When Lauren Spencer Smith started crafting her new song “Fantasy,” she had a feeling that it could use an extra dose (or two) of girl power to really drive home its “teenage, angry feelings about a breakup.”

“I kind of knew that I wanted a collaboration, but it just sat in a folder for a while and I hadn’t reached out to anybody. I didn’t really know who or what exactly it was going to be,” Smith told Billboard‘s Pop Shop Podcast, chatting on a Zoom call alongside eventual collaborators GAYLE and Em Beihold.

“And then throughout like a couple months, me, GAYLE and Em met each other on so many different occasions and became friends and we had a group chat,” Smith added of the ongoing text thread they dubbed the “Powerpuff” chat. “And I’ve been a fan of GAYLE and Em forever. I always listened to their music since way before I met them. So after we had had a group chat for a while, and we were like kind of a little friend group, I was like, ‘I’m just gonna ask because these seem like the perfect girls to have like a woman-empowerment moment on this song.’”

And so she did, texting her very own Powerpuff Girls with the idea. “I, like, freaked out,” Beihold recalls. “I was laying down on my bed, and then Lauren texted and I like bolted right up and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, she wants me to be on a song with her and GAYLE!’ And I was just super stoked because I love them and I love both of their music. And I just think it was such a fun opportunity. And also just going through all this together as friends is amazing. Because sometimes you do collabs with people that you don’t know too well and it’s fun, but to do it with people that you can just laugh with is amazing.”

“We only replied in all caps,” GAYLE adds. “We flipped out. So many exclamation points, like so, so much excitement.”

They also teamed up for an angsty music video, each starting out in their own scenes before coming together onscreen — including one perfect moment where they huddle together to yell the “OH, CONGRATULATIONS” line from the visceral chorus.

“When we were on set, I was like, ‘OK, if they asked me to be in a girl group tomorrow, I would say yes,’” Smith recalls.

Elsewhere in the interview, we discuss where each artist is in the process of making their debut full-length albums and about how well they relate to each other being young female pop stars who all broke out in the music industry in 2022 (Smith with “Fingers Crossed,” GAYLE with “ABCDEFU,” and Beihold with “Numb Little Bug”). Plus, GAYLE tells us all about hitting the road with Taylor Swift for her epic Eras Tour. “I’ve never really performed in a stadium before, so it’s such an honor and it’s definitely not something that I take lightly,” she says. “And so I’ve been trying my best to just do the best that I possibly can.”

Also on the show, we’ve got chart news on how Drake’s “Search and Rescue” debuts at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking his 68th top 10 hit, how a regional Mexican song is in the top 10 of the Hot 100 for the first time as Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma’s “Ella Baila Sola” jumps 17-10, and how both NF and Linkin Park make a splash in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 albums chart.

The Billboard Pop Shop Podcast is your one-stop shop for all things pop on Billboard’s weekly charts. You can always count on a lively discussion about the latest pop news, fun chart stats and stories, new music, and guest interviews with music stars and folks from the world of pop. Casual pop fans and chart junkies can hear Billboard’s executive digital director, West Coast, Katie Atkinson and Billboard’s senior director of charts Keith Caulfield every week on the podcast, which can be streamed on Billboard.com or downloaded in Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider. (Click here to listen to the previous edition of the show on Billboard.com.)

All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.

These boots were made for walking. From Coachella to Revolve Festival, platform boots have officially taken over the California desert.

With so many festivals and concert tours this year, you can expect to see even more people wearing platform boots, and rightfully so, because they’re cute, extremely comfortable and offer better support than a stiletto heel.

Platforms never officially left the fashion ethos. In fact, they’ve withstood the test of time. Looking back over the last five decades, platform boots have been at the forefront of fashion footwear. From their 1970s heyday to ’90s grunge and goth, to Y2K trends from the early ’00s, it’s clear that platforms boots aren’t going anywhere.

But where can you find the best platform boots? Shoppers are head over heels for the Windsor Smith Stretch Sock Boot ($129). According to dozens of customer reviews and TikTok videos, the platform ankle boot is “bloody perfect.”

“These shoes fit perfectly,” reads one customer review. “The heels are nice and big, the perfect size for a bit of a statement. And they’re easy to walk in. Your feet don’t even get sore! And not to mention they’re stunning. The material helps it fit like a glove. It’s fitted yet stretchy at the same time and very flattering.”

This mid-calf boot has a 4.1-inch platform heel with a rounded toe, treaded sole and detail stitching along the front and ankle. The boot is available in sizes 6-10.

“I cannot tell you how happy I am with these boots,” wrote another customer. “They’re comfortable and I feel like I can walk in them for hours and they fit bigger calfs. Get these if you’re thinking about it!”

 “I am so obsessed with these yall you can pair them with anything and they are the perfect boots to complete a grunge style look,” added another happy customer.

Windsor Smith platforms are known for being stylish and comfortable, but also affordable. Click here to see other platforms boots from the brand.

If you’d rather have a sale option, these platform boots are $80 at Aldo (regular $130). You also might like these Steve Madden Acacia Leather Platform Boots ($159.95) or the splurge-worthy Naked Wolfe Spice Platform Tall Boot ($350).

You can also find a large variety of platforms at Amazon and Zappos. For even shoe recommendations, read our round up of other places to buy platform boots and heels.

With the distinction between catalog and frontline music growing increasingly blurry in the streaming era, BMG announced Tuesday (April 18) that the company will combine its new release and catalog recordings businesses — claiming to be a first for a major music company.

Calling the distinction between the two categories “outdated” in a press release announcing the change, BMG said its recorded catalog (traditionally defined as tracks older than 18 months) will now report locally (per its country of origin) and then globally through the company’s executive vp of global repertoire, Fred Casimir, for all sales outside the owning territory — a structure BMG already uses for frontline recordings. The changes are effective immediately.

“Music fans demonstrate on a daily basis that they reject the music industry’s outdated privileging of new music over older music,” said BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch in a statement. “Music is music regardless of its age. Great artists and great music have no expiry date and we believe it is time for the music industry to reflect that.”

In a note to BMG staff on Tuesday, Masuch said the shift “marks a significant expansion of [Casimir’s] responsibilities, and is a reflection of the success of the global frontline marketing team he created in 2018.” Casimir will now also oversee the company’s global catalog marketing team as well as its London-based global licensing hub, leading a team of roughly 90 employees.

Masuch continued that the integration “also means that on a local level, our repertoire leaders — Thomas Scherer in LA, Alistair Norbury in London etc – will uniquely in the music industry oversee music publishing and frontline and catalog recordings in their local territories.” He added that the change “empowers local leaders…shortens reporting lines and…makes us more responsive for our artist and songwriter clients.”

Over the last several years, catalog music has become increasingly dominant in terms of overall consumption. According to Luminate, catalog’s share of total consumption across all formats climbed to 72.2% in 2022, up from 69.8% in 2021 and 65.1% in 2020; by contrast, catalog’s share was a mere 35.8% in 2014. Additionally, between 2021 and 2022, the average age of the top 1,000 on-demand audio streaming tracks rose from 3,287 days in 2021 to 3,462 days in 2022 — an increase of 176 days, or nearly six months — according to a Billboard analysis of Luminate data.

Some of that shift can be attributed to the way TikTok has driven streams of older songs like Fleetwood Mac‘s “Dreams” and Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill” over the past few years. But it’s mainly been driven by the enduring popularity of so-called “shallow catalog” — i.e. music released within the last several years, as opposed to “deep catalog” like the decades-old Fleetwood Mac and Bush songs. That change was ushered in by the streaming model. Playlists on services like Spotify and Apple Music regularly surface tracks older than 18 months and thereby extend the lives of years-old songs in a way that didn’t happen during previous eras, when consumption was dominated by radio, physical sales and digital downloads.

“Successful music catalogues deserve the same effort, commitment and passion as newer recordings,” said Casimir in a statement. “I am delighted to take on responsibility for marketing BMG’s recorded catalogue.” Casimir joined BMG in 2009 when he was hired as managing director of BMG Germany from its sister Bertelsmann company FreemantleMedia, where he oversaw the company’s music-related businesses across Europe. He was named to his current role in 2019.

In its 2022 earnings released in March, BMG reported that the company enjoyed its best year ever, with revenue up more than 30% thanks to strong growth in both publishing and recorded music. It generated 866 million euros ($912.6 million) for the year — 40% of which was attributed to the company’s recorded music business — versus 663 million euros in 2021 ($784 million),

Following the release of that earnings report, Masuch told Billboard the record-setting year came about in part due to the company’s longstanding focus on “established repertoire” rather than new artists, with a recorded catalog that includes the likes of Black Sabbath, The Kinks, Motörhead, Rick Astley, Mötley Crüe, Kylie Minogue, Chris Rea and Nick Cave.

Masuch echoed that narrative in his note to BMG staff on Tuesday.

“BMG was the first music company to recognize that in a streaming environment, older music would be relatively more important than it had ever been in the past,” he said. “This is borne out by market statistics which show that the new release frontline business is down to 30% or less of streaming consumption.

“It is why we have invested heavily in classic repertoire and why the majority of our frontline new releases are by proven and established artists. But until now we have always followed industry practice in having a separate global reporting line for catalog recordings as opposed to frontline. This now changes.”