In its highest profile catalog acquisition yet, Jonas Group Publishing has purchased the publishing copyrights and recordings of pop hitmaker and songwriter Julia Michaels for an undisclosed price.

The portfolio acquisition includes Michaels’ RIAA four-time platinum certified hit “If The World Was Ending,” which she wrote and recorded with JP Saxe. The portfolio also includes the RIAA 3x platinum “Lose You to Love Me” (recorded by Selena Gomez), the gold-certified “Circles Around This Town” (recorded by Maren Morris), and the Dua Lipa-recorded “Pretty Please.” Other songs in the catalog include the platinum-certified “Heaven,” written and recorded for the Fifty Shades Freed soundtrack, and the gold-certified “I Miss You” with Clean Bandit. Her catalog also includes recordings by Lady Gaga, Shawn Mendes, Maroon 5, Diplo, Britney Spears, Nick Jonas, Noah Kahan, Justin Bieber, Jason Derulo, Keith Urban and Kelsea Ballerini.

“Julia Michaels is a known master of songwriting and is revered across multiple genres of music,” said JGP president Leslie T. DiPiero in a statement. “Julia, along with her manager Beka Tischker and their amazing team, have a choice on who they trust to represent her works. We here at Jonas Group Publishing are truly honored that they have chosen us. Listening to her catalog of songs makes us feel like kids in a candy store!”

“Music is all about passion, and I’m so happy this music lives with Leslie, Kevin and their passionate team that values songwriters and creators,” Michaels added. “I look forward to working with them and growing the reach of these songs.”

“My family and I have been big fans of Julia Michaels for years,” JGE founder/chairman Kevin Jonas Sr. said in a statement. “Her music has been a part of our journey, and we’ve been fortunate enough to experience the magic of her songs firsthand. We’re excited to work with her and her team to continue sharing these incredible songs with the world and to build on the success they’ve already seen.

“This catalog is truly special for Jonas Catalog Holdings and Jonas Group Publishing. It’s not just about the hits she’s created; it’s about the heart and soul in each track. We could not have acquired this catalog without the support and expertise of our financial partner, Corrum Capital Management, who we thank and look forward to many more acquisitions together. We must also thank our trusted partners, Access Media Advisory and Teresa Miles Walsh, as well as Moghan Music for providing valuable assistance throughout the purchase of the catalog.”

The company has previously acquired the catalogs of songwriters including Justin Ebach and Amy Stroup. Jonas Group Publishing, a division of Jonas Group Entertainment, was established in 2020, and is home to songwriters including Terri Jo Box, Franklin Jonas, David Kalmusky and Bailee Madison.

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John Lennon was more than one fourth of The Beatles — he was also a talented songwriter who, after going solo, crafted the 1973 album Mind Games that is still considered a classic today. Music from the album landed itself on the Billboard Hot 100 back in ’73, including the title track, which was on the chart for 13 weeks and peaked at No. 18. While there are many music books out there that promise to delve into artists’ lives, a new book is giving fans an exclusive look into the making of Mind Games through never-before-seen photography, letters and lyrics written by the late artist and wife Yoko Ono.

The book version of Mind Games was released on Tuesday (Sept. 24), and has already been impressing fans and music lovers, even earning itself a spot on Amazon’s No. 1 bestseller list for celebrity photography. Normally, it’s priced at $60, but for a limited time, you can snag Mind Games for up to 15% off when you buy it online from Amazon, Walmart and Bookshop.org.

Keep reading to learn more and buy the Mind Games book online.

‘Mind Games’ by John Lennon & Yoko Ono

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Lennon’s fourth solo album takes the spotlight throughout Mind Games and its 288 pages of exclusive photography and retelling of the music-making process. Readers will get an in-depth look at the creation, recording and release of the beloved album in addition to news clippings of Lennon during that period of his life.

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Readers can also look forward to commentary from those close to the artists during the time of the album’s making, including musicians, friends, engineers and other key figures. Coinciding with the launch of the book will be a remixed and reissued version of the album that will attempt to bring the music to a new generation of listeners.

For more product recommendations, check out ShopBillboard‘s roundups of the best country music books, female musician memoirs and books about jazz.

Lady Gaga is looking towards the future.

In a new interview promoting her upcoming film, Joker: Folie à Deux, the superstar was asked by Buzzfeed Canada if there’s anything she’d like to “manifest” for the future. “I’m so happy to be in love, and I’m so excited to have a family,” she responded in reference to her partner, Michael Polansky. “That’s definitely number one, but also, I really believe in the ability to grow as a person. That feeling can give everybody hope. I just want to keep growing.”

She continued, “I’m 38 years old, and it’s kind of fun to embrace the challenge of being a 38-year-old pop star and figuring out who I want to be now and what I want to say. I really love women, and I really want to be a voice that deserves to be a part of our community.”

Gaga and Polansky have been publicly dating since early 2020; she made their relationship Instagram official with a post that February. In an interview a couple months later, she referred to Polansky as “the love of my life.”

She appeared to reveal that the duo are engaged in July while introducing Polansky to French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. “My fiancé, Michael,” Gaga is heard casually saying in a clip the prime minister posted on TikTok. The short video shows Attal briefly hugging the singer and shaking hands with Polansky, Lady Gaga’s partner of more than four years, at an Olympic event.

The duo made their red carpet debut at the Venice International Film Festival earlier this month, to support the premiere of Joker: Folie à Deux.

In addition to Folie à Deux, which hits theaters Oct. 4, Gaga is also gearing up to release new music. She dropped “Die With a Smile” with Bruno Mars in July to warm fans up for her upcoming era — the track reached No. 1 on the Billboard Global 200 — and she’s now begun teasing her seventh album, the first single of which arrives in October.

Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda are back in the top 10 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart with “Rey Sin Reina,” which soars 26-8 on the Sept. 28-dated list. The group last rose to the upper region with “El Amor de Su Vida” in 2015.

“Rey Sin Reina” lands at No. 8 on Hot Latin Songs thanks largely to its streaming activity during the tracking week ending Sept. 19. According to Luminate, the song earned 4.1 million official U.S. streams, a gain of 57%, from the week prior. Hot Latin Songs is a multimetric list that blends streams, digital sales and radio activity to rank the week’s most popular Latin songs in the U.S.

The streaming sum also yields a No. 10 debut on Latin Streaming Songs, the group’s first top 10 there among its five entries. Prior, the Mexicans reached their highest ranking in 2015, through the No. 14-peaking “El Amor De Su Vida.”

As “Rey Sin Reina” leaps 18 slots in its second week, it becomes the second-biggest jump to the top 10 on Hot Latin Songs in 2024. Karol G’s “Contigo” with Tiesto, released Feb. 15, debuted at No. 48 with only one day of activity, the last day of the previous tracking week, and rallied to No. 3 in March, after its first full tracking week. Only one other song has climbed at least 15 positions into the top 10 or more this year: Tito Double P’s “El Lokeron” rallied 27-7 last week (chart dated Sept. 21).

On a global scale, “Rey Sin Reina” debuts at No. 112 on the Billboard Global 200 and at No. 93 on Global Excl. U.S., the group’s highest debuts on both charts.

“Rey Sin Reina,” composed by Omar Cárdenas and Tláloc Noriega, is one of four tracks on Julión Álvarez y Su Norteño Banda’s latest EP Atento Aviso… Rey Sin Reyna, which rises 22-20, a new peak, on Regional Mexican Albums on the current ranking. The album’s animated artwork was designed by Álvarez’s daughters, María Isabel and María Julia.

Billboard Latin Music Week is returning to Miami Beach on Oct. 14-18, with confirmed superstars including Gloria Estefan, Alejandro Sanz and Peso Pluma, among many others. For tickets and more details, visit Billboardlatinmusicweek.com.

As Columbia Nashville prepared for the July 12 release of Megan Moroney’s sophomore album, Am I Okay?, the label held back the title track as it rolled out individual songs in advance of the project.

The move was purposeful: The title matches the reputation she has built with her fan base, and she wanted to catch listeners off guard the first time they heard it.

“I’ve branded myself as the emo cowgirl, and so I knew everyone was going to think that this is going to be a really sad song,” she says. “If you just see it on paper, you’re like, ‘Oh, no, it’s going to be tough.’ And that’s why we didn’t release ‘Am I Okay,’ the title track, ahead of the album, because I wanted everyone to be surprised once the entire album came out.”

The fans would not be the only ones surprised by “Am I Okay?” Her co-writers, Jessie Jo Dillon (“Messed Up As Me,” “10,000 Hours”) and Luke Laird (“Drink in My Hand,” “Undo It”), hadn’t expected to work on something so optimistic. Moroney, in fact, was a little apologetic when she spoke her mind during an appointment at Laird’s writing cabin on Oct. 2, 2023.

“When I was explaining how I felt, I was like, ‘Yeah, I want to write a love song,’” she recalls. “Like, ‘I’m tired of writing sad songs. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I met this guy, and he’s being really nice to me, and for once, I don’t want to sabotage it. And I think I could be a girlfriend.’ And they were just like, ‘Oh my God, are you okay?’”

That, of course, became the title. The bright, upbeat topic helped meet her musical goals, too. Moroney knew she would be touring with Kenny Chesney in 2024, and she wanted a song that would feel good in a stadium. Laird called up a chugging track he had created around a floating guitar intro, and he believed it would fit her musically.

“She delivers a song so well with just her and a guitar,” he says. “I thought this one will be easy to do that way, too. There’s only, like, three chords. It’s simple. It’s in her key. And she liked it. And I think that it kind of brought an energy to the room, like more of a live thing.”

They attacked the chorus first, capturing the moment Moroney’s then-new squeeze had appeared in a Nashville bar where she had been hanging with some friends. They threw out some descriptors of a guy that most women would find intriguing — 6 feet 2, funny, smart and “good in…” The songwriter antenna went up at that moment, though it only lasted an instant: Would saying he’s good in bed play at radio? On TV? In family settings?

They had the solution before they even discussed it. “We were just rambling,” Moroney notes. “I was probably like, ‘He’s funny and he’s smart and he’s good in…’ And then Jessie Jo or Luke just echoed me. And I was like, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ There wasn’t too much thought behind it.”

“Instead of just saying it,” Dillon adds, “that felt flirtier, in a way, to just repeat it.”

It wound its way to the final hook — “Oh my God, am I okay?” — kicked out in punchy phrases that seemed right for a gang vocal. Which Moroney didn’t entirely accept at first. “I wasn’t exactly sold on the gang vocals yet,” she recalls. “The last seven syllables of the song are the same note. I was like, ‘Is that weird?’”

As they dug in on the verses, they led with the singer checking to make sure she’s really breathing, a recognition of the change in personality that this new guy had inspired. “I’ve been playing less black keys, baby,” they wrote in that first verse, alluding to the sharps and flats on a piano keyboard, which create an alternative musical scale on their own.

“It’s alluding to writing less sad music,” Dillon says. “I feel like that was [about] being less emo and writing [fewer] sad songs because she’s known for some of her sad songs as much as ‘Tennessee Orange.’ ”

One of Moroney’s managers later capitalized Black Keys on a lyric sheet, believing it to be a reference to the Nashville-based rock band. That development surprised all three writers, who had not contemplated that interpretation.

“I’m a huge Black Keys fan, and their s–t can be pretty emo,” Dillon says. “Their lyrics can be pretty sad — and so I guess either way somebody interprets that, it kind of works.”

In verse two, Moroney sang, “And wait” — then literally waited before continuing, “There’s guys that can communicate.” It was clearly sarcastic; if listeners had any doubt that this “fun little bop,” as Dillon calls it, belonged to Moroney, that confirms it’s legitimately her. “She’s definitely a little snarky,” Laird says, “but the delivery gives it a lightness. I thought it was good.”

Laird finished the demo with the pulsing guitars creating a new wave feel, and all three of them did the gang vocals at the end of the chorus. It provided a solid template for the full recording, produced by Sugarland’s Kristian Bush at Nashville’s Blackbird Studio in January. The musicians bumped up the tempo a few beats per minute, but mostly followed Laird’s demo as a guide. With real musicians replacing some of the programmed elements, it took on more of a Tom Petty pulse, while Jordan Schipper’s steel guitar upped the country quotient. The steel, Brandon Bush’s keyboards and some of Benji Shanks’ guitar tones leaned hazy or fuzzy.

“I’m totally into ambient pedals right now,” Kristian says. “You don’t really know what you’re getting. You put a tone into it, like you’ll play your steel into it, or you play the guitar into it and it’s a very Brian Eno-y thing, where it starts to sort of randomize at certain frequencies the sound that’s coming out of it. You can control it with your hands, like on these knobs, but it’s all kind of voodoo. It becomes dreamy very quickly.”

Bush heightened the dynamic range; the track goes quiet when Moroney sings “Wait…,” and it nearly does it again at the bridge. At the finale, the instruments drop out as she delivers the last line, “I think I’m still breathing.” She could have followed it with a sigh, but it never quite appears.

“At the end of this song, when it cuts off, I wanted you to be waiting for the next song to happen,” Kristian says. “When you’re playing live, at the end of that first song, you want people to be like, ‘Is it over? What’s happening? Oh my God.’ And then all of a sudden, you’re into your next song.” The vocals challenged Moroney. Ironically, the week she sang about her boyfriend, they broke up.

“I’m in the studio having to sing this song about a guy being really nice to me, when actually it was just like three months and he showed me who he actually was,” she says. “And now I have to sing this forever.”

She just might. Columbia Nashville released it to country radio via PlayMPE on Aug. 5. It’s at No. 20 and rising on the Hot Country Songs chart dated Sept. 28. Even if it’s uncharacteristically buoyant for Moroney, the sarcasm still comes through.

“If I’m writing a love song, I must be ill,” she says. “That’s the whole premise of the song.”