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U2 wrapped the inaugural residency at Las Vegas‘ $2.3 billion technical and visual marvel Sphere this weekend, closing out a 40-show run that started in September. Fittingly, the legendary band did so by bringing things full circle.The shows commemorated one of U2’s most successful records, the chart-topping 1991 release Achtung Baby, played in its entirety with selected tracks from other U2 efforts over the years. To further honor the album, U2 bandmates Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Bram van den Berg (sitting in during the residency for an ailing Larry Mullen Jr.) welcomed Achtung Baby producer Daniel Lanois to the stage on Saturday night to play guitar and sing backup on the track “One.”“There would be no Achtung Baby without Daniel Lanois,” Bono said in welcoming him up the back stairs with a request to the audience. “Show him your light,” and they did by holding up smartphone flashbulbs in a beautiful scene. And there would be no U2 without Mullen, who was given a special shout-out from the band during both the Friday and Saturday night performances at Sphere, located at The Venetian Resort. But it was on Friday when the following happened.“The rumors that Larry will be playing with us tonight are not true, sadly. But he is here with us,” Bono said of the drummer, who spent 2023 recuperating from surgery and injuries he sustained over a career rocking out. “That is the man who pinned the note on the notice board at Mount Temple Comprehensive School all those years ago. We are very grateful that he did, and that he’s here with us tonight. We wish him a speedy, speedy, speedy recovery. We love you, Larry Mullen Jr.”
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Cameras then cut to a VIP box where Mullen was seen beaming in front of the capacity crowd close to 20,000, as the audience erupted with cheers and chants of “Larry!” There were other VIPs on the scene for the final weekend of Sphere shows starring U2. Fellow rocker Lenny Kravitz checked out Friday’s show and on Saturday night, when The Hollywood Reporter was in attendance, rock star Dave Grohl and Brett Ratner were spotted. On the microphone, Bono also offered happy birthday wishes to Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Mick Jagger’s daughter, Elizabeth Jagger, both of whom turned a year older on March 2 birthdays and presumably celebrated inside Sphere.But there was one more extra special VIP in attendance. Ahead of performing “All I Want Is You,” a song from their 1988 album Rattle and Hum, Bono had a few words to say and some news to break about that boldfaced name in the building.“This song, when we wrote it, I tried to write the lyrics from the point of view of the woman or the bride, in this case, which is pretty arrogant, I suppose. That was a trick for me to get to the lyric I was playing on myself,” explained Bono. “Tonight, I want to dedicate it to all the great women in our lives — our partners, our mothers, our daughters, all the women on the U2 crew, all the great women in our audience that we feel we know, and all the great women in parts of the world going through very difficult circumstances that we could never know. And one woman in particular who is with us tonight, she’s a teacher. She’s your First Lady, so this is for Jill Biden.”
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SOME NEWS: Bono takes U2 on a break from Achtung Baby to perform “All I Want is You” and dedicates song to all women in world, on their crew, women experiencing hardship in world. Then he dedicates it to special guest in Sphere audience…”your First Lady, Jill Biden.” pic.twitter.com/CF4nGlYmYV— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) March 3, 2024
The audience cheered, and the woman seated next to THR whispered, “That explains all the extra security and bomb-sniffing dogs at the VIP drop-off and in the garage.” According to local reports, Biden touched down in Las Vegas on Saturday for a campaign event for her husband President Biden’s re-election efforts in the important swing state of Nevada. No word on whether she experienced any issues, though countless Vegas visitors faced massive delays and canceled flights due to heavy winds in the area.Saturday night’s show, which kicked off at 9 p.m. following an opening DJ set from Pauli Lovejoy aka Pauli the PSM, also featured other notable moments. U2 closed out the concert by playing “40,” a 1983 tune from War that they previously leaned on to close many gigs during the 1980s. In another fitting moment, it was the 40th show. “It’s been 40 days and 40 nights in the desert,” Bono noted. “What’s a fellow with a messianic complex going to do? Here’s a song we wrote in 40 minutes. I opened up the sacred text of the Psalm of David. I just kind of read it out. That was the lyric.”
Closer to the top of the show, Bono explained how the band was feeling at the end of this groundbreaking run. “Look where we get to go to work. Welcome to the last night of Achtung Baby at the Sphere. This evening we are not just getting married in an Elvis chapel, we are getting married in an Elvis cathedral. We are feeling very much alive. Grateful to be alive, and in quite a flirtatious mood actually.”The mood also got profoundly political later in the night when Bono and the band turned their attention to Alexei Navalny, something they’ve been doing during the shows since the death of the Russian opposition leader on Feb. 16. They’ve dedicated performances of the Crowded House hit “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” and the song was included on Saturday’s setlist once again but became brand new thanks to Crowded House founding member Neil Finn.“This is a tightly constructed show, but as it’s our last night, we wondered if it might be OK to experiment on you a little bit. The idea is to record something special to honor Alexei Navalny’s widow, Yulia, who is continuing a fight against Vladimir Putin for a free, free Russia, which is what we want for the Russian people,” Bono announced in setting up the special moment. “The other day we got a beautiful email from Neil Finn, who wrote this bewildering beautiful song and he attached to the email a version of this song that he said we could play on or whatever we wanted. It’s a new version that he did, and we thought if we are going to record it, well, maybe if you would be on that recording and we could make that session the last night recording session and dedicating it to Yulia.”He called the track “a song about freedom,” and before they got going, he made a request of the audience. “Let’s try and record this if we might. Neither parties have spoken to our record labels, so this might be the only recording that ever exists so please take out your phones and send it to whoever loves freedom that you know,” Bono said of the recording, seen in its entirety below. “And maybe send it to some people that don’t — there’s a few of them around.”
NEWS: Bono announces they will break from Achtung Baby for experiment: Next song will be recorded as they perform new rendition of Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream it’s Over” thanks to Neil Finn who sent in vocals so they could dedicate it to Alexei Navalny widow Yulia. For freedom! pic.twitter.com/kv0Mma41jb— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) March 3, 2024
Following the U2: UV Achtung Baby residency, the Irish rockers are said to be focusing their attention on a rock heavy album. As for Sphere, U2 will be replaced on the schedule with upcoming dates by Dead & Company, Phish and other special events like Darren Aronofsky’s immersive film experience Postcard From Earth.
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This article originally appeared in THR.com.
After reaching Billboard’s country charts for the first time with “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Beyoncé makes her first appearance on a rock radio airplay tally with the buzzy, banjo-inflected single.
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The song debuts at No. 36 on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart dated March 9. It’s Beyoncé’s maiden placement on any of Billboard’s rock-based airplay lists (Adult Alternative Airplay, Alternative Airplay, Mainstream Rock Airplay and Rock & Alternative Airplay). Adult Alternative Airplay reflects songs’ weekly plays on a panel of 50 adult alternative-formatted stations, with data, as monitored by Mediabase, provided to Billboard by Luminate. The format encompasses music under the umbrella of Americana, including material considered more specifically folk, country, blues, soul and other related styles.
The leader in spins for “Texas Hold ‘Em” on the Adult Alternative Airplay panel Feb. 23-29 was KVYN in Napa Valley, Calif. The station played the song 45 times in that span.
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“KVYN decided to get on this Beyoncé track right away, mostly to support her musical evolution and dabbling in American roots music,” KVYN program director Nate Campbell tells Billboard. “So far, it’s working in our rotation and we’re happy to have ‘Country Beyoncé’ in our mix.”
Adult Alternative Airplay is the latest airplay chart on which “Texas Hold ‘Em” has debuted. The song bounded 54-34 in its second week on Country Airplay (March 2) and dips to No. 38 on the March 9 survey. Concurrently, it bounds 28-16 on Adult Pop Airplay, 25-17 on Pop Airplay and 36-23 on Rhythmic Airplay – as the Greatest Gainer on each chart – as well as 28-24 on Adult R&B Airplay, 36-32 on R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay and 40-32 on Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay.
Thanks to Country Airplay and Adult Alternative Airplay now on her résumé, Beyoncé ties Pharrell Williams for the most airplay charts – 18 – on which any artist has appeared. (Among women, she surpasses Mariah Carey, with 17.) The 18 airplay charts, among 25 in Billboard’s menu, that Beyoncé has graced: Adult Alternative Airplay, Adult Contemporary, Adult Pop Airplay, Adult R&B Airplay, Country Airplay, Dance/Mix Show Airplay, Gospel Airplay, Latin Airplay, Latin Pop Airplay, Latin Rhythm Airplay, Mainstream R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Pop Airplay, R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, the all-format Radio Songs chart, Rap Airplay, Rhythmic Airplay, Smooth Jazz Airplay and Tropical Airplay.
“Texas Hold ‘Em” and counterpart “16 Carriages” are expected to be on Beyoncé’s eighth studio album, the follow-up to the Houston native’s 2022 LP Renaissance, due March 29. Both tracks were released Feb. 11 – with the latter having launched atop the multi-metric Hot Country Songs chart dated Feb. 24. It added a second week at No. 1 on the most recently published, March 2-dated chart, when it also ascended to the top of the all-genre Billboard Hot 100. In addition to 16.1 million in all-format radio airplay audience, the song drew 29 million official U.S. streams and sold 29,000 Feb. 16-22, according to Luminate.
All Billboard charts dated March 9 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, March 5.
The fifth No. 1 debut in the history of Billboard’s Rock & Alternative Airplay chart belongs to Linkin Park, whose “Friendly Fire” premieres atop the March 9-dated tally.
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“Friendly Fire” bows with 7.9 million radio audience impressions earned Feb. 23-29, according to Luminate.
The last song to debut at No. 1? Linkin Park’s “Lost,” which started atop the Feb. 25, 2023-dated survey.
In fact, Linkin Park owns three of the five No. 1 debuts since the ranking began in 2009. The group notched the first when “The Catalyst” debuted atop the Aug. 21, 2010, list.
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The other No. 1 starts belong to Foo Fighters’ “Rope” (March 12, 2011) and Green Day’s “Oh Love” (Aug. 4, 2012).
Linkin Park now boasts five No. 1s on Rock & Alternative Airplay, tying The Black Keys and Imagine Dragons for the fifth-most in the chart’s history. Foo Fighters lead all acts with 11.
Most No. 1s, Rock & Alternative Airplay
11, Foo Fighters
7, Green Day
6, Cage the Elephant
6, twenty one pilots
5, The Black Keys
5, Imagine Dragons
5, Linkin Park
4, Red Hot Chili Peppers
3, Weezer
Linkin Park’s other Rock & Alternative Airplay No. 1s are “New Divide” in 2009 and “Burn It Down” in 2012, both of which debuted at No. 2.
Concurrently, “Friendly Fire” launches at No. 8 on Mainstream Rock Airplay and at No. 9 on Alternative Airplay. It’s the band’s 19th top 10 on each tally. On the latter, Linkin Park pulls into sole possession of the sixth-most top 10s in the chart’s 35-year history. Foo Fighters lead with 30.
Most Top 10s, Alternative Airplay
30, Foo Fighters
28, Red Hot Chili Peppers
26, Green Day
23, U2
21, Weezer
20, Pearl Jam
19, Linkin Park
18, Pearl Jam
17, Muse
17, The Smashing Pumpkins
As “Friendly Fire” was released Feb. 23, the song is also expected to appear on the multimetric Hot Rock & Alternative Songs ranking via its first-week streams and sales, in addition to its radio airplay. All Billboard charts dated March 9 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, March 5.
“Friendly Fire” was originally recording during sessions for One More Light, Linkin Park’s 2017 final studio album, before the death of frontman Chester Bennington that year. The song will be on Papercuts, the band’s singles collection spanning its career, due April 12.
After more than two decades away, Sum 41 is back at No. 1 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart, as “Landmines” crowns the tally dated March 9.
It’s Sum 41’s second Alternative Airplay ruler, after “Fat Lip” reigned for a week in August 2001.
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That break of 22 years, five months and three weeks between No. 1s is by far the longest in the chart’s 35-year history, surpassing the 13 years and six months that The Killers waited between “When You Were Young” in October 2006 and “Caution” in April 2020.
In between “Fat Lip” and “Landmines,” the Deryck Whibley-fronted Sum 41 charted nine Alternative Airplay titles, paced by the No. 7-peaking “Still Waiting” in 2003, with a pair of additional top 10s in “In Too Deep” (No. 10, 2001) and “We’re All to Blame” (No. 10, 2004). Upon its debut in October, “Landmines” marked Sum 41’s first appearance since “Screaming Bloody Murder,” which reached No. 37 in 2011.
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“Landmines” takes over No. 1 on Alternative Airplay from Blink-182‘s “One More Time,” which sported a 20-week run atop the chart, tying it with Portugal. The Man‘s “Feel It Still” for the most weeks at No. 1 in the chart’s history.
Concurrently, “Landmines” lifts 40-37 in its second week on Mainstream Rock Airplay. On the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart, it rises 6-5 with 4.8 million audience impressions, up 11%, Feb. 23-29, according to Luminate. It’s Sum 41’s top-performing song on the ranking, which began in 2009, having surpassed the No. 46 showing for “Out for Blood” in 2019.
“Landmines” is the lead single from Heaven :x: Hell, Sum 41’s eighth studio album and first since 2019’s Order in Decline, due March 29. It’s billed as the band’s final release, as the group, which formed in Ontario in 1996, plans to disband following a final tour supporting the LP.
All Billboard charts dated March 9 will update on Billboard.com Tuesday, March 5.
Beyoncé‘s country era is only just beginning, but some fans are already convinced they know which musical direction the superstar will take next: rock. Less than two weeks after Bey became the first Black woman to top the Hot Country Songs chart with her new single “Texas Hold ‘Em,” a fan theory that the singer […]
Pearl Jam’s “Dark Matter” becomes the band’s first leader on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart, rising to No. 1 from No. 3 on the survey dated March 2. In the Feb. 16-22 tracking week, the first full tracking frame for “Dark Matter,” which was released Feb. 13, the song accumulated 5.6 million radio audience […]
Twenty One Pilots officially announced the Clancy era on Thursday (Feb. 29). The quadrennial quirk of the calendar was the perfect time to reveal that the final chapter in the Blurryface saga will unfold when the Columbus, Ohio duo’s seventh album drops on May 17.
Before releasing the video for first single “Overcompensate,” singer/guitarist Tyler Joseph and drummer Josh Dun shared the album’s fiery artwork earlier in the day, in which the pair stand amid a field of licking flames, with the title situated vertically over Joseph’s balaclava-obscured face.
The “Overcompensate” visual opens with a hovering shot of an ocean before a glitchy woman’s voice and insistent keyboard thrum bubble up over a map of the fictional land of Trench. The drone-like shot then flies above a barren-looking island before dropping into Dema as an ominous voice croaks, “welcome back to Trench.”
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The scene switches to an empty arena bathed in blood-red light, with Dun in the middle of the floor playing the song’s thundering beat as a masked Joseph materializes to sing to a room full of grim-faced young people in grey sweatsuits. With the beat slowing down, Joseph breaks into his familiar rap cadence, “Earned my stripes/ Three hundreds tracks in my Adidas jacket/ Bless your ear holes while you react/ Acting gobsmacked don’t hesitate to maybe overcompensate/ I feel like I was just here/ Same twitching in my eyes,” before singing the melodic chorus, “I fly by the dangerous bend symbol/ Don’t hesitate to maybe overcompensate/ And then by the time I catch in my peripheral/ Don’t hesitate to maybe overcompensate.”
Climbing to a high point in a pulpit-like spot — not unlike the platform Joseph often scrambles onto during the band’s arena shows — the singer then reveals “I am Clancy,” pulling open his jacket to reveal suspenders with rune-like letters running down them horizontally. Near the end of the clip, the audience shuffles out and Dun and Tyler move to the front of a classroom while a series of mysterious symbols, maps and legends are projected onto their faces. It ends, of course, with yet another unexplained image: a glowing-eyed Clancy dressed all in black holding up a pair of animal horns before slyly smiling at the camera.
Because 21P’s knotty world building is jammed with more Easter eggs than a Taylor Swift concert, eagle-eyed fans noted that the Clancy release date is exactly nine years to the day after the 2015 drop of the first album in the sprawling Blurryface saga. Last week the band began the roll-out of the new album’s story via the four-minute video “I Am Clancy” recap video, which served as a catch-up on the story of the allegorical walled city of Dema, the rebel Banditos outlaw group and the story’s villain, the red-robed Nice, aka Blurryface.
The upcoming album is posited as the final entry in the long-running story that began on the group’s 2015 breakthrough Blurryface album, and then continued on 2018’s Trench and 2021’s Scaled and Icy. The news was accompanied by what appears to be the color theme of the Clancy album, red tape, which was spotted over the digital covers of the band’s albums on streaming services. The Blurryface story kicked off with a red and black color scheme before pivoting to yellow for Trench.
Check out the Clancy album cover and “Overcompensate” video below.
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A week after scoring a splashy debut at No. 11 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 chart, Djo’s “End of Beginning” vaults to No. 1 on the March 2-dated survey.
The TikTok Billboard Top 50 is a weekly ranking of the most popular songs on TikTok in the United States based on creations, video views and user engagement. The latest chart reflects activity Feb. 19-25. Activity on TikTok is not included in Billboard charts except for the TikTok Billboard Top 50. Titles that are part of Universal Music Group’s catalog are currently unavailable on TikTok.
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“End of Beginning,” as previously reported, encompasses a TikTok trend that largely centers on Chicago, which is mentioned prominently in the 2022 song’s lyrics. The line “And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it/ Another version of me, I was in it” soundtracks footage of the city, people discussing their time there or even users pining for similar experiences in other cities.
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A more recent trend featuring “End of Beginning” is a photo montage with the prompt “If I won the lottery I wouldn’t tell anyone, but there’d be signs,” showing off how their life would change after winning the cash. While the Chicago-specific trend kicked off the song’s TikTok rise, the latest theme helped drive the track to an explosion on the platform – and subsequently on audio and video streaming services – that begets its jump to No. 1.
Concurrently, “End of Beginning” becomes Djo’s (real name Joe Keery, known also as an actor on Stranger Things, Fargo and more) first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, bowing at No. 51. It accumulated 8.4 million official U.S. streams Feb. 16-22, a 194% jump, according to Luminate. Those streams also drive it to No. 2 on Alternative Streaming Songs.
“End of Beginning” takes over No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50 from Bobby Caldwell’s “What You Won’t Do for Love,” which falls to No. 2 after one week atop the tally. The trend for the 1978 song, which peaked at No. 9 on the Hot 100 in its time, continues, though; as noted toward the Feb. 24 ranking, creators are most often using the song to supplement footage of different food items and dishes, including chocolate-covered strawberries, while others zoom in on pets or significant others. The song jumped another 15% in official U.S. streams Feb. 16-22 to 1.8 million.
The week’s top debut is one spot below at No. 3: Glee cast’s version of “Rose’s Turn,” a song originally written for the musical Gypsy. The tune’s opening line “All that work and what did it get me? Why did I do it?” is used as creators lament trying hard to accomplish something, only for it to be all for naught.
Beyonce’s “Texas Hold ‘Em,” concurrently the week’s No. 1 song on the Hot 100, continues its ascent on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, leaping from No. 13 to No. 4, while one of its closest competitors on the Hot 100, Ye (formerly Kanye West) and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Carnival,” starts at No. 5.
While uploads for “Texas Hold ‘Em” remain largely rooted in a dance trend to the country tune, “Carnival” is being used in a variety of ways, from usages in general viral clips to creators reacting to the track, considered to be the runaway hit from Ye and Ty Dolla $ign’s No. 1 album Vultures 1.
Both “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “Carnival” rise in official U.S. streams Feb. 16-22, the former up 51% to 29 million streams and the latter jumping 5% to 24.6 million.
Cat Janice‘s “Dance You Outta My Head” ranks at No. 6; the chart’s latest tracking week came prior to the 31-year-old singer’s Feb. 28 death from sarcoma; she debuted the song while in hospice as her final release.
One other song debuts in the TikTok Billboard Top 50’s top 10: Armando Trovajoli’s “L’amore Dice Ciao,” the “slow take” version of which bows at No. 8. The instrumental track from the Italian pianist and composer is mostly utilized in a trend soundtracking animation to the prompt “Do you think you would be my [fill in the blank] in every universe?” – often friend, mother, sibling, etc. – with the response “I hope we are,” showing the users in multiple forms.
See the full TikTok Billboard Top 50 here. You can also tune in each Friday to SiriusXM’s TikTok Radio (channel 4) to hear the premiere of the chart’s top 10 countdown at 3 p.m. ET, with reruns heard throughout the week.
The final day of February arrives with an abundance of blessings from St. Vincent. In addition to sharing a new song and music video titled “Broken Man” Thursday (Feb. 29), the singer-songwriter born Annie Clark also announced that her next album, All Born Screaming, is set to arrive this spring. Set over sharp-edged electric guitar […]
Stevie Nicks is joining the already power-packed lineup for this summer’s BST Hyde Park concert series in London. The Fleetwood Mac singer and solo star was announced as the headliner for the July 12 concert in Hyde Park, joining a roster of shows that already includes BST gigs by Kings of Leon, Kylie Minogue, the […]