Eden Muñoz is back with a new album simply titled Eden. Released on Thursday (August 15), the set contains 15 songs in which he fuses the genres that formed him musically — such as folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll and, of course, banda sinaloense, corridos and cumbia.

In his second studio LP via Sony Music Mexico and third in his discography as a solo artist — after a decade fronting the successful group Calibre 50 — the Mexican singer-songwriter released playful titles like “Me Rento” (or “I rent”), “No Sabes La Que Te Espera” (“You don’t know what’s ahead”) with Luck Ra, “¿Cómo Te Fue Sin Mí?” (“How did it go without me”), “Todo Me Vale Madre” (Mexican slang for “IDGAF”) and bonus track “Traigo Saldo y Ganas de Rogar” (“I got money and a desire to beg”).

“If I don’t have fun, people won’t have fun either,” Muñoz tells Billboard Español. “I’ve never been so happy recording an album, I wanted to push my own boundaries. Ten years ago neither my audience nor I would have achieved something like this.”

Eden follows 2023’s Como En Los Viejos Tiempos, whose song of the same name reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Airplay chart last January. The tour of the same name kicks off in the United States on Friday (August 16) in San Antonio, Texas, and will take the regional Mexican star to cities such as Houston, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Phoenix, San Jose, Reno and Denver, ending on November 27 in Irving, Texas.

Also, on October 19, he will perform for the first time as a solo artist at the Arena Ciudad de México, a venue only the greats aspire to. “It is a great dream for me to be in such an important place and at the same time a great responsibility,” says Muñoz.

In Mexico he will also have concerts in Monterrey on November 9, at the Citibanamex Auditorium, on November 30 at the Telmex Auditorium in Guadalajara, for which tickets are already sold out, and on December 7 at the GNP Auditorium in Puebla.

Below, Eden Muñoz breaks down 5 essential songs from his new album, Eden, here. (Listen to the full album here.)

“Mi Lugar Favorito”

“Mi Lugar Favorito” (“My favorite place”) is definitely No. 1. I never thought I would write a song for my children, and the moment arrived. I consider this the most beautiful piece of work I’ve done so far. Maybe they don’t understand it yet because they are six and three years old, but it will remain as a legacy and they will understand it when the time comes. Musically it is very calm, but the lyrics are very deep: It talks about unconditional love and what we are capable of doing as parents for those beings that fill our world. I believe that many parents will feel seen and that will be a great satisfaction — that they will also dedicate it and share those feelings that I express in the song.

“Mi Momento Más Ex-Quizofrénico”

I love it because it’s risky, because it’s something different up to a certain point in the song, but then a chorus comes in, very much in the style we’re used to. It’s a crazy song [“My most ex-schizophrenic moment”], but without going out of line. It starts with an intro like a horror movie and then suddenly I start singing the blues for a few seconds — and later I mix it with the regional Mexican music that has always characterized my project. I think it was a good mix, it will surely attract attention.

“Mezcal de Calzón”

“Mezcal de calzón” (Mezcal of calzón) is inspired by one of my favorite Beatles songs, “Twist and Shout.” I wrote it in London last year when I was on vacation there. Let’s say it’s a similar sound, but with the lyrics a very Mexican with double entendres, as we speak. I have to think about people 60 years old or older who also want to enjoy the music they like, and with this song they will probably even dance to it. That’s the idea — that everyone has fun and enjoys my music as much as I enjoy it. The lyrics talk about someone who is in love and thinks that maybe they gave him something to drink because he can’t stop thinking about the person. It’s kind of funny but very colloquial.

“Mi Situación Actual”

It is the song with which I close the album. I confess that I went out of the line there; it was a whim because I love rock, electric guitars and everything that goes with it. I used a lot of tools that I’ve been getting to know in the last few years when I’ve been getting into producing. I mix, I get involved in everything and I don’t say that with a desire to be the protagonist, I do it because I’m aware that everything has to be right. Also in this song a part of it is rock and continues with regional Mexican music. The song [title meaning My current situation] talks about someone who has existential problems, who feels bad and doesn’t know where to go, something that happens to all of us at some point.

“Traigo Saldo y Ganas de Rogar”

“Traigo Saldo y Ganas de Rogar” is also one of my favorites because I feel I have the responsibility to present songs with banda because it is the music I grew up with and was formed with. Banda music opened a very big path for regional Mexican music and I have a lot of respect for it. For this reasons it is the bonus track, it is my essence, what represents the genre. I do not speak neither good nor bad of what the new generations are doing, I also sang corridos alterados at some point when I was very young. Today, at 33 years old, I know that this is what I want, to make fusions but to not abandon our musical roots. This is the typical song of someone who is in love and is not ashamed to beg the person. Once again, we are talking about something that happens to a lot people: when they are drinking and want to make an impression on a special someone.

On Aug. 16, 1969, Merle Haggard’s “Workin’ Man Blues” climbed to No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. It became the seventh of the genre cornerstone’s 38 leaders, the third-most in the survey’s history after George Strait, who reigns with 44, and Conway Twitty, who notched 40.

Haggard wrote “Workin’ Man Blues,” which Ken Nelson produced.

“Sometimes I think about leaving, do a little bummin’ around,” Haggard admits in the song. “I want to throw my bills out the window, catch a train to another town/ I go back to working, I gotta buy my kids a brand new pair of shoes/ I drank a little beer in a tavern, cry a little bit of these working man blues.”

The track was released from A Portrait of Merle Haggard, whose “Hungry Eyes” became the set’s first Hot Country Songs chart-topper.

Haggard was born on April 6, 1937, in Oildale, Calif. With his smooth vocals, compelling guitar skills and lyrics that keenly linked with the working class, he earned iconic status, leading to his induction to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1994. His many accolades also include a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (2006) and a Kennedy Center Honor (2010).

After a long battle with pneumonia, Haggard died on April 6, 2016, his 79th birthday. His funeral that April 9 was officiated by Marty Stuart. Two weeks after Haggard’s passing, at a tour stop in Bakersfield, Calif., Chris Stapleton and his wife Morgaine paid tribute with performances of Haggard’s “Silver Wings” and “Today I Started Loving You Again.”

Barbra Streisand was the marquee star on Thursday night’s (Aug. 15) Jewish Women For Kamala online Zoom rally in support of the presumptive democratic presidential ticket. The latest in a series of similar digital rallies that have brought together white dudes, Deadheads, Swifties, Black men and women and several other niche voting demos drew more than 16,000 attendees according to organizers, many, no doubt, tuning in to hear what the Oscar-winning legend had to say about Vice President Kamala Harris and her VP pick, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

“It’s been said that Jewish women are known to speak out and tell you what they think and I’m one of them,” said Streisand, seated in a bespoke library. “I’m so tired of hearing [former President Donald] Trump put down America, saying ‘Make America Great Again’ because America has been great since 1776. And it’s still great in 2024.”

Streisand said she’s supporting Harris/Walz because she wants a president who believes we can “do anything if we work together.” She praised the democratic ticket for bringing a new sense of “optimism, energy and excitement” to the campaign since Harris stepped in for President Biden more than two weeks ago in an unprecedented switch at the top of the ticket with less than 100 days to go in the neck-and-neck race.

The singer called Harris a “terrific combination of both compassion and strength, a joyful warrior who will fight for the values that so many of us hold dear.” She went on to praise the Vice President for being a consistent advocate for programs that support gender equality, social justice and voting rights, while noting that in a recent appearance at a rally with evangelical voters Trump promised that if they voted for him just this one time, “you don’t have to vote again,” a line some took as the latest attempt from the former one-term president to erode democratic norms.

“Can you imagine?” Streisand said. “In contrast, Kamala Harris understands just what a privilege it is to be able to vote! And her commitment to health care, Social Security, education and to combatting climate change are the policies of someone who cares about the future of our country, our children and our planet… and not just the profits from big oil.”

Streisand noted that women are nurturers who take care of others and can think “beyond themselves,” while tagging Trump as someone who cares “only about himself” while insulting “any woman who questions him” by calling them “nasty.”

“I don’t think he even respects women,” Streisand said as a pivot to Trump’s appointment of several conservative Supreme Court justices who erased half a century of precedent by overturning Roe v. Wade. “I don’t know of any equivalent law giving the government control over men’s bodies,” she said of the decision that eliminated the federal right to abortion.

“Clearly in some people’s eyes women don’t count… oh but we will in November when they count the votes!,” she added with a sly smile before doing the most Barbra thing possible and taking a brief pause to sip of water from a flowered tea mug through a straw before leaning into Trump’s VP pick, Sen. JD Vance. She lambasted the first-term Ohio native for what she said are his stances that “women should stay at home,” as well as her description of what she said said was his belief that women’s careers are to blame for the nation’s “moral decline.”

“But Vance’s moral compass seems off, because he sees nothing wrong with his running mate — a convicted felon who talks about law and order — but doesn’t think it applies to him,” she said of Trump, who in addition to his 34 felony convictions in New York in his porn star hush money trial, is facing at least three other major court cases tied to his hoarding of government documents at his Florida residence and federal election interference tied to his attempt to results of the 2020 election he lost to President Biden.

She warned that Trump and Vance had given a preview of what they have in mind via their embrace of the Project 2025 blueprint from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, a document that seeks to replace thousands of non-partisan federal workers with political appointees loyal to Trump while injecting conservative Christian values into government as well as eliminating the Department of Education and the Head Start program for young children living in poverty. Calling it a “naked grab for power… a blueprint for a dictatorship,” Streisand said the 900-page document is full of things that should be alarming to anyone who cherishes the Constitution.

Decrying the use of “fear and hate” to pit people against each other, Streisand described great presidents such as Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson working to bring Americans together and change the world. “This is how we make progress, not with hateful, divisive leadership,” she said, praising Harris’ compassion “for all human beings,” while criticizing Trump for what she said was his lack of “intelligence, judgement and heart.”

“Our society will flourish with a smart, experienced woman,” Streisand said in conclusion to her two-plus minute endorsement. “Who will defend our rights and send Trump back to where he belongs… in his golf cart, lying about his scores.”

Check out Streisand on the Jewish Women for Kamala call below.

There’s a new boy band in town. Friday (Aug. 16) marks the official debut of the newly formed Japanese act ONE OR EIGHT. The eight-member group — composed of Mizuki, Neo, Reia, Ryota, Souma, Takeru, Tsubasa and Yuga – is sharing its second single with the energetic “Don’t Tell Nobody” and its accompanying music video.

The song follows debut single “Kawasaki” – a hip-hop-leaning track inspired by the Japanese automotive brand of the same name – that the group posted along with its Instagram launch in June. In its first week, the performance video they shared garnered more than 6 million views. 

ONE OR EIGHT, backed by entertainment company Avex in Japan and the U.S. (with Brandon Silverstein’s S10 as the Stateside Avex partner), stands out not only for its fusion of hip-hop with pop, but also the way in which the act celebrates its Japanese culture through lyrics, choreography and the members’ streetwear-inspired aesthetic. Even its name points to the group’s roots, as it’s derived from the Japanese idiom “Ichi ka Bachi ka,” roughly translating to “all or nothing.”

“We’re thrilled to present ONE OR EIGHT as a first of its kind collaboration that combines the musical, cultural, and innovative resources between the US and Japan branches of Avex, launching a lasting mission for a new generational hybrid model to push Japanese music as a global phenomenon,” says Naoki Osada, CEO of Avex U.S.

Adds Takeya Ino, president of labels at Avex Japan: “At Avex, we embrace challenges and respect the U.S. music culture. Utilizing the creative networks we’ve built in the U.S., our members are ready to embody the spirit of ‘all or nothing’ after years of preparations.”

“Don’t Tell Nobody” was written with David Stewart and co-produced by Stewart and hitmaker Ryan Tedder.

Watch the music video below.