Gene Simmons feels strongly about the American Music Fairness Act, which he advocated for in a speech to members of the Senate on Tuesday (Dec. 9), during which he claimed that artists are treated “worse than slaves” when it comes to unpaid radio play.
Related
Gene Simmons Testifies on Bill to Pay Artists for Radio Play: ‘If You Are Against This Bill, You Are Un-American’
After Blaming Ace Frehley’s Death on ‘Bad Decision,’ KISS’ Gene Simmons ‘Humbly’ Apologizes: ‘I See How It Hurt Everyone’
No Radio Without Royalties: New Rules for a New Era (Guest Column)
Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property, the KISS bassist — who was one of several industry professionals who weighed in on the bill at the gathering on Capitol Hill — spoke to the “injustice” of U.S. broadcast radio stations freely playing sound recordings without having to pay the performers who created them, a yearslong precedent that the AMFA would reverse if passed by Congress. “If you are against this bill, you are un-American,” he said.
“You cannot let this injustice continue,” he went on. “It looks like a small issue … But our emissaries to the world are Elvis and Frank Sinatra. And when [other countries] find out we’re not treating our stars right — in other words, worse than slaves. Slaves get food and water. Elvis and Bing Crosby and Sinatra got nothing for their performance.”
Currently, radio stations license the music they play over the air from rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI — but they are not required to pay record labels or performing artists for the use of their tracks. Songwriters do receive royalties for radio airplay, but the artists who performed on the recordings do not.
While Simmons was likely trying to convey the severity of the issue to the Senate members, it does not compare to the horrors of slavery, especially considering that the subcommittee meeting at which he spoke took place in a neighborhood famously built through the forced labor of enslaved people. Also in D.C. is the National Museum of African American History, which features extensive exhibits detailing the torture, starvation, disease and psychological trauma enslaved people endured for centuries in the U.S. and all around the world.
But while Simmons and other industry figures argued for the equity of performers, Henry Hinton, president and CEO of small broadcast radio company Inner Banks Media, presented a different viewpoint to the senate subcommittee. “Radio is free to our listeners, but it is not free to those of us who provide it,” he told the members. “Streaming services are able to recoup costs through subscriptions and fees that they charge to their users. We cannot.”
The latest version of the AMFA was first introduced into Congress in 2021. It has earned the support of numerous artists, as well as the Recording Academy, RIAA, SoundExchange and the American Federation of Musicians.
SoundExchange CEO Michael Huppe — who also argued in favor of the bill at the Tuesday meeting — previously wrote in a guest column for Billboard, “Under the American Music Fairness Act, small and community stations would only have to pay between $10 and $500 a year to play all the music they want … Big Radio corporations want Congress to mandate that their product be installed in every new car sold in America — government intervention to protect corporate profits. Meanwhile, musicians are simply asking to be paid for their work.”
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 17:40:452025-12-10 17:40:45Gene Simmons Claims Musicians Are Treated ‘Worse Than Slaves’ Because of Unpaid Radio Play
Like many a teenage metalhead in the late ‘80s, it was Marwan Lockman’s dream to see Metallica in concert, though the place he grew up in rarely saw major rock bands. But while a metalhead from the Midwest or Northern Norway might load a bunch a friends into a beat-up van and road trip to the nearest big city, that wasn’t really an option for Lockman. Until recently, there wasn’t a modern music venue in his home country of Bahrain, period.
Many years later, Metallica played the Kingdom of Bahrain for the first time ever, rocking 10,000 adrenalized fans at the Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre on Wednesday, Dec. 3, on their M72 World Tour. Lockman, naturally, was front and center at the sold-out venue — not simply because this was his teenage dream come true, but for professional reasons. After all, he designed the amphitheater that finally brought his all-time favorite band to Bahrain.
Eleven years ago, Lockman was a working architect with experience designing private villas and rebuilding 200-year-old structures. Around that time, Eric Clapton came to Bahrain, playing the country’s half-millennium-old Arad Fort and selling it out in minutes. Clapton’s 2014 concert demonstrated two things: the region’s growing demand for Western musicians, and the country’s lack of infrastructure to properly accommodate them. (Bahrain, an island country between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, was a British protectorate until 1971, eventually becoming a semi-constitutional monarchy in 2002. For the Gulf region, it’s relatively liberal: homosexuality has been legal since the ‘70s; alcohol is readily available; women can vote and hold elected office. With English widely spoken by many residents, Bahrain has a particularly high appetite for Western music.)
Born in Bahrain to Egyptian Chinese parents (his father worked as an architect, his mother as an art teacher), Lockman grew up not only idolizing Metallica — “80% of my room was covered in Metallica posters,” he recalls — but imitating them. He memorized guitar tabs to every song from the band’s first five albums (Kill ‘Em All to The Black Album) and even played DIY rock shows on the beach. “Or we’d find a house, somebody’s parents are out of town, and trash it, like every kid around the world that age — in the ‘80s especially,” he smiles. When he got wind that Bahrain was going to build its first major music venue, he wanted to shoot his shot: “At least let me show you what I got,” he recalls telling the officials facilitating the process. As he remembers it, their response wasn’t encouraging: “We doubt you’ll get it, but let’s see.”
To be fair, Lockman wasn’t expecting to land the mega project, either. But he had two things working in his favor: The winner was chosen by a blind test, and his design was like nothing else in the submissions pool. While other applicants designed structures in the style of Bahrain’s skyward reaching 21st century architectural marvels, Lockman kept it down to earth—literally. He imagined an amphitheater carved into the desert rock, following the flow of the landscape instead of imposing upon it. It would be a venue as much sculpted as constructed.
Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre
Courtesy of Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre
“You go to other venues in the region, and it could be anywhere in the world — and fair enough,” Lockman says. Inspired by Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater and Frank Lloyd Wright’s love for designing structures into landscape, he envisioned a venue that was “nuanced and memorable” on its own merits. His proposal, which he drafted on his mom’s kitchen table, even included a visual of the stage with Metallica’s Kirk Hammett rocking out in the corner.
To Lockman’s shock, he won the contract. He spent the next four years hashing out the design, paying particular attention to sustainability and accessibility concerns, as well as some vital input he’d received from musicians about how to build the best venue: “Just make the crew happy.”
Then, over the course of 15 whirlwind months, the 17,500-square meter venue came to life. Located about 30 minutes from the capital of Manama (right next to the country’s Formula One racetrack), Beyon Al Dana takes full advantage of the luminous tans and yellows of the desert, both for aesthetic and sustainability reasons. Lockman and his team (he formed S/L Architects in 2019) reused materials in novel ways, sometimes making changes on the fly.
“If tiles came in wood pallets, I’d use the pallets to make partitions,” he explains. “The corporate boxes are (converted from) shipping containers. All the rock you see is quarried from around here.” An in-venue bar, which hosts intimate performances and serves as a VIP area during shows, was carved out of a cavern (“If a Bond villain had a blues bar, that’s what it would look like,” he quips of The Quarry).
Even the men’s restroom is upcycled. “We had leftover sheet piling, which I used to push the sound in the first third of the amphitheater, so I made urinals out of the sheet piling instead of buying the ones they were offering.” He chuckles. “People are like, ‘Why are you talking about urinals?’ But it makes everything (in the venue) flow and make sense together.” Speaking of liquid, when the typically dry, temperate country receives its annual rainfall around January, the venue’s extensive drainage system takes that precipitation and uses it for the venue’s flora.
Lockman’s commitment to sustainability wasn’t just good ethics — it proved to be smart economics, too. Not only did the venue come in well below cost, but the weather-resistant amphitheater (precast concrete serves as benches, for example) doesn’t require constant fixups. It’s a high-end venue that’s built to last.
Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre
Courtesy of Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre
“His Royal Highness, the Crown Prince, is a massive fan of music. This was a passion project for him,” Lockman says of Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, who is the son of the King of Bahrain. “We were very lucky to have his patronage on this, allowing us the freedom to imagine this in the unorthodox way we did.”
After a COVID pandemic pause, Beyon Al Dana opened to the world in 2021. Since then, it’s brought Bruno Mars, Backstreet Boys, Tïesto and Kevin Hart to Bahrain, presenting Western acts with a new touring market that simply didn’t exist a decade ago, despite demand for them in the region. (The night after Metallica, rising country star Stephen Wilson Jr. played the venue’s secondary stage.) Not only do Bahrainis come out to support touring musicians and comedians, but residents of nearby countries are known to flock to Bahrain on weekends. (With its comparatively lax culture and the availability of alcohol, Bahrain has been called the Las Vegas of the Middle East.) When Metallica rocked Beyon Al Dana on Dec. 3, for instance, there were people from more than 30 different countries in the sold-out crowd of 10,000 fans.
Metallica’s opening number at their first-ever Bahrain concert was the 1984 classic “Creeping Death,” a song inspired by the Biblical Plagues of Egypt. As Lockman had predicted to Billboard ahead of the show, his country — which has long housed an underground metal scene — went wild. “Tonight, when you see 10,000 people singing along to ‘Creeping Death,’ going ‘die, die, die!’ in the Middle East, it’s gonna be kind of a trip,” he laughed.
Even before Metallica hit the stage, the desert air felt electric that night. There’s a certain ecstatic catharsis you get from an audience that doesn’t often see their favorite artists live — a pinch-me adrenaline that’s contagious, spurring the performer to greater heights. A Bahraini metal band, Bloodshel, opened for the rock gods on the main stage, while several other metal bands — some of those kids who had been trashing houses and playing beaches back in the ‘80s and ‘90s — performed in the venue’s courtyard leading up to the main event.
The impact of their Bahrain debut wasn’t lost on the band. “Metallica loves Bahrain!” frontman James Hetfield shouted at one point. “We are very blessed to be here. There’s some old faces we see here — you traveled to see us — and there’s new faces, and we’re so glad you’re here.” Before the band left the stage, they promised it wouldn’t be another four decades before they played the country again.
Metallica performs in Bahrain on December 3, 2025.
Rutger Geerling
“It’s a rare opportunity to witness a globally renowned act performing to fans for the first time,” Lance Tobin, the venue’s vice president of talent booking, told Billboard. “The intimate connection from band to fan is a piece of what makes Bahrain a very special and unique home for concerts. Even Metallica, one of the most legendary touring acts, still have fans they haven’t met yet, and our job was to make the introduction. We hope it will be the first of many more.”
For Lockman, the entire thing was a bit “surreal.” “It’s weird when I see concerts at the venue here,” Lockman shared. “I’m always a little nervous: is everyone happy, is everything okay? I don’t often get to 100% enjoy the music. But tonight is different.” Prior to the Metallica taking the stage, I asked Lockman what it would feel like to watch his teenage metalhead dream come true at a venue he designed. It was the first time during our interview that the impassioned, driven architect faltered for words.
By the time Metallica’s 16-song set passed the halfway point, it was abundantly clear that everyone — from the band to 10,000 headbanging fans — was enjoying a night they’d remember for a long time. With that pressure off his back (and a little tequila in his body), Lockman was finally able to put the full-circle experience into words. “I built them a temple,” he said, simultaneously stoked and dumbfounded. “And they’re f–king playing it.”
Billboard’s travel and accommodations were provided by Beyon Al Dana Amphitheatre.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 17:30:452025-12-10 17:30:45Metallica’s First Bahrain Concert Was a Teenage Dream Come True for the Venue’s Architect
Next year’s Sundance Film Festival revealed the slate of features scheduled to screen in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah from Jan. 22-Feb. 1 and topping the list for music lovers is an original mockumentary based on an idea by Charli XCX and a documentary about Courtney Love.
The provocatively titled Antiheroine, directed by Edward Lovelace (Katy Perry: Part of Me) and James Hall (The Possibilities Are Endless) promises to tell the story of the grunge pop singer and widow of late Nirvana singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain in the world premiere of the doc at the prestigious event. “Singer, songwriter, and actor Courtney Love has long had an impact on rock and pop culture. Now sober and set to release new music for the first time in over a decade, Courtney is ready to reveal her story, unfiltered and unapologetic,” reads a description.
Another music film, The Best Summer, directed and produced by Tamra Davis (CB4, Crossroads) is described as an immersive, POV doc featuring “eclectic performances, candid interviews and intimate backstage” looks at such 1990s indie legends the Beastie Boys, Sonic Youth, Foo Fighters, Pavement, Rancid, Beck, The Amps, and Bikini Kill in “an all-access view inside an era-defining moment in music.” The world premiere will take place at the festival but also be available online for the public to screen.
In one of several films on her upcoming roster, The Moment is described as a mockumentary feature based on an original story by Charli XCX about a rising pop star navigating fame while preparing for her debut arena tour starring the singer as well as Rosanna Arquette, Kate Berlant, Alexander Skarsgård, Kylie Jenner, Rish Shah, Jamie Demetriou, Arielle Dombasle, Shygirl and A. G. Cook.
The 2026 roster of films includes 105 projects that will be screened live in Utah, as well as in an at-home program that runs from Jan. 29-Feb. 1; for more information on ticketing click here.
Among the films in dramatic competition are Run Amok, about a girl who stages an elaborate musical about the “one day her high school wishes it could forget” starring Alyssa Marvin, Patrick Wilson, Margaret Cho and Molly Ringwald, as well as The Musical, about a frustrated playwright out for romantic revenge starring Gillian Jacobs, Rob Lowe and Will Brill.
Among the notable documentaries on tap are: Barbara Forever, about the life of legendary lesbian filmmaker Barbara Hammer, Joybubbles, the tale of a blind man who unwittingly set the stage for the future of hacking by discovering he can manipulate the phone system by whistling a magic tone and Public Access, the chronicle of free-speech warriors who hijacked the TV airwaves and defied censors with their not-ready-for-prime-time experiments.
Other premieres on next year’s scheduled include a documentary about a WNBA legend (The Brittney Griner Story) and another about pioneering tennis player Billie Jean King (Give Me the Ball!).
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 17:26:042025-12-10 17:26:042026 Sundance Film Festival Lineup Includes Courtney Love Doc, Charli XCX’s ‘The Moment,’ ‘Best Summer’ Movie Featuring Beastie Boys, Foo Fighters, Beck
Billboard has been publishing weekly rankings in one form or another for more than a century.
Early in the 1900s, Billboard presented charts detailing the popularity of sheet music in the U.S. In July 1940, Billboard unveiled its first chart ranking the sales of recorded songs, the 10-position “National List of Best Selling Retail Records,” with Bing Crosby, Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller among its ranks.
Billboard expanded its number of weekly charts over the next few years, starting recaps for R&B in 1942 and country in 1944. In March 1956, the weekly Billboard 200 albums chart premiered (at just 10 positions deep). Two years later, in August 1958, the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart began.
At the end of 1958, Billboard printed a recap of the year’s biggest songs for the first time (that year also encompassing songs’ performance on pre-Hot 100 charts leading up to its launch that August). Domenico Modugno’s “Volare (Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu)” finished as Billboard‘s first year-end No. 1 Hot 100 song. The track, which spent five weeks at No. 1, became the second song to top the weekly Hot 100, after Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool.”
Related
Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars’ ‘Die With a Smile’ Makes History as Year-End Hot 100 No. 1
Also in the 1958 year-end issue, Billboard continued its tradition of surveying the music industry via “The Billboard Eleventh Annual Disc Jockey Poll,” which “Volare” also crowned. “[The song] was really a left-field hit … one of the few disks in recent years with a non-English lyric to reach the top,” Billboard wrote at the time. In the 2020s, such hits are plentiful, largely via the growth of K-pop and Latin music. Thus, this line from that 1958 issue proved prophetic, given the sonic and geographic scope of that year’s biggest titles: “The preference in tunes indicates that no one type of song or artist reigns supreme among jockeys. The list also includes several types of songs with many extremes, ranging from an old folk song to European, Latin American and tunes by American cleffers.”
Today, Billboard not only has the year-end Hot 100 Songs ranking, but also annual recaps for all 200-plus weekly charts, reflecting chart performance of songs, albums and artists over a 12-month tracking period.
From “Volare” to this year, here’s a look at every year-end No. 1 Hot 100 single since 1958, as published in every year-end issue.
Additional research by Gary Trust, Paul Grein and Alex Vitoulis
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 17:06:052025-12-10 17:06:05Here’s Every Billboard Hot 100 Year-End No. 1 Song
Riley Green, Megan Moroney, Zach Top and Stephen Wilson Jr. are a few of the artists who have been added to the lineup to help ring in the New Year as part of CBS Presents New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash. The televised event will air Wednesday, Dec. 31 from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. ET/PT and 10:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. ET/PT on CBS Television Network and streaming on Paramount+.
The five-hour special will also feature newly-added artists Dierks Bentley, Brooks & Dunn, Rascal Flatts, Marcus King, Zach Top, Keith Urban, Gretchen Wilson and Dwight Yoakam, with guest appearances from Dusty Slay, Entertainment Tonight‘s Cassie DiLaura, SiriusXM host Buzz Brainard and Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Kayla Harrison.
These performers and guests will join previously-announced headliners Jason Aldean, Lainey Wilson and Bailey Zimmerman, who will perform at the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, with special guests CeCe Winans and the Fisk Jubilee Singers.
The New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash official, in-person watch party will be held at Luke Combs’ Category 10 in Nashville. Yoakam will perform his biggest hits and will be joined by King, with special appearances from Cody Alan and Caylee Hammack. The watch party is free and open to fans 21 and older on a first-come, first-served basis, with doors opening at 6 p.m. Guaranteed entry tickets and VIP upgrade options can be purchased in advance through AXS.
New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash is executive produced by Robert Deaton and Mary Hilliard Harrington in partnership with Music City Inc., the foundation of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. The special will be directed by Sandra Restrepo.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 17:00:412025-12-10 17:00:41Riley Green, Megan Moroney, Stephen Wilson Jr. & More Added to Performer Lineup For ‘New Year’s Eve Live: Nashville’s Big Bash’
Every week, artists make their first chart appearances on Billboard charts.
Upwards of 10 a week, or more … times 52 … equals more than 500 acts new to Billboard charts every year.
Of those, one stands highest at year’s end: No. 1 on Billboard’s annual Top New Artists chart.
As of 2025, the Top New Artists recap ranks the year’s best-performing breakthrough acts based on activity on the Billboard 200 albums chart and the Billboard Hot 100 songs survey, as well as Billboard Boxscore, which reflects touring data. All winners have been published in each year-end Billboard issue since the category began in 1977.
Related
Alex Warren Is Billboard’s Top New Artist of 2025
Rock ruled the Top New Artists retrospective’s first three years, with Foreigner winning in 1977, Meat Loaf in 1978 and The Knack in 1979. In 2023, the genre reigned again, thanks to Zach Bryan, who has found success on both rock and country charts.
The 2020s, meanwhile, feature a variety of styles at No. 1 on Top New Artists. Prior to Bryan, rappers Latto and Roddy Ricch won in 2022 and 2020, respectively, while Olivia Rodrigo’s alt/pop album Sour sparked her triumph in 2021. Meanwhile, 2025 rookie ruler Alex Warren, following Chappell Roan in 2024, earns the latest win in the category among pop acts.
Below, browse below every reigning rookie, and some of the most notable feats, in the history of Billboard’s Top New Artists chart. In many cases, acts’ breakout years were only the start of more chart greatness ahead, with many eventual pop culture cornerstones among the award’s winners.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 16:55:562025-12-10 16:55:56Here’s Every Year-End Billboard Top New Artist
50 Cent revealed that Diddy’s sons nearly participated in his Sean Combs: The Reckoningdocuseries to provide a perspective from their point of view, but none of Combs’ children ended up being interviewed for the Netflix series.
Related
Diddy’s Lawyers Demand Netflix Shelve 50 Cent’s Docuseries on Rap Mogul: ‘Shameful Hit Piece’
Waka Flocka Flame Slams Diddy Following ‘Sean Combs: The Reckoning’: ‘That Boy a Monster’
Sean Combs’ Mother Slams Netflix Docuseries for ‘False’ Abuse Claims
50 graced the latest cover of Us Weekly on Tuesday (Dec. 9), where he touched on an array of topics tied to the Diddy docuseries, including trying to get Combs’ kids to be part of The Reckoning.
“I had communications with his son. There was a point when they were interested in being a part of the doc because they wanted to show their perspective,” he told the publication. “They were concerned about how [things] would be portrayed.”
Despite his rivalry with Diddy, the G-Unit mogul had been in communication as he cast two of Diddy’s sons, Justin and Quincy, in television programs of his in the past.
While Diddy’s family members didn’t appear as interview subjects in the series, the public is still responding. According toDeadline, the explosive The Reckoning docuseries netted 21.8 million views in its opening week on Netflix to kick off December.
Combs’ lawyers issued a cease-and-desist to the streamer over the documentary on Dec. 1, a day before The Reckoning‘s release. In an accompanying statement, the disgraced mogul’s spokesperson slammed the four-part program as a “shameful hit piece” that ripped “private footage out of context.” Netflix denied the accusations in a statement.
Even though he produced the documentary, 50 also said he hasn’t had any communication with the incarcerated musician since his arrest on federal charges in September 2024.
All six of Diddy’s children who were present delivered statements at Combs’ sentencing. The embattled Bad Boy mogul was acquitted of charges for racketeering and sex trafficking, but convicted of violating federal prostitution laws.
“We’re going to love him unconditionally through his struggles. But in front of you and in front of us is a changed man,” Combs’ son, Quincy, told the courtroom. “Our father has learned a major lesson. Week after week, we’ve seen him evolve, something we haven’t seen in 15 years. He’s completely transformed.”
Diddy was sentenced to 50 months in prison with time served in October, and 50 Cent called the split verdict “luck.”
“That was luck,” 50 told Us Weekly. “He beat the case [but people] don’t understand why he was [crying] on a chair, right? His finances are dwindling. [He] should have filed for bankruptcy. [And] he thought he was coming home. His attorneys … convinced him he was going to come home when he went to court — he had already booked public speaking engagements.”
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 16:45:312025-12-10 16:45:3150 Cent Says Diddy’s Sons Nearly Appeared in ‘Sean Combs: The Reckoning’: ‘They Wanted to Show Their Perspective’
Is pop now officially an albums-driven genre? The year 2025 made a strong argument for the answer being “yes.” Acclaimed sets from rising stars like Addison Rae and Amaarae established them as leading voices without producing a huge chart hit, while the excitement over Olivia Dean and the KPop Demon Hunters film grew so overwhelming that their respective albums ended up spawning several major hits at once. Meanwhile, proven hitmakers like PinkPantheress and Rosalía used new albums to cement their stardom, while Lily Allen and Lorde used comeback albums to reassert their pop relevance.
And of course, the A-listers made their presence felt on the LP front: Bad Bunny proved he could still be blazing hot even with a January sneak-release, one that smoldered all through the calendar year. Lady Gaga bolstered her legacy with another fan-beloved Billboard 200-topper. Sabrina Carpenter immediately proved her 2024 breakthrough blockbuster was no fluke by going two-for-two barely a year later. And the biggest star of them all, Taylor Swift, put the entire music industry in her rearview in October with an album that broke records we previously thought unnearable — and continues to rule the roost even into the start of the holiday season.
Which is hardly to say pop had a monopoly on the year’s buzziest albums. In rap, Clipse had perhaps the year’s most-heralded comeback set, while Tyler, The Creator one-upped Sabrina Carpenter by releasing his follow-up to his 2024 smash less than nine months later. In rock, Geese won over the critics while Lola Young and Sombr proved the genre had renewed crossover potential. And in country, Zach Top won over the old heads while Morgan Wallen continued to raise the genre’s commercial ceiling for the future.
Find the albums from all these year-defining artists below — as well as many less-heralded favorites that still found their fair share of fans — as part of our staff’s picks for the 50 best albums that 2025 had to offer.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 16:35:372025-12-10 16:35:37The 50 Best Albums of 2025: Staff Picks
The Department of Justice spent more than a year investigating Tim Leiweke’s involvement in a bid-rigging scheme tied to the construction of a new arena in Austin and was hoping to force Leiweke to testify in the government’s antitrust case, sources tell Billboard.
Those plans changed last week thanks to a friendly round of golf between President Donald Trump and former Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy, who Leiweke hired to lobby on his behalf in the criminal case. First reported by the Wall Street Journal, the account has been confirmed to Billboard by a source with knowledge of the discussions. Leiweke, formerly the CEO of Oak View Group (OVG), had been treated unfairly by the DOJ, Gowdy argued, and had been singled out by overzealous government lawyers determined to punish him for his success. Gowdy contends that the alleged victim in the case the Texas Board of Regents for the state’s public university system — was happy with the deal it struck with Leiweke and did not feel cheated, even after learning that he had worked out a deal with concessionaire Legends Hospitality to not enter a competing bid for the construction project.
Related
The 10 Biggest Music Law Stories of 2025: AI, Diddy, Drake, Mariah Carey & More
After ‘Sand in My Boots’ Rebrand This Year, Hangout Music Festival Won’t Return in 2026
TWICE’s Historic Arena Shows Are a Turning Point for K-Pop in Australia
In the weeks that followed, Gowdy continued lobbying Trump, pointing out that other executives at OVG had been granted non-prosecution agreements after admitting that the company collected $20 million in upfront payments and $7 million a year to steer the company’s venue contracts to Ticketmaster. Gowdy’s lobbying paid off: On Wednesday (Dec. 3), Trump announced a full, unconditional pardon for Leiweke, wiping away months of investigative work by DOJ attorneys working under Assistant U.S. Attorney Gail Slater, a Trump appointee approved by the Senate in March.
The day after the pardon, Leiweke sat for a previously scheduled deposition with the Department of Justice to discuss its separate antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation, according to court records. Leiweke, now a free man thanks to Trump’s executive order, opted not to answer questions from the government during the deposition, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, sources tell Billboard. Now, government officials are weighing whether to ask a judge to force Leiweke to answer some of its questions, prolonging a legal fight over Leiweke’s participation in the Live Nation antitrust case that’s been ongoing for months.
Leiweke has long been seen as a key player in the Department of Justice’s antitrust probe into Live Nation, with the former OVG CEO identified by the DOJ as a self-described “pimp” and “hammer” for Live Nation. In a lengthy civil complaint filed in 2024 by the DOJ and 41 state attorneys general, Leiweke is alleged to have protected Live Nation’s dominance in the concert promotion business and steered the buildings OVG manages toward signing exclusive ticketing agreements with Ticketmaster, with OVG collecting millions of dollars in fees in the process.
Related
The 10 Biggest Live Music Stories of 2025: Live Nation Lawsuits, Ticket Prices & More
In July, nearly a year after the Live Nation civil suit, attorneys with the DOJ’s antitrust criminal division unsealed an indictment against Leiweke for allegedly restraining trade in his effort to win the right to build and manage the Moody Center arena for the University of Texas. Leiweke is alleged to have conspired with the former head of Legends Hospitality to rig the bidding for the project and faced a 10-year prison sentence if convicted of the charges.
That’s now off the table following Trump’s pardon, which was a surprise since Leiweke was not on the list of 15,000 Americans requesting a pardon from the president. In fact, of the more than 1,600 people pardoned by Trump this year, Leiweke was one of just six who had not been convicted at trial or sentenced to prison. And while OVG regularly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on lobbying, neither Leiweke nor OVG were major donors to Trump or either the Republican or Democratic parties, though OVG did make a $250,000 donation to Trump’s inauguration following the 2024 election.
DOJ lawyers insist that Leiweke’s criminal case is not related to the Live Nation civil case, but the proximity of the deposition and Leiweke’s pardon provide a glimpse into the DOJ antitrust division’s long-running effort to force the executive to talk about OVG’s relationship with the concert giant.
“There are a couple of categories of relevant information that Mr. Leiweke has as it relates to agreements between Oak View Group and Live Nation,” DOJ antitrust lawyer Alex Cohen argued in a Denver federal courtroom in July, a week after attorneys from the antitrust department’s criminal division announced an indictment against Leiweke.
Related
The 10 Biggest Music Business Deals of 2025: Taylor Swift’s Masters, ABS Billions & More
Cohen was in court opposing a motion by Leiweke’s attorney to halt the deposition, arguing that Leiweke held critical information about “venue consulting services, agreements not to consult on concert promotions and venues to Ticketmaster pursuant to a 2022 incentive deal” between Live Nation and OVG.
Leiweke is “a very important fact witness,” Cohen said during the July 17 hearing in front of judge R. Brook Jackson, noting that none of the questions he had for Leiweke “are relevant for the criminal indictment,” but examined how OVG helps Live Nation “maintain its monopolies in concert promotion.”
During the July hearing, Jackson asked, “If you take his deposition and he asserts the Fifth [Amendment], then you won’t be getting any information with respect to those questions, right?” Cohen responded, “That is correct. Although as we’ve said, we do not believe that his invocation of the Fifth Amendment to all potential questions would necessarily be appropriate,” noting that his office might “seek relief” from the courts if Leiweke didn’t answer those questions.
The deposition wasn’t the DOJ’s first interview with Leiweke, who was interviewed prior to the filing of the DOJ lawsuit against Live Nation in 2024. Cohen said the DOJ has deposed two other OVG executives who both indicated Leiweke had “unique individual knowledge about certain arrangements and conduct” between the two firms.
Now that Leiweke has pled the Fifth, Cohen will have to ask a judge to force him to testify if the DOJ wants to take a second shot at deposing him and prove to a judge that the answers it seeks won’t incriminate the former OVG CEO. If a DOJ civil attorney can’t compel a judge to make Leiweke testify, it might have to request that the DOJ’s criminal division grant him criminal immunity to force him to talk.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 16:30:352025-12-10 16:30:35Trump’s Pardon of Tim Leiweke Throws Wrench Into DOJ’s Live Nation Antitrust Case
Billie Eilish has made a habit of setting records and notching firsts. From being the youngest person to win all four major Grammy awards, to being the youngest Coachella headliners and the first person born this century to win an Oscar (two, actually).
But in the trailer for her upcoming Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) concert film, Eilish predicts that she and co-director James Cameron (Avatar: Fire and Ash) will blaze a new trail with their ambitious take on the traditional tour doc in the movie that opens in theaters on March 20.
The three-minute preview that dropped on Wednesday morning (Dec. 10) opens with a giddy Eilish, 23, staring in wonder down at fans who’ve slept out overnight to be the first ones in line to enter an arena. “This is so crazy,” a smiling Elish says as she takes a pic of the die hards. Soon enough, one of the fans notices her and looks up, prompting Eilish to bang on the window, which unleashes a tsunami of screams from the groggy crowd as other early-risers spring across the parking lot to get in on the rare pre-show avail.
“LOVE YOUUUUUUU!!!” Eilish shouts from the open window.
The 106-show 2024-2025 tour in support of Eilish’s third studio album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, kicked off on Sept. 29, 2024 in Quebec City and played to sold-out arenas (and some stadiums) across North America, Oceania, Europe, Asia and then North America again before winding down on Nov. 23 at the Chase Center in San Francisco.
The trailer features stunning images of the massive gleaming white cube that was the centerpiece of the staging and Instagram-worthy shots of the pryo and special effects that made the tour a must-see for fans. But even Eilish seems a bit star-struck that box office champ Cameron is by her side to chronicle the whole thing.
“That’s James Cameron,” Eilish says of the director whose films have grossed more than $8.7 billion to date as he works with her to set up shots in rehearsals. “No one’s shot a concert film on this scale before,” adds Cameron, who has a legendary thirst for making the biggest, most innovative films possible.
In a preview, we see Eilish wielding a mini-cam to take audience footage, getting shot out of a hole in the stage into the air and giddily promising “it’s gonna be loud” as she chronicles all the scrapes she’s endured on her hands from getting up and close with fans during the gigs.
While the trailer is all energy and excitement, it also slows down halfway through as Eilish breaks into tears reading a sweet note from older brother and lifelong musical collaborator, Finneas, who did not join her for the tour for the first time as he focused on his solo material. “Almost 7 years ago to the day we started your first headlining tour of North America,” it reads. “It’s been the joy of my life to travel the world with you three times over and watch you hold every person who comes to your shows in the palm of your hand. Good luck tonight but you don’t need it, no one does it like you do. Can’t wait to see you soon.”
“It’s gonna be my first show ever without him,” a weepy Eilish says as she reads the letter aloud. Finneas did pop in for some surprise appearances on several stops, including the final one in San Francisco, and we see a sweet moment in the trailer when he comes out and the siblings share a big hug onstage.
Eilish previously hit the screen in 2021’s Disney+ concert special Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles and also starred in the 2021 doc Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry. The 3D trailer for Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) will screen in participating theaters beginning Dec. 18.
https://i0.wp.com/neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/station.nez_png.png?fit=943%2C511&ssl=1511943Yvetohttps://neztelinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/nez_png.pngYveto2025-12-10 16:20:312025-12-10 16:20:31Watch Billie Eilish and ‘Avatar’ Director James Cameron Vow to Reinvent Concert Films in Preview of ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ 3D Movie
