Month: September 2023

Is there anything better than some aespa in the morning? On Wednesday (Sept. 6), the K-pop stars graced Good Morning America for a performance of “Better Things” and a conversation about their ongoing Synk: Hyper Line Tour.

“We are so excited to be here,” Giselle gushed. “We are so appreciative of all the love and support.”

It’s been a banner year for the group, as every few months they’ve achieved a career milestone. In July, they earned their second No. 1 title on Billboard‘s Top Album Sales chart, with 39,000 copies of My World sold in the project’s first week. My World also became the group’s second top 10 title on the Billboard 200 (No. 9), as well as their third consecutive chart-topper on World Albums.

In February, aespa launched their Synk: Hyper Line Tour in support of their first three EPs. Beginning at Jamsil Arena in Seoul, South Korea, the tour has traveled across Asia and North America. The night before their Good Morning America appearance, the group performed at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. On Sept. 11, aespa will head to São Paulo, Brazil, for a two-date South American leg, before heading to Berlin, Germany for a European leg Sept. 25-30.

Aespa seized the opportunity to show GMA viewers what kind of crisp, entertaining performances they would see should they choose to attend the Synk: Hyper Line Tour. “It’s been so cool to see our fans, and everyone is singing along and dancing along to our songs,” Giselle said. “We prepared a lot, and we got so much great energy from our U.S. tour, and we’re now going on to our South American tour.”

Just months after becoming the first K-pop act to perform at Governors Ball, aespa continues to maintain the momentum as they ride out their My World era.

Watch aespa perform “Better Things” on GMA below:

Kourtney Kardashian has revealed the emergency that had husband Travis Barker racing home while out on tour with his band Blink-182. The reality personality — who is pregnant with the couple’s first child together — shared in an Instagram post that she recently had surgery to save their unborn child.

“I will be forever grateful to my incredible doctors for saving our baby’s life,” she began her post on Wednesday (Sept. 6), which was accompanied by a black-and-white photo of the drummer holding the Poosh founder’s hand while she appeared to be in the hospital. “I am eternally grateful to my husband who rushed to my side from tour to be with me in the hospital and take care of me afterwards, my rock.”

“As someone who has had three really easy pregnancies in the past, I wasn’t prepared for the fear of rushing into urgent fetal surgery,” she continued. “I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been through a similar situation can begin to understand that feeling of fear. I have a whole new understanding and respect for the mamas who have had to fight for their babies while pregnant.”

The Kardashians star concluded her post by thanking God and counting her blessings. “Walking out of the hospital with my baby boy in my tummy and safe was the truest blessing,” she shared.

Blink-182 — who had been touring overseas — announced on Instagram Sept. 1 that the band was postponing shows in Ireland and Scotland. “Due to an urgent family matter, Travis has had to return home to the States,” the band said at the time without divulging further information about the situation.

Barker and Kardashian married in May 2022. She shares kids Mason, Penelope and Reign with ex-boyfriend Scott Disick; the drummer is dad to Landon and Alabama, and stepdad to Atiana with ex-wife Shanna Moakler.

The reality star announced her pregnancy to the world during Blink-182’s June 16 concert in Los Angeles. She shared the news by holding up a sign that read “Travis I’m Pregnant,” recreating a scene from the band’s music video for “All the Small Things.”

Read Kardashian’s announcement below:

After the anonymous artist Ghostwriter went viral with their A.I.-generated track “Heart on My Sleeve” — which mimics Drake and The Weeknd — earlier this year, representatives for the unknown act recently disclosed in an interview with The New York Times that they submitted the controversial song for next year’s Grammy awards. 

Submitted for best rap song and song of the year, “Heart on My Sleeve” was eligible despite the use of A.I. technology on the record, Harvey Mason, jr., CEO of the Recording Academy, told The New York Times. “As far as the creative side, it’s absolutely eligible because it was written by a human,” he noted.

Billboard has reached out to Drake and The Weeknd for comment. 

Last April, “Heart on My Sleeve” was pulled from streaming services after generating more than 600,000 plays on Spotify and 275,000 views on YouTube. Following the outrage, Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, TIDAL and Deezer yanked the song from their respective platforms. In a statement to Billboard, UMG denounced the track and usage of A.I. by saying the viral postings “demonstrate why platforms have a fundamental legal and ethical responsibility to prevent the use of their services in ways that harm artists.”

Mason told the paper that he sent Ghostwriter a direct message on social media after the song’s explosion and organized a virtual roundtable discussion with the Recording Academy to understand further the powers of A.I. Ghostwriter attended the meeting with a distorted voice, further hiding their identity. 

“I knew right away as soon as I heard that record that it was going to be something that we had to grapple with from an Academy standpoint, but also from a music community and industry standpoint,” said Mason. “When you start seeing A.I. involved in something so creative and so cool, relevant and of-the-moment, it immediately starts you thinking, ‘OK, where is this going? How is this going to affect creativity? What’s the business implication for monetization?’”

The Recording Academy announced Artificial Intelligence “protocols” earlier this year. “Only human creators are eligible to be submitted for consideration for, nominated for, or win a Grammy Award,” the Academy stipulated. “A work that contains no human authorship is not eligible in any category. The Academy may disqualify any entry in a particular category if it determines, in the Academy’s sole discretion, that such entry does not incorporate meaningful and more than de minimis human authorship that is relevant to such category. {The Academy offered a definition of that term: “De minimis is defined as lacking significance or importance, so minor as to merit disregard.”

On Tuesday (Sept. 5), Ghostwriter returned with a new A.I.-generated song titled “Whiplash,” featuring vocals that sound like Travis Scott and 21 Savage. The record mimics both artists and pokes fun at Ghostwriter’s detractors with lines such as “Me and Writer raise a toast/ Trying to shadowban my boy but you can’t kill a ghost.”

Billboard has reached out to reps for Scott and Savage. Listen to the song below.

Miley Cyrus has clearly been having a good time revisiting some of the peak moments of her long career in the ongoing TikTok video series “Used to Be Young.” She’s reminisced about not making a dime on her Bangerz tour, the real story behind the “stripper pole” during her 2009 Teen Choice performance and recalled how Beyoncé and Rihanna treated her like a “little sister” the year before.

But in the latest clip posted on Wednesday morning (Sept. 6), Miley said she wanted to get serious for a moment while discussing the dissolution of her marriage to actor Liam Hemsworth. She revealed that around the time she was getting ready to headline England’s Glastonbury Festival in June 2019, the decision had been made that “me and Liam’s commitment to being married, just really… came from of course a place of love first because we’d been together for 10 years,” she said in part 37 of the series.

But, Cyrus added, it also came from a place of “trauma and just trying to rebuild as quickly as we could.” Cyrus said the day of the show was the same day she decided that “it was no longer going to work in my life,” in reference to the couple’s marriage.

“That was another moment when the work, the performance, the character came first,” she added, noting that since that time she’s dedicated herself to not prioritizing those professional things over the personal. “The human comes first,” she said.

Cyrus, 30, and Hemsworth, 33, met while filming her movie The Last Song in 2010 and got married in 2018, the split in August 2019 after less than one year as man and wife. In a “Used to Be Young” video posted last week, she reacted to a photo in which she was kissing Hemsworth, which sparked memories about the origins of their love.

“I think one of the elements that made that movie feel so special was it was watching two very young people fall in love with each other, which was happening in real time and real life,” she said. “So, the chemistry was undeniable and that was the beginning of a long, 10-year relationship.”

Watch Cyrus talk about her divorce below.