With 2026 marking the 20th anniversary of Hannah Montana — and, effectively, Miley Cyrus‘ entertainment career — the pop star has been brought up numerous times as a prime candidate for Super Bowl Halftime Show headliner next year. But what does she think about that possibility?

In a Wednesday (March 18) cover story interview with Variety honoring the upcoming Hannah Montana anniversary special, Cyrus finally shared her thoughts. “I always think the Super Bowl feels like too much pressure,” she began. “I would have to do the mental work of making it not about the Super Bowl, because then you can’t help but go, ‘It’s millions of people, and it’s the most watched thing in the world.’” 

That said, the Grammy winner believes she could pull it off, so long as could approach the event as a celebration of her two-decade career rather than focusing on the more than 100 million people watching her perform. She took a similar approach to Hannah Montana 20th Anniversary Special, which premieres March 24 on Disney+.

“But if I could find a way to make it exactly what the Hannah-versary was — taking a journey through the discography and appreciating each song, each era for what it is — I think I could find it in myself,” she added of the Big Game.

Hannah Montana kickstarted Cyrus’ career in 2006, propelling the then-teenager to global superstardom and serving as a launching pad for her for pop music career. Since then, she’s scored 63 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 — including No. 1 singles “Wrecking Ball” and “Flowers” — and has had five albums peak atop the Billboard 200.

With such a sprawling catalog, many fans think Cyrus would be perfect to headline the next Super Bowl — taking place on Feb. 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. — after Bad Bunny conquered the stage in 2026. It also can’t hurt that she’s close with Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s camp after collaborating with the former on “II Most Wanted.” The rapper’s Roc Nation has curated the halftime show performer every year since 2019.

See Cyrus on the cover of Variety below.

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Starlite Occident Marbella unveiled 18 new international artists confirmed for its 2026 edition on Wednesday (March 18), including Gloria Trevi, Love of Lesbian, Rick Astley, Mora, Kool and the Gang, and Elena Rose.

The two-month “boutique” festival, which this year celebrates its 15th anniversary, has also confirmed Iván Ferreiro, Miguel Ríos, Alan Parsons, Malú, Vanesa Martín, Rosario, Pastora Soler, Gipsy Kings featuring Nicolas Reyes, Antonio José, Álvaro de Luna and Nil Moliner.

They join a previously announced lineup headlined by Lenny Kravitz, Maroon 5, Ozuna and Yandel, as well as Grupo Frontera, Manuel Turizo, Danny Ocean, Carlos Rivera, Gente de Zona, Mau y Ricky, Elvis Crespo and more.

Held every summer in a natural open-air quarry in Marbella, Spain, Starlite Occident brings together rock, pop, Latin music, electronic music, jazz and international vocal powerhouses, offering an experience that combines top-tier concerts, close proximity to the artists and a premium environment far from the typical mega-festival model.

This year, it returns from June to August, with exact dates yet to be announced. For more information about the program and to purchase tickets, check out the festival’s website.

With more than 350,000 attendees per edition and an international audience representing nearly half of its visitors, according to a press release, the festival has solidified itself as one of Marbella’s key cultural, tourist and economic drivers. At the same time, it maintains a strong philanthropic component through the Starlite Foundation, which has raised millions of euros for international charitable projects, integrating philanthropy into the heart of its mission.

Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge joined Nvidia executive Richard Kerris on stage at Nvidia’s GTC AI conference and expo on Tuesday (March 17) to talk about the opportunities artificial intelligence offers to artists — as long as the right “guardrails” are in place.

The San Jose-based conference, which Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has described as the “Super Bowl of AI,” also featured speakers from OpenAI, Amazon, Uber, PepsiCo, Stanford University and more, speaking to a wide array of topics related to generative AI. In Grainge’s fireside conversation, called “Building the Future of Music and AI,” the top music executive made a point to compare generative AI to technologies of the past, like the drum machine and digital music tools, noting that through partnership, he believes AI can be used to artists’ benefit.

“I love change. I love disruption. I like it in my company,” Grainge said. “It’s the same with technology. We’ve always done everything that we can to lean in. It’s the same with music.”

Read an excerpt of their conversation below:

Kerris: Are there areas that you refuse to compromise on [as the leader of UMG]?

Grainge: Artists and investment… If you’re inspired by something, by a piece of music, by backing someone, it’s an investment. I have to protect the investment. That is the North Star: investment. That means in people, in talent, in ideas, in music, in scenes, in genres, and now, obviously for the last 15 to 18 years, it’s investment in technology, too.

When Spotify started, there was a lot of fear, concern, the threat of it, but you saw it differently. How did you see it as a tool in your for your company?

Every time there’s been any change — from cassettes into vinyl and obviously digital — I saw the entire creative, and sometimes the investment, community be concerned by it. I heard all the negatives about digital recording. I mean, that may sound bizarre now, but there were concerns in the artist community… I’m used to new developments and people getting used to things. Generally, when people don’t know what the future can look like, they’re obviously reticent.

You were the first company to do a deal with Facebook, I think that was a real turning point in the industry.

We were the first people to lean in and make a deal with what was Facebook at the time and again, there were always concerns about that [among artists]. I’m used to dealing with leadership and how you persuade people into understanding what the future can look like. I’m very patient. We’re quite sequential, and if it doesn’t happen overnight, it doesn’t bother me, because where the product’s right, there’s positive inevitability to it. So [UMG was also early on] UGC, I see a lot of what we’ve developed with UGC [in AI] and [that’s] why I’m so positive about AI, in terms of its relationship with the music, the songs, the artistic expression and how it can be used, enjoyed, operated, and also how it can be monetized.

How do you look at AI like from where you’re at today, and where do you want it to go?

There’s been so much technology I mentioned briefly: digital, CD, vinyl, we talked about UGC. You [can also] look back at sampling, look back at the Fairlight, look back at drum machines. [Some believed] synthesizers were going to be the end of musicians. It was going to be the end of orchestras. But guess what? Musicians started to create with those machines… There’s all the DNA [of those previous innovations in AI]. As long as [artists are] respected, as long as there’s guardrails, as long as they’re not taken completely advantage of, stylistically and creatively… [we will] completely start to see over this next period where what the power of the possibility is [with AI]… [We are working on] partner products [in AI] that we’re going to be talking about in the next three, five, 10 years, and that’s [going to be] so powerful. That’s what’s so exciting, and for me, that’s what’s so inevitable [about AI in music].

You talk about artist-first AI. Tell me, what are the non-negotiable parts of where you approach AI with an artist?

I think that an artist has the right to have their voice and their lyrics to be their work. I know that Taylor Swift‘s voice shouldn’t be used on someone else’s music, for example… That’s the most important thing. I can’t have an artist’s work be mimicked into something that is completely offensive to them, you and I wouldn’t want that for each other, and it’s my job to make sure that we don’t have it happen.

Jason Aldean pulled off a difficult trick with his new single, “Don’t Tell on Me.”

On one hand, it’s a return to his past, arguably grabbing a harder rock stance than he’s taken on a single in more than a decade. On the other hand, it’s a new version of rock influence. Where he applied AC/DC-inspired chords in 2008’s “She’s Country,” the guitars in “Don’t Tell on Me” owe more to Foo Fighters.

“Country music is almost kind of the new rock ‘n’ roll,” Aldean says. “We’ve, I feel like, always been a little bit on the on the forefront of that — sort of pushing the genre a little bit.”

The latest iteration of that sound is driven in part by his band. Bassist Tully Kennedy and guitarist Kurt Allison have been with Aldean since before he reached the national spotlight, and they’ve become key sources for new material, too, co-writing a large percentage of his albums since the onset of COVID. They penned “Don’t Tell on Me” with Aldean in mind, crafting it to his voice, but gearing it to themselves at the same time; they were writing something they would want to perform on stage.

“We’ve been playing music together for almost 30 years at this point,” Aldean says. “They’ve done everything I’ve ever done. They’ve played on every record, they’ve played every show I’ve ever played. And so, nobody knows me better than those guys.”

Kennedy brought the title and basic premise for “Don’t Tell on Me” to BMG Music in Nashville for a writing session with Allison, John Morgan and Lydia Vaughan (“Bar None,” “If I Didn’t Love You”). The song would, in essence, personify the heart — giving it the ability to participate in the singer’s attempt at deception.

“When you’re going through something, the only thing that really knows the truth is your heart,” Kennedy says. “So you try to put up a front to people – you know, your friends – and really, it can be kind of a charade when it’s all said and done. So [it’s] writing something about that, where it’s just the heart not tipping your hand.”

Kennedy didn’t exactly tip his own hand to start the day. Instead, he put the onus on Allison to set a direction.

“He’ll usually come in with a title,” Allison notes. “He won’t tell me the title. He says, like, ‘Hey, what kind of tracks do you have for the day?’ And me never really knowing what he’s got in the back of his head, I’m kind of wondering what I should play him. When I played a version of the song as a track idea, he was like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s it. We’ve got to write to this.’ And then he told me the title.”

While it was a rocker, geared for a guy to sing, Vaughan wasn’t in the least bit out of place in the room.

“She was kind of an emo chick back in the day,” Morgan says. “She’s got that kind of rock edge that she can pull out and put that hat on.”

Allison’s track started with the Foo-like guitar stabs at the beginning, and they took it from there, knowing the payoff line that would arrive at the end of the chorus. The verses were pensive, restrained, using a dark, 3 Doors Down-like melody to introduce the singer’s efforts at keeping his pain a secret.

The chorus broke into a higher melody and an anthemic vibe, ideal for playing with driving abandon. With each passing stanza, the level of despair increased, reaching its peak at the bridge, where the phrasing changed to elongated lines that acknowledged the stress the man is putting on his heart.

“The bridge, to me, is just that part of desperation where it’s just like the final straw,” Morgan says. “You’re like, ‘Please, I gotta count on you.’ It’s a stick-to-your-guns kind of thing, and so it just kind of doubled down on what the hook idea is.”

Before the write was over, they repurposed that bridge, making it a counter-melody for the closing vocal vamp as they assembled the demo with Morgan on vocals, Kennedy on bass and Allison playing the rest of the instruments as he produced it. They had, they believed, all the songs lined up for Aldean’s next album – Songs About Us, due April 24 – but the writers reached out, just to let him know they had something that he might want to record early to get a head start on the next album. Aldean was impressed when he heard it.

“The guitar stabs and stuff off the top, it’s just like, ‘Okay, this is a little more rock ‘n’ roll,’” he says. “Kind of gets your attention off the top.”

Aldean determined “Don’t Tell on Me” needed to go on Songs About Us and to join “How Far Does a Goodbye Go” as one of the first two singles. They recorded it with producer Michael Knox (Montgomery Gentry, Trace Adkins) at Treasure Isle, a studio in Nashville’s Berry Hill section that counts Peter Coleman (The Knack, Pat Benatar) among its primary engineers.

“We wanted to make it sound very authentic and very rock,” Knox says. “We hadn’t did that in a while. We were in drum-loop world for a while on some of our singles, and Jason’s like, ‘I need a single just to kick their teeth in.’ And this was the song.”

They cut the bulk of the instrumental track on the third take, with only a few overdubs – particularly Allison’s short, buzzy guitar solo – after the fact. He also embedded a backing guitar part in the opening verse that approximated Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” an other-worldly, off-kilter sound that was achieved in that era by using a rotary Leslie amp.

“I’m a huge fan of those ‘90s rock bands,” Allison says. “Fuel used to use that kind of sound a lot, too. And I’ve always kind of been a Leslie-sound fan. It’s hard to use it [in country] and, I think, have it be appropriate and work.”

The track felt haunting and raw, conveying the muscular grit that’s typically part of Aldean’s sound. “I don’t get caught up in perfection,” Knox says. “That’s just not what we do. We’re trailer-park dirt, rock ‘n’ roll country, baby. That’s what we do.”

Aldean sang the final vocals for “Don’t Tell on Me” six times, giving Knox plenty of takes to use in compiling the final performance. And he threw in a series of shadowy counter-melodies and other extra lines – including a distant-sounding vocal part in the intro – that represented another change in the current iteration of Aldean from his original sound.

“We did a lot more ad-libbing-type stuff than I ever did on some of the early records,” Aldean says. “It’s a little bit of a different strategy than we’ve had before. I’ll go in and sing some stuff that doesn’t work. And we’re like, ‘Let’s go again.’ And we’ll keep messing around until we figure out things that work for the song.”

“How Far Does a Goodbye Go” reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart dated Feb. 21, and Broken Bow released “Don’t Tell on Me” to country radio via PlayMPE on Feb. 26. It debuted at No. 21 on Country Airplay and rests at No. 32 in its second week on the list dated March 21.

Outside of an acoustic performance, the band hasn’t played it live yet, but they plan to debut it in its full rockin’ glory when they return to the road April 10 in New Orleans. “It’s gonna be really, really fun to play,” Kennedy predicts. “That was the whole point: Give us something aggressive that we’re gonna feel cool playing.”

It fits the veneer that Aldean projects: hardened on the surface, though there’s a vulnerability underneath that allows him to inhabit the emotion in a song, even when that means there’s desperation in the lyrics.

“We want to be tough guys,” he says. “We don’t want to let anybody know that they got the best of us, or that we’re sad, or that we’re heartbroken or anything. But in reality, it’s the case. I think that that’s something people can relate to.”