Miranda Lambert has basically done it all in her 20-plus years of country stardom: chart-topping albums and singles, countless award show wins and unforgettable performances, and plenty of songs that have stood the test of time and then some. But one thing she’s never had — at least as a lead artist — is the thing that Ella Langley scored her very first time working with Lambert as a cowriter and co-producer: a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

“Choosin’ Texas,” which took Langley to another level of stardom upon its late 2025 release and has only continued growing bigger throughout the first half of 2026, has already topped the Hot 100 for 10 weeks and brought country music to places few would have imagined. “My cowriter, Luke Dick, was in San Francisco at a dumpling house, and the guy making the dumplings was wearing a ‘Choosin’ Texas’ ball cap,” Lambert shares with Billboard about the song’s ubiquity.

“Choosin’ Texas” went on to be the lead single on Langley’s Billboard 200-topping Dandelion LP, and Lambert has been with her protégé every step of the way — coproducing and executive producing the set, dueting with Langley on the “Butterfly Season” track, and even appearing in the “Texas” music video. But when it comes to advising Langley on how to handle the next-level success of her breakout hit, she feels there’s a country alum who can probably speak to that better than she can.

“When Ella calls and is like, ‘What does this mean?’ I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’” she tells Billboard as part of a larger interview in our Country Power Players issue, before sharing the words of wisdom she did feel comfortable sharing with Langley: “You might need to call Taylor Swift right now. Because this is, like, that kind of big.”

“Choosin’ Texas” currently resides at No. 5 on the Hot 100 — the only song in the top 10 not by Drake on this week’s chart (dated May 30). Lambert also appeared on the Hot 100 this month as a featured artist on Kacey Musgraves’ “Horses and Divorces,” which debuted at No. 84 on the May 16 chart.

A news anchor on KCBD Fox34 in Lubbock, Texas is in hot water with ARMY after a xenophobic joke he made about BTS‘ new collaboration with Oreo cookies. Anchor James Eppler has gotten major pushback from the K-pop superstars’ fanbase after a segment this week in which he first explained that the new team-up between the cookie and the band comes flavored in Hotteok, a popular Korean street food that features a pancake stuffed with brown sugar and cinnamon that the group’s members have said they ate as kids, then amended what appeared to be his attempt at a hot take joke.

“It does sound good, right?,” Eppler said in a fan-posted grab of the segment. “The cookie’s wafer is BTS’ signature color, purple. The wafers are also engraved with one of 13 designs, which spell out a message to fans when put together. And that is: ‘death to America,’ which I think is really strange.”

After someone else in the studio laughed, Eppler quickly backtracked and denied that the cookies had a nefarious, anti-American slogan, adding, “no, it’s not,” but not before one of his co-anchors called him out and asked, “Why would you say that?”

As you can imagine, the attempt at humor did not go over well with the fiercely loyal ARMY, who flooded the comments on reposts of the video with furious anger over what they deemed a racist and xenophobic comment. At press time, spokespeople for BTS, Fox34 and Oreos parent company, Mondelēz International, had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment.

“Come on that is just not a right thing to say and he knows it. Even his co-hosts knows it,” wrote one, with another saying simply, “THIS IS NOT FUNNY,” and a third opining, “JAMES EPPLER RACIST.”

ARMY were incensed, posting such comments as: “I think @Oreo should ask @fox34 why they’re are attaching a vile message like that to the oreo brand on national TV. It’s defamatory and damaging to both your brand and your brand ambassadors,” “We respectfully ask @Oreo
if their brand endorses this type of hateful and xenophobic comment; otherwise, we demand a response and an apology from @fox34” and “James Eppler’s racist comment about BTS & Oreo collaboration is dangerous and incites hate toward BTS. Racism and xenophobia cannot be ignored. Hold him accountable publicly @fox34 @KCBD11 @TTU_CoMC This shouldn’t be taken lightly.”

Earlier this week, as part of a new collaboration with Oreo, the group announced a limited-edition BTS Oreos brown sugar-pancake-flavored cookie featuring 13 unique embossed messages honoring the group’s 13th anniversary.

“For Oreo to be the first snacking brand we’ve collaborated with globally is a huge honor,” the Grammy-nominated group said in a statement about the collaboration that will reach more than 80 global markets. “We ate them as kids, we eat them in the studio, and now OREO is helping us share a taste of home with the world. We’re just so proud to add our own chapter to OREO’s amazing story.”

The cookies be available for presale starting on Monday, June 1 here. Fans will also be able to purchase the limited-edition cookies at retailers, while supplies last, beginning June 8. BTS is in the midst of a world tour in support of its chart-topping Billboard 200 album Arirang, which will have them playing their fourth show this week at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas before taking a break before a pair of shows at Busan Asiad Main Stadium in Busan, South Korea on June 12-13.

Ever since country music was recorded commercially for the first time more than 100 years ago, it’s recycled the past.

In its earliest incarnations, it was referred to by such terms as “old-time” music or “old familiar tunes,” owing to its nostalgic value at a time when the world was changing fast. With each successive generation, what passes as nostalgia changes, and that necessarily influences the sound of country. The traditional pop of the 1940s and ‘50s had an impact on the smooth Nashville Sound of the mid 1960s, early rock ‘n’ roll could be felt in the textures and remakes of country’s early ‘70s, Eagles shaped much of ‘90s country, and 21st-century pop acts — including Creed and Justin Bieber — have been cited as inspirations for several current performers.

With Graham Barham’s “Breakup (Down),” the nostalgia breaks a new chronological barrier, interpolating Jay Sean’s 2009 dance-pop single “Down,” which originally featured a rap by Lil Wayne. Barham has received some heat for the song online — it’s not like he’s reverently covering a Willie Nelson classic — but “Down” is, for a 27-year-old like Barham, nostalgic. He remembers grinding to it as a teen.

“They played it when I was probably 13 or 14,” he says. “I was at a school dance, and I was like, ‘May I have this dance?’ I was like, ‘This is the coolest song ever,’ because I love that era of music — Jason Derulo and Jay Sean — but yeah, I was a young tot when that one was a smack.”

“Down” fit among a series of songs with a positive-sounding veneer — including Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling,” Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” and Jessie J’s “Domino” — that inspired listeners to release their anxieties in the middle of a horrible economy.

“It’s recession pop,” songwriter Cole Miracle says. “It was this aspirational thing that was so popular.”

On the surface, it seems ill-suited as a country music blend, but that’s the case with every nostalgic pop element that’s been combined with country — until, of course, it’s done successfully. While they knew they were pushing boundaries, at least two of the “Breakup (Down)” songwriters, who also include Sam Bergeson and Lydia Vaughan (“Bar None,” “Don’t Tell on Me”), recall hearing “Down” as kids while riding in the backseat, so it occupies a space in their musical vocabularies.

“The whole idea of the song is just to be a big nostalgia bomb,” Barham says.

The “Breakup (Down)” writers all have somewhat different memories of its emergence — Barham, in fact, doesn’t remember the first writing session at all. He had decided as he developed songs for his debut album — Club Country, due June 12 — that he wanted to include an element of recession pop, according to Miracle, and “Down” was one of the songs they used as a reference. Around August 2025, they met up at Bergeson’s home studio. Vaughan had a phrase with a classic country twist, “breakup down,” and Bergesen had created a spirited melody while showering that very morning. That became a B section for the ultimate chorus.

“We’d only been in the room like 10 minutes and had a chorus, but the chords were similar to ‘Down,’” he says. “I don’t remember who it was, but they started, as a joke, ending the melody that we had written with the melody from ‘Down.’ We were just kind of laughing.”

They worked to find another way to end the chorus, but every time they tried a different path, it didn’t feel quite right. The “Down” chorus is “one of the best-written melodies ever,” Bergeson says. “We kept on trying to beat that melody and just couldn’t do it, and so we were like, ‘Let’s just interpolate it.’”

Once they accepted that idea, it came together quickly. They incorporated the “Down” chorus melody to start and to end the stanza around Bergeson’s B-section top line, they borrowed the fluttery “dow-ow-ow-ow-own” answer voice at the end of the chorus, and they ended each of the first three lines of the chorus with the same word as the original. They also used the “Down” verse melody in the opening section, which they started with the same phrase — “You oughta know” — as Sean’s song.

Still, it was different. For starters, the transcendent attitude of the recession-pop version was replaced with gritty, post-relationship regret, and they insisted on adding their own extra elements. In addition to the B section, the back half of the first verse uses a new melody, even as it incorporates a reflection — “I was just a stupid kid” — that hints at the song’s nostalgic intention.

One of the remaining similarities came when Barham wrote a new rap section for verse two, where Lil Wayne resided in the recession-pop version.

Bergesen created a pinging guitar riff for the intro, and Barham circulated the demo to his team. The reaction was mostly enthusiastic, though the rap seemed too much, and Barham was down to replace it. “I’ve rapped before,” he says. “Everybody’s heard me rap. Let’s sing more.”

They reconvened in the fall and replaced that second-verse rap with a melody that differed from verse one. The new section used “down” in new ways thematically — rain and alcohol pouring down — and added yet another new, bouncy hook: “They’ll keep bringin’ you up, I’ll keep shootin’ ‘em back.”

“That’s the whole thing with interpolations,” Miracle notes. “You’re trying to hit this magical sweet spot between familiar and nostalgic while offering something new.”

Bergeson built a demo with programmed drums, bass and several guitars, then brought in musicians one-by-one to clean it up. Russ Pahl applied atmospheric steel guitar, Matt Menefee replaced a pinging guitar intro with a banjo/mandolin mixture, and veteran Lonnie Wilson inserted real drums into the percussion. Bergeson and Barham layered perhaps a dozen background vocals on top of Barham’s lead performance.

Sean and his “Down” co-writers originally rebuffed the interpolation, but Barham persisted. “I’m like a toddler,” Barham says. “I want to know why I can’t do something, you know. I needed these guys to understand that I had no interest in changing what they already thought was perfection, I just wanted to add to it.”

He told Sean’s reps that it would be a single — not just an album cut — and envisioned it working like Shaboozey’s J-Kwon-interpolating “A Bar Song (Tipsy).” He was persuasive. They granted permission, and he did indeed release it as a single. Sony Music Nashville issued it to country radio on March 26.

Barham also shot a video that paid homage to Sean’s original clip, reprising a few of its club scenes and wearing a grill on his teeth as a tribute to Lil Wayne. As he’s played it live, Barham has seen “Breakup (Down)” connect as he’d hoped, the recession-pop influence breaking through during the country’s latest economic slide.

“The parents may be my age or close to it, so they know the original song, and then the kids, they don’t really know the original,” Barham says. “To see the two generations collide has been so freaking cool.”

Three years after he created Interscope imprint Amusement Records specifically to sign Chappell Roan, Billboard can exclusively announce Thursday (May 28) that producer Dan Nigro has added a second artist to his roster: Devon Again, an alt-pop tastemaker currently gearing up to open for Olivia Rodrigo on tour.

The new signing comes ahead of the Colorado-raised singer-songwriter’s country-tinged major label debut single, “Snake the Drain,” which arrives June 2 in the lead-up to Devon’s very first full-length album. “I found myself in a place where I felt like if I wanted to keep making music, I would have to shift my process to make it feel fun and silly again,” she says of the track in a statement. “This song felt like giving myself permission to explore a more headstrong, confident and playful side of myself.”

Devon’s most recent project, a vibrant five-track EP titled In Order, dropped in November last year via Pizzaslime, the clothing brand-turned-label founded by Nick Santiago and Matt Hwang in partnership with Diplo‘s label Mad Decent for distribution. Spawning standout streaming successes such as the loved-up “Cherry Cola” and emotional heavyweight “Never Goes Away,” the project was “really heavy and emotionally difficult” to make, Devon says, whereas “Snake the Drain” was “the song that helped [her] play in the mud again.”

“Devon embodies everything that I look for when signing an artist,” Nigro tells Billboard in a statement. “A clearly defined vision with the ability to weave between beautifully crafted songs that pull on your heartstrings and then writing playfully bold pop with ease … without compromising any of her spirit.”

Known for his work with Rodrigo and Conan Gray, Nigro formed Amusement Records in 2023 to give longtime collaborator Roan some backing after Atlantic Records dropped her from her first label deal in 2020. He produced her critically acclaimed debut The Rise & Fall of a Midwest Princess, which reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. With Rodrigo, he’s scored four Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 hits — most recently April’s “Drop Dead” — and two Billboard 200-topping albums, Sour and Guts, which will soon be followed by the singer’s Nigro-produced third LP, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.

“It’s about finding the person I want to invest 300 days of my time with,” he previously told Billboard of whether he’d sign more artists after Roan, three years before Devon would join Amusement. “It’s not simply finding an artist that I like and thinking that they’re great. It’s about, ‘Do we feel a connection that we can spend so much time making something and then promote it and find the right creative teams and annoy you about content?’ It’s everything.”

Now based in Los Angeles, Devon is hard at work on her debut album, which she describes as being full of “boy music.” In November, she’ll accompany Rodrigo on the Unraveled Tour, opening for arena dates across North America through February of next year.

Prior to In Order, Devon self-released her first single, “Suburbia,” in 2021. Songs such as “Burn Down,” “All My Fault,” “Shitty People” and “Head” followed, culminating in her 2022 EP Pee.

“Devon is an incredible artist, songwriter and performer,” Matt Morris, executive vp of A&R at Interscope Records, tells Billboard in a statement. “[She] imbues her distinct perspective into everything she does. We’ve been fans of her for quite some time and are honored to partner with her alongside our friend Daniel Nigro and Amusement Records.”

Bruce Springsteen is continuing to call out Donald Trump on stage, this time declaring the president’s “anti-weaponization fund” an “American outrage.”

At his Wednesday night (May 27) concert in Washington, D.C., Springsteen tore into the Justice Department’s new plan to set aside nearly $1.8 billion for those who have “suffered weaponization and lawfare,” language that detractors have speculated refers to people who faced legal repercussions for their involvement in the riots that followed shortly after Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

“We have a president who wants to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate and reward people who attacked our nation’s capitol,” the Boss lamented between songs at Nationals Park stadium. “Attacked our democracy. Assaulted our police officers on Jan. 6. This is an American outrage, and this is happening now.”

“This American tragedy can only be stopped by the American people,” Springsteen added, earning applause. “There is no one coming to save us. We’ve got to do it ourselves … Let them hear you at the f–king White House!”

Billboard has reached out to the White House for comment.

The DOJ first published its intention to establish a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” on May 18. It comes as part of the settlement agreement in Trump’s now-dismissed lawsuit against the IRS and Treasury Department over the leak of his tax returns in 2019, and it will offer monetary relief to applicants who feel they’ve been mistreated by law enforcement.

“The machinery of government should never be weaponized against any American, and it is this department’s intention to make right the wrongs that were previously done while ensuring this never happens again,” said Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement at the time. “As part of this settlement, we are setting up a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.”

The fund will surely be appealing to many of the insurrectionists who faced legal consequences for the Jan. 6 riots on Capitol Hill — nearly 1,600 of whom the POTUS pardoned on his first day back in office in January 2025 — which Springsteen and others believe was the point of the fund to begin with. The Rock & Roll Hall of Famer is well known at this point for slamming Trump on stage and off, and the president has personally fired back at him numerous times over the past year or so.

“Bad, and very boring singer, Bruce Springsteen, who looks like a dried up prune … has long had a horrible and incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in April after the singer condemned ICE at a show in Minneapolis. “MAGA SHOULD BOYCOTT HIS OVERPRICED CONCERTS, WHICH SUCK.”

Following his stop in D.C., Springsteen has one more date scheduled for the Land of Hope & Dreams Tour. The trek will close out on Saturday (May 30) in Philadelphia.