Pop
Top 50 Albums of 2020
As we return from Thanksgiving and head into December, our Annual Report will spend the next few weeks looking back upon the strange year that was 2020 and the music, film, and television that came with it. We begin today with our Top 50 Albums of 2020. You’ve heard it from me dozens of times already: 2020 has not been a normal year. And by that, I mean absolutely nothing has been normal. The music world hasn’t been immune, of course. I’ve spent more time cancelling flights and accommodations and trying to get tickets refunded than I actually did watching live music this year. Instragram became a concert venue, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions had no performances, and livestreams (which are pre-taped) seem to be the often-underwhelming future of live music at least for the forseea...
Bad Bunny Is Spotify’s Most-Streamed Artist of 2020
Spotify unveiled its annual Wrapped data on Tuesday (Dec. 1), sharing the top artists, albums, songs, playlists and podcasts that defined a year unlike any other. Bad Bunny is the audio platform’s most-streamed artist of 2020, with more than 8.3 billion streams globally this year. He’s followed by Drake, J Balvin, Juice WRLD and The Weeknd, in that order. In just the United States, Juice WRLD is the most-streamed artist, followed by Drake, Lil Uzi Vert, Post Malone and Taylor Swift. Speaking of Bad Bunny, the Puerto Rican artist’s YHLQMDLG garnered 3.3 billion streams, making it Spotify’s most-streamed album globally. The Weeknd’s After Hours, Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding, Harry Styles’ Fine Line ...
Miley Cyrus’ Plastic Hearts Lovingly Mashes Up Rawk Influences: Review
The Lowdown: For her post-divorce album, Plastic Hearts, Miley Cyrus deploys big synth energy in full ’80s-rawk drag. Over six uneven albums, Cyrus has dabbled across pop genres, but she’s always held a penchant for the era and attitude of mainstream glam, new wave, and hair rock, dropping covers of Joan Jett and Blondie in live sets and covering Poison’s “Every Rose Has Its Thorn” as early as 2010’s Can’t Be Tamed. Now 28 years old, Cyrus leans fully into these influences, enlisting heroes like Stevie Nicks to have a blast with her while ripping themselves off. Even without her current incarnation’s spunky sneer and platinum shag, Cyrus still has teeth, though this algorithmic “rock” can filter out her bite at times. Still, this might be Cyrus’ most successful pastiche yet. [embedded...
BTS Earns Fifth No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With ‘Be’
Of Be’s 242,000 units earned in the tracking week ending Nov. 26, album sales comprise 177,000, TEA units comprise 35,000 and SEA units comprise 30,000 (equating to 48.56 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs). The Be album is a mostly-Korean-language release, but does feature the group’s first all-English song, “Dynamite.” The track marked the act’s first No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated Sept. 5. It also recently garnered the group its first Grammy Award nomination, for best pop duo/group performance. Be is the 11th mostly non-English album to hit No. 1. Of the 11 leaders that were recorded mostly in a language other than English, five have been by BTS. The album’s first week is the largest for an album by a group, both in terms of equivalent album units and album ...
Halsey Speaks Out After 2021 Grammy Nominations Snub: ‘It’s Not Always About the Music’
The 26-year-old pop star’s exclusion from the 2021 Grammy nominations came as a surprise to many, given that her recent album, Manic, featured the hit song “Without Me,” which reached No. 1 on the Hot 100. To date, the singer has not been nominated in a Big Four (album of the year, record of the year, song of the year and best new artist) category at the Grammys. “The Grammys are an elusive process,” Halsey continued in her post. “It can often be about behind the scenes private performances, knowing the right people, campaigning through the grapevine, with the right handshake and ‘bribes’ that can be just ambiguous enough to pass as ‘not bribes.'” She added that many politics go into receiving a Grammy nomination, including “...
Francia Raisa Responds to ‘Saved by the Bell’ Reboot Joking About Selena Gomez’s Kidney Transplant
In addition to their public apology, the team behind the new Saved by the Bell said they have been in touch with Gomez’s representatives and plan to make a donation to The Selena Gomez Fund for Lupus Research at USC. In the sixth episode of the reboot, which premiered last week, two students at Bayside High argue over who donated a kidney to Gomez in 2017 after she had been diagnosed with lupus years earlier. “I know for a fact that Selena Gomez’s kidney donor was Justin Bieber‘s mom. God, I wish that I had my phone so that I could prove it,” one character says. The other student replies, “Prove what? That you’re an idiot? It was Demi Lovato‘s kidney. They’re best friends, like you and I were.” In a later scene, the words “Does Selena Gomez even have a kidney?”...
Peacock Apologizes for ‘Saved by the Bell’ Reboot Joke About Selena Gomez’s Kidney Transplant
In the sixth episode of the reboot, which premiered earlier this week, the students of Bayside High have their phones taken away and don’t know what to do without having access to the internet. In one scene, two students argue over who donated a kidney to the singer in 2017 after she had been diagnosed with lupus years earlier, as they do not have immediate access to web resources to confirm their questions. In 2017, Gomez shared she had a kidney transplant over the summer due to her battle with lupus, an autoimmune disease that she was diagnosed with five years prior. The singer shared photos of her donor, close friend Francia Raisa, on social media and opened up about the secret surgery in an exclusive interview on Today. The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Selena Gomez’...
Camila Cabello on Being in Love With Shawn Mendes: ‘It’s Not Just Happy Blissful Moments’
“It’s so instinctive for us to love,” wrote Cabello, “even if our minds try to protect us from it sometimes, but our nature as humans is to love. And to be in love means to choose that person over and over again, to go through the messy stuff with. And that’s way more beautiful and raw and real than perfection.” The singer went on to explain why she’s willing to speak so openly to her fans. “I’m all for being vulnerable on social media because I think only the neatness and perfection of life is shown on here; and that can make us all feel extra lonely and weird! So raise your glass to the messiness and weirdness of being human and the miracle. And the easiness. And the instinct. And the relentless force that is love.” Mendes recently spoke of Cabel...
Selena Gomez Fans Slam ‘Saved by the Bell’ Reboot for Joking About Singer’s Kidney Transplant
“I know for a fact that Selena Gomez’s kidney donor was Justin Bieber’s mom. God, I wish that I had my phone so that I could prove it,” one character says. The other student replies, “Prove what? That you’re an idiot? It was Demi Lovato‘s kidney. They’re best friends, like you and I were.” In a later scene, the words “Does Selena Gomez even have a kidney?” are written near some lockers on the walls of the high school. Selenators definitely didn’t find the scenes funny. Many took to social media to call for the removal of Saved by the Bell from Peacock, and started the trend “RESPECT SELENA GOMEZ” on Twitter. “using what selena gomez went through for entertainment is blatantly insensitive and wrong,” one fan tweeted. “what she went ...
First Stream: New Music From Miley Cyrus, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez & More
Hours after Miley Cyrus released her new album Plastic Hearts, “Hannah Montana” was trending on Twitter, with fans nodding to the similarities between the superstar’s new opus and her early pop-rock sound as a Disney star. It’s a reductive comparison, for a few reasons — no Hannah Montana album ever featured Billy Idol, for one, or included a chorus that starts with an urgent “What the f–k do I know!” — but most importantly, Cyrus’ glam-rock pivot draws upon her decade of delivering whip-smart lyrics and enormous hooks to arrive fully formed and often spectacular. As electric guitar solos careen into each other and drums crash in with arena-ready heft, Cyrus relies upon her sharpened pop instincts to tackle the sonic exploration; witness “Angels Like You,” a lighters-up, ...
From Miley Cyrus to Taylor Swift, What’s Your Favorite New Music Release This Week? Vote!
Thanksgiving is officially in the rearview and that means one thing: the holiday season has officially begun, and from albums by Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift to a new single by Jennifer Lopez, Billboard wants to know which new release you have on repeat as you dig into the leftovers. Are you loving Cyrus’ rock-fueled seventh studio album Plastic Hearts or Bad Bunny‘s surprise third studio set El Último Tour Del Mundo? How many times have you streamed the live interpretations of Swift’s Folklore tracks in between rewatching her Long Pond Studio Sessions concert special on Disney+? You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful peo...
First Out: New Music from Rina Sawayama, King Princess, Arlo Parks & More
Rina Sawayama, “Lucid” For fans of both Rina Sawayama’s debut album, Sawayama, and Lady Gaga‘s dance-pop haven Chromatica, this new single is exactly for you. Sawayama teams up with Chromatica producer BloodPop on “Lucid,” a pure electro-pop banger where the star decides to dissociate into her own dream world, conjuring up her fantasy relationship while the throbbing house beats and glittering synth runs pulsate around her. “Me and Lauren Aquilina wrote this together on the floor of my tiny rented living room back in early 2018,” Sawayama said of putting the new song together. “BloodPop sent us the beat and the melody flowed out so easily that I remember at one point I started hoovering ’cause I knew ...
