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The Halloween decorations have come down and the costumes have all been laid to rest — Christmas is right around the corner, and Camila Cabello wants to bring in the holiday cheer early. On Friday (Nov. 4), the singer shared her rendition of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” a whole 51 days before Christmas’ arrival.
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In The Voice coach’s version of the classic track — which was originally performed and released by Bing Crosby in 1943 to honor soldiers stationed overseas during World War II — she gives it an update with a Latin flare through the use of a big band and romantic, acoustic guitar to flesh out the instrumental.
“I’ll be home for Christmas/ You can plan on me/ Please have some snow and mistletoe/ And presents by the tree/ Christmas eve will find me/ Where the love light gleams/ I’ll be home for Christmas,” Cabello effortlessly sings the song’s defining chorus.
The 25-year-old previously delivered her “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” cover on two separate occasions last year for her performance at the White House for In Performance at the White House: Spirit of the Season and for Michael Bublé’s Christmas in the City.
“I’ll Be Home for Christmas” is far from Cabello’s first foray into holiday tunes — in 2021, she teamed up with her then-boyfriend Shawn Mendes for a cover of Nat King Cole’s Christmas classic, “The Christmas Song,” which served double duty as a fundraiser for Feeding America.
Listen to Camila Cabello’s version of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” below.
As spooky season gives way to the lead-up to Thanksgiving, we’re grateful, as always, for the new slate of music the end of each week brings. And Friday (Nov. 4) is no exception.
With tunes ranging from an emotional new Selena Gomez single to a collaborative album by Drake and 21 Savage, we want to know which new release will be soundtracking your first weekend of November.
The two rappers team up on Her Loss, a 16-track joint effort that features Travis Scott on “P—y & Millions” and takes a jab at Megan Thee Stallion in the lyrics of “Circo Loco,” on which Drake spits “This b—h lie ’bout getting shots, but she still a stallion. She don’t even get the joke, but she still smiling” over an interpolation of Daft Punk‘s “One More Time.”
Meanwhile, Gomez lays her mental anguish bare on “My Mind & Me,” the spare, vulnerable ballad that shares its title with her new Apple TV+ documentary Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, which delves into the pop star’s mental and physical health problems, from the cancelation of her 2016 Revival Tour to the present day.
Other new albums include Joji‘s Smithereens, a follow-up to 2020’s Nectar that contains singles “Glimpse of Us,” “Yukon (Interlude)” and “Die For You,” as well as the soundtrack to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever with contributions from Rihanna (“Lift Me Up”), Tems (“No Woman No Cry”), Burna Boy (“Alone”), Stormzy (“Interlude”) and others.
Plus, P!nk comes raring back with “Never Gonna Not Dance Again,” her most upbeat single since 2016’s “Just Like Fire,” and Lindsay Lohan finally cements Christmas classic “Jingle Bell Rock” into her discography with a post-Mean Girls cover from her upcoming Netflix holiday movie Falling for Christmas.
Vote for your favorite new release in Billboard‘s weekly poll below!
Selena Gomez‘s headline-making romance with Justin Bieber may not have worked out in the end, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t gain anything positive from the breakup. In her new documentary My Mind & Me, the 30-year-old pop star opened up about how her high-profile split from the “Baby” singer, though painful, turned out to be the best thing that could have happened in her journey toward independence, confidence and self-love.
Gomez dated Bieber on and off for most of the 2010s, starting in 2011 and ending for good in 2018. Just a couple months after that final split, Bieber got engaged to his now wife, model Hailey Bieber.
“Everything was so public,” the Only Murders in the Building star said in the doc, which dropped Friday (Nov. 4) on Apple TV+. “I felt haunted by a past relationship that no one wanted to let go of. Then I just moved past it, and I wasn’t afraid anymore.”
The “no one” she’s referring to would be the millions of “Jelena” fans who rooted for Gomez and Bieber’s romance, many of whom continued to make their devastation over the breakup known on social media for months — and in some cases, even years — afterward. The public fixation on Gomez and the “Peaches” musician’s relationship is something Hailey also recently spoke about while appearing on the podcast Call Her Daddy, describing how she she sometimes feels “numb” from the hate she gets from people who think she “stole” Bieber from Gomez.
“I feel like I had to go through the worst possible heartbreak ever and then just forgetting everything at the drop of the hand, it was really confusing,” Gomez, who was recently photographed being friendly with Hailey, continued in My Mind & Me. “But I just think that needed to happen and ultimately it was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
The Grammy nominee also recalled writing her single “Lose You to Love Me,” which was inspired by her breakup from Bieber. “I text Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter and said, ‘I think I’m ready to just say I’m sad,’” she said, referring to her co-writers on the 2019 track. “We wrote the song in 45 minutes. The fastest song I’ve ever written.”
The song appeared on Gomez’s Billboard 200 chart-topping album Rare, which came out in 2020. A couple weeks after its release, “Lose You to Love Me” ascended to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, marking the singer-actress’ first ever No. 1 single.
“It’s about more than a lost love,” she added. “It’s me learning to choose myself, to choose life, but also hoping that people can find grace and peace in that too. The song is about knowing that you completely lost every part of who you are just to rediscover yourself again.”
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, Drake and 21 Savage expand their collaborative streak across a full-length, Selena Gomez gives us a peek inside her “Mind,” and Joji makes good on his artistic promise. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Drake & 21 Savage, Her Loss
Drake and 21 Savage have always pushed each other: while 21 Savage’s menacing flow has challenged Drake to sharpen his bars on their past collaborations, Drake has brought 21’s dense delivery onto some pop-crossover stunners, like their recent No. 1 smash “Jimmy Cooks.” With that dynamic in mind, the joint effort Her Loss functions exactly how you’d expect, and hope — punch and counterpunch, Drake returning to hip-hop braggadocio following his dance sojourn with Honestly, Nevermind, 21 Savage less concerned with pop culture references than ripping beats in half. It’s a focused, slightly chilly, largely riveting effort that ends both artists’ big years on a high note.
Selena Gomez, “My Mind & Me”
“All of the crashin’ and burnin’ and breakin’, I know now / If somеbody sees me like this, then thеy won’t feel alone now,” Selena Gomez sings as an epiphany on her searing new single. With the release of her new documentary My Mind & Me, Selena Gomez has released an accompanying song that captures the issues of sharing yourself with the world (especially as an ultra-famous artist) in the social media age, as well as the conclusion, over stately piano notes, that every struggle has been worth it if it had helped someone else in the process.
Joji, Smithereens
“Glimpse of Us,” the quietly devastating Joji single that became one of the year’s biggest breakthrough hits, may have introduced the 88Rising singer-songwriter to a much wider audience, but anyone familiar with Joji’s dulcet tones and emotionally revealing lyricism could have predicted that he’d become a solo star. New album Smithereens allows Joji to capitalize on a major moment with more melancholy and contemplation, but more accomplished vocals and songwriting than featured on 2020’s Nectar — a song like “Die For You” continues to refine his craft, taking the high of “Glimpse of Us” and pushing further upward.
Various Artists, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – Music From and Inspired By
Curated by Kendrick Lamar, the 2018 soundtrack to Black Panther was a blockbuster, with multiple crossover hits (“All The Stars,” “Pray For Me”) and a perfectly orchestrated intermingling of superstars and rising artists. The soundtrack to the upcoming sequel boasts similar firepower — its opening track is “Lift Me Up,” the first new Rihanna single in six years, after all — as well as an impressive cross-section of artists either adjacent to or dominating the Afrobeats world, from Burna Boy to Tems to Fireboy DML to CKay, creating another high-profile, powerful showcase of Black culture.
P!nk, “Never Gonna Not Dance Again”
P!nk’s last two albums, 2017’s Beautiful Trauma and 2019’s Hurts 2B Human, were led by singles (“What About Us” and “Walk Me Home,” respectively) that veered away from the pop star’s party-starting image — less “Raise Your Glass,” more raising the emotional stakes, as it were. So while “Never Gonna Not Dance Again” serves as a defiant ode against wasting time and self-seriousness, the song also gives P!nk another chance to operate at a faster tempo and groove over a nu-disco hook, setting up a welcome return to the dance floor.
Lindsay Lohan, “Jingle Bell Rock”
Interested in the Lohanaissance, playing Christmas music multiple weeks before Thanksgiving, and Mean Girls nostalgia? Lindsay Lohan has got you covered with her take on “Jingle Bell Rock,” from the resurgent singer-actress’ upcoming Netflix film Falling For Christmas, which leans into its good-spirited kitschiness and will be at home on any holiday streaming playlist (plus, everybody in the English-speaking WORLD knows this song!).
Martha Stewart went on The Today Show Thursday morning (Nov. 3) to make a very important plea to Christmas Queen Mariah Carey to slow her jingle roll and let Thanksgiving get some shine before she dives right into the yuletide season. “Mariah, you know me. I’m a traditionalist with a twist and you cannot give up Thanksgiving just ‘case you don’t like turkey,” Stewart told the morning show. “I love turkey and many, many other people love turkey. So do not think that we are going to give up Thanksgiving just because you say so.”
Buckshots fired!
In case you missed it, the reason Martha’s gizzards were seemingly in a twist is because earlier this week MC posted a video in which she seamlessly made the transition from the end of Halloween to the kick-off of Christmas season while appearing to glide right over gobble time. As the calendar flipped to Nov. 1, Mariah let us know what time it was by posting the visual in which she sits on a stationary bike dressed as a witch surrounded by jack o’lanterns and CG bats before squealing “it’s time!” as the scene flips to a winter wonderland and her signature snowy hit “All I Want For Christmas Is You” rings out.
Well, far be it from Mariah to diss a domestic doyenne. On Thursday night (Nov. 3) MC responded to Martha with a generous offer to break some turkey leg with her. “Dearest Martha!! NEVER will I give up Thanksgiving!! But we can still start getting into the festive spirit now!,” Carey tweeted before adding a tantalizing, teasing invite.
“P.S I’d love to have you at my Thanksgiving dinner although I’ve yet to be invited to your Thanksgiving extravaganza!,” Mariah noted adding Stewart’s always-stoned TV cooking pal to the mix. “And THAT is MAJOR! Esp if Snoop’s coming!”
See the tweets below.
Dearest Martha!! NEVER will I give up Thanksgiving!! But we can still start getting into the festive spirit now! 💕 P.S I’d love to have you at my Thanksgiving dinner although I’ve yet to be invited to your Thanksgiving extravaganza! And THAT is MAJOR! Esp if Snoop’s coming! 🥳🎄 https://t.co/zrTNaevTTM— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) November 3, 2022
Last summer, Ethan Curtis of the firm Plush initiated a management conversation with an unknown artist named JVKE (pronounced “Jake”), whose unfinished song had just been used in a TikTok video by influencer Charli D’Amelio. It quickly went viral, and Curtis was eager to move just as fast. He reached out to the 21-year-old Cranston, R.I.-based singer, challenging him to flesh out the song in just one day.
“I spent the next 24 hours nervously hoping the song didn’t suck,” recalls Curtis, who had previously launched the TikTok marketing agency PushPlay, “but it was great.” The resulting hit was “Upside Down,” a bouncy, hip-hop-inflected pop song that has garnered 48.8 million streams, according to Luminate. What followed was even bigger.
COS t-shirt, Acne denim jacket.
Nicole Nodland
After officially signing with Plush’s Curtis and Aton Ben-Horin for management, the artist born Jake Lawson turned in his next song, the unabashedly romantic “golden hour.” Underpinned by a sweeping piano and violin melody over which Lawson sings about a lover with “glitter for skin,” the ballad similarly took off on TikTok — only this time, it raised the stakes to unexpected highs.
In September, “golden hour” scored JVKE his first hit on the Billboard Hot 100, soon sparking a major-label bidding war with offers in the multimillion-dollar range — all of which the artist rejected. And while many considerations came into play (including a desire to reap a bigger cut of his earnings), his decision to remain indie ultimately came down to accountability. “I’m a little scared that if I were to bring on a big team that I wouldn’t be as tenacious, or if I got a really big check that I would slack off a bit,” he says.
Even so, he notes that his eventual decision to remain unsigned, despite the flashy offers, “was against the counsel of some people.” Curtis and Aton-Horin admit they were less certain. “Obviously, long term, we don’t know what’s going to happen. But our job as manager is to always support our artists’ vision, whether or not we agree with it,” says Aton-Horin.
JVKE has shown a rare knack for promoting his music through TikTok ever since he launched his account in early 2020 — and that sort of knack is becoming increasingly valuable to record companies as the platform balloons. Now, with over 8 million followers on the platform, he and his older brother/co-writer Zac have been churning out a steady stream of content to promote the remainder of his relatively small catalog, which includes streaming hits like “this is what falling in love feels like” and the Galantis collaboration “Dandelion.” The former opened JVKE’s debut album, this is what __ feels like (Vol. 1-4), which arrived on AWAL in September.
JVKE got his start playing music in church growing up, exclusively listening to contemporary Christian artists before later discovering hip-hop on his brother’s iPod. Though he played piano, drums and guitar as a preteen, it wasn’t until he began using Logic Pro to create his own songs at age 14 that his desire to pursue a career in music took root.
Now, with his debut album behind him, JVKE is already working on new music and linking up with collaborators he won’t name yet but hints are well-known. In the live space, he and his management team are looking to take a cue from TikTok by architecting “viral elements” for in-person performances. Curtis teases that fans can expect “a scaled-down version” of a JVKE tour early next year before hopefully bringing on partners for a bigger outing later on. Already, he has teamed with MTV on a Push campaign in October, and in December, he’ll be American Airlines’ artist of the month, with his music given prime placement on in-flight entertainment screens.
KENZO sweater, COS T-shirt and pants.
Nicole Nodland
One thing JVKE is sure he won’t be doing, however, is releasing another conventional full-length. “The way that people consume music is a lot different nowadays … so we need to change how we release music,” he says. Instead, he plans to consistently tease song snippets on TikTok to get input from fans on what he should release next — which he sees as key to connecting with them as an independent artist. “I think if you’re going to go independent, you really do need to … listen to the [fans] because that’s where you’re going to find the most success,” he says.
And though “golden hour” has climbed to No. 28 on Billboard‘s Pop Airplay chart, Curtis says that radio promo is one area they may need help in to scale even higher. “We can spark our own fires, but the question becomes, ‘How capable are we at keeping them burning? For how long?’ ” he says. “To be clear, we’re not saying we’ll never need a label. But I know Jake wants to see how far we can push it on our own.”
JVKE photographed October 20, 2022 in London. Kenzo vest, COS pants, H&M socks, Reebok sneakers.
Nicole Nodland
This story will appear in the Nov. 5, 2022, issue of Billboard.
If you were bummed that your city wasn’t on the initial list of dates for Taylor Swift‘s massive 2022 Eras Tour, Friday morning (Nov. 4) brought some good news. After announcing earlier this week that she will embark on a 27-date U.S. tour that will celebrate all 10 of her studio albums released since 2006, the singer dropped another handful of stadium dates that adds eight more stops to what has already proven to be an out-of-the-box blockbuster run.
“UM. Looks like I’ll get to see more of your beautiful faces than previously expected… we’re adding 8 shows to the tour,” the singer tweeted on Friday morning.
The new stops include an April 14 gig at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, a May 5 stop at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, as well as gigs at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia (May 14), and gigs in Foxborough, MA, East Rutherford, NJ, Seattle, Santa Clara, CA and an Aug. 3 show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
Swift hasn’t hit the road since 2018, when she launched her best-selling Reputation Tour. She had planned on performing again after the release of her 2019 record Lover in a concert series called Lover Fest, but canceled the shows due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those keeping score at home, this means that Tay has six albums-worth of new material that she’s never played live — if you include the previously unreleased vault tracks on 2021’s Fearless (Taylor’s Version) and Red (Taylor’s Version). Studio albums Folklore, Evermore and, of course her latest, Midnights, which have all also been released in the time between Lover and the Eras Tour.
Check out the new dates and opening acts and Swift’s tweet containing all the dates below.
April 14 – Tampa, FL @ Raymond James Stadium (beabadoobee, Gracie Abrams)
May 5 – Nashville, TN @ Nissan Stadium (Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams)
May 14 – Philadelphia, PA @ Lincoln Financial Field (Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams)
May 21 – Foxborough, MA @ Gillette Stadium (Phoebe Bridgers, Gracie Abrams)
May 28 – East Rutherford, NJ @ MetLife Stadium (Phoebe Bridgers, OWENN)
July 23 – Seattle, WA @ Lumen Field (HAIM, Gracie Abrams)
July 28 – Santa Clara, CA @ Levi’s Stadium (HAIM, Gracie Abrams)
August 3 – Los Angeles, CA @ SoFi Stadium (HAIM, Gracie Abrams)
Harry Styles’ scheduled concert Friday night (Nov. 4) at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles has been pushed back by two days, after a bandmate became unwell.
“Out of an abundance of caution,” reads an official statement from the venue, the date is rescheduled to Sunday (Nov. 6) “due to band illness.”
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All previously purchased tickets will be honored for the new date.
The message continues, “All additional show dates will play as scheduled,” noting an email from Ticketmaster will be sent directly to ticket holders with more information.
Out of an abundance of caution, tomorrow’s Harry Styles show on Friday, November 4, 2022 at the Kia Forum has been rescheduled to Sunday, November 6, 2022 due to band illness. All previously purchased tickets will be honored for the new date. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/EZKdb0rlMf— The Kia Forum (@thekiaforum) November 4, 2022
Styles has made the Forum his house for a weeks-long mini residency, spanning 15 shows and wrapping Nov. 15. The British pop singer kicked off the North American leg of his trek in August, and moved into the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., on Oct. 24.
Styles’ Love On Tour is in support of Harry’s House, his third solo album release after One Direction split. Harry’s House has been a critical and commercial hit. The album logged six weeks at No. 1 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart, and its single “As It Was” dominated the national survey for an impressive 10 weeks. It’s not just the fans who tuned in. Harry’s House was also shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, which spotlights the year’s best albums from the U.K. and Ireland.
In the United States, Harry’s House checked in for two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart (all three of his LPs have hit the summit), and “As I Was” rules the Billboard Hot 100 for a whopping 15 weeks. Along the way, he made history with three tracks in the Pop Airplay Chart’s top 10.
Central and South America Love On Tour dates come next, then Styles returns to Australia and New Zealand in February-March 2023 for a run of stadium shows, followed by more dates across the U.K. and Europe.
A decade after her death, Whitney Houston‘s legacy is the focus of Billboard‘s latest cover story, with Primary Wave using the singer’s legendary catalog to supercharge the fortunes of her estate.
And speaking of that catalog, Houston notched a whopping 23 top 10 hits — including 11 No. 1s — on the Billboard Hot 100 across three decades. And now we want to know: Which of her songs is your all-time favorite?
“You Give Good Love,” the debut single from Houston’s eponymous debut album, peaked at No. 3 in July 1985, and its trio of follow-up singles — “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know” and “Greatest Love of All” — all shot to No. 1 on the chart for a combined total of six weeks.
By the release of 1987’s Whitney, Houston was a bona fide superstar, and she scored four more No. 1 hits with “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional” and “Where Do Broken Hearts Go” and hit the top 10 with “Love Will Save the Day.”
In the early 1990s, the icon churned out more smashes with “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” “You’re All the Man That I Need” and “Miracle,” but it was the release of 1992’s The Bodyguard that she found her career-defining hit with a cover of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You.” The power ballad ultimately spent 14 weeks reigning atop the Hot 100 and easily became the love song of a generation due to Houston’s sky-high vocals and emotional aplomb.
Throughout the rest of that decade and into the 2000s, her status as a hitmaker remained intact, with her 2001 reissue of “The Star Spangled Banner” serving as her final top 10 single in her lifetime.
From “Saving All My Love for You” to “My Love Is Your Love” and beyond, vote for the Whitney song you love best and let your voice be heard in Billboard‘s latest poll!
Taylor Swift‘s latest single “Anti-Hero” received a new remix on Thursday (Nov. 3) courtesy of mash-up master Girl Talk.
In his inventive reimagining of the track, the DJ (real name: Gregg Gillis) injects the No. 1 hit with a ’70s flair as Taylor sings, “I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser/ Midnights become my afternoons/ When my depression works the graveyard shift/ All of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room” over the instrumental of Diana Ross‘ 1970 recording of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
By the time Swift reaches the chorus, the familiar chords of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” — the Ashford & Simpson-written song first recorded by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell in 1967 — are as unmistakable as the ghosts she’s running from in the music video, punctuated with horn blasts while the superstar comes face to face with her “Anti-Hero” doppelgänger.
In an Instagram video Swift shared leading up to the release of Midnights, the singer/songwriter says, “Track 3, ‘Anti-Hero,’ is one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. I really don’t think I’ve delved this far into my insecurities in this detail before. You know, I struggle a lot with the idea that my life has become unmanageably sized…This song really is a real guided tour throughout all the things I tend to hate about myself.”
“Anti-Hero” debuts at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, as Swift historically held all 10 positions in the Hot 100 top 10. “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was a top 20 Hot 100 hit for Gaye and Terrell, while Ross took the song to the top of the chart.
Stream Girl Talk’s remix of “Anti-Hero” below.
