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For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 1, we remember the year in Bad Bunny — who made the jump from being the world’s greatest Latin pop star to simply the world’s greatest pop star.
In the summer of 2021, Billboard talked to Bad Bunny about him producing Tommy Torres’ new album, El Playlist de Anoche – his first run at producing an album outside the urbano realm. “Everything in life is a risk,” he said then. “I made this album because I wanted to do it and because it fulfilled me.” If there’s one that’s clear about the Puerto Rican chart-topping artist, it’s that any project he works on, he does it for those two reasons — which allows him to deliver genuine projects that connect with countless millions of fans across the globe.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo | No. 5: Drake | No. 4: Beyoncé | No. 3: Taylor Swift | No. 2: Harry Styles
Benito Antonio Ocasio Martínez, or in his own words, “Benito Martínez el más hijueputa (the biggest motherf–ker),” has proven to be a force to be reckoned with — and, in a matter of two years, has unsubtly transitioned from Latin star to global superstar, penetrating the mainstream in a way that no other Latin artist has. Just last year, Bad Bunny was No. 10 on our Greatest Pop Stars of 2021 list. This year, he’s unequivocally No. 1.
Statistically both Billboard’s Top Artist of the Year and (for a third consecutive year) Spotify’s most streamed artist globally, El Conejo Malo been on a wild ride since he made his grand return to the stage with El Último Tour del Mundo at the top of 2022, winding his way to the spring release of his blockbuster album Un Verano Sin Ti — which catapulted Bunny to unprecedented heights, on and off the charts.
By 2022, Bad Bunny’s success was already an anomaly. Between 2020 and 2021, he had released three consecutive Top Latin Albums-topping sets (YHLQMDLG, Las Que No Iban a Salir and El Último Tour del Mundo), had a WWE sting during a tag-team match against The Miz and John Morrison at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, and produced that album for Torres — which landed the veteran singer-songwriter his first top 10 entry on Top Latin Albums in nearly a decade. He’d also announced an ambitious tour for 2022, which would mark his grand return to live touring since the pandemic. “POR FIN!!! ESTÁN LISTOS??? (Finally! Are you all ready?),” he captioned the announcement on social media.
Boy, were they ready. After becoming the fastest-selling trek since 2018, with 480,000 tickets sold in less than a week, Bad Bunny finally kicked off his El Último Tour del Mundo stint in the U.S. in February, marking the start of a blockbuster year for the artist. With El Último Tour, Bunny embarked on his biggest stage tour yet, earning $116.8 million in North American arenas, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. It then became the highest grossing Latin tour in Boxscore history, breaking local records in more than half of the markets where he played. (It’s worth noting that even before he began the U.S arena tour, in January, he announced an ambitious 29-date stadium tour that would kick off in the summer, following El Último Tour.)
It made sense that he’d tour again. When Bunny revealed plans for a second trek, he also announced he was releasing a new album. The new set would be a follow up to 2020’s El Último Tour del Mundo, which earned him his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking the first all-Spanish-language album to reach No. 1 in the then-64-year history of the all-genre chart. Could Bad Bunny best his last album? Probably, given his career-long upward trending. But no one was expecting that Un Verano Sin Ti, which was released in May, would rewrite records broken not just by a Latin artist, but by any artist in general.
Un Verano Sin Ti debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated May 21), earning 274,000 equivalent album units in the U.S., according to Luminate. And with 356.66 million on-demand official streams for the set’s songs in its first week, the album registered the largest streaming week ever for a Latin music album. Verano – which spent 13 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 – also placed 22 songs from the set on the May 21-dated Billboard Hot 100, the most in a week for a core Latin music artist and the most in a week performed all in Spanish.
There’s no one reason for the unprecedented success of this particular album, but there are many contributing factors. For one, Latin music market share has been on the rise for some five years now after “Despacito” opened the floodgates for a wave of Spanish-language songs to become global. And, for the first time ever, Latin music expected to reach billion dollars in revenues by year-end in the U.S., according to the RIAA. Its 23% increase is outpacing overall market growth.
Then there’s the obvious. Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti is packed with back-to-back hits that, sonically, all sound completely different (from dembow to mambo and alt-rock). He’s completely deviated from the traditional to innovate, pushing all popular music forward and expanding pop in a way few major artists are right now. There weren’t just one or two singles that were being pushed from Verano — rather, the entire album was being streamed on repeat. Everyone had a different answer when asked which song was their favorite from the set, because there’s a song that just about everyone can relate to – which helps explain why a stunning 11 of the tracks stuck on the Hot 100 for double-digit weeks.
Within a few months, Verano had grown into easily the biggest non-English-language album of the century — without Bunny having to record in English or do a major non-Latin collaboration – and in early August, he expanded his multi-platform stardom with his first major film role, as an assassin in the Brad Pitt-starring action-comedy Bullet Train. But despite being intended as a summer album, UVST’s dominance carried over to Fall — thanks to Bunny’s stadium tour, which kicked off with three sold-out performances at El Choli in his beloved Puerto Rico in July.
The U.S. leg officially opened in August, with shows that began very much on brand for the album: a seagull call filled the stadium; Bad Bunny appeared sitting on a beach chair with a neverita (cooler) next to him. His UVST vision literally came to life in every show. Later that month, his Yankee Stadium performance was beamed into the VMAs, with the superstar stealing the awards show without even attending. “I always knew that I could become a huge artist without changing my culture,” he said while accepting the artist of the year award — the first Latin act to win that category.
His second tour of 2022 doubled the gross of his prior record-breaking trek: The World’s Hottest Tour grossed $232.5 million and sold 944,000 tickets from just 21 shows in the U.S. The combination of El Ultimo Tour Del Mundo & World’s Hottest Tour landed him at the top of Billboard‘s annual Boxscore recaps. Moreover, Un Verano Sin Ti became the first non-English album to ever top the year-end Billboard 200 albums ranking, and tied Drake’s Views and Disney’s Frozen soundtrack for the most weeks at No. 1 on the chart in the last decade. In November, it also earned the first ever nomination for album of the year at the Grammys for an all-Spanish release, one of three nods Bad Bunny garnered for the 2023 ceremonies.
Bad Bunny wasn’t the only artist who dominated this year. There were Harry Styles and Taylor Swift, too, and many other stars who had stellar years with new album releases. But while those artists had years that felt momentous, Bunny’s was truly historic — capturing the zeitgeist not just of Latin music, but for all of global pop.
Warning: You may experience strong emotions once you see the surprise performances Billie Eilish treated her crowd at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum to Thursday night (Dec. 15). The 20-year-old pop star carved out time in her Happier Than Ever, The World Tour setlist to bring out Dave Grohl for a stunning tribute to his late Foo Fighters bandmate Taylor Hawkins, and later, Phoebe Bridgers for a duet of “Motion Sickness,” one of the indie rocker’s biggest tearjerkers.
Eilish first welcomed Grohl onto her stage. “I would like to invite a friend of mine,” she said, while thousands of fans cheered as the former Nirvana drummer walked on stage.
Grohl went on to share with the crowd how he, his Foo Fighters bandmates and their families gathered earlier this year to watch the Grammys, at which Eilish — who wore a Taylor Hawkins T-shirt at the ceremony — was one of the performers. “The room was filled with real tears of love and gratitude,” Grohl recalled of the night, which was just over a week after Hawkins’ shocking death. “Let’s sing it for Taylor.”
Sitting on stools with Grohl playing guitar, the two went on to duet Foo Fighters’ 1998 track “My Hero.”
Later in the show, Bridgers came out on stage, nothing but an acoustic guitar in tow. “This is so cool. I’m, like, shaking,” the L.A. native confessed. “Everybody close their eyes and I’ll be way less nervous.”
She then started strumming her 2017 breakthrough hit “Motion Sickness,” with Eilish adding soft harmonies to Bridgers’ lead vocals. When the “Everything I Wanted” singer took the lead on the song’s second verse, her crowd let out a brief cheer of wild excitement before quieting down so that everyone could properly hear the performance.
The show marked the second of three concerts Eilish has lined up at the Kia Forum this December, with the final show slated for Friday (Dec. 16). At the concert prior to Bridgers’ and Grohl’s appearances, she invited Labrinth onstage to sing “I’ve Never Felt So Alone,” a song from the Euphoria soundtrack.
Watch clips from Eilish’s duets with Grohl and Bridgers below:
Stephen Sanchez is infatuated with love — but he’s not interested in approaching it from a 21st century lens. “I think it’s a lost art to tell somebody that you’d pull the moon down for them,” he tells Billboard. Growing up listening to ’50s and ’60s records on vinyl in Northern California, he has always been drawn to an old-school charm within his own music. The inspiration ultimately led to his breakthrough hit, “Until I Found You,” which became his first Billboard Hot 100 hit and has remained on the chart for months.
Penned in May 2021, just six months after moving to Nashville, Sanchez felt there was something special about the heartfelt song straight away — and another six months after its release that September, it debuted on the all-genre songs chart at No. 100. Since, it has spent 23 weeks on the list, reaching a No. 38 high this October, and continues to climb elsewhere, hitting a new No. 3 peak on Billboard‘s Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart dated Dec. 17.
Despite being more than a year old at this point, the timeless-sounding pop hit has experienced one resurgence after the next, be it through an Em Beihold version of the track that arrived this April, on TikTok or radio airplay. But even as the song still reaches new listeners, the 20-year-old isn’t slowing his output: in August, he released EP Easy On My Eyes; in November, “Missing You,” with Ashe, arrived; and in 2023, he’ll kick off the year with a new single, followed by his first headline tour and then a debut record that’ll come in the summer.
Below, Sanchez reflects on “Until I Found You,” teases an impending sonic shift in his music, discusses why he wants to “flirt with the audience” during his live shows and more.
Where did the inspiration for “Until I Found You” come from?
I was in a serious relationship at the time. There was a lot of back-and-forth toward the beginning because I was super fearful of it, and I pushed her away because of that. We had established a very solid friendship before then, and it isolated us from even having that. I moved to Nashville months later, we reconnected and I took her out on a date. The song is just reflecting that time: When I was without her friendship and loving, it was so hard. I just remember how shallow that time felt in my life. [When] I wrote the song, we were very much in love, and it made that moment of our lives more beautiful.
[With regard to its sonic inspiration], I grew up on ’50s music. My grandpa has this amazing property in San Jose, California, and there are two barns on either side and the house sat right in the middle. It’s on top of this hill, and you can oversee all of San Jose. In the mornings, they would make me breakfast, and then they would tell me to go out in the barn and pick through vinyl. My grandpa is 85 years old at this point, so the only records he has are records from the ‘50s and ‘60s. I would pick through vinyl and just get inspired. Even now, I still do that every time I go up there.
Was there a specific moment that you knew you had a hit on your hands?
I don’t think I ever thought that a song of mine would do this well and throw me in the position to be in the shoes of my heroes. However, on the other side of that, I think the moment when I felt like I had something that was really special … I was making very poor financial decisions when I realized it. I went to Carter Vintage [Guitars] in Nashville, and I bought this old Rickenbacker and old amp, and I wrote the song on that — I [already] had the first part, and then I finished the rest of it on that. That’s what gave it that ‘50s and ‘60s sound. I was playing around with other ‘50s covers — like Paul Anka and The Penguins — and then that song popped out. It felt like it was pulling from my roots in a very huge way.
How much tinkering was there between your initial vision and the finished product?
I think the main thing I couldn’t get over [was] how much reverb was being used. There are small, petty things that I always get caught up on within every song we’ve ever released, and I feel like that’ll be true to me for the rest of my life. It took a day or two to record the whole song and get it done, and then Georgia, whom the song is about, came in and sang on the song. It made it even more special — it’s a very amazing immortalized moment in life right there.
You’ve mentioned the song’s old-school charm. Was creating that more of a concerted effort or a happy coincidence given what you were listening to at the time?
I think it was just a happy coincidence. I really just love that music so much. As far as artistry goes, I think I’ve always fallen into the category where I feel extraordinarily safe picking up a guitar and hiding behind that and adept lyricism and all that stuff. That music makes life fun. It makes love fun. It makes it really emotional. I think it’s a lost art to tell somebody that you’d pull the moon down for them. For that to fall out in such a natural way, that feels very special, and this year, I’m chasing that — but also not trying to force it at all.
It definitely takes a specific tact to write a song that adequately captures all of the emotions that get wrapped into love.
Yeah, I think artists need to flirt with their lyrics more. Your audience at a show is essentially someone that you’re trying to win over. They’re the muse, and you’re flirting with them for an hour, trying to convince them to go out on a date with you. And the same way with a song, right? We should be flirting with our lyricism. We should be slow-dancing with it. We should be taking it out to dinner — metaphorically, of course. But just enticing it into this deep romance within ourselves, that way we’re not losing sight of true artistry. I think that it’s easy to jump on TikTok and sing a song for 30 seconds. But where’s the flirting? That’s a one-night stand. Where’s the meat of it?
Is there a standout experience from the song’s success that really resonates with you?
We played [Late Night with] Seth Meyers and my manager was there. My best friends were there with me. We showed up that day, and I almost threw up because I was so nervous. We got out there, and he was saying my name and we sang the song. And then we jumped on a plane and flew right back to Nashville and made it in time [to watch the performance on TV]. All of my friends were in my little 500 square foot apartment, and they were all crammed in my living room. We were all just cheering and screaming at, like, 12 a.m. It was so beautiful.
What about the song lends itself to being such a long-lasting hit?
Gosh, I just feel like it just won’t stop. (Laughs.) Every time there’ll be a time where it simmers down, I’m like, “Cool. That was a great run. Let’s release some more great music.” And then it’ll just pick right back up, and I get texts like, “It’s going off again!” I’m like, “Why? Why is it going off again?” The only comparison that I can give is that I have this old car, and sometimes it’ll start right up, and it’ll be amazing. And then sometimes, I’ll park it back in the garage, and the next day, it won’t start at all. I’m like, “Okay, cool. Maybe tomorrow!” It’s the same with this: it’s very exciting. It’s a beautiful thing, and I’m really glad that it was this song, honestly. If it could’ve been any of [my songs], I love that it’s this one because it is very much my roots. I just love that it’s under Mercury Records, which was an old-school label, and they released old-school music, and this is an old-school song. That’s just so cool.
How has the process of creating and releasing music been impacted by having a label behind you?
It has just given me this immense state of peace. I think that Mercury is an amazing label because it’s run by people that I have real relationships with and that truly believe in me. It’s also an extension to a label [Republic Records] that believes in me. They put their entire being into artists’ projects and it just opens up this space that feels very safe and welcoming to an artist. As far as Mercury and Republic goes, they care about maintaining the integrity of their artists’ music. I truly believe I wouldn’t be able to do that with anyone else.
As you were putting together your debut EP, Easy On My Eyes, were there any core messages or concepts about you as an artist that you wanted to get across to listeners?
Sonically, I wanted it to feel very close. It felt very tender and sensitive within the singing and how we mixed it, but [there’s] also a little bit of lightheartedness in the sense that, when love feels very joyful, you feel that. I did want to feel that differentiating, rollercoaster vibe of sonics and thematics going on, but the whole thing is about love, of course — its beauty, its downfall and its kind of weird in-betweens. That’s a consistent human experience. Whatever your perception is of the circumstance you’re living in, whether it be love or lust, I want this record to feel accessible.
You recently announced your first headline tour, which will kick off in early 2023. What can we expect for that?
Having strangers that I don’t know come out and pay money for these shows … to play in front of them is going to be so exhilarating. I’m excited to dance. I used to go to concerts when I was younger, and the consistent thing I would imagine was feeling the music from the audience, but imagining that I was moving to it on stage. To get to do that for real now is so exciting. I want to make it so that there’s a dance with the audience that’s happening, in the same way that I was saying earlier with the songwriting. Bring them into a feeling. That’s the goal: have fun and flirt with the audience as much as I can.
Is there anything else we should be on the lookout for?
Man, we got a brand new bag coming. It’s going to be really great. We’re releasing a debut record, and it’s going to come out in the summer, and I don’t want to spoil much about it. But we have a new single coming out in January. I don’t want to spoil that, either, but it’s going to be an entire sound change. The whole thing has taken a flip. We’re not doing singer-songwriter, acoustic stuff anymore. We’re hanging up the guitar and swapping it out for a mic.
A version of this story originally appeared in the Dec. 10, 2022, issue of Billboard.
Sam Asghari may not always agree with Britney Spears‘ choices, but you can count on him to defend her right to make them. After the 41-year-old pop star posted a string of mostly nude photos on Instagram Thursday (Dec. 15), attracting many concerned comments from her followers, Asghari has added his perspective to the ring.
“The only person in the world that gets bullied for posting things like this,” the 28-year-old actor wrote in an Instagram comment, which he also reposted to his Stories on Friday (Dec. 16). “I personally preferred she never posted these but who am I to control someone that’s been under a microscope and been controlled for most of her life.”
The photos in question appeared on Spears’ account a few hours before Asghari’s Story, and featured the “Toxic” singer staring straight into the camera and holding her bare breasts in her hands. Strategically placed emojis — pink flowers and lips — were placed over her chest in most of the photos, while the snaps cut off right above her crotch area.
Many of the pop star’s followers replied to the photos with worried questions about the singer’s health or safety, some of them even slamming Asghari. “Something is not ok! Who is handling this account?” wrote one fan. “Someone is messing with her. Not normal. Why does Sam say ‘the media can be very traumatizing’ yet you’re ok with this?”
“She’s not posting this and you know it deep down,” another wrote. “Something is very wrong. Pay attention.”
The comments theorizing someone else may be handling her posts recall ones directed at Spears’ posts a couple years ago, when concern for her social media content, among other things, spurred the #FreeBritney movement. Fueled by the movement’s support, the “Hold Me Closer” artist successfully had her conservatorship terminated last year.
The NSFW photos and Asghari’s statement come just a week after the personal trainer pleaded with fans to respect Spears’ privacy online after some of them noticed she’d previously deactivated and reactivated her account. “Social media can be traumatizing,” Asghari wrote in a lengthy statement posted to his Stories. “Sometimes it’s good to take a break. She has her voice and is a free woman.”
“I’ve always respected and supported her privacy with everything I’ve had,” he’d added. “I ask of you supportive and protective fans to do the same. Sometimes being over protective can cause more stress and damage.”
For this year’s update of our ongoing Greatest Pop Star by Year project, Billboard is counting down our staff picks for the top 10 pop stars of 2022 all this week. At No. 2, we remember the year in Harry Styles — who had a 2022 for the ages, with one of the biggest albums, one of the biggest songs and one of the biggest tours of the year.
Coming into 2022, Harry Styles already ranked among the biggest pop stars in the world. He was fresh off a successful Love on Tour stint in support of his Billboard 200 chart-topping sophomore album, Fine Line, which got him three Grammy nominations and his first-ever win for best pop solo performance (for his first Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper, the breezy “Watermelon Sugar”). While the first two years of his 2020s were hard to top, it turned out to be only the beginning for Styles – who, over the course of 2022, completely let go of any shallow stereotypes surrounding a former boy band member and solidified his supremacy in the pop world.
Billboard’s Greatest Pop Stars of 2022:Introduction & Honorable Mentions | Rookie of the Year: Steve Lacy | Comeback of the Year: Sam Smith | No. 10: Nicki Minaj | No. 9: Future | No. 8: Jack Harlow | No. 7: Doja Cat | No. 6: Lizzo | No. 5: Drake | No. 4: Beyoncé | No. 3: Taylor Swift
Styles kept the wheels turning almost immediately into 2022. In March, he announced that his third studio album, Harry’s House, was on the way — and dropped his wildly popular lead single, “As It Was,” which quickly set the record for the most streamed track on Spotify in 24 hours among male artists and became his first single to debut atop the Hot 100. Beyond its streaming and charts feats, “As It Was” represented a new chapter for Styles, with intimate, wistful lyrics bursting over indie-pop synths. It introduced fans to a more mature side of the star, and brought in new listeners from all demographics who might not have given his music a chance before.
Styles was inescapable throughout the spring, due to “As It Was” dominating radio and TikTok, and his somewhat unexpected promotional campaign for the upcoming Harry’s House — including a Better Homes and Gardens cover. In April, the 28-year-old headlined Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, validating his superstar status in furry coats and sequins, with assistance from guest appearances by Shania Twain and Lizzo.
The singer, however, stayed true to his humble self throughout the wins. “Finally, it doesn’t feel like my life is over if this album isn’t a commercial success,” he told Better Homes and Gardens. “I just want to make stuff that is right, that is fun, in terms of the process, that I can be proud of for a long time, that my friends can be proud of, that my family can be proud of, that my kids will be proud of one day.”
He had reason to be proud when Harry’s House dropped on May 20, as the album separated itself from his two previous albums and won the hearts of critics with its experimental pop nature, from playing with bustling horn sections on “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” to groovy and hooky funk on “Late Night Talking” and vintage, Beatlesque guitar riffs on “Grapejuice.” The release was complete with a one-night-only celebratory show at UBS Arena in New York, where he performed the new album in its entirety. “Over the past however many years of my life, you’ve changed it over and over again,” he told the crowd at the show, maintaining his characteristic graciousness. “I’m so grateful for every single one of you here and every single one of you that’s not here. Thank you all so, so, so much.”
The hype leading up to the album’s release soon manifested into staggering numbers, as it spent two weeks atop the Billboard 200. In its debut week, the album earned a whopping 521,500 equivalent album units earned in the U.S., the largest week of 2022 for any album at the time. Even the vinyl edition of the album sold over 146,000 copies in the U.S. through May 22, according to initial reports to Luminate — breaking the modern-era record for the largest sales week for a vinyl album in the U.S. The album also went on to develop some more radio hits with songs like “Music for a Sushi Restaurant” and “Late Night Talking,” though nothing quite reached the same level as “As It Was,” which spent 15 nonconsecutive weeks at the Hot 100 summit and topped Billboard‘s 2022 Songs of the Summer chart.
And after all that, Styles still wasn’t done. While dominating the music world, the star dipped his toes into film, playing a gay police officer in My Policeman and co-starring with Florence Pugh in Don’t Worry Darling, directed by Styles’ then-girlfriend Olivia Wilde. The film’s promo was embroiled with backstage drama, starting with rumors about Shia LaBoeuf getting fired from (or quitting?) the lead role, and Wilde’s subsequent feud with Pugh amid the director’s romantic fling with Styles. The highly publicized promo tour was equally rife with controversy, including Pugh’s noticeable absence, and a much-analyzed moment in which Styles appeared to spit on his co-star, Chris Pine. The messiness seemed to be driving the film into a major disaster zone — but Don’t Worry Darling was a hit, topping the U.S. box office and earning a global total of $78 million, proving that there’s no such thing as bad publicity when it revolves around Styles.
Not surprisingly, Styles wrapped up 2022 even better than his already jaw-dropping 2021, with a whopping six Grammy nominations – including album, song and record of the year. The achievement marks a rare accomplishment from a former boy band member, as alums of male pop groups are rarely afforded that level of grown-up respect in the music industry. However, Styles separated himself not only from association from One Direction in 2022, but also from most of his hitmaking peers, making himself into simply one of the greatest male pop stars of his generation.
The stories about Casablanca Records are legendarily insane. Some center around the tall tales of the wildly successful independent label founded by producer Neil Bogart in 1973 that briefly shot to global dominance during the disco era thanks releasing landmark albums by everyone from Kiss to Donna Summer, the Village People, George Clinton’s Parliament and Cher. They also, invariably, lead to equally bonkers accounts of shady accounting, mountains of debt (and cocaine) and wild accounts of the lengths Bogart would go to promote his acts.
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Sounds like a movie, right? Well, on March 31 that biopic, Spinning Gold, will hit theaters with an all-star cast of characters re-telling the improbable tale of Bogart’s rocket ride to the heights, and depths, of the music business. The film’s official trailer dropped on Thursday (Dec. 15) and it gives just a little taste of the whirlwind ride Bogart took the industry on while providing sneak peeks at Wiz Khalifa as Clinton, Jeremy Jordan as the label boss, Ledisi as Gladys Knight, Jason DeRulo as Ronald Isley, Pink Sweat$ as Bill Withers and Tayla Parx as Summer.
The trailer for the film directed and written by Bogart’s’ son, Timothy Scott Bogart, opens with Casablanca’s jaw-dropping sales figures (200 million records), while showing a frizzy-haired Jordan strutting through the label’s chaotic offices while ticking off a list of the famous roster, including Summer (born LaDonna Adrian Gaines), who blanches at her new bosses’ decision to change her name because “everything is hotter in the summer.”
With Kiss’ 1975 hit “Rock and Roll All Nite” blasting in the background, the fairy tale story quickly begins to unravel, though, as Bogart is seen facing more than $7 million of red ink, which, of course, inspires him to punch out the bearer of bad news, as one’s boss does. There are briefcases full of cash, threats of a hit put out by rival Motown Records, phone calls to the mafia to ask for a little help with that whole situation and Bogart placing a giant bet on a couple of kids from Queens (Kiss’ Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons) who had dreams of being the biggest rock stars in the world.
“Their mix of creative insanity, a total belief in each other and the music they were creating, shaped our culture and ultimately defined a generation,” reads a description of the film. “In a story so unbelievable that it can only be true, comes the motion picture event of the musical journey of Neil Bogart and how his Casablanca Records created the greatest soundtrack of our lives.”
Watch the Spinning Gold trailer below.
Hayley Williams is well-acquainted with the rigors of stardom in your teens. Which might explain why the Paramore singer — who was signed to her first production deal at 14 — can relate to the mind-bending journey Billie Eilish has been on over the past five years.
“We’ve spoken throughout the years since she kind of came onto the scene,” Williams, 33, told Sirius XM’s Alt Nation in a chat about her interactions with Eilish, 20. “The first thing I experienced or I witnessed of her was [2018’s] ‘When the Party’s Over,’ that video. And then I watched an interview with her and I felt like there was something inside of me that was watching me — slash us — as teenagers doing interviews and navigating this world.”
Williams was just 17 when Paramore’s All We Know Is Falling came out in 2005, while Eilish was 14 when she uploaded “Ocean Eyes,” the song that would catapult her to fame. Hayley said that’s one of the reasons watching Billie’s rise has felt very familiar to her.
“She does it on a level we’ve never experienced, but I just feel such a love towards her and her family and I think they’re so special,” said Williams, who recalled going to Billie’s house for Thanksgiving last year for a delicious meal of vegan cinnamon rolls made by Eilish’s mom. “We had already connected, I had connected with her mom too, just about their organization that they have. But ever since that Thanksgiving cinnamon roll treat, just, I mean… The rest is history. I feel like I would do anything for them,” she added, shouting out Eilish’s older brother and producer, Finneas, as well.
And as someone who has been doing it for more than half her life, Williams predicted, “I think they’re going to be around for a really long time.”
The mutual admiration society isn’t just virtual, either. Williams and Eilish teamed up earlier this year when they performed Paramore’s “Misery Business” and Billie’s “Happier Than Ever” together at Coachella.
Watch Williams’ interview below.
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, The Weeknd trumpets the arrival of Avatar: The Way of Water, Cardi B offers an extra shot of espresso to a Rosalía hit, Little Simz drops a surprise follow-up album to her acclaimed 2021 LP and more. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
The Weeknd, “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)”
The Weeknd is no stranger to big movie soundtrack singles, having previously scored Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hits from Fifty Shades of Gray (“Earned It (Fifty Shades)”) and Black Panther (“Pray for Me” alongside Kendrick Lamar). Still, “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength)” is perhaps his biggest soundtrack look yet, as the theme to the longer-than-long-anticipated sequel Avatar: The Way of Water. The bombastic ballad, co-written and co-produced by Abel’s buddies in Swedish House Mafia, matches the size of the assignment, with thundering drums, anthemic backing vocals, and a refrain that’s reminiscent of Gerard McMann’s “Cry Little Sister” from ’80s cult classic The Lost Boys.
Rosalía & Cardi B, “DESPECHÁ RMX”
“DESPECHÁ” already stands as Rosalía‘s biggest hit as a lead artist to date, hitting No. 63 on the Hot 100 and spending 12 weeks on the chart. But as she’s previously proven to Bruno Mars and GloRilla, nothing helps a song’s commercial fortunes like landing Cardi B on the remix. The Bronx bomber shows up for an always-welcome guest verse on “DESPECHÁ” this week, spitting, “You’ve been trying too hard not to watch my stories/ I’ve been shakin’ this ass, better not report me,” and of course signing off with a little español: “But I’m good though, ¿Cómo estás?”
Little Simz, NO THANK YOU
British rapper Little Simz was a fixture on 2021 year-end lists with her stellar LP Sometimes I Might Be Introvert, securing the No. 19 spot on the Billboard staff’s own ranking. Earlier this week, she surprised fans with the arrival of that set’s previously unannounced follow-up, the 10-track set NO THANK YOU. The LP ranges from the tender to the tense to the triumphant, Simz changing lanes in her bimma with a true professional’s ease, aided in navigation by regular producer Inflo and backing vocalist Cleo Sol. The late release hasn’t kept it from landing on yet more end-of-year lists; Rolling Stone just named it one of the year’s 25 best hip-hop albums. “‘Play the game, play the game,’ is what they scream/ You can play the game, I don’t see the need, no,” she offers on opener “Angel.” Hard to argue with at this point.
Juice WRLD, “Face 2 Face”
The latest one-off posthumous release from the late rapper Juice WRLD — whose devastating death just passed its third anniversary earlier this month, with a second annual Juice WRLD Day being celebrated in his Chicago hometown — is an acoustic trap ballad, led by a disarmingly gentle and compassionate unplugged riff. “Everytime I go to fall to sleep/ These demons haunting me/ Facing my fears face to face as we meet,” the artist born Jarad Higgins wails in the particularly signature-sounding chorus. As comforting as it is to still hear his voice on new music this long after his passing, it’s just as disconcerting to feel like not even death has freed him from grappling with these issues.
FLO, “Losing You”
British vocal trio FLO has built a lot of buzz this year for their run of 2022 singles calling back to classic R&B girl groups of the ’90s and early ’00s, even scoring one of our staff’s top 100 songs of 2022 with the kiss-off “Cardboard Box.” The girls score another winner this week with the “Since U Been Gone”-themed ballad “Losing You,” as they realize they’re better off without the trifling dude they’ve been saddled with for too long. “Losing you was easier than I thought it’d be/ I’m happy on my own/ It’s the first time that I finally feel at home,” the trio sings on the Stella Quaresma-led chorus, over warm ’90s synth chords and a snappingly sympathetic beat (co-produced by U.K. hitmaker MNEK).
PinkPantheress, “Take Me Home”
Though she’s yet to release an LP follow-up to her breakthrough 2021 debut LP To Hell With It, PinkPantheress has still had a very productive 2022, releasing a series of excellent singles like “Where You Are” (with Willow), “Picture in My Mind” (with Sam Gellaitry”) and “Boy’s a Liar.” This week, the U.K. phenom caps her sophomore year with “Take Me Home,” a pulse-racing synth-pop banger with drum-n-bass accents and a typically arresting chorus: “It’s sad that I/ Prepared to be so young till the end of time/ I realized/ When I struggled to get out of my room last night.” Closing with a half-time coda, the single breaks new ground for PinkPantheress length-wise: at a full three minutes and twenty seconds, it’s basically her “Free Bird.”
An artist referring to songs they’ve worked on as their “babies” can be a somewhat cliché answer when describing their work—but few can speak so affectionately and vividly recall the tiniest details about the song like BUMZU. That attention is the tangible result of the Korean singer-songwriter-producer’s personal and positive approach to becoming one of K-pop’s most influential creatives.
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The 31-year-old has spent more than a decade in Korea’s music industry and BUMZU’s tight relationship with chart-topping acts like SEVENTEEN (he co-wrote and composed the group’s 2015 peppy debut single “Adore U” and worked on every track from this year’s Sector 17, their first top 5 album on the Billboard 200) allow him to observe how songs he worked on click with audiences overseas.
“I got the chance to see how the American fans digest SEVENTEEN’s music and the connection points between the fans and artists,” the humble-but-eloquent BUMZU tells Billboard a week after attending the group’s Be the Sun concert in Los Angeles earlier this year. “The moments that I saw allow for those connections were what I hoped they would be and that was huge for me.”
Despite jetlag and expending their energy at The Kia Forum concert, BUMZU and his A&R team went straight into the studio that night. While the singer-producer is tight-lipped about the “great, really interesting project” from the post-concert midnight session, he says the experience left him “re-energized” in his latest creative step navigating and juggling multiple parts of the K-pop industry.
Raised in a musical home in Seoul, BUMZU (full name Kye Bumjoo) played violin since childhood but dabbled in everything from rock bands to rapping and beatmaking in his youth. The prodigy’s first mainstream plug came around age 19-20 when he composed for Woo Hyuk Jang of pioneering ’90s K-pop boy band H.O.T. in the early ’10s. By 2012, BUMZU was a finalist in the popular singing competition show Superstar K (which included PSY as a judge in post-“Gangnam Style” fame), igniting his solo career and landing the first connections to his future label home of PLEDIS Entertainment.
While he landed some cuts with then-PLEDIS artists like After School and NU’EST, BUMZU had begun vocal coaching the label’s young trainees who later formed SEVENTEEN. He scored more song placements (with heavyweights like SM and JYP Entertainment) and became co-CEO of publishing and production company Prismfilter Music Group (which represents names like ANCHOR, Kitae Park and Poptime). Simultaneously, BUMZU was becoming a primary name behind much of NU’EST and SEVENTEEN’s hit discographies to help lift PLEDIS into a major industry player and become one of the jewels in the HYBE LABELS system after the corporation acquired the agency in 2020.
BUMZU says his fast-paced passion worked well in large part due to the less formal work culture between artists, creatives and executives at PLEDIS.
“We aren’t very business-minded or strict,” he explains. “The artists are my friends. They can contact me and the A&R on the phone. We talk about where they want us to go; they send messages on [Korean text service] KakaoTalk, sometimes we just do it on Zoom.”
Dressed in a cozy long-sleeve, sweatpants with a slight five-o’clock stubble showing for this sitdown, BUMZU is embracing the slower pace of the West Coast compared to his more chaotic day-to-day in Seoul. “I don’t really have a set sleeping time; sometimes I’ll be awake for 36-48 hours on end,” he says. “I love my job but I have so many things to do. Sometimes I need to be awake or wait for the artists, but when I’m writing songs or I’m toiling over my own artistic dilemmas—as a solo artist and as a member of Prismfilter—and thinking about which direction I should take this team in or which way we should collectively head in as a group…it’s a lot of work but, again, I love the job. It’s not like anyone went up to me and was like, ‘If you don’t do this, you’re not going to make it.’ I put it on myself.”
In fact, he had a life-affirming moment when COVID forced him to put a hold on his solo career.
“I held a concert in [early February] 2020 and after we went to meet about preparing for my solo album, and that is right when COVID hit,” he shares of his first planned comeback since last releasing an EP in 2017. “The plans had to change right in the middle of my solo album prep, but, surprisingly, it felt good.”
PLEDIS shares that BUMZU is still preparing an upcoming solo album, but the musical mastermind isn’t slowing down in any aspect of his work. As much as he wants to craft hits for massive audiences, the prodigy-turned-producer wants to open people’s minds to respecting all the ways K-pop stars operate.
“As a person that communicates with artists on a daily basis all the time, I think that artists have a job to express themselves very much in any shape, form or way,” he explains. “Some show their art maybe through inspiring the staff or through the producers. I respect that aspect of it and I just don’t understand why there’s criticism [of K-pop acts’ lack of involvement].”
While BUMZU can’t pick a favorite moment from SEVENTEEN’s concert (“I participated in almost all the songs so all of them are like my babies”), he can say that he’s proud that his songs have an underlying string of uplifting and positive mantras.
“We’re living in a world where things are changing every day and I consider myself one of the people that keeps pace through the changes,” he shares of his musical philosophy. “No matter the fact that everything’s changing in this hectic society we live in, the most important thing you have to realize is that we’re all just living life. Because of that, I’m trying to focus all the songs and artists I work with on having great messages. Even in this constantly changing world, I want to create an unchanging set of values through these artists and my songs’ messages. I will try my best to reach that goal and ask everyone for their support.”
Next, read on for some of BUMZU’s personal reflections on significant works from his career.
Jin, “Super Tuna” (2021): The main point of that song was, “Let’s not make it serious.” We wanted people to just have pure joy from listening to it, almost childlike happiness, and not think too hard. Of course, Jin is such a big artist, but he felt that, time to time, we need to have that childhood-like brightness back.
The story behind the song is actually legendary. [Laughs] We were out fishing in an area where professional fishermen fish and they were all telling us, “You’re not going to catch anything, it’s not going to happen.” I went up to Jin and said, “Yo. You got [a] Billboard Number One. You’re the man. Since you are the man, you’re going to be able to catch a tuna.” He threw his line, first time, caught a tuna when we played “Super Tuna” instrumental!
After that, the fishermen were like, “Some things are just meant to be, but we’re going to challenge you again.” So, I repeated that line, “You’re Billboard Number One. You’re the man and since you’re the man, you’re going to be able to catch a shark.” He threw it in again and, as soon as he threw it in, a baby shark started circling. He could have caught it but we thought, “Dude, that’s freaky” so we just pulled the bait.
NU’EST, “Bet Bet” (2019): One “TMI” about this one is the lyrics for “Bet Bet” were excruciatingly hard. It took almost a full month just to get the lyrics out. So many thoughts went into it: “Should we use the word ‘bet’ or not?” That was a huge point of discussion with [NU’EST member] Baekho. That word was discussed a lot and especially for that album since it’s the album where the members got back together after the Produce 101 series. They wanted it to portray that feeling of “We’re back together now, we’re going to give it our all, we’re going to put everything out there.” Some words that we came up with were like, when you watch a movie, casino movies with gambling when they all just shove “all in.” That was one of the better ideas discussed; taking the bet together.
Other than the lyrics, the track and the topline were so quick and cool. It was a very fun thing to work on, but the lyrics came from hell. [Laughs]
fromis_9, “Glass Shoes” (2017): It always cracks me up when I think back on this song. In my life, it was one of the three most fun lyrical processes I ever participated in. I was so full of ideas that some of them were like going to Mars and back, I had to trim it down and make it neat. We were trying to get a cherished feeling across to the audience. We were also trying to fit the Cinderella story into fromis_9 and because of that, I was using words like “binggeureu binggeureu,” which is spinning around, and that kind of stuff. As I was working, I would just be laying on the sofa, write my lyrics and I’d just crack up by himself. That’s definitely one of my most fun works.
If you were to ask me to do a girl group now, I might probably not be so willing at this point in my career. And that’s not forever, like an ultimatum. If a great opportunity pops up, I’d be willing to do it and hop on. But for now, with everything that’s going on with me and my projects like SEVENTEEN, I want to focus more on what I already have on my shoulders.
It’s not like I hate girl groups! If I get the chance later in time, I’ll do it but just right now, I got so many things to focus on. And one thing about my songs are that I don’t really use “he,” “she,” “her” pronouns very much. I focus on lyrics, the message or the point that we’re trying to get across in the song. Instead of worrying about, “Oh, because they’re a girl group, I have to do this thing and since they’re a boy group, I have to do this a certain way.” I don’t do that. I’m much more focused on, “Does this song fit this artist? Does this track fit with this lyric? Does the topline fit with this lyric?” That’s really what I’m worried about, not the gender of the groups.
NCT 127, “Back 2 U (AM 01:27)” (2017): It was for a songwriting camp with SM [Entertainment] that I participated in and that session was with The Stereotypes [the production team who’s won Grammys for their work with Bruno Mars and Chris Brown], who are very famous, and August Rigo [BTS, Chris Brown, One Direction]. The three of us were just cooking so well. It was such a good, happy session. The topline [melody] only took us three takes. We just used different parts of that to complete the song on the spot. That was a wonderful experience and, also, August recently participated in SEVENTEEN’s “Hot.” So, working with him again was wonderful.
2PM, “How Is It?” (2016): It’s still surreal. Growing up, 2PM was a huge artist. Once my song became a number in their album, I was like, “Oh my god. My song is in 2PM’s album.” But the biggest thing was meeting 2PM.
When I went to JYP [Entertainment] to vocal direct that song—I can’t remember which exact member it was, it might have been Wooyoung or Junho—but they took really good care of me. They would just buy me coffee, anything. I was a baby in the industry at the time and for me to see them be so nice and be so caring toward all their staff, I was like, “Oh, that’s how successful K-pop artists should be.” They really felt like the model standard for me so that’s an experience that I will never forget.
SEVENTEEN, “Very Nice” (2016): I had a feeling this was going to be a hit because I literally locked myself in my room for two days to make it. I was just drinking coffee and reading music. I told myself that I wasn’t going to leave the room until I finished something good. Through that arduous process, I got to a point like, “Oh, this is going to be a hit.” Once that hit me, I was just partying by myself; just screaming and going crazy. For those two days, the only person I would talk to was Woozi. He was on his own schedules, but being updated on everything and how the process is going. Literally, he was the only one I spoke to during those 48 hours.
Once the lyric work started going, Woozi, S.Coups and I were all in a room and talking about how we wanted to incorporate “nice” as one of the key words. S.Coups was the one who came up with the idea of “Very Nice” and, from that, the lyrics started just coming together. The idea of nice came from the same idea of “nice shot,” like when golfers go golfing, someone has a nice shot, you say, “Nice shot!” Then that’s where the “nice” and “very nice” developed from. These days, I’m a maniac for golf but back then, I wasn’t playing. But S.Coups pitched in wonderful ideas that helped in the creation of that song and to this day, it’s been decorating SEVENTEEN’s encore stages.
SHINee, “Hold You” (2015): I participated along with a producer named Deez [Red Velvet, VIVIZ, SuperM] in another song camp, he’s one of my favorite senior hyungs. When you listen to this song, it doesn’t sound complex but if you open up the actual files and you break it down, the vocal harmony techniques that are in there are extremely complex.
There are two songs in my career that I have put the most effort into the vocal production: one is “Thank You (Evening by Evening)” by NU’EST, and then “Hold You.” In both of them, I wanted to use their vocal harmonies almost as an instrument in the song composition instead of just harmony.
After School, “Make-Up & Tears” (2013): Interesting story about that one is, that was the first song that I participated in after joining PLEDIS. I’m still putting my everything into music, but since this was the first one, I was literally sacrificing everything in my body to get it done and get it to that satisfactory level.
So, the lyrics talk about a breakup, right? I went around and wanted to get stories that happened from normal people. After you cry, your eyes are puffy, right? Sometimes you might freeze a spoon and put it on your eyes to reduce the swelling, that kind of stuff. I was calling all of my friends and asking because, since it’s a girl group song and I’m a man, I didn’t really have that perspective or an experience to look at where it could relate to a lot of people. I was just on my phone going through everyone in my contacts! I didn’t know what was right or what was wrong because I didn’t have that same track record to look back on like I do now.
Carly Rae Jepsen interpreted her The Loneliest Time track, “Surrender My Heart,” for the Broadway stage in her theatrical new music video released on Wednesday (Dec. 14).
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In the Brantley Gutierrez-directed clip, the 37-year-old singer enlists the help of 30 Rock actress Jane Krakowski to put on an atmospheric stage production of “Surrender My Heart,” complete with ballerinas, sparkling costumes and colorful backdrops.
When the performance was met by roaring applause, Krakowski says offstage, “I do such — she’s doing such good work.”
“What I really want to capture in this music video … is that there is like a no-good, terrible, horrible bad day going down for a few different women within the production, maybe myself, maybe a ballerina, maybe somebody else involved, and through the support of each other and the behind-the-scenes kind of chaos, that we’re able to pull off the mini miracle of what it is to be in a Broadway situation,” Jepsen told Rolling Stone of the concept behind the video.
“There was something that sparked in that moment for me of kind of crossing the idea of bringing a ballerina, maybe bringing some other kind of true-blue Broadway stars in line with this project and making it a crossing of worlds in the best possible way,” she added.
“Surrender My Heart” is featured on Jepsen’s sixth studio album, The Loneliest Time, which was released back in October. The LP peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard 200 albums chart dated Nov. 5, 2022.
Watch the “Surrender My Heart” music video below.
