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Cardi B has been bringing the drama throughout the rollout of her Am I the Drama? sophomore album. The Grammy-winning rapper stopped by Call Her Daddy for her first-ever sit-down with host Alex Cooper on Wednesday (Sept. 24). Throughout the hour-plus interview, they covered a ton of ground, going from Cardi’s upbringing, stripper days, cosmetic surgery, new relationship, music and her new album. Cardi was repping her new man, NFL star Stef Diggs, as she rocked the wide receiver’s New England Patriots No. 8 jersey on set. “I wanted to do a jersey, but I wanted to do like my style and stuff like that,” she said. “I was calling my man so I could show him, but he’s asleep by this time. He goes to sleep mad early.” The Bronx bombshell recruited a star-studded cast of collaborators for the 23-track album, which includes Summer Walker, Selena Gomez, Lizzo, Janet Jackson, Cash Cobain, Lourdiz, Tyla and Megan Thee Stallion. “It is a little bit of pressure,” she admitted when it comes to delivering with her album. “People gonna wanna be mean because they feel like, ‘Oh well, we waited seven years for this… You guys want these poppy ‘WAP’ records and I can’t always give you that. You can’t always go with that little trap sound and stuff.” Cardi delivered another explosive interview in what has been as impressive a rollout as hip-hop has seen this year. Here are our favorite eight moments from Cardi’s Call Her Daddy debut. She lost her $13,000 diamond butt piercing in the toilet Cardi B got the top of her butt-crack pierced with diamonds earlier this year, but the $13,000 piercing ended up falling out and down the toilet. She explained how, due to her butt surgery, she doesn’t have much feeling in the top of her butt, which made the piercing painless, but Cardi also didn’t realize it fell out at one point. Luckily, the place that pierced her is offering a refund. “It was so cute. It didn’t hurt. I’m not gonna recommend it to people,” she said. “I had surgery on my butt. People say sometimes my butt is too big, but they don’t understand I already did a butt surgery to reduce my ass… So that part of my ass is numb… It was the easiest piercing ever… Guess what? It went down the toilet!” Cardi and Stefon Diggs joke about rumor her ‘BBL stinks’ Over the summer, there were false rumors spreading online about how Stefon Diggs dumped Cardi because her “BBL stinks.” Nowadays, the power couple has fun joking around with rumors just like that one. “The way this ass be getting eaten, it can’t be,” she quipped. “I’m very anal about how I smell. I don’t know who made the rumors BBLs stink, but it doesn’t f—ing stink… Be f—ing for real. We just be joking about it.” She has a NSFW threesome fantasy Cardi opened up about her NSFW threesome fantasy, which includes her making out with a “pretty-faced girl” while both are simultaneously pleasuring a man with fellatio. “But not just like my turn, your turn, making out clashing on it,” she said. She called Lizzo to help her with a fake lyric At one point in the interview, Cardi had to phone a celebrity friend with the scenario of helping her make a clean version of a fake lyric: “Micropenis, I call that drowning in the p—y.” Lizzo came through for her “What’s Goin On” collaborator and picked up her call while out at a club. How she brushes off the body-shamers Cardi B has heard it all when it comes to people objectifying her body. She’s been open about cosmetic procedures she’s had and at this point in life, she’s not looking to go under the knife again. “I look at myself in the mirror and it’s like, I really wouldn’t change a thing,” she said. “Maybe I would like my butt to be smaller, but it’s, like I said, it’s really hard for my butt to be smaller. I already did. I already did a reduction already and it’s like people will be like, ‘Well, you need to reduce your butt more.’ And it’s like, I think you guys think that people just plug something inside my a—hole and just suck it out.” Cardi continued: “For me to reduce my butt, I have to literally sit on the table, get cut from the bottom, get cut from the top, and be on bed rest for three months, so it’s like, I’m not gonna put myself in that position again, because you don’t like my body. I’m comfortable. I learn to live with it. I don’t get no complaints from nobody and it is what it is. It’s just like, you can’t let people turn you crazy.” She opens up about her marriage to Offset Cardi B filed for divorce from Offset last summer and while the marriage didn’t work out, Cardi opened up about the positives she gained from her experience as a wife. “Even in the long marriage that I was in, there’s a lot of things that I regret and there’s a lot of things that people are gonna be like, ‘You see, you wasted your time,’ But I don’t feel like it was a waste of time,” she said. “I actually see what comes with being a wife, being a mom, so I experienced that.” The 32-year-old continued: “It’s like, I have to experience pain. I have to experience good times. I have to experience what it was like to have a family to be a wife, and on top of that, I don’t have a bad reputation. If you decide to call me a whore or a slut of whatever the f—k, it’s ‘cause you want to. It’s not because you have a fact, ‘cause I wasn’t that.” She shares the lyric of hers she hates the most Cardi is proud of nearly all of her bars,

Ontario, Canada native Josh Ross is riding a wave of considerable career acclaim as he releases his first full-length album, Later Tonight, which dropped Sept. 19 via MCA/ Mercury Nashville/ Universal Music Canada and CORE Records. Explore See latest videos, charts and news His song “Single Again” rose to the top 5 on the Billboard Canada Country Airplay chart and triumphed at the pinnacle of the Billboard Country Airplay chart, becoming his first U.S. country chart-topper. He also just won his second entertainer of the year trophy at the Canadian Country Music Association (CCMA) Awards, while “Single Again” was named single of the year. He also picked up awards for video of the year, top-selling Canadian single of the year (both for “Single Again”) and top-selling Canadian album of the year (for his previous EP, Complicated). “It’s great to have the support and love from Canada, embracing me playing shows and also trying to be an international act — it’s a time for me to reflect when I’m there on the progress we’ve made in the last year and all the things that have happened,” he says. “I’m happy and just appreciative of the awards and recognizing everybody involved.” The 15-song new album, produced by Matt Geroux, offers up an array of sounds, all of them reflecting different facets of Ross’s artistry. The set includes his latest release, “Hate How You Look,” which debuted at No. 46 on the Canada Country Airplay chart, as well as his Akon collaboration “Drunk Right Now (Na Na Na).” “It goes from rock to rap to country to piano, singer-songwriter. I think the coolest part is that it is cohesive with who I am as a person,” Ross says. “I very much listened to so many different styles of music. For me, that translates to, when I write a song, I write the song and let the musical parts find it after. And if it calls to be more rock or country, or whatever it may be, I just allow that freedom to happen.” Ross has been pursuing a country music career for nearly a decade. His first independent EP, Do What You Love, released in 2020 and he followed it with 2022’s Live Sessions and 2024’s Complicated EP. In 2023, he earned his first Canadian Country Airplay chart No. 1 with “Trouble,” and quickly followed with “Ain’t Doin’ Jack.” He earned his first CCMA Awards win in 2023 for breakthrough artist or group of the year. Ross moved to Nashville seven years ago and has since toured with Bailey Zimmerman, Lee Brice, Nickelback and more. Earlier this year, he wrapped a stint of Canadian shows opening for Jelly Roll‘s The Beautifully Broken Great Northern Tour. This year, he’ll open shows for Dylan Scott, before headlining his own 17-show Later Tonight Tour next year in Canada. Ross spoke with Billboard about the new album, touring with Jelly Roll, the importance of focusing on physical and emotional health, and more. “Single Again,” which you wrote with Brad Rempel (known for his work with High Valley) and Joe Fox, has been a huge hit for you. What is the backstory on that song? I had the idea for almost three years and never wrote it. I told Joe and Brad this idea. I was at Losers Bar in Midtown here in Nashville, and there was a girl I had had a crush on throughout high school. I hadn’t seen her in like eight years, and she happened to be in this Nashville bar. I brought her a drink and walked up to her, and found out she had a boyfriend. It was just casual conversation — and then I don’t know if it was me having a couple of drinks that night or whatever, but I was like, “Hey, let me know if you’re ever single again.” I also thought it was a cool concept, and wrote it on my phone — and underneath that, I wrote, “The one that got away.” I feel like everybody’s had that situation where you both weren’t single at the right time, or you just never get that chance with a person. I forgot about the idea and had it on my phone for a long time until it popped up that day in the writing room. Joe really helped with laying out the hook, and Brad definitely had that anthem chorus idea and the melody to help it all come together. How did the collaboration with Akon come about? I’ve always been a fan of Akon. I have a brother and sister that are 10, 12 years older than I, and they were listening to that music when they’d be going out and partying and stuff. I would hear some of those songs as a kid, and they stuck with me. Melodically, he’s just so incredible, and they are really catchy songs and I thought it would be cool to re-write one of his songs. One of the songs I love is [2008’s] “Right Now (Na Na Na).” I thought, “Let’s make a fun, summertime country festival song like, “Drunk Right Now.” I walked into the writing room and we finished the idea. We live in such an interesting time of trying to figure out when to release music. I was talking to my team and was like, “Before we tease this song, is there any way to get it to his team?” We sent it over, and within like a day he hit back and was like, “I love this and would like to do something with it.” That was so exciting, and he sent me a version where he wrote his own second verse. There was an original second verse that I had written and he re-wrote that. It had been just a party song — but then once he did his part on it, it was like he’s talking to me trying to help me through a breakup situation, and that just brought such a cool new

Welcome to Billboard Pro’s Trending Up newsletter, where we take a closer look at the songs, artists, curiosities and trends that have caught the music industry’s attention. Explore See latest videos, charts and news This week: Gruesome headlines lead to rising streams for alt-pop hitmaker D4vd, while performers at the Charlie Kirk memorial service and songs featured in a much-anticipated Amazon Prime series finale see gains. D4vd Streams More Than Double After Dead Body in Car Identified Following a quick rise and a handful of viral hits, D4vd has been featured in disturbing headlines in recent weeks following the discovery of a dead body in a car reportedly registered to the singer-songwriter. The human remains were uncovered inside an impounded Tesla on Sept. 8, and last Wednesday (Sept. 17), the body was identified as Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a 15-year-old girl who had previously been reported missing and, as Internet sleuths pointed out, had multiple connections to D4vd prior to her disappearance. Although no charges have been brought against the 20-year-old singer, D4vd canceled multiple tour dates without explanation in the following days. Following the reports, D4vd’s overall streams have experienced significant gains — including the viral hit that helped deliver him to the mainstream. From Sept. 18-22, D4vd’s catalog earned 30.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams, more than double the total from the previous five-day tracking period (13.8 million streams from Sept. 12-16), according to preliminary data provided by Luminate. Within that total, “Romantic Homicide,” which reached No. 33 on the Hot 100 after going viral in 2022, was among the greatest gainers. From Sept. 12-15, the track earned 2.9 million streams; one week later, that total was 9.4 million (up 224%). “Romantic Homicide” and other D4vd tracks have popped up on the Spotify daily top 50 chart as this tragic story has developed. – JASON LIPSHUTZ Contemporary Worship Performers at Charlie Kirk Memorial Service See Catalog Gains On Sunday (Sept. 21), a memorial service for the assassinated conservative media figure and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Az. — with over 90,000 in attendance, and speakers who included both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, as well as Kirk’s widow Erika. As Kirk had been outspoken in his Christian faith, contemporary Christian music featured prominently in the proceedings — including performances from some of the biggest names in contemporary worship music, paying tribute to Kirk. Several of those performers experienced notable catalog gains following their performances. Brandon Lake, perhaps currently the biggest name in contemporary Christian music following his crossover breakthrough this year with the Hot 100 top 40 hit “Hard Fought Hallelujah,” collected over 4.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams on Monday (Sept. 22), the day after the service, according to preliminary data provided by Luminate. That was up 29% from the 3.4 million he drew the Monday before, and included a 76% gain for “Gratitude,” the 2020 song he performed at the ceremony, to 909,000 streams. Similar catalog gains were posted by service performers Cody Carnes (up 7% to 717,000), Kari Jobe (up 27% to 296,000) and Chris Tomlin (up 30% to just over 2 million) on that Monday — while Lee Greenwood’s perennial “God Bless the U.S.A.” was up nearly 13% to 59,000 streams. – ANDREW UNTERBERGER Yes, Cardi B Is the ‘Drama’! New Album Spurs Streaming Gains for Rapper’s Debut LP & Sampled Tracks  After seven years, Cardi B’s long-awaited sophomore album Am I the Drama?,is finally here — and it’s already having quite the impact on streaming. Released on Sept. 19, Drama has earned 78.3 million official on-demand U.S. streams in its first three days of release, according to Luminate. Of that three-day total, the album pulled 35.8 million streams on Sept. 19, 25.4 million on Sept. 20 and another 17 million streams on Sept. 21. The new album also spurred notable gains for the Bronx MC’s Grammy-winning debut album, Invasion of Privacy. That set earned 4.15 million official on-demand U.S. streams during Drama’s release weekend (Sept. 19-21), marking a 31% increase from the 3.17 million streams it collected the previous weekend (Sept. 12-14).  Drama is filled with nifty samples, but two particular flips have boosted their original tracks: On the Lizzo-assisted “What’s Going On,” Cardi sources 4 Non Blonde’s “What’s Up,” helped the 1993 track pull over 981,00 official on-demand U.S. streams during Drama’s release weekend (Sept. 19-21). That marks a 7% lift from the 914,000 streams the track earned the previous weekend (Sept. 12-14). Placed near the end of the album, “Principal” calls upon Janet Jackson’s “The Pleasure Principle,” which reaped 52,000 official on-demand U.S. streams during Drama’s release weekend (Sept. 19-21), marking a 30% leap from the 40,2000 streams it pulled the previous weekend (Sept. 12-14). — KYLE DENIS  Fans Turn to DSPs to Say Goodbye to ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty’ Over three seasons, Amazon Prime’s romantic coming-of-age drama series The Summer I Turned Pretty proved itself not only one of the biggest shows of the decade, but one of the most prominent users of music synchs in recent TV history — with synch-tracking website Tunefind listing 104 songs used in its third season alone. That third and final season came to an end last Wednesday (Sept. 17) with 11 synchs used the season finale — all of which of course saw major bumps on streaming following their usage. With much of the finale taking place in Paris, multiple French songs were used in the episode, with the biggest gains going to Belgian artist Angele’s “Ta Reine” — which was up a whopping 1,130% in official on-demand U.S. streams (to 130,000) over the five days following the episode premiere (Sept. 18-22) compared to the five-day period before (Sept. 12-16), according to preliminary data provided by Luminate. More in the show’s typical musical wheelhouse were synchs from Noah Kahan (“Everwhere, Everything,” also featuring Gracie Abrams) and Phoebe Bridgers (“Scott Street”), with the songs rising 45% and 79% to 1.9 million and 1.5 million

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 200 dated Oct. 4, we look at the long-awaited sophomore album from rap superstar Cardi B, and what its chances are of debuting atop the chart.   Explore See latest videos, charts and news Cardi B, Am I the Drama? (Atlantic Group): It’s been a long, long wait for Cardi B fans, but the rap great has finally returned with her second album. Am I the Drama? dropped last Friday (Sept. 19), nearly seven-and-a-half years after Cardi first bowed with Invasion of Privacy back in April 2018. That set debuted atop the Billboard 200, spawned a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hit in the Bad Bunny and J Balvin team-up “I Like It” (joining her first leader, 2017’s “Bodak Yellow [Money Moves],” also included on the album), drew rave reviews and even won a Grammy for best rap album — understandably making it a challenge for Cardi to follow up in the years since.  But now, the sophomore LP is out, and also receiving mostly strong reviews. The 23-songs-on-DSPs set swarmed the Apple Music real-time charts upon its Friday release, occupying the great majority of the top 10 even though, as of posting, HUNTR/X’s “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters has since taken back over from Cardi’s new Kehlani collab “Safe” (which also received its own music video) atop the listing. Response to the album has been much more muted on Spotify, where “Safe” is the only track from it still residing in the top 100 of the Daily Top Songs USA chart.   Beyond its overall streaming returns, which should still be fairly robust for its full first week, Drama is also expected to sell well. Those numbers will be helped greatly by a wide variety of available CD and vinyl variants, many with different varieties of album cover, including the already-infamous “courtroom edition” taken from much-memed images of Cardi on the stand during her assault trial in August, for which she was ultimately acquitted on all charges. Those physical releases also include eight deluxe CD boxed sets, containing merch and a copy of the CD — and there are also a variety of digital releases, including a Bonus Edition with an exclusive 24th track, “Don’t Do Too Much.”   Cardi has also been on the promotional trail getting the word out about Am I the Drama? In addition to doing an interview tour of radio stations, streamers and daytime TV shows (The Breakfast Club, Spotify and The Jennifer Hudson Show, just to name a few) in the weeks leading up to the album release, Cardi has been on a busy schedule of in-store appearances, doing photo ops and meet-and-greets with fans purchasing the album. (She started her release week at Looney Tunes in New York, and will make it across the country to Fingerprints in California by the end.)   It should all add up to a pretty considerable first-week for Am I the Drama? — perhaps not quite the equal of Invasion’s opening frame (255k, according to Luminate), but certainly comfortably into the six digits, and perhaps into the 200s. With no other debuts of its size to compete with, and KPop Demon Hunters continuing to gently recede, it should have a pretty clear path to becoming Cardi’s second No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 in two tries. And if Cardi is No. 1, Atlantic Group will have successive No. 1s (with Twenty One Pilots’ Breach topping this week’s listing) for the first time since the Aug. 24-Aug. 31, 2019-dated charts, when Slipknot’s We Are Not Your Kind (Roadrunner/Atlantic Group) and Young Thug’s So Much Fun (Young Stoner Life/300/Atlantic/Atlantic Group) bowed at no. 1 in successive weeks.  Nine Inch Nails, Tron: Ares (Interscope/Walt Disney/The Null Corporation): Nothing new to see veteran composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross scoring another big movie, which they’ve been doing successfully for 15 years now, since first hooking up for David Fincher’s The Social Network adaptation back in 2010. But there’s a little extra juice to the duo’s new release — the soundtrack to the upcoming Disney sequel Tron: Ares — thanks to it being recorded and released under the moniker of Reznor’s chart-topping longtime band Nine Inch Nails, of which Ross is now also an official member.   The 24-track soundtrack is mostly moody instrumentals and slamming dance-rockers along the lines of the duo’s work for last year’s Challengers, but it does also include a number of cuts with Reznor’s vocals — including lead single “As Alive as You Want Me to Be,” already a top five hit on Billboard’s Rock &Alternative Airplay chart. Sales of the set will also be helped by a number of physical variants, including both CDs and vinyl editions with alternate covers, and even a cassette edition.   Buckingham Nicks, Buckingham Nicks (Polydor/Quality/Rhino): A longtime collectors’ favorite, this early full-length collaboration between then-future Fleetwood Mac superstars Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks — self-titled under the name Buckingham Nicks — had been out of print for many decades. As the Mac catalog has proved a persistent cultural force time and time again across those years, there have been countless calls from fans for the album to once again see the light of day.   Finally, through the efforts of Rhino Records — and with the cooperation of both artists, who have been largely on the outs since Buckingham’s 2018 split from the rest of the group — the much-beloved set has at last been reissued, arriving both on streaming services and in record stores. For the latter, the set is available on CD and through multiple vinyl variants — its first-ever pressing on CD — and while it’s unlikely to challenge Cardi B’s overall numbers this week, you can bet those who have waited generations to get their hands on a copy will jump at the chance to finally own the record.   Source link

The Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) celebrated its eighth annual Nashville Songwriter Awards on Tuesday evening (Sept. 23), held at the Ryman Auditorium. Forty-two individuals were honored for their excellence and dedication to the craft of songwriting–or, as NSAI board president Lee Thomas Miller called songwriters that evening, “the lifeblood of our industry.” Explore See latest videos, charts and news The organization was founded in 1967 as a not-for-profit trade organization for professional and developing songwriters.  The evening launched with a tribute to Kris Kristofferson (the namesake of the evening’s Kris Kristofferson lifetime achievement award, which was given to country group Alabama). Kristofferson, known for elevating the craft of songwriting with his poetic approach and songs such as “Sunday Morning Coming Down” and “For the Good Times,” died in 2024. During the Nashville Songwriter Awards, Lukas Nelson honored the late Kristofferson with a performance of Kristofferson’s 1971 hit “Loving Her Was Easier (Than Everything I’ll Ever Do Again)”.  “He changed what you can write in this town,” Bart Herbison, executive director of NSAI, said of Kristofferson. Ashley Gorley earned his ninth songwriter of the year accolade, for writing songs including “Cowgirls,” “I Am Not Okay,” “Bulletproof,” and “World on Fire.” Tyler Hubbard feted Gorley with a performance of “Park” and Dylan Scott performed “This Town’s Been Too Good to Us.”  Gorley thanked NSAI “for the work you do to fight for our rights… and to celebrate our talents tonight.” He also thanked Sony, Tape Room, ASCAP, country radio and more. “I want to thank the artists for recording the songs,” he added. “I Will Always Love You,” written by Country Music Hall of Famer Dolly Parton, earned the legendary song award. Caylee Hammack honored Parton with a spot-on performance of the song.  “This song has become so many things to so many people,” Parton said in a video acceptance speech. “That is the power of music, and I can’t thank you enough for honoring me and allowing me to tell my stories.” “Little Miss Dynamite” Brenda Lee, who signed with Decca Records prior to her 12th birthday and went on to become the first woman inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, was celebrated as the NSAI president’s keystone award recipient. Trisha Yearwood performed a rendition of Lee’s 1959 hit “Sweet Nothin’s,” which was written by Ronnie Self.  “It’s such an honor for me because of the people who are giving me this. The songwriters have been the backbone of everything I’ve ever done… I love this industry… You have been so so loyal and wonderful to this little short girl from Georgia,” Lee said.  The loss of esteemed Nashville songwriter (and NSAI board member) Brett James last week was palpable within the songwriter and publishing community gathered that evening. The screen included a tribute that read simply, “We love you, Brett.” Early in the evening, Lee Thomas Miller led the audience in observing a moment of silence to remember James, and to honor his enduring impact on the Nashville songwriting community. Miller called James “an incredibly talented songwriter, publisher and producer. Few songwriters in our town have achieved the level of success that Brett did. Since the mid-’90s, him, and that hair, were a constant on Music Row and in our lives. He was a beautiful friend to all of us who knew and loved him and it’s hard to imagine country music without him.” In accepting his songwriter of the year accolade, Gorley also took a moment to remember James and memories of spending time with him. He recalled playing a writer’s round with James and how during the round, James took the time to encourage Gorley. Gorley said James was “proof of living life to the fullest and being an encourager even more. My whole family ziplined with him at Sundance, I watched him get knighted at a castle in France at a writing camp one time. He gets all he can out of life.” Matthew West was named songwriter-artist of the year for a second time, and honored as a writer on songs including “Don’t Stop Praying,” “Unashamed,” “No Fear” and “Strong.” He was celebrated as Anne Wilson performed her 2021 hit “My Jesus,” which she wrote with West and Jeff Pardo. West is the first to be a multiple writer-artist of the year winner from the Christian music genre.  “A songwriter only goes as far as the champions they have in their life,” West said, thanking “every artist and writer who lets me in the room to create.” “I’m humbled to be a part of this community,” he added, and urged songwriters on Music Row to let “hope and love flow” from their pens — citing songs such as “Jesus, Take The Wheel” and “Go Rest High on That Mountain” as enduring examples of songs of faith within the genre. Later in the evening, Lisa Kristofferson, who attended in honor of her late husband Kris Kristofferson, presented the Kris Kristofferson lifetime achievement award to this year’s honorees, Alabama’s Teddy Gentry, Randy Owen and Jeff Cook (who was honored posthumously). The group has earned 33 No. 1 Billboard Hot Country Songs hits and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2005. Lorrie Morgan performed “There’s No Way,” while singer-pianist Gordon Mote honored the group with a medley of songs including “Tennessee River” and “Feels So Right.” Jason Aldean performed “My Home’s in Alabama,” calling the country group “my favorite band of all time.” Alabama‘s Randy Owen, who also wrote many of Alabama’s hits, took the stage to accept the honor. He thanked longtime Alabama producer Harold Shedd, who was in attendance. Owen also thanked Cook and Gentry for their camaraderie and thanked those who fight on behalf of songwriters. The evening concluded with the song of the year accolade, which went to “Dirt Cheap,” a solo-written song from Josh Phillips. In a brief acceptance speech, Phillips offered gratitude to artist Cody Johnson for

Taylor Swift is right on target with her latest The Life of a Showgirl vinyl variant. On Wednesday (Sept. 24), the pop star announced on Instagram that Target will be carrying a store-exclusive version of her upcoming album. Dubbed The Life of a Showgirl: The Crowd Is Your King, the limited pressings will feature a “summertime spritz pink shimmer” disc along with a collectible sleeve, a “giant” double-sided poster, an exclusive poem penned by Swift and special photos, according to the description. “A showgirl knows to save some of her best tricks for the grand finale…,” Swift wrote in her post, sharing photos of the Target edition. “PS: we’re [nine] days away(!!!!!!!!!!!!)” Available for purchase at $34.99, the Target exclusive will also feature its own custom cover art. The gold-toned image finds the artist looking down at the camera while draped in sparkly lingerie and feathers. The news follows a series of other Showgirl vinyls released by Swift, as well as a batch of Target-only Showgirl CDs containing exclusive double-sided posters. Featuring exclusive artwork, photographs and poetry, each vinyl variant became available for just 48 hours on the 14-time Grammy winner’s website. In a recent Instagram video from Taylor Nation, Swift’s official fan site, the musician explained why she wanted Showgirl to be available in so many different forms. “The photoshoot we did with Mert and Marcus was so extraordinary, and I was so happy with it, that I just wanted fans to have as many images from this world, this album era, as possible,” she said. “I really spent a lot of time figuring out how I could make the best vinyl product, the best packaging, the best CD experience that they could have … I hope the fans are happy.” Taylor Swift, “The Crowd is Your King” Courtesy Photo Arriving Oct. 3, The Life of a Showgirl will mark Swift’s first album since her 2024 17-week Billboard 200 chart-topper The Tortured Poets Department. The singer first announced the new LP on fiancé Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce’s New Heights podcast, where she revealed that she’d made all 12 songs on the project with Max Martin and Shellback during her global Eras Tour. “I was so mentally stimulated and excited to be creating,” she said at the time. “[The album is] a lot more upbeat, and it’s a lot more fun pop excitement. My main goals were melodies that were so infectious, you’re almost angry at it.” “We’ve made songs that I’m so proud of,” she added at the time. “We’ve never actually made an album before where it was just the three of us, there’s no other collaborators. It felt like catching lightning in a bottle. These guys, they’re just geniuses. Working with them again was absolutely incredible.” Check out Target’s exclusive The Life of a Showgirl version below. Source link

For more than 40 years, the members of thrash metal costumed rock group GWAR have been schlepping their giant intergalactic monster costumes across the planet as part of a wildly over-the-top theatrical show featuring the beheading and/or comically absurd disemboweling of every president from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump. The band’s fans gleefully push to the front of their gigs in order to get blasted with any manner of fake bodily fluids that erupt from the towering, cartoonish dummies. But over the weekend, some folks who apparently just discovered the band, allegedly got into a tizzy over one aspect of GWAR’s current show — a mock beheading of Tesla CEO and former DOGE boss Elon Musk. The tweets appeared to be an attempt to gin up outrage over the formerly uncontroversial bit, at a time when Donald Trump and the chairman of the FCC have been sending ominous messages about their view of the limits on the First Amendment’s right to free speech. “The idea that GWAR is normalizing violence is patently absurd,” lead singer Michael “Blöthar the Berserker” Bishop tells Billboard about a hair-on-fire headline from the New York Post tabloid earlier this week that read: “Heavy Metal Band Stage Phony Beheading of Elon Musk, Murder Trump in Shocking Festival Performance.” The show in question was the band’s appearance at the Riot Fest in Chicago, which, as noted above, was in keeping with their performance style of the past four decades, during which they have taken their prop chainsaws and swords to public figures left, right, and center, including former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber and Pope Francis, as well as America’s most recent non-Trump president, democrat Joe Biden. The Post piece was seemingly inspired by a tweet in which someone — credited as @hottakekaren, which many suspected was a fake account — said the band’s act was not “edgy, it’s grotesque and reckless and normalizes violence against a real person. This is not okay.” Bishop was both annoyed and surprised by the alleged outrage, noting that the band have been at this for a long time — and that GWAR has always been, like punk rock in many ways, “chaotic and indecipherable” in its politics. “We’re not millionaires that are afraid of what people are going to say when they see what we do,” he says, questioning if the tweets allegedly denigrating the band were posted by actual humans with a bone to pick or bots. “Yeah, it pissed me off! We’re a group of artists that makes art, and it’s really the idea that what we have done is normalizing violence… there’s nothing normal about the violence that goes on at a GWAR show. It’s a cartoon, it’s Looney Tunes.” The fake blood-spurting bits are the way they are for a reason, he says: because the band doesn’t want people to see what their doing and think of it as a realistic depiction of violence. “It’s a parody of violence,” Bishop says of the seven-foot-tall Musk puppet in a DOGE shirt who got his prop head lopped off — in a costume the singer says is frequently switched out to represent whoever the band says it does based on the story they’re telling on that album cycle. “It’s trying to make violence into a spectacle and show humanity’s absolute absurdity. That’s what GWAR is, it’s absurdism. To say it’s normalizing violence is really reaching.” And while it’s nothing new, the headline came in the midst of the national debate over ABC pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air last week, after the late night host made a joke related to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The joke resulted in Nexstar, which owns more than two dozen ABC-affiliated stations, saying they were going to yank Kimmel’s show indefinitely. A day after the monologue, FCC chair Brendan Carr appeared on YouTuber Benny Johnson’s show and appeared to make a threat to revoke ABC affiliate licenses over Kimmel’s comments. “What people don’t understand is that the broadcasters … have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest,” said Carr. “When we see stuff like this, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” The comments from Carr were interpreted by many as a threat to chill free speech, or, as similar conduct featuring informal government pressure to influence private action is referred to: “jawboning.” “The First Amendment protects expression in the form of music,” Kevin Goldberg, vice president and First Amendment expert at the non-partisan First Amendment education organization Freedom Forum tells Billboard. “What you’re seeing and what you’re hearing [from GWAR] is fully protected by the First Amendment, as is the right to engage in parody and satire as part of that performance.” At at time when Trump — who has been the target of multiple assassination attempts — has complained that “97%” of what the media says about him is negative, Goldberg says that while GWAR’s act is protected speech, there are two unprotected areas that are not covered by the First Amendment that have been bandied about over the past two weeks. He says both of them are currently being widely misinterpreted. While the unprotected area of speech is “much narrower” than you might think based on the current conversations in the public sphere, Goldberg says one of them, “true threat,” requires the person using that speech to intend or know that their speech is going to make someone fear for their safety. “That’s a very specific type of threat, and parody and satire is so rhetorical and over-the-top that it can’t be taken plausibly by the subject to be an actual threat,” he says. The same is true for the other unprotected area, “incitement to imminent lawless violence” — which, he says, by its very name requires an intent

Kenshi Yonezu’s “IRIS OUT” debuts at No. 1on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, on the chart released Sept. 24. The latest song by the “KICK BACK” hitmaker serves as the theme for Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc, released in domestic theaters Friday (Sept. 19). “IRIS OUT” rules streaming with 23,953,292 streams — the highest ever for a solo artist and the fourth largest in Japan chart history. The track also tops downloads and video views, while hitting No. 4 for radio airplay. Total points for the song this week was 21,892, the highest single-week score of　the year so far. Japan Hot 100 All-time Weekly Streaming Top 5 1. BTS “Butter” 29,935,364 streams2. YOASOBI “Idol” 25,860,696 streams3. Creepy Nuts “Bling-Bang-Bang-Born” 24,945,758 streams4. Kenshi Yonezu “IRIS OUT” 23,953,292 streams5. Official HIGE DANDism “Subtitle” 21,708,199 streams Explore See latest videos, charts and news 2025 Weekly Total Points Top 3 1. Kenshi Yonezu “IRIS OUT” 21,892 pts2. HANA “Blue Jeans” 19,152 pts3. BE:FIRST “GRIT” 16,398 pts At No. 2 is BE:FIRST’s “Sora.” Released digitally on July 7 as their 8th single, the CD version dropped Sept. 17, selling 82,253 copies in its first week and coming in at No. 2 for sales. The track soars 58-2, with downloads gaining by 1,434% compared to the previous week, streaming by 235%, radio airplay by 941%, and video views by 411%. Hinatazaka46’s “Onegai Bach!” jumps 82-3 this week. The track off the group’s 15th single sold 527,439 copies — surpassing its previous release — to dominate sales, while coming in at No. 13 for downloads and No. 35 for streaming. Number_i’s “Numbers Ur Zone” bows at No. 4. Released Sept. 22 as the lead single off the trio’s second full album called No.II, the song hits No. 1 for radio, No. 2 for downloads and video, and No. 26 for streaming. Four other tracks by the group are charting this week: “U.M.A.” climbs 54-32 and “GOD_i” is at No. 48 (both also included in No.II), “BON” is at No. 77, and “INZM” is at No. 91. HANA’s “Blue Jeans” slips two notches to No. 5, but continues to hold in the top 5 for the tenth consecutive week. Meanwhile, “Kenso” by Nijidatoka, a Nijisanji virtual band, debuts at No. 9. The track off the group’s first single “Kyoso RIOT” launched with 43,273 copies to reach No. 3 for the metric and also comes in at No. 30 for downloads. The Billboard Japan Hot 100 combines physical and digital sales, audio streams, radio airplay, video views and karaoke data. See the full Billboard Japan Hot 100 chart, tallying the week from Sept. 15 to 21, here. For more on Japanese music and charts, visit Billboard Japan’s English X account. Source link

For Perrie Edwards, the studio can be both a sanctuary and a suffocating cocoon. Last autumn, six months after beginning her solo career, the singer and Little Mix member pretty much resigned herself to life as a recluse, spending the majority of her time in her Cheshire house. Travelling to London for work would trigger her agoraphobia – an anxiety disorder characterised by a fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult – so her home recording space, named Studio 22, became a hideout whenever she felt overwhelmed. Explore See latest videos, charts and news In April 2024, the singer (known mononymously as Perrie) released her strident debut single “Forget About Us,” which was co-written by Ed Sheeran, and hit No. 10 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart. From an outside perspective, as the summer rolled on, it seemed as though things were in motion: she was active on social media and delivered a series of radio appearances, including a set at Wembley Stadium as part of Capital’s Summertime Ball, delivering a viral powerhouse cover of Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.” All the while, things began to unravel behind the scenes. Follow-up single “Tears,” which swapped its predecessor’s country inflections for smoky, ‘70s-inspired pop, dropped out of the U.K. top 100 after a week and was duly scrapped from the record she was putting together at the time. Edwards stopped posting to Instagram Stories and TikTok, prompting concern from her fanbase. The distractions and drains of anxiety on her energy as an artist and a human being, meanwhile, led to her bringing her therapist to work.  Perrie the.twins.shot.this “Getting an album out felt very untouchable for quite some time,” Edwards tells Billboard U.K. over Zoom, her chestnut blonde hair scraped back, relaxed in minimal makeup and a baggy black jumper. She is feeling reflective about the journey to her self-titled LP, due Sept 26 via Columbia. “I’m glad I stuck to my guns and did what I needed to do to make it happen.” She lets slip a chuckle. “I’m actually really proud, because I thought I wasn’t going to get an album at this point.” Edwards credits the shift in her perspective to therapy, patience and family. In the early sessions for Perrie, she asked for each song to be A&R’d due to a lack of confidence in her own songwriting ability. Now she understands she was limiting herself; she has had to learn how to enact a fully integrated vision of pop star life, where fulfilling one desire inspires the next one. After a fresh start in the new year, she began drawing on her longtime relationship with footballer Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (“Cute Aggression,” “Absof–kinglutely,” “Bonnie & Clyde”) and the transformative pleasures of the beach (the Sam Fender-inspired “Sand Dancer”), both of which dissolved a level of self-seriousness in her writing. “If He Wanted To He Would,” a barnstormer of a breakup anthem, kicked off a new era this summer, catapulting Edwards back into the charts and setting a precedent for the effervescent, high-tempo revelry that dominates much of her upcoming album. Solo projects are currently the focus for all three members of Little Mix, who won The X Factor in 2011 and enjoyed national exposure before any music had been released. The group – who started out as a four-piece before Jesy Nelson left in 2020, citing mental health issues – went on to make history on both the U.K. and US charts in their decade-long tenure, selling over 50 million records worldwide. Following Jade Thirlwall’s That’s Showbiz Baby! released earlier this month (Sept. 12), Edwards is the second Little Mix member to drop a full-length LP, while Leigh-Anne Pinnock departed Warner Records in May to forge an independent career. Having faced her past insecurities head-on and uncovered some of her most emotionally honest songwriting as a result, Edwards tells Billboard U.K. about how Perrie is the “liberating” next step in her journey. What kind of headspace were you in when you began working on Perrie? Gosh, it was a completely different headspace to where I am now. I kept thinking, “What can I do to please people? What can I do to make this worthwhile?” When you’re trying to be creative, that’s the worst place to be in. You end up making music that doesn’t feel authentic, fun or genuine. I was excited and was going with the flow, but I also felt overwhelmed by the fear of the unknown. I had to learn to not let outside voices and opinions guide my decision making. I am quite indecisive and I do get quite nervous; I need reassurance a lot of the time. At the start, I think I was going wrong because my gut and my intuition is normally right, like nine times out of 10. If I don’t feel or believe in something, it’s probably for a reason.  Now I’m at a point where I’m making the decisions. I set the track list and I’ve kind of taken control of everything now, unlike at the beginning, when I just didn’t have it in me. I was still figuring things out.  Was there ever a moment early in your solo career when you almost gave up or thought it wouldn’t work out? How did you push through? For sure. I was having therapy every Friday, and in the majority of my sessions, issues around work kept coming up. I was just feeling pressure from everybody; I felt like there was pressure from the fans. It got to a point where my therapist was just like, “Can’t you just have a little break from it all then?” And I was like, “No, I can’t take my foot off the gas, this industry doesn’t really wait around for you. I don’t have that option.” She then told me, “I think you could afford to step back a little bit, have time to think and chill out; go see Alex abroad [when he was

Mariah Carey has been through a lot since she last released an album, from raising her kids with ex-husband Nick Cannon to losing her mom and sister last year. And in a Wednesday (Sept. 24) interview with Gayle King on CBS Mornings, the pop icon opened up about what her life has been like leading up to the release of her new album, Here for It All. Starting with the deaths of her mother, Patricia, and sister, Alison, Carey said that even she isn’t sure how she “processed” such major losses after the two women passed away on the same day in August 2024. “I just know that it was extremely difficult for me to navigate, and it was tough, because I have always had an interesting relationship with my mother,” the vocalist told King. “Towards the end, I was with her the whole time,” she added of her mother. “And so I feel better about that. My sister, I hadn’t seen in years. I feel really badly about that as well, but that’s ‘cause I tend to have a guilt complex about everything. But it’s tough. My sister had an extremely hard life.” Carey has been open about how strained her relationship was with her mom, who was the source of much “pain” and “betrayal,” according to the five-time Grammy winner’s 2020 memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey. When asked whether she was able to make peace with Patricia before her death, Carey told King, “I do.” The singer added, “She said a couple of things to me that were very healing for what I needed.” The sit-down with CBS Mornings comes just two days ahead of Here for It All, which will mark Mimi’s first album since 2018’s Caution. Complete with guest appearances from Shenseea, Kehlani and The Clark Sisters, the LP features production from Anderson .Paak, who also sings on a track titled “Play This Song.” In her interview with King, Carey confirmed that she was the one who first reached out to the “brilliant” Silk Sonic musician — who just so happened to join her around Christmastime last year in Aspen, where the pair were spotted holding hands. Of the dating rumors that swirled as a result, Carey told King, “He just likes to hold my hand.” “He just grabs my hand — I don’t know what he’s doing,” she continued, refusing to confirm the nature of her relationship with .Paak beyond, “It’s something special.” As for one of her former flames, Carey touched on where she stands with a certain Masked Singer host. The couple were married for six years before splitting in 2014, and they now co-parent their twins, Moroccan and Monroe. “I kind of feel like it’s best if I don’t talk about him, because he can just be in his own world,” she told King diplomatically of Cannon. “No offense to him.” Here for It All arrives Friday (Sept. 26). Watch Carey’s full interview with King below. “It’s new Mariah, but still sounds like Mariah, but there’s a little twist to it that makes it a little bit different”: For the first time in seven years, Mariah Carey is releasing a new album, with her 16th studio release, “Here For It All.” The Grammy-winning singer opened up… pic.twitter.com/EVygSoiaeW — CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) September 24, 2025 Source link