Jennifer Lopez “can’t get enough” of her new husband, Ben Affleck, and she put her feelings into song during the couple’s wedding celebration in Georgia.
In a video posted by TMZ, Lopez is seen singing an unreleased song to the Tender Bar actor, who is sitting in a chair in front of her, smiling from ear to ear. “All night I can feel the passion in your eyes / I’m still in love with you / You know I can’t get enough,” J.Lo croons over the catchy beat, grooving along with a group of dancers.
Just as the video cuts off, it sounds like Lopez is about to sing the chorus of the oft-covered reggae song “I’m Still in Love With You,” most famously performed by Sean Paul and Sasha in 2002, so J.Lo’s new song might interpolate the Hot 100 top 20 hit.
Just a month after the couple officially tied the knot in Las Vegas, Bennifer celebrated their marriage on Saturday (Aug. 20) in front of family and friends at their home in Riceboro on the Hampton Island preserve outside of Savannah, Georgia.
Ralph Lauren custom designed Lopez’s three wedding looks — one of which is seen in the video above. Lopez shared photos of the dresses, which were also posted by Vogue, in a newsletter sent to fans, writing, “The dresses were dreamy… thank you Ralph Lauren.”
Mr. and Mrs. Affleck first began dating back in 2002 after meeting on the set of Gigli, the first of two movies they would star in together (the second being Jersey Girl in 2004), before getting engaged. The couple delayed their planned 2003 wedding before calling it quits in 2004. Both moved on to marry other people and have kids, destined to be each other’s “the one that got away” — until last year. Lopez and Affleck were spotted together mid-2021 before going public that July. Then in April, they got engaged again.
This Friday’s new music offerings include a star-studded affair from one of R&B and hip-hop’s most prominent DJs, a pop princess making her long-awaited return, and a rapper bravely speaking about his survival story.
It’s album No. 13 for DJ Khaled. The prominent DJ returned with the release of God Did, an ambitious 18-track project which, as per usual for the producer, features a host of his favorite friends and collaborators. Drake, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, John Legend, Kanye West, Eminem, Future, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, 21 Savage, Roddy Ricch and more grace the album, showing that the iconic producer can pull out the biggest and brightest stars for his moment.
Elton John is back again with dance pop (as previously heard in the “Cold Heart” (PNAU Remix) with Dua Lipa), and is trying his hand at recreating the same magic with Britney Spears in “Hold Me Closer.” The new collab — which, notably, is the first track the pop princess has released since the end of her 13-year conservatorship — marries verses from the John’s 1992 hit “The One” with the chorus of his 1971’s “Tiny Dancer,” and repackages them in a dance-friendly release, with Spears’ vocals floating through to support.
Meanwhile, Lil Tjay‘s new single “Beat the Odds” paints an even deeper picture of the robbery from two months ago that nearly ended in his murder. “I took seven shots, no shame/ Back to wall, I’m still gon’ blow you down, I ain’t no stain,” he raps on the introspective track.
In other new releases, Lolahol debuts, Selena Gomez lends her talents to a Rema track, and David Guetta and Bebe Rexha team up. But which new release this week was your favorite? Vote in our poll — or enter in your own choice — below.
Jay-Z assures fans that there’s nothing to see when it comes to Meek Mill‘s surprise decision to leave Roc Nation Management earlier this year on the title track to DJ Khaled‘s new album, God Did. “Me and Meek could never beef/ I freed that n—a from a whole bid/ Hov did/ Next time we have a discussion who the G.O.A.T., you donkeys know this,” Jay raps on the track.
Nearly half of the 8:21 song — which also features bars from Rick Ross and Lil Wayne and vocals from John Legend and Fridayy — is taken up by Jigga’s epic verse, which also features references to LeBron James, Kanye West and Rihanna. The mention of Meek appears to throw water on suggestions that the Roc Nation leave-taking was acrimonious.
Mill first signed to the Roc in 2012 under a management deal and in 2019 entered into a joint venture deal with Roc for his Dreamchasers imprint. After Meek’s incarceration in 2018, he teamed up with Jigga the next year to launch the Reform Alliance, a non-profit that is working to eliminate unjust sentencing laws in the U.S.
Earlier this year, Meek voiced his frustration with label Atlantic Records over the No. 3 debut on the Billboard 200 album charts of for his Expensive Pain LP, claiming that Atlantic “didn’t put nothing” into promoting the collection before expanding on his reasons for leaving Atlantic. “All I seen today was meek and roc part ways …I’m personally handling my own business so I can take risk and grow ..we came to that agreement together..I have a label deal with roc for my artist and I got reform super tied with them and many other investments wit jigga,” he tweeted on July 11.
He added, “And roc nation is my family don’t mix my post aimed at Atlantic mixed up with roc or MMG …they ain’t stop nothing I’m doing we made about a 100m together des mike and Hov saved my life b4 And put a lot of energy into it I’m not behind on my favors in life wit my people I’m good.”
As if more proof were needed that it’s all good, on Friday morning (August 26), Meek re-tweeted the line from the new Khaled song posted by another user and added “Never!!!!!!”
Listen to “God Did” below (Meek reference at 6:30 mark) and see Meek’s tweet below.
Southern California music and arts festival Happy Sundays is returning this weekend for its sixth and biggest year. The annual event, which takes place across various venues in Long Beach, will feature more than 60 artists across 11 stages Sunday (Aug. 28). Performers include Tropa Magica, Shamon Cassette, Taleen Kali, Nectarines and Julia, Julia (solo project of The Coathanger’s Julia Kugel Montoya, who is also a festival co-founder).
Happy Sundays co-founder Scott Montoya (also a member of band Soft Palms with wife Kugel Montoya) says the festival is always looking for a mixture of acts to satiate all music fans. “Obviously, diversity is a biggie,” says Montoya, but we want “a mixture of local bands and national acts: ones that have draw and ones that are local treasures. The goal is exposure for the bands and for the venues and festival.”
Julia Julia
The free event presented by independent music video site TheMouth.tv has become a staple for Long Beach’s Zaferia neighborhood as the city continues to grow its thriving music scene. The venues will include family-friendly spaces such as Bamboo Club, DiPiazza’s and All Time Plants, along with 21-and-over clubs including Alex’s Bar, Port City Tavern and Supply & Demand. All venues will be accessible by a continuously running free double-decker bus.
The eclectic day of music will include a drum circle by Bearspring Singers, DJ sets throughout the city and radio programming from independent San Francisco station Psyched Radio! Will host their own stage at Bamboo Club.
“Because it’s a community festival, every year there’s people giggling on the top of the bus,” says Montoya. “It’s very Long Beach – low key and laid back. Everyone is in a good mood all day and it brings a nice energy to the area.”
Sunday’s event will go beyond just musical acts. The Compound will host a family art workshop and pottery making. Non-profit organization The Sidewalk Project will also be handing out opioid overdose treatment Narcan and teaching people how to administer the life-saving nasal spray. “Between Julia and I, we’ve known quite a few people that have died as a result of not knowing what they were taking,” says Montoya.
For those seeking an escape from the Southern California heat, Happy Sundays will also feature a special screening of Queercore: How to Punk a Revolution at the Long Beach Playhouse. The documentary focuses on the queercore movement with interviews from Kathleen Hanna, Kim Gordon, John Water, Peaches and more.
The Playhouse will continue content with TheMouth.tv immersive experience with hand-picked music videos from the festival and site that seeks to raise the standard of what streaming services pay artists. The afternoon will also include art from Lourdess Foudre and The Mad Alchemist.
Happy Sundays kicks off at noon on Sunday. See the full list of acts and events below.
Sam Asghari has the role of supportive husband on lock. The day of the release of Britney Spears‘ new track with Elton John, “Hold Me Closer,” the 28-year-old actor and model took to Instagram several times to gush over how proud he is of his pop star wife — who previously hadn’t released a new song in six years.
Firstly, in a Friday (Aug. 26) post, Asghari shared the cover art for “Hold Me Closer” — which features adorable childhood photos of both Spears and John — as well as a video of the new song blasting from the speakers in his car. “Proud husband moment!” he wrote. “I will be listening to this all night!”
The Can You Keep a Secret? actor also celebrated the track in his Stories. “Words can’t describe how f–king proud I am!” he wrote alongside another photo of the nostalgic “Hold Me Closer” artwork.
And underneath a screenshot of the iTunes song rankings, where the “Toxic” singer’s new release was listed at the very top, he wrote, “Already #1.”
A club-ready mashup of two of John’s past hits — “Tiny Dancer” and “The One” — “Hold Me Closer” marks the first song Spears has released since winning her highly publicized legal battle to end her 13-year conservatorship. It’s also the first new music she’s dropped since her 2016 album Glory.
And while Asghari is singing her praises on Instagram, the 40-year-old Grammy winner actually removed her account shortly before “Hold Me Closer” dropped. “I’m learning everyday is a clean slate to try and be a better person and do what makes me happy … yes I choose happiness today,” she tweeted Wednesday night. “I tell myself every day to let go of the hurt bitterness and try to forgive myself and others to what may have been hurtful.”
In place of Instagram, Spears also used Twitter to share her own thoughts on working with Sir Elton. “It’s pretty damn cool that I’m singing with one of the most classic men of our time,” she wrote of her new collaborator. “I’m kinda overwhelmed… it’s a big deal to me !!! I’m meditating more and learning my space is valuable and precious !!!”
See Sam Asghari’s Instagram post celebrating Britney Spears’ new song with Elton John below:
Kelly Clarkson finally revealed the long-awaited release date of her duet version of “9 to 5” with Dolly Parton on Friday (Aug. 26).
“I’m so excited to finally announce the new version of ‘9 to 5’ I recorded with the legendary @dollyparton is coming out on September 9th!!” the superstar wrote next to a photo of herself and the country legend on Instagram with their names scrawled underneath. “Thank you @shanemcanally for making this dream a reality and putting this project together. Pre-save it now!”
While Parton has yet to spread the word on top of promoting the upcoming “Ultimate Deluxe” version of her holiday album A Holly Dolly Christmas, producer Shane McAnally commented, “wildest dream team” on Clarkson’s post.
The song was first heard in the documentary Still Working 9 to 5, which premiered at SXSW earlier this spring. Featuring interviews with Parton, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dabney Coleman, Allison Janney, Rita Moreno and more, the film looks back on the 40th anniversary of the classic 1980 film and the continuing fight for women’s rights and gender equality.
At the time, Parton teased the track during an interview on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “You did a great job on that too. I love how you took that and just made it your own and I got a chance to sing background for a change!” she told her collaborator. “But I’m really proud of that rendition of it and I think, hopefully, it’ll do well for us. It’s great in the documentary.”
Fans will likely also recall that “9 to 5” happened to be the very first Kellyoke song Clarkson covered for her eponymous talk show upon its premiere back in 2019 — complete with a quirky music video starring the host as a firefighter, waitress, mechanic and more.
Six of the top 10 songs on the Aug. 27-dated Billboard Global Excl. U.S. chart are performed in Spanish, by acts hailing from Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico and Spain. The international breadth of the chart is extended further by Ado, who vaults from No. 18 to No. 8 with “New Genesis,” one of seven songs by the Japanese singer on the survey.
“New Genesis” debuted on the June 25-dated tally at No. 78. As it leaps into the top 20, Ado also surges with “Backlight” (80-38), “I’m Invincible” (92-40) and “Fleeting Lullaby” (127-49), all in their sophomore frames.
Ado additionally scores three debuts: “Tot Musica” (No. 91), “Where the Wind Blows” (No. 121) and “The World’s Continuation” (No. 165). With seven titles total, she ties YOASOBI for the most simultaneously charting Japanese-language songs by any act since the list began in September 2020.
All seven of Ado’s current chart entries are from One Piece Film: Red, the anime movie that stars Ado as the singing voice for the character Uta. The film’s soundtrack was released Aug. 10, thus, making its full impact on the latest list, which reflects streams and sales in the Aug. 12-18 tracking week.
Charting via an animated character isn’t totally foreign territory for Ado. Like many Japanese singers, she made inroads online singing behind a faceless avatar on the social networking platform Niconico.
Ado’s seven charting songs combined for 83.8 million streams and 47,000 downloads sold worldwide in the tracking week, according to Luminate, with 99% from outside the U.S. Her near-monopoly on the top 10 of the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and their absence from any of Billboard‘s other Hits of the World charts indicates that the bulk of their consumption stems directly from her native Japan.
“New Genesis” surpasses “Usseewa” to become Ado’s highest charting entry on Global Excl. U.S., as the latter reached No. 16 in February 2021. “New Genesis” is just the fourth Japanese-language song to crack the top 10, following LiSA’s “Homura” (No. 2; Oct. 31, 2020); YOASOBI’s “Yoru Ni Kakeru” (No. 6; Jan. 30, 2021); and BTS‘ “Film Out” (No. 3; April 17, 2017).
When Kelsea Ballerini launched her career, she made a promise to herself: include one solo write on every album. As she readies her fourth full-length, Subject to Change, out Sept. 23 on Black River Entertainment, she assures she has kept her word. “It keeps me accountable to not always rely on a co-writer,” says Ballerini, who won her first Country Music Association Awards, published a book of poetry and scored her fifth No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart in the past year.
“Since I wrote my first record at 19, I’ve had a lot of internal struggles on how to gracefully grow up,” says Ballerini, now 28. “I don’t want to abandon that girl that sings [her 2016 Country Airplay chart-toppers] ‘Dibs’ and ‘Peter Pan,’ but I also want to honor who I am now in my late 20s. The last couple of years and the forced space, I’ve had a lot of time to kind of get right with myself and lean into my feelings.”
While she’s always writing between projects, she says that there comes a time “to gather all the demos and figure out the theme. When I was listening through the first 80 songs I had, there was a lot of juxtaposition and change captured.” Another recurring concept? The little things in life. “I have a Jeep. I drive every day. I like cooking and making pasta for my friends. I zoomed in what makes me happy and human.”
Poetry
Ballerini’s poetry book, Feel Your Way Through, released last November, included poems about struggling with an eating disorder and her ongoing healing from witnessing a high school shooting. The writing process for the book had a profound impact on Subject to Change. “I credit a lot of the openness and the more poetic side of the songwriting to the book,” she says. “I feel like that opened my mind creatively and helped me work outside of the [standard song] structure. That creative freedom unlocked a part of me I hope to keep pushing in any kind of project that I do.”
Turn-Of-The-Century Tunes
In 2020, as Ballerini was spending more time at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, she found herself listening to music from The Corrs (the band’s “Breathless” inspired Ballerini’s own “Heartfirst”), Sheryl Crow, Sixpence None the Richer, Shania Twain and Trisha Yearwood. “Instead of listening to new releases, I listened to the music I grew up on, and that’s the influence for this record,” she says. “Really organic-sounding records.”
Deconstructing Songs
The ballad “Love Is a Cowboy,” which Ballerini wrote with Jesse Frasure and Parker Welling, underwent the biggest change from demo to final. “It was originally an uptempo, live banger,” she says. Producers Julian Bunetta and Shane McAnally “listened to it and were like, ‘This song is special, but we are not able to really hear it.’ We stripped it and felt every instrument needed to add something to the story. It’s one of my favorite production moments.”
Marilyn Monroe
Ballerini’s solo write on Subject to Change turned out to be “Marilyn,” a musing on the late icon. The vulnerable track concludes with audio from a Monroe interview (her estate approved its usage) where the actress is asked if she’s happy. “That was the twist of the knife at the end of the song, where I’m acknowledging that everyone wanted to be like her — but did she?” questions Ballerini. “Having her voice solidify that to me was a goose bump moment.”
Girl Power
Ballerini welcomed several female collaborators for her upcoming project, including Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild, a co-writer on “Subject to Change” and the project’s first single, “Heartfirst.” Alysa Vanderheym is a co-producer on the project, and wrote “Heartfirst” with Fairchild and Ballerini. “It’s interesting because in the conversation of, ‘Yes, we need more women in country music,’ what does that actually look like? We need more female artists and collaborators but we also need more female opportunities throughout the whole chain of events, you know?,” Ballerini says. “I intentionally wanted to write with more women this time. For me, when you are making a record about emotions, when you connect with a woman creatively, you’re gonna be able to tap into that in a whole different way.” Of working with Vanderheym, she says, “I had never worked with a female producer before, though I’ve worked with a lot of other female writers. But with Alysa, it was a whole other level, just being able to hear sonically things that match what we’re saying in the song in a different way.”
While searching for the perfect narrative to stage a musical around the catalog of Swedish superproducer Max Martin, producer Theresa Steele Page had two off-limits storylines: “No boy bands and no little girl from a tiny town who becomes a pop star.”
After all, Steele Page and her production partner Tim Headington already had front-row seats to those real-life success stories: As part of Johnny Wright’s Wright Entertainment Group in the 1990s, they worked closely with pre-fame Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC as they started scaling the Billboard charts with Martin-helmed smashes. This time around, the duo was much more interested in a narrative jukebox musical akin to the ABBA-soundtracked Mamma Mia! versus a Jersey Boys-style biopic.
As it turned out, the famously private Martin and his wife, Jenny, had also been contemplating the idea of a musical around his songs. “It was almost like we collided,” says Steele Page, adding that then-rookie writer David West Read (Schitt’s Creek) won over the production duo and the Martins almost immediately by pitching a story from the 1590s instead of the 1990s: Romeo & Juliet.
“I basically made a playlist of Max’s music and just listened to it on repeat and tried to let the music drive the story,” says West Read. “There are so many songs about heartbreak and young love,” a realization that got West Read thinking about “the ultimate story of heartbreak and young love.”
The result was & Juliet, a musical that opened on London’s West End in 2019 and will begin Broadway previews on Oct. 28 at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre, with direction from Luke Sheppard and orchestration by Bill Sherman. The project reinvents both Martin’s pop oeuvre (with six Backstreet Boys songs, five Spears tracks and music that runs the generational gamut from Céline Dion to Ariana Grande) and Shakespeare’s star-crossed tale, imagining what would happen if Juliet (played by Lorna Courtney) hadn’t taken her own life in the name of teen love.
While Martin was hands-on through the nearly decadelong process, he wasn’t precious about how his music could be used. Says West Read: “I wanted every song to feel like it was written for this musical,” and he notes that he didn’t change any lyrics beyond a character name or pronoun. “We have to make it feel like even if you had never heard a Max Martin song and you came to this musical cold, you would still completely follow everything, and he was so understanding of that.” That intention has already been put to the test: “We had an older woman go up to Max in London and say, ‘You wrote the music? You wrote all of these songs just for this musical?’ ” West Read recalls. “She had no idea that any of them were pop songs.”
Since its 2019 debut, the show has been praised by some of the marquee artists whose music is used in the musical, including Katy Perry (“Roar,” “I Kissed a Girl”), Adam Lambert (“Whataya Want From Me”), Robyn (“Show Me Love”) and *NSYNC’s Lance Bass and JC Chasez (“It’s Gonna Be Me”), who have all seen & Juliet in London. That praise extended to helping clear dozens of hit songs for the show, since Martin wasn’t always the sole stakeholder. “Not one person called and said, ‘I refuse to let you use my music,’ ” says Steele Page.
She is hoping its Broadway home will make it even easier for more pop stars to drop by — and set the stage for a growing fan base. “I’m not really looking for anyone to say, ‘This is so smart!’ or ‘The way you put this together, you’re such a genius!’ ” West Read says of his story. “It’s so much nicer to hear people say, ‘The show made me happier, and I left feeling better than when I went in’ — and that’s pop music. It’s not a guilty pleasure. It’s just a pleasure.”
In what became a race to the top among pop icons, Janet Jackson bested Madonna to claim her ninth No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Doesn’t Really Matter” on Aug. 26, 2000, and, with the chart-topper, became the first artist with Hot 100 No. 1s in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. (Madonna would join the club just weeks later, when her single “Music” knocked Jackson from the top spot.)
“Matter” was released from the soundtrack to Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, co-starring Jackson and Eddie Murphy. Then 34, the youngest of the musically talented Jackson children had wrapped the 1990s at No. 2 on Billboard‘s Top Artist of the Decade chart, behind only Mariah Carey. Between “Matter” and the following year’s seven-week Hot 100 No. 1 “All for You,” Jackson looked prime to expand her chart conquests into the new millennium.
That momentum, however, came to a screeching halt on Feb. 1, 2004 when, during a halftime performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII, Justin Timberlake tore open Jackson’s costume, exposing one of her breasts to 140 million TV viewers. The infamous “wardrobe malfunction” led to a media firestorm and FCC investigation and Jackson’s career suffered heavily in the immediate years. Positive results started in 2006 with the top 25 Hot 100 hit with “Call on Me,” with Nelly, and she bettered that in 2008 with “Feedback” (No. 19), though she has yet to touch the top 10 again. On the Billboard 200 albums chart, though, she did collect two more No. 1s with Discipline (2008) and Unbreakable (2015).
Most recently, Jackson gave birth to her first child, Eissa Al Mana, in 2017, and released a four-episode, self-titled documentary earlier this year. The singer has revealed plans for a forthcoming album, Black Diamond, but it has yet to receive an official announcement or release date. “It’s so funny because I see the fans asking, ‘When are we going to get Black Diamond?’ ‘Will you please release?’,” she told ESSENCE for its July/August 2022 cover. “There will be music at some point. Exactly when? I can’t say just yet, but there will be. I love it too much not to do it. This is all I know. There’s so much that I want to do — but my number one job is being a mama.”
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