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Miley Cyrus is going back to her roots for an Endless Summer Vacation special with Disney.
Cyrus will lead the show in every imaginable way. The pop superstar serves as executive producer on Miley Cyrus ‒ Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), during which she’ll showcase new music from her forthcoming studio album, Endless Summer Vacation, including a performance of “Flowers.”
Disney Branded Television’s “music-focused performance special” will feature seven additional tracks from the new album, one of her “chart-topping classic hits” and a collaboration with Rufus Wainwright.
Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions) is produced by Cyrus, creative production company RadicalMedia, HopeTown Entertainment, Crush Management and Columbia Records, and is set to premiere on Friday, March 10, at 1 p.m. ET on Disney+.
It’s a sort of homecoming for Miley, who achieved lift-off in her early years as the star of Hannah Montana, which aired on the Disney Channel for four seasons between March 2006 and January 2011.
Cyrus kicked off the “Backyard Sessions” in 2012 as a series for fans, offering a glimpse at the singer with her band, chilling outdoors.
The special is, of course, a tie-in with Cyrus’ eighth studio album Endless Summer Vacation, due out March 10 via Columbia Records. It’s the followup to Plastic Hearts, which crowned Billboard’s Top Rock Albums Chart and hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
Its global hit “Flowers” has racked up six consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Official U.K. Singles Charts. And in the land Down Under, “Flowers” has just nabbed its seventh straight week at No. 1 on the ARIA Chart.
Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter are directors of Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions), and Marcell Rév is director of photography.
Taylor Swift is showing how she made her vision for her January “Lavender Haze” music video come to life. On Friday (March 3), the pop star shared behind-the-scenes footage from her days-long shoot with model Laith Ashley, who played her love interest in the project, and a group of extras.
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In the very first clip, Swift is breaking down walls on a set decorated to look like a living room, acting out one of the video’s last scenes. (In the final product, the room’s walls fall away to reveal a starry sky swimming with enormous, magical koi fish.) Then, she shifts immediately from actress to director, adorably raising her arms and shouting, “Cut!”
The new video also shows the “Anti-Hero” singer coaching her leading man, explaining to Ashley what types of scenes they’ll film together and how post-editing will add special effects to one of their more intimate moments. “I didn’t expect for her to share anything with me,” he tells the camera at one point.
“I was just like, ‘I’m kind of just here … kind of just a model,” he continued. “But she went into detail as to what my role was in the video, so I’m really happy to be a part of it. She was just so warm and down to earth.”
Following “Anti-Hero” and “Bejeweled,” “Lavender Haze” marked the third music video to be released for a track on Swift’s blockbuster 10th studio album, Midnights, which dropped in October. “This was the first video I wrote out of the 3 that have been released, and this one really helped me conceptualize the world and mood of Midnights,” the singer wrote on Instagram following the finished video’s release. “Like a sultry sleepless 70’s fever dream.”
Behind-the-scenes content isn’t the only treat Swifties woke up to Friday morning, though. The “All Too Well” musician also shared a handful of “Lavender Haze” remixes from Tensnake, Snakehips and Jungle.
Watch the “Lavender Haze” behind-the-scenes video and listen to the remixes below:
As moonlight illuminates Disneyland Park’s Main Street, U.S.A., toddlers are gleefully hoisted onto shoulders, young couples nestle under Mickey Mouse blankets and groups of teenagers buzz with excitement. The mix of generations represented here have at least one thing in common: A real love for Disney’s creations.
The crowd is awaiting “Wondrous Journeys,” the park’s new nighttime event celebrating 100 years of Disney magic. In the span of a 15-minute, firework-filled spectacular, every milestone of the storytelling giant’s century-long history is projected onto the exterior of Main Street U.S.A. and the Sleeping Beauty Castle – from the first sketch of Mickey Mouse in 1927 to Disney’s upcoming 2023 film, Wish.
The display features nods to every Walt Disney Animation Studios film, coupled with lighting effects, fireworks and even Baymax from Big Hero 6, who at one point soars above the castle. It’s all set to a star-studded soundtrack arranged by Grammy Award-winning composer Christopher Lennertz, which features re-imaginings of Disney classics like “When You Wish Upon a Star” fused seamlessly with songs from modern-day films including “Almost There” from Princess and the Frog and “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto.
“When the team sat down, we realized that the core theme that binds everyone together when it comes to emotion, is music,” says Walt Disney Imagineering’s global head of music Tricia Holloway.
The first step in developing the show’s music component was putting together an acoustic blueprint for what would become the “Wondrous Journeys” soundtrack. “I really approached this project like a combination of a stage musical and animated feature,” says Lennertz. “I wanted the music to be precisely clear about telling our story, with motivated singing and lyrics, but also be joyous, vivid, and colorful, like the great animated art that we were paying tribute to.”
Once the 18-song piano and vocal demo was thoroughly reviewed by Disney’s team, including show director and creative music producer Jordan Peterson, it came time to decide who would perform each track. “We started brainstorming [and] put together a list of vocalists that we thought would help inspire the show and take it to another level,” says Holloway. “As we were looking to cast the vocalists, we were looking to people who perform in front of a live audience so that they could bring that energy and storytelling to the delivery of their vocals.”
In addition to more musical theater-centric acts suggested by her colleagues, Holloway threw a number of recording artists into the mix — reflective of her 20 years as a music supervisor in film and television at companies like Lionsgate and Nickelodeon. Through a combination of outreach to managers, agents and contractors, the soundtrack became a perfect blend of vocalists across musical disciplines, including Tarriona “Tank” Ball from Tank and the Bangas, Tony Award winner Lena Hall, jazz and soul singer Shoshana Bean, Ty Taylor from Los Angeles soul-rock band Vintage Trouble and pop duo Clyde and Gracie Lawrence.
“Being a part of Disney’s Wondrous Journeys was a dream come true,” says Ball, who, along with Taylor, jokingly referred to herself as “Disney royalty” after watching the show for the first time.
Hall, who performed “Immortal” from Big Hero 6, says she was “thrilled” when asked to be a part of the project. “I’m no Disney princess, so I thought it was cool they wanted to bring some real rock vocals to the show,” she says.
The “Wondrous Journeys” score was recorded over the course of a year across California, Nashville, New York City, London and Orlando, with an 80-piece orchestra, 16 lead vocalists and a 33-member choir. One of the elements Holloway is most excited about is the spectacular’s original opening song, “It’s Wondrous.”
When the Disney team received the track — originally a demo from songwriters Alex Ganga and Danny Brown — they loved the rendition so much that they opted to keep the demo vocalists for the final song. “It’s a folk-pop approach, bringing a different style than you typically would hear in the parks, something that you’d want to hear outside of the parks on its own,” says Holloway of the song.
Now, fans can hear “It’s Wondrous” whenever they want, as the track arrived on streaming platforms Friday (March 3).
“I think ‘It’s Wondrous’ is going to become part of the DNA of the Disney catalog,” Holloway says. “It isn’t from an actual film or character, but it captures the feeling and beauty that you find within all the animation films.”
Billboard’s First Stream 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, Nicki Minaj revives a Lumidee smash, Morgan Wallen tries to take everything One Thing at a Time, and J-Hope links up with J. Cole for an ode to fans. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Nicki Minaj, “Red Ruby Da Sleaze”
After scoring her first solo Hot 100 No. 1 last year with “Super Freaky Girl,” a pop-rap smash that reanimated Rick James’ timeless 1981 hit “Super Freak,” Nicki Minaj jumps ahead to 2003 for her inspiration, and turns Lumidee’s “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” into the backbone of new single “Red Ruby Da Sleaze.” Unlike “Super Freaky Girl,” however, the focus of Minaj’s latest swerves away from its sample on numerous occasions — the chorus here functions as a percussive breakdown, with only the faintest “Uh oooooh’s” in the background — and morphs that familiar hook into something new and modern, all while Minaj talks her game with (somehow) name-checks for her Christopher Reeve and Karl Malone.
Morgan Wallen, One Thing at a Time
“I was a bad reputation, with an attitude to match,” Morgan Wallen sings on “Dying Man,” the closing track of his new 36-song album. “Hell, man, I’m goin’ nowhere / And gettin’ there lightnin’ fast.” The song is about romantic redemption — one of the primary themes of One Thing at a Time — but also provides a glimpse into Wallen’s mindset, as he grappled with being a magnetic vocalist and the biggest new country star of the past half-decade while also making personal missteps and being mired in endless controversy. Two years after Dangerous: The Double Album plowed to No. 1 — and a public fallout made its success taste bitter — Wallen’s epic new full-length prods at his frustrations and attempts at self-improvement while delivering some of the most agreeable country tunes you’ll hear this year; his reputation is still debated, but Wallen is no longer stuck in neutral.
J-Hope & J. Cole, “On the Street”
J-Hope accomplished a ton as a solo artist in 2022, from his bold Jack in the Box project to his prominent performance at Lollapalooza, and the BTS member uses new single “On the Street” to express his gratitude toward the fans who helped make it all happen. Meanwhile, J. Cole’s effortless flow sounds natural when placed next to J-Hope’s delivery: both artists understand how to pack heady thoughts into tight spaces, and operate above a whistle melody with confidence and charisma. Both artists are hungry, and bonus points to Cole for expressing as much: “You see a top 10 list, I see a Golden Corral.”
Kali Uchis, Red Moon in Venus
Kali Uchis continuously beguiles new fans by constantly pushing boundaries: the 28-year-old Colombian-American has spent her career dissatisfied with the parameters placed between Latin pop and R&B, then redrawing them in ways that she sees fit, whether that include sinking into dreamy hooks like on breakout hit “Telepatía” or exploring synth fantasias like on recent single “I Wish You Roses.” Red Moon in Venus, Uchis’ third album, maintains a singular approach but offers the most satisfying songwriting of her career — a love album that ranges from floating slow jams (“Worth the Wait,” with Omar Apollo) to pop come-ons (“Endlessly”), the full-length sounds like nothing else, and like Uchis’ mainstream arrival.
Marshmello & Manuel Turizo, “El Merengue”
“El Merengue,” the new team-up from dance superstar Marshmello and reggaeton sensation Manuel Turizo, begins with some subtle synths off in the distance, as if the song is being transmitted from another planet — and when the track fully kicks in, it charms and provokes movement without ever overpowering the listener. One of Marshmello’s strongest production traits is his ability to allow his collaborator ample room without getting outmuscled by a beat, and Turizo is more than game to play his foil on “El Merengue,” shimmying across the verses and crooning when needed on the chorus.
Portugal. The Man, “Dummy”
Portugal. The Man were more than a decade into their run as a successful, festival-ready alt-rock band when their single “Feel It Still” crashed the top 10 of the Hot 100, became inescapable on pop playlists and turned the band into Grammy winners; the group enjoyed a well-earned victory lap with the smash, then took a few years off to plot their next move. “Dummy,” which previews the Jeff Bhasker-produced new album Chris Black Changed My Life, serves as an apocalyptic jingle that’s ripe for alternative radio: lines like “Everyone I know / Is running from the afterlife” exist inside undeniable grooves, and Portugal. The Man nod to both longtime fans and casual listeners seeking another catchy-as-hell hit.
Atlantic Records was so eager to land the soundtrack to Amazon Prime Video’s new series, Daisy Jones & The Six that West Coast president Kevin Weaver went to extraordinary measures.
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The 10-part series, whose first three episodes debut today, brings to life Taylor Jenkins Reid’s best-selling 2019 novel about an imaginary rock band from the ‘70s who release their magnum opus, Aurora, before they breakup, riven by the complicated, tortured relationship between singer/songwriter Jones (Riley Keough) and band co-founder Billy Dunne (Sam Claflin). The series is told from the viewpoint of the band members 20 years after the split through flashbacks.
With several labels competing to release Aurora, Weaver pressed up fake vinyl copies of the album, complete with the Ellemar Records label (the made-up record company the band is signed to in the book) and sent them to the series producers Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine and Amazon Studios.
“The opportunity here felt massive, and it just felt incredibly important to Atlantic with our story, heritage and the label’s rich history in rock and roll and this type of music over decades and decades that we were the partner here,” Weaver says.
While the band may be fake (and owes a major debt to Fleetwood Mac’s fractured dynamics and glorious melodies), the music on Aurora — which comes out today (March 3) on vinyl and to digital service providers — is very real, and was created by some of music’s heaviest hitters. Grammy Award-winning producer Blake Mills, who co-wrote and produced the album and supplemental songs heard in the series, collaborated with friends Phoebe Bridgers, Marcus Mumford, Jackson Browne, Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith and others to create the 11 songs on Aurora, plus another 10 non-album originals that are peppered throughout the series.
When Atlantic president of A&R Pete Ganbarg heard of Mills’ involvement, he was totally sold. “Not only is he a great record producer, but he understands time and place,” he says. “[Over] a nearly four-year process, he really became the creative voice, the visionary of what this Daisy Jones music was going to sound like.”
The process in the writing room included 10 songwriters composing for around five months, says veteran producer/A&R executive Tony Berg, who handled additional production on the album and serves as the series’ chief music consultant. “We had a pretty comprehensive dialogue about what it is to be in a band and what it was to be in a band 50 years ago,” Berg says. “The songs were done with real ambition and never that kind of corny simulation of a song from a time and place, but instead ‘Are these great songs? Would a band 50 years ago or a band today perform these songs?’ That constituted our criteria for whether it was good enough.”
As to how Mills and Berg attracted such top-notch songwriters, they simply opened their phone books. They’ve worked with most of the big names involved: Mills produced Mumford’s recent solo album and Berg produced two of Bridgers’ albums, as well as her forthcoming set as part of supertrio Boygenius.
Berg has nothing but praise for the producers from Amazon Studios and Hello Sunshine for trusting Mills, who was recommended by CAA’s Brian Loucks, to make the songs sound as authentic as possible. “That they entrusted this whole project to Blake is remarkable because historically television treats music moronically,” Berg says. “And it was a concerted effort by everyone involved for that not to happen.”
After the songs were completed, Berg and Mills began rehearsing the cast and got an unexpected benefit from COVID. The actors in the band, which also include Suki Waterhouse, underwent a few months of planned vocal training, but when the pandemic hit and shooting was delayed, that training extended to 18 months. “We went into what Frankie Pine, our music supervisor, calls band camp and they rehearsed as if they were a band for months so they could stand up and perform the songs and do a really good job,” Berg says. The actors even played a gig at SIR Studios in Los Angeles before an audience. All band members contributed vocals but did not play the instruments on the album and series.
That authenticity in both the songwriting and the actors singing their own vocals “has tremendous importance” in giving the project credibility, Weaver says. “These are some of the most credible, important songwriters of our generation, and so to have significant contributions from them in this music is more valuable than anything.”
Mills recorded the music for the album and the series at iconic Sound City Studios, which he and Berg run. The studio, the subject of a 2013 documentary by Dave Grohl, plays a recurring role in the show. “They shot for three or four months at Studio City,” Berg says. “All the studio footage was done here. We remade the rooms to look much as they did back in the day.”
Lead single “Regret Me” has received 1.2 million streams, according to Luminate, while new single “Look At Me Now (Honeycomb)” is at 207,000 steams and has been serviced to radio. “We’re looking to grow that and with the streaming story and the momentum off of the show release this week, the hope is that we can really drive that to be a meaningful record at multiple radio formats,” Weaver says.
Additionally, each week after the episodes air, Atlantic will drop EPs with the featured music on DSPs. Weaver and Ganbarg add that there will be additional surprise releases coming during the duration of the series.
In an era where the pop charts are dominated by solo acts — the only rock group in the top 20 of the current Billboard 200 albums chart is Paramore — Berg hopes the series and soundtrack reignites interest in bands.
“I grew up in an era where bands were everything and the idea of a band with two and three lead vocalists was quite normal — The Beatles, The Band, The Byrds, The Buffalo Springfield, Eagles — they all have [multiple] singers. Today, I can’t name a single band like that. I want people to understand that camaraderie, that competition, but, ultimately, the beauty of a band relationship.”
If you missed The Weeknd on his After Hours Til Dawn Tour now’s your chance to catch up. The singer dropped his first-ever live album on Friday (March 3), Live at SoFi Stadium, a 31-track collection chronicling his two-night stand at the Los Angeles venue in Nov. 2022.
As you might expect, the career-overview track list features some of Abel’s most beloved hits, including “Wicked Games,” “Kiss Land,” ” Starboy,” “Can’t Feel My Face,” “Save Your Tears,” “Die For You” and “Blinding Lights,” among others. The set is executive produced by The Weeknd and Mike Dean and is a companion to his recent HBO special Live at SoFi Stadium.
Among the other songs on the album are “Crew Love,” “Heartless,” “Party Monster,” “Faith,” “Out of Time,” “I Feel It Coming” and “Oh Nah,” featuring Ty Dolla $ign.
The album comes at the top of what is shaping up to be a busy year for Weeknd, who is slated to make his series debut in the as-yet-unscheduled HBO series The Idol, and topline his first feature film, which he is also co-writing and co-executive producing alongside director Trey Edward Shults (It Comes At Night); Wednesday actress Jenna Ortega will co-star and also executive produce.
As if that wasn’t enough, Weeknd and Ariana Grande were back in our ears last week with the remix of their 2016 hit single “Die For You,” marking the dynamic duo’s fourth collaboration, following up 2021’s remix of “Save Your Tears,” as well as his feature on her 2014 single “Love Me Harder” and “Off the Table” from Ari’s most recent album, 2020’s Positions.
Listen to Live at SoFi Stadium below.
The roster of headliners for this summer’s Glastonbury Festival is absurdly packed, with Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses, Elton John and Lizzo slated to take the Pyramid Stage. And, in a bittersweet child ‘o mine twist, while Axl and the rest of the Gunners will be performing for the mud-caked masses at Worthy Farm for the first time, it will also mark John’s first, and last, time at Glasto, as the pop icon’s slot will come as he winds down his Farewell Yellow Brick road tour this summer.
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“It gives me enormous pleasure to let you know that the one and only Elton John will be making his first ever Glastonbury appearance, headlining the Pyramid Stage on the Sunday night next year,” co-organizer Emily Eavis revealed in a December note. “This will be the final U.K. show of Elton’s last ever tour, so we will be closing the Festival and marking this huge moment in both of our histories with the mother of all send offs. We are so very happy to finally bring the Rocket Man to Worthy Farm.”
According to the Guardian, John’s Sunday festival-closing set will be immediately preceded by a performance from Lil Nas X, as Lana Del Rey and Wizkid headline on the Other Stage. Other acts making their Glasto debuts this year include “Supermodel” rockers Måneskin and country trio The Chicks.
The lineup also includes: Lewis Capaldi, The War on Drugs, Chvches, Alt-J, Blondie, Carly Rae Jepsen, Central Cee, Christine and the Queens, Fatboy Slim, Hot Chip, Joey Bada$$, Kelis, Maggie Rogers, Manic Street Preachers, Rina Sawayama, Phoenix, Royal Blood, Slowthai, Sparks, Sudan Archives, Thundercat and Weyes Blood, among many others.
After Eavis promised in 2019 that her goal was to ensure as close to a 50/50 gender split as possible, NME reported that 53% of the 54 names on the initial lineup are male this year. And while the majority of the headliners are male, Eavis told the Guardian that GNR were booked after a previously confirmed female headliner pulled out after she “changed her touring plans”; Eavis declined to say who the artist is, but added that she hoped they would headline sometime in the next five years. She also noted that Lizzo will serve as the opening acts for Guns, noting that “she could totally headline” in the future.
In addition, Eavis said as part of the ongoing effort to diversify the bill that 46% of the 54 names on the list are non-white or feature non-white members.
Check out the full announced lineup below.
After cutting seven studio albums, changing style and music direction in the fickle pop world, and surviving a near fatal overdose, yes, Demi Lovato is still alive.
At the stroke of midnight, the U.S. artist dropped “Still Alive,” her contribution to the Scream VI soundtrack.
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It’s the first taste of Lovato’s new music since releasing her seventh studio album, Holy Fvck, back in 2022.
The pop-punk fueled full-length contained collaborations with Yungblud, Royal & the Serpent and Dead Sara and ultimately topped three separate Billboard tallies: Top Rock & Alternative Albums, Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums.
Mike Shinoda is on production duties for “Still Alive,” which sees Lovato cruising in that pop-punk lane and spitting out lyrics that illustrate a living hell.
On it, she sings: “Already died a thousand times / Went to hell but I’m back and I’m breathing / Make me bleed while my heart is still beating / Still alive”.
Lovato, of course, came very close to losing it all when she overdosed on heroin in 2018. She’s since spoken candidly about the incident, and the ongoing road to recovery from a binge that left her with three strokes, a heart attack, and blind spots in her vision.
“Still Alive” is accompanied by an official music video, which features a creep in that familiar Ghostface mask, terrorizing some poor folks. Watch to the end for Lovato kicking some butt.
Jensen Noen directs the “Still Alive” music video, which can be seen below. The next installment in the Scream franchise is due out March 10 in cinemas.
Miley Cyrus unveiled the demo version of her smash single “Flowers” on Friday (March 3) via RCA Records.
“I can buy myself flowers/ Write my name in the sand/ Talk to myself for hours/ Say things you don’t understand/ I can take myself dancing/ And I can hold my own hand/ Yeah, I can love me better than you can,” she sings over the original, scaled-down instrumentation.
Ahead of dropping the demo, the superstar announced she’d be sharing it as a special gift for fans after “Flowers” spent its sixth consecutive week reigning atop the Hot 100 (chart dated March 4). The song has emerged as an unstoppable force since its release on January 12. In its first week, the anthem broke the record for the biggest opening week in Spotify history, only to be topped by an even higher streaming number in the following frame.
“Flowers” serves as the lead single for Cyrus’ upcoming eighth studio album Endless Summer Vacation. Slated for release on March 10, the full-length effort will also feature as-yet-unheard tracks like “Jaded,” “Rose Colored Glasses,” “Violet Chemistry” and “Wonder Woman” along with surprise collaborations with Brandi Carlile (“Thousand Miles”) and Sia (“Muddy Feet”).
“Flowers” is unstoppable on both sides of the Atlantic, logging six consecutive weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and Official U.K. Singles Charts.
Stream Miley’s “Flowers” demo below.
What conscious uncoupling? Gwyneth Paltrow took to social media Thursday (March 2) to ring in ex-husband Chris Martin‘s 46th birthday.
“Happy birthday to the sweetest father and friend,” the Oscar winner wrote on Instagram alongside a casual smiling selfie with the Coldplay frontman, ending the note with “We love you, cajm.” (The acronym likely stands for the singer’s full name, Christopher Anthony John Martin.)
The couple — who famously coined the phrase “conscious uncoupling” upon announcing their split in 2014 — shared kids Apple and Moses. Paltrow has since remarried Brad Falchuk, whom she worked with on the set of Glee, and Martin has been in a relationship with Dakota Johnson since 2017.
Late last month, the “My Universe” singer was named a co-chair for Global Citizen’s upcoming NOW Summit — an additional responsibility on top of his current role curating the nonprofit’s annual festival in Central Park. Along with fellow co-chair Hugh Jackman and an array of leaders across politics, philanthropy and business, Martin will be “focused on turning ideas into impact and driving urgent action to end extreme poverty” during the April 27-28 event.
Ahead of his birthday, the pop-rocker and his bandmates also returned to Saturday Night Live in February, marking their seventh time performing on the long-running sketch series. As musical guests, they performed “The Astronaut,” their collaboration with BTS member Jin, and were later joined by Jacob Collier and the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers on a choral version of “Fix You.”
Check out Paltrow’s sweet birthday wishes for Martin below.
