Latin music revenue hit a record high of $685 million in the first half of 2024, according to the RIAA’s mid-year Latin music report released Thursday (Oct. 10). According to the analysis, Latin increased 7% compared to the first half of 2023, led by paid streaming subscriptions, which account for two-thirds of U.S. Latin revenue. Furthermore, Latin music revenues in the first half of the year once again grew faster than the overall recorded music market. 

While the report doesn’t specify which artists or genres are directly driving this mid-year record high, Latin music’s bump can be a contributed to a number of artists who are fueling a movement. From Karol G to Peso Pluma, who are still riding high from a historic 2023, and newcomers like Xavi, it’s safe to say that a diverse collective of acts have helped usher another record year for Latin music.

“Latin music keeps soaring to new heights — setting US revenue records as we report today and driving the culture forward across the globe,” Michele Ballantyne, RIAA president & chief operating officer, said in a statement. “There’s a reason Latin is the fastest-growing genre on US streaming services. Fans just can’t get enough of its undeniable energy, emotion, power and joy.”

The RIAA’s mid-year report explains that paid streaming subscriptions contributed more than two-thirds of total revenues. Overall, U.S. paid subscriptions reached a record average of 99 million in 2024 and delivered 68% of total revenues for US Latin music. Combined revenues from ad-supported, on-demand streaming services (including YouTube, Vevo, the free version of Spotify and social media platforms) provide nearly 25% of the total value of Latin music, compared to 10% for overall recorded music revenues.

Meanwhile, digital services (including paid and ad-supported streaming, online radio options, and digital downloads) provided 98% of total Latin music revenues in the first half of 2024. Physical revenues experienced a growth, up 21% compared to the same period in 2022.

“Latin music in the US continues to break through and reach new heights, now providing nearly 8% of total recorded music revenues in the country. Strong growth across all major formats — including a doubling of physical revenues — has enabled Latin music’s diverse mix of new and established artists’ innovative styles to fuel sustained momentum for over a decade,” added Matt Bass, RIAA vice president, research.

In April, the RIAA reported that, for a second year in a row, Latin music revenues in the U.S. had exceeded the $1 billion mark on the wings of 16% growth that outpaced the overall market.

The 35th anniversary Billboard Latin Music Week, which will feature exclusive panels, conversations and performances by Latin music’s biggest stars, will take place Oct. 14-18 in Miami. Purchase tickets to the 2024 Billboard Latin Music Week here.

The countdown to the Cure‘s return is just a few weeks away and on Wednesday (Oct. 9) the Robert Smith-led group pulled back the black curtain a bit more on their anticipated Songs of a Lost World album by revealing the track list and latest single, “A Fragile Thing.”

The swirling, midtempo rocker is classic Cure, with a morose, nearly minute-long instrumental intro that sets up a most on-brand tale of devastating love. “Every time you kiss me/ I could cry she said/ Don’t tell me how you miss me/ I could die tonight of a broken heart/ This loneliness has changed me/ We have been too far apart,” Smith sings.

In a clip from an upcoming interview about the band’s 14th studio album — its first since 2008’s 4:13 Dream — Smith talked about the inspiration behind the latest taste of the long-awaited LP. “It’s the ‘love song’ of the album, but it’s not really a love song in the way that [1989’s] ‘Lovesong’ is a love song,” he said. “It’s about love and how love is the most enduring of emotions, I think. It’s the most powerful emotion, and it’s incredibly resilient. And yet at the same time, incredibly fragile.”

Realizing that that sentiment sounds like a paradox, Smith added, “I know, and doesn’t really make much sense. But I think you know what I mean. You feel sometimes you’re in danger of destroying something, and yet you kind of know that it can’t be destroyed.” Smith also noted that he struggled to write the song, which was originally titled “Kill the Sun,” before it drastically changed into a final form that admittedly might be a bit too specific to his brand of heartache.

“But I’m hoping that it resonates with other people because it’s a universal thing,” Smith said.

The eight-song album will feature the previously released single “Alone,” as well as “A Fragile Thing,” three tracks the band debuted live on their 2022-2023 tour, “I Can Never Say Goodbye,” “And Nothing Is Forever,” and the recently teased “Endsong,” and three no one has heard yet: “Warsong,” “Drone:NoDrone,” and “All I Ever Am.”

The band recently announced two intimate pre-release shows in the UK slated to take place on Oct. 30 and 31. Songs of aLost World is due out on Nov. 1.

Watch the “A Fragile Thing” lyric video and Smith’s interview snippet below.

More than 100 artists have banded together for the massive Cardinals at the Window compilation featuring previously unreleased recordings to benefit the victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. Proceeds from sales of the $10 album — which is out today on Bandcamp — will go to a number of organizations on the ground in hard-hit Asheville, N.C., including Rural Organizing and Resilience, BeLoved Asheville and the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina.

Among the artists who provided previously unreleased songs for the record are: the Mountain Goats (“Hand of Death”), Sharon Van Etten (“Weather”), Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats (“Smilin’”), the Go-Betweens (“Ashes on the Lawn”), Sylvan Esso (“One More”), Real Estate (“Pink Sky”), Hotline TNT (“Candle”), Geologist (“Route 9 Falls”) and Lonnie Holley (“Tonky’s Rocket Ship”).

Others offered up live recordings or covers, including: R.E.M. (“King of Birds”), Phish (“Sand”), Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit with Jerry Douglas (“Children of Children”), Jeff Tweedy with Karly Hartzman (“How Hard It Is For Desert to Die”), the War on Drugs (“Harmonia’s Dream”), Fleet Foxes (“Blue Ridge Mountains”), King Gizzard & the Wizard Lizard (“Change”), Feist (“Borrow Trouble”), the Decemberists (“William Fitzwilliam”) and Tune-Yards (“Hypnotized”).

The compilation also featured songs from Angel Olsen, S.G. Goodman and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Lambchop, Tyler Childers, Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, Helado Negro, the Avett Brothers, Kevin Morby, Drive-By Truckers and many more; click here to see the full track list and to contribute.

A number of artists have stepped up to offer help to the wide swath of Americans who were impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton, including Taylor Swift, who donated $5 million to relief efforts in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, according to a statement from Feeding America on Wednesday.

Helene made landfall in Florida on Sept. 26 and brought with her historic storm surge and lashing winds that resulted in 230 deaths to date and billions of dollars in damage to homes and infrastructure. Milton’s landfall in Florida on Wednesday (Oct. 9) as a category 3 storm is expected to leave an equally destructive path in its wake.

Other acts doing their part include Luke Combs and Eric Church, who announced their Concert for Carolina benefit show this week, which will take place on Oct. 26 at North Carolina’s Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium, where they’ll be joined by James Taylor and Billy Strings. In addition, Metallica pledged $100K to Helene relief and Dolly Parton donated $1 million of her own money to help relief efforts, as well as another $1 million through her various business entities to help affected areas.

Morgan Wallen donated $500,000 to the Red Cross‘ hurricane relief efforts through his Morgan Wallen Foundation, Miranda Lambert’s MuttNation Foundation donated $100,000 to help animals impacted by the hurricane and Sturgill Simpson announced a one-off Oct. 21 benefit show at the Koka Booth Amphitheater in Cary, N.C. with proceeds earmarked for the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund.

If you’ve noticed that since announcing their Live ’25 world reunion tour Oasis have not done a single interview, well, get used to it. According to singer Liam Gallagher, he and older brother Noel Gallagher are not interested into being baited by reporters into re-igniting the sibling rivalry that broke up the band and led to a 16-year lay-off, so they’re keeping mum.

“We don’t want to do interviews coz we’re scared of the media asking us intrusive questions and trying to pick holes in our relationship,” wrote Liam early Thursday morning (Oct. 10). When a fan cheekily responded with some Liam-boosting flattery, the “Wonderwall” vocalist was totally there for it.

“I think Noel doesn’t want to do interviews with you because you’re funnier,” the fan wrote, with Liam responding, “RESPEK.” He had a cheekier response to another X user to asked about a potential joint interview. “Can’t be arsed,” Liam explained, adding “we’re not doing any” and “they ain’t getting 1” as fans persisted with the same line of questioning.

Liam’s cheeky X persona has been wholly in evidence since the brothers reunited, including last month when a fan asked if he was going to stop “tweeting s–t about Noel” now that they’ve made up. “Nope it’s all done, peace has prevailed, he’s the man,” Liam wrote. “I can’t wait to be on stage with him blowing him kisses in between each song.”

Oasis, who split in 2009, recently expanded their 2025 reunion tour, announcing two stadium dates in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. “People of the land down under. You better run – you better take cover… We are coming. You are most welcome. Oasis will tour Australia in 2025!” the band announced earlier this week.

The Gallaghers will kick off the North American leg of their tour with a two-night stand at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium (Aug. 24-25), followed by a gig at Chicago’s Soldier Field on August 28. They’ll then move on to two nights at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey (August 31, Sept. 1), before winding down the U.S. run with two shows at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles (Sept. 6- 7).

The tour will kick off with a run of UK/Irish dates, beginning on July 4-5 with two shows at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, followed by a five-night stand in their hometown Manchester at Heaton Park (July 11, 12, 16, 19, 20).

Check out Liam’s comments below.

The Velveteers are opening the campaign for their sophomore album, A Million Knives, on a bit of a historic note.

The just-released first single, “Go Fly Away,” is a collaboration with the Black Keys — and, in fact, marks the first time Dan Auerbach, who signed the Denver trio to his Easy Eye Sound label and produces the group, and Patrick Carney have produced something together for another act. “Pat’s played drums on some records I (produced) and stuff,” Auerbach tells Billboard. “With the Velveteers he was very hands-on, and it was all of us working in the studio.”

Velveteers frontwoman Demi Demitro says Carney was a periodic visitor to the A Million Knives sessions, which took place last December at Auerbach’s Easy Eye studio in Nashville. “We didn’t know it was that first time, but it was really cool to work with both Dan and Patrick,” Demitro says. Carney, in fact, started the songwriting process off with the opening keyboard line, which Auerbach says came from a music sample library. “We just kind of worked off it from there,” Demitro recalls. “Patrick’s drumming on the song, both of the drummers in my band (Baby Pottersmith and Jonny Fig) are playing, then I added this heavy guitar for the after-chorus. After we sat with the song for a little bit we added some overdubs, just to kind of put the little sparkling touches to it.”

Auerbach says the idea of a Velveteers-Black Keys combination was organic — and perhaps inevitable. “We’d done some touring together and all of us are friends,” he says, “and I think Pat was excited to get in the studio, too, and work on a song with them. That was a really cool experience.”

“Go Fly Away,” however, is the only song constructed like that for A Million Knives. The rest of the 13-song set — due out Feb. 14 — comes from a prolific spate for the trio, while and after touring to support its 2021 debut Nightmare Daydream, which included stadium dates opening for Guns N’ Roses and Smashing Pumpkins.

“We were on tour for what seemed like two years straight,” Demitro says, “so every chance we would get when we were at home we were writing. We probably had 30 songs that were written. We had about a month before we were going into the studio, so we just narrowed them down to the ones that felt like they were coming in best.” Auerbach adds that “you just have to go with your gut” in the selection process. “I tried to help them, but they have very strong opinions about what they do and how they want it represented. I’m only there to make recommendations. They had all these tremendous songs with big, giant hooks and they were feeling very ambitious and confident. That really just made it fun.”

Much of A Million Knives is, as Auerbach describes, aggressive and heavy, while “Go Fly Away” marks a transition into four more measured and melodic songs — a kind of calm after the storm.

“You could say that,” acknowledges Demitro, adding that the songs mostly deal with “the different forms of heartbreak, in a lot of different ways…It was definitely a purposeful decision for the sequence; it felt like all those (later) songs — like ‘Heaven,’ ‘Go Fly Away,’ ‘Up Here’ — it felt like those songs were meant to be next to each other. Once you get to that part of the album it felt like this big, emotional release.”

In addition to Auerbach and Carney, A Million Knives includes other guests, particularly on guitar, including regular Easy Eye cohort Tom Bukovac, Cage the Elephant’s Nick Bockrath, and the Reigning Sound’s Greg Cartwright. “It was just my experience and my gut and what I thought might help the song or a situation,” Auerbach explains. “We don’t always use the stuff we try, but you’ve got to throw things at the wall and see what sticks.”

Demitro says she “felt less confident” in making a second album, explaining that “once people start listening to your music and you have an audience, you have the tendency to second-guess yourself a little more.” Nevertheless, she considers A Million Knives to be “a lot more honest than its predecessor,” which is something she was wanting to accomplish, “just being a little more vulnerable with how I actually felt. I think on our last album there are a lot of metaphors, and on this album I wanted to say things more as they are, which I think I did.”

The Velveteers are currently on the road with headlining dates through Oct. 25, with plans for “a lot more touring” during 2025, according to Demitro. In the meantime, the trio will be working on setting up A Million Knives for release, including more singles and, Demitro promises, “a lot of visual art pieces coming. I think we’re really excited to share everything we’ve been working on.”