The Springfield City Council is considering a measure that would put millions of dollars in updates into several sports complexes in Springfield.
At a council meeting Monday, members heard a proposal for using $13.5 million on improvements for Cooper Park and Killian Softball Complex.
The money would come from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
The total cost of the project is an estimated $27.5 million, and would include new turf, bleachers, new concessions and restroom facilities, renovated parking lots and other improvements.
Much of the current facility at Cooper is the same as when the complex opened in the 80s.
If the full $27.5 million is approved, the funding would come from the following locations:
ARPA funds- $13.5 million
City General Fund- $5 million
City’s ARPA- $7.3 million
City’s Park Fund- $1 million
Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau- $631,275
The council will hand down an official decision at its next meeting, August 21.
Tyler Childers is officially a Billboard Hot 100-charting artist, as his new single “In Your Love” debuts on the Aug. 12-dated survey at No. 43.
“In Your Love,” released July 27 on Hickman Holler/RCA Records, debuts with 11.4 million U.S. streams, 690,000 radio airplay audience impressions and 9,000 downloads sold in its opening week (July 28-Aug. 3), according to Luminate. It also starts at No. 7 on Hot Country Songs, marking Childers’ first top 10.
The track is the lead single off Childers’ sixth studio album, Rustin’ in the Rain, due Sept. 8.
Childers has maintained a steady presence on Billboard’s charts since his breakthrough second LP, and major-label debut, Purgatory, in 2017. The set has reached No. 2 on Americana/Folk Albums, No. 9 on Top Country Albums and – as of this week – No. 71 on the Billboard 200.
Since that release, Childers has charted four additional albums on the Billboard 200: Country Squire (No. 12 peak, 2019), Long Violent History (No. 45, 2020), Can I Take My Hounds to Heaven (No. 8, 2022) and Live on Red Barn Radio I & II (No. 196, this April).
Country Squire also hit No. 1 on the Top Country Albums, Americana/Folk Albums, Top Album Sales and Vinyl Albums charts, while Long Violent History debuted at No. 1 on Americana/Folk Albums.
Childers previously landed four tracks on Hot Country Songs: “All Your’n” (No. 46 peak in 2019; the song has spiked in recent years thanks to activity on TikTok), “Long Violent History” (No. 48, 2020), “Angel Band” (No. 41, 2022) and “Way of the Triune God” (No. 37, this year).
He has also charted two songs on Adult Alternative Airplay: “All Your’n” (No. 16, 2019) and “House Fire” (No. 40, 2020).
Childers — whose music blends folk, bluegrass, and traditional country elements — hails from Lawrence County, Ky. He self-released his first album, Bottles and Bibles, in 2011 when he was 19 years old. He returned with Purgatory, which was produced by Sturgill Simpson and David Ferguson.
Outside of his solo work, Childers has collaborated with the likes of Colter Wall (“Fraulein”) and Bob Weir (“Greatest Story Ever Told”).
Childers is currently touring through the end of the year.
The MTV Video Music Awards are adding a new category this year – best Afrobeats. The Grammys are adding a similar category, best African music performance, this year (for the awards that will be presented on Feb. 4, 2024). The American Music Awards were the first major music awards show to add such a category. They added favorite Afrobeats artist at the show that aired on Nov. 20, 2022. Wizkid was the inaugural winner, beating Burna Boy, CKay, Fireboy DML and Tems.
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The apparent front-runner for best Afrobeats at the VMAs is Rema & Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down,” which is nominated in two other categories, best song and best collaboration. “Calm Down” has been a giant crossover hit, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song dips a notch to No. 6 in its 49th week on the Hot 100, as it spends a seventh week atop Radio Songs.
Ayra Starr has two nominations in the VMAs’ best Afrobeats category – for her own “Rush” and as the featured artist on Wizkid’s “2 Sugar.”
The other nominees in the category are Burna Boy’s “It’s Plenty,” Davido featuring Musa Keys’ “Unavailable,” Fireboy DML & Asake’s “Bandana” and Libianca’s “People.”
Best Afrobeats is the third genre-specific category to be added at the VMAs in this century, following Latin (2006) and K-pop (2019). The VMAs’ five other genre-specific categories were all introduced in the last century — rock (1989), alternative (1991), R&B (1993), and pop and hip-hop (both 1999).
The Grammy nominations will be announced on Nov. 10, at which time we’ll learn the nominees in their new best African music performance category.
The Recording Academy announced the category (one of three being added this year) on June 13. The Rules and Guidelines for the upcoming 66th Annual Grammy Awards describes the category thusly: “Eligible recordings include vocal and instrumental performances with strong elements of African cultural significance that blend a stylistic intention, song structure, lyrical content and/or musical representation found in Africa and the African Diaspora. The African Diaspora is the worldwide collection of communities descended from native Africans or people from Africa, predominantly in the Americas.”
The 2023 VMAs will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT live from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
The 2023 Billboard Fan Army Face-Off has ended, and we have a winner! After a final battle between the CARATs and A’TIN, one came out the clear victor: SB19 claimed the crown thanks to A’TIN on Tuesday, Aug. 8, after a strong challenge from SEVENTEEN’s fans.
Billboard’s annual Fan Army showdown sees 64 artists’ fan armies enter the battle fray to find out whose fan base was the strongest. It kicked off July 5, and on July 12 at noon ET, 32 fan armies emerged victorious after millions of fan votes to compete in Round 2. Round 2 was tight — multiple match-ups remained too close to call the entire morning of Wednesday, July 19, with several of them down-to-the-wire right up until noon ET. With all the votes in, 16 fan armies emerged victorious for Round 3. Those fan armies made their voices heard throughout the week, and when all was said and done, an Elite Eight — made up of the fan armies for Cardi B, EXO, Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj, SB19, SEVENTEEN, Shakira and TWICE — emerged victorious to compete in the Quarterfinals, which began July 26 at noon ET.
After a fiercely competitive face-off to move to the next level, this year’s Semifinals found the fan armies for Cardi B, SB19, SEVENTEEN and Shakira in a showdown to determine the Finals. At noon ET on Aug. 4, the fan armies for SB19 and SEVENTEEN emerged victorious. So it’s down to the Filipino boy band and the South Korean boy band, respectively, with their fans vying to become the top fan army of 2023.
Last year was a closely watched showdown, and each fan army deserves a huge shout-out for keeping us guessing. But in the end, only one can win, and for 2022, the winner of the Billboard Fan Army Face-Off was Stray Kids, with STAY pulling out the win on July 19. Past Fan Army Face-Off winners include Super Junior’s E.L.F (victorious twice), T-ara’s Queens (victorious three times) and BIGBANG’s VIPs.
This year’s competitors included fan armies who support luminaries in pop, hip-hop, K-pop, country, R&B, rock, dance and more. Some of these icons have been around for decades, changing the game and shifting the direction of culture, while others are newcomers, helping push music in bold new directions. More than a handful of them have graced the cover of Billboard magazine (some more than once), and numerous artists here have topped the Billboard Hot 100.
Editor’s Note: If you are having trouble loading the bracket on mobile devices, remove “amp” from the end of the URL.
Check out the final results for the 2023 Fan Army Face-Off below.
Taylor Swift, who last year became the first three-time winner of the VMAs’ marquee award, video of the year, is nominated in that category again this year for “Anti-Hero.” Could she possibly win that award again when the VMAs are presented at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Sept. 12?
Of course she could. “Anti-Hero” received seven nods, more than any other video this year. SZA’s “Kill Bill,” Olivia Rodrigo’s “Vampire” and the Sam Smith/Kim Petras collab “Unholy” each received five.
This is Swift’s sixth nomination for video of the year, which puts her in a tie for third place with Drake. Eminem leads with eight nominations in the category, followed by Beyoncé with seven.
If “Anti-Hero” wins, Swift would become the first artist to win back-to-back awards for video of the year. She won last year for “All Too Well: The Short Film.” Her first two wins in the category were for “Bad Blood,” a collab with Kendrick Lamar (2015) and “You Need to Calm Down” (2019).
Swift is nominated in eight categories. She’s the year’s only artist to be nominated for all three of the highest-profile awards – video of the year, artist of the year and song of the year. MTV has yet to announce who will receive this year’s Video Vanguard award. If Swift takes that prize too, that could further boost her tally.
The VMA nominations were announced on Tuesday (Aug. 8). Here’s the full nominations list. And here are some noteworthy snubs and surprises in this year’s nominations:
It’s only fitting that when you share a bill with an artist who has written a viral hit with your name in the title that you invite said person up to do their thing for you. At least that’s what happened on Saturday when Billie Eilish and “Billie Eilish” rapper Armani White played different stages at Montreal’s Osheaga Festival and turned his meme-able hit into a meme-able moment.
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“You know that song that’s like, ‘Glock tucked, big t-shirt, Billie Eilish’?,” Eilish asked the crowd during her headlining set according to fan videos of the moment when she appeared to be having a bit of fun with the song from the Def Jam rapper that debuted at No. 99 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September.
Then, the instrumental of White’s song bubbled up before White himself appeared on stage to deafening shouts of approval as the Philadelphia MC bounded around and performed his hit TikTok-boosted track while its namesake, in one of her signature oversized jerseys, jumped and danced with glee while tossing in a few ad libs.
To be fair, even White couldn’t believe his ears, tweeting hours afterwards, “BILLIE EILISH JUST BROUGHT ME OUT!!! Ohmyf–kingod, adding on Sunday, “I have never heard that many people scream in my fucking life hahaha Billie Eilish has an army!!” While Eilish had made nods to Armani’s song in the past, Saturday was the first time she was in the same spot as the rapper when he performed the track — which samples N.O.R.E.’s 2002 Neptunes-produced hit “Nothin’” — that blew up after a 16-second clip was uploaded to Instagram and TikTok in Feb. 2022.
Skindred has every reason to smile. After performing at Glastonbury Festival 2023, the Newport, Wales heavy metal act leads the U.K.’s chart blast with Smile (via Earache), the rockers’ eighth studio album.
If Smile holds its spot, not only would it become their first leader, but it would be the band’s first title to impact the top 10.
Nothing is certain at this stage.
Yorkshire, England indie-rock act the Sherlocks (with People Like Me & You via Teddyboy) and Cian Ducrot (Victory via Polydor) complete the respective podium places on the Official Chart Update.
Currently, less than 500 chart units separate the top three, the Official Charts Company reports.
Completing an all-new top 5 at the midweek stage is Miles Kane’s fifth solo effort, One Man Band (Modern Sky), set to start at No. 4 for what would be his peak chart position, while London hip-hop outfit N-Dubz could snag No. 5 with Timeless (EMI), their first studio album in 13 years.
Anniversary reissues from Snow Patrol and ABC could make a splash when the national albums chart is published this Friday, Aug. 11.
Snow Patrol’s third album Final Straw is poised for a top 10 return, at No. 7. Released in 2003, through Polydor, the British-Irish alternative rock band’s major label debut, Final Straw peaked at No. 3. Its followup, Eyes Open from 2006, gave the group their first and only U.K. chart leader.
Also, ‘80s pop favorites ABC could stage their own return to the top 10 with The Lexicon of Love (Mercury), which this year celebrates its 40th anniversary. The LP, which initially led the chart following its release in 1982 and includes the hits “Poison Arrow,” “The Look of Love” and more, appears at No. 10 on the chart blast.
Finally, Mammoth WVH could bag its first U.K. charting album with Mammoth II (BMG). It’s new at No. 24 on the Official Chart Update. Mammoth WVH is fronted by Wolf Van Halen, son of the legendary late guitarist Eddie Van Halen, and bass player with the iconic U.S. rock act Van Halen.
Taylor Swift greeted a brand-new crowd of 70,000 eager fans on Monday night (Aug. 8) as The Eras Tour returned to the L.A.-area SoFi Stadium for Night 4 in Inglewood, California. And while the first leg of her North American tour is coming to a close Wednesday night (for a total of six sold-out nights at SoFi), Swift continues to keep things fresh — especially with the night’s brand-new surprise songs, which included one acoustic debut and one solo debut.
“Welcome to the acoustic set!” Swift said as she made her way to the center catwalk, where a guitar and piano awaited her for the most anticipated portion of her setlist. “When I was putting together this tour and I was thinking about the stuff that I wanted to do, I was thinking about the fact that I named it The Eras Tour and I kind of wanted to sort of assign the acoustic set as a place where I would challenge myself to play songs that I don’t normally play live or songs that I haven’t played live in a really long time or songs that I haven’t played live in an acoustic way. So it’s been equally exhilarating and terrifying, because it’s a different one every single night – it’s a different two every single night.”
She broke out some special ones for the Monday night crowd, with the acoustic debut of “Dress” and the solo debut of “Exile” (much more on those below).
But the surprise songs were hardly the only standout moments from the latest Eras Tour stop. Below, find our six favorite moments from Night 4 at SoFi Stadium.
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