Kelly Clarkson kicked off the week of her popular daytime talk show on Monday (April 10) with a duet, calling on Charles Esten for an anthemic cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days.”

With Esten on the guitar, the duo harmonized in the chorus of the ode to nostalgia, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart dated August 3, 1985. The song, featured on Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., spent a total of 18 weeks on the tally.

Other songs Clarkson has recently taken on for her Kellyoke segment include Lenny Kravitz’s cover of “American Woman,” GAYLE’s Grammy-nominated breakout “abcdefu” — complete with tweaked lyrics to allude to her divorce from Brandon Blackstock — and Janet Jackson’s “When I Think of You.”

Clarkson is also gearing up to release her highly anticipated album Chemistry, her first project of original, non-holiday music since 2017’s Meaning of Life. The studio set’s lead single “Mine” is set to arrive April 14 via Atlantic Records.

Watch Kelly Clarkson and Charles Esten perform Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days” below.

Hayley Kiyoko serenaded her girlfriend Becca Tilley with a special song during her concert at London’s Koko on Sunday night.

Bringing the former Bachelor star onstage, Kiyoko had her love sit on a stool while she strummed the guitar. “If you do not know, this is my beautiful girlfriend Becca Tilley,” the pop singer told the ecstatic crowd. “She’s been living on the road with us for about a week. How’s it going?” (“It’s fine. I haven’t slept much,” Tilley replied.)

Related

The artist known as Lesbian Jesus then told the audience, “I’m gonna play one of my favorite songs that I don’t normally get to play, and it’s called ‘Pretty Girl,’” before launching into an acoustic rendition of the 2016 deep cut that first appeared on her Citrine EP.

“I  can see you’re real smart/ World-class piece of art/ I can see you in the dark/ All we have to do is start/ I just wanna tell you that you’re really pretty, girl/ I just wanna know if you will let me be your world/ I just know you got to taste like candy, candy girl/ I just wanna tell you that you’re really pretty, girl,” Kiyoko sang as Tilley gazed on adoringly and mouthed some of the words.

During the concert, the Panorama singer also performed a shortened version of “Determinate” from the 2011 Disney Channel Original Movie Lemonade Mouth and a solo cut of “Hungry Heart,” her new collab with Galantis and Steve Aoki, among hits like “Sugar at the Bottom,” “What I Need,” “Girls Like Girls” and more.

Watch Kiyoko sing “Pretty Girl” directly to Tilley in fan-captured footage below.

A shooting at a 24-hour laundromat in Pembroke Park left one person dead, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said, and left the outside of the business dotted with bullet holes. Local … Click to Continue »
The building stands empty and skeletal, a behemoth overlooking Biscayne Boulevard and 79th Street. But the old Immigration and Naturalization Service tower at 7880 Biscayne Blvd. was once a bustling … Click to Continue »

Jack Black‘s music video for his Super Mario Bros. Movie ballad is peach perfection.

Black, all decked out in a Bowser-green suit and seated at a peach piano in a peach room, croons an ode to Princess Peach in the colorful clip. A framed photo of Peach sits atop his piano, along with a bowl of peaches.

Black is the voice of Bowser in Illumination and Universal’s Nintendo video game adaptation, which hit movie theaters this weekend. The Super Mario Bros. Movie scored the top global launch ever for an animated pic, and the second-best ever domestically, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The music video for “Peaches” was directed by Cole Bennett, who says Black’s suit was both Bowser and Elton John-inspired.

Watch “Peaches” below, as well as a behind-the-scenes clip of the making of the music video.

Suga‘s latest solo song “People Pt. 2,” featuring IU, has topped this week’s new music poll.

Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (April 7) on Billboard, choosing the BTS rapper’s D-Day album track as their favorite new music release of the past week.

Related

“People Pt. 2” brought in 96% of the vote, beating out new music by Labrinth featuring Billie Eilish (“Never Felt So Alone”), Drake (“Search & Rescue”), Youngboy Never Broke Again featuring Nicki Minaj (“WTF”), NF (Hope), and others.

“People Pt. 2” is the follow-up to Suga’s “People,” which originally appeared on his second mixtape, 2020’s D-2. It’s hardly the first time he has teamed up with IU, who released her track “Eight” that same year with Suga on vocals and song production.

The new song also serves as the lead single from Suga’s debut solo album, D-Day, which is scheduled for release on April 21 under the name Agust D.

D-Day marks the final release of Suga’s mixtape trilogy. The rapper-dancer’s debut mixtape, Agust D, arrived in 2016, highlighting his hardcore rap and underground influences with help from writer-producers Slow Rabbit, June, Pdogg and Supreme Boi. He followed up with D-2, which charted at No. 9 on the Top Rap Albums chart and No. 11 on the Billboard 200.

Trailing behind Suga on the fan-voted poll was Labrinth and Eilish’s “Never Felt So Alone,” with 1.3% of the vote. The track was featured in Euphoria‘s second season in 2019, but had remained unreleased since the show’s latest installment dropped on HBO Max last year.

See the final results of this week’s new music release poll below.

Jamie Lee Curtis is applauding Karol G for calling out her GQ Mexico magazine cover that the Colombian star alleges was photoshopped.

“Today my GQ magazine cover was made public, a cover with an image that does not represent me,” Karol G had posted on Instagram Thursday (April 6), with the cover image shown next to a selfie. “My face doesn’t look like that, my body doesn’t look like that and I feel very happy and comfortable with how I look naturally. I understand the repercussions this can have, but beyond feeling it’s disrespectful to me, it’s disrespectful to women who wake up looking to feel comfortable with themselves despite society’s stereotypes.”

On Sunday, Curtis shared the magazine cover and the singer’s comments on her own Instagram account, bringing the conversation over to her fans.

“I’m so happy that @karolg is bringing awareness to an issue I have been concerned about for a long time,” Curtis. “We are human beings. We are not AI and this genocide against what is naturally beautiful is alarming and needs to be talked about.”

The Everything Everywhere All at Once actress added that she, Justine Bateman and Andie MacDowell have been vocal about this issue previously, and that she’s “very encouraged that a younger person is joining the chorus of disapproval. The cosmeceutical industrial complex wants you to look in the mirror and hate yourself and then buy their bulls—.”

Karol G’s history-making Mañana Será Bonito debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 last month. It became the first No. 1 for her on the chart, and it marked the first time that an all-Spanish-language album by a woman topped the list.

See Jamie Lee Curtis’ post below.

Ian Bairnson, guitarist for the Alan Parsons Project who also performed on albums by Kate Bush, has died. He was 69.

The Scottish-born musician passed away on Friday (April 7) after a “long battle with dementia,” his wife, Leila Bairnson, announced through social media (via The Guardian).

Related

“Ian was the sweetest, kindest, loving husband I could ever have wished for and I take comfort that he is resting now up there in his very own piece of ‘Blue Blue Sky,’” Leila wrote in an Instagram post on Saturday (April 8). “Although Ian has left us, his musical legacy stays with us and will continue to delight and brighten our lives, as it did his, forever.”

She continued, “I would like to thank the doctors and nurses at Frimley Park Hospital, the managers and carers at Lynwood Care Home and our families and close friends for the love and support they have provided us during these challenging years of Ian’s long battle with dementia.”

Bairnson, who was born in Shetland, was a session musician before joining Scottish band Pilot in 1973. He went on to become guitarist for the Alan Parsons Project, beginning with the group’s 1975 debut album, Tales of Mystery and Imagination, through 1990’s Freudiana. Decades later, he continued performing on Parsons’ solo projects, most recently on his 2019 album, The Secret.

Parsons remembered his former bandmate in a touching tribute through Facebook on Saturday.

“I am deeply saddened to hear of the passing of my good friend and musical icon, Ian Bairnson,” Parsons wrote in his lengthy message. “I have always considered Ian a musical genius. It was a great pleasure to have him participate on every album by The Alan Parsons Project and several other albums under my name since. He has played with many other talented artists as well throughout his incredible career.”

Bairnson was also featured on Bush’s 1978 album, The Kick Inside, delivering the guitar solo on “Wuthering Heights.” He also appeared on the U.K. pop icon’s albums Lionheart (1978), Never for Ever (1980), and The Dreaming (1982).

Elsewhere during his career, Bairnson played as a session musician on projects by Joe Cocker, Yes’ Jon Anderson and Mick Fleetwood, according to Rolling Stone. He also toured with artists like Sting and Eric Clapton, among others.

Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time continues to cruise at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, as the album spends a fifth straight and total week atop chart (dated April 15). The set earned 173,000 equivalent album units in the United States in the week ending April 6 (down 12%), according to Luminate. One Thing at a Time debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 dated March 18 and has held in place ever since.

Across Wallen’s two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200, One Thing at a Time and Dangerous: The Double Album, he has now spent a total of 15 weeks atop the chart. That surpasses Bad Bunny for the second-most weeks at No. 1 this decade. Only Taylor Swift has more weeks at No. 1 since the start of 2020, with 20 total.

Also in the top 10 of the new Billboard 200 chart, Melanie Martinez scores her highest-charting album yet with the No. 2 debut of Portals, Tyler, the Creator’s former No. 1 Call Me If You Get Lost surges 137-3 after its deluxe reissue with eight additional songs and supergroup Boygenius starts at No. 4 with its first full-length studio album (and major label debut), The Record.

The Billboard 200 chart ranks the most popular albums of the week in the U.S. based on multi-metric consumption as measured in equivalent album units, compiled by Luminate. Units comprise album sales, track equivalent albums (TEA) and streaming equivalent albums (SEA). Each unit equals one album sale, or 10 individual tracks sold from an album, or 3,750 ad-supported or 1,250 paid/subscription on-demand official audio and video streams generated by songs from an album. The new April 15, 2023-dated chart will be posted in full on Billboard‘s website on Tuesday (April 11). For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.

Of One Thing at a Time’s 173,000 equivalent album units earned in the week ending April 6, SEA units comprise 162,000 (down 9%, equaling 215.58 million on-demand official streams of the set’s 36 songs), album sales comprise 8,000 (down 53%) and TEA units comprise 3,000 (down 6%).

Martinez logs her highest-charting album yet on the Billboard 200, as her new studio effort Portals opens at No. 2. The set earned 142,000 equivalent album units, her biggest week ever by units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 99,000 (her largest sales week ever), SEA units comprise 42,000 (equaling 60.58 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs, her largest streaming week ever) and TEA units comprise 1,000 units.

In total, Portals marks Martinez’s third top 10-charting set, following K-12 (No. 3 peak in 2019) and Cry Baby (No. 6 in 2015).

The new album was previewed by the songs “Void” (the set’s official first single) and “Death,” both of which have reached the top 40 on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart, while “Death” debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 dated April 1 at No. 95. The latter debut is Martinez’s first appearance on the Hot 100 since 2012, and the first time she’s charted with anything that wasn’t part of her run as a contestant on NBC’s The Voice. (Her two previous entries on the Hot 100 were both covers from the reality competition show.)

Portals’ sizable first-week sales of 99,000 was supported by 21 different physical variants of the album — six vinyl LPs, 14 CDs and one cassette. The audio content across all of the editions is the same; the variations are mostly distinguished by their packaging (including color vinyl editions, alternative covers, a signed CD and four deluxe boxed sets with either a tank top or a shirt along with a CD).

Tyler, the Creator’s chart-topping Call Me If You Get Lost jumps from No. 137 to No. 3 following its deluxe reissue on March 31. The set, first released in 2021, was reintroduced to the market with eight additional songs (dubbed the Call Me If You Get Lost: The Estate Sale edition). All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes.

In total, Call Me If You Get Lost earned 68,000 equivalent album units for the week, up 617%. The bulk of that sum was driven by SEA activity: 57,000 (up 734%, equaling 77.97 million on-demand official streams of all of the set’s songs, old and new). The set also sold 11,000 copies, including digital download and CD editions of the new deluxe version (though the CD is exclusively sold through the artist’s webstore at this time).

Call Me If You Get Lost was last in the top 10 almost a year ago, on the April 30, 2022-dated chart, when the album zoomed 120-1 after its belated release on vinyl pushed it back to the top. It first led in July 2021 upon its debut.

Rock supergroup Boygenius sees its debut full-length studio album — and major label debut — The Record launch at No. 3 on the Billboard 200. The trio comprises Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. The set starts with 67,000 equivalent album units earned. Of that sum, album sales comprise 53,000, SEA units comprise 14,000 (equaling 18.17 million on-demand official streams of the set’s songs) and TEA units comprise a negligible sum.

The Record was previewed by a trio of charting songs on Billboard’s tallies: “Emily I’m Sorry,” “Not Strong Enough” and “$20.” The latter two charted on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart (with “Not Strong Enough” hitting the top 10 on the April 15-dated list), while the former two both reached Hot Rock & Alternative Songs.

The Record was supported largely by vinyl sales. Of the album’s overall first-week units, vinyl sales represented 67% of the total sum (45,000 of 67,000). And, of the album’s traditional album sales number, vinyl accounts for 85% of the total (45,000 of 53,000). The Record was available in eight different-colored vinyl variants, including exclusives for indie stores, Target and Urban Outfitters.

SZA’s former No. 1 SOS is a non-mover at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 with 64,000 equivalent album units earned (down 8%), Swift’s chart-topping Midnights rises 7-6 with 61,000 (up 5%) and Luke Combs’ Gettin’ Old dips 4-7 with 54,000 (down 46% in its second week). Wallen’s chart-topping Dangerous: The Double Album climbs 9-8 with 45,000 (up 3%), Metro Boomin’s former No. 1 Heroes & Villains falls 8-9 with 42,000 (down 7%), and Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd. drops 3-10 with 38,000 (down 67% in its second week).

Luminate, the independent data provider to the Billboard charts, completes a thorough review of all data submissions used in compiling the weekly chart rankings. Luminate reviews and authenticates data. In partnership with Billboard, data deemed suspicious or unverifiable is removed, using established criteria, before final chart calculations are made and published.

Authorities are searching for a 1-year-old who went missing two days ago near North Miami. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement issued a missing child alert Friday to find him. … Click to Continue »