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When we first met John Legend as a solo artist, it was through the quiet 2005 piano ballad “Ordinary People” — so it only makes sense that, nearly two decades later, Legend is going back to basics for his next project, LEGEND (Solo Piano Version).
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The singer/songwriter took 10 songs from his most recent album, September’s LEGEND, and stripped them down to new piano versions, adding a pair of fresh covers to the Friday (Feb. 10) release. After years of performing with just a piano, Legend thought the idea made perfect sense.
“Half of my gigs are solo gigs. Even though we’ve done a huge production in Vegas, we’ve done big tours with like a nine-piece band all around the world, often a lot of my favorite shows are the ones where it’s just me and a piano,” he tells Katie & Keith on the new Billboard Pop Shop Podcast (listen below). “And I think my fans like it, because it strips the songs down to their essence and they hear my voice, the lyrics, the melodies really purely.”
One revelation in making the album was LEGEND‘s second single “Honey,” originally featuring brand-new Grammy winner Muni Long, which Legend decided to bump up to the piano project’s opening track.
“The one I changed from the original the most was ‘Honey,’” he says. “I made it more kind of slow, I did it without a tempo, and it’s just kind of free and a little more jazzy. And I loved doing that spin on the song. It’s much different than the original, and it feels really fresh and new.”
The two covers Legend recorded for the album are Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and Sade’s “By My Side,” which he’s planning to include on the setlist for his upcoming Feb. 13 and 14 pair of Valentine’s Day concerts at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall.
“One of my managers loves Sade, and she suggested that I try a Sade song,” Legend tells the Pop Shop. “And she even suggested ‘By Your Side,’ among a few other ideas that she had. And that was the one that just stuck out to me and I just kept humming it in my head and just felt like, ‘I would feel really good singing that melody and those lyrics.’ And I sat at the piano and started working it out. And I just loved the feeling that it gave me. I love Sade anyway, but this song, particularly, I think is really special and beautiful. I love the sentiment of it, and I really loved performing it.”
Is Legend — who performed as a supporting act on Sade’s last tour in 2011 — impatiently waiting for Sade’s first album since 2010 Soldier of Love like most music fans? “You know she’s gonna take her time,” he laughs. “I literally was on the last tour. That was 12 years ago!”
While Legend would love to take his piano show to other venues besides the Walt Disney Concert Hall, he’s trying to stay close to home at the moment, with the Jan. 13 birth of his new baby Esti. “We’ll do more,” he promised. “It’s gonna be sporadic since we had a baby and I’m trying to work a little bit less. I’ll probably do occasional weekends where we’ll go off to different cities and do shows. But it won’t be kind of a steady tour.”
Legend is staying plenty busy around L.A. this week, performing at Friday night’s MusiCares Persons of the Year gala honoring Motown founder Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson, taping the Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys on Wednesday night (Feb. 8), and joining DJ Khaled, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross and Fridayy for a pre-taped Grammys-closing performance of their song of the year nominee “God Did.” The Pop Shop spoke to Legend ahead of Sunday’s Grammy Awards, when he marveled at the unifying powers of Khaled.
“Everyone is so gifted and so powerful as an artist in their own right,” he said. “And for us all to be together — that’s the genius of DJ Khaled. He’s really great at putting all of us together. He’s like the world’s greatest A&R for hip-hop. He’s such a great convener. He brings us all together and makes magic happen.”
Listen to the latest Pop Shop Podcast episode above for the rest of the conversation, including his thoughts on the final Voice season for Blake Shelton, who’s “been the heart and soul of the show for so long.”
Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on how new songs from The Kid LAROI, Zach Bryan and Maggie Rogers, and P!nk all debut on the Billboard Hot 100, while TOMORROW X TOGETHER notches its first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and both Sam Smith and Lil Yachty bow in the top 10 with their latest releases.
Plus, we talk all about last Sunday’s Grammy Awards and this Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime spectacular, where Rihanna will headline the show.
The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard‘s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard‘s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)
Lance Bass sat down with Billboard News on Tuesday (Feb. 7) to spill all the tea about his new podcast, Lance Bass Presents: Frosted Tips, and whether *NSYNC fans might ever get the reunion they’ve always wanted.
Chatting with Billboard‘s own Tetris Kelly, the boy band veteran said he initially conceived of the project as a podcast that “really celebrated the fandom out there,” and it’s the perfect excuse for fans to take a time-traveling trip back to the heyday of the early 2000s.
According to the *NSYNC star, his other goal for the show was to use it as a vehicle for “telling stories we were never allowed to tell before.”
“We had to keep it very PG back in the day,” he said. “And there was a lot of stuff going down behind the curtain. There’s definitely a lot of secrets being told. It’s a really great look at the music industry, especially in that era. You know, how everything went down, what we all experienced. There’s so many similarities. A lot of the issues we were dealing with at the time were kept out of public view because we didn’t want the fans to know.”
So far, the podcast has featured Bass’ bandmates J.C. Chasez and Joey Fatone, as well as A.J. McLean of Backstreet Boys, Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees and Jonathan Knight of New Kids on the Block.
When Kelly asked about whether a reunion might ever be in the boy band’s future — especially after four-fifths of *NSYNC joined Ariana Grande onstage at Coachella in 2019 — Bass left the door open.
“Never say never,” he said. “I mean, who knew we were going to be doing Coachella a few years ago? I think it just has to be the right time; we all have to be inspired in the moment. But I do think the world needs something again from *NSYNC. I always feel bad that there was no ending, because we didn’t have a final show, we didn’t have a final tour, because we didn’t know it was the final days. I think we owe it to the fans to give them something at some point. I just hope it’s before I’m 80 years old,” he laughed.
Watch more from Bass’ interview with Billboard News, including his thoughts on modern boy bands like BTS, his favorite memories from his *NSYNC days and more, above.
Kelly Clarkson powered through a cover of Adele‘s “Set Fire to the Rain” on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday (Feb. 7).
“Sometimes I wake up by the door/ That heart you caught must be waiting for you/ Even now, when we’re already over/ I can’t help myself from looking for you/ I set fire to the rain/ And I threw us into the flames/ When it fell, something died/ ‘Cause I knew that that was the last time, the last time,” she belted out while wearing a black brocade dress, wide belt and matching tights.
The lush power pop ballad was Adele’s third straight No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 off her behemoth 2011 album, 21, which also included chart-toppers “Rolling in the Deep” and “Someone Like You.” Of course, since then, the superstar has added titanic singles “Hello” and the recently Grammy-winning “Easy on Me” to her list of No. 1s.
Later in her talk show, Clarkson interviewed both Alison Brie and Michael Bolton, and gave her audience a preview of her latest gig hosting the NFL Honors with help from football great Michael Irvin.
Other recent Kellyoke selections on the show have run the gamut from Mark Morrison’s ’90s R&B classic “Return of the Mack” and Camilla Yarbrough’s “Take Yo’ Praise” to the indie rock of Arctic Monkeys’ 2013 single “Do I Wanna Know?” and club-ready banger “Finally” by CeCe Peniston. She also recently welcomed P!nk to the studio for an hourlong rendition of her “Songs & Stories” segment.
Watch Clarkson cover Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain” in the latest Kellyoke below:
New music from TOMORROW X TOGETHER and Morgan Wallen occupy the top five of Billboard’s Hot Trending Songs chart dated Feb. 11.
Billboard’s Hot Trending charts, powered by Twitter, track global music-related trends and conversations in real-time across Twitter, viewable over either the last 24 hours or past seven days. A weekly, 20-position version of the chart, covering activity from Friday through Thursday of each week, posts alongside Billboard’s other weekly charts on Billboard.com each Tuesday, with the latest tracking period running Jan. 27-Feb. 2.
“Tinnitus (Wanna Be a Rock),” from TOMORROW X TOGETHER’s new five-song EP The Name Chapter: TEMPTATION (released Jan. 27), starts at No. 1. It’s followed by fellow entries from the EP “Devil By the Window” (No. 3), the Coi LeRay-featuring “Happy Fools” (No. 5), “Farewell, Neverland” (No. 7) and “Sugar Rush Ride” (No. 15).
Concurrently, TEMPTATION bows at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as previously reported, with 161,000 equivalent album units earned, according to Luminate. Each of the songs also reach the World Digital Song Sales tally, led by “Ride” at No. 1 (3,000 downloads).
Wallen’s “Everything I Love,” “Last Night” and “One Thing at a Time” appear on the ranking at Nos. 2, 4 and 16, respectively. The former two were released Jan. 31 ahead of the country singer’s new album, One Thing at a Time, due March 3, while the latter premiered in 2022.
“Night” and “Love” concurrently debut at Nos. 27 and 61, respectively, on the Billboard Hot 100, while “Time” jumps 73-54.
Linda Ronstadt’s “Long Long Time,” released in 1970, also sees a No. 6 debut thanks to its appearance in the Jan. 29 episode of HBO’s The Last of Us.
Keep visiting Billboard.com for the constantly evolving Hot Trending Songs rankings, and check in each Tuesday for the latest weekly chart.
With his second producer of the year non-classical trophy in hand after the 2023 Grammy Awards on Sunday (Feb. 5), Jack Antonoff took some time during his press chat after accepting to weigh in on the recent controversies around ballooning concert ticket prices and on-sale snafus for some of the industry’s biggest acts.
The producer-songwriter and frequent Taylor Swift collaborator made one thing perfectly clear during his chat with reporters on his feelings about mega-promoters: Them, they’re the problem, not us.
“The whole thing is incredibly tough. There’s no reason why … if I can go online and buy a car and have it delivered to my house, why can’t I buy a f–king ticket at the price that the artist wants it to be? So it’s that simple,” Antonoff said of the distress facing some fans when buying tickets to shows by their favorite acts.
“And you know the reason why. And it’s not ’cause of artists,” he added, without naming names of any industry ticketing agencies in particular. “So the one thing that I would say while holding a microphone is everybody’s got to chill on the artists. Because everyone’s trying to figure it out. We know who’s making it impossible.”
Antonoff, who has held forth on the topic of touring and dynamic ticket pricing before, said that he would like to see the industry allow artists to opt-out of the format that often results in sky-high prices for fans. He also stumped for the industry to stop “taxing merch” and allow artists to sell tickets at a “price they actually believe.”
In the wake of January’s contentious Senate Judiciary hearings on Ticketmaster, Ineffable Music Group announced a plan to cut merch fees for bands at its venues.
“Don’t turn a live show into a free market,” Antonoff said. “Because that’s really dirty. Charge what you think is fair … but if [for] one person $50 is nothing and for one person $50 is more than they can ever spend … you’re creating a situation where a different group of people can come together at one price. The second everything fluctuates is the second it goes K-shaped and turns into a weird free market is not what we do.”
Back in November, Antonoff tweeted out a similar complaint in which he blasted music venues for taking a cut of artist’s merch sales. “While we are having the discussion can venues simply stop taxing merch of artists? This is literally the only way you make money when you start out touring,” he wrote. “The more we make it tenable for young and small artists to make a living on the road the more great music we will get. Touring is one of the most honest ways to make a living. Some of the hardest and most heartfelt work you can do. So why must [they] f— artist[s] so hard?”
Antonoff added, “[Simple] solutions, stop taxing merch, stop lying to artists about costs of putting on shows, include artists in more areas of revenue. The stories I could tell from my years of touring are bananas. Young artists on tour are the last to see any money.”
Watch him discuss ticket pricing and merch in the Grammys press room below:
Justice for Renaissance! A skywriter appeared above the city of Los Angeles on Monday (Feb. 6) to remind Beyoncé exactly who she is after her loss at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
Users across social media spotted the airplane’s message in the sky, which couldn’t be any more loud and clear: “BEYONCÉ, YOU MADE MUSIC HISTORY.”
Indeed, while the icon lost out on her fourth chance at album of the year after Harry Styles was named the winner for Harry’s House, she broke the record for the most Grammy win in history by adding four new gramophones to her collection of 32 wins out of 88 total nominations.
And while no one has yet to take credit for the BeyHive-approved message in the sky, Bey’s husband Jay-Z shrugged off the awards show jockeying entirely in an interview with TIDAL published after his wife’s loss. Calling the whole process behind the Grammys race “a marketing thing,” the rapper still lobbied that Renaissance was more than worthy of The Recording Academy’s top prize, saying, “Look what it’s done to the culture. Look how the energy of the world moved…Everyone’s inspired. It has inspired the world.”
Instead, Queen Bey did take home Grammys for best dance recording for Renaissance lead single “Break My Soul,” best R&B song for fan-favorite track “Cuff It,” best traditional R&B vocal performance for deep cut “Plastic Off the Sofa” and best dance/electronica album for the house-inspired studio set as a whole.
Check out the message to Beyoncé over L.A. below.
When Harry Styles was announced as the winner of this year’s Grammy album of the year award, his good friend and fellow nominee Lizzo could be seen on live TV filming him with a big smile on her face as he walked up onstage to accept. And, after teasing fans that she might, the 34-year-old songstress has posted the up-close video — and it features a hilarious cameo from Adele, who was seated right next to her.
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In the clip, posted to TikTok two days after the Sunday night (Feb. 5) awards ceremony, Lizzo captures Styles bewildered reaction to winning the coveted prize for his May 2022 record Harry’s House from just a couple feet away. The “Special” singer can be heard screaming loud and proud in support of her pal throughout the video, and at one point, her lens goes up in the air as Styles bounds over to her and gives her a big hug, a sweet moment that was also caught on camera during the ceremony’s broadcast.
As the “As It Was” singer climbs onstage, Lizzo pans her phone camera over to zoom in on Adele, who remained in her seat even as the immediate crowd around her gave Styles a standing ovation. “Why you filming me for?” the “Easy On Me” singer, who won best pop solo performance earlier that night, hilariously protests.
Twitter speculation has it that Adele, a self-proclaimed super fan of Beyoncé, was one of many Beyhive members to be disappointed that the “Break My Soul” artist had lost album of the year for a fourth time. After all, when she was the one to beat out Bey for the same award back in 2017, Adele literally apologized to her during her own acceptance speech.
Regardless, Lizzo — who earlier that night won record of the year for “About Damn Time” and gave Beyoncé a special shoutout of her own during her acceptance speech — had a great time celebrating her former boyband star friend. When a photo of her taking a video of Styles during his big win started circulating on Twitter, she retweeted it and teased, “SHOULD I POST?!”
The Yitty founder also shared a slew of selfies with Styles, Adele and Beyoncé after the ceremony, writing, “I won.”
See Lizzo’s TikTok featuring Harry Styles and Adele below.
Madame Tussauds announced on Tuesday (Feb. 7) that Rihanna is receiving a new wax figure at its New York City museum.
The wax recreation is modeled after the superstar’s iconic ensemble from the 2018 Met Gala, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.” As a co-chair alongside Anna Wintour, Donatella Versace and Amal Clooney, RiRi walked ascended the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art wearing a stunning, beaded corset minidress and matching robe by Margiela. In a nod to the A-list event’s religious theme, she paired the couture with a papal bishop’s hat and ostentatious crucifix necklace.
Rihanna’s latest lookalike will be unveiled in the Glow Gala Room of Madame Tussauds New York — Times Square on Wednesday (Feb. 8), and will fit right into the neon-themed room thanks to the LED lights hidden throughout the figure’s outfit.
The planned reveal comes just days before the Oscar nominee is set to take the stage for her highly anticipated halftime show during Super Bowl LVII. The performance will mark her first official return to the stage in the more than seven years since she released her last studio album — 2016’s Anti.
“Rihanna is sure to make history with her upcoming live show this Sunday so the timing is perfect for us to reveal her new figure exclusively at Madame Tussauds New York where fans can admire and pose with the icon,” said Madame Tussauds New York general manager Joerg Hanel in a statement.
According to a release, another Rihanna wax figure is scheduled to be added to Madame Tussauds Orlando some time later this year, and will be wearing her outfit from the Super Bowl.
Get a first look at Rihanna’s Met Gala-inspired wax figure below.
Rihanna
Courtesy of Madame Tussauds
You know that old saying about how Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did but backwards… and in high heels? (If not, go ask your great-grandma.) Well, it sounds like Harry Styles and his dancers had to channel some serious Rogers vibes during Sunday night’s performance at the 2023 Grammy Awards.
According to posts on Monday from a pair of Styles’ dancers, the spinning turntable set they had endlessly rehearsed on for their run through the singer’s hit “As It Was,” threw them for a loop when it started spinning in the wrong direction during the performance. “What you don’t know is that the moment the curtain opened and it was time to perform, our turntable started spinning in reverse,” dancer Brandon Mathis said in an Instagram Story (per Rolling Stone).
“Backwards. Freaking all of us out on live television, and there was nothing we could do to stop it,” added Mathis. “In real time, we had to troubleshoot and try to do a complete piece in reverse. Talk about professionalism.”
At one point, viewers may have noticed Styles awkwardly hopping down off the spinning wheel and appearing to stumble a bit, expertly regaining his balance while moving from the malfunctioning set to the more stable, non-moving, front of the stage. Another one of his dancers, Dexter, revealed on TikTok that the team practiced the intricate choreography for 10 days before Sunday’s show and that the comments decrying the performance as “lethargic” were unfair given the challenges in the moment.
“We rehearsed for 10 days getting down these beautiful formations and sliding off the table in a roll-off and just making this incredible, morphing, cool artistic s–t and Harry did such a good job integrating into it,” Dexter said in the video, adding that the dancers desperately tried to get a stage tech’s attention about the miscue, but were forced to improvise in the moment and completely switch up all their choreography on the spot.
Dexter said the team had rehearsed the whole time with the turntable moving clockwise, which is why it was “difficult” and “frustrating” to try and pull off the intricate moves and retain spatial awareness while moving in reverse.
“To switch all those patterns around on the spot, having not even walked in that direction, it sounds easy,” he said. “Since it’s circular, it pulls you in different directions and is such a special type of balance. We got accustomed to one way, and it was the opposite way. So, luckily we worked together and did our best and got to one cool formation in time for the overhead shot but had to change the rest.”
Spokespeople for Styles and the Grammy Awards had not returned Billboard‘s requests for comment on the reported staging malfunction at press time.
Even though Styles had to sing and walk in the opposite direction — including during a complicated catch-and-release series of moves with a female dancer — he had plenty to celebrate on the night of, including winning album of the year for Harry’s House. Styles celebrated his big win on Instagram on Monday night (Feb. 6) in a series of pics in which he is grabbing a moment of quiet backstage and showing off his custom Adidas sneaks at a late night pizza party.
Check out the Styles’ post and the performance as it was, but not as it was supposed to be below.
While (G)I-DLE wowed K-pop listeners with provocative singles like “Tomboy” and “Nxde” in 2022, two of its members are bringing a “Sweet Dream” early in 2023.
(G)I-DLE’s Miyeon and Yuqi teamed up to sing the new song, “Sweet Dream,” as one of the official singles for Netflix’s upcoming Korean drama series Love to Hate You. With all the markings of a modern-day power ballad, the track lets Miyeon showcase her well-known sweet and strong vocal prowess (previously heard in her excellent solo single “Drive” last year). At the same time, Yuqi switches up her signature husky timbre for the song’s soothing melodies.
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The special music video mixes scenes of Miyeon and Yuqi singing in a recording studio with clips from the upcoming K-drama to preview a messy, entertaining romantic comedy between acclaimed actress Kim Ok-vin and singer-actor Yoo Teo.
Kim and Yoo play opposite one another as an attorney and A-list actor, respectively, to whom “love means nothing – until they’re forced to date each other,” as teased by Netflix. The forthcoming series is Kim Ok-vin’s second venture with Netflix after starring in 2019’s fantasy drama Arthdal Chronicles that included BLACKPINK‘s Jisoo in the show’s cast.
The accompanying soundtrack singles to Love to Hate You will also include new songs from other top K-pop stars, including NCT‘s Taeil, rapper-singer BIG Naughty, plus NMIXX‘s Lily and Sullyoon, that will be released before and after the series premiere. Love to Hate You begins streaming on Netflix on Friday, Feb. 10.
Watch Miyeon and Yuqi’s “Sweet Dream” video below:
