbreaking and revelatory: while the personal trauma that the “TiK ToK” singer has experienced during this time has been incalculable, she has mined the depths of her artistry and come up with wholly impressive sonic explorations like new album Gag Order. This album demands attention: as Kesha embraces throbbing cacophony and tries to make sense of senseless circumstances, her songwriting and vocal technique evolve with zero abandon and riveting results.

Lewis Capaldi, Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent 

The list of modern artists not named Adele who can guide heart-wrenching ballads to the billion-stream club is exceedingly short, but Lewis Capaldi, who earned international success with “Someone You Loved” and “Before You Go,” is on it, understanding the cocktail of vulnerable songwriting, tender production and vocal skill needed to affect the tear ducts of global listeners. On Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, the Scottish singer-songwriter doesn’t rip up the formula that made him a star — instead, he offers more stories that aim to stir, using songs like “Haven’t You Ever Been In Love Before?” and lead single “Forget Me” to reach wide and inspire as many listeners as possible to simply, effortlessly feel.

Kaytraminé, Kaytraminé 

The combination of singer-rapper Aminé and production multi-hyphenate Kaytranada not only makes sense on paper as a fusion of two like-minded creatives who have worked well together over the years, but Kaytraminé, the duo’s self-titled debut album, also works brilliantly as a late spring release, primed to soundtrack Memorial Day Weekend hangouts and months of hazy beach days. With guests like Freddie Gibbs, Pharrell Williams and Snoop Dogg stopping by to buttress Aminé’s silky flow and Kaytranada’s luxurious beats, Kaytraminé is a summer essential on the same level of shorts and sunscreen.

19 May 2023

Lizzo Asks Fans to Bring Posters of Her Boyfriend Instead of Chris Evans to Her Shows & They Oblige

Lizzo may have once fantasized about having Chris Evans’ baby, but those days are behind her. And now that she’s happily in love with boyfriend Myke Wright, she thinks it’s about d–n time her fans start bringing posters of him — and not cutouts of Captain America — to her shows.

In a hilarious video posted to the superstar’s Instagram Friday (May 19), Lizzo pauses her concert to specifically thank fans in the crowd for bringing blown-up photos of Wright. She then explains that at a previous show, she’d given a “public service announcement” about her relationship status because one fan in the audience had brought “a big a– cutout of Chris Evans’ face.”

“Chris Evans is not my man,” she’d told the crowd at the earlier show. “My man is [Myke Wright]. He fine as hell. I wanna see his fine a– face when I’m onstage.”

Clearly, her fans heeded her words — and Lizzo is overjoyed. “Can I have one? For scientific purposes,” the Grammy winner told two people in the audience who brought giant photos of Wright, before taking a picture with the fans from stage.

But while Wright, who is a comedian and TV personality, is Lizzo’s muse now, there was definitely a time not so long ago when Evans was the apple of her eye. In 2021, she confessed to drunk-messaging Evans over Instagram DMs, after which the Knives Out star followed her back and responded, “No shame in a drunk DM. God knows I’ve done worse on this app.”

From there, the two had many more moments of cute banter via social media and interviews. At one point, the “2 Be Loved (Am I Ready)” singer posted a TikTok joking that she was pregnant with Evans’ child, prompting him to send her a hilarious response over DMs that she shared with followers. “Hi! Just heard about our little bundle of joy,” he joked at the time. “My mother will be so happy.”

See Lizzo’s PSA about those Chris Evans posters below:

18 May 2023

Kesha Speaks Her Mind on Fifth Album ‘Gag Order’: Stream It Now

Kesha unfurled her new album Gag Order at midnight on Friday (May 19) via Kemosabe/RCA Records.

The 13-track collection produced by Rick Rubin is the pop singer’s long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s High Road and was preceded by dual lead singles “Fine Line” and “Eat the Acid” — both of which demonstrate a hard-fought evolution from her early days as pop’s reckless party girl in the early 2010s. (On the former she warns, “There’s a fine line I’ve been walkin’/ And trying to balance is exhaustin’/ This is where you f–kers pushed me/ Don’t get surprised if s–t gets ugly” while the latter finds her turning her experiences with LSD and transcendental meditation into a synth-drenched psychedelic haze.)

Prior to the album’s release, Kesha also dropped the frenetic “Only Love Can Save Us Now,” which hits the senses as equal parts country, rap and gospel confessional.

“I feel like I’m giving birth to the most intimate thing I’ve ever created,” the star confessed in an interview with Rolling Stone when she announced the studio set. “I really dug into some of my uglier emotions and sides of myself that are less fun. It’s scary being vulnerable. The fact that I have compiled an entire record of these emotions, of anger, of insecurity, of anxiety, of grief, of pain, of regret, all of that is so nerve-racking — but it’s also so healing.”

Featuring jarring cover art of Kesha’s distorted face being suffocated by a translucent plastic bag, Gag Order also contains numerous co-writing credits from her mother, Pebe Sebert, as well as contributions from songwriting supernova Justin Tranter (“Hate Me Harder”) and The Ramones (a clever interpolation on album cut “The Drama”).

Stream Kesha’s Gag Order below.

18 May 2023

Kelly Clarkson Unveils Sultry Summer Track ‘Favorite Kind of High’

Kelly Clarkson knows that love has its lows and highs, and she’s focusing on the latter in her breezy new track, “Favorite Kind of High.”

The song, which arrived on Friday (May 19), details the fun, breathless exhilaration of meeting someone special. “You’re my favorite kind of high / Rushing through me like a fire / And I need you to know / I say I won’t but I do / When it comes to loving you / I have no control,” she belts in the upbeat, radio-ready chorus.

In the accompanying live video for the track, Clarkson explains to the crowd at Los Angeles’ Belasco Theatre that while some of her upcoming album Chemistry is about her 2020 divorce from Brandon Blackstock, “I wanted it to be about the whole relationship.”

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“One thing I have learned, in a lot of therapy, is that it’s not about just the bad. It was a whole thing. It doesn’t mean everything is bad. There’s nothing like that high when you first see someone, and you’re like, ‘Oh s—, I wonder if they’re single.’”

“Favorite Kind of High” follows double singles “Mine” and “Me” off the superstar’s upcoming tenth studio album, Chemistry, out June 23 via Atlantic Records.

“Having chemistry with someone is an incredible, and overwhelming, feeling. It’s like you have no choice in the matter,” Clarkson said of the project in a press statement. “You are just drawn to each other. This can be good and bad. This album takes you down every path that chemistry could lead you down.”

Listen to “Favorite Kind of High” below.