BTS’ global ARMY issued a statement over the weekend in which the K-pop superstars’ most ardent fans emphasized that they are ride or die, no matter what. “The BTS ARMY is a vast fandom based around the world, yet a small number of people have recently released statements through the media claiming opinions that are contrary to the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of ARMY.”

The statement posted on a variety of social platforms from the band’s biggest global fan groups came after recent comments and claims from South Korean media and some fans in the wake of member Suga’s drunk-driving episode last month. In early August, Seoul police said they spoke to Suga (born Min Yoon-gi) on August 6 after he fell off his electric scooter while driving it near his home.

“Despite ARMY’s opposition to this imperious behavior, they continue to act against the fandom’s wishes while using ARMY’s name,” the statement continued. “It was further revealed that fans of other groups organized these actions. Therefore, we would like to clarify our position as the Global ARMY Alliance both domestically and internationally.”

The message then spotlighted the three-point support plan proposed by the global ARMY:

While the statement representing 127 ARMY divisions from around the world did not specifically mention the Suga incident, the message posted on Sunday (Sept. 8) ended with the double-down, “as stated above, global ARMY fan bases, both domestic and international, have gathered to affirm with one voice that we continue to support all seven members of BTS. Additionally, we strongly urge media not to give credibility to individuals with unconfirmed representation.”

After the scooter stop, Suga issued the first of two apologies to fans, writing on Weverse, “I bow my head and apologize to those who have been hurt by my carelessness and wrong action.” In addition, the 31-year-old rapper assured ARMY that no property or people had been impacted in the incident he said happened after he had drinks at dinner and then hopped on his electric kickboard, not realizing he could not operate a two-wheeled scooter while intoxicated during what he described as a short trip to his home.

“In the process of setting up an electric kickboard at the front door of the house, I fell alone, and there was a police officer around me, so I took a breath test,” he said, noting that a fine was issued and his license was suspended. In a second, handwritten note posted on August 25, Suga again apologized for what he said was the “disappointment and hurt of my misbehavior to my fans and everyone who loves me. I’ve made a big mistake, forgetting the responsibility to repay you with actions worthy of the love I’ve received… Due to this incident, I have greatly damaged the precious memories I made with the members and fans and put a lot of pressure on the name of the BTS. I feel so sorry and painful that it’s hard to express because it’s causing damage to the members and the team. I’m sorry that the members who always trusted me have a hard time because of me. And I know the disappointment that the fans who supported and supported me must have felt.”

Suga’s license was suspended after police said he had a blood-alcohol content of 0.227, well above above the 0.08 level that triggers license revocation after he drove the seated electric scooter while impaired in the Yongsan District in central Seoul.

According to Variety, in the weeks following the stop, more than 1,400 stories have been posted on Korean media sites about the DUI, with many reportedly containing speculative details and others spotlighting “fake news.” Among the reports were two from mainstream media outlets Yonhap and JTBC, which reportedly featured footage of a man using a scooter on a a road at night that they claimed was Suga, though after police revealed a week later that Suga was riding on a footpath during the incident JTBC reportedly apologized for “causing confusion.”

After some commentors online suggested that Suga should be booted from the band in the wake of the DUI, the statement makes it clear that the global ARMY group supports all seven members of BTS; the K-pop superstars are currently on a hiatus slated to last through next summer while its members complete their mandatory South Korean military service.

Check out the statement below.

The Tennessee Titans don’t appear on the NFL’s Sunday Night Football schedule for the entire 2024 season, though Nashville will still be well represented on the NBC telecast.

Not only is Middle Tennessee resident Carrie Underwood the voice and onscreen talent for the theme song, but the music for that high-profile opening — which has its season debut on Sept. 8 — is produced by Nashville’s Chris DeStefano (Chase Rice, Chris Young) using Music City musicians at the Soultrain Sound Studios (formerly Scruggs Sound) in the Berry Hill neighborhood.

It makes sense that the piece gets cut in Nashville — “Underwood, obviously, is one of the biggest determining factors,” SNF creative director Tripp Dixon says — though the recording’s origination in Music City is not particularly well known.

NBC has, in fact, produced the theme in Nashville for well over a decade. It was already being cut at Starstruck on Music Row when Dixon began working on the theme in 2012, the last year that Faith Hill sang the iconic piece.

And DeStefano has become a key contributor as “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” adapted from Joan Jett‘s “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” undergoes an annual evolution within a narrow stylistic window. Its role is to energize home viewers for the last football game of the weekend; thus, a panoply of options is unavailable for the production. It’s a safe bet, for example, that SNF will never open with a slow jam.

“We really want to push that energy without going too far over the top,” DeStefano says.

“But,” he adds, “sometimes we need to go over the top.”

DeStefano landed the job initially because of his success as a songwriter. He’s penned several Underwood hits, including “Good Girl,” “Something in the Water” and “Somethin’ Bad,” a Miranda Lambert duet that emerged as the SNF theme for two years, beginning in 2016, after it was rewritten as “Oh, Sunday Night.” DeStefano was tapped to co-produce with Mark Bright (Underwood, Rascal Flatts), who had already been on the job for several years.

For one year, in 2018, NBC used “Game On” for the open before returning to “Waiting All Day.” Along the way, DeStefano became the sole producer, in part because of his multitude of skills. Co-writers have, for years, marveled at his ability to play multiple instruments and swiftly maneuver plug-in technology to create demos on the fly during sessions. As a one-man shop, he’s able to assist the NBC team in finding a new musical framework each year, develop the demo on his own, then oversee the production when the network executives descend on Nashville for the recordings each summer. It’s a foundational role in the ultimate SNF product.

“A lot of this process does start with the music,” Dixon says. ” ‘Waiting All Day’ has kind of been the bedrock of this piece since the beginning, but I think each one of these successive new arrangements has, in turn, influenced what we do visually. It starts with that musical discussion.”

Those first discussions, DeStefano says, took place last December, when the playoffs were still in flux and Nashvillians were grousing about the Titans’ decline. By January, he was already creating a core demo for the 2024 theme, playing — or programming — all the instruments and recording vocals that would later provide a guide for Underwood, who jointly approves the final creative direction of the package with NBC Sports.

This year, his production experience came into play as he suggested restructuring the theme. It has traditionally started with two verses after a short intro, but DeStefano suggested leading with the chorus, allowing some new dynamic changes. That move alters the peak energy points in the 90-second production, changing the placement of some of the strongest action onscreen.

In the end, artists who’ve played on numerous country hits — such as drummers Nir Z and Miles McPherson, guitarist Rob McNelley and bassist Tim Marks — have been tapped to turn DeStefano’s demos into the master SNF recording. DeStefano still plays a part or two, particularly any tweaks that are necessary in postproduction.

The actual recording session requires plenty of preparation. Underwood invariably gets the basic vocal performance — the “generic,” as the team calls it internally — in a short number of takes. But the generic is only a fail-safe. Sections of the theme are rewritten to reflect the teams or players who will take the field each week, and NBC preps a volume of potential options to cover every scenario. They might, for example, throw in a reference to quarterback Dak Prescott for a Dallas Cowboys game, but they also record one or more backup options in case he’s injured when game day arrives.

Complicating the process, the NFL uses flex scheduling beginning in October, meaning the Sunday-night game could change in 14 of the season’s 18 weeks. They compile options to cover every scenario, and Underwood sings through them all in one massive session.

“I actually couldn’t even tell you how many iterations of the matchups there are,” DeStefano says. “There’s a lot. It’s like three typed pages, so there’s quite a bit, but it goes so fast, just because we get into the zone. Carrie’s in the zone, and everybody’s locked in. We just crush it.”

As a result, they avoid any need for a midseason overdub — even if the game gets changed during a flex week and features two teams whose biggest stars are out for the season.

In every one of those versions, it’s the Nashville music team’s job to get the viewers excited.

“It’s got to still make people turn their heads,” DeStefano says. “If they’re at a bar and it’s loud, there’s still got to be that element of ‘Oh, wait. What’s happening? I got to watch this.’”

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In every era of pop music, boy bands have elicited irrepressible shrieks from adoring fans. In the ’60s, it was the Beatles. In the ’70s, the Jackson 5. More recently, the likes of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC, who then passed the boy band baton to One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer.

In 1989, it was New Kids on the Block‘s turn to rule music like only boy bands can.

After Boston-based producer-songwriter Maurice Starr had formed New Edition, which reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985 with “Cool It Now,” he followed with New Kids on the Block – brothers Jonathan and Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood. While their self-titled first LP didn’t hit the Billboard 200 upon its release, follow-up Hangin’ Tough filled the late-’80s boy band void, yielding five infectious Hot 100 top 10s, including the quintet’s first No. 1 in June 1989, “I’ll Be Loving You (Forever).” The ballad followed the No. 10-peaking “Please Don’t Go Girl” and the No. 3 hit “You Got It (The Right Stuff),” which built even more buzz.

On Sept. 9, 1989, New Kids’ rise culminated in the set and its title track taking over atop the Billboard 200 and Hot 100, respectively. The set was a slow-burner that took 55 weeks to reach the Billboard 200 summit, completing one of the longest climbs to No. 1 in the chart’s history.

By years’ end, New Kids on the Block had charted at last on the Billboard 200, reaching No. 25, and generated its own top 10, the group’s No. 8 cover of the Delfonics’ “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind).” The group even gleaned a top 10 from a third album, the holiday set Merry, Merry Christmas, when “This One’s for the Children” reached No. 7. In between, Hangin’ Tough‘s fifth single “Cover Girl” rose to No. 2.

(On their summer 1989 tour, New Kids on the Block – and former Billboard publisher Tommy Page, then in his teen-idol days [he passed in 2017] – set out as the opening acts for Tiffany. By the end of the tour, Tiffany and New Kids had swapped spots.)

The Kids’ blend of street (i.e., Wahlberg’s semi-rap on “Hangin’ Tough”) and sweet (Jordan Knight and McIntyre served as the voices of the band’s biggest ballads) helped make them a chart, touring and merchandise powerhouse, one that continued with 1990’s Step by Step. Like its predecessor, the album and its title song became respective Billboard 200 and Hot 100 No. 1s. Follow-up single “Tonight,” which playfully name-checks several of the act’s earlier hits, rose to No. 7.

Ultimately, the group earned the honor of Billboard‘s top artist of both 1989 and 1990.

As musical trends shifted from pure-pop to rap and grunge, New Kids on the Block released the No. 37-peaking Face the Music (billed as NKOTB) in 1994 before taking a hiatus. With enough time passed for nostalgia to help restore its image (along with a return to prominence for pop music), the band blew back in 2008 with the No. 2 hit album The Block (featuring a track with then-new act Lady Gaga), which yielded the quintet’s first top 40 Hot 100 hit since 1992, the No. 36-peaking “Summertime.” Its 2013 album 10 hit No. 6. In between, the act embraced its place in boy band lineage: In 2011, it released NKOTBSB, a collaborative set with Backstreet Boys, which hit No. 7. The acts’ partnership continued in the form of Nick & Knight, aka BSB’s Nick Carter and New Kid Jordan, in 2014.

Most recently, New Kids on the Block released the album Still Kids, which launched at No. 4 on the Top Album Sales chart in June. Lead single “Kids” has hit both the Adult Pop Airplay and Adult Contemporary charts, marking the group’s first appearance on the latter list in nearly 35 years.

“There’s a sense of not wanting to let each other down,” Wahlberg said when the group chatted with Billboard in New York in May. “There’s an urgency that I think you can sometimes hear in the voices, of wanting to deliver the best of a performance. I think that’s present in this record, even in the writing.”

E Street bandmember Patti Scialfa reveals her recent cancer battle in the new documentary Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on Sunday night (Sept. 8).

According to Variety, Scialfa opens up in the film about being diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, in 2018, which resulted in her dialing back her public appearances and performances with husband Springsteen’s E Street Band over the past few years.

“This affects my immune system, so I have to be careful what I choose to do and where I choose to go,” she says in the film that looks at the relationship between the 74-year-old rock icon and his longtime bandmates. “Every once in a while, I come to a show or two and I can sing a few songs on stage, and that’s been a treat. That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that.”

Scialfa, 71, who has been a member of the E Street Band since 1984 as a backing vocalist and guitarist — and married Springsteen in 1991 — was not on hand for Sunday night’s movie premiere. In addition to being a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group, Scialfa has also released three solo albums. Fans have noted her absence on stage during the E Street Band’s current stadium tour, which is the group’s first major outing since 2016.

“Every once in a while, I come to a show or two and I can sing a few songs onstage, and that’s been a treat,” Scialfa says in the movie of her occasional recent live appearances. “That’s the new normal for me right now, and I’m OK with that.” According to Variety, the movie does not make it clear if Scialfa is still be treated or if the cancer was in remission. Springsteen was forced to postpone the tour in 2023 after being diagnosed with a peptic ulcer that caused serious vocal issues.

Road Diary is an intimate look at the rock band’s current world tour and the unique backstage dynamic between the players, a handful of whom have been by Bruce’s side for more than half a century. Given their longevity and despite the physical demands of playing two-hour-plus shows, recent health issues and the inexorable march of time, Springsteen made it clear at Sunday’s premiere that he plans to continue rocking until “the wheels come off.”

Road Diary will come to Hulu and Disney+ on Oct. 25. Watch the trailer below.

As a longtime songwriter, artist and musical theater enthusiast, JC Chasez knows the power of a good story that strikes an emotional chord.

That’s why he was floored when his friend and Golden Globe-winning musician Jimmy Harry showed him a theatrical adaptation of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein by his late mother, playwright Barbara Field. “What I found really appealing and very inspiring about the piece is her ability to make it more direct and accessible in terms of the emotion,” the *NSYNC star tells Billboard. “It wasn’t just about a big monster and this kind of, like, growling thing that I initially had the impressions of in films and when reading Frankenstein. I guess I was just young, and just didn’t really have the time to settle in and really dig into the material. Recently, I was able to spend some time with the material and really get a good read and a good understanding of how emotional it was.”

From there, Chasez and Harry took the story’s themes of love, responsibility, loss and the human condition and channeled it into a major creative project: a 16-track musical theater concept album called Playing With Fire, which adds to Fields’ theatrical adaptation that originally written as a play and not a musical. “I was a little bit apprehensive at first. It’s like, you start messing with somebody family,” Chasez says with a laugh of musically building off of Harry’s mother’s project.

Chasez brushed off those nerves soon enough, as Playing With Fire is, in a lot of ways, a culmination of the superstar’s creative talents. In addition to writing the project, Chasez also lends his vocals to a number of tracks on Playing With Fire, alongside singers Cardamon Rozzi and Lily Elise. The album marks his first major musical project since his 2004 solo album, Schizophrenic. “Playing With Fire touches on almost everything that I like,” he happily admits. “I love a good sci-fi film, so you get that aspect, and I love how music can make you so emotional in a different way. Obviously, I love pop music, so I love the fact that you can sing and dance together in musical theater. It was just a great opportunity to bring all of these things that I’ve really enjoyed together into one space.”

Furthermore, he was pleasantly surprised at how a centuries-old story touches on themes that still exist today, contributing to just how unifying the human experience is — even if Frankenstein’s monster isn’t human, per se. “Shelly was communicating these points hundreds of years ago that we’re still wrestling with today. I was just going, ‘How did you know?’ How did she write something that is so appropriate for now and then? Then, how did Barbara Fields make this so accessible to me? I felt like I had a direct line to the emotions that Shelly was trying to convey because of the way that Barbara framed it.”

He continued, “When we first started writing, we thought that this is about humanity, technology and the dangers and the morality of ‘Just because you can create something, should you?’ We’re still dealing with all of these for questions with encountering different technologies and AI and all that. We were tinkering with the idea, but we started becoming interested in the way Barbara framed it, as a conversation between the creator and his creation, which we framed as a conversation between a father and son getting to the bottom of their issues, their denials, their neglect and the consequences of those things.”

Ultimately, Playing With Fire is a story of growth and real connection, and in accordance with that, Chasez has ambitions for the project to reach as many people as possible. “This is the beginning of a journey to make something that will hopefully end up on a stage that people can sing live every night and communicate to audiences,” he says. “That’s why this technological discussion is so relevant now. I love the fact that real people will be singing these songs. I want it to connect to humanity.”

Playing With Fire is out via Center Stage Records on Oct. 25.