This week, Dasha previews her upcoming EP Anna with a tender track chronicling the slow process of making a new town feel like home. HARDY also previews his upcoming album Country! Country! with a tender track that looks at life from the perspective of man’s best friend. Meanwhile, bluegrass group The Infamous Stringdusters offer up a country-tilted new track, while Chase Rice brings a rustic, introspective new song, and Lauren Watkins and John Morgan team up for a new collaboration.

Check out all of these and more in Billboard‘s roundup of some of the best country, bluegrass and/or Americana songs of the week below.

Dasha, “Train”

“Austin” hitmaker Dasha trades boot-stompin’ rhythms for tender introspection on her latest song. Elevated by slashes of pedal steel and dobro, “Train” depicts the slow accumulation of moments that prove one’s transition from stranger in a new town to resident, when the new space begins to feel more familiar. The sound of a train that was once jarring becomes background noise, pictures hung on a wall makes a new place feel cozy and newly-forged friendships begin to give a sense of community. “You learn the turns and time the lights/ The town you didn’t recognize becomes a little more like home,” she sings, while her tender, conversational vocal style proves a perfect fit for the song’s tender sentiments. “Train” marks singer-songwriter Dasha’s first outside cut, and is a solo write from Kyle Sturrock. Her EP Anna releases Oct. 10.

HARDY, “Dog Years”

HARDY once again proves why he’s one of country music’s most talented tunesmiths on his new release. The decade-old song underscores his sharp songwriting instincts, even in his formative years as a writer in Nashville. Written from the perspective of a faithful canine, the song finds the pooch at the end of it’s life, recalling the day he was rescued from the side of the road, and vividly detailing the scores of memories made since that day and highlighting the bond between humans and their pets. Though the song’s premise has potential to veer into overly-sentimental sappiness, the song’s rich portrayal of key memories keeps it feeling like a vulnerable but respectful tribute. This solo write from HARDY previews his upcoming album Country! Country!, out Friday (Sept. 26).

Chase Rice, “Good Side of Gettin’ Older”

Over the past several years, Chase Rice has left his bro-country past behind him and reinvented himself with a sound that leans more heavily on rustic instrumentals and vulnerable, oftentimes poetic lyrics. He continues that run on his new project, the stripped-back Eldora. This song from the project, “Good Side of Gettin’ Older,” written by Rice, Oscar Charles and Wyatt McCubbin, encapsulates the inevitability of time’s passage, but frames it not with nostalgia, but with a resolve to embrace what lies ahead. “Life has got me writing different songs/ And time’s got me missing things before they’re gone,” he sings. Like the rest of the project, “Good Side” is woven with captivating lyricism and heightened by Rice’s warm vocal tone.

The Infamous Stringdusters, “Dead Man Walking”

Grammy-winning band The Infamous Stringdusters, known for their latticework of country, bluegrass and folk sounds, lean into more heavily into the country sphere on their new single, while still retaining the group’s superb musicianship and intricate arrangements. Written by the Dusters and Larry Keel, the song’s vulnerable lyrics are boosted in particular by banjoist Chris Pandolfi and dobro player Andy Hall, who serve up blistering cascades of banjo and dobro, alongside bandmates Travis Book (double bass), Jeremy Garrett (fiddle) and Andy Falco (guitar). The Infamous Stringdusters will release their new album, 20/20, on Jan. 23, 2026.

Lauren Watkins and John Morgan, “Slippery Slope”

Lauren Watkins and John Morgan team up for this barroom weeper, as they look at the “slippery slope” of how a single drink and the smokey haze of a favored local dive bar is continually the catalyst to a relational backslide in a complex, on-again, off-again romance. Their lilting voices wrap gloriously around lines such as “Why can’t a round just be one round/ When we end up in the same bar?” Watkins wrote this track with Will Bundy, Mark Trussell and Lydia Vaughan. “Slippery Slope” is on Watkins’s upcoming project In A Perfect World, out Oct. 10.

Billboard and Telemundo announced on Monday (Sept. 22) the first wave of artists that are set to perform at the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards.

Danny Ocean, Ozuna, Olga Tañón, Laura Pausini are set to take the stage at the James L. Knight Center in Miami on Thursday, Oct. 23. Also confirmed to perform are La Arrolladora Banda El Limón de René Camacho, Beéle, Juan Duque, Musza, Netón Vega, NXNNI and Óscar Maydon.

Pausini — who will be honored with the Billboard Icon Award — had been previously announced as a performer. Meanwhile, Danny Ocean, Netón Vega and Óscar Maydon are all finalists at the 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards, scoring multiple entries throughout a number of categories.

Bad Bunny leads the list of finalists, with 27 entries, setting a historic record for the awards. The Puerto Rican superstar is followed by Fuerza Regida with 15 mentions and Rauw Alejandro with 14. Leading the female artists is Karol G with 10 mentions, matching those of rising regional Mexican artist Tito Double P who also has 10, while Peso Pluma is a nine-time finalist.

The 2025 Billboard Latin Music Awards will broadcast live on Telemundo and also stream on the Telemundo App and Peacock, and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean on Telemundo Internacional.

The event coincides with Billboard Latin Music Week, which returns to Miami Beach Oct. 20-24 with a roster of star speakers, including Kali Uchis, Daddy Yankee, Xavi, Laura Pausini, Ozuna and many more. Get your tickets today for the Billboard Latin Music Week 2025 here.

Howard Stern has never been shy about expressing his opinion, and on Monday morning (Sept. 22) the SiriusXM superstar broke his silence on what he called a troubling situation that is near and dear to his heart for several reasons: the suspension of his friend Jimmy Kimmel from ABC.

Stern opened Monday’s show by breaking his recent vow to not talk about politics after vehemently speaking his mind during the most recent presidential election, saying, “I can no longer keep my mouth shut.”

“I feel obligated to say something, because s–t’s getting outta control,” said Stern, who has famously been a free speech advocate for more than half a century amid his own battles with censorship and government entities threatening to curtail his right to speak freely on the airwaves. “This involves the network ABC. They did something really dumb and f-kin’ horrible,” Stern added, before going into a classic fake-out bit complaining about the changes to the network’s dating show The Bachelor.

“Everyone knows what happened with Jimmy Kimmel. The bottom line is you really don’t need my voice to know that something horrible happened at ABC,” Stern said about the network’s decision to temporarily suspend Kimmel’s show from the air amid backlash over the late night host’s comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last week.

Stern, who said he considers Kimmel one of his closest showbiz friends and who frequently has the comedian on his SiriusXM show, said on a personal level the network’s decision was painful to him because he loves Kimmel and wife Molly McNearney, whom he called “dear dear friends.”

“I believe Jimmy is such a big talent, and quite frankly so is his wife. They’re two of the funniest people I have ever met,” Stern said, noting he’s so enamored with the couple’s comedic chops that he “shuts down” around them so as not to try to compete with their quick wit. Noting that many people have written to him asking “what should we do?,” Stern said he is doing something.

“I feel all of this is a smokescreen to stop talking about what’s really going on. We got a problem with inflation, gas prices, groceries, there’s all kinds of problems,” said Stern, who said he’s spoken to Kimmel but did not ask if the suspension — which was applauded by President Trump, who also encouraged NBC to do the same to Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers — is permanent or if the veteran late nighter fears he might get fired.

“I just know when the government begins to interfere… when the government says, ‘I’m not pleased with you, so we’re going to orchestrate a way to silence you’ it’s the wrong direction for the country. It isn’t good, and I should know.” Stern then recalled that in the 1990s the Federal Communications Commission put pressure on the shock jock’s then-parent company, Infinity Broadcasting, by threatening to slow down its planned merger with Viacom over its objections to the content of Stern’s notoriously envelope-pushing morning show.

Stern was able to survive that battle, but he said now ABC, as well as many universities, broadcasters and social media company owners, were being put in the same position, and, he said, “they all bent the knee and they all cower.”

While he said he feels for ABC and their tough position, “someone’s got to step up and be f–kin’ saying, ‘hey, enough, we’re not gonna bow.’” Stern was clear that he’s not trying to lead any boycott movement, but, like many others, he pledged to cancel his Disney+ subscription out of protest to say he doesn’t support the action on Kimmel.

“It’s a scary time when the government starts threatening you, which is not right,” Stern said. “And I don’t think ABC should have to be in this position. It’s ridiculous. But I know most broadcasters would agree with me. I don’t care what they broadcast, whether they’re these right-wing types, or left-wing types, whatever type you are we can’t have the government in this country dictating [speech].”

Stern had been off the air since the Kimmel suspension was announced last week, but in his first chance to weigh in, he said it was chilling to read that ABC’s action came after FCC chairman Brendan Carr made what sounded like a threat to the network during an appearance on a right-wind podcast last week. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

The latter was widely interpreted as a threat by Carr to launch investigations and regulatory action against licensed broadcasters who air Kimmel’s show; shortly after, the owners of dozens of local ABC affiliate stations said they would be be pre-empting Kimmel. While many democrats and free speech advocates interpreted Carr’s comments as an attempt to chill free speech, even such stalwart Trump supporters as Republican Sen. Ted Cruz — who leads the FCC oversight committee — characterized Carr’s statement as a dangerous slippery slope.

“I got to say that’s right out of Goodfellas,” Cruz said of the implied Carr threat that he likened to the mob rules in the legendary Martin Scorsese gangster flick. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.’”

Another staunch conservative, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, called Carr’s comments “absolutely inappropriate. Brendan Carr has got no business weighing in on this,” Paul told NBC News’s Meet the Press over the weekend. The FCC does not have legal authority to censor what Kimmel says on his show and many critics have said that Carr’s comment amount to an illegal action called “jawboning,” which is the improper use of threatened government action to influence a private entity.

Whether or not you like Kimmel, Stern said, “it’s about freedom of speech. It’s one thing if ABC wanted to fire Jimmy because they didn’t like him, or he had low ratings… They didn’t want to fire him. They’re being pressured by the United States government. We can’t have that, not if we’re gonna have a democracy. And companies have to say f–k you.”

Well aware that the Kimmel headline will be quickly pushed off the top of news feeds by the next outrage, Stern encouraged fellow defenders of free speech to bond together and accept that “each of us are obligated to be the watchdog for each other’s rights and freedoms… we can’t turn our heads, we can’t pretend this didn’t happen.”

SXSW London has confirmed on Monday (Sept. 22) it will return to the English capital in 2026 and announced ticket details for the upcoming event.

The European edition of SXSW will run from June 1 to 6 in east London for a second consecutive year. The 2025 edition took place throughout venues and locations in Shoreditch in June. Tickets for the event are set to launch on Oct. 20 from the festival’s website.

2025’s program saw a live performance from Tems as part of Billboard’s The Stage, a European premiere of Eminem documentary Stans, and a visit from King Charles.

Submissions for session proposals across the 2026 conference, music and screen verticals are also now open. The winning selections for the conference are reviewed by the public before being considered by an advisory group and editorial team for inclusion in the festival. The music festival and screen festival public submissions are managed by industry jury votes. 

The submissions period for the conference program will close on Dec. 7, and from the following day, the public will be able to view and vote for their favorites. Submissions for the music vertical will close on Nov. 24, and close for screen on Dec. 31.

SXSW London has also announced 15 “forward-thinking” conference tracks, which include topics such as artificial intelligence, startup innovation and immersive realities. In 2025, 9,868 submissions were made across its three verticals (screen, conference, music), with the conference strand attracting 40,000 public votes. The festival featured 400 talks, 1067 speakers, 562 music performances and 114 film and TV screenings.

Katy Arnander, director of programming for SXSW London said in a statement, “Bringing SXSW to London has always been about creating a platform for convergence across technology, business and creativity. Now in our second year, that mission is more alive than ever, and the SXSW London open submissions allows us to build the festival around what is most current and vital in these sectors.

“SXSW London 2026 will build on the momentum of our debut, expanding the scope of ideas, voices and disciplines we convene,” she continued. “We want our attendees to encounter unexpected perspectives and foster bold conversations, and we’re creating an environment for groundbreaking ideas to flourish in one of the most important capital cities in the world.”