“We want to open the spigot of U.S. fuel exports to Cuba, so long as the ultimate beneficiary is the private sector,” a source with knowledge of the plan told the Miami Herald.
The stolen items ranged from a PlayStation to a Snickers bar.
Authorities are telling drivers to not use their high beams, slow down, do not stop, watch out for slow-moving cars and reduce distractions.
Faith No More may very well be no more.
While FNM last performed back in 2016 with Chuck Mosley, Mike Patton hasn’t fronted the group since the conclusion of their Sol Invictus Tour in 2015. The ‘90s alternative rock heavyweights touted a global live return in 2020, but those plans were crushed by pandemic.
Then, the band was booked for concerts in 2021, but those too were scrapped as Patton tackled mental health issues, which he later explained was a diagnosis of agoraphobia.
In a new interview for Consequence of Sound’s Kyle Meredith With, Patton suggests he has moved on.
When asked whether there was a “sense of closure” during FNM’s dates in 2016, given that the band appears to no longer be active, he remarked: “I didn’t really think so at the time, but, yeah, maybe. And I think that we all kind of felt it, but it was unspoken.”
He continued: “And it’s funny: when you’ve been in a band or a musical situation for a period of time, you always, in the back of your head, you’re kind of thinking, ‘Well, maybe this is it.’ And I don’t mind that feeling. I don’t see it as a sad thing. I see it as being present and being able to really appreciate it while it’s happening.”
Patton’s comments could be news to his bandmates. Last year, founding member Billy Gould admitted he was unsure about the band’s future. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t know,” Gould told Chile’s Radio Futuro.
The three-time Grammy-nominated act has released seven studio albums, but only one of those has dropped in the last quarter century, 2015’s Sol Invictus, which hit No. 15 on the Billboard 200. Sol Invictus is one of five titles that have cracked the all-genres albums chart, including a top 10 for 1992’s Angel Dust, reaching No. 9. The band has three appearances on the Billboard Hot 100, including a top 10 appearance with 1990’s breakout “Epic,” peaking at No. 9.
Patton officially joined Faith No More in 1988, following the departure of ex-singer Chuck Mosley, who died in 2017, aged 57. Mosley sang on FNM’s first two albums, 1985’s We Care A Lot and 1987’s Introduce Yourself.
Where the future of FNM remains uncertain, Patton has returned to his band Tomahawk, which will embark on a first tour in 13 years this summer, with the Melvins. Tomahawk, like Mr Bungle and Patton’s various other music outlets, are often described as “side projects.” That’s no entirely accurate, he says in the new podcast.
“I’d never really understood, and I had to figure this out very early on, was the concept of a side project, that’s assuming that there’s a main one,” Patton explains. “And for me, I really never had one. There were projects like Faith No More where I spent more time on, in terms of touring and promoting, quote-unquote, if you will, but everything that I’ve done was of equal importance to me. They just weren’t viewed that way. And the public, for whatever reason, needs to have a hierarchy kind of built in there just to make themselves feel better about it, I guess. I don’t know.”
Stream the interview here.
American Eagle has gone country.
Two weeks after debuting a Spring 2026 collection with Ella Langley, the clothing brand is going all in with partnerships with Bailey Zimmerman and Stagecoach, where it will be the exclusive denim and apparel sponsor. Zimmerman and Langley are both playing the April 24-26 festival on opening night.
“Country music is defining culture these days,” says American Eagle chief marketing officer Craig Brommers. “American Eagle had some of the most talked about marketing campaigns in 2025,” he said, including a provocative Sydney Sweeney campaign and a collection with Travis Kelce. “In order to keep that momentum, we looked at the cultural landscape and where we could participate next and it was just such a natural progression as we start 2026 to get into the country music genre space.”
American Eagle is the leading jean brand among Gen Z, which encompasses people born between 1997 and 2012; Langley and Zimmerman, both 26, fall squarely in the demo.
American Eagle’s research also showed that country is the most listened to music genre among its customers in that age range, which played into the decision to pivot to country. “We really are listening to what Gen Z is excited about and trying to be on the pulse of what’s happening in culture,” Brommers says. “Ella, obviously, is having her moment and then Bailey has so much energy. He just lights up a room. It was really about us embracing this moment.”
Only a few weeks in, American Eagle Jeans Country campaign is already yielding success from the Langley association, with Brommers saying the kick boot and flare jeans she wears in the campaign are “flying off the shelves.”
Zimmerman, whose campaign launches Wednesday (Feb. 25) shared his love for the brand two years ago when he hopped on stage in peach American Eagle underwear. “I’ve always loved their boxers. They’ve got all the crazy designs — pickles, reindeer, whatever — and I just thought that was the coolest thing. There’s just a lot of history there for me,” he tells Billboard.
His relationship with the brand, which launched in 1977 as American Eagle Outfitters, goes back nearly 20 years. “I’ve been wearing American Eagle for as long as I can remember — six, seven, eight years old –whenever I could finally fit into it. Growing up, my dad was around, but I was a mama’s boy for sure. We didn’t have much, so back-to-school shopping was a big deal for us. Going to the mall felt like a vacation. We’d go to American Eagle because it was a brand we could count on. It fit my style, it fit our budget, and we knew we’d walk out with stuff I was excited to wear.”
Displays featuring Langley and Zimmerman will be in the windows of more than 900 American Eagles stores around North America. They are also taking over American Eagles website and social media, and Langley is featured on a 3D billboard in New York’s Times Square. When asked if there will be more artists joining the campaign, Brommers says, “we do have some tricks up our sleeve as we get closer to Stagecoach,” but declined to mention specifics.
While the campaign with Stagecoach is multi-year, the deals with Langley and Zimmerman are shorter term and are being used to launch the Stagecoach partnership. Brommers declined to put a price tag on the campaign, but added, “We have budgets that will allow us to align with almost anything out there. We are knowingly choosing country because of the cultural defining moment that it’s having.”
While Brommers says he knows the “narrative” is that country fans may be more conservative than other audiences, he disavows that, and adds, “We’re a 50-state audience. It’s important that we are as aspirational as possible to everyone. [Country music] is a national phenomenon and we’re not a niche brand. We have to do things that are inclusive. Ella Langley had the No. 1 song [with ‘Choosin’ Texas’] on the Billboard Hot 100, topping Olivia Dean, Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny and Harry Styles. This is not niche.”
Wrangler has been aligned with country music and cowboy culture for decades thanks to artists like George Strait and Garth Brooks (and even younger artists like Lainey Wilson who has her own Wrangler collection), but Bommer says the decision to move into country “didn’t start from a competitive perspective,” but from what “the customer cares about… We have to think on a very broad scale. Country is at that moment. Anything that has a Western-influenced esthetic in the American Eagle assortment over the last year or so is selling.”
Zimmerman likes the organic feel of the association. “American Eagle and country both feel real,” he says. “They’re about showing up as you are and being confident in that. Country music is rooted in storytelling and everyday life, and American Eagle is the same. And if you’re country, you love denim. American Eagle is all about denim.”
The Stagecoach X American Eagle collection will debut online and in select stores on March 25 and will include jeans, tees, fleece and multiple other options. The brand will have a large physical presence at the Indio, California festival that Bommer promised “is going to have people dropping their jaws. You’re really going to feel denim in the desert like never before.”
As for his collaboration with American Eagle for his Stagecoach gear, Zimmerman already has some solid ideas: “I want to do patches because I think patches are the move right now,” he says. “I’m loving patches. They’re sick.”
That works for Brommers, who adds, “This is really about denim domination.”
Don’t run to the hills. A new Iron Maiden documentary is coming to a theater near you.
Universal Pictures International (UPI) unveils Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition, a feature film that’s said to trace the British heavy metal legends’ “remarkable five‑decade journey” with “unprecedented access” to the rockers’ official archives.
The doc releases exclusively in cinemas from May 7, and includes interviews with the band and contributions from the likes of actor Javier Bardem, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich and Public Enemy emcee Chuck D.
Directed by Malcolm Venville (Churchill at War) and produced by Dominic Freeman (Spirits in the Forest – A Depeche Mode Film), the “electrifying film offers an intimate look at their uncompromising vision and unwavering connection with their global army of fans,” reads a statement.
Spanish illustrator Alberto “Akirant” Quirantes contributes newly created key art, following his work on Iron Maiden 50th anniversary coin for the Royal Mint, which was released to celebrate the band’s milestone in 2025.
Formed in East London in 1975, Iron Maiden are giants of their scene, with 17 studio albums, over 100 million records sold, and more than 2,500 performances across 64 countries.
Fewer than five years ago, in September 2021, Iron Maiden earned its highest charting album ever on the Billboard 200 as Senjutsu debuted at No. 3. The veteran hard rock outfit previously peaked at No. 4 on the all-genres chart with its previous two studio releases: The Book of Souls (in 2015) and The Final Frontier (2010). In total, Senjutsu was Iron Maiden’s 15th top 40-charting album (dating to its first, The Number of the Beast, in 1982), of which four have hit the top 10.
The doc is announced as the band continues its two-year Run For Your Lives world tour, which expanded with the EddFest at Knebworth Park, England, on July 11, one of more than 50 shows booked worldwide this year. That run includes headline spots at this fall’s Louder Than Life festival in Louisville, KY, and France’s Hellfest.
This year is an unusually packed one for Iron Maiden docs. A separate film about the life and health struggles of early Iron Maiden singer Paul Di’Anno will be released this summer, through Cleopatra Entertainment. Di’Anno: Iron Maiden’s Lost Singer is directed by Wes Orshoski (Lemmy), who shot the film in England, Croatia, Brazil and the United States, and completed it shortly before Di’Anno’s death in October 2023, aged 66.
Tickets for Iron Maiden: Burning Ambition go on sale March 19.
Keli Holiday is coming to America.
The award-winning Australia artist will embark on his debut tour of North America with a show May 1 at The Echo in Los Angeles, CA. Next up, performances at Schubas Tavern in Chicago, IL (on May 3); The Dance Cave in Toronto, ON (May 6); and Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn, NY (May 7).
Holiday is the solo project of Adam Hyde, one half of the electronic duo Peking Duk. And he’s heading north with hits in his pocket.
As previously reported, Holiday is the highest-flying homegrown artist on the latest ARIA Albums Chart with Capital Fiction, his second collection, which opens its account at No. 3. As a member of Peking Duk, he peaked at No. 12 with 2018’s Reprisal.
Capital Fiction houses the cut “Dancing2,” which recounts the story of how Hyde met his partner and love of his life, Sydney media personality Abbie Chatfield. The single came in at No. 2 on triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown for 2025, won for best video at the last year’s ARIA Awards, and Holiday performed it at the top of the recording industry’s annual ceremony.
“This album feels like the first Keli Holiday offering that is true to who I am,” he says of Capital Fiction. “It explores themes of longing for more, finding love in a crowded room, and the union of sex. I have spent the majority of my days since the birth of Keli Holiday focusing on what I want to say, how I want to say it, and what I want it to sound like.”
On Capital Fiction, the Canberra-raised artist worked with producers Konstantin Kersting and Golden Features, in addition to U.S.-based, Australia-born artist Alex Cameron, with Belgian-born, Australia-based Romanie lending her vocals to “Ecstasy,” a spicy track that made headlines in these parts last November.
Holiday will kick off a tour of Australia March 6 at Sydney’s Metro Theatre. Expect more international dates to be announced in the weeks ahead.
“I love this job and I’m grateful to continue the pursuit of ideas,” he explains. “I will be releasing Keli Holiday albums until the day I drop dead. I want to continue to chronicle my life in strange little words on a bed of music that feels right for that zone in my life.”
Keli Holiday’s 2026 North America tour
May 1 – Los Angeles, CA – The Echo
May 3 – Chicago, IL – Schubas Tavern
May 6 – Toronto, ON – The Dance Cave
May 7 – Brooklyn, NY – Baby’s All Right
Luke Combs is getting vulnerable, and his fans are happy to see it.
On Tuesday (Feb. 24), the country singer joined music critic Jon Caramanica and reporter Joe Coscarelli on the latest installment of Popcast, the New York Times podcast on all things music. In the episode, the trio discuss a range of topics, including Combs’ Billboard Hot 100 No. 2 cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car,” his earliest musical influences, and politics in country music.
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Toward the end of the interview, the hosts have Combs pick a card from a standard deck. Whichever card he chose determined a pre-written question he must answer. When the singer pulled out the 4 of spades, Caramanica asked him, “What self-doubt did you face on the way to stardom?”
In a moment of extreme vulnerability, Combs responded by speaking openly about his struggles with body image. “Definitely my appearance,” he replied. “It was like, am I really not going to get a shot because I’m just like a bigger dude or whatever?”
He continued on to say that while he had full confidence in his ability to perform and write songs, he feared that he would not get a shot at stardom because of the way he looks. “That was, like, a hard pill to swallow, ’cause you can’t really change the way you look,” he said.
In response, Coscarelli asked if anyone from Combs’ team had ever tried to change his image or if the singer felt pressure to wake up one day looking like fellow country star Sam Hunt.
Combs explained that he has changed aspects of his diet, including fasting and going gluten-free, which has helped him alleviate some symptoms of his OCD as well as fight insulin resistance. “The gluten-free thing started for mental health stuff,” he said. “I have a really rare form of OCD that I have struggled with quite a bit for basically my whole life.”
Though these changes have helped Combs with some of his struggles, he continues to battle with his weight. “I have always struggled with my weight. It bugs me a lot that I can’t figure it out,” he said.
He then went on to explain that he’s trying to do it all: take care of himself physically and mentally, be a good dad to his three kids, and do his job as a performer. He admits that it’s hard, but he’d prefer that over taking what he views as the easy way out.
“I don’t want my life to be this life of ease,” he said. “I like when stuff’s hard.”
It’s part of the reason why he personally chooses to avoid taking weight-loss drugs. He says that though his path to success was difficult, because he enjoyed it, he doesn’t feel as if he’s done anything truly hard in his life.
“Sure there were days that were tough. Sure there were times I was tired,” he said. “But I’m not out digging ditches. It’s not that hard of a job.”
To him, the struggle with body image has been the one thing he can’t conquer.
“And I will do it; but I’m not gonna do it the short way,” he said before acknowledging that there’s nothing wrong with that — this is just how he wants to do it. Watch a clip of the moment below:
Following the release of the episode, Popcast shared a truncated version of the body image discussion to their Instagram page, and many fans took to the comments to share support for Combs and applaud his openness, including several folks in the industry.
“I really love him,” fellow country star Brandi Carlile commented.
“As a fellow huge dude in showbiz instead of digging ditches, I feel so seen by this and really appreciate it,” commented folk singer Willi Carlisle.
“I really appreciate the honesty,” replied model and singer Gabriella Lascano.
That level of honesty may make its way on to Combs’ forthcoming album, The Way I Am, releasing on March 20. Watch the full episode below:
When it comes to Mumford & Sons’ new Prizefighter album, “I think this is the best music we’ve ever made,” Marcus Mumford declares to the Billboard Pop Shop Podcast. “I love it more than anything we’ve ever done.”
Prizefighter is the band’s sixth full-length studio effort and comes less than a year after its last set, March 2025’s Rushmere. That’s a fast turnaround for a group that historically has gone between two-and-a-half to six years between albums — but it was a chance meeting with writer/musician/producer Aaron Dessner that sparked the shortest wait between albums.
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“We were in Electric Lady [Studios] in New York [mixing Rushmere] … and [Dessner] popped in, and we were like, ‘Do you want to hear our new record?’” the band’s Ben Lovett tells the Pop Shop Podcast (listen to the full interview below).
Dessner, who already knew the band and had worked with them in the past, began sharing with them what he was working on at the time. It was very “show and tell,” as Lovett puts it. At one point, Dessner played the band a demo of a track he had written with Jon Bellion. Turns out, Gracie Abrams (who has worked with Dessner extensively) had also heard that same demo and texted Mumford, telling him, “You guys should f— with it.”
“I started working on some lyrics right there and then — we’re still mixing Rushmere!,” recalls Mumford. “We were on a side quest. I texted them to her, actually, and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ She was like the fairy godmother of this record. She touched it with her magic wand and was like, ‘Yep, you guys gotta do more.’”
Ultimately, that track would turn into “The Banjo Song” and would be included on the new album, which was recorded in studios across France, the United Kingdom and the United States, most extensively at Dessner’s famed Long Pond Studio in New York.
The album is chock-full of collaborators, including Abrams (singing on the track “Badlands”), Bellion, Brandi Carlile (who texted Mumford lyrical ideas from a dream she had), FINNEAS, Hozier, Gigi Perez and Justin Vernon.
“We’ve invested a huge amount of time in a creative community of friends. … These are the people who inspire us,” Mumford says of their large circle of collaborators. “They’re the people that we are honored and privileged to share this ground with who are also at the top of their game.”
Notably, Stapleton was the “one collaborator on the record we didn’t already have a relationship with,” says Mumford, who refers to the country superstar as his “hero from afar.” Mumford called him up “out of the blue” (as they have a mutual friend in the producer Dave Cobb, who produced Rushmere with the band), had “the most amazing conversation about family and touring and shows,” and then, in Mumford’s words, “popped the question” about collaborating on the album’s “Here” (which was also the first song the band wrote for the album).
“He came back with his vocal take that just blew us all away,” Mumford says. “He’s a generational talent, and it was a total joy.”
Fans will get lots of chances to hear the new music live, as the band will be touring extensively through October, with its North American Prizefighter Tour kicking off June 2 in Vancouver. The trek will continue through October, currently concluding with an Oct. 6 date at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. And before all that, the band will return to NBC’s Saturday Night Live on Feb. 28 as the musical guest for the first time since 2018 (and fourth time in total).
Check out some select moments from the Pop Shop’s interview with Mumford & Sons (Ben Lovett, Ted Dwane and Marcus Mumford) below, and listen to the full interview above.
On how quickly the new album came after Rushmere, and if there was a creative spark or urgency that motivated the new project:
Ben: Coming out of Rushmere, it felt like we had many more songs. Actually, still feels like there’s songs yet to be sort of harnessed and put in the studio. So we were in Electric Lady in New York, mixing Rushmere, and Aaron Dessner was working next door, and he popped in, and we were like, “Do you want to hear our new record?” And then in kind of a very show-and-tell way, he was like, “Oh that’s great, great, let me play some stuff that I’ve got going on,” just a couple of ideas. And it just snowballs. It was like this kind of moment where there were no rules. For the last couple of years, it feels like we’ve been operating in a space of not being particularly concerned or constrained by any of the patterns that maybe we had, you know, pre-2018.
A chance encounter with Aaron Dessner led to Gracie Abrams becoming “the fairy godmother of this record”:
Marcus: By the time we bumped into Aaron in Electric Lady in New York, we were sort of in shape as a band again. The muscles were all working, you know, together, and we’d sort of renewed our vows in January of 2021 and we in the studio for 18 months already, and we were just ready.
We were in the right place at the right time, and so when [Aaron] showed us an idea that he’d written with Jon Bellion [a demo of “The Banjo Song”] and actually Gracie Abrams knew about the backing track, she’d heard it and texted me, and was like, “You guys should f— with it.”
And I started working on some lyrics right there, and then we’re still mixing Rushmere. We were on a side quest, and I texted them to her, actually, and said, “What do you think of this?” She was like, the fairy godmother of this record. She touched it with her magic wand. And was like, “Yep, you guys got to do more.”
How the new album is “the most similar” to their first album, thanks to the lack of expectations and the freedom that came with the album’s production:
Marcus: Straight after Rushmere, everyone kind of thought and assumed we were … getting everything ready to go promote Rushmere, we were actually finishing Prizefighter by then. And there was a freedom to that, which I think you hear on the record. … It’s like, it’s almost just extra and because no one was expecting that, and we could just take ourselves off to Long Pond, and no one was looking and we weren’t thinking about the audience at all. That’s why it feels to me the most similar to our first record before there was an audience, really. And there’s a freedom in that as a writer, I think, which you can access. And we really tapped into it and leant into it, and it led to this, this collection of songs.
Why the album is titled Prizefighter, after the same-named song on the album:
Marcus: It embodies a spirit to us that we felt made it the right contender for a title. Titles are very strange, and band names are even stranger, but they’re the things that go out ahead of your music weirdly, and it can be awkward, but so it’s just about picking a word that feels like it embodies the spirit of the collection of songs that you’ve put together and the artistic impression you’ve left on the record, literally. So Prizefighter felt like the right one for loads of reasons. But yeah, a lot of them are in that song. The character in that song is striving and trying. Like, we’re nothing else if not, like, try-hards. We f—ing try, you know? And we work hard, and we know that we have to try and earn this stuff. And we’ll say yes to most shows we get offered because we love touring. We always have, and we’ll just keep trying really hard, because I wish it came as naturally as it appears to come to lots of other artists, but it doesn’t. You’ve got to try and work. You’ve got to put in the work for this stuff and and that’s why it felt like we were in shape by the time we saw Aaron.
The band has a collab with Chris Stapleton on the record, and they performed with Lainey Wilson in concert last October (covering Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!”), and their “I Will Wait” even hit Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. What is it about the band’s sound that seems to flow so naturally in the world of country music?
Ted: It’s a funny thing. I think we’re all really inspired by that kind of tradition of songwriting. And I think for a while we sort of danced around it a little bit and never wanted to quite look it directly in the eye. But we went to Telluride — it was a long time ago now, I guess like 2011 or 2012 or something, got off the bus and were greeted at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival by so many of these, like, amazing heroes of ours who [were] really digging what we were doing. And I think ever since then, it’s sort of emboldened us to sort of lean into that side of our interests more and more. And as we have done, it’s been more and more rewarding, you know? It’s just an amazing community of people, like playing the Lainey songs. We did a train tour [Railroad Revival Tour] last year and we were her band. We had the great privilege of being her band for about 40 minutes. And it was like just astonishing, you know, really learning her music and seeing the way that she writes and and feeling, once again, that kind of hospitality that that kind of corner of corner of the industry seems to have. Yeah, it’s awesome.
On working with Stapleton on the album’s “Here”:
Marcus: I mean, if we’ve ever written a country song, it’s “Here.” It is a country song. You know, the formula, you know, the shape that it takes, is pretty straight-up a country song. So, you know, we spent a lot of time in Nashville. We’ve made records in Nashville. We wrote Babel in Nashville. Most of our band that we tour with, the musicians we get to play with every night, a lot of them are based in Nashville, and we just, we love it. … Maybe we’ll never be fully accepted by the country music scene in Nashville, and that’s OK. But “Here” was like, yeah, the most straightforward country song I think we’ll ever write. So calling Chris out of the blue, really, he was the one collaborator on the record we didn’t already have a relationship with. He was just like my hero from afar. So … being able to call him was a total honor. And we had the most amazing conversation about family and touring and shows. And there’s a lot of mutual respect there. You know, we just made a record with Dave Cobb, his longtime collaborator, and had lots in common. And then I popped the question … and he came back with this vocal take that just blew us all away. You know, he’s a generational talent, and it was a total joy.
The band reacts to how Billboard suggests to them that the sound of the album, and its live playing and musicianship, could not be re-created by A.I., and that it really came through that there were people and ideas and souls behind the album.
Marcus: Well, I’ll just tell you that A.I.’s got so good that it makes it seem like it’s not A.I., but actually … no joking … yeah, it was very played.
Ben: We believe in playing instruments. It’s one of the things that we really banded around when we started this thing in the first place, was how fun it is to just get in a room and play songs together. You know, some ways it’s this kind of amorphous collaborative enterprise, Mumford & Sons, and it’s ever-evolving, but at the heart of it is performance. So we do try and keep — and you can hear it like you say throughout the album that it’s like — these performances, and there’s take selection in the studio. You know, when you’re like, “That’s the take,” because it has something to it that is. It could be the same notes, but it’s like the intention in the little breath and intensity is a keeper. So I love that about the studio process, and I think a lot of the time it can be enticing to get sucked into kind of rounding out the edges and overcompressing stuff too much. I think because Aaron Dessner is such a purist as a musician himself, I think he was good as a partner on the production, to make sure that no one was going to get away with, you know, too many touch-ups. And I think that’s what you feel. You feel the blemishes, you feel the moments where you’re leaning in. And I think that’s great, and I’m glad that you said that.
_______________________
In addition to the Pop Shop’s interview with Mumford & Sons, hosts Katie and Keith chat about their field trip to Lady Gaga’s Mayhem Ball concert at the Kia Forum, chart news about Taylor Swift’s “Opalite” hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and Bad Bunny returning to the top 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 managing director, charts and data operations, 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.)
Danny Ocean’s “Corazón” surges 7-1 on Billboard’s Latin Airplay chart (dated Feb. 28), becoming his third straight chart-topper among six career entries.
“Corazón,” which stems from Ocean’s No. 2-peaking album Babylon Club on Top Latin Pop Albums (2025), rises after a 30% growth across Latin stations in the United States, earning 8.1 million audience impressions during the Feb. 13-19 tracking week, according to Luminate.
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The Venezuelan singer/songwriter lands his third consecutive ruler on the overall Latin Airplay ranking among six career entries. Prior, he led with “Amor” and “Imagínate,” with Kapo, for one week each in 2024 and 2025, respectively. Along with “Corazón,” “Imáginate” is also part of Ocean’s Babylon Club album, which earned him finalist spots for Top Latin pop album of the year and Latin pop song of the year at the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards.
Ocean’s “Corazón” stands out as the first solo artist track to claim the No. 1 spot on the Latin Airplay chart in 2026. This achievement breaks the trend of the year’s seven previous chart-toppers, all of which reached the summit through collaborations. Among the collaborative No. 1s, Karol G and Marco Antonio Solís’ “Coleccionando Heridas” holds the longest reign in 2026, spending two weeks atop so far. Additionally, Romeo Santos and Prince Royce’s “Lokita Por Mí” also enjoyed a two-week run at the top, split across late 2025 and early 2026.
Beyond its Latin Airplay coronation, “Corazón” also marks Ocean’s third No. 1 on Latin Pop Airplay, where it lifts 3-1 with the Greatest Gainer honors of the week.
Xavi and Carín León Team Up to New No. 1 With “La Morrita”: Following his solo of performance of “La Morrita” at Premios Lo Nuestro on Feb. 19 in Miami, Xavi takes the lead on the Regional Mexican Airplay chart, as the song, with Carín León, climbs 6-1 in its sixth week on the chart.
Boosted by a 6.9 million increase in audience impressions (a 23% gain in the U.S. during the tracking week), “La Morrita” secures Xavi’s sixth career No. 1. The feat comes just three weeks after he hit the top spot with “No Capea,” with Grupo Frontera, which ruled Regional Mexican Airplay for one week in November.
For Carín León, this marks his 12th No. 1 on the tally, dating to “El Tóxico,” his 2021 collaboration with Grupo Firme.
Beyond its dominance on Regional Mexican Airplay, “La Morrita” is gains momentum on Latin radio overall. The single jumps 11-3 on the Latin Airplay, Xavi’s second top 10 on the chart this year. His previous entry, “No Capea,” reached No. 1 on the February 7-dated ranking.
