The wins keep coming for RAYE. The singer shared that her stolen car has been recovered, with her songwriting books “untouched.”

In an Instagram post last fall, the south London-raised artist revealed that the vehicle containing the books had been stolen on her birthday, adding, “there would be no second album anytime soon.” She shared the news along with a picture of a cake with the words “sorry ur car got stolen” written on it.

At the time, RAYE (real name Rachel Keen) had been working on the follow-up to her multi-BRIT Award-winning debut, My 21st Century Blues, released in 2023. The incident led her to press pause on her recording plans. 

Speaking to Capital FM host Will Manning on Oct. 27, RAYE explained that the car has now been recovered. “So it was a rollercoaster journey,” she began. “But what I didn’t tell everyone is that the police called me, maybe like two, three months ago, and they were like, ‘We found your car.’

“Not only did I get it back, not one thing had been taken out of the car. All my songwriting books were there, untouched.” She continued, “Everything ended well. Never give up hope.”

Details for the 28-year-old’s second album, including a title and release date, have not yet been released, though it’s been confirmed it will drop sometime in 2026. Fans can pre-order the record, currently dubbed Album 2, via her official website. 

RAYE released the first preview of material for Album 2 on Sept. 19. “Where Is My Husband!” is billed as the record’s lead single, and debuted during her performance with a brass band on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage earlier in the summer.

The track peaked at No. 3 on the Official U.K. Singles Chart and No. 67 on the Billboard Hot 100. To accompany its release, RAYE announced a tour titled This Tour May Contain New Music, which is scheduled to pass through the U.K., Europe and North America in early 2026.

The trek will encompass six nights at London’s 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. RAYE spoke about the residency to Billboard UK at the Ivors Academy Ceremony in September, saying that she “hadn’t quite digested” the achievement yet.

“That’s a big job — six nights? I’ve got to deliver,” she said at the time. “I remember when my tours used to be six nights long! But my mind is like, ‘We need to deliver the best show we can possibly deliver.’ My mind is worrying, but I’m really grateful.” Watch the interview clip below.

Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, visit the event’s website.

Jung Kook’s new Calvin Klein campaign is so steamy, it could melt butter. 

The BTS star’s latest campaign with the fashion brand launched Tuesday (Oct. 28), complete with a series of eye-catching photos shared with Billboard as well as new ad spot. In the video, Jung Kook zips through city streets on a motorbike before strutting down a red hallway, staring down the camera. He also performs some of his million-dollar dance moves before retiring to a high-rise apartment, in which he hangs out with his shirt unbuttoned to show off his Calvins’ iconic waistband.  

The chic, dynamic photos — which were shot by Mert Alas — show the K-pop phenom smirking into the lens while modeling a handful of different looks, including a denim set and white T-shirt, the sleeve of which he lifts to show off his tattoo-covered arm. 

“I know that my fans have been eagerly waiting for this return, and it feels so good to be back in the brand’s iconic denim,” Jung Kook said of the campaign in a statement. 

Jung Kook has been working with CK for a few years now, debuting his first collaboration with the company in March 2023. A few months later, he once again posed for the brand, sporting shaggy rock-star hair with his washboard abs on full display. 

In February 2024, the performer gave ARMY a late Valentine’s Day present by way of another smoldering Calvin Klein shoot set at Grand Central Station in New York City. 

The new campaign comes as Jung Kook and his bandmates are preparing to make an epic comeback in 2026. BTS has spent the past couple of years working on solo projects and fulfilling their service requirements to the South Korean military, with Jung Kook releasing single “Never Let Go” in 2024 before he was discharged this past June.

Check out photos from Jung Kook’s dynamite 2025 campaign with Calvin Klein below.

Hampshire’s Boomtown Festival has unveiled its lineup for 2026’s event, featuring names from all across the musical spectrum. 

Next year’s edition will take place at the Matterley Estate in the south of England on Aug. 12-16. Since its inception in 2009, the festival has annually built itself around an overarching “Chapter” that plays out via themed on-site installations, with next year’s theme being “Chapter 5: Radical Redesign.”

Kneecap, Scissor Sisters, Skrillex, Four Tet, Ashnikko, Faithless, Scooter and Shaggy lead the way among the first names announced for 2026, alongside ska icons Madness and rapper Eve.

Joining them on the lineup will be Antony Szmierek, Bad Manners, Big Special, Brutalismus 3000, Groove Armada, High Vis, Princess Nokia, Sampa the Great, Shy FX, Skindred, Vengaboys, Wilkinson and more.

Public transport tickets go on sale via Boomtown’s official website on Oct. 30, with general entry tickets going live the following day. More announcements are set to be made about the lineup and across the festival’s theater and immersive art offerings. 

Previous performers at the event have included Maribou State, Overmono, The Prodigy, Peaches, Gorillaz and Ezra Collective.

In a press release, Boomtown cofounder Luke Mitchell spoke about the festival’s pivot toward a genre-spanning bill, whereas in the past, it focused on largely booking drum n’ bass acts. “While bass music has dominated in recent years and will always be at our core, we’re making a conscious move to keep Boomtown musically diverse and unpredictable,” he said. “Expect more live bands and more cross-genre adventures. That’s where Boomtown began, and it’s what keeps us on the truest path forward”

Kneecap released its debut album, Fine Art, in 2024 via Heavenly Recordings, and has since gone on to play major festivals including Glastonbury and Coachella. On Sept. 18, the Irish rap trio headlined London’s Wembley Arena, where it was joined by Massive Attack.

Scissor Sisters, meanwhile, are in the midst of a comeback campaign that has seen the group hit up arenas in the U.K. and Ireland, as well as take a co-headline tour with Kesha across North America this past summer.

See the 2025 Boomtown lineup below:

Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, visit the event’s website.

“Throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks,” says bassist Ailbhe Barry, and for her band Florence Road, it is a kind of mission statement – one that their steep, uninhibited rise has borne out. To scroll the Irish indie rockers’ TikTok or Instagram from the bottom up is to witness this experiment in all its mess and world-building rawness, having spent years honing their own unpolished garage band persona online instead of jumping on forced trends. 

The quartet, who are all in their early 20s, possess a confidence and adventurous spirit that belies their infancy as a unit. Like their Gen Z age-mates, the members of Florence Road favour a 0.5 (or extra-wide) lens on their iPhone cameras for its distorted or less ‘choreographed’ feel; using this visual gimmick on their live performance videos has routinely brought the band’s music to the For You Pages of millions, while keeping the focus on their grungy, gloriously anthemic sound. 

They’ve covered pop heroes Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, and caught the attention of Olivia Rodrigo with their pared-back rendition of “Obsessed,” leading to support slots at Dublin’s Marlay Park and BST Hyde Park in London over the summer. A take on Charli xcx’s “Sympathy Is a Knife” arrived replete with voice cracks and goofy poses, while a cover of Paramore’s “Hard Times” was thrown together in five minutes, with TikTok users unable to decide if they hated or loved the clip’s unwieldiness, only raising its standing on the platform. 

“Listening to the world is important in some ways. But if we’ve done the most we can do with our work, I feel like there’s no reason to listen to anyone else,” says Barry of the band’s prolific online tendencies. “You would drive yourself mad if you were trying to please everyone.”

Completed by singer and guitarist Lily Aron, guitarist Emma Brandon and drummer Hannah Kelly, Florence Road understands that the years it has taken it to bottle lightning has made the eventual wins more fulfilling. The band formed in the coastal town of Bray, County Wicklow as high school students, drawing notice on their local open-mic scene and building a snowballing fanbase across social media before a management deal came calling after the release of their 2022 track “Another Seventeen.”

Their debut mixtape, Fall Back, was released in June via Warner Records, in which softly spoken melodies erupt into a clamour of hammering percussion, crashing guitars and snaking riffs. Part of the enthusiasm for the band stems from excitement that, with their equally lush and blistering approach, they are pushing open the gates of contemporary rock, blending wide-ranging influences (The Cranberries, Alanis Morissette, Sam Fender) with the build-and-release thrill of heavier crossover bands. Expect to see them leading industry tips lists come January.

For added live impact, so far, they have kept their sparser moments to a minimum. Nihilistic new single “Miss,” a longtime fan favorite, arrives in the middle of an Australian tour opening up for Royel Otis, the latest milestone in a bucket-list 2025 that has featured U.K. festival appearances, an upcoming European support slot for Wolf Alice and studio sessions with pop star go-to writer/producer Dan Nigro. 

Chatting with Billboard U.K., the band opens up about its past few months of growth, taking ownership of its journey, and what it means to be at the forefront of the next generation of rock talent.

You’ve been sitting on “Miss” for a very long time now. How are you feeling about the prospect of finally hatching it?

Lily: It feels great because we’ve been playing it live for so long, and we love it so much. Playing it live is such a fun feeling. The song was relevant when we wrote it, and it’s stayed relevant in our lives ever since. Sometimes you write a song and it feels fixed to a certain time period but this one has travelled with us.

Hannah: It was just a matter of getting it 100% right. We tried to lay it down a few times and it sounded good, but the more we played it live, the more we figured out that missing bit ourselves. It originally had a different structure and then when we played it live, we would alter it a bit – we want to get those new elements into the final track.

Have you noticed a change in how people interact with you now that you’re showcasing more of your music live and building your fanbase?

Lily: Honestly, it’s been wild. People have been so receptive towards us, it’s cool to see them mouthing along to the words of our songs at shows. But I feel like we just keep taking things one step at a time, and we can’t overthink all of it too much or we’ll go crazy. We’re just having a ball!

Ailbhe: It’s also been amazing to get to see people face-to-face, when [our early career] was mainly online. We’d been used to interacting with people through comments or DMs. It’s really nice that people have been on that journey with us and seen us grow from young school kids just posting covers for fun, to now playing big stages. I’m sure it’s mad for them as much as it’s mad for us.

We’re now supporting our favorite artists, which is a very surreal thing. We’re just trying to soak up every second of being on the road. We’ve also been learning how to live out of the suitcase [while touring]. It’s like, “OK, how many socks can you get away with bringing for a two-week trip?!”

How do you handle the contrast between the intimacy of your songwriting and the exposure that comes with performing in front of thousands?

Ailbhe: It’s always mad when you see people mouthing along to your songs. It happens for us at every show, even support shows. It’s crazy to think back to how these lyrics came out of our minds and then suddenly there’s people in Australia singing them! It’s quite mind-blowing, especially, for more intimate songs like “Caterpillar” or “Heavy”; it’s something that will never not feel crazy. It is phenomenal how music can travel so far.

What is it specifically about playing live that brings Florence Road to life?

Hannah: For me, personally, I never feel less vulnerable than when I’m on stage. I feel like that’s because with all the months and hours of practice we have behind us, when we’re up there performing, we enter this whole new space where we know exactly what we need to be doing. That confidence just gives a base to interact with each other and to really be in the moment.

How do you navigate creative differences within the band without compromising the integrity of the music?

Lily: That’s a big one for us. We listen to each other and if someone doesn’t like a song idea, we’re not just going to bulldoze over it. There has to be some sort of consensus, but I think everyone’s ideas are always heard out as well. 

A lack of communication can destroy a band and we want to make sure that we’re all comfortable and happy. If that’s ever not the case, we check in with each other. You know, our lives are very different from what they were last year. Making sure that we’re on the same page is very important to all of us.

Given that TikTok accelerated your career, what does it take to maintain a healthy relationship with social media?

Lily: Our personal lives are important to us, and it can be a weird feeling knowing loads of people know our faces. It is not a normal thing for people to have to think about. For me personally, having a private Instagram is so important – I don’t think I’ll ever make it public. I don’t need people in that space. I absolutely adore our fans but sometimes, things can get a little too parasocial. I think it’s important for us to maintain that we’re not best friends [with them].

As your star continues to rise, what lasting impact do you want to make as a band?

Lily: We’ve been given so many incredible opportunities, so now the main thing for us is to share with other people. We want to uplift Irish musicians, and other musicians in general, and shed a light on what they’re doing. That’s what it’s all about; that’s no point in just having something for yourself. I would love to get to a point where we could give back to other artists.

Billboard‘s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.

Telemundo’s live broadcast of the Billboard Latin Music Awards 2025 on Thursday (Oct. 23) ranked as the No. 1 entertainment show in prime time, regardless of language, among adults 18-49, according to Nielsen.

The report, released Oct. 28, further adds that with a total of 1.7 million total viewers, the three-hour ceremony was also the No. 1 awards show on Spanish-language television year-to-date among adults 18-49, and the highest rated Billboard Latin Music Awards among total viewers since 2019.

This year’s star-studded show included performances by Daddy Yankee, Grupo Frontera, Emilia, Carlos Vives, Xavi, Wisin, Arthur Hanlon, Netón Vega and Óscar Maydon, to name a few. Special awards were also handed out to Bad Bunny — who was honored with the Top Latin Artist of the 21st Century Award — Elvis Crespo entered the Billboard Hall of Fame, Laura Pausini was recognized with the Icon Award and Peso Pluma received the first-ever Billboard Vanguard Award.

Locally, the awards show ranked No. 1 regardless of language in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Phoenix, Orlando and Philadelphia. Furthermore, the event achieved 159.5 million digital and social video views, up +50% from the 2024 edition and 12.5 million social actions, up +229% year over year across Telemundo.com, the Telemundo App, Peacock, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

Hosted by Elizabeth Gutiérrez, Goyo and Javier Poza, the big winners of the night were Bad Bunny, Karol G and Fuerza Regida. Bunny took home 11 awards. Karol G followed closely with six awards, Fuerza Regida collected five, while Peso Pluma, Netón Vega and Óscar Maydon were multiple award winners.