Olivia Rodrigo wrapped her 97-show, year-and-a-half long Guts tour on July 1 with the second of two shows at Co-op Live in Manchester, England. The singer’s first-ever headlining arena tour took her from North America to Asia, Australia, Europe and South America on an ambitious outing that featured support from Chappell Roan, St. Vincent, Remi Wolf, the Breeders and others.

Related

And while hundreds of thousands of fans took in the shows, not everyone was able to make it out, so Rodrigo is offering up a special keepsake for those who were in the room, as well as those who just can’t get enough. On Tuesday morning (Aug. 12), Rodrigo announced the Guts World Tour Book, a $38, 136-page hardcover book housed inside a die-cut slipcase with a raised metallic foil star on the cover.

The colorful book, which is slated to ship on Sept. 26, promises to give fans an “inside look at the GUTS world tour, including never-before-seen images, exclusive poster, commemorative tour trading card” and more. In addition, the package will include a red ribbon bookmark, double-sided poster and a double-sided sticker sheet.

Though the GUTS tour wound down last month, Rodrigo has hit a few festivals so far this month, including a headlining slot at this year’s Lollapalooza festival in Chicago on Aug. 1. The 22-year-old pop superstar made her Lolla debut on day two, where she was joined by childhood favorites Weezer for runs through their hits “Buddy Holly” and “Say It Ain’t So.”

Check out an image of the book below.

Guts World Tour Book

Guts World Tour Book

“Never Call Again” singer Gavin Adcock and his manager Saxon Curry have joined Sticks Management, the artist management firm founded by Morgan Wallen and his longtime agent Austin Neal, in 2024.

Warner Music Nashville-signed singer-songwriter Adcock is from Georgia, as is Curry, and both attended Georgia Southern University. Adcock graduated from GSU in 2022, while Curry transferred to Nashville’s Belmont University to complete his degree in music business. While at Belmont, Curry was introduced to Adcock after earning an invite to a show in Georgia from a former high school classmate, Bennett Bosewell, who had become Adcock’s guitar player.

Adcock hired Curry as his manager while Curry was still working at WME as an agent assistant. That relationship led to Adcock signing with WME in fall 2023. Adcock signed with Warner Music Nashville in 2024 and has since earned the RIAA-platinum certified hit “A Cigarette,” as well as the Gold-certified songs “Four Leaf Clover,” “Run Your Mouth” and “Deep End.”

Adcock, who was named Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month for July, will release his sophomore album Own Worst Enemy on Aug. 15. The album’s “Never Call Again” is at No. 59 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart.

Adcock is set to open for Wallen this weekend in Cleveland, Ohio, as part of Wallen’s I’m The Problem Stadium Tour, and will launch his own Need to Tour on Aug. 21. Adcock is repped by WME for booking and is with Kella Farris of Farris, Self & Moore for business management. 

Tyler, The Creator pushes the envelope creatively, and he’s at it again with his self-directed “Sugar on My Tongue” video, which was released on Tuesday (Aug. 12).

In the visual, Tyler and a potential love interest are in a white-tiled room before throwing a rave after her parents leave. Things take a turn when the scene pivots to the Grammy-winning rapper in a skin-tight black latex suit, which leans into BDSM culture with Tyler on a leash.

He gets naked to turn the heat up a few notches, and then breaks out a knife to perform oral surgery on himself, cutting out his tongue. The muscular organ lies bloody in the middle of the bathroom floor before being watered, and growing to the point that the woman in the clip can ride on top of it.

Fans seemed to be taken aback by Tyler’s creative direction as well. “Did not expect to wake up to tyler going full freak mode,” one person commented on the video’s YouTube page.

“Sugar on My Tongue” arrived in July as part of Tyler, The Creator’s party-starting Don’t Tap the Glass album. Even with a shortened tracking week, the project debuted atop the Billboard 200 with 197,000 equivalent album units earned in the United States in the week ending July 24, according to Luminate.

2025 is another busy year for Tyler, who hyped his feature film debut, as he’s gearing up to star alongside Timothée Chalamet and Gwyneth Paltrow in A24’s Marty Supreme film. Directed by Josh Safdie, the movie is set to hit theaters on Christmas Day, and a trailer will be released on Wednesday (Aug. 13).

Watch the “Sugar on My Tongue” video below.

Taylor Swift didn’t rest for long after wrapping her global Eras Tour. After just eight months of downtime, the pop superstar all but broke the internet by revealing at 12:12 a.m. ET Tuesday (Aug. 12) that she’d be embarking on a brand new era with the release of an album titled The Life of a Showgirl, which will mark the 12th studio LP in her discography.

Related

What was almost as eye-popping as the announcement itself was the way she shared the news. In lieu of her more recent method of unveiling new albums during award-show acceptance speeches — like she did for 2022’s Midnights at the VMAs and 2024’s The Tortured Poets Department at the Grammys — Swift instead chose a much more casual route of spreading the word this time. Joining boyfriend Travis Kelce on his New Heights podcast, the 14-time Grammy winner simply revealed the project’s existence and title in a clip posted to the show’s social media accounts, just one day before the full episode’s release.

“So, I wanted to show you something,” she said in the video, pulling a blurred-out vinyl from a “T.S.” brief case as the Kansas City Chiefs tight end beamed beside her. “This is my brand new album, The Life of a Showgirl.”

Fans are now clamoring for all the information they can get on the LP, which will mark Swift’s first full-length since 17-week Billboard 200 chart-topper Tortured Poets. But while only time will tell how the famously cryptic, Easter-egg-dropping musician will continue sharing new details about Life of a Showgirl, Billboard is keeping track of all of them as they come.

See everything there is to know — so far — about Swift’s 12th studio album below.

Singer, songwriter and guitarist Preston Cooper may be celebrating a series of career firsts in 2025, including his initial entry on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart with his debut radio single, “Weak.” Yet his raw, blues-dipped sound and commanding voice were forged through years of regular gigs around his home state of Ohio.

“Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, you’re an overnight star,’ but no, it’s taken about eight years,” Cooper tells Billboard.

Building upon previously released songs including “Weak,” “Numbers on a Mailbox” and “Used To” (which Cooper also plays guitar on), he includes those songs on his upcoming release Toledo Talkin’, his debut full-length album, out on Aug. 29 on Big Machine Label Group.

Growing up on a cattle farm in the small town of Fredericktown, Ohio — an hour northeast of Columbus — Cooper sang in the school choir as a freshman, but it wasn’t until he saw a classmate play in guitar class that he discovered his true passion. “He was up in the corner of the room playing, and I could tell he was actually good,” Cooper says. “He showed me some chords. I loved the guitar, and then I started putting some words to the [melodies] and singing with it. We ended up playing in some bands together.”

Cooper started off with rock classics such as Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” and Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water,” quickly adding to his repertoire hits by Chris Stapleton and John Mayer. After graduating high school, he became a mailman, walking up to 14 miles a day. To pass the time and entertain residents along his route, he sang snippets of songs and made up melodies, quickly earning the nickname “The Singing Mailman.” Off the clock, he regularly played in local bars and restaurants, eventually making more money from shows than his mail route.

“I didn’t play bro country, but like, Stevie Ray Vaughan, lots of [Chris] Stapleton, Bill Withers, B.B. King. I kind of played whatever I wanted to play,” he recalls of those gigs. 

While playing a fundraiser in Toledo in 2023, Cooper and his music caught the attention of Nashville songwriters Brad and Brett Warren, also known as The Warren Brothers, who have written songs for Toby Keith (“Red Solo Cup”), Tim McGraw (“Highway Don’t Care”) and Martina McBride (“Anyway”), and who overheard Cooper performing during their meet-and-greet. 

“They were supposed to be meeting people, but they kept coming in and watching me play,” Cooper recalls. Three weeks later, he made the trip to Nashville to write with the Warren Brothers and perform at Nashville’s The Bluebird Cafe. 

“They were just throwing me into the ballgame, and it was cool,” Cooper says of first coming to Nashville. That first writing session turned into his debut radio single “Weak,” and evolved into Cooper signing a publishing deal in 2024 with The Warren Brothers and Warner Chappell Music Nashville, followed by a label deal with Big Machine Label Group.

By the time he signed with Big Machine, Cooper had already been working on Toledo Talkin’, balancing songwriting and recording sessions with those bar gigs back in Ohio. “I was still doing that to make money to live [in Nashville],” he says. “It was really hard.”

The new album finds Cooper highlighting his range of influences. He delivers a Stapleton-esque, raspy-soul vocal on “The Takedown,” a tale about finding the courage to leave the comforts of home in favor of the unknown. He proves he can handle full-throttle country-rock with aplomb on “One For The Road.” The album’s closing song finds him etching a tale of a down-on-his-luck musician on the street doing his own kind of spiritual preaching. “He’s singing the gospel truth/ It’s coming out like the blues,” Cooper sings.

Cooper’s music, soulful vocals and bluesy guitar-playing had Nashville industry execs talking during Nashville’s Country Radio Seminar in February, and he’s opening shows this year for Kameron Marlowe and Riley Green. Cooper, Billboard’s August Country Rookie of the Month, recently discussed the making of his debut album, working with The Warren Brothers and his dream collaborations.

How did the song “Weak” come about?

Three weeks after I met The Warren Brothers, I went to Nashville to write with them and Lance Miller. I pulled out that “Weak” melody, which I made up on my mail route, and they were like, “What?!,” and helped me put lyrics to it. We wrote that song in like 45 minutes, and then recorded it immediately.

What songwriting lessons have you learned through writing with them?

They are some of the best. They taught me little tricks, things like double meanings in songs. They are the masters of that. They’ll write something that has three meanings in one line.

Another standout on the upcoming album is “If This Table Could Talk,” which you also wrote with Brad and Brett Warren. What was writing that like?

That was [written] quite a while ago, like November 2023. It’s probably one of my favorites. Lyrically, it’s just a great song, and it ties into my life a lot — just growing up, things that table’s seen, happiness, sadness, divorce, marriage, all that stuff. I showed some friends that song and it speaks to them.

“Numbers on a Mailbox” links to your days as a mailman, but it’s one of very few songs on the album that you did not write. How did you hear it?

[The Warren Brothers] wrote that about eight years before I met them. It was like this God moment of “That’s just a perfect song for you.” I’m from a small town, and I worked at the post office—there was no other better person to cut it than me.

How did you come to Big Machine’s attention?

Brad Warren texted [Big Machine Label Group executive vp of A&R] Allison Jones and was like, “Hey, I haven’t asked for a favor in a long time, but I would like you to meet this kid we found.” Allison called [Big Machine founder/CEO] Scott Borchetta, and we had a meeting at Big Machine. I played him three songs, and he was like, “That’s enough.” That kind made my heart stop. But then he was like, “When do we start?” I was meeting with other [labels] at the time, and it felt like here I could musically kind of go where I wanted to and they would support it.

Who would you want to collaborate with?

In the country world, Chris Stapleton is my hero. I’d love to do something with him. And Bob Seger, the Foo Fighters, and, of course, John Mayer.

What is one album you could you listen to over and over?

Probably the Escape album by Journey. 

When you are not doing music, how do you spend your time?

I love to deer hunt and turkey hunting is probably my favorite, but I love to coyote hunt, too.

It seems that most artists have to contend with the constant need to feed the social media machine. How do you approach that? 

I’m trying to get better at it. I don’t mind it, but I didn’t grow up on social media. I was always out in the woods, and I just didn’t think about pulling out my phone and showing people what I had for breakfast, right? I love the reach [of social media], though. That’s how people find new music.

 What are a few things on your career bucket list?

[Playing] Red Rocks, and that will happen in a couple of weeks [with Green], which is wild. I’d love to play Madison Square Garden and the Ryman [Auditorium]. I’ve never even been there. I’d love to play there.

There are many reasons for Taylor Swift’s extraordinary success: talent, resilience, courage and, not least, a work ethic that is second to none. The country-turned-pop superstar is tireless and extraordinary productive. Her just-announced The Life of a Showgirl will be her ninth full-length album of the 2020s. And that doesn’t even count live albums.

Related

Swift has been a prolific and engaged artist since she released her eponymous debut album in October 2006. Her longest gap between regular studio albums was just over three years – the gap between 1989 (October 2014) and reputation (November 2017).

But she has picked up the pace in the 2020s. As this decade began, Swift had achieved six No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and had become the first woman to win the Grammy for album of the year twice as a lead artist. One might reasonably think that an artist who had achieved that much success and validation would let up on the pace a bit, perhaps even take a well-earned breather. Instead, Swift has redoubled her efforts.

Two factors played a role in this explosion of activity: COVID-19, which was officially declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020, led Swift to record two albums in quick succession, Folklore and its “sister record,” Evermore. They were released less than five months apart in 2020.

And Swift’s desire to reclaim control of her artistic legacy led her to re-record four of her early albums. Those re-recordings didn’t slow the pace of new studio albums. Swift somehow found the time and energy to toggle back and forth between new albums and re-recordings of old ones.

In addition to these nine new and re-recorded albums, Swift has also released two live albums in the 2020s – Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions and Lover (Live from Paris). (Technically, there was a third: Live From Clear Channel Stripped 2008 was released in April 2020 without Swift’s approval. Swift bluntly denounced the release on her social media accounts, calling it “shameless greed in the time of coronavirus” and asked fans not to buy or stream the album. They complied: The album flopped.)

Just about any talent scout will say that talent is not enough to achieve and sustain success in the music business. A strong will to succeed, and a willingness to do whatever that takes, are just as important. You can call it a “work ethic.” Swift has it in spades.  

At 12:12 a.m. ET on Aug. 12, Taylor Swift revealed her forthcoming 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. The set will surely be another Billboard chart behemoth for the superstar, kicking off her next era in a chart career that began 19 years ago.

On the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated Sept. 23, 2006, Swift made her arrival as her debut single, “Tim McGraw,” entered at No. 86. (It was already scaling the Hot Country Songs chart at the time.)

Since then, Swift has become one of the most accomplished artists in the Hot 100’s entire history.

Related

As of the Hot 100 dated Aug. 16, 2025, Swift boasts 264 career charted titles – the most among women. Her 59 top 10s and 165 top 40 hits (of which “Tim McGraw” became her first, rising to No. 40) are also the most among women, while her 12 No. 1s place her in a tie for the sixth-most leaders among all acts.

Swift, having deftly traversed country, pop, adult alternative and more genres, has consistently added to her Hot 100 legacy. In 2012, she scored her first No. 1 with “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” while in 2021, she defied the belief that pop music caters only to shorter attention spans, as, thanks to an update of a fan favorite, she notched the longest No. 1 single in the survey’s archives: “All Too Well (Taylor’s Version),” at 10 minutes and 13 seconds in length.

Related

A year later, Swift achieved the unprecedented feat of monopolizing the Hot 100’s top 10 in a single frame, as, on the chart dated Nov. 5, 2022, she infused the region with 10 tracks from her 2022 album Midnights, led by the No. 1 launch of the set’s lead single, “Anti-Hero.” On the May 4, 2024, Hot 100 she rewrote her own record, charting the entire top 14 titles with songs from her LP The Tortured Poets Department.

Meanwhile, beyond her chart triumphs, Swift was honored as the first Woman of the Decade at Billboard’s 2019 Women In Music celebration, not just for her commercial success, but for her commitment to protecting creative rights, music education, literacy programs, cancer research, disaster relief and the Time’s Up initiative. Plus, when she was unable to reclaim the masters of her first six albums, she forged a new path by re-recording her catalog, and earning even more chart honors in the process, including her 2023 Hot 100 No. 1 “Is It Over Now? (Taylor’s Version) [From the Vault].” (Swift revealed on May 30, 2025, that she had regained ownership of her masters from Shamrock Capital.)

Related

Of all of Swift’s songs, which are her biggest Hot 100 hits? Browse the list below, ranking her top titles from No. 50 to No. 1.

Taylor Swift’s 50 Biggest Billboard Hot 100 hits ranking is based on weekly performance on the Hot 100 (through Aug. 16, 2025). Songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at lower spots earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted differently to account for chart turnover rates during various periods.

Travis Kelce knows all about sacrificing, training and running your body ragged in order to play like a champ on game day. The 12-year veteran tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs with three Super Bowl rings on his resumé talked to GQ for a new cover story about the laser-focused offseason training regimen aimed at getting the team back to the big game after a tough blow-out loss earlier this year to rivals the Philadelphia Eagles.

Related

Not for nothing, he also said that as hard as he hits the gym, his girlfriend of two years, Taylor Swift, is just a much of a gym rat when it comes to prep for her shows.

“I hadn’t experienced somebody in the same shoes as me, having a partner who understands the scrutiny, understands the ups and downs of being in front of millions,” Kelce said in the story that delves into the couple’s closely held relationship, which has played out on phone screens on any given Sunday over the past two years as Swift has cheered Kelce on and he returned the favor by attending her epic, three-plus hour Eras Tour gigs around the world.

“That was very relatable, seeing how exhausted she would get after shows,” he said. “She may not think of herself as an athlete. She will never tell anyone that she is an athlete. But I’ve seen what she goes through. I’ve seen the amount of work that she puts on her body, and it’s mind-blowing.”

Swift famously trained for the show by performing the entire career-spanning set while running on a treadmill, something Kelce said was super intense, even for a dedicated athlete like him. He described the stage for the show as “football-field-sized computer,” one that got “scorching hot” on stops in places like Singapore. “All of a sudden you’re feeling the fumes from the computer and you’re feeling the fumes from the sun and you’re doing a show for three hours with a lot of energy, bringing it every single song,” he said of Swift’s never-say-quit perseverance. “That is arguably more exhausting than how much I put in on a Sunday, and she’s doing it three, four, five days in a row.”

And while he is a global superstar in his own right now — guest hosting SNL in 2023, appearing in the new Happy Gilmore 2 sequel, hosting his New Heights podcast with brother Jason Kelce and the Are You Smarter Than a Celebrity? series — when it comes to his life in SwiftLand, he’s happy to just be a “plus one.”

Kelce said he is excited to go to Swift’s shows and be a fan, because he is a fan. “I’m a fan of music. I’m a fan of art. And it’s so cool that I get to experience her being that plus one for me on the football field…. I feel that same enjoyment every time she comes to my shows,” he said of Swift’s by-now routine appearances in the family sky box cheering him on during the season. And while he’s been introduced to arguably the biggest pop fandom in the world as half of one of the most-watched couples on the planet, Kelce isn’t afraid to take credit for making Swift a fan of his world in the process.

“I sort of made her a football fan,” Kelce told the magazine, which described him as speaking freely about his partner with the “confident adoration of a sturdy relationship,” while noting that his pride is not of the macho or overprotective chivalrous type, but more of the “immaculate,” selfless variety. “She is the most engulfed fan now. She knows what the injury reports look like. She understands what special situations are, third and short—all these things because she just naturally loves to hear about my job.”

He also can’t get enough of her shows, marveling at the impact Swift has on her followers and the warm pull of her celebrity, a rare gift that can make a 65,000-capacity football stadium feel like a living room. “People gravitate towards how she performs and how she makes it feel like the entire stadium is in this little room with her,” he said. “She is so good at mesmerizing everybody and making everybody feel like it’s an intimate situation. I think that alone — there is so much calm and coolness. She’s beautiful. She’s up there making everyone feel at ease.”

As he gears up for the upcoming 2025-2026 football season, Kelce will have plenty more chances to see Swift in the stands, and, maybe, on stage again. The singer surprise announced her 12th album, The Life of a Showgirl, on Tuesday morning (Aug. 12) and while no specifics on the LP have been announced yet, it’s possible Swift will reveal some details on Wednesday (Aug. 13) when she makes her first appearance on the New Heights pod.

A 13-year-old fan and her mother received the ultimate surprise when attending a recent Chris Brown concert, as Breezy and TikTok influencer MDMotivator hooked up the pair with a special VIP package that included $10,000 and a new car. And it was all caught on video, which the star shared on social media Sunday (Aug. 10).

It all starts with MDMotivator looking for the biggest Chris Brown fan and caught 13-year-old Gabby’s attention, who recognized CB’s 11-year-old daughter, Royalty, nearby.

Gabby then convinced her mother to purchase the “mystery tickets” from MDMotivator for $5, for which they received a Breezy Bowl filled with $10,000 in cash and the opportunity to meet Brown himself that night.

“This is the best night of my life!” Gabby cries in the video. “Chris, you influenced my whole dance career. I grew up dancing to you. You’re such an inspiration to me. I love you so much!”

Brown is shown in the clip giving MDMotivator his flowers for “changing people’s lives,” and also shared that his daughter Royalty cried after watching one of the influencer’s videos in which he’s helping others.

The video then shows Gabby and her mom being blindfolded and escorted to a parking lot, where they were in shock after seeing a brand new Ford with a red bow on it that they would be taking home.

Once Brown found out Gabby was a dancer, he gave her some advice for the road ahead. “You said you dance? Don’t stop, go harder and harder,” he relayed. “Always be yourself. I love you guys.”

CB got a ton of love in his comment section from the likes of Tony Yayo, Kelly Rowland and actor Omari Hardwick. Brown’s Breezy Bowl XX stadium tour continues this week with shows in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Watch the video below:

Depeche Mode: M, the full-length feature film chronicling the band’s huge 2023 Mexico City shows on their Memento Mori tour is headed to the big screen. The band announced on Tuesday (Aug. 12) that after its screening at the Tribeca Festival earlier this year, the band, along with Trafalgar Releasing and Sony Music Vision will bring the movie to theaters and IMAX screens on Oct. 28.

The film will roll out on than 2,500 screens around the world in more than 60 countries, with tickets slated to go on sale beginning on Sept. 17 here.

“At its core, our new film M is about the deep connection between music, culture, and people—and Fernando Frías, who directed and conceived the film, did a beautiful job telling that story that through the lens of Mexican culture and our shows in Mexico City,” said singer Dave Gahan in a statement.

The movie, conceived and directed by award-winning Mexican filmmaker Frías (I’m No Longer Here), is described as an “expressive and dynamic cinematic experience built around footage from the band’s three sold-out Mexico City Foro Sol Stadium shows on the 2023-2024 Memento Mori Tour. The feature-length film takes audiences on a musical and spiritual journey, as the songs resonate in real time with fans, illustrating their timeless multi-cultural influence while delving into the profound connection between music, mortality, and Mexican tradition.”

DM’s Memento Mori tour in support of the long-running goth rock group’s 15h studio album came in at No. 9 on Billboard‘s list of the top 10 highest-grossing rock tours of 2024 with grosses of nearly $125 million from 63 shows that sold 910,000 tickets.