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Madonna superfans rejoice! The Queen of Pop’s 1985 hit song “Gambler” has finally made its global streaming and digital retail debut — more than 37 years after its initial release.
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Three versions of the high-energy tune — the 7” version, an extended dance mix and an instrumental mix — are all now available globally on streaming providers and digital storefronts via Rhino and Warner Music Group. Previously, the song (in its 7” version) was only available on the Vision Quest film soundtrack (released by Geffen Records), while the dance mix and instrumental mix were previously available decades ago on physical singles outside of the U.S. “Gambler” has never been included on any Madonna album.
So why now for this long-awaited debut? “It was Madonna’s personal request,” according to a representative at Rhino. It’s the latest release in the ongoing catalog campaign announced in 2021. While “Gambler” is the final Madonna reissue from Rhino/Warner in 2022, Rhino promises “more fun things to look forward to in 2023” and that “Gambler” is “just a small glimpse of what fans can expect” next year.
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Of note, while there is an official music video for “Gambler,” it will not receive a remastered digital HD upgrade (as some of her videos have garnered in the past). And there are no current plans to issue “Gambler” on physical single formats – such as a 12” vinyl single.
“Gambler” – written by Madonna and produced by John “Jellybean” Benitez – was one of two songs Madonna contributed to the Vision Quest album. The other was her Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit ballad “Crazy for You,” also produced by Jellybean. (Madonna has a cameo in the film as a club singer, and she’s seen performing both songs briefly in the movie.)
While “Gambler” was never released as a single in the United States, it was a hit outside America, reaching the top 10 on Billboard’s European Hot 100 Singles chart and on the U.K.’s Official Singles Chart.
Though American fans did not get a proper single release for “Gambler,” an official music video was played by U.S. MTV for a few weeks in late June and early July in 1985. Fans who attended Madonna’s The Virgin Tour concert that summer also saw her perform the track live. The trek was commemorated on the longform home video Madonna Live: The Virgin Tour, which was released in November 1985. The Virgin Tour spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Music Video Sales chart in early 1986.
Some might wonder why “Gambler” was not released in the U.S. as a single, considering how popular Madonna was in 1985 (she was No. 1 on Billboard’s year-end Top Artists chart). Madonna had an abundance of popular new songs that year – but only half of them were on the U.S. version of her then-current Like a Virgin album. In 1985, Madonna released a total of six singles outside of the U.S. – three songs from the Warner Bros. Virgin album (“Material Girl,” “Angel” and “Dress You Up”) two from the Geffen soundtrack Vision Quest (“Crazy for You” and “Gambler”) and the non-album track “Into the Groove” (from the film Desperately Seeking Susan). Of those, four were released as proper singles in the U.S.: “Material Girl,” “Crazy for You,” “Angel” and “Dress You Up.” (Though, “Groove” was also the B-side of the U.S. 12” single of “Angel.”)
In the last few years, Madonna’s music catalog has been reintroduced to the public through a wealth of digital single and remix reissues, upgraded and remastered official music videos, limited-edition vinyl single releases, new remix collaborations and this year’s compilation album Finally Enough Love. The latter set, which celebrated Madonna’s landmark 50 No. 1s on Billboard’s Dance Club Songs chart, hit No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart and marked her 23rd top 10-charting set on the all-genre Billboard 200.
ABC will no longer air its planned Backstreet Boys holiday special this month, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.
A Very Backstreet Holiday was scheduled for Dec. 14 but has been pulled from the network’s schedule, and comedy reruns will air in its place. The special was set to feature the boy band singing tunes from its holiday album of the same name that was released in October.
The decision to pull the special follows a lawsuit filed Thursday alleging that Backstreet Boys member Nick Carter raped a 17-year-old fan on his tour bus after a 2001 concert in Tacoma, Washington. According to the civil suit filed in Nevada, now-39-year-old Shannon “Shay” Ruth claims that the singer chose her amid a group of autograph seekers to join him on the tour bus, gave her an alcoholic beverage called “VIP juice” and assaulted her.
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The lawsuit alleges that three other anonymous Jane Doe accusers experienced similar assaults by Carter between 2003 and 2006. One of the three unnamed accusers was allegedly underage.
In a statement shared with Page Six, Carter’s attorney Michael Holtz called the allegations “not only legally meritless but also entirely untrue.”
These are not the first accusations leveled against the pop singer. In 2017, Melissa Schuman, a former member of singing group Dream, publicly accused him of sexually assaulting her in 2003 when she was 18 years old. At the time, Carter denied the allegations by saying Schuman hadn’t previously expressed to him that “anything we did was not consensual.”
Prosecutors investigated Schuman’s claims and declined to bring criminal charges against the star, citing the statute of limitations having expired.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
As a significant part of HYBE’s grand plans for 2022 and 2023, the Korean entertainment corporation’s first Japan-based act officially arrived on the music scene with its debut EP this week.
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&TEAM is the nine-member boy band aiming to be a “global” group with representation from their Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese and German backgrounds. Consisting of members K, Fuma, Nicholas, EJ, Yuma, Jo, Harua, Taki and Maki, the nine were selected from the singing competition show &AUDITION – The Howling that wrapped in September. The program featured HYBE chairman Bang Si-Hyuk leading and advising the group, while Scooter Braun and Zico appeared as special producers for the show. BTS, SEVENTEEN, Tomorrow X Together and ENHYPEN cheered on the contestants.
The boy band started their journey with their rock-pop lead single “Under the Skin,” released in late November, to preview their forthcoming EP, First Howling : ME. Produced by Slow Rabbit (who’s produced multiple singles for BTS and Tomorrow X Together), “Under the Skin” showed early indication that trusted HYBE collaborators would also work with the new act with contributions from Melanie Fontana (who’s written on multiple BTS, TXT, and ENHYPEN singles) and Kyler Niko (ENHYPEN, LE SSERAFIM).
For the release of First Howling : ME and the Southern hip-hop/pop track “Scent of You,” &TEAM once again had production handled by Slow Rabbit as well as Supreme Boi (the HYBE rapper and producer who’s appeared on BTS and J-Hope albums) with a music video that spotlighted the precise choreography K-pop acts are famous for shot by a 360-degree camera. Bang also helmed the group’s new song “Buzz Love.”
While &TEAM is not the first Japan-based group to debut from a Korean label, the group does stand out by already incorporating into multiple parts of the K-pop conversation. &TEAM’s music videos are uploaded on the HYBE Labels YouTube channel (with more than 69 million subscribers) and have released a performance of “Under the Skin” with popular K-pop dance company STUDIO CHOOM (where performances from the likes of Stray Kids, (G)I-DLE and Kep1er have racked up tens of millions of views). &TEAM also has had global distribution on streaming services when many Japanese labels still do not share their music worldwide.
After &TEAM confirmed its lineup in September, the members shared their international ambitions. K, born in Japan and once competed for a spot in ENHYPEN, said via a press release that “our ultimate goal is to reach a global audience and be charted on Billboard like BTS.”
The group didn’t have to wait long as “Under the Skin” already bowed at No. 80 on the Japan Hot 100 chart dated Dec. 3. Where the group will go next—and what charts they may enter—will be exciting to watch as &TEAM and HYBE look to expand their global reach.
When RM officially introduced himself to the music industry through BTS‘ debut in 2013, the then-18-year-old Kim Namjoon was known through the stage name Rap Monster after being praised by hip-hop veterans for his spitting abilities, but he later shared a love-hate relationship with the moniker. In 2017, the star made the formal move to professionally go by RM after realizing it didn’t fully represent who he was or his love for all music. Instead, “RM” now opened his name up to represent a range of meanings, one of them thought to be the “Real Me.”
Even if rap is where RM started, his first proper solo album, Indigo, shows that it’s only one facet of the musician. With assistance from longtime musical legends in different genres, plus rising up-and-comers, the LP is a collection of songs that the star describes as an “archive” of his 20s.
Not only are RM’s artistic inspirations wide, but the 28-year-old plays with how he presents them to the world. On one track, he’s feeling feisty and confident to take on the world, and later, he’s reflective and alone in his hotel room. RM is not trying to bring what’s topping the charts today to this record, but it’s meant to showcase the ever-evolving people we are and become. Captures and snapshots of the “real” Kim Namjoon live throughout the album, but Indigo emphasizes that he is not a static piece of art.
While it’s tough to rank these songs from “worst” to “best,” Billboard is taking these flickers of RM and looking at how the global star is opening himself up in new musical form.
In 2020, Billboard‘s staff revealed its picks for the greatest pop star of every year dating back to 1981 (the first year of MTV, essentially the birth of the modern pop era), with essays making the case for each as the biggest, brightest and most important star in their solar system that calendar year. After adding BTS as the greatest pop star for 2020, we decided to expand the project a little bit. Last year, we counted down our picks for the 10 greatest pop stars of the year, with full essays for everyone from No. 10 (Bad Bunny) to No. 1 (Taylor Swift), as well as bonus write-ups for our picks for Rookie (Olivia Rodrigo) and Comeback (WILLOW) of the year, and even 10 close-but-not-quite honorable mentions.
This year, we’re doing it all over again. Over the next week and a half, we’ll be revealing our top 10 with one or two new year-in-review essays daily, until we name our No. 1 next Friday (Dec. 16). And just like last year, we’ll also make our picks for Rookie of the Year and Comeback of the Year, which we’ll unveil tomorrow (Dec. 9) before launching into the proper countdown.
But first, a reminder that unlike with our Year-End Charts, we don’t use hard numbers or chart positions to determine these Greatest Pop Stars. They’re important to our determinations, of course — but so are more intangible factors like cultural importance, industry influence and overall omnipresence. (And of course, playing the whole season helps: If you took some months off to start or end of the year, or had a long break in the middle, that’s not helping your MVP argument.)
If you’re joining us for the first time and still don’t quite get what we mean, you’ll understand better once we start counting down. Before that, though: the honorable mentions. These 10 artists still all had huge years, but for whatever reason couldn’t quite get over the hump — because they didn’t cross over quite far enough, because their impact was too contained to the chart metrics, or simply because they didn’t hang around for enough of the year. Here they are, presented in alphabetical order:
21 SAVAGE
21 Savage
Prince Williams/Wireimage
Their Year in Pop: Talk about a late-season surge. 21 Savage had an OK first half of 2022, with fun guest appearances on Latto’s “Wheelie” and Pharrell Williams’ “Cash in Cash Out,” and even a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 thanks to his well-received appearance on Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind closer “Jimmy Cooks.” But none of us would’ve considered 21 Savage a Greatest Pop Star contender until November, when he teamed up with Drake for the blockbuster Her Loss album, briefly feuded with Nas (and then quickly reconciled via a collab single), and then stole the show in early December on Metro Boomin’s star-studded Heroes & Villains, with a gleeful verse playing Diddy to The Weeknd’s Mario Winans on breakout cut “Creepin’.”
Why Not Top 10? As many big moments as he had this year, the great majority of them were featured assists or alongside bigger names, without Savage having to do much of the heaviest lifting. If we had a Best Supporting Pop Star distinction, though, it’d be Savage’s to lose — pretty much every year, really.
BLACKPINK
BLACKPINK
YG Entertainment
Their Year in Pop: The biggest girl group in the world had another triumphant year in 2022, topping the Billboard 200 albums chart for the first time in their career with their BORN PINK album, besting the Global 200 songs chart twice (with advance singles “Pink Venom” and “Shut Down”), storming the VMAs stage and continuing to break nearly every YouTube record possible.
Why Not Top 10? Their stateside resumé is still lacking That One Single — the unavoidable hit that lingers around streaming and radio forever, ensuring that even your local librarian knows who they are — but given how little they seem to need that kind of stateside crossover support to keep making pop history, it’s doubtful they’re sweating it much.
ED SHEERAN
Ed Sheeran
Jamie McCarthy/GI
Their Year in Pop: Sheeran didn’t release a new album in 2022, but that didn’t stop him from having two of the top 15 songs on our Year-End Hot 100 — with 2021 holdovers “Bad Habits” (No. 13) and “Shivers” (No. 5). But Sheeran’s year was arguably more impressive for the way he spread himself around as a special guest, scoring Hot 100 hits alongside artists from the worlds of rap (Russ’ “Are You Entertained?”), reggaetón (J Balvin’s “Sigue”) and Afrobeats (Fireboy DML’s “Peru”), all while trekking the globe on yet another impossibly lucrative world tour. And lest it be lost to time, let’s not forget there was a Pokémon song in there somewhere, too.
Why Not Top 10? Though Sheeran remains unmissable on radio and one of the world’s biggest live attractions, he doesn’t quite have the same culture-wide impact he did at his mid-’10s peak — particularly during an in-between year, album-wise.
ENCANTO CAST
Encanto
DISNEY
Their Year in Pop: If we cut these rankings off in April, you can bet you’d be seeing Mirabel, Abuela, Luisa, Pepa, Félix, Bruno, and the rest of the Family Madrigal in the top 10. For those three months, they were everywhere — including on the charts, where Stephanie Beatriz and Diane Guerrero were suddenly as unavoidable as Dua Lipa and Doja Cat. But also on TikTok, at award shows (with Megan Thee Stallion at the Oscars!), and most of all, at your little cousin’s birthday party, where you’d better believe they had memorized all six parts of “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” and were just dying to act them all out at once for you.
Why Not Top 10? While the Encanto cast helped fill the void left by the absence of most of our major pop stars early in 2022, eventually those stars returned, and we didn’t hear much from the Family Madrigal again after that.
GUNNA
Gunna
Jamie McCarthy/GI
Their Year in Pop? If you didn’t spend the opening months of 2022 not talking about Bruno, chances are good you instead spent it pushin’ P, as Gunna’s Hot 100 top 10 smash (alongside Future and Young Thug) gave the year its first great pop catchphrase. Acclaimed parent album DS4Ever also debuted at No. 1 — even beating out Dawn FM, the much-anticipated new set from 2021’s sixth-greatest pop star — and earned Gunna a music guest spot on SNL in April.
Why Not Top 10? Unfortunately, what was looking like a true level-up year for the rapper born Sergio Kitchens was cut short in May, when he was arrested (along with Young Thug) on a controversial RICO indictment — for which he’s still in jail, as he awaits his January trial.
KAROL G
Karol G
Pablo Escudero
Their Year in Pop: Every year, Latin pop star Karol G burrows her way a little further into the U.S. pop mainstream. Though she didn’t release an album in 2022, she did release three singles — “MAMIII” with Becky G, “Provenza” and “Gatúbela” with Maldy — all of which debuted in the Hot 100’s top 40, with “MAMIII” becoming her highest-peaking hit to date (No. 15). That song also won hot Latin song of the year, vocal event at the 2022 Billboard Latin Music Awards — one of three awards Karol picked up on the night. And you know an artist has reached a level of true stardom when they can make headline news merely by changing the color of their hair.
Why Not Top Ten? A big album to cash in on her crowing pop clout would certainly help her case, as would a crossover single on American top 40 radio — though as a Latin star you’ll see in our top 10 has shown, the latter’s not necessarily a pre-requisite for stateside superstardom anymore.
KENDRICK LAMAR
Kendrick Lamar
Renell Medrano
Their Year in Pop: For about two weeks in May, the country belonged to Kendrick, as his long-awaited comeback (following the twin triumphs of 2017’s DAMN. and 2018’s Black Panther soundtrack) was trumpeted first with the release of “The Heart Part 5,” a Marvin Gaye-interpolating one-off with an jaw-dropping, deepfaking music video that instantly took over the internet. Then five days later, he made his full return with fifth album Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, drawing rave reviews and debuting atop the Billboard 200 (while simultaneously charting each of its 18 tracks on the Hot 100).
Why Not Top 10? Neither Mr. Morale nor any of its cuts stuck around the culture the way Lamar’s last two efforts and their accompanying hits did. But it’s hardly been forgotten about — Lamar earned eight nominations for the 2023 Grammys, while Mr. Morale and its lead single “N95” finished in the top 10 of our staff’s year-end albums and songs lists, respectively.
LIL BABY
Lil Baby
Taylor Hill/FilmMagic
Their Year in Pop: Lil Baby notched a staggering 39 titles on the Hot 100 this year — a tally that nonetheless basically registers as light work for one of the most prolific major rappers of the 2020s. Most of those of course came from his Billboard 200-topping October effort It’s Only Me, though he also scored big hits in support of DJ Khaled (“Stayin’ Alive”), SleazyWorldGo (the “Sleazy Flow” remix) and even Ed Sheeran (the “2step” remix), while also notching a pair of big debuts alongside Nicki Minaj early in the year — including the No. 2-bowing “Do We Have a Problem,” tying for the highest Hot 100 peak of his career.
Why Not Top 10? Despite the dozens of Hot 100 visits, Lil Baby didn’t have a single quite as unavoidable as his My Turn-era 2020 hits “Emotionally Scarred,” “The Bigger Picture” or “We Paid” this year, as the buzz around It’s Only Me faded much quicker than for its predecessor.
TEMS
Tems
Jeff Spicer/GI for BMI London Awards
Their Year in Pop: One of the breakout stars of 2021, thanks largely to her star-marking turn on Wizkid’s global smash “Essence,” Nigerian singer-songwriter Tems defied the odds by having an even bigger 2022 — without even releasing any new music of her own outside of a Bob Marley cover for the Wakanda Forever soundtrack. Still, she appeared on one of the year’s biggest hits when Future sampled her 2020 From Broken Ears cut “Higher” for his own Hot 100-topping “Wait for U” — even scoring her an artist credit on the track — and also earned her first major solo hit when TikTok (and eventually R&B radio) resurrected her “Free Mind,” from the same 2020 EP. You know you’ve got the juice when Queen Bey is calling you in as one of just a handful of featured guests on her new album, with the legendary Grace Jones as a co-star, no less.
Why Not Top 10? She’s still yet to even release an official full-length debut — so we’ll have to see how the Afrobeats sensation fares when all eyes are on her for actual brand-new music of her own.
THE WEEKND
The Weeknd
Brian Ziff
Their Year in Pop: While The Weeknd’s March 2020 LP After Hours was such a blockbuster that he was still enjoying its victory lap well into 2021, this January’s Dawn FM did not have quite the same reach or endurance. But critics were kinder to the album than the masses (it finished in the top 10 of the Billboard staff’s year-end ranking), and we still saw plenty of Abel this year between his long-awaited After Hours til Dawn stadium tour, a series of typically eye-popping Dawn FM visuals, and the TikTok and radio resurrection of 2016 Starboy cut “Die for You,” a bigger chart hit than anything he actually released in 2022. (And his year’s not over yet: Next week, he’ll debut “Nothing Is Lost (You Give Me Strength),” his Swedish House Mafia-co-produced theme to the much-anticipated Avatar: The Way of Water.)
Why Not Top 10? After a year where you play the Super Bowl and celebrate having the biggest Hot 100 hit of all-time, there might just be nowhere to go but down.
Winter is coming … swiftly. Named to The Hollywood Reporter‘s 2022 Women In Entertainment Power 100, Taylor Swift revealed to the publication Wednesday (Dec. 7) that the fictional character she identifies a lot with is Game of Thrones‘ Arya Stark.
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“I realize I don’t know how to use a sword and I’ve never had to rise up from near death to go on an epic revenge mission,” quipped the 32-year-old pop star. “But I have been in the music industry for over 15 years, so …”
This isn’t the first time Swift has shared her love for HBO’s hit fantasy drama. In fact, she once revealed that her 2017 album Reputation was inspired, in part, by Arya and her sister, Sansa Stark. “So much of my imagination was spent on Game of Thrones,” she told Entertainment Weekly in 2019. “At the time, I was making reputation and I didn’t talk about it in interviews, so I didn’t reveal that a lot of the songs were influenced by the show.”
The single “Look What You Made Me Do,” for example, is “literally Arya Stark’s kill list,” according to Swift. And “I Did Something Bad”? Inspired by a GoT plot line in which Arya and Sansa — played by Maisie Williams and Sophie Turner, respectively — conspire to kill another character on the show, Littlefinger.
The 11-time Grammy winner also shared in the Women in Entertainment Power piece which Hollywood figure she’d like to trade places with. Instead of naming a fellow singer-songwriter, she shouted out director Guillermo Del Toro.
“Imagine having that imagination, that visual vocabulary and that astonishing body of work,” she said of the Shape of Water filmmaker. “To have such a diverse storytelling range but to somehow put your distinctive artistic fingerprint on every film. And yet, it feels like he’s still so curious and enthusiastic about his work. I can only imagine that a day in his mind would be fascinating.”
Mindy Kaling, who was also featured on the Women in Entertainment Power list, had a much different answer to the same question. She said she’d like to trade places with Tay’s assistant, because “you know they got seats to her concert.”
And … cut. Taylor Swift released her longest directorial project to date last year when she dropped “All Too Well: The Short Film,” a heartbreaking 14-minute music video starring Sadie Sink and Dylan O’Brien. And now, she’s giving fans a glimpse into how she put the whole thing together.
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In a Thursday (Dec. 8) post on Instagram, the 32-year-old pop star shared several minutes of behind-the-scenes footage from her shoot with Sink and O’Brien, who portrayed onscreen the dysfunctional, age-gap relationship Swift describes in her record-setting No. 1 Red (Taylor’s Version) track “All Too Well (10 Minute Version).” In many of the clips, a pony-tailed Swift describes to the actors in detail how they should be feeling in the moment, sometimes trading places with them and tracking their approximate movements for them.
“The first seeds of this short film were planted over ten years ago, and I’ll never forget the behind the scenes moments of the shoot,” she wrote in her caption. “I owe everything to @sadiesink_, Dylan O’Brien, my incredible DP @the_rinayang and my producer @saulysaulysauly.”
Not only does Swift closely direct the video’s two stars, but she also gives specific instructions to its many background extras. In one of the short film’s most meticulously planned scenes, she instructs when exactly the camera should zoom in and out, when exactly an actor should place a birthday cake in front of Sink, and when exactly the Stranger Things star should blow out the candles.
“I also want to say thank you to our wonderful background actors and crew who made this story come to life so naturally,” she added. “I loved every second of it and I will always remember it. All. Too. Well. The behind the scenes footage of ATW the short film is out now!”
Both the “All Too Well” song and short film have become some of the 11-time Grammy winner’s most critically acclaimed projects, with the video winning video of the year at this year’s VMAs. Swift has made appearances at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival to speak about her directorial process, and the short film is eligible for a nomination at next year’s Oscars in the live-action short category.
See Taylor Swift’s post below, and watch the behind-the-scenes video for “All Too Well: The Short Film” above.
Mariah Carey is known. But on Wednesday night’s (Dec. 7) Late Show With Stephen Colbert she was also seen as she sat down for the the show’s scientifically dubious “Colbert Questionert,” in which the host probed the recesses of her mind in order to peel back the unseen layers of the divine miss MC.
After a few minutes of idle chatter about how much better it is to chat in person than on Zoom — as the pair did during the COVID-19 pandemic — before he could even get the Questionert started, Colbert stumbled out of the gate. “Because you are the Queen of Christmas, I’ve got a couple…” he started, before Carey immediately cut him off.
“First of all, may I say I never called myself the Queen of Christmas. Can we please be clear on that?,” Carey said with authority as Colbert noted that he never called her that; Carey recently lost a legal fight over her effort to claim the “Queen of Christmas” trademark. “But others have [said], ‘the self-proclaimed Queen of Christmas.’ I’m like, ‘really? I’m gonna do that?’ They can look up every interview I’ve ever done, and not to get super religious, but if anybody would be the Queen of Christmas that would be Mary?”
For the record, MC said, Christmas is for all and she just happens to really love it too. With that settled, nearly 7 minutes into the segment, Colbert finally got to the first question… which he also fumbled. “White lights or colored lights at Christmas?” he asked the “All I Want For Christmas Is You” singer.
“Um, I’m going to say is that politically correct in the way that you phrased that,” Carey asked with a sideways glance. A grinning Colbert was momentarily speechless about his verbal faux pas. “I’m going to… as a biracial… as a Black and biracial mix… Black, Irish,” Carey laughed while seamlessly plugging her Black Irish liquor brand.
Asked to pick between hot cocoa and eggnog, of course MC went with the cocoa… with a splash of Black Irish, naturally. As for whether she goes angel or star on her tree top, Carey said both, because the unofficial yuletide royal has four trees in her house. But when Colbert wondered when it’s time to start playing Christmas songs, the singer — who famously does not acknowledge time — said she had no idea “All I Want” would have such long legs when she wrote it more than two decades ago. So when she goes shopping, which she only does at Christmas, she said it seems like every retail outlet she hits is playing “cool” music and not classic holiday tunes.
Among her other answers: Best Sandwich (chicken parm with mozzarella cheese instead, lightly toasted), One Thing She Owns She Should Throw Out (a “hideously ugly” jacket in her closet that is multicolored, bright and sparkly), What’s the Scariest Animal? (snakes), Apples or Oranges? (oranges), What Do You Think Happens When We Die? (“the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evidence of things yet unseen.”) and Window or Aisle? (“a bed.”)
And, finally, if she only got one song to listen to for the rest of her life, she said, “Stephen Colbert’s latest hit.” When the host informed her that the last song he sang was “All I Want For Christmas” during the previous night’s monologue, Carey insisted he prove how much of her perennial holiday No. 1 he knew. But MC being MC, after Colbert busted out the first verse and chorus, the famously exacting singer joined in and sang, “You skipped a little part of the B section, but that’s all right.”
“All I Want for Christmas Is You” has already begun its now-annual journey up the Hot 100 for this Christmas season. On the chart dated Dec. 10, the 1994 single sits at No. 2, just behind Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero.” It’s peaked at No. 1 three years in a row now, dating back to its first ascension in 2019.
Check out Mariah’s answers below.
While many listeners have surely dedicated Stevie B’s 1990 smash ballad “Because I Love You (The Postman Song)” to a romantic interest, its writer, Warren Brooks, remembers that it was inspired by a different source.
“It was God talking to me, telling me He got my letter, and that whenever I needed Him, He’d be there for me,” Brooks tells Billboard. “I was feeling a little down one day, and talking to God, and God talking to me. That’s how it came about. I just wrote down what came to me.”
On the Billboard Hot 100 dated Dec. 8, 1990, Stevie B sent the song (also featuring string arrangements by Brooks) to No. 1 for its first of four weeks at the summit. It marked the first, and to-date sole, leader for Brooks as a writer, and for the singer who had broken through with uptempo freestyle anthems including “Dreamin’ of Love,” “Spring Love (Come Back to Me)” and “I Wanna Be the One” in 1988-89.
With the release of Stevie B’s third LP, Love & Emotion (on LMR/RCA Records), he reached his highest Hot 100 rank to that point with the title cut, also penned solely by Brooks. The dance/pop song hit No. 15 in September 1990, paving the way for the singer’s first No. 1 three months later.
Brooks and Stevie B met in 1985, when the former finished writing “The Postman Song” after beginning it in 1983, and the latter gave it his stamp of approval. “Stevie heard me playing it on the piano and he said, ‘That sounds like a hit,’” Brooks recalls. “When he got his deal with LMR Records, he decided to [record] it. He really loved it.”
In topping the Hot 100, “The Postman Song” dethroned “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” the lead/title-track single from Whitney Houston’s third album. Also in the top 10 that week were enduring hits such as Mariah Carey’s “Love Takes Time,” DNA’s “Tom’s Diner,” featuring Suzanne Vega, and Madonna’s “Justify My Love.”
“I just felt, ‘It’s on now. I’m in the game’,” muses Brooks, who since 1991 has run Wab Nation Records, which he co-founded.
“The Postman Song” helped set the stage for Stevie B’s second-highest-charting Hot 100 hit, and further success with love songs, as follow-up ballad “I’ll Be by Your Side” rose to No. 12 in March 1991. Another AC-focused song, “Dream About You,” hit No. 29 in June 1995.
Three decades past its Hot 100 peak, “The Postman Song” ranks among the top 100 classics on Billboard‘s Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Songs chart. “I felt that the song had the right lyrics,” Brooks says. “I just thought that if it got a shot, it would do great things.”
Celine Dion opened up to fans about a serious health struggle she’s been facing that will result in all her 2023 dates being pushed back to 2024 or cancelled entirely. In an emotional video posted on Thursday morning (Dec. 8), the 54-year-old singer described her battle against a rare neurological disorder called “Stiff-Person Syndrome,” which she said has caused uncontrolled and serve muscle spasms.
“As you know, I’ve always been an open book. And I wasn’t ready to say anything before,” said a solemn Dion, seemingly on the verge of tears in the brief video. “But I’m ready now… ’I’ve been dealing with problems with my health for a long time, and it’s been really difficult for me to face these challenges and to talk about everything that I’ve been going through.”
Fighting to keep her composure, Dion said she was recently diagnosed with the “very rare” disorder that affects one in a million people. While her team is still learning about the condition, she said they now know that SPS has been causing all the spasms that she’s been having. “Unfortunately, these spasms affect every aspect of my daily life. Sometimes causing difficulties when I walk and not allowing me to use my vocal cords to sing the way I’m used to,” Dion said. “I have to admit it’s been a struggle. All I know is singing, it’s what I’ve done all my life.”
The immediate result is that she will not be able to re-start her tour in Europe in February as planned. In fact, she said, all of her spring 2023 dates will move to 2024 and 8 of her summer 2023 shows have been cancelled. The shows scheduled from Feb. 24 to April 11, 2023 will now move to March 6-April 22, 2024 and her summer 2023 shows slated for May 31-July 17 have been cancelled; a run of shows scheduled from August 26-Oct. 4, 2023 remain on her schedule as of now.
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, SPS is a rare neurological disorder that has features of an autoimmune disease. It is characterized by “fluctuating muscle rigidity in the trunk and limbs and a heightened sensitivity to stimuli such as noise, touch, and emotional distress, which can set off muscle spasms. Abnormal postures, often hunched over and stiffened, are characteristic of the disorder.” People with SPS can be too disabled to walk or move and may be “afraid to leave the house because street noises, such as the sound of a horn, can trigger spasms and falls.” According to the Institute, the disorder affects twice as many women as men and science does not yet understand what cause it.
The current treatment is a regimen of anti-convulsants and valium and intravenous treatments aimed at reducing stiffness and lowering sensitivity to touch, noise and stress. The preferred treatments can improve symptoms, but a cure is not yet known and sufferers are often subject to frequent falls because of a lack of the usual defensive reflexes.
“I have a great team of doctors working alongside me to help me get better,” Dion said, adding that her “precious children” are standing beside her and giving her hope. “I’m working hard with my sports medicine therapist every day to build back my strength and my ability to perform again. But I have to admit it’s been a struggle. All I know is singing. It’s what I’ve done all my life and it’s what I love to do the most.”
Gathering her composure, Dion told her fans that she misses them terribly and that she misses performing for them. “I always give 100% when I do my shows,” she said. But my condition is not allowing me to give you that right now.” Dion said she’s hopeful that she is on the road to recovery and is spending all her time focusing on getting better. “I really hope I can see you again real soon,” she said emotionally at the end of the statement.
Back in April, Dion once again postponed her Courage World Tour citing a then-unnamed health issue that was causing severe and persistent muscle spasms. At the time, the European leg of her tour originally slated to kick off in May of this year (and last through late September) were pushed to February 2023 and slated to run through Oct. 4, 2023. In addition, her Las Vegas residency was cancelled in Oct. 2021 after she said she was suffering from spasms.
To see the full list of cancelled and rescheduled shows, click here.
Watch Dion’s full statement below.
