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On Thursday night (April 27), James Corden aired the emotional final episode of his late-night talk show. In honor of his eight-year run, the host welcomed a series of stars throughout the show, which was preceded by an hourlong primetime special dubbed The Last Last Late Late Show With James Corden.
“I’m James Corden, and for the last time, this is the Late Late Show,” the host said as the crowd cheered his name.
Leave it to Corden to lighten the mood – and keep it that way throughout both programs. He fittingly opened the special with a pre-taped musical number that began as a ballad, which he sang from the roof of the CBS lot.
“We’ve been here for eight years and we’ve had so many laughs,” he started, before the song transformed into a pop banger as he declared, “Let’s blow CBS dough one last time … Go big or go home on my last day in the sunshine.”
And that he did. Below are the best music moments from Corden’s double-feature final hurrah — including Tom Cruise making his stage musical debut, hitting the road with Adele for the final Carpool Karaoke, gathering all the current late-night hosts for one final goodbye, welcoming Harry Styles and Will Ferrell as his final guests, and closing the episode in song, of course.
As Dolly Parton was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in late 2022, the country music icon promised to make good on the induction by recording her first rock album, titled Rock Star.
Though Parton has previously said that her list of A-list collaborators on the project (which releases in November) will include Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, John Fogerty and Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, there is one rock music icon she couldn’t quite wrangle to be part of the project: The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger.
“I never got him!” Parton told ET Online, quickly adding, “But I love Mick Jagger no matter what. I’ll still be runnin’ after him all through the years, because I’ve always had a crush on [him].”
Parton added that the album was largely inspired by her husband of more than five decades, Carl Dean. “I did a lot of the songs he loves, because he’s the the rock ‘n’ roller,” Parton said.
Even sans Jagger, music fans will get a first listen to the upcoming rock album when Parton co-hosts the ACM Awards on May 11 alongside Garth Brooks. Parton plans to premiere “World on Fire,” the first single from the album, at the awards show. This year’s Academy of Country Music Awards will stream live on Amazon Prime Video.
Parton is only the second woman, after Brenda Lee, to be inducted into both the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Country Music Hall of Fame.
“I think Brenda Lee has some great songs that would be considered rock,” Parton previously told Billboard. “She was such a crossover artist. I love Brenda, she was a great, great artist. She should be in there. I found out later there’s more people than I knew are in there, and I found out more about what the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame really stood for. … I even have a lot of my rock ‘n’ roll friends and people that are, you know, to the point of being bitter about the fact that they’re not being nominated or in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. So it’s like, ‘If they’re not able to be recognized in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where do they go?’ I was trying to be nice and good about not trying to take something away from somebody that had truly earned it.”
Triller has admitted liability in a breach of contract lawsuit Sony Music brought against the TikTok rival in August 2022, according to court documents obtained by Billboard.
In the lawsuit, Sony Music claimed Triller had “historically failed to make payments in a timely manner” and later “failed to make any monthly payments required under the Agreement, totaling millions of dollars” beginning in March 2022. Sony also alleged that Triller had continued using its music catalog even after the label terminated its licensing deal with the service in August, leading Sony to additionally sue Triller for copyright infringement.
According to a court filing entered by Sony Music attorneys Jeffrey Gould and Andrew Guerra on Wednesday (April 26), Sony Music and Triller have entered a stipulation establishing Triller’s liability for the breach of contract claim for $4.57 million. A settlement has not been reached on the copyright infringement claims, however, with the document noting that discovery “is ongoing” in that case.
Sony Music is asking the court to execute the judgment without delay, noting that Triller has previously claimed an “inability to pay.”
“Prompt entry of judgment is needed to protect against any further dissipation of Triller’s assets or, worse still, a bankruptcy filing,” the filing continues, noting that although Triller admitted liability, “it has not yet agreed to pay, so Sony Music needs the final judgment to enforce.”
Representatives for Sony Music and Triller did not immediately respond to Billboard‘s requests for comment.
Sony Music first signed a licensing deal with Triller in 2016 and amended the deal several times in the intervening years; the most recent agreement was signed in December 2021. Under that deal, known as the Eleventh Amendment, Triller was obligated to pay Sony an initial payment due at execution, followed by payments due on the first day of each month from March 1 through Nov. 1. At the time it brought the lawsuit, Sony claimed Triller hadn’t yet made any of those monthly payments or paid interest on overdue fees.
The Sony lawsuit is just one of several legal complaints filed against Triller over the last year. The same month Sony filed its complaint, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz filed a $28 million lawsuit against the platform for allegedly failing to pay money owed from the company’s purchase of their popular Verzuz livestream series. That lawsuit was settled the following month for an undisclosed amount. In August 2022, the smartphone app consulting firm Phiture sued Triller for allegedly failing to pay over $130,000 owed under a March 2021 services contract. That case was dismissed the following month without prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled, though it’s unclear if a settlement was reached.
Triller also continues to face a lawsuit filed in January by the publishing arm of Universal Music Group, which claims Triller stopped making payments in April 2022 under two separate licensing deals and had missed multiple required payments since then. In its complaint, UMG claimed that despite Triller’s failure to pay, the company continued “spending substantial amounts of money acquiring companies … and throwing lavish events catering to members of the media and entertainment industry.” UMG also alleged that Triller had breached provisions requiring the company to report how UMG music had been used on the platform. UMG said it terminated its licensing agreement with Triller on Jan. 3.
LONDON — French music company Believe’s recent investments in Europe, Asia Pacific and Africa helped boost digital sales across its key markets and drive overall revenues up 22% from January through March, despite a slowdown in ad-funded streaming revenue.
The company reported Thursday (April 27) that revenues grew 22.2% to 198.6 million euros ($218.9 million) compared to the prior year’s quarter. The Paris-headquartered company’s premium solutions business — which includes label services, marketing, distribution, promotions and sync — rose 23% year-on-year to 186 million euros ($205 million), while its automated solutions, which includes the TuneCore distribution platform, increased 11.2% to 12.7 million euros ($14 million).
Digital revenue also grew by 22.2% during the quarter, with non-digital sales up 21.8%. Believe didn’t provide financial figures for either market segment, nor an indication of overall net profit or loss for the quarter. The company’s shares, traded on France’s Euronext, fell 2.41% on Thursday to close at 9.70 euros ($10.70).
The company said ad-funded streaming revenue slowed to single digit growth at the start of the year — in line with the challenging global advertising market — but didn’t report financial values or the percentage increase.
Non-digital revenue benefitted from merchandising, branding and live activities in France and India, as well as a film project in Turkey, which Believe said collectively offset the fall in physical sales, most notably in Germany.
Growth of Believe’s core digital business, which focuses on markets and music genres where artist promotion and marketing are predominantly online, was driven by the global rise in paid music steaming and the company’s expanding international portfolio of artists and labels, CEO and founder Denis Ladegaillerie said during Thursday’s earnings call.
Recent investments include partnerships with Filipino label Viva Music and Artists Group (VMAG), India-based imprints Think Music and Panorama Music, French pop label Structure and Germany-based Madizin Music. Last month, Believe acquired U.K.-based publisher Sentric from Switzerland-based Utopia Music in a €47 million ($51 million) deal that marks the French company’s first major entry into the publishing industry. (Sentric is expected to add about 3% to annual revenue growth, the company said Thursday.)
Notable Believe artist signings cited include Thai acts TimeThai and Reinizra, Belgian rapper Hamza and a new multi-album deal with French hip-hop star Jul.
Globally, revenue from Asia Pacific and Africa, which Believe groups together in its earnings report, grew 40% year-on-year to 56.1 million euros ($61.8 million), representing 28.2% of the company’s earnings, compared to 24.7% in the first quarter of 2022.
Within the Asia Pacific and Africa region, Believe said it recorded strong growth in India, Greater China and Southeast Asia, driven by its growing roster of local artists and labels, sustained investment in on-the-ground teams and the rollout of its full label and artist solutions offer in most markets.
Europe, excluding France and Germany, recorded a revenue increase of 21.1% to 54.4 million euros ($60 million), representing around 27% of total revenue.
Believe’s operations in the Americas rose 25.2% to 29.4 million euros ($32.4 million), representing 14.8% of all income, with the company saying that it had a particularly strong sales quarter in Latin America, most notably in Brazil.
The company’s two strongest individual markets, France and Germany, also grew by 13.2% to 32.1 million euros ($35.4 million) and 3.7% to 26.6 million euros ($29.3 million), respectively. France generates 16.2% of the company’s total revenue, while Believe said its performance in Germany was impacted by a “strong decline in physical sales linked to the lowered exposure to physical sales-heavy contracts.”
Over the past 12 months, Believe has made significant moves into the dance music sector with the launch of global label solutions brand b:electronic, which has signed deals with electronic music imprints Hospital Records and Rinse in the U.K.; Big Top Amsterdam, Blackout Music and Mixmash in the Netherlands; and Cercle and Roche Musique in France.
On Wednesday, the company announced that its TuneCore distribution platform had teamed up with Beatport, enabling TuneCore artists to distribute their songs on the world’s largest electronic music platform for working DJs.
“This great start to the year, marked by strong operational milestones and solid organic performance, shows that we are well on track to deliver another year of profitable growth,” Ladegaillerie says in a statement. Believe’s increasing global reach combined with a “successful investment strategy” was enabling “artists and labels to thrive in the digital ecosystem,” he says.
Ladegaillerie says the company is looking to make further acquisitions in the year ahead. Believe, which operates in more than 50 countries and has over 1,600 employees worldwide, says it expects to generate positive free cash flow for the full year and expects to record organic revenue growth of around 18% in 2023. The company says it will “monitor its investment pace and focus on improving efficiency” to reach an adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest and taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin of 5% for fiscal year 2023.
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“You need to remember the past to save the future.” Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden play spies on a mission to take down a deadly rival in the new Prime Video series Citadel, premiering Friday (April 28).
From Anthony and Joe Russo, the series follows spies from an elite agency who reunite after having their memories wiped and identities changed. The series unfolds eight years after Citadel, an elite spy agency, gets destroyed by operatives from Manticore, a rival agency.
Eight years later, Mason Kane (Madden) finds himself back in contact with his former colleague, Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), who commissions him to help stop Manticore from “establishing a new world order.”
Mason tracks down Nadia and after some convincing — and a knife fight in a restaurant kitchen — she admits to having memories of him and they agree to help take down Manticore.
Lesley Manville, Osy Ikhile, Ashleigh Cummings, Roland Moller and Caoilinn Springall appear in the series from Amazon Studios and the Russo Brothers’ AGBO.
Nadia is a “female James Bond,” Chopra Jonas revealed in an interview with The New York Post. Having previously starred in ABC’s Quantico, the former Bollywood actress who launched her own haircare brand, Anomaly, and appears with her husband Nick Jonas appears in the romantic comedy Love Again, is no stranger to action-packed roles.
“When I met [executive producers Joe and Anthony Russo], they explained to me what this character [Nadia] was, they wanted to create a female spy that’s like James Bond,” she told The Post. “I was like, ‘Why would I not do that?’ Of course, I want to do that!”
Citadel is executive produced by the Russo brothers, Mike Larocca, Angela Russo-Otstot and Scott Nemes for AGBO. David Weil serves as showrunner and executive producer, while Josh Applebaum, André Nemec, Jeff Pinkner, and Scott Rosenberg serve as executive producers for Midnight Radio. Newton Thomas Sigel and Patrick Moran are also executive producers.
How can you shop the looks from Citadel? Amazon’s Citadel Shop officially opens on Thursday (April 27) at 4 p.m. PT/7 p.m. ET. Shop the digital storefront for official merchandise and products inspired by the show and discover new curated looks weekly based on Nadia’s fashions.
Read on for directions on how to stream Citadel on Prime Video for free.
How to Watch Citadel on Prime Video
Citadel is streaming exclusively on Prime Video, and it’s free to subscribers. The first two episodes in the series will premiere this Friday, while the remaining four episodes will debut every Friday leading up to the finale on May 26.
The series comes included free with a subscription to Amazon Prime. Not subscribed? Join Amazon Prime today and enjoy a 30-day free trial to stream Citadel and more from Prime Video’s library of movies and other original shows including Daisy Jones & The Six, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Swarm, The Power, Harlem, Invincible, The Boys, Fleabag, and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Fire.
Prime Video (free with Prime Membership)
Aside from free access to Prime Video, Prime members get free Amazon Music, free GrubHub+ for a year and free same-day, one-day or two-day delivery on millions of items.
How much does an Amazon Prime membership cost? The monthly membership is $14.99 after the free trial ends. Amazon offers annual Prime memberships for $139 along with student discounts and discounts for SNAP/Medicaid recipients.
Although Prime members get exclusive deals on tons of items, Prime Video is also available as a standalone service for $9/month after a free seven-day trial.
With Prime Video, subscribers can add HBO Max, Paramount+, Starz, Showtime and other channels to stream from a single platform.
Watch the trailer for Citadel below.
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