Month: October 2022

Ten years is a lifetime that goes by in the blink of an eye. Just ask Kevin Parker, the production maestro behind Tame Impala.

A decade ago this week, the Australian creative whiz dropped his sophomore full-length album, Lonerism (via Modular Recordings). And from that point on, everything changed.

Parker today takes a trip down memory lane, pulling recollections and photos from the vault.

“Lonerism is 10 years old today. Difficult to sum up what the album means to me at this point,” he writes on Instagram. “It was a pretty special time for me making the music (it wasn’t an album yet at that point). In a way it’s when I truly discovered myself as an artist.”

Prior to Lonerism, Parker had dropped his 2010 debut Innerspeaker, a and batch of EPs and singles under the Tame Impala moniker, including 2008’s bluesy “Half Full Glass of Wine.” As a side-gig, he played drums with prog-rock act Pond.

“Coming off the back of Innerspeaker I had this new sense of purpose…calling… whatever you want to call it. I had finally given myself permission to let music take over my being completely… to become totally immersed in my own world of recording music,” he continues. “So I had this new sense of creative freedom. I felt free to be ambitious, weird, pop, experimental, whatever, and didn’t feel judged because I was finally just doing it for myself and believed in myself. For the most part anyway.”

Parker admits he struggled when the album was released out in the wide world.

His confidence “came crashing down and I thought the album sucked and couldn’t even imagine people enjoying it. As it turns out I was wrong… the album dropped and exceeded all my expectations and my life changed massively again, and I slowly realised the music was pretty good, again, which gave me a new sense of purpose, and the cycle starts again.”

He needn’t have stressed. The album reached No. 4 in his homeland, cracked the top 40 on both sides of the Atlantic, won a brace of ARIA Awards, including album of the year, was nominated for a Grammy, and scooped the J Award for Australian album of the year.

Staying in his reflective mood, Parker shared several images from the time, including the unadulterated cover art from Lonerism, which the Western Australian had snapped in Paris.

Lonerism, we learn, was actually titled Loner Pop right up until it had been mastered and sent off for production. “I was sitting in the courtyard outside my apartment in Paris having finished the album a few days before, which is always a pretty spaced out feeling, kind of like… “what do I do now??” Parker recounts. “I was happy it was done but not completely satisfied as I didn’t think I got the title quite right. Suddenly the word lonerism popped into my head and it was obvious that was the one.”

Calls were made, the presses were (mostly) stopped.

“The CDs must have already gone into production because all the first pressings say Loner Pop when you put them in a CD player,” he notes.

Tame Impala has gone on to become one of the hottest properties in the music world. The act’s fourth and most recent album, The Slow Rush, led the ARIA Chart, and peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and Official U.K. Albums Charts.

Dylan Conrique is celebrating 100 million streams on her viral hit “Birthday Cake,” and the 18-year-old sat down with Billboard News‘ Tetris Kelly to talk about the emotional track and what’s coming up next.

“I still think it hasn’t quite hit me yet,” she said of her song’s success. “Every time I go back and look at it, it still amazes me to this day. I got to go on tour and meet a bunch of fans and sing the song with them. Overall, that song has completely changed my life.”

She added that at first, she thought that “Birthday Cake” might be “too specific,” as she wrote it for her best friend, who was mourning the death of her mom. “Seeing the impact that it’s made on people’s lives has been so amazing,” she continued.

Conrique said that she’s “been writing all the time” and noticed an interesting pattern with her upcoming releases. “I realized that the music that is coming out — if you put it in the right order, it literally is a breakup story, like a whole story of a relationship,” she explained. “I kind of want to do this thing where maybe other people will put the order for themselves and how their breakup was. They can tell their own story.”

The budding teen star also opened up about working with legendary producer and songwriter Max Martin. “When he walked in and was like, ‘Can I help you on the song?’ I didn’t know what to say,” she recalled. “He was like, ‘OK, let me hear it.’ I was like, ‘Oh, no, we don’t have any recordings of the song.’ He was like, ‘Oh, just sing it for me,’ and I was like [gasp]. I was so nervous!”

Overall, she concluded, working with Martin and other songwriters has helped her “grow” so much.

See Billboard‘s full interview with Dylan Conrique above.

TREASURE is welcoming a new era with one of the catchiest K-pop singles of the year.

The boy band’s new EP The Second Step: Chapter Two follows up The Second Step: Chapter One from February that delivered the group’s best showing on Billboard‘s Global charts so far: lead single “JikJin” hit No. 110 on the Global 200, while B-side “Darari” also entered the chart at No. 169 after a surge of viral activity.

Co-written and co-produced by TREASURE members Choi Hyunsuk, Yoshi and Haruto, the latest single “Hello” is crafted around surging synthesizers that follow the guys through moments of jock-jam dance breakdowns to stylish rap sections. The chorus’ repetitious lines (“I’m like, ‘Hello, hello, hello, where you’ve been all my life?’” and “Yeah, I’m looking, I’m looking, I’m looking for you”) give TREASURE a handful of undeniable hooks and make the song an easy earworm.

The accompanying video shows the boy band embracing bright and colorful sets emphasizing the TikTok-ready choreography. At one point, the members hold signs for “hello” in various languages like Japanese, Spanish, Chinese, German and Indonesian, speaking to K-pop’s global audience today.

“Hello” and the new The Second Step: Chapter Two mark the latest release from TREASURE with a slew of unique particulars for the album. The five-track EP includes songs performed by different sub-groups of TREASURE members with the rock-rap joint “VolKno” performed by Hyunsuk, Yoshi and Haruto, while Asahi and Haruto teamed up on the rock track “Thank You.” The Second Step: Chapter Two also marks the first time TREAUSRE is performing as a 10-member outfit as members Bang Yedam and Mashiho are taking time off from the group to pursue their studies and focus on their health, respectively.

Say “Hello” to TREASURE below:

It’s been almost 20 years since the debut of Ice Cube’s Friday After Next, the third film released under the “No Vaseline” rapper’s Friday franchise. As a result, there has been major speculation on when the next movie will be released, and during an episode of the Drink Champs podcast at L.L. Cool J’s Rock The Bells festival, Cube shares the reason behind the hold-up.

“I’m tryna get it out of Warner Bros. They don’t believe in the culture, man,” Ice Cube said to the podcast hosts, N.O.R.E. & D.J. E.F.N.

The 53-year-old Los Angeles native also revealed that Warner Bros. has distribution rights to the Friday films. “Once I take the character’s names, it becomes a property of Friday,” Cube added about people asking him to possibly change the film’s name. “It’s useless. They just need to come off that s—!”

Cube noted that Warner Bros. rejected two of his scripts for the movie. The first script included the characters Craig (Ice Cube) and Da Da (Mike Epps) going to jail for selling marijuana.

“The s— is funny,” Ice Cube said. “After they rejected it, they had all these movies about going to jail. So I was like, ‘Man, see, y’all f— me up.’ The other script was about the youngsters in the hood having beef with the OGs, and Craig has to come back and squash that. Smokey’s [Chris Tucker’s] son is the new Deebo [Tommy Lister Jr.], and he’s wilding.”

Cube added that Warner Bros’ “tripped on it,” in addition to talking about some of Friday’s prominent characters passing away, including John Witherspoon, who played Cube’s father in the films, Lister, who played Deebo, and A.J. Johnson, who played Ezal.

When asked if Tucker would star in another film, Cube said the comedian and actor hasn’t expressed full interest in doing another Friday. “Chris is slippy,” said Cube. “But me and Chris is cool.”

As far as Cube’s other notable projects like the 2002 All About The Benjamins movie and his 1998 hit film The Players Club, Cube said it’s tied up due to Warner Bros. “Once again, another Warner Bros’ f– up,” Cube concluded.

There’s nothing better than a karaoke night with friends, singing your favorite songs to everyone in the bar — whether they want to hear it or not.

To honor the night out tradition, we at Billboard compiled our 100 favorite karaoke songs, with Shania Twain‘s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman” topping the list. But now we want to know your thoughts.

See our selections for the 100 true all-timers here — with a little help from our friends in the industry — and let us know which of these karaoke hits is your favorite by voting in our poll below.

Gerardo Ortiz’s “Modo Crudo” reaches its destination on Billboard’s Regional Mexican Airplay chart as the single leads the Oct. 8-dated ranking. The track takes the Greatest Gainer trophy of the week thanks to a robust 65% gain in audience impressions, to 7.1 million, earned in the U.S. in the week ending Oct. 2, according to Luminate.

“Modo Crudo” was released June 3 via Bad Sin/Sony Music Latin. It becomes the most-heard song on U.S. monitored regional Mexican stations during the tracking week as it rallies 8-1 after it reached a No. 5 high on the Sept. 10-dated ranking.

Among “Modo Crudo’s” greatest radio supporters by audience during the Sept. 26-Oct. 2 tracking week, stations in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles take the lead. Chicago’s WOJO generated 9.8 million (up 91%), Dallas’ KLNO rose to 8.7 million (up 1,795%), while Los Angeles’ KSCA increased by 77% (to 7.1 million).

The new leader gifts Ortiz his 12th champ among 31 career appearances. Out of those, 23 reached the top 10, including his 12-week ruler “Solo Vine a Despedirme” (Nov. 2012-Jan. 2013). The singer/songwriter continues to hold the second-most wins among soloists, trailing Christian Nodal who leads with 14 No. 1s since the chart launched in 1994. Here’s a recap:

14, Christian Nodal
12, Gerardo Ortiz
8, Marco Antonio Solís
7, Vicente Fernández
5, Alejandro Fernández

Elsewhere, “Modo” keeps rolling on the all-genre Latin Airplay chart. There, the Pasadena-born record producer scores his 16th top 10 as the track speeds 19-7, also the Greatest Gainer of the week.

On Tuesday, Beyoncé threw a Club Renaissance party during Paris Fashion Week, and it was a star-studded affair. Tyler, the Creator, Doja Cat, Halsey, Naomi Campbell and Baz Luhrmann were just a few of the celebrities spotted at the invite-only party.

An invite posted by Pop Crave shows that Beyoncé required attendees to provide a negative same-day COVID-19 test result, in addition to banning all phone use within the event. With no photos floating around from the event, it seems Beyoncé succeeded in keeping the event hush-hush.

The party, hosted at Yoyo Pais De Tokyo, was in partnership with Tiffany & Co.

It’s no surprise Beyoncé would take Paris Fashion Week as an opportunity to throw an exclusive celebration. She teased fans with Renaissance-themed listening parties in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Ghent, Belgium ahead of her album’s July release.

The Parisian shebang is just one of many Club Renaissance parties Beyoncé has reportedly thrown in secret around the globe. Soon after her album drop, she threw a secret party in New York City, which reportedly had a Studio 54 theme, in tribute to the city’s iconic disco club. Donald Glover, Chloë and Halle Bailey, Kendrick Lamar, Janelle Monae and Questlove all took the opportunity to rub shoulders with Queen Bey at the NYC event.

Beyoncé’s Renaissance is her seventh studio album and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart. The accomplishment made Renaissance the first album released by a woman in 2022 to hit No. 1.