Underneath the wings of a luxury Concorde aeroplane, Tom Grennan is belting out his brand of soulful pop to a room of major industry players, politicians and Bristol locals. Signs around a tastefully done-up aircraft hangar tell the English city to get ready for “supersonic” new live arena. How’s that for an opening statement?

On Thursday (Feb. 19), the naming rights to an incoming 20,000-capacity music venue were announced in bombastic fashion. The Aviva Arena, slated to open in 2028, will shake up the U.K.’s music scene after a decades-long wait for live music fans in the southwest of England.

First mooted in 2003, plans for Bristol’s new music venue have had to weather some turbulence. A site in the city centre was initially identified, though these plans were scrapped when the project was considered no longer financially viable. 

In 2019, plans moved to a site in the north of the city: Filton Airfield. Featuring several huge hangars, it was here that the Concorde jet, a luxury commercial airliner that first flew in the 1970s, was built. Considered a feat of British engineering, the jet drastically cut transatlantic travel time and could break the supersonic barrier. They were ultimately discontinued in 2003 due to rising costs and dipping demand.

The Aviva Arena will lean into its heritage and repurpose the existing site, including three huge aircraft hangars which make up one of Europe’s largest free-standing structures. The new venue will be configurable from 4,000 all the way up to its 20,000 maximum and fill a black spot on the U.K. touring map. Global touring acts traditionally skip Bristol due to a lack of large scale venues, with tours opting instead for Birmingham or London. Conversations with a number of large artists to play the venue once it opens are underway.

Handled by YTL Live, the construction will bring a £1bn boost to the local economy and thousands of jobs. A new train station will be built to serve the venue and the surrounding community; 6,500 homes will be built on the entire site, with the music, exhibition and conference space at the heart of it. The government’s chancellor Rachel Reeves hailed the plans and said it would “put the region firmly on the global map for live entertainment.”

Following Grennan’s set, YTL Live chief executive Andrew Billingham and Miles Leonard, an appointee on YTL Live’s advisory board and chairman of Parlophone & Warner Brothers Records U.K. sat down with Billboard U.K. to discuss the new space, competition in the live space and their goal of hosting the BRIT Awards.

What will set Aviva Arena apart from other arenas?

Andrew: There’s a couple of things. It’s the flexibility and scale. We can flex from 4,000 right up to 20,000 that puts us in the top three of UK arena capacities [behind Manchester’s Co-op Live and London’s O2 Arena]. There’s also the location – the west of England reaches 16 million people and that’s about 20% of the UK population that’s starved of a great venue. The final point for us is the experience and that it’s in this location with so much history. We want to make sure the experience is amazing for fans, both in terms of its acoustics and in terms of its food and drink offering, and hospitality, but also for artists as well.

Miles: It’s about the whole development, and with the two areas either side to provide different offerings [conferences and exhibitions]. What we’re doing for the artists also sets us apart, we recognize that we need to develop the backstage areas for them and have a positive experience for them. We want artists coming back. Most arenas are quite dead behind the stage, so we want to make sure the experience is as good for the artists as it is for the fans.

Did you feel like the live music industry in the U.K. was crying out for a venue like this?

Andrew: Absolutely, it’s proven that it’s a supply-led market. Co-op Live opened a couple of years ago [2024] to add another big venue in the Manchester market, and has gone on to achieve some great numbers and success. The west of England in comparison, hasn’t had the opportunity to compete.

Miles: Bristol is so rich in culture with its art, music and sport scenes… we’re not competing with the other major cities in the country, and haven’t done so for a long time on this scale. The music industry is definitely crying out for it, but also so are the people of Bristol and the whole southwest of England. If you live in Devon, Cornwall, Wiltshire and you want to go and see an artist on a global, international scale, you have to go up to The O2 in London or to Birmingham and that’s quite some distance. 

Andrew: We’ve had quite a bit of input from the industry too, particularly in the artist facilities. We had feedback on the dressing rooms, artist lounges, production offices, crew dining, all the way through to the back of house where we can fit 60 lorries. We can turn shows over quite quickly.

Miles: They can’t believe the space and the facilities that we have. We have to future-proof the arena, not just for now but for the next 20 years.

Were there any other arenas, not just in the U.K., that you looked at and took inspiration from

Andrew: Definitely. The Intuit Dome in Los Angeles, for example. It’s built around basketball, but very tech-led. We’re going to have a lot of tap and go concession stands to speed up concession services, and the Intuit Dome was certainly one that was on top of this. Also what the team has done at the Co-op Live is incredible. The acoustics that they have delivered is amazing.

Miles: It’s an era for live music of this scale right now. So to have the Aviva Arena future-proofed with leading audio and tech and making the visual immersive side state of the art, as well as all the food and beverage outside is really important.

The arena experience has changed so much compared to something like The O2 in London which was built in a different era of live music. You have a fresh slate here…

Andrew: It’s a really good point, because for fans, their experience has changed, hasn’t it? The O2, for example, was built around the corporate customer [the venue opened in 2007]. We’re not. We’re built around giving flexibility in terms of experiences for fans of every genre and of every age, and that’s really important. We’ve made sure that the building is flexible enough that we can change with the times.

There’s also an arena being built in Cardiff which is less than an hour drive from here. How do you see that competing with what you’re doing here?

Andrew: I think it’s healthy competition. We know that it’s a supply-led industry. You’ve got an arena in Liverpool [M&S Bank Arena] and that’s the same distance to Manchester which has now got two arenas. Then you go over to Leeds, the same distance from Manchester in the other direction, which has its own arena [First Direct Arena]. The west of England has been starved of venues in comparison. But Cardiff, which is in the southwest of Wales, is a different market and I would like to hope that we’ve got two great markets where and arenas artists want to play both.

How will the venue interact with the grassroots scene? There’s talk of the mandatory ticket levy….

Andrew: We’ve been really clear that this is about supporting grassroots music. Whether it’s through a levy, or whether it’s through supporting artists in terms of building their fan bases and their audiences. We’ve got lots of things to come in the future, but we are absolutely committed to supporting the grassroots. 

Miles: We don’t want to sit apart from that, and we recognize the need for those venues to develop artists, because it’s that journey that brings them here in the arena. You don’t start in the arena, you’ve got to start in those small venues. We want to look at all the ways that we can work together and support each other. That also goes beyond just the artists, but also the people that are working within those venues on the lighting, the sound desk, on the door, promoting, whoever that is. You need to think of the live industry as a whole and not just the artists. It’s very much in our sights to be supporting the industry at all levels.

We’ve seen a lot of music ceremonies move out of London in recent years. Next week, the BRITs will take place at Manchester’s Co-op Live. Is that something you would like to host here at some point? 

Andrew: Yes, 100% We want to showcase Bristol and the west of England, and that’s absolutely a conversation that we will want to have.

Too much Idols ain’t enough. Yungblud knows it, and today (Feb. 20), he shows it with the “Complete” edition of his Grammy-nominated Idols.

Billed as Idols II, the extended version includes a fresh batch of seven tracks, including a new version of “Zombie” featuring The Smashing Pumpkins.

Idols (Complete) “Disc 2” also houses the six previously unheard tracks: “I Need You (To Make the World Seem Fine),” “The Postman,” “Time,” “War Part II,” “Blueberry Hill” and “Suburban Requiem.”

“This is it. The second chapter of the Idols story,” the British rocker wrote earlier in the week, announcing the expanded release. “Part 1 was a journey that helped me reclaim my identity from the darkest position I’ve ever been in my life. Part 2 is about realizing that I am alive, that I am real, that this journey that I’ve been on didn’t kill me. It’s about realizing that you can feel invincible when you actually feel yourself. It’s about comprehending that my heart is beating and that my lungs are filling up with air.”

A native of Doncaster, England, Yungblud (real name: Dominic Harrison) is enjoying a bright start to the year. Idols was nominated for best rock album at the 2026 Grammys, and its lead single, “Zombie,” for best rock song. He scooped his first Grammy at the 68th ceremony, winning best rock performance prize for his version of “Changes” performed at the July 2025 farewell show for Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne in Birmingham, England.

Idols (via Universal), Yungblud’s fourth studio album, dropped in June 2025 and gave the artist his third consecutive No. 1 on the Official U.K. Chart. Then, in December 2025, he got a fourth when his collaboration with Aerosmith, One More Time, topped the national tally.

Thanks to his recent tour of Australia, Idols finally climbed to No. 1 on the ARIA Chart in January 2026, his second leader in the land down under, after his self-titled third album spent one week at No. 1 in 2022.

Stream Idols (Complete) below.

There are gaps between projects. And there’s the 10-year-plus drought between Hilary Duff’s albums. That all comes to an end with Luck… or Something, which dropped at the stroke of midnight.

Luck… or Something is Duff’s sixth studio album, and the first since Breathe In. Breathe Out arrived in June 2015, almost 11 years ago.

The album, her first through Atlantic Records, houses 11 songs, including the previously-released “Mature” and “Roommates,” and is said to be shaped by “the chaos and clarity of motherhood, marriage, and finding herself in her 30s.”

Duff remarks, “here’s that question of whether women can have it all, and through this process I learned I had to sacrifice some things in order to put the record first,” shares Hilary. “As hard as that is, I still believe it’s okay to choose yourself sometimes and do what scares the hell out of you. Carving out the time to make an album after all these years was incredibly powerful for me, and now I can’t wait to share it with the world.”

The multiple-platinum singer and actor co-wrote the album, which is produced by her husband Matthew Koma (Britney Spears, P!nk) with Brian Phillips (Alec Benjamin, blink-182), and is a nod to her long, winding path.

“I constantly get asked how I still have my head on straight after growing up in this industry,” she continues in a statement announcing the new LP. “The album title is my way of answering that question, which felt right for a record that’s about where I’ve landed and all the things I’ve been through along the way.”

Duff will support the album with her first full-scale global headline tour in almost two decades, with dates across the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The tour gets underway with a two night stand in West Palm Beach, FL June 21 and 22, and will rumble on until February 2027. For more, visit hilaryduff.com/live.

Currently, Duff is on a streak of five consecutive top 10 appearances on the Billboard 200 chart, including two leaders with 2003’s Metamorphosis (one week) and 2005’s Most Wanted (two weeks).

Stream Luck… or Something and read Billboard’s track-by-track analysis here.

Gambling can bring out the highest of highs and lowest of lows, but Baby Keem is back to roll the dice. Keem returned on Friday (Feb. 20) with his Ca$ino album, his first project since 2021’s The Melodic Blue.

Ca$ino boasts 12 tracks in total, which find Keem joining forces with his cousin Kendrick Lamar, Too Short, Momo Boys and Che Ecru for collaborations.

Keem ended the nearly five-year drought with an album announcement for Ca$ino on Feb. 10, which sent his fanbase into a frenzy. “Took your time bro this better be a classic,” one person commented.

The Las Vegas native has released an accompanying multi-part Ca$ino documentary on YouTube, which featured Keem in the studio with Kendrick working on “Good Flirts.”

“Walking in the party, I don’t feel nobody/ What the f—k,” K. Dot raps. “Is it fake, is it love, probably/ I smell something.”

Part one features Keem’s family members and Lamar describing the 25-year-old’s upbringing. “I understand the hardships before he was born. Knowing his mom, that’s my first cousin,” Lamar said. “I already knew what she was going through, just the history of our family in general. We don’t call ourselves the hillbillies for nothing.”

Kendrick continued: “Section 8, welfare … This is a story of a warfare environment and a warfare psychologically trying to change our generational curses.”

Baby Keem released his The Melodic Blue debut album in September 2021 and the LP peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. Keem also released a deluxe for thealbum in October 2022 featuring assists from Lil Uzi Vert and PinkPantheress.

Stream Ca$ino below.

G Flip nets the official song for the 2026 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, the 12-strong regional soccer tournament which Australia hosts next month.

The Sydney-based singer, songwriter and multiple-instrumentalist this week releases the tourney’s anthem, a cover of the ‘80s hit “All Fired Up,” initially written and released by Australian rock band Rattling Sabres, and later a global smash for Pat Benatar.

A portion of the royalties from the song will be donated to Women Onside, an organization dedicated to promoting gender equality in Australian football for almost a decade, ensuring that its impact reaches well beyond the pitch.

“I’ve been a lifelong fan and supporter of women’s sports and always want to get involved wherever I can. Getting the opportunity to create an anthem for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup is really exciting,” comments G Flip in a statement.  

“Representation in all forms is so important so I hope moments like the AFC Women’s Asian Cup inspires young people to follow their dreams and for everyone to get around women’s sports.”

View this post on Instagram

Paramount+ is the exclusive streaming home for every match of the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2026, which kicks off with the home team, the Matildas, facing off with the Philippines in Perth on March 1. The Matildas will hope to turn their home advantage into a second win, after claiming the title in 2010, and by maintaining the momentum of their march into the semi-finals of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, also played out on Australian soil.

Formerly known as the AFC Women’s Championship, the quadrennial cup has been dominated by defending champions China, winners on nine occasions.

Stream the “All Fired Up” below.