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Vans just enlisted the help of some major music acts for their new spring 2026 campaign titled “Off the Wall.”

The footwear retailer brought on SZA, Hayley Williams, Travis Barker and Franz Lyons of Turnstile to model their latest Authentic styles alongside skateboarders Lizzie Armanto and T-Funk. Each person seemed to effortlessly embody the Vans branding, whether that be through their grungy aesthetics or skateboarding occupation, a pastime that is very near and dear to the brand’s ethos. “Off The Wall reflects how Vans moves through culture: how it creates, how it connects, and how it evolves,” the Vans press release reads. “Each individual featured embodies that mindset, completely unique, yet hardwired to create their own noise. Builders and breakers. Originals and outsiders.”

In any case, the campaign featured a slew of lace-up styles new to the brand that can be shopped on Vans’ website now. Ample sizing is available for both men and women. The iconic canvas silhouette now features a range of colorful options, including whimsical floral prints, alongside the standard yet always fun checkerboard pattern in shades of pink, green, or red. The checkerboard styles launched today, while the printed models will be launching April 2.

The classic lace-up is near and dear to many folks’ hearts. On the musician front alone, you’ve got stars like BLACKPINK’s Lisa, Justin Bieber, Rihanna, Olivia Rodrigo and SZA that have worn low-top Vans on and off for years, and it’s easy to see why. The shoe has that certain swagger that’s synonymous with moshing, hitting an Ollie or playing through a punk-rock set with friends.

The shoe is carefree and easy to wear, popularized by skateboarders, surfers and punk and emo subgenres. These new canvas silhouettes are much more playful, imbued with tons of color that make them great for spring. The canvas is forgiving and easy to clean if you do happen to dirty them up — although, Vans look best all scuffed up in our opinion. Each shoe is equipped with non-slip rubber soles and lace-up closures for an adjustable fit. The loud prints and patterns are meant to stand-out, serving as a statement shoe especially when worn with your classic jeans and tee attire.

Below, you can shop our favorites seen on SZA, Hailey Williams, Franz Lyons and Travis Barker.

Shop Vans’ New Spring 2026 Authentic Styles Seen on SZA, Travis Barker & Hailey Williams

Premium Authentic Checkerboard Shoe

$100

Buy Now at vans

This lace-up style has a woven look in shades of green and deep blue. This is an interesting take on the brand’s checkerboard pattern shoe.

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Authentic Checkerboard Shoe

$60

Buy Now at vans

This lace-up style with that iconic checkerboard pattern, this time, in pink and blue. The lace-up style is just one of many checkerboard silhouettes launched.

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Authentic Checkerboard Shoe

Buy Now at vans $60 $60

This lace-up style with that iconic checkerboard pattern. The lace-up style is just one of many checkerboard silhouettes launched.

---

Premium Authentic Checkerboard Shoe

$100

Buy Now at vans

This lace-up style has a woven look in back and white. This is an interesting take on the brand’s checkerboard pattern shoe because the pattern is larger.

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Jack Johnson considered naming the upcoming documentary SURFILMUSIC something more along the lines of “Make Stuff.” Those words stuck out to him as he and longtime friend and collaborator Emmett Malloy (director of Big Easy Express and The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights) compiled footage of Johnson’s life from his first steps to losing his front teeth in the water at Pipeline to becoming a household name through his music.

“You know how many mornings Emmett had to wake up to a text being like, ‘Why would I want to put a film out about me?’” Johnson jokes days before the 75-minute film is set to debut at Austin’s SXSW on March 13. The documentary unfolded from Johnson and Malloy combing through old footage as they prepared for the re-release of their surf films Thicker Than Water and September Sessions.

“The more we started watching, the story kept unfolding that was just about a bunch of friends making things together and the story that collaborating sometimes is where the strength is and seeing things in each other before you see them in yourselves,” Johnson tells Billboard.

SURFILMUSIC, directed by Malloy, begins with a flip book drawing of a surfer catching a wave – a childhood drawing of Johnson’s. According to the musician, it’s the first piece of art he can remember making and sets up the film for an hour plus of Johnson, Malloy and their friends, including pro surfer Kelly Slater, as they grow up in Hawaii. Through interviews and unearthed footage, the film traces Johnson’s professional surfer days to his award-winning film career and finally as a globally renowned musician and activist.

The film is an ideal centerpiece for the 40th anniversary of SXSW that kicks off today (March 12) with an abbreviated timeline. For the first time in the music, film and tech festival’s history, all three verticals will be running at the same time due to the renovation of the Austin Convention Center. With the music and film verticals overlapping, musicians are able to screen their film during the day and perform later in the evening for both the film and music fans and critics.

Johnson will screen SURFILMUSIC and perform alongside Hermanos Gutiérrez that evening at Stubb’s. And Johnson is not the only artist taking advantage of the overlap.

Noah Kahan, Charley Crockett, Lainey Wilson, Los Lobos and early 2000s girl group X-Cetra will also screen films at the festival. For Kahan (Out of Body), Crockett (A Cowboy in London) and Wilson (Keepin’ Country Cool), their films showcase their recent rise to global success, while, Johnson, Los Lobos (Los Lobos Native Sons) and X-Cetra (Summer 2000: The X-Cetra Story) serve as career retrospectives.

“Having these documentaries come out earlier in their careers,” SXSW vp of music Brian Hobbs says, gives these artists “an opportunity to get on a massive stage and pull the curtain back a little bit to show people who they really are.”

“This is the largest number of films that are coordinating with a performance that we’ve had in the 21 years I’ve been here,” says SXSW vp of film and TV Claudette Godfrey, who adds that the film and music segments of the festival always try to overlap as much as possible. But, Godfrey explains, the film portion is also about discovery and half the films screen feature first time directors.

While big names are attached to several of the films this year, the music and film crossovers were not selected just for the star power. “I want to feel that I got that behind the scenes, backstage pass of it all,” says Godfrey. “I don’t want it to feel super vanity or this is ‘this is me showcasing everything in the best possible light.’ I want it to feel more encompassing.”

For Hobbs, landing the Crockett and Wilson documentaries, along with their showcase performances, was especially important for this year’s festival.

“It was on our vision board for SXSW 2026, ‘We got to get more country music out here,’” Hobbs says. While country music is a dominant genre in Texas, Hobbs believes SXSW has not been at the forefront of country upstarts and credits music programmer Berkli Johnson with strengthening the genre’s presence.

This year’s focus on country music “is going to do what happened with hip-hop out here after Jay-Z and Kanye [West] stamped SXSW was a thing for hip-hop, then hip-hop really took over,” Hobbs says. “Peso Pluma and Grupo Frontera really stamped it for Latin music and now our Latin music has been going crazy. I’m really hoping that we’ll see the same thing happen with country music after this year.”

Gorillaz reign on Billboard’s Top Rock & Alternative Albums chart for the fourth time, topping the March 14-dated survey with The Mountain. It’s the animated band’s second No. 1 in a row, following the one-week rule of Cracker Island in 2023.

In the week ending March 5, The Mountain earned 53,000 equivalent album units in the United States, according to Luminate. That sum includes 38,000 album sales, of which 19,000 were via vinyl configurations.

Gorillaz first led Top Rock & Alternative Albums, which began in 2006, with Plastic Beach in 2010, followed by Humanz in 2017. The band was even part of the chart’s inaugural edition; Demon Days, which was released in 2005, ranked at No. 7 on the initial Jan. 14, 2006, tally. Concurrently, The Mountain bows at No. 7 on the all-genre Billboard 200, Gorillaz’s seventh top 10, dating to Demon Days. The Damon Albarn-led band’s best remains the No. 2 peaks of Plastic Beach and Humanz.

Three songs from The Mountain appear on Hot Rock & Alternative Songs, paced by “The Moon Cave,” which debuts at No. 24 as the week’s highest bow. The track, which features Asha Puthli, Bobby Womack, David Jolicoeur, Jalen Ngonda and Black Thought, earned 2.4 million official U.S. streams.

The Mountain’s release was prefaced by lead single “The Happy Dictator,” featuring Sparks, which peaked at Nos. 21 and 28 on Adult Alternative Airplay and Alternative Airplay, respectively, last year. Another single, “Orange County,” is currently bubbling under Adult Alternative Airplay. The song features contributions from Bizarrap, Kara Jackson and Anoushka Shankar.

For his first album in four years, Harry Styles has been locking lips and busting moves, celebrating his return to performing and recording after a rare break by embracing communal experience, particularly on the dancefloor. Debuting on Friday (Mar. 6), Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. marks the follow-up to Styles’ Grammy-winning 2022 blockbuster Harry’s House and serves as something of a pivot, taking him further into club and indie-dance territory than ever before, as the former boy-band breakout takes stock of his life and what’s important to him as he gets deeper into his 30s.

With this Rollout Report Card episode, host Andrew Unterberger is joined by Billboard staffers Danielle Pascual and Hannah Dailey as we look at everything surrounding Kiss All the Time — both in the four years that separated it and Harry’s House, and now the two months since its actual announcement. We attempt to grade all aspects of the rollout, the narrative that Harry established for his new era, and whether or not the album and its singles actually lived up to their billing.

Along the way, we answer all the most important questions about the last month or two of Harry’s return: Should we abbreviate Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally. to KATTDO or Kissco? How do we feel the album art and title match the actual album? Did we find the BRITs performance of “Aperture” fun or cringey? Is it enough already with “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”? What’s the deal with that photo of him with the giant spoon? Is this all the prelude for Styles’ upcoming tour-not-quite-tour? And perhaps most importantly: Do we really understand what any of these songs are actually about just from the lyrics?

Check it out above — along with a YouTube playlist of some of the most important moments from this full-steam-ahead album campaign, all of which are discussed in the podcast — and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!

Check out Hannah’s self-titled debut EP on DSPs now.

And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:

Transgender Law Center

Trans Lifeline

Destination Tomorrow

Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe