Tick tock on the clock! The Halloween party isn’t going to stop just yet, but the Christmas season is coming early to Spotify. The music streamer is set to release five new Spotify Singles at the stroke of midnight local time on Tuesday (Oct. 15), including one by Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200 chart-topper Kesha.

This year’s annual singles collection — which arrives a little earlier than usual this time — will feature four other artists and their covers of holiday tunes. The featured musicians and their yuletide songs are:

“As you’ll hopefully hear, each single really showcases the personality and style of each artist — often reinventing holiday classics in an entirely new way,” Talia Kraines, Spotify’s senior editor of pop, tells Billboard. 

“With ‘Holiday Road,’ Kesha has taken this really fun ’80s song – which wasn’t originally a holiday song – and brought it to the modern day. We just knew she would sound amazing singing it, and she does. Her vocals make me think of The Go-Gos or The Bangles here. It feels like a monumental year for Kesha, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it – she’s reclaiming her joy and owning her own voice,” she adds of the Grammy nominated artist. “It also seemed fitting to have Kesha make a holiday song with us because her music actually hits a high each year on Spotify during the holiday season. Tracks like ‘Tik Tok’ and ‘Timber’ have come to be known as New Year’s and celebration anthems.”

As for “Driving Home for Christmas,” Kraines notes that it’s “huge in the U.K. and Europe” if not the U.S. “We saw this as a great opportunity to give this holiday song a whole new audience in America while sharing a new version for countries where the song is already beloved,” she says of Dasha’s contribution.

Last year’s Spotify Singles’ holiday collection was announced during mid November, usually when the music streamer decks the speakers with holiday tunes. It featured Laufey’s interpretation of the classic “Winter Wonderland,” which peaked at No. 2 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100 and No. 80 on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 charts; Kirk Franklin’s gospel take on “Joy to the World”; Ezra Collective’s cover of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”; and Musica Mexicana artist Panter Bélico offered his original tune “Un Vaquero En Navidad.”

Previous Spotify Singles for its Holiday Collection include Kurt Vile’s take of Bob Dylan’s version of holiday classic “Must Be Santa,” IVE’s holiday mix of its own “After LIKE” and more. The overall Holiday Collection playlist on Spotify also includes contributions from Miley Cyrus, DMX, Demi Lovato, Sam Smith, Liam Payne, John Legend, Fifth Harmony, Camilo, Black Pumas and many, many more.

PartyNextDoor gave an update about his upcoming joint album with his label boss Drake and he sounds pretty confident.

During a recent appearance on OVO’s The Fry Yiy Show on SiriusXM, the singer says he and Drake have been hard at work while also placing lofty expectations on the already highly-anticipated project. “I have had an insane week,” he said. “You guys know what’s coming for you. Party and Drake have a classic. We trying to put the finishing touches on it, so… Yeah, it’s a jam-packed month for me filled with the thing that I love to do the most, besides being the world’s greatest dad.”

Drake made the announcement to a surprised crowd earlier this summer during his set at the Toronto stop of Party’s Sorry, I’m Outside Tour. “So, you get the summer over with, you do what you need to do,” he told the crowd. “I know all you girls are outside. When it gets a little chilly, PartyNextDoor and Drake album will be waiting right there for you.” Party then confirmed the project’s existence when he told social media personality Awaiz Punjani, “The one we doing right now – all 15 we doing right now,” after being asked what his favorite song was.

Drake recently went on a rant seemingly addressing the beef he found himself in earlier this year which may explain his need to work on this upcoming album with a longtime collaborator and friend. “My real friends are definitely in the building,” he said while on stage during Tyrone Edwards’ Nostalgia Party in Toronto a couple weeks ago. “But let me tell you that you’re going to come to a point in life where people you thought were friends, people you thought were close to you switch up.”

There still isn’t a release date yet and no singles have dropped, but October isn’t over and there’s still a couple months left in the year.

Idina Menzel has experienced more than her fair share of people mispronouncing her name — but she’s drawing the line when it comes to Kamala Harris.

With Election Day less than a month away, the Broadway alum issued a video PSA via Instagram on Sunday demonstrating the exact way to say the VP’s moniker. “You have to get the pronunciation of Kamala Harris correct,” she says in the clip, standing outside while addressing the camera. “It’s getting really exhausting. It’s Kamala, like a comma. ‘Comma-la.’”

“I tend to be an expert on pronunciations of names, since mine is always screwed up, as you know,” Menzel continued, before referencing one of the most viral moments of her career: when John Travolta butchered her name while introducing her performance at the 2014 Oscars.

“And not just as ‘Adele Dazeem,’” the Frozen star says. “People call me Indiana, ‘Eye-dina’ … I was just at an event in Oklahoma, and they called me ‘Ay-deena Menzul.’”

Though Menzel says people are constantly mispronouncing her name, Travolta’s flub is definitely the most memorable. Though he’d later say that a last-second change to the teleprompter was to blame, he mistakenly set up her performance of “Let It Go” by saying, “Please welcome the wickedly talented, one and only Adele Dazeem.”

At the time, Menzel took it in stride and, at the next year’s ceremony, got the Grease actor back by referring to him as “Glom Gazingo” as the two presented onstage. Earlier this year, the Rent performer celebrated the viral moment’s 10-year anniversary with a funny TikTok, telling the camera: “Hey, Adele Dazeem! It’s Idina Menzel … I just wanted to say happy birthday. Sending you so much love and positive energy.”

When it comes to Harris, however, Menzel isn’t joking around. At the end of her PSA, the star adds, “I think that the vice president and soon-to-be president should have her name pronounced correctly.”

Watch Menzel’s tutorial on how to say Kamala Harris’ name below.

Billboard is now accepting nominations for the Chip Hooper Award, named in honor of the legendary talent agent, father and photographer who played a key role in building the Paradigm talent agency, which was purchased by Wasserman Music in 2021.

Hooper passed away after a battle with cancer in 2016; the award was created in 2018 as part of a collaboration between Billboard, his colleagues at Wasserman Music and Hooper’s daughter, Valerie Hooper, and son, Max Hooper. Now in its third year, the award is presented to a young rising star who works as an executive in artist representation, management or concert promotion.

In 2018, the inaugural award was given to Kelly Stebalsky of Live Nation, who first met Hooper after meeting him at an industry conference; she later left her job at William Morris in New York to come work with him in representing acts like Phish and Dave Matthews Band. In 2019, Sara Bollwinkel, previously with Paradigm and now a senior vp at Wasserman Music, won the award.

The Chip Hooper Award will be presented for the third time at this year’s Billboard Live Music Awards, which is slated to take place Nov. 14 at the One Hotel in West Hollywood. Nominations for the award are now open. While there is no age cap, please remember that the award is for young professionals on the rise. 

To nominate someone, you can email their name, title and company, along with a brief description about why they deserve the honor and a list of a few of their accomplishments in the last 18 months, to dave.brooks@billboard.com. The deadline for nominations is Friday (Oct. 18) at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.

It was 3:00 a.m. in Austin, Texas, and Rüfüs du Sol couldn’t figure out the chord arrangement.

The trio had been working for hours, assembling and re-assembling a single chord progression in dozens of different ways. “I think we were on our 30th coffee,” jokes the group’s keyboardist Jon George.

Then, they thought of Underworld’s “Born Slippy (Nuxx),” and the way the 1996 song’s classic intro sort of stutters into existence like passing digital clouds. They transposed this structure onto what they were working on, and there they had it, with the idea helping complete a darkly lush song called “Edge of the Earth.”

It was an in-the-moment creative spark that probably wouldn’t have happened if the guys had been on an afternoon remote work session from separate cities, a method they’d tried when first starting on music for their new album. But with the group’s singer Tyrone Lindqvist based in San Diego, Calif. and George and drummer James Hunt living in Miami, they couldn’t just casually assemble in the studio.

“There was some nerves about how we would finish the next record,” says Lindqvist. “We always knew we were going to keep making music regardless of where we live, but there was some uncertainty about how that was going to play out. We tried writing separately, and it wasn’t really clicking.”

Together, they decided on a series of two week work sessions. They met for two weeks in Austin, then took eight weeks off. They met for two weeks in Ibiza, then took eight weeks off, with the next two week session happening in the Australian group’s former home base of Los Angeles. They’d bring ideas and what Hunt calls an “amazing playground” of instruments to their traveling creative bubble, then go their separate ways and flesh the music out separately.

After 18 months of this workflow, the guys ultimately assembled their fifth studio album, Inhale / Exhale, out Friday (Oct. 11) through Warner Records. The 15 tracks are classic Rüfüs: dreamy and delicate, occasionally dark and full of longing, but never overtly challenging, and altogether built from as much analog as electronic instrumentation.

“Each time we did a block, I feel like we got stronger at exploring ideas, breaking the ice quicker, playing and being very free,” says Hunt. “We’d initially finish around 10:00 p.m. and by the end, because we’d be having so much fun, we’d be wrapping at like, 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. We’d leave those two weeks fatigued, but very satisfied and stoked, because there’d be so much material.”

And in this way, instead of writing being a slog with no end in site, the eight weeks off provided a built in restoration period. Both in and out of the studio, the process was enhanced by the load of wellness practices that have been part of the Rüfüs repertoire for years, with group workout sessions, breathwork, ice baths and guided meditations all part of the routine. “It put us in a really dialed in zone where we felt focused and present and optimized and in a good place,” says Hunt.

But after nearly 15 years and five studio albums, the trio required a bit more maintenance than some diaphragmatic breathing. They’d started partaking in group therapy a few years back, and — recognizing that they wanted their creative space to be, Hunt says, “sacred” and therefore free of interpersonal drama — did therapy during the making of Inhale / Exhale as well. Speaking to Billboard over Zoom from Australia, the guys (assembled on a couch together and all dressed in black) agree that therapy has been valuable in enhancing their communication and creating, Hunt says, “connection that feels way healthier. I think our friendships have improved dramatically as a result of it.”

So too has it helped them navigate the touring lifestyle and its myriad challenges and siren calls. “We began this endeavor to be touring on the road and to be all focused on the music,” says George, “and that would maybe lead to maybe immature decisions. We just didn’t do a lot of growing for a period of time. It was just us relying on each other and being caught up in this washing machine that is being in a band and indulging in a rock star lifestyle for a little bit there.

“We naturally had to do a bit of growing up at some point,” he continues, “and we’re lucky that we were safe enough in that time that we didn’t blow ourselves out, or blow a tire on our bus, so to speak.”

Now, armed with more sustainable life choices and better listening skills, within Rüfüs there’s generally “less pointing fingers,” says Lindqvist, and more “working on communicating as soon as we can in an appropriate space, and not doing it in a room of 30 people, or just before we’re about to go on an interview.”

It’s wise to have brushed up on it all as the Rüfüs du Sol machine has turned back on over the last four months. The guys, who say they enjoy the album cycle process, marked the last one with a massive global tour and a win for best dance/electronic recording at the 2022 Grammys for their track “Alive,” from the album Surrender.

Their two years of touring behind that album began with three shows at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles (which for many attendees marked their first post-pandemic concert), and ended in August of 2023. Beyond a few festival dates in Australia and their ongoing residency at Las Vegas club XS, the guys were largely quiet until this past spring, when they were a late addition to the Coachella lineup, then showed up for a surprise set at Lightning in a Bottle near Bakersfield, Calif. in May. (Lindqvist does not perform during DJ sets, leaving that element of the Rüfüs oeuvre to George and Hunt.)

The lead single from Inhale / Exhale, “Music Is Better,” dropped in June, ultimately reaching No. 1 on Dance Mix Show/Airplay earlier this month. Another three singles, (and another DJ set played at Burning Man 2024 and uploaded to YouTube), built hype for both the album and Rüfüs’ September headlining set at Portola Music Festival in San Francisco, their only live U.S. show of the year.

This Portola show drew a giant crowd and found the guys unveiling a new stage set up less focused on lights and lasers and more focused on…them.

“No shade being thrown, but what’s happening a lot in the [live] electronic music scene is a lot more visuals,” says George. “We were playing into that a fair bit on our last couple of tours, with big LED walls and [the like], so we were just excited by showing something different and leaning into the musicality.”

Their Portola set up — designed by their longtime creative director Katzki, who’s also George’s brother —  struck a sparer, more industrial aesthetic, with visuals focused on showing the guys playing their instruments in cutting edge IMAG (image magnification), which Katzki was inspired to incorporate after seeing a Rosalía show.

“It’s focusing on the musicality of what we’re doing between the three of us,” George says of the Portola performance. “Now I’m excited for what we’re pushing further for next year.” (Rüfüs has not thus far announced any additional tour dates.) For now, they say having another album out is a success, as are the creative directions they’ve pushed themselves on it, as are the number of fans who’ve been with them for the duration of their career.

Just as they started writing it, they did a guided meditation focused, George says, on “how we were going to feel after writing a record, and what my future self looks like during that process.” (They’d done the same kind of meditation before the 2022 Grammys, envisioning what it would be like to win, and then winning.) During this process, George simply saw his future self, the one who’d just released the album, smiling widely like a cheshire cat. Today on Zoom, he flashes a big grin, like the one he says he’d imagined. They all do.