State Champ Radio

by DJ Frosty

Current track

Title

Artist

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

1:00 pm 7:00 pm

Current show
blank

State Champ Radio Mix

1:00 pm 7:00 pm


Pop

Page: 75

11/29/2024

Here’s what you might not know about Swift’s Eras Tour.

11/29/2024

Taylor Swift is spending the Thanksgiving weekend with the Kelce family. On Black Friday (Nov. 29), the 34-year-old pop superstar was spotted arriving at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., with her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s mom, Donna, ahead of the Chiefs’ game against the Las Vegas Raiders. Swift, who is currently enjoying a well-deserved break […]

Swifities were out in full force on Black Friday.
On Friday (Nov. 29), Taylor Swift‘s devoted fanbase flooded many of Target’s nearly 2,000 stores across the nation, eager to grab exclusive merchandise.

This year, the retail giant teamed up with the 34-year-old pop star to offer a range of special items, including a Black Friday-exclusive version of The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology on vinyl and CD, as well as Swift’s official The Eras Tour book.

“Ok shopping in target was so enjoyable today! ONLY Taylor swift music played the entire time, plenty of books, nice people. I talked to some sweet swifties. Successful Black Friday!!” one fan wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

Another Swiftie posted on X that around 100 fans were already in line at their local Target in Southern California by 5:45 a.m. on Black Friday.

Trending on Billboard

Meanwhile, fans in the Midwest braved freezing temperatures, waiting for hours to score some of the exclusive merch. “Yeah, it’s really cold but we’re here to get Taylor Swift’s tour book and her latest vinyl drop,” a 31-year old Swift fan said while waiting outside a Target in Chicago, Reuters reports.

The 35-track album, featuring four bonus acoustic tracks, was available for the first time on vinyl ($59.99) and CD ($17.99) on Black Friday. Shoppers could find it in Target stores starting Nov. 29, with availability on Target.com on Nov. 30.

Previously, The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology was only offered as a digital release.

The Official Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Book ($39.99) was also available in Target stores on Nov. 29, and can be ordered online at Target.com beginning Nov. 30. This 256-page hardcover book includes personal reflections from Swift, along with more than 500 images, including never-before-seen performance shots, rehearsal photos and behind-the-scenes moments from the tour.

“Here is the official retrospective of the most wondrous tour of my life, my beloved Eras Tour,” Swift said in a previous statement about the tour, which has spanned five continents and over 100 shows. “Thank you to the fans who came to these shows. You were the ones who made The Eras Tour what it became.”

The “I Can Do It With A Broken Heart” singer recently wrapped up a six-night run at Toronto’s Rogers Centre and will conclude her blockbuster The Eras Tour with a three-night stint at Vancouver’s BC Place from Dec. 6-8.

On February 7, 1964, the United States — and subsequently, the whole world — was irrevocably changed. The Beatles touching down at John F. Kennedy airport, meeting thousands of adoring, screaming fans on the runway altered the brain chemistry of a country in need of something good, and lit the fuse for a cultural revolution.

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

That is the premise which the Beatles ‘64, a new documentary released by the band’s Apple Corps Ltd., presents to its viewers. In November 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed during a motorcade in Dallas, and the shocking moment instigated a period of mourning across the nation. Some would never recover from the trauma of seeing such a violent death, beamed into their homes on television. Months later, a new generation couldn’t tear themselves away from the television as The Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show, watched an estimated 73 million people. As interviewee Joe Queenan says, teary-eyed, it was like “the light went on,” and the world was bright and full of colour for the first time.

The new documentary, out now on Disney+, follows the band’s two-week trip to America, their first time outside of Europe. Using archival and newly-restored footage, the Martin Scorsese-produced film follows their journey from the moment they step off the flight to the moment they head home. It features a plethora of interviews with those in the eye of the storm like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and photographer Harry Benson, alongside the fans who were on the street or obsessing through the tube.

Trending on Billboard

Though the story may be familiar to Beatles fans already, the documentary is unflinching in its depiction of the band’s visit and the context that surrounds it. Archive interviews and clippings see a hostile press compare the group to “German measles,” while at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., the disparity between the working class band and their bureaucratic, stuffy surroundings is laid bare. The divisions in race, class and gender are explored with interviews with Motown’s Smokey Robinson, and Ronald Isley of the Isley Brothers, both of whom The Beatles covered early in their career.

On the eve of its release, director David Tedeschi and producer Margaret Bodde discuss with Billboard about the challenges of making the story fresh again, the surprises in the editing suite and the role Scorsese had in shaping the narrative of the film.

This film comes out 60 years on from their arrival to the US. Why does this story still feel relevant?

Bodde: The interest in them feels unending. When The Beatles’ last single “Now and Then” came out, you had young people and teenagers on TikTok sobbing and talking about them so fondly, and these people weren’t even the grandchildren of the people who first discovered The Beatles in 1964 in America. They have a timeless appeal. 

The fact that they came to America so soon after the assassination of a beloved president and there was a country grieving and in a place of hopelessness, they came in with their personalities and their music. Maybe there’s always times like that — America right now is in a similar place of division where no one can agree on one thing. But when The Beatles came, they were the one thing people could coalesce around this ray of light and their humor and their hopefulness that they brought through their music and their humour and personality.

Compared to Peter Jackson’s Get Back, which shows the group as four separate personalities with shared histories and relationships, Beatles ’64 catches them at quite an innocent time. They’re sort of like one person…

Bodde: They do seem like they’re a single entity. People don’t yet know which one is which. Albert and David Maysles filmed them in New York for that period, and Albert asks John to hit the slate for the mics, and he calls him George instead of John! And you know in six months time no one would ever make that mistake, but it was so new and everyone in the band seemed like they were living a dream that they couldn’t have ever imagined and yet it was happening.

Tedeschi: And it was so unexpected. It was the greatest weapon against the cynicism of the New York press corps. There had been days of stories running about how ridiculous their hair was and the music, they were like the wolves ready for their prey. And then it very quickly became a different kind of story.

Do you think part of the appeal is that they were so removed from US culture?

Tedeschi: They were exotic and familiar at the same time. That’s literally what Joe Queenan says, they were from Liverpool but they might as well have been from Mars.

Bodde: As a rock‘n’roll group they were the first, they came over before any of the other bands like their contemporaries. Their separateness from the U.S. did allow them to have more of an open embrace of the Black music that came out of America like soul, rhythm’n’blues and rock’n’roll; they loved it and that’s why they were so excited to come to America in the first place. They really wanted to meet their heroes and hear this music live, as they’d already seen Motown come through to the U.K. They were opening America’s eyes to the treasure that they already had that wasn’t getting the appreciation that it deserved.

Apple Corps Ltd.

How can you bring something new to subjects that we know so well already?

Tedeschi: Immediately there’s the challenge that we know it’s a very famous story that we know has been told many times, and what is there that’s new? I will say that in large part because of the restoration by [Peter Jackson’s] Park Road Post Production and Giles Martin [son of the Fab Four’s producer George] doing some remixing on the performances, there was material that had never been accessible before. The footage that was shot by the Maysels brothers looks like it was shot yesterday. Even more importantly, the concert at the Washington Coliseum is such an amazing document of who the Beatles were as a live band.

Whilst there are interviews with the band throughout, it’s the fans and their experiences that really stuck with me. There’s an amazing clip of the Gonzalez family and a young girl watching the clip in real time. Why did you want to focus the film on these people?

Bodde: Seventy-three million people watched that performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, and it was a shared moment in American history that was happening right in the Gonzalez family’s small apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. Then you hear Jamie Bernstein [daughter of conductor Leonard Bernstein] speaking about the black and white TV being rolled from the library to the dining room at 8 o’clock to watch while having dinner. Whether you were working class or whether you were privileged, no matter who you were, this was a moment of shared interest and joy that everyone can relate to. 

What role did Martin Scorsese have in the production of the film?

Tedeschi: Both of us have worked with him for a long long time, over 20 years. At the very beginning we talk specifically about these challenges about there being a lot of Beatles films and a lot of material out there, he was very helpful in shaping the throughline and then he would watch cuts. And tell us what was working and what wasn’t.

Bodde: Martin loves music and he talks about how if he had one talent he wished he could have, it would be to play an instrument and be a musician. He finds everything about music fuels his own creativity. He hears a musical movement or a song and it inspires the visual for him and he has the song in his head before he has the pictures. And he’s a preservationist and a historian, so music documentaries — whether he’s directed them or produced them — encompasses a lot of his preoccupations and interests.

One of the things he and David both do so brilliantly is to put historical context around these musical moments and I think that’s what makes the film so fascinating. When you talk about what could you possibly bring to The Beatles, well you can bring the story of America at that time, the story of an impending social revolution and ideas about who women and men are, a race consciousness in general, the idea of everyone who started protesting the Vietnam War, The Beatles were kind of a part of that and integrated into that as individuals and as a group.

Was there anything that surprised you when you went back to this footage?

Tedeschi: The most surprising thing for me was learning that there was an establishment against the Beatles and working actively to make them fail. There’s quite an amazing scene at the British Embassy in D.C. where they’ve thrown a party and they’re horribly mistreated. The staff looks down on them and treats them like they’re low-class. John says that some ‘animal’ came up to Ringo and cut his hair. It’s powerful. I hadn’t expected that kind of reaction.

The film concludes with a look at the generational shift at that time, and Lennon even calls his post-war generation the ones “who were allowed to live”…

Bodde: That footage of John speaking to [Canadian media theorist] Marshall McLuhan in 1969, that was a real revelation. The level of insight and intellectual heft that Lennon had to put that idea together is a surprising notion, that because you weren’t going into the military, you could pick up a guitar or a paintbrush… you could do other things. That’s freedom right?

Kylie Minogue brought a ray of sunshine to the rainy 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
On Thursday morning (Nov. 28), the Aussie pop icon lit up the 98th annual New York City event with a vibrant performance of a three-song medley featuring “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” “Slow” and “Padam Padam.” Watch a fan-captured clip of the performance on X (formerly Twitter).

Dressed in a sleek black and red zip-up outfit and surrounded by dancers in similar attire, Minogue delivered her high-energy set in front of Macy’s iconic Herald Square flagship store. The performance was part of the annual tradition, broadcast live on NBC and simulstreamed on Peacock.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

“Macy’s, what just happened? OK, that was fun, that was fun singing and dancing in the rain,” Minogue laughed on her Instagram Story after the performance. “Thanks for having me. I’m going to go dry off.”

Trending on Billboard

This marked Minogue’s second appearance at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade; she previously performed in 2010, when she sang “Get Outta My Way” from her Aphrodite album.

The pop legend is currently promoting her latest album, Tension II, ahead of a major global tour in 2025.

In addition to Minogue, the parade featured nearly two dozen iconic balloons, including Snoopy, Bluey, Minnie Mouse, Marshall from Paw Patrol, Ronald McDonald, Pikachu, and newcomers Gabby, Goku, and Spider-Man.

Other performers included Jennifer Hudson, T-Pain, Chloë Bailey, Idina Menzel, Dan + Shay, Billy Porter, and Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, among many others.

The 2024 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade also showcased 34 floats, 11 marching bands, seven “balloonicles” and 28 clown crews, filling the streets with holiday cheer as the event wrapped up at noon ET.

It’s probably too early to know if Kelly Clarkson’s 8-year-old son Remy inherited his mom’s talent, but he’s definitely got her charm and confidence. As his mom recounted on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Wednesday (Nov. 27), “[He] just walked right in today and said, ‘Who do I need to speak to to sing my […]

The new 2024 Ultimate Mix celebrating Band Aid’s iconic “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” anthem for famine relief is “the preface for what’s happening next year,” according to Bob Geldof.

Explore

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Geldof — who launched the charity initiative during the fall of 1984 and has guided it through 40 years of aid efforts, primarily in Africa — tells Billboard via Zoom from London that 2025 will bring about more special celebrations, for the 40th anniversary of the Live Aid concerts that followed in the song’s wake and the 20th anniversary of the Live 8 global concerts in advance of the 2005 G8 summit in Scotland. On tap is the return of John O’Farrell’s successful Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical to London’s West End; it premiered at The Old Vic earlier in 2024 and will make its North American debut at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto during January. On July 13, the actual 40th anniversary of Live Aid, streets around London’s Shaftesbury Theatre will shut down and the performance will be streamed to video screens outside the theater.

Geldof says the Live Aid concerts will also be re-televised around that time, along with documentary series being produced by CNN and the BBC, a book and other events.

Trending on Billboard

“That’s not us; that’s just people doing it…all out of this little pop song we made 40 years ago,” Geldof says. “And I thought, ‘Well, we should preface this year by bringing out the record,’ but instead of doing it again with this generation of (performers), why not take the three generations that made it happen and bang ’em on one single.”

“Do They Know It’s Christmas? (2024 Ultimate Mix)” — which debuted on Nov. 25 and will be released commercially on Friday, Nov. 29 — does just that, with Trevor Horn, who co-produced the original version with Midge Ure of Ultravox, mashing together performances from that and sequels recorded to commemorate the 20th anniversary in 2004 and the 30th during 2014. Accompanied by a new Oliver Murray-directed video fusing footage from all three (as well as the late David Bowie’s introduction for the original and footage from Michael Buerk’s BBC News report from October of 1984 that inspired Geldof to launch the project), the “2024 Ultimate Mix” offers a panoply of pop icons, primarily British but also Irish and American, blended into yet another interpretation of the song.

“I was very hands-off and, like (Geldof), gobsmacked at this opus (Horn) managed to come up with,” says Ure, who co-wrote the U.K. chart-topping song with Geldof four decades ago (the original also reached the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100). “It’s very clever. I can hear elements of the original recordings in there. It’s a bit of a miracle that he managed to pull together things that were recorded at different tempos, different speeds, maybe different pitches and integrate them into one track where you get vocalists who maybe weren’t born when the original was done harmonizing or singing alongside some of the original vocalists. It’s a bit of a masterpiece, I think.”

Geldof is equally effusive about the record — which, among other juxtapositions, features U2’s Bono’s parts (and footage) from all three recordings. “It is so beautiful, this production, properly beautiful,” he says. “It’s so moving.” But he adds that Horn balked a bit when Geldof first presented him with the “Ultimate Mix” idea.

“I said, ‘Trevor, you’re good. Can you take these thousands of people and bang ’em together?’ And he said, ‘No, I can’t, f–k off!’” Geldof recalls. “And I said, ‘There must be…’ ‘How can I possibly do it? Everybody’s singing the same words. They’re at different tempos. They’re different keys.’ I said, ‘Ehhh — you can do it!’ (laughs) He said, ‘I’m going to have to repeat the lines.’ I said repeat the lines! Who cares! Just get on with it!’ And he put together the voices, conceivably the greatest voices in British rock, together almost perfectly. It actually is in the producer’s art a work of genius. It really is one of the great records — I truly believe that. It’s nothing to do with our song, or Band Aid. I just went, ‘Omigod!’

“So billions of dollars of debt relief for the poorest people in the world came from this small song, (written) one damp October afternoon. The common thread is this tune. That’s the thing that alerts everyone, drives through constantly, coming out again with a different idea each time.”

British artist Peter Blake, 93, who designed the 1984 single cover for “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” returned to create a new image for the “Ultimate Mix.”

Forty years later Geldof and Ure have slightly divergent views of the song they’re both justifiably proud of. “I’ve decided it is a pretty good tune this year,” Geldof says. “Y’know, I remember when about three in the morning (in 1984) I said, ‘Leave it, that’ll do.’ We kept going ’til five, and ‘that’ll do’ was where we were at. And it did; ‘It’ll do,’ and it did.”

Ure, meanwhile, views “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” as “not that good. Both Bob and I have done better. If you forget who’s singing it, it sounds like an Ultravox track. I think it stands up better as a recording than a song. As an event, as a production, as a record, it excelled. It did more than any of us ever expected.”

That the song, and Band Aid, continues to thrive after four decades goes far beyond the intended one-off, what Geldof calls a “crap little Christmas song.”

“It was meant to be a six-month project spending the seven, eight million pounds it generated,” remembers Ure, who also serves as a Band Aid trustee. “Of course, within that six-month period it grew from a record into suddenly putting together Live Aid…and compounded by the fact that nobody thought for one nano second that if you make a Christmas record it might just get played every year. We could only focus on the Christmas of ’84 going into ’85; if we could get it to No. 1 oever the Christmas period, great. But we never saw life beyond that. The last 39 years has proved that wrong.”

No good deed goes unpunished, of course — or free of controversy, which Band Aid and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” have faced over the years, and recently. Most notably Ed Sheeran publicly said he would not have allowed his performance from the 2014 recording to be used, saying that “my understanding of the narrative associated with this has changed” — specifically citing the Ghanian-English artist Fuse ODG’s contention that the song “perpetuates damaging stereotypes” about Africa. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has dismissed the effort as “well-meaning at the time” but lamented that it’s “frustrating to see our nation’s ancient history, culture, diversity and beauty reduced to doom and gloom.” He also contends that Band Aid “has not evolved with the times (and) might end up doing more harm than good.”

Geldof is quick to counter that “this little pop song has saved millions of lives” but acknowledges that “the debate rages around it. That’s fantastic, because then you can access the politics with the culture debate as sensitivities and sensibilities and opinions change and just absorb it all. I like that because I’m energized by it, and you just f—ing go for it, man.”

Geldof says he’s reached out to Sheeran to discuss the matter, but they’ve not connected yet. “We’ll have a talk,” he says. “Let me be clear — he’s a really good bloke, and he’s a clever man. He’s a massive talent, so all respect. I put in the call. We’ll have a chat. We’ll agree, we’ll disagree, whatever the f—. We’ll sort it out. That’s the way stuff gets done.”

Ure chalks up any controversy to “just human nature, sadly. We’ve had 40 years of this. The amazing thing is we’re talking about this piece of music, this little pop song, 40 years later. And it’s not an exclusive club; any musician can stand up and say, ‘Well (proceeds from) my next record are going to go to whatever and I will do with them what I see fit.’ Fine. But in order to do that you don’t have to try to destroy something that has been nothing but good. And that’s what seems to happen. But for God’s sake, it’s a piece of music and it’s not made to be analyzed.”

Geldof adds that “after being asked about it every day for 40 years,” he seldom needs to be reminded of the impact of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” or Band Aid. Bringing the “2024 Ultimate Mix” out this week he saw radio station air personalities and engineers openly weeping. And during a recent trip to Montreal, he met a room service waiter who was a child in Ethiopia during the mid-‘80s; his parents had starved to death and he and his sister were taken to Band Aid-funded orphanages and schools.

“He pulled out his wallet and he took out a photograph of himself, his wife and a six- or seven-year-old kid,” Geldof says. “They were wearing Manchester City football kid; I said, ‘Man City, lame, but great kid. How’s he doing at school?’ And (the waiter) threw himself on me and buried his head in my chest and said, ‘Thank you for my son. Thank you for my life.’

“It’s a lot to take on. You can’t say, ‘Well, it’s not actually me; it’s, like, millions and millions of people.’ But if it came down to just that, just that little boy in his Man City shirt, then 40 years — well worth it.”

11/27/2024

Our new GPS21C episode covers an artist who has done things in pop music that we have never seen or heard before.

11/27/2024

The Weeknd announced Wednesday (Nov. 27) that he will perform a one-night-only show at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 25, to celebrate the release of his sixth studio album, Hurry Up Tomorrow, which he announced earlier will drop the day before the show via XO and Republic Records. According to the press […]

The Contenders is a midweek column that looks at artists aiming for the top of the Billboard charts, and the strategies behind their efforts. This week, for the upcoming Billboard Hot 100 dated Dec. 7, 2024, we look at whether a major surprise drop is going to halt Shaboozey’s historic run atop the chart.  

Explore

See latest videos, charts and news

See latest videos, charts and news

Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” (American Dogwood/EMPIRE/Magnolia Music): The biggest country crossover hit of 2024 is now officially also the longest-running Hot 100 No. 1 of all-time – though it still has to share the status, at least for now, with Lil Nas X’s Billy Ray Cyrus-featuring “Old Town Road.” Both songs have now spent 19 weeks atop the Hot 100, with “Bar Song” holding off Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars’ “Die With a Smile” this frame to tie the historic mark – helped by the added exposure from an eventful night at the CMA Awards, albeit one marked by more controversy than likely expected.

And it’s good for Shabozoey that he got his 19th week — because not only is the gap between “A Bar Song” and “Die With a Smile” continuing to shrink, but it’s also about to get very crowded at the top of the Hot 100.  

Trending on Billboard

Kendrick Lamar, “Squabble Up” (pgLang/Interscope/ICLG): Kendrick Lamar shocked the world on Friday (Nov. 22) by surprise-releasing his new album GNX at noon, with no previous indicators that an album (or really new music in general) was particularly imminent. The 12-track set follows his major moment in the spotlight earlier this year with his exceedingly high-profile Drake feud, which was essentially bookended by a pair of Hot 100-toppers: “Like That,” for which he appeared as a guest rapper on Future and Metro Boomin’s We Still Don’t Trust You album, and his own “Not Like Us,” an immediate hip-hop all-timer.

He may now get his third chart-topper of the year. Unsurprisingly, GNX has taken over on streaming services the past week – five days after its release, the album’s 12 tracks still hold all of the top 12 spots on Apple Music’s real time chart, and as of Tuesday, the album held the entire top eight on Spotify’s Daily Top Songs USA listing. The latter tally is led by “Squabble Up,” the album’s second track and presumptive lead single, which samples Debbie Deb’s 1984 freestyle classic “When I Hear Music” and also now has its own music video, released Monday.  

“Squabble Up” is expected to lead the way for Kendrick’s new set on the chart next week – and with its robust streaming numbers, it should have a good chance at capturing the top spot – though it may have some competition from one of its album mates. “TV Off,” featuring Gunplay, has also emerged as a fan favorite from the LP, helped by its highly “Not Like Us”-reminiscent beat and viral-friendly “MUSTAAAARRRRRRD!” mid-song howl namechecking the song’s star producer. It’s taken over from “Squabble Up” atop Apple Music and sits just below it on Spotify – so if it keeps growing, it may be a real challenger to “Squabble” as soon as next week.

Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars, “Die With a Smile” (Streamline/Interscope/Atlantic/ICLG): “Die With a Smile” has gotten within striking distance of the Hot 100’s No. 1 spot a couple times now, but has still yet to get over the hump to become Bruno Mars’ ninth No. 1 and Lady Gaga’s sixth on the chart. Unfortunately for the superstar duo, it’s only likely to get more difficult for “Smile” in the weeks to come, as even if it finally manages to close the gap for good with “A Bar Song,” it now has a glut of Kendrick Lamar songs and an avalanche of holiday songs looking to pass it on the chart. The song’s airplay is still slowly climbing, though – so if Bruno and Gaga have one more card up to play for the song, that top spot will likely be within reach for a little while still. (They should maybe wait until 2025 to use it at this point, though.) 

Mariah Carey, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (Columbia/Legacy): The Queen of Christmas is officially out of hibernation. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” re-enters the Hot 100 at No. 16 this week, and with Thanksgiving now right around the corner, the run-up to holiday season is soon to be in full bore. The preponderance of expected high debuts from Lamar’s GNX – it could launch half its tracklist in the top 10, possibly even more — might keep it on the edge of the top 10 for next week, but it’s only a matter of time before “All I Want” (which has led for 14 weeks since 2019) is challenging for the Hot 100 title in earnest.