It has been (another) good year so far for Bailey Zimmerman. The country artist reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 this spring with his feature on BigXthaPlug’s “All the Way” from the latter’s forthcoming country collaboration project. Then, Zimmerman followed that with “Backup Plan,” his inspirational new single featuring Luke Combs, which became his ninth career Hot 100 entry and has reached a No. 36 high in its six weeks on the chart.

Zimmerman and Combs debuted the stomping “Backup Plan” during Combs’ headlining set at Stagecoach in April — though the song’s roots were planted well prior to that performance. According to the track’s producer, Austin Shawn, it was initially created because people compiling the soundtrack to 2024 film Twisters asked Zimmerman to send along songs for consideration. “We sent that one, but ‘Hell or High Water’ landed better for the movie,” Shawn, 27, tells Billboard.

“Backup Plan” is just the latest extension in the winning partnership between Zimmerman and Shawn, which started with the former’s first EP, Leave the Light On, and includes the hit songs “Rock and a Hard Place” and “Fall In Love.”

Below, Shawn talks about creating “Backup Plan,” his working relationship with Zimmerman and what listeners can expect on his second album.

What did you think the first time you heard “Backup Plan”?

We heard it around early 2023, and I immediately loved the song because it reminded me of “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. It had a bit of red dirt, a bit of country, a lot of the hookiness of modern country, which is exactly what me and Bailey tend to lean [to] when we make songs. The original demo was just an acoustic guitar and a vocal that Tucker Beathard [co-writer, along with Jimi Bell and Jon Sherwood] did.

Were you involved in the decision to add Luke Combs to the song?

It worked out really well because when Bailey did the vocals, we were thinking, “Who could feature?” When I finished the first rough mix on it, Bailey was like, “Should I text it to Luke?” Luke didn’t get back to him for a month — he was probably just living with it. And then he was like, “Song rips, I’m in,” out of nowhere. We had not gone to anyone else. It was either Luke or nothing.

Were you together in the studio for Combs adding his part?

Luke is, first of all, one of the best dudes in the world. I sent the session over to [his producer] Chip Matthews and then me and Bailey went over to Chip’s house and Luke cut the vocal. We spent about two hours talking and rambling on and laughing and telling jokes — and about 10 minutes doing the vocal. It was mostly just a big hangout session; barely any work was being done. Luke is so good, he can do three passes of the song, and it sounds like it’s a finished thing.

Thematically, it’s like Combs’ song “Doin’ This,” in that if being an artist is your path no matter what, you cannot have a backup plan. Is the end result similar to what the demo sounded like? 

The original demo was just an acoustic guitar in a voice memo that Tucker Beathard did. Tucker is one of our good buddies, too, and we write a lot of songs with him, so he usually just plays his guitar and his vocal and sings it into his phone.

From the very beginning, the song felt like an overcoming adversity type of song, so we wanted it to be big. We wanted it to be like an anthem. We wanted it to be something that is charged up. We had to paint the picture from there and carry it into that big, beat-your-chest type of energetic song.

So that stomp feel wasn’t there, but you heard the possibility of that.

It was completely different. It was like someone sitting here in your living room just playing it for you or around the campfire. It was good, though, because the sentiment was there and it gave us all the runway to paint the picture the way we wanted to.

You’ve been collaborating with Zimmerman since the beginning. How has your working relationship evolved?

When you work on so much music together over the years, you learn how to communicate and decipher each other’s emotions, feelings, words — I know when Bailey loves a song, doesn’t love a song. He’ll know when I think a decision that he wants to make is good or when I don’t. That helps us get round the bend on songwriting, production, direction. We’re like brothers. He’s gone through a lot in his personal life; I’ve gone through a lot in my personal life. We’ve been there for each other outside music, too.

This is the second song we’ve heard from Zimmerman’s second album, Different Night, Same Rodeo, which is due out Aug. 8. Anything else you can tell us about the album?

Absolutely. A lot of the stuff is familiar, and then there’s a good batch of songs that go outside of the box where we’ve really pushed the boundaries. There’s a couple of awesome features on the record. There’s familiarity, there’s evolution and there’s a little bit of something for all demographics of music too, not just country.

A version of this story appears in the June 7, 2025, issue of Billboard.

Kesha just can’t get enough in the video for her new single, “Boy Crazy.”

In the self-directed visual posted Tuesday (June 17), the pop star is surrounded by a diverse cast of men wearing varying amounts of clothing as she sits down for a feast in a rodeo-themed restaurant, where things unravel into chaos as the group ravishes the food and drinks — and each other — on the table. In other shots, a nearly nude Kesha rides on the back of a topless man while teasing him with a piñata and sprays another almost-naked gentleman with a hose.

Perhaps the most memorable scene in the project — which also featured direction from Brett Loudermilk and Zain Curtis — comes at the very end, with Kesha looking angelic as she breastfeeds a grown man wearing nothing but his underwear.

“Berlin to Bombay, New York to L.A./ Tokyo to Tahoe, boys are my cocaine,” she sings on the electro-pop track. “Bikers and the dumb bros, daddies and the gym hoes/ Prowling like a kitty cat, I want to get you all alone.” 

Following singles “Joyride,” “Delusional” and “Yippee-Ki-Yay,” “Boy Crazy” marks the latest release from Kesha’s upcoming album, . (Period), which will arrive July 4. The LP will be the artist’s first under her own independent label after finishing her contract with Kemosabe Records, which ended after a now-settled legal battle with founder Dr. Luke over Kesha’s claims that he drugged and raped her at a 2005 party — all of which he has vehemently denied.  

Kesha has been open about how reclaiming control over her career has been both emotional and fulfilling, with the singer telling Jennifer Hudson in May, “It’s been all of my vision, all of my words, a lot of hard work, a lot of joy … Really coming back home to myself and feeling what freedom really looks like, feels like, sounds like.”

Watch Kesha’s “Boy Crazy” music video above.

When Atlantic Records’ Kevin Weaver was approached about the soundtrack to F1, he says the label didn’t face much competition. “The successes that we’ve had speak for themselves,” he notes, which include recent smash soundtracks to films including Barbie and Twisters. Both boasted chart-topping superstars and spawned multiple hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — and, in the case of Barbie: The Album, even landed three Grammys and an Academy Award. Which is partly why, Weaver adds, “We do get a lot of opportunities to see things early and first.”

Weaver, Atlantic’s president of the West Coast, was first approached about F1 last fall by David Taylor, head of music at Apple TV+ and Apple Original Films. He was then introduced to director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who showed him several scenes from the Brad Pitt-starring Formula 1 racing drama and discussed opportunities for music. “At that point, it felt undeniable to me,” Weaver recalls. “We knocked the deal out in less than a week — that is unheard of.”

Weaver oversaw and produced F1: The Album — which received a kickoff at the Miami Grand Prix in April and will arrive June 27 alongside the film — with Atlantic executive vp/co-head of pop/rock A&R Brandon Davis and senior vp of A&R and marketing Joseph Khoury. This will be Atlantic’s first soundtrack release since restructuring as Atlantic Music Group, with Weaver sharing his gratitude for the “trust and support” from the new leadership team, including CEO Elliot Grainge, GM Tony Talamo and COO Zach Friedman. “From the very start with our launch at the Miami Grand Prix through each weekly single release, we’re lucky to have a team that is so dialed in,” he says.

Still, Weaver believes securing the deal might have been the easiest part of a process that has yielded one of the more genre-diverse soundtracks in recent memory, with contributions from Ed Sheeran, Rosé, Chris Stapleton, Myke Towers, Tate McRae, Burna Boy and more. “We try to look into a crystal ball,” he says. “And so as much as we go with the staples like the Ed Sheerans, trying to forecast artists that are going to be having the biggest moments around when we’re releasing the project and when the film comes out is always of critical importance, too.”

Plus, as Weaver says, Formula 1 is a “very global” brand, with the average F1 fan having music taste that is equally wide-ranging. “I went to a bunch of races. I got to spend time with drivers and team principals and immerse myself into the sport. A big part of general strategy was, ‘What are we doing that has a global feel?’ A big part of it was, ‘What kind of music would you hear when you’re in the paddock at an F1 race?’ ”

The A&R experience, as a result, was much different compared with last year’s soundtrack to Twisters, which primarily featured country stars — fitting for a film about chasing tornadoes in central ­Oklahoma. (Twisters: The Album debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard 200.)

Only one artist appears on both projects: Stapleton had an existing song in Twisters and contributed the original track “Bad as I Used To Be” to F1: The Album. “Part of what was exciting was [it would] put Chris on an album and a platform that played in a much broader way than the lane and genre of country music,” Weaver says. “Same thing when I went to Dom Dolla and Tiësto and Peggy Gou: These seminal dance artists saw an opportunity to sit on an album with other global superstars across a lot of different genres, and I think that was part of the coveted nature of why artists really wanted to be a part of this thing.”

For Sheeran in particular, his aptly titled track, “Drive,” came together quickly while he was in the studio with John Mayer and producer Blake Slatkin, saying that “the song fell out of us” after he had seen some of the film. (Dave Grohl is also on the track.) Sheeran recalls how Mayer “just whacked an octave pedal on and went wild” to come up with the song’s riff.

“Movies are my hobby and probably the only thing other than sport that I get, like, starstruck to be part of,” Sheeran adds. “Not just directors or actors or whatever, but being a part of the journey of a movie is so exciting for me.”

Of the album’s 17 tracks, seven singles are already out. McRae’s “Just Keep Watching” has become the first to enter the Hot 100, at No. 33. The song also scored her another No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Pop Songs chart.

“We set out to have multiple hits and to move culture. We always have our own odds of what we think are going to be the records, but then other records come out of nowhere,” Weaver says. “We always felt like the Tate song was going to be big. We always knew the Rosé song [“Messy”] was going to be special and really important. I feel really bullish about the Ed Sheeran song, the Burna Boy song [“Don’t Let Me Drown”], Tiësto and Sexyy Red [“OMG!”]. We have a lot of really strong records here. It boils down to which raise their hand.”

Until then, Weaver is already on to his next project — in fact, his next three are locked in. “I have one I can’t talk about specifically, but all I can say is we are doing the soundtrack for probably the most highly anticipated relevant global media [intellectual property] of our generation,” he teases. “And I think that is going to be a monster.”

This story appears in the June 21, 2025, issue of Billboard.

From Coachella to your couch, Yo Gabba Gabba! is so back.

Fresh off the beloved kid show’s standout performance at Coachella in April — featuring special guests Flavor Flav, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Portugal. The Man and Thundercat — the full library of the original four seasons of Yo Gabba Gabba! is coming to Apple TV+ on Friday.

The news comes alongside the announcement of season 2 of Yo Gabba GabbaLand!, which premiered last summer on Apple TV+ and will return early next year, on Jan. 30, for a brand-new season.

Over nearly 70 episodes spanning from August 2007 to November 2015, the original Nickelodeon series made its mark with its giant, colorful costumed toys (Muno, Foofa, Plex, Brobee and Toodee) and a revolving door of musical guests, including Weezer, Solange, The Roots, Erykah Badu, The Shins and My Chemical Romance. Biz Markie had a regular segment called “Biz’s Beat of the Day,” during which the late “Just a Friend” rapper would demonstrate beatboxing techniques.

Yo Gabba GabbaLand!, which premiered in August 2024, was inspired by the original four-season run, with new host Kammy Kam standing in for O.G. ringleader DJ Lance Rock. The Apple TV+ spin-off also featured a string of music stars in season 1, including Anderson .Paak, Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Flea and Diplo. Wednesday’s (June 18) announcement promises “a new star-studded lineup of ‘Super Music Friends’ and special guests to help kids and families learn life lessons through song, dance and joyful discovery” for season 2.

Back in December, Kammy Kam and the whole Yo Gabba GabbaLand! crew took over NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert, with an audience of small kids infiltrating the workspace and Thundercat coming out to join the crew for a song.

BTS fans’ long wait is nearly over. The K-pop supergroup’s label, BIG Hit, announced on Wednesday morning (June 18) that Suga, the final member of the group awaiting discharge from mandatory military duty in the South Korean army, is preparing to join his bandmates.

“We are excited to bring you the news of SUGA’s upcoming Social Work discharge,” read the statement “SUGA is close to completing his service as a Social Work Personnel and will soon be discharged. No special events are planned on the day of SUGA’s discharge. Overcrowding can pose safety risks, and we sincerely request our fans not to visit the sites in person.
Please convey your warm regards and encouragement in your hearts.”

In addition, Big Hit said, “We are always grateful for your unwavering love and support for SUGA. Our company will continue to put our utmost effort into supporting our artists. Thank you once again for your continued love and support for BTS.”

At press time it was not known exactly when Suga will be released, but when he is discharged he will be last member of the group to complete the nation’s 18-21 month mandatory military service; due to a prior shoulder injury, Suga did an alternate national service. Last week, Jung Kook and Jimin were discharged, joining RM, V, Jin and J-Hope in finishing their obligations, paving the way for the septet to reconvene after they went on hiatus in 2022.

After his discharge last month, J-Hope told fans, “To all the ARMYs who have waited for us in the military, I want to say I am truly, truly grateful. Please wait just a little longer and we will return with a really cool performance.”