In the new three-part documentary Kylie that debuts today (May 20) on Netflix, Australian superstar singer Kylie Minogue reveals that a routine checkup in 2021 led to a second cancer diagnosis after the singer received treatment for breast cancer in 2005.

“My second cancer diagnosis was in early 2021. I was able to keep that to myself,” Minogue, 57 says in the film, according to the BBC. “Not like the first time. “Thankfully, I got through it, again, and all is well. Hey, who knows what’s around the corner, but pop music nurtures me… my passion for music is greater than ever.”

Minogue says she struggled to “find the right time” to talk about her second diagnosis, which came before the global success of her Grammy-winning 2023 dance pop smash “Padam Padam.” “I don’t feel obliged to tell the world, and actually I just couldn’t at the time because I was just a shell of a person,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave the house again at one point. ‘Padam Padam’ opened so many doors for me but on the inside I knew that cancer wasn’t just a blip in my life. And I really just wanted to say what happened so I can let go of it. I’d sit through interviews and every opportunity I thought, ‘now’s the time’, but I kept it to myself.”

While she didn’t discuss her second diagnosis with reporters or fans, Minogue did hide some Easter eggs in the lyrics of her 2023 Tension album. The song “Story” features the lines, “I had a secret that I kept to myself/ Turn another page, baby take the stage.” She explains that she “needed to have something that marked that time.”

Though she kept mum about the 2021 diagnosis, Minogue said she’s sharing the details now in the hopes that “someone out there who will benefit from a gentle reminder to do their checkups.”

After her first diagnosis in 2005, Minogue had to cancel the rest of her Showgirl hits tour and pull out of a headlining legends slot set at the Glastonbury festival in order to get a lumpectomy and chemotherapy. In a trailer for the doc, Minogue says “I felt removed from my body … I was so scared of what was ahead of me,” amid flashing headlines about her first cancer diagnosis.

Minogue was declared cancer-free in February 2006 and was praised for helping to raise awareness about the disease that the WHO reported resulted in more than 2.3 million women being diagnosed in 2022, leading to 670,000 deaths globally. The uptick in women getting screenings in the wake of Minogue coming forward, especially in Australia, was referred to as the “Kylie effect.”

The month of June in New York City is often jam-packed with music. Within just a few weeks, Indie Week, the Libera Awards, Governors Ball, The Songwriter’s Hall of Fame and dozens of other events will take place, marking the official start of summer. For the past nine years, the New York City mayor’s office of media entertainment (MOME) has gotten on board with New York Music Month (NYMM), and Shira Gans, MOME’s senior executive director of policy and programs, is busy laying out the schedule for this year’s programming, which includes 60 events in 30 days across all five boroughs.

In the weeks leading up to the event, Gans is finalizing programming and ensuring this year’s conference taking place on June 3 touches on each facet of what’s impacting the music industry right now, from the integration of AI to how to find a job after layoffs.

When NYMM first launched in 2017, there were 12 events in all. This year’s programming includes 38 talks, 21 performances, the main conference and the return of NYMM’s free rehearsal series, offering more than 2,000 hours of free rehearsal space across four locations.

“It gets crazy,” Gans tells Billboard. “When I think of how it’s evolved over the years, it’s grown on a lot of levels… When I think about creating it, I think of it as infrastructure. And that’s really changed as I’ve seen the industry get more and more excited about Music Month. It’s a true public partnership.”

Last year marked the first time NYMM began charging for tickets to its conference, with Gans explaining they did so in order to ensure people who signed up were in attendance. Tickets currently run for $30, including all-in fees.

“What’s happening in New York is a rare alignment where public policy, private industry and independent creators stop orbiting separately and start operating as one ecosystem, acknowledging that culture survives only when the infrastructure behind it is intentionally built,” Josh Rabinowitz, music consultant and professor at Brooklyn Music Experience, says. “The result is NYC not just hosting the music business, but actively engineering the conditions that allow the future of the industry to exist here.”

As NYMM unveils its full lineup of events, Gans explains how the event has grown to become such an integral part of the city’s and the music industry’s infrastructure.

How do you source your programming for this event year after year?

Everything is sourced from the industry itself. Every idea, for the most part, is really somebody coming to me and saying, “Hey, I think this would benefit the segment of the industry that I work in.” I think this is an important topic. And then we’re able to invest and give funding to do that. So, it becomes a mirror and a megaphone.

When you’re on the conference circuit, it’s often the same people that get on the stage, either because that’s who people know, or it’s driven by sponsorships. No shade to that, but we try to move away from it. Beyond it growing some of the topics, I think it’s interesting to see how that shifts over time.

How do live events factor into NYMM?

In the beginning, I wasn’t that comfortable with live music being part of the conference. We co-branded with SummerStage and Celebrate Brooklyn, but I didn’t necessarily want the city to be putting our finger on the balance of culture and deciding, “This act is good and this act doesn’t get city funding.” As it’s grown and we’ve gotten more partnerships — I curate the curators, so we’re really working with people who are working with up-and-coming artists — on the performance side, it shifted, too, in that we did have more programming in terms of live music.

In the beginning, it was a partnership with the parks department to give opportunities for underserved communities in the Bronx and Queens. And, in the last couple of years, as this has become more of an industry-established thing, we’ve shifted focus to be a platform for emerging artists.

What are all your offerings within NYMM’s programming?

It starts with four verticals. It’s the conference talks, performances, we put rehearsal space to the side and then it’s this multidimensional matrix of factors. I’m considering the value of music. Are we getting things for artists? Are we getting things on the business side? Are we looking at sync? Are we looking at distribution? Are we looking at legal? This year, we’re going to have an event on the state of music journalism. What’s happening to that? And, if you don’t have local acts, if you don’t have as many local journalists, how do you get someone covered? If you can’t get them covered, how does that shift artist discovery and things like that?

I’ve added stuff on the hiring landscape, so we have one event that’s about, “You got laid off, what’s next?” I have another with a music headhunter who’s bringing together HR from major music companies to talk about what they’re looking for. There’s more in mental health. There’s been a lot of interest in the last couple years of people looking at the intersection of mental health from the angles of the challenges working in the industry, the challenges of an artist, and now how music is being used as healthcare.

How do you keep this event fresh year after year?

We rebranded last year, which I think helped a lot. It felt a bit like the school science fair because we didn’t have a consistent brand. We have the logo, but every individual event the person would create their own branding. We worked with a really great creative director, and now with our socials we created these templates that are color-coded by the vertical and there’s a lot of different choices. New York Music Month is cool because it’s the sum of all the parts, and now we have this brand and people see that they all look a little different, but then you start to get it.

How do you envision this event benefiting the New York City creator community?

I think it benefits them in several ways. The lineup is largely focused on professional development, be it actual skill building, free headshots and things like that.

Conferences are expensive. Even membership to different organizations can be challenging to figure out. I think professional development is important. I think networking itself is really important, as people think about some doomsday idea around AI. I do think human connection is something you can’t really replace and the strength of an industry really has to do with these different levels of strong ties and weak ties and how you meet people.

One of the biggest topics of conversation right now is around AI. How do you think that might impact New York City’s musicians and creators, and what panels and conversations do you have included in this year’s programming?

We’re going to have a panel on AI led by Drew Thurlow, who’s written books on the subject. And we’re going to have different perspectives — it’s a panel, right? We’ll have ElevenLabs there, other authors and academics who are thinking about AI. I think we’re moved from the philosophical parts, which first came up with Vernon Reed on stage in 2023. Back then, it was this mind-blowing idea. Now it’s more looking at the legal angles, and revenue models. How are people using that to make money? I think New York City is about innovation, and one of the things that makes it a great city is that it’s at the intersection of film, TV, advertising, tech and finance. That’s not something you have in L.A. or Nashville and is really unique to New York, and most of the programming is going to take that angle.

Liverpool, England recently hosted their own Music Month, taking inspiration from NYMM. What can other cities learn from events such as this one?

When you connect with people and talk about it, then you can model best practices and you can take ideas from other cities or places and see what’s worked. When we set the Office of Nightlife, that was really a moment that started in Europe talking about the nighttime economy and thinking about it in a way that was way advanced for the U.S., and that was something we were paying attention to. San Francisco had that with the nightlife board, which was there to protect nightlife and keep venues open late. Austin has done cool stuff with bringing artists from Scandinavian countries to do songwriting camps and helping monetize music as an export with those kinds of collaborations. I think we have a lot to learn from other cities.

Fans attending the opening dates of Harry Styles’ ‘Together, Together’ tour have shared concerns online about obstructed views from premium floor sections.

After the tour’s first two shows, which took place at Amsterdam’s Johan Cruyff Arena over the weekend (May 16 and 17), clips circulating social media showed some concertgoers struggling to see due to the height of the stage, equipment, and a large production set-up, prompting criticism over Styles’ ambitious staging design.

In a statement shared with Billboard U.K., a tour representative for Styles has said that areas of the staging are “being reviewed carefully” and the team is working to improve visibility concerns ahead of upcoming shows. 

“The floor concept was designed to give fans freedom of movement and the ability to experience the show from different positions, rather than being confined to one fixed viewing angle,” they said. 

“That open, free-flowing floor experience has always been an essential part of Harry’s live shows. A small area of the staging in specific floor positions appears to have had a restricted sightline. Those areas are being reviewed carefully and adjusted where possible in compliance with all safety restrictions.”

The sightline complaints have also fueled a broader online conversation around rising concert ticket prices and fan expectations for premium live experiences. While some attendees praised the staging – which sees Styles moving between multiple performance areas during a two-hour set – others argued that standing tickets should offer consistent views of the show, regardless of production elements. Styles has not addressed the backlash publicly.

The Together, Together tour, which will hit seven key global cities throughout 2026, remains one of the year’s biggest live music launches. Billboard U.K. attended the kickoff at Johan Cruyff Arena, describing the show as “a fervent, dizzying two-hour trip through Styles’ musical canon” and praising its more mature feel to the British singer’s previous live performances.

Following a further eight nights in Amsterdam, Styles will take the trek onward to London for a record-breaking 12 shows at Wembley Stadium, before continuing with additional stadium dates in São Paulo, Mexico City, Sydney and Melbourne. Throughout the fall, the 33-year-old will play 30 sold-out nights at New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

The Together, Together tour marks Styles’ first major live run since the release of his fourth album Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally in March, which hit No. 1 on both the Billboard 200 and the Official U.K. Albums Chart. The stadium trek follows his 169-date Love On Tour cycle, which ran between 2021 and 2023 and established the former One Direction member as one of the most in-demand live acts of the past decade.

Hitmaker Sarah Aarons adds more silverware to her heaving collection by snagging several Billions Awards, presented to APRA AMCOS’s songwriter members and their publishers in recognition of a song surpassing one billion streams.

The Los Angeles-based, Melbourne-raised Aarons earns two awards for her breakup song “I Miss U, I’m Sorry,” co-written with and performed by folk-pop darling Gracie Abrams. Her second award is for another love song “Love Me Not,” performed by Ravyn Lenae and co-written with Anderson Paak, Brent Reynolds, Christian Farlow, Craig Balmoris, Dahi, Dominic Angelella, Jaelen Irizarry, Julian Nixon and Spencer Stewart. Aarons is published by Sony Music Publishing.

Just last month, Aarons was on hand at the 2026 APRA Music Awards, where she won the international recognition award, for her work with the likes of Tame Impala, BTS, Flume, Gracie Abrams, ROSÉ and Maren Morris. All told, she has won sixth APRA Awards, included the coveted songwriter of the year at the 2019 APRAs.

Meanwhile, sibling duo Amy and George Sheppard, along with co-writer Jay Bovino, collected their first Billions Award for “Geronimo,” recorded by the Brisbane-based pop group Sheppard. The song won two APRA Music Awards in 2015 for most played Australian work and pop work of the year, and cracked the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014, peaking at No. 53. The Sheppards are published by Mushroom Music Publishing.

“It’s been an amazing journey for us, and to have the amazing team that we’ve had, getting to bring joy to people for the last 14 years, it’s a dream come true,” comments George Sheppard. “Thank you so much for this amazing honor.”

Sneaky Sound System‘s Connie Mitchell is feted for the hip-hop song “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” co-written with DJ Toomp and Kanye West. Following its release in 2007, “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” peaked at No. 41 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Also in the winners’ circle is Kota Banks (published by Gaga Music) and Taka Perry (published by Concord Music Publishing ANZ) for their work on KATSEYE’s “TOUCH.” Other co-writers on the song were Blake Slatkin, Caroline Ailin, Magnus Holberg and Omer Fedi.

“We wrote ‘TOUCH’ a few years ago at my old studio in Glebe,” explains Perry at a special presentation for the Billions Awards. “At the time I was a huge K-pop fan and I wanted to write some K-pop demos. I hit up Kota (Banks), and I was like, ‘do you want to come to the studio and work on a few songs together?’ And one of those songs was ‘TOUCH.’ I think we probably wrote it in an hour or two. It was just one of those things where it was the right song, in the right place.”

The eighth recipient is Los Angeles-based, Scottish songwriter and producer Stuart Crichton (published by Concord Music Publishing ANZ), who enters the 1,000,000,000 List with Kygo’s “Stargazing,” which he wrote back in 2017 alongside Kygo, Jamie Hartman and Justin Jesso.

Crichton, who called Australia home in the 2000s, and is represented by Concord Music Publishing ANZ, enjoyed APRAs glory last month with most performed dance/electronic work for “Tell Me,” recorded by Sonny Fodera and Clementine Douglas.

The Billions Award takes into account streaming numbers from the major services, including Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.

“When APRA’s founding publishers first met 100 years ago in 1926, they could never have imagined we’d be here in 2026 celebrating songwriters and publishers for reaching one billion streams,” comments Dean Ormston, CEO of APRA AMCOS.

“It’s an extraordinary achievement, especially given the sheer volume of music released every day – both human and AI-generated. We’re incredibly proud to have been able to support these eight members throughout their careers and now see their songs connecting with huge audiences around the world.”

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