If you thought “Drivers License” was sad before, just wait until you hear Lewis Capaldi‘s new cover. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter teamed up with Spotify Singles to record his own version of Olivia Rodrigo‘s smash debut single along with a reimagining of his new song “Forget Me,” both of which proved that no one does raspy vocals over heartbreaking piano quite like him.
For his take on “Drivers License” — which dropped on the streaming platform Wednesday (Sept. 21) along with the new “Forget Me” — Capaldi distilled Rodrigo’s Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 into a simple, effective piano ballad, assisted only by the occasional touch of atmospheric reverb and strings.
“Sidewalks we crossed, I still hear your voice in the traffic, we’re laughing over all the noise,” he sings, his scratchy trademark belt soaring over melancholy keyboard chords — aka the musical formula that made him famous with songs such as “Somebody You Loved,” “Bruises” and “Hold Me While You Wait.”
Two days after the cover was released, Capaldi shared his excitement by tweeting a few of Rodrigo’s lyrics in all caps: “I KNOW WE WEREN’T PERFECT BUT I’VE NEVER FELT THIS WAAAAAYYYY FOR NO ONEEEE.”
I KNOW WE WEREN’T PERFECT BUT I’VE NEVER FELT THIS WAAAAAYYYY FOR NO ONEEEE
The musician also returned to form with his remake of “Forget Me,” an easygoing pop mix released earlier this month as the lead single and title track off his upcoming second studio album. For his Spotify Singles version of the song — which earlier this week earned him his third U.K. No. 1 — Capaldi again stripped it down to simplistic piano that put his raw voice on display.
“CLASS TO BE BACK AT @abbeyroadstudios RECORDING THIS FOR THE PALS OVER AT @spotify,” he wrote on his Instagram story Friday (Sept. 23). “ALSO DID A BRAND NEW VERSION OF ‘FORGET ME’ EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE V V HANDSOME PALS AT @spotify.”
Stream Lewis Capaldi’s Spotify Singles cover of “Drivers License” and his new version of “Forget Me” below:
Billboard’s First Stream serves as a handy guide to this Friday’s most essential releases — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
This week, Lil Nas X plugs in with a new anthem, Sam Smith shakes up their formula with Kim Petras’ help and Joshua Bassett continues his evolution. Check out all of this week’s First Stream picks below:
Lil Nas X, “Star Walkin’ (League of Legends Worlds Anthem)”
“Star Walkin’” may exist thanks to a partnership with enormous multiplayer video game franchise League of Legends (which also helped produce the Imagine Dragons top 10 hit “Enemy” earlier this year), but Lil Nas X’s 2022 World Championship anthem is far from a corporate stopgap for the superstar: the single sits at the intersection between hummable pop and mass-appeal hip-hop that Nas has made his home over the past few years, with a hook full of motivational sloganeering (“Racin’ to the moonlight, and I’m speedin’!”) and some comedic one-liners baked into the origin-story bars. Like “Enemy,” “Star Walkin’” works even without the gamer context, and should be another hit for an artist who’s now piling them up.
Sam Smith feat. Kim Petras, “Unholy”
“I think joy for me, and for a lot of queer people, is quite a dangerous place,” Sam Smith told Billboard in their recent cover story. “We’re all masters of pain, and I think it’s actually a very courageous act to step into the queer joy of it all.” “Unholy,” a daring collaboration with Kim Petras from Smith’s upcoming album, not only unites two of the most prominent artists in the past decade of queer pop music, but does so without sonic reservation — simply put, the song sounds nothing like any of Smith’s past material, with their careful balladry replaced by sweaty bass and undulating voices. There’s certainly danger in a torch song like “Unholy,” and in some ways, it’s intoxicating.
Joshua Bassett, Sad Songs in a Hotel Room EP
As he forges ahead with his recording career — separate from his High School Musical series work, away from the rumored allusions of a certain pop superstar from 2021 — Joshua Bassett’s gifts as a delicate vocalist and emotionally intelligent songwriter are only going to become more evident. His new EP, Sad Songs in a Hotel Room, captures a 21-year-old figuring out his next moves but understanding the medium in which he wants to express them, alternating between guitar and piano as the foundation of his vulnerabilities and letting his strongest moments, like the wrenching “Lifeline,” cut through the noise around Bassett’s career to date.
Muni Long, Public Displays of Affection: The Album
Muni Long is enjoying a breakthrough year thanks to the top 40 success of her sumptuous R&B ballad “Hrs and Hrs,” although the artist born Priscilla Renea Hamilton had been a successful songwriter for over a decade before scoring this hit for herself. That backstory makes Public Displays of Affection: The Album even more of a must-listen: Muni Long, who sings about lust and betrayal with technical precision, represents an exciting new talent in mainstream R&B, but she naturally constructs highlights like “Plot Twist,” “Ain’t Easy” and “Cartier” with the skills of a veteran.
Kelsea Ballerini, Subject To Change
A song like “Muscle Memory” on Kelsea Ballerini’s fourth album Subject To Change showcases why the singer-songwriter remains a country-pop force: at three-and-a-half minutes, the track hums along like a sun-kissed afternoon drive, full of affecting details and sweeping melodies. Ballerini has always excelled at her craft, and while Subject To Change is a more straightforward offering than her 2020 album Kelsea and its acoustic counterpart Ballerini, her latest also focuses on personal growth (as its title suggests), with Ballerini telling her stories of love, loneliness and maturation the best way she knows how.
GloRilla feat. Cardi B, “Tomorrow 2”
Since turning heads over the summer with viral hit “F.N.F. (Let’s Go),” GloRilla signed with CMG, scored the best feature on Duke Deuce’s album Crunkstar, and now stands toe-to-toe with Cardi B on a new collaboration — not a bad run for the Tennessee newcomer. Cardi comes correct against all haters and naysayers on the track (“I don’t speak dog, ho, I don’t care what no bitch say,” she seethes), while GloRilla equally shines alongside one of the brightest personalities in hip-hop, rolling her eyes at Twitter drama and rhyming “running back” and “lumberjack” in a way that somehow makes both lines work.
Looks like Lewis Capaldi was doing some “Late Night Talking” with none other than Harry Styles himself.
During a new interview with Kiss FM UK, Capaldi remembered an instance during which he sent Styles a video at five in the morning — except he doesn’t remember what the video said. “I don’t know what it was — I was hammered,” he said with a laugh. “But he said to me, ‘This feels like a ‘you up’ text.’ I could’ve sent him an unsolicited picture of my … phone.”
But, he added, the interaction wasn’t a complete wash: “I mean, he didn’t say no! In fact, he seemed quite agreeable to the proposition.”
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Of course, Capaldi’s friendship with Niall Horan puts him just one degree of separation away from the “As It Was” singer. But he also recalled the recent moment when he and Horan went busking together in Dublin after having a hilarious run-in with a busker named Jacob on the street.
“We were just out, drinking pints, having a good time, as we bloody well do, ’cause we’re the bloody lads. And we saw this guy busking, and we were like, ‘Oh let’s go ahead and join him,’” he recalled. “I asked, ‘Do you know any Niall Horan songs?’ And the guy goes, ‘No.’ I said, ‘Yes man, God love ya.’ … So, thank you, Jacob, just for one brief moment making me feel more famous than Niall Horan.”
The singer also talked in the interview about his latest single, the moody, emotional ballad “Forget Me,” which Capaldi broke down in some detail. “I was in a relationship with a lady — there he goes again, pop’s new lothario, move over Harry Styles,” he said. “We broke up, as tends to happen. A year passed things were all good, I still followed her on Instagram … I found that she seemed to look very happy, which I was furious about. Like, ‘What’s going on here? This is unfair! This is horrible, why do you look so joyous and full of vim, when I’m in pain and suffering?’”
Check out Capaldi’s full interview with Kiss FM above.
Barbra Streisand is dipping into her personal collection for the first official release of her legendary 1962 set at a Greenwich Village nightclub for the upcoming Barbra Streisand – Live at the Bon Soir. The album, due out on Nov. 4, was previewed on Friday (Sept. 23) with a live take on the 1953 Arthur Hamilton-penned torch song “Cry Me a River,” first made famous by Julie London’s version in 1955, then later released as the first single from Streisand’s 1963 self-titled debut album.
“I had never even been in a nightclub until I sang in one,” Streisand writes in the liner notes about the set recorded when she was 20-years-old. “I sang two songs in a talent contest at a little club called The Lion and won, which led to being hired at a more sophisticated supper club around the corner called the Bon Soir, with an actual stage and a spotlight. The buzz that began at the Bon Soir led to a contract with Columbia Records in 1962, the start of a long association that continues to this day. The initial plan for my first album was to record it at the club, and these early tapes have been sleeping in my vault for six decades. I’m delighted to finally bring them out into the light and share what could have been my debut album, Live at the Bon Soir.”
According to a release, the new mixes were supervised by Streisand and Grammy-winning engineer Jochem van der Saag, who culled it from tapes of her sets at the club on Nov. 4, 5, and 6, 1962. The recordings — originally intended to comprise the singer’s Columbia Records debut — were shelved in favor of 1963’s The Barbra Streisand Album, which contained studio versions of 11 of the songs from the star’s nightclub set.
The live collection with 24 newly mixed tracks from the original masters, was produced by Streisand, Martin Erlichman and Jay Landers will feature song-by-song descriptions of each song. It will be released as a 180-gram 2LP set and SACD, with the CD version packaged in a lavish hardcover book with a 32-page booklet with historical notes, photos and a message from Streisand; the vinyl set from Impex Records will come with a 12-page booklet.
“The science of recording has made quantum leaps since 1962. Grammy Award-winning engineer, Jochem van der Saag, has subtly solved audio issues in ways his predecessors could hardly have fathomed,” writes Landers in the liner notes. “Absolutely nothing about Barbra’s sterling vocals has been altered. However, the overall sonic picture has been greatly improved from the original tapes.”
Van der Saag adds that the moment the producers played the tapes through modern, state-of-the-art speakers they realized the challenges faced by original engineers Phil Ramone and Ad “Pappy” Theroux. “The club’s acoustics were obviously not designed for recording, and there was a lot of leakage from the instruments into her vocal mic. If we wanted to lower the volume of the piano for example, the vocal volume would decrease, too,” he writes. “To give listeners ‘the best seat in the house,’ we used cutting-edge spectral editing technology, clarifying the true artistry of Barbra and her band.”
The collection spotlights selections from a who’s-who of legendary songwriters, including Harold Arlen, Leonard Bernstein, Oscar Hammerstein II, Cole Porter, Frank Loesser and Rodgers & Hart.
In the “River” performance, Streisand chats it up with the intimate audience, telling them, “I wish there were another word beside thank you… I mean, like, anything, you know,” she says, before introducing the crowd to her boyfriend, “soup,” as her bass-player teases out the song’s bouncy groove. The set found the star backed by a sizzling quartet of veterans, including guitarist Tiger Haynes, bassist Averill Pollard, drummer John Cresci and pianist Peter Daniels.
The album will be Streisand’s first release since her 2021 rarities album Release Me 2.
Listen to Streisand sing “Cry Me a River” and see the full tracklist below.
Barbra Streisand – Live at the Bon Soir:
1. Introduction by David Kapralik (Columbia Records)/”My Name Is Barbra” (Leonard Bernstein)
2. “Much More” (Tom Jones/Harvey Schmidt)
3. “Napoleon” (Harold Arlen/E.Y. Harburg)
4. “I Hate Music” (Leonard Bernstein)
5. “Right As The Rain” (Harold Arlen/E.Y. Harburg)
6. “Cry Me A River” (Arthur Hamilton)
7. “Value” (Jeff Harris)
8. “Lover, Come Back To Me” (Oscar Hammerstein II/Sigmund Romberg)
First Country is a compilation of the best new country songs, videos & albums that dropped this week.
Shania Twain, “Waking Up Dreaming”
Twain has returned to the spotlight in a big way this year, recently being honored with the ACM Poet’s Award and releasing a documentary centered on her boundary-smashing career (which includes three consecutive RIAA Diamond-certified albums). Her latest release, “Waking Up Dreaming,” she turns up the volume on ’80s glam rock-inflected pop, while staying true to the spirit of her previous perky, feminist anthems. “Time ain’t waiting forever” she sings, urging listeners to live life to the fullest — while the vivid, ’80s rock star-soaked video is one of the boldest and most colorful of Twain’s recent clips.
Lainey Wilson, “Live Off”
Wilson has seen her career skyrocket over the past year, notching No. 1 hits with “Things a Man Oughta Know” and the Cole Swindell duet “Never Say Never,” and recently becoming the most-nominated artist at this year’s upcoming CMA Awards. Ahead of the release of her album Bell Bottom Country, her latest song release returns to the deeply detailed lyrics from “Things,” this time chronicling the people and items that keep her life running, from a few crumpled dollar bills, Folgers coffee, Sunday talks with mama and tumbles of wisdom passed down from family members. This Jay Joyce-produced track is perhaps Wilson’s most upbeat, with a slightly sweeter pop glaze than her previous outings — but still centered on her down-home, arena-worthy twang.
Joy Oladokun feat. Chris Stapleton, “Sweet Symphony”
This fine, soulful pairing of Oladokun and Stapleton soothes and soars on this romantic track, as they pledge their commitment through both life’s loftiest moments and shattering lows. The sparse accompaniment allows Oladokun’s cool, smooth voice and Stapleton’s gritty fervor to shine. Essential listening.
Sam Williams, “Blame ‘Em Both”
Williams reckons with the unrequited longing to rekindle a relationship after breaking his lover’s heart, sweeping the notion into musings on original sin. “My sin is kin to yours and his and hers, it’s not original/ If forgiveness was just a simple word, It’d be a miracle,” he sings, his plaintive voice cool and remorsefully haunting. The song is included on the deluxe version of his album Glasshouse Children out on Oct. 14.
Ian Munsick, “Horses & Weed”
Ian Munsick’s had his share of trucks, backroads and beer, but he gives a tip of the hat to something a bit slower, a bit mellower in this fiddle-backed track. A long ride on a palomino, in the company of “the blues and the greens,” is just what he needs to feel free. Like his previous releases, “More Than Me” and “Long Live Cowgirls” (featuring Cody Johnson), the new song will be found on this Wyoming native’s upcoming second album.
Anne Wilson, “Hey Girl” (Kentucky Version)
Anne Wilson broke through on the Contemporary Christian Music charts with her hit “My Jesus,” but this Kentucky native’s sonic palette offers evidence of her strong country and bluegrass influences. Having made her Grand Ole Opry debut in September 2021, Wilson further heightens her country ties with this version of a track from her debut album, steeped in twangy guitars, singalong choruses, handclaps, and flashes of piano and banjo.
Nikki Lane, Denim & Diamonds
This musical gypsy teams with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme on her new project, Denim & Diamonds, out on New West Records Friday (Sept. 23). Her latest leans hard into the amalgam of country and folk-rock, veering from from crunchy, freewheeling defiance on the title track (with a keen shout out to Cher), leaning further into roots rock on “Try Harder” before settling into a plucky haze on “Good Enough.” She welcomes in exquisite Spanish guitar on the album’s closer, “Chimayo.”
Madeline Merlo, “Slide”
Merlo, the winner of NBC’s Songland, has already proven her songwriting chops, having penned trio Lady A’s hit song “Champagne Night.” Merlo’s own four-song EP, Slide, drops today (Sept. 23), featuring the title track, written by Merlo, Sam Hunt, Zach Crowell and Jerry Flowers. This fiesty, flirty cut vibrates with youthful charm, and highlights the narrative flair in Merlo’s writing, but also her engaging vocal.
The Puerto Rican hitmaker is teaming up with Sumerian Comics to produce an “action-packed” graphic novel that has yet to be titled. “I love collaborating to take my creativity to new, interesting places,” Ozuna said in a statement. “I’m very excited to partner with the talented team at Sumerian and make something fresh, captivating, and fun for my fans and my culture.”
Details of the upcoming project are still under development but fans can expect an “action-thriller manga inspired by characters like James Bond and Xander ‘XXX’ Cage,” according to a press release. In the future, the plan is to “adapt the Ozuna graphic novel into a feature film or television series.”
“We’re thrilled to be partnering with such a unique, accomplished musical artist like Ozuna for this project,” added Ash Avildsen, CEO from Sumerian Comics & Games, which recently acquired graphic novel publisher and gaming company Behemoth Comics. “What he has accomplished with his music is nothing short of globally spectacular and now we will see the power of his story telling as we work alongside him to bring it to life. It’s definitely going to be meaningful and innovative work that denotes the beginning of a new frontier for Sumerian.”
The partnership with Ozuna — overseen by Foundation Media and Simran A. Singh (of Singh, Singh & Trauben, LLP) in collaboration with The Blueprint Group — will be the company’s first graphic novel project with a Latin artist.
First look at the artwork for the Ozuna-produced graphic novel:
Exclusive art for the upcoming Ozuna-produced novel.
Bazzi talks about his new song ‘Heaven’, how he got the sample for the song, his collaboration with Cordae called ‘Only Fan’, writing K-pop songs for multiple SM entertainment artists, and more! Listen to ‘Heaven’ here.
Noah Cyrus is keeping it all in the family by enlisting dad Billy Ray Cyrus on a new duet version of her single “Noah (Stand Still).”
The tender track, which arrived Friday (Sept. 23) at midnight, finds the younger Cyrus reflecting on advice she received from her father in the midst of the Xanax addiction she was secretly battling as she rang in her 20th birthday.
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“Death upon my doorstep, if I took just one more step/ There’d be nothin’ left of me except these songs/ And my father told me, ‘Noah/ When you don’t know where you’re goin’/ Just stand still/ Soon enough you will,’” Noah croons over quiet acoustic guitar on the opening verse.
For the second verse, she hands the mic to her father before the two spend the rest of the song harmonizing as they sing, “Just stand still and watch your sunset leave/ The lonely dirt under your feet to fill/ Just stand still/ Sixty-seven-thousand miles an hour/ Around the sun, and that is how it feels/ Just stand still.”
A solo version of “Noah (Stand Still)” is the opening track of the singer’s long-awaited debut album The Hardest Part, which was released earlier this month. The LP also contains the singles “I Burned LA Down,” “Mr. Percocet,” “Ready to Go,” “Every Beginning Ends” featuring Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard and “I Just Want a Lover.”
Stream the duet version of “Noah (Stand Still)” below.
The Midnights song title lottery game continues, and this one is spicy.
Taylor Swift unveiled the next installment of her “Midnights Mayhem With Me” series on TikTok on Thursday night (Sept. 22) at midnight, of course. Like the first episode just two days before, the Grammy-winning superstar was once again seated next to a gold lottery-ball cage with ping-pong balls labeled 1 to 13, representing each track on her upcoming album, due out Oct. 21.
This time, Swift was joined by her O.G. cat Meredith (who even lets out a perfectly timed meow) to announce the title of Track 8. She’s still in front of the brown crushed-velvet backdrop, but this time she’s wearing a chartreuse V-neck cardigan with white flowers down the sleeves and her hair in braided pigtails. The new title? “Vigilante Shit.” Yes, this is the first time a curse word has appeared in a Taylor Swift song title — though hardly her first-ever musical profanity; hell, she tucked the phrase “f— the patriarchy” into her most recent No. 1 song, the 10-minute version of “All Too Well” from Red (Taylor’s Version).
During Tuesday’s first episode of Midnights Mayhem, Swift shared that the 13th track on the album is called “Mastermind.”
The singer-songwriter previously described the album as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life.” She explained on Instagram, ““This is a collection of music written in the middle of the night, a journey through terrors and sweet dreams. The floors we pace and the demons we face. For all of us who have tossed and turned and decided to keep the lanterns lit and go searching – hoping that just maybe, when the clock strikes twelve… we’ll meet ourselves.”
Watch the second “Midnights Mayhem With Me” video here.
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