The Maida Vale studios in west London is one of the capital’s most historic recording studios. Belonging to the BBC for nearly 80 years, the complex was home to the BBC Symphony Orchestra and hosted recording sessions by pop and rock royalty.

The BBC announced its closure in 2020, but in 2023, a group led by famed composer Hans Zimmer bought the complex with hopes of restoring the studios to their former glory.

Initial plans for a revamp at the £10 million valued studios have now been shared by the group, which includes Zimmer (The Lion King, Interstellar), and his business manager Steven Kofsky, alongside film producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner, as reported by the BBC.

On a dedicated website, MVS Partnership LLP have outlined their plans to improve the structure of the studios, as well as three new “state-of-the-art” studios for writing and composing.

As consultations for the work begin, the group have proposed a “retrofit-first approach with sustainable design to improve energy efficiency.” The group have cited carbon concerns with the demolition of the building, and are proposing to retain much of its existing fabric to “minimise” the impact.

The group is yet to submit a formal planning application to Westminster City Council. You can read the full consultation here.

From 1946, the complex was a regular fixture in BBC broadcasts, featuring on Radio 1, 2, 3 and in filmed television episodes on BBC One and more.

In 1967, it became the home of the Peel Sessions, hosted by BBC Radio DJ John Peel and hosted iconic performances by The Smiths, David Bowie, Dusty Springfield and Fleetwood Mac.

Upon news of the purchase in 2023, Zimmer said that the goal was to “make Maida Vale Studios a place that inspires, teaches, technologically serves the arts and humanity, and gives the next generation the same opportunities I was given: to create and to never give up.” The online consultation will run until October 11.

Blossoms are blooming on the midweek U.K. chart with Gary.

Hailing from Stockport, England, the indie-rock leads the Official Chart Update with Gary, their fifth full-length album.

If it holds its course, Gary will give the band a fourth leader following their self-titled debut from 2016, Foolish Loving Spaces (from 2020) and Ribbon Around The Bomb (2022), while 2018’s Cool Like You peaked at No. 4.

The strongest challenge comes from Chappell Roan and her former chart-leading debut album The Rise And Fall of a Midwest Princess. Based on midweek sales and streaming data published by the Official Charts Company, Midwest Princess is a little over 2,000 chart units behind Gary in second place.
Scottish singer and songwriter Tom Walker could complete the podium with I Am, his sophomore album.

It’s new at No. 3 on the chart blast. Previously, the Brit Award-winning artist led by chart in 2019 with his debut What A Time To Be Alive.

Also eyeing a top 10 debut is Katy Perry with her sixth LP 143. It’s set to start at No. 4 on the national tally, for what would be the U.S. pop star’s fifth top 10 title and highest-charting effort in the U.K. since Prism led the chart in 2013.

Meanwhile, the xx’s Jamie xx could nab a second solo top 10 with In Waves. The followup to In Colour, which peaked at No. 3, the British producer’s latest is set to start at No. 6. As a member of the xx alongside Romy and Oliver Sim, Jamie has snared two U.K. No. 1s with Coexist (in 2012) and I See You (2017).

Further down the midweek chart, West Yorkshire rock act Terrorvision could nab a career high with We Are Not Robots, set to bow at No. 7; Future could score a fifth U.K. top 10 with Mixtape Pluto, on track for a No. 9 bow; and post-punk Manchester outfit Ist Ist could land a first-ever top 10 appearance with Light A Bigger Fire, new at No. 10 on the chart blast.

Over on the midweek singles chart, Sabrina Carpenter looks likely to extend her reign with “Taste.” Carpenter’s latest hit is heading for a fifth week at No. 1, which would extend her record as the solo female artist with the most combined weeks at No. 1 in a calendar year. Currently, her three leaders have notched a combined 16 weeks at No. 1.

Chappell Roan could have something to say about it. The U.S. pop phenom is “closer than ever to her first UK No. 1 single,” the OCC reports, as “Good Luck, Babe!” sits at No. 2, fewer than 2,000 chart units from the leader.

All will be revealed when the Official U.K. Singles and Albums Charts are published late Friday, Feb. 27.

With P1Harmony‘s new album Sad Song released on Friday (Sept. 20), the K-pop boy band continues to rise in creative maturity and chart success. Last summer’s Harmony: All In debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard 200 to mark the group’s first appearance on the albums chart, while their first full-length LP Killin’ It, released in February, peaked at No. 40 entry and secured their first No. 1 on Billboard’s World Albums chart. The Christopher “Tricky” Stewart–produced “Fall in Love” earned them a certified top 40 on the Pop Songs airplay chart and, now, the sextet is taking even bigger steps—on stage as well as behind the scenes.

For Sad Song, P1Harmony took a more hands-on approach than ever. “We’ve never been this involved with an album before,” the group’s leader Keeho explained to Billboard during an early album preview in Los Angeles. “It’s a huge stepping stone from the other albums.”

Keeho and his band mates Jiung, Theo, Intak, Soul and Jongseob say the late-summer weather of September marked the perfect chance to finally experiment with Latin music on the title track single, while the EP also brings their first sub-unit track with “WASP,” a standout rap cut performed by Intak and Jongseob.

“Now that we’re becoming more senior, we’re starting to hear the company listening to what we have to say and trusting us a lot more,” Theo says of working closer with their agency, the influential K-pop agency and talent management firm FNC Entertainment. “I’m in a much more comfortable of a position to really talk to our in-house staff about what we want to do .”

Beyond the actual music itself, Intak stepped up to help develop the stage choreography for “Sad Song” (“I really wanted to capture, ‘How can we look more emotionally invested?’” he says). At the same time, Theo’s expanding role into a musical director of P1Harmony’s live shows specifically inspired Jiung to produce the EP’s rock concert anthem, “Last Call.”

As P1Harmony look to climb higher on the charts, diving deeper into their creative instincts is producing more confident and comfortable energy in the boy band who aren’t afraid to speak up for their interests without abandoning what has made them unique since Day 1.

Read on for more into P1Harmony’s process of producing their latest EP, Sad Song.

Billboard: Tell us about “Sad Song” and how this title track single fits within the album?

Keeho: I’m sure you already know, but P1Harmony loves to experiment with new genres and try to mix in different types of vibes. I feel like we never want to stay in one place. We’re always trying to move around, but also add P1Harmony’s color into it, right? The whole Latin inspiration was something that we really wanted to experiment with and I feel like we really brought it out with this title track [single]. It’s out in September so I feel like it’s right when it’s still warm, but starting to get cooler — I feel like with the weather’s vibe, it’ll just suit the song so well.

Especially with this album, we did a lot, a lot, of experimenting within the the songs in the album as well too. We’ve never been this hands-on with an album before. It’s a learning curve, so we’re also very scared. We have one song called “WASP,” which is Intak and Jongseob’s [as a] sub-unit, so the two of them are just rapping. Actually, it’s one of my favorite songs on the album. You’ll listen to the album and it’ll be a completely different vibe. So, it’s like really cool that they have that in there. Also, Jiung and I did separate songs for the album. He did “Last Call,” and I did “It’s Alright.” Mine is a little bit of a reggae-like guitar vibe, but he is more like a band guitar vibe.

On the albums before, we usually only had one song where we would be very involved in its production, but this time, we’ve had three. So, it’s a huge stepping stone from the other albums; we’re really excited to see what the fans are going to think. I’m a little scared, but we’re really, really excited. And this is the first time where our mini album has seven tracks. So we’re including the English version of “Sad Song” in the album as well, so that’s three out of seven tracks that we are very deeply — like whole foot in — involved.

But P1Harmony has always been involved in music, especially when it comes to songwriting. What was so different this time?

Keeho: Before, I think it was more like, “We want to have a song that’s this vibe” and we kind of just write to the tracks. But this time, we were really in the structure of it, so we talked to producers and were like, “This is a vibe we want, this is a melody we want,” and we would actually be in the song camps with like other really great amazing writers and producers. We would sit down with them, bounce off each other’s ideas and really be a part of this song-making process. Whereas [the past] was kind of like, “This is the vibe; you guys kind of just write on top of it.” And I feel like Jiung and Jongseob also have a lot to say about it because, while I wouldn’t say they were restricted, I would say that there’s definitely a limit to what they wanted to do creatively. But I feel like this time they were allowed to kind of run wild and be able to really just do what they want. This is our first time having a unit song as well, in general, too; I mean, creatively, they gave us a lot of freedom this time.

Jiung: Actually, I talked a lot about our album with Theo. Because he does a lot of things for the stages of our concerts and tours. So, I asked him, “What do we need for our concert? What do we need for the next tour?” he said, “We need a song that can hype people up — make people enjoy us on stage even more and just jump.” I then made the concept of the song [“Last Call”], then I talked with our producer and the top liner from the very beginning of the process. Knowing that we would use it for a certain occasion, it was a lot easier for me to create my song and map out what I wanted to make sonically. Theo is really the one who sets up our whole setlist for our tours and conceptualizes and creates the whole show.

Theo, have you always been interested in musical direction, or is this a role you naturally stepped into?

Theo: I’ve always been interested in musical directing and loved the idea of musical shows and concerts. It’s not something I did out of the blue, but I’ve been coming up with ideas and communicating with the company since the beginning. And now that we’re becoming more senior, we’re starting to hear the company listening to what we have to say and trusting us a lot more in what we want to do for shows, so a lot of my ideas have come to life. Now, I’m in a much more comfortable of a position to really talk to our in-house staff about what we want to do for our next tour, the current tours, and what we’re doing right now. I think we’re gradually expanding our horizons.

Keeho: Yeah, they’re really listening a lot now, and Theo is always at the forefront of that.

I love that. Sad Song is your seventh mini album. Previously, you had three Disharmony EPs, three Harmony EPs, Killin It was a full album. Is this the beginning of a new era or trilogy?

Keeho: I think our trilogies, like Harmony and Disharmony, and then what’s happening after Killin’ It are very two different things. I had talked to our people because I’m a part of a lot of the visualization and conceptualizing of the albums. With the storytelling aspect of it, I told our company that it’d be really dope to not make trilogies anymore but kind of make it, like, a standalone project each time. That way for each album, we can really bring in something new and different without having to feel like we need to tie everything together. It gives us more freedom to creatively create something new just for the album without having to be like, “Okay, but how is this going to tie into ‘Killin’ It’?”

Visually, it’s very different too. But as you know, we debuted with a movie and the whole story of the six of us being superheroes that are coming together to save the world figuratively, and also literally at the same time with our music, I wanted to keep that concept going. So, even if the songs and the concepts are different, I still wanted to bring [the idea] that we’re still superheroes. Visually, I think you’ll be able to see it in the music video and the concepts. That’s the one thing that we’re keeping consistent.

Tell me about creating the choreography and what we should look out for?

Soul: By the time of KCON in July, we had learned all the choreography for Sad Song tracks. Difficulty-wise, “Sad Song” is not that difficult compared to our other releases because I feel like in the chorus, there’s a simple point choreography that anyone can really just look at and kind of understand. Intak was very involved in how the choreography was made this time.

Intak: Yeah, when I listened to the song, I really wanted to capture, “How can we look more emotionally invested in the stage?” So, I thought about how it’s called “Sad Song,” but there’s also a lyric where it says “mad song,” and we repeat those two lyrics a lot. When creating the choreography, I wanted to be able to portray that on stage as well so that when people see they can just understand the sadness and the madness in the choreo. I talked to our performance director back in Korea and we really kind of curated this choreography to hopefully portray that emotion.

Keeho: And if I put my little two cents in, we actually get “skeleton” choreographies from, like, four different dance teams. That’s what’s really fun about K-pop. I don’t know if other people do it too or if other dancers do it, but we’ll pick out choreographers that we really think are super cool and good at what they do, and ask them to create a choreography for the song. Then, we’ll have four different choreographies for the same song. And Intak and the creative director would then sit down, look at the videos, and sort of mix and match to see which choreo suits us best and how we can make it better, right? Intak was super, super involved in that process.

I remember when P1Harmony started, you shared how it was very important for you not to lose yourselves or feel like you’ve sold out. As you go more global and experiment with different genres, how have you stayed true to yourselves?

Keeho: Honestly, I don’t think it’s that difficult anymore. I feel like it’s become really simple and easy for us because we really understand that no one can be us — and we can’t be anyone else. As long as we’re really in tune with what we think is cool, what’s hot, and what we feel is good, that automatically becomes P1Harmony.

So, no matter what you throw at us — it can be rock, pop, R&B, jazz, Latin — if it goes through us, it still comes out as P1Harmony. And I feel like that’s so simple and easy now because we’re so confident and so in tune with what we know our strengths and our weaknesses are; I feel like it’s not something we have to think about; whatever we do, there’s always that feeling of P1Harmony in there.

Since we’re almost four years into our careers now, I feel like it’s more of a subconscious thing. A couple years ago, I would be like, “Okay, how do we make this ours?” or “If this is this experimental, how do we make it without sounding like someone else?” That was always something in the back of our heads, but now it’s coming through subconsciously.

Halestorm and I Prevail’s collaboration “Can U See Me in the Dark?” is the newest No. 1 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, rising a spot to top the tally dated Sept. 28.

The song becomes Halestorm’s seventh No. 1 and first since “The Steeple” ruled for a week in June 2022. The Lzzy Hale-fronted band ties the Taylor Momsen-led The Pretty Reckless for the most rulers by women or women-fronted acts in the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart’s 43-year history.

I Prevail notches its third No. 1 and first since “Bad Things” in November 2022.

“Can U See Me in the Dark?” marks the first Mainstream Rock Airplay No. 1 by at least two multi-person entities – Halestorm is a four-piece band; I Prevail is a quintet – since Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony led with “All Within My Hands” in September 2020.

Concurrently, “Can U See Me in the Dark?” lifts 10-9 on the all-rock-format, audience-based Rock & Alternative Airplay chart via 2.7 million audience impressions, up 15%, in the week ending Sept. 19, according to Luminate. It’s I Prevail’s highest-charting song, surpassing the No. 10 peak of “Bad Things”; Halestorm’s best remains “The Steeple,” which hit No. 8.

“Can U See Me in the Dark?” is currently a standalone single that helped promote the bands’ co-headlining tour that ran from July through mid-August. Halestorm’s most recent album, Back From the Dead, peaked at No. 2 on the Top Hard Rock Albums chart in May 2022 and has earned 97,000 equivalent album units to date. I Prevail’s latest LP is True Power, which reached No. 3 on Top Hard Rock Albums in September 2022 and has earned 258,000 units.

All Billboard charts dated Sept. 28 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, Sept. 24.