Breach, the new album from Twenty One Pilots, tops this week’s fan-voted music poll. Music fans voted in a poll published Friday (Sept. 12) on Billboard, choosing the alt-rock duo’s latest LP as their favorite new release of the past week. Listeners […]
The 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards “In Memoriam” segment remembered the television industry talents who passed away over the past year with a poignant musical performance by Vince Gill and Lainey Wilson.
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Gill and Wilson brought a duet of Gill’s “Go Rest High on That Mountain” to the Emmys stage in Los Angeles, Calif., Sunday night (Sept. 14). The country vocalists harmonized on the chorus and traded lead on the song’s verses.
The tribute performance went on as the Emmys screen showed late performers and creatives including John Amos, Loni Anderson, Alan Bergman, Valerie Mahaffey, Julian McMahom, Quincy Jones, David Lynch, Ozzy Osbourne, Maggie Smith, Michelle Trachtenberg, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, George Wendt and more.
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“Go Rest High on That Mountain,” originally released in 1995 and the winner of two Grammys in 1996, marks its 30th anniversary this year with the release of an extended version of the song.Gill wrote “Go Rest High on That Mountain” following the death of Keith Whitley in 1989, and the death of his brother Bob in 1993.
Sunday’s “In Memoriam” performance at the 77th annual Emmy Awards — which were hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze and broadcast on CBS — included a third verse not heard on the original recording of “Go Rest High on That Mountain”: “You’re safely home in the arms of Jesus/ Eternal life my brother’s found/ The day will come I know I’ll see him/ In that sacred place, on that holy ground,” Gill sang.Gill first performed the song with its additional verse in 2019 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium with wife Amy Grant, later explaining that he’d “always felt like something was missing.”
The third verse is on Gill’s new recording of “Go Rest High on That Mountain” that was released this week, just ahead of the Emmys.
SNL50: The Anniversary Special won outstanding variety special (live) at the 2025 Primetime Emmys, beating an exceptionally high-powered field of nominees — The Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show Starring Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé Bowl, SNL50: The Homecoming Concert and The Oscars. The awards were held on Sunday (Sept. 14) at the Ovation Theater at L.A. Live. Comedian Nate Bargatze served as host.
Lorne Michaels, the show’s longtime executive producer, accepted the award by saying, “I won this award for the first time 50 years ago, in 1975. I was younger and I had a lot of dreams — and not one of those dreams was that I’d still be doing the same show for the next 50 years, however here we are. I want to thank NBC and Comcast for their support. The show was two years in the making.” [Editor’s Note: Michaels first won 49 years ago, in 1976.]
This was the 106th Primetime Emmy that SNL has won in competition, combining the flagship series and anniversary specials. That’s nearly twice as many Emmys as the runner-up show in total Emmy wins, Game of Thrones, with 59 awards. (SNL’s total does not count Hall of Fame citations to the show and its first-season cast.)
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This was the third SNL anniversary special to win a top program Emmy. Saturday Night Live: The 25th Anniversary Special won outstanding variety, music or comedy special in 2000. The Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special won outstanding variety special in 2015.
It’s rare for a special based on a regular TV program to win a top program Emmy. Three “Carpool Karaoke” specials based on the popular segment on The Late Late Show Starring James Corden won outstanding variety special (pre-recorded) from 2016 to 2019. In addition, five “Carpool Karaoke” specials won outstanding short-form program awards. The West Wing Documentary Special won outstanding special class program in 2002. Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear’s All in the Family and The Jeffersons won outstanding variety special (live) in 2019. A similar special, Live in Front of a Studio Audience: All in the Family and Good Times, won in the same category the following year.
Lorne Michaels was executive producer of SNL50: The Anniversary Special; it was his 24th Primetime Emmy (not counting his induction into the TV Hall of Fame in 1999).
Though she lost in the highest-profile variety category, Beyoncé won her first Primetime Emmy for Beyoncé Bowl prior to the main telecast — a juried award for outstanding costumes for variety, nonfiction or reality programming.
Likewise, though Kendrick Lamar lost in the highest-profile variety category, he won at the Creative Arts Emmys for outstanding music direction. He won in tandem with Tony Russell.
SNL50: The Anniversary Special featured several musical performances. Paul Simon and Sabrina Carpenter performed Simon & Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” as a cold open. Other performances were Miley Cyrus and Brittany Howard teaming on the Prince song “Nothing Compares 2 U” (a song also famously recorded by Sinéad O’Connor), Adam Sandler playing “50 Years” (which received an Emmy nod for outstanding music and lyrics at last weekend’s Creative Arts Emmys), Lil Wayne and The Roots performing a hip-hop medley, and Paul McCartney performing the prized closing sequence from The Beatles’ 1969 masterwork Abbey Road.
Though the anniversary special won eight awards, SNL lost outstanding scripted variety series to Last Week Tonight With John Oliver for the third year in a row. John Oliver’s program has won an outstanding series award for 10 consecutive years. It won outstanding variety talk series for seven years before being moved to its current category, where it has won for three straight years.
Hermeto Pascoal, the eccentric and prolific Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger known affectionately as “The Sorcerer of Sounds” and “The Mad Genius,” has died. He was 89.
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“With serenity and love, we announce that Hermeto Pascoal has passed on to the spiritual realm, surrounded by family and fellow musicians,” his family and team said in a statement late Saturday (Sept. 13) on Instagram.
The statement did not provide a cause of death or say where he had died.
Pascoal was an instantly recognizable figure with his mane of white hair and thick beard. He created music that defied fixed labels and blended jazz, samba, Brazilian popular music (MPB), bossa nova, chorinho and forro.
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An accomplished pianist, accordionist and flautist, Pascoal also used more unconventional objects to produce sounds, including pints of beer, dolls, body parts, tea cups, and — perhaps most famously — live pigs.
On his 1977 album Slaves Mass, Pascoal squeezed a piglet to make it squeal for the opening of a track. A photo of him with the animal in his arms appeared on its back cover.
Born on June 22, 1936, in Alagoas, a state in Brazil’s poor northeast, his albino condition allowed him to escape working in the fields under the harsh sun. He taught himself to play his father’s accordion instead.
At age 14, Pascoal moved with his family to the port city of Recife, where he continued to develop his skills and performed on local radio stations.He later headed to Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. During the 1960s, he worked with drummer and percussionist Airto Moreira, who took Pascoal on tour to the U.S., where he met Miles Davis. Pascoal played on Davis’ 1971 album Live-Evil.The meeting with Miles kickstarted an international career that continued well into Pascoal’s 80s.“I was born music; I haven’t done anything without music,” he told Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo in 2024. “What I write on a toilet bowl is as important as what I write on any paper, because music is sacred.”
As noted by the Barbican, a London venue where Pascoal was due to play in November, the artist was known as an “iconic Brazilian composer” who created more than 10,000 compositions.
Tributes for Pascoal poured in after the announcement of his death.
“Brazilian music and culture owe a great deal to Hermeto Pascoal,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil said Saturday on X. Pascoal’s “talent and tireless creativity (…) earned him international acclaim and influenced generations of musicians around the world,” he added.
Caetano Veloso said on Instagram that Pascoal is “one of the highest points in the history of music in Brazil.”
Pascoal leaves behind six children.
With the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack reaching No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated Sept. 20) after seven nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2, it completes the longest wait an album has endured in the runner-up spot before hitting No. 1 in nearly a half-century.
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The last No. 1 album to wait as long or longer at No. 2 before ascending to the top was Linda Ronstadt’s Simple Dreams in late 1977. The set debuted at No. 43 on the chart dated Sept. 24 of that year and then spent its next nine weeks locked at No. 2 (Oct. 1-Nov. 26) before finally hitting No. 1 on the Dec. 3 chart.
For all nine weeks Simple Dreams was at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 before hitting No. 1, it was blocked from the top by Fleetwood Mac’s monster hit Rumours, which spent a total of 31 nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 in 1977-78.
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The Simple Dreams album launched four top 40-charted hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including two top 10s. Its first single, “Blue Bayou,” hit No. 3, and was followed by “It’s So Easy” (No. 5), “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” (No. 31) and “Tumbling Dice” (No. 32). “Blue Bayou” also scored Ronstadt a pair of Grammy Award nominations, for record of the year (her only career nomination in the category) and best pop vocal performance, female.
Simple Dreams marked Ronstadt’s second of three No. 1s and spent five total weeks at No. 1, all consecutive (Dec. 3-31), the most weeks atop the list of her leaders. Heart Like a Wheel and Living in the USA each spent one week on top, in 1975 and 1978, respectively.
In Between Simple Dreams and KPop Demon Hunters, two albums spent nearly as lengthy a time at No. 2 before hitting No. 1 — and they were both by the same act. Celine Dion’s Falling Into You and Let’s Talk About Love both spent five weeks at No. 2 before climbing to No. 1, in 1996 and 1998, respectively.
On the Oct. 5, 1996 chart, Falling Into You rose 4-1, after having spent five nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2. Falling Into You became Dion’s first of five leaders and spent three nonconsecutive weeks on top. Before it hit No. 1, Falling Into You was blocked from the top by Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill for four of its weeks at No. 2 and Pearl Jam’s No Code for one week.
Dion’s next album, Let’s Talk About Love, also had five nonconsecutive weeks in the runner-up position before hitting No. 1. It climbed 2-1 on the Jan. 17, 1998, chart. Before it reached No. 1, Let’s Talk About Love was blocked from the top by Metallica’s ReLoad for one week and Garth Brooks’ Sevens for four weeks.
Let’s Talk About Love had great timing when it reached No. 1 for its one and only week atop the list. The week it hit No. 1, the Titanic soundtrack (which shared a song with Let’s Talk About Love in Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”) sailed 31-11. The next week, on the Jan. 24 chart, Titanic steamed 11-1, for its first of 16 weeks (all consecutive) at No. 1 (Jan. 24-May 9). For 12 of those weeks, Let’s Talk About Love was No. 2 behind Titanic.
With all this talk of albums spending a long time at No. 2 before reaching No. 1, one might be wondering what album holds the record for the most weeks at No. 2 without going to No. 1. The answer is Stray Cats’ Built for Speed, which spent 15 weeks at its No. 2 peak in 1982-83. It was blocked from No. 1 by Men at Work’s Business as Usual (13 weeks) and Michael Jackson’s Thriller (two weeks).
It’s free Billboard charts month! Through Sept. 30, subscribers to Billboard’s Chart Beat newsletter, emailed each Friday, can unlock access to Billboard’s weekly and historical charts, artist chart histories and all Chart Beat stories simply by visiting the newly redesigned Billboard.com through any story link in the newsletter. Not a Chart Beat subscriber? Sign up for free here.
Bobby Hart, a key part of the the Monkees’ multimedia empire who teamed with Tommy Boyce on such hits as “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone,” has died. He was 86.
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Hart died at his home in Los Angeles, according to his friend and co-author Glenn Ballantyne. He had been in poor health since breaking his hip last year.
Boyce and Hart were a prolific and successful team in the mid-1960s, especially for the Monkees, the made-for-television group promoted by Don Kirshner. They wrote the Monkees’ theme song, with its opening shot, “Here we come, walkin’ down the street,” and its enduring chant, “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees,” and their first No. 1 hit, “Last Train to Clarksville.” The Monkees’ eponymous, million-selling debut album included six songs from Boyce and Hart, who also served as producers and used their own backing musicians, the Candy Store Prophets, as session players.
“I always credit them not only with writing many of our biggest hits, but, as producers, being instrumental in creating the unique Monkee sound we all know and love,” the Monkees’ Micky Dolenz wrote in a foreword to Hart’s memoir, Psychedelic Bubblegum, published in 2015.
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As Boyce and Hart grew in fame and the Monkees took more control of their work, they pursued their own careers, releasing the albums Test Patterns and I Wonder What She’s Doing Tonite and appearing on such sitcoms as I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched. They also were politically active. They campaigned for Robert F. Kennedy when he ran for president in 1968 and wrote the brassy “L.U.V. (Let Us Vote)” in support of the 26th Amendment, which in 1971 lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. Their other songs included the Monkees’ melancholy “I Wanna Be Free” and the theme to the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives.
They were covered by everyone from Dean Martin (“Little Lovely One”) to the Sex Pistols (“I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”).
In the 1970s and ‘80s, Hart managed several hits with other collaborators and even contributed material to another TV act, the Partridge Family. He worked with Austin Roberts on “Over You,” an Oscar-nominated ballad performed by Betty Buckley in “Tender Mercies,” and with Dick Eastman on “My Secret (Didja Gitit Yet?)” for New Edition. He and Bryce toured with Dolenz and fellow Monkee Davy Jones in the ‘70s, put out the album Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart and received renewed attention when the Monkees enjoyed a comeback in the 1980s.
Boyce, who died in 1994, and Hart were the subjects of a 2014 documentary The Guys Who Wrote ‘Em. Hart was married twice, most recently to singer Mary Ann Hart, and had two children from his first marriage.
He was a minister’s son, born Robert Luke Harshman in Phoenix, Arizona. In his memoir, he remembered himself as a shy kid with a “strong desire to distinguish” himself, as he wrote in Psychedelic Bubblegum. Music was the answer. By high school, he had learned piano, guitar and the Hammond B-3 organ. He also started his own amateur radio station, eventually adding a console, turntables and microphones. After graduating from high school and serving in the Army reserves, he settled in Los Angeles in the late 1950s, hoping first to become a disc jockey, but soon working as a songwriter and session musician. His name shortened to Bobby Hart, he toured as a member of Teddy Randazzo and the Dazzlers, and with Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein wrote “Hurt So Bad,” a hit for Little Anthony and the Imperials later covered by Linda Ronstadt.
He also befriended Boyce, a singer and songwriter from Charlottesville, Virginia, with a “very unusual personality, spontaneous and extroverted, yet very cool at the same time.” Boyce and Hart helped write the top 10 hit “Come a Little Bit Closer” for Jay and the Americans and were a strong enough combination that Kirshner recruited them for his Screen Gems songwriting factory: They were assigned to the Monkees. Asked to come up with songs for a quartet openly modeled on the Beatles, they devised a twangy guitar line similar to the one for “Paperback Writer” and wrote “Last Train to Clarksville,” a chart topper in 1966. When Kirshner suggested a song with a girl’s name in the title, they turned out “Valleri” and reached the top 5.
For the show’s theme song, a stroll outside was enough.
“Boyce began strumming his guitar and I joined in by snapping my fingers & making noises with my mouth that simulated an open & closed hi-hat cymbal,” Hart wrote in his memoir. “We had created the perfect recipe for inspiration and started singing about just what we were doing: ‘Walkin’ down the street.’”
With 16 shows already under his belt for the North America leg of his Breezy Bowl XX Tour, Chris Brown landed in Los Angeles Saturday night (Sept. 13) for the first of a two-date stand at SoFi Stadium. And during the two-time Grammy winner’s 2 ½-hour set, Brown proved once more what a consummate artist/performer he’s become as he celebrates 20 years in music with his legion of fans.
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From the moment Brown rose up onstage to a standing ovation — buttressed by resounding cheers and shout-outs — to when he triumphantly exited alongside his team of masterful dancers, he kept the audience engaged the entire time. As noted by Billboard and in other media coverage since the tour’s U.S. leg kicked off on July 30 in Miami, Brown’s show is comprised of four acts complemented by various video segments, album cover images and photo flashbacks: Rise, Fall (during which Brown is seen on video addressing his legal issues over the years), Fantasy and Legacy. The most moving montage came towards the show’s end, in which Brown is seen interacting with his three children.
During each of the acts, an indefatigable Brown performs key songs associated with those time periods in his career. Drawing from an estimable catalog of 50+ hits and fan faves, the set list ranges from “Run It!” (his first Hot 100 No. 1 in 2005), “Gimme That” and “Ayo” to “Deuces,” “She Ain’t You,” “Kiss Kiss” and other points in between. Among the songs garnering raves and raucous sing-alongs from Saturday night’s audience were “Loyal,” “She Ain’t You,” “Under the Influence,” “Yeah 3x,” “No Guidance” and “Sensational.”
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Brown’s agile tenor-to-falsetto vocals remain just as supple as his still superlative dancing skills. He was in constant motion throughout the show: whirling, twirling and twisting in tandem with maneuvering fleet-footed, endlessly smooth moves that defy the eyes — reminiscent of Michael Jackson, whose Bad album image was featured on one of the T-shirts that Brown wore during his performance. Just as fluid were the moves being made by his team of female and male dancers, who helped maintain the evening’s high energy level.
As did the rabid fans who packed SoFi Stadium from its rafters to the ground floor. Their excitement and pre-show anticipation were palpable prior to the 8:25 p.m. start time. Long lines of fans stretched in front of the merch booth, while others cruised throughout the stadium to their seats and elsewhere in the venue wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Brown’s visage. Also adding to the anticipation: a giant balloon rendering of Brown stationed alongside the stage.
On either side of the stage were giant video screens which gave everyone in the venue a bird’s-eye view of Brown and his crew. Brown made engaging his fans a top priority, playing both the main stage but also working his way up and down a catwalk that midway along stretched into two long side extensions for him and his dancers to do their thing. At one point during the Fantasy act, Brown donned a harness and flew high over the crowd to perform on a platform located at the other end of the venue.
Admirably holding their own — and demonstrating how they’ve leveled up over the course of their own careers — were opening acts Summer Walker and Bryson Tiller. Also playing a key role was DJ Fresh, whose pre-show appearance set the tone for the evening as he took fans down memory lane with tracks by Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Too $hort and Selena while simultaneously pumping up anticipation with the query, “Where are my day-one Chris Brown fans?”
Acknowledging his fans before leaving the stage at 10:55 p.m., Brown said, in part, and to more cheers, “California, I just want to thank you all. I call this my home too. You’ve always come out and showed your support. I’m just really appreciative and thankful for everybody in this building tonight … I love you all so much.”
The one clear takeaway after the show: 20 years later, Chris Brown is still having fun — and has no intention of slowing down.
Marking Brown’s first stadium tour, Breezy Bowl XX kicked off in Europe in early June and wrapped its international leg in Paris in July. After launching its North American leg in Miami on July 30, Breezy Bowl concludes its two-night stand in Los Angeles Sunday, Sept. 14, then heads to San Diego (Sept. 17) and other stops, including Denver (Sept. 24), Atlanta (Oct. 3) and Washington, D.C. (Oct. 8), before closing in Memphis (Oct. 18).
Ariana Grande has released a statement to fans regarding concert ticket resellers after the North American dates of her 2026 Eternal Sunshine Tour went on sale, and quickly sold out, earlier this week on Ticketmaster. Though face value tickets are […]
As her wedding date with Benny Blanco nears, Selena Gomez mentioned her future children in an appearance on Amy Poehler’s podcast.
Chatting on this week’s episode of Good Hang With Amy Poehler, Gomez named the movie she plans to make her kids watch someday.
Gomez congratulated the comedian on her work portraying Joy in Disney and Pixar’s Inside Out and Inside Out 2, sharing that the animated movie franchise’s sequel — which introduces Anxiety (the character and emotion) into 13-year-old protagonist Riley’s life — had her in tears. In fact, the singer/actress/businesswoman thinks Inside Out 2 should be required viewing for all kids — including her own.
“I watched it with my sister and I completely sobbed because it’s so factual … I almost feel like it should have been a requirement in school to watch that as a homework assignment,” Gomez said on the podcast’s Sept. 9 episode. She added that Gracie, her 12-year-old sister, also cried. (Watch the full episode below.)
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“There’s that kind of heartbreak that happens when Anxiety moves in,” Poehler agreed. “No matter the age, you’re either feeling it in real time as a young person, [or] you’re remembering that feeling as a person in your 30s or 40s or 50s and above when your paint set got some darker colors in it. It’s part of growing up, but it’s brutal.”
“It is. I’m gonna make my children watch it,” said Gomez, who’s not a parent now, but is getting ready for her upcoming nuptials to Blanco, clarified that thought: “Not yet.”
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“I know, I know they don’t exist yet, but I can’t wait,” Poehler replied amid squeals of wanting to see Selena with a baby.
“They don’t,” said Gomez.
Her future children popped up again in conversation. The I Said I Love You First singer, who also stars in Only Murders in the Building and runs cosmetics company Rare Beauty, says she has a hard time telling people “no,” but that might change “when I have kids.”
“I feel like I owe a lot of people in the world any sort of smile, hug, picture, so it’s very hard,” Gomez explained. “When I don’t do it, I promise you it’s because I’m either really having a hard time dealing with my anxiety, or I’m late, which I try not to be. But in general, it’s a lot — ‘cause I love doing it. I think about it too much. I’ll think about if I missed that one person. It can get crazy in my head.”
“I feel protective of you,” Poehler told her. “As a women that is older … I think that any woman in her 30s is doing that thing where they’re trying to figure out, basically, what is expensive for me with energy? You start protecting it.”
Gomez responded, “I think that’ll happen moreso if I, when I, have kids. I’ll probably put more boundaries up for the sake of the sanity of, you know, what that will look like.”
Before the interview, Poehler talked to Only Murders co-star Martin Short about Gomez, who raved about working with her and described what it’s like when the horde of paparazzi turns up while the pop star’s filming scenes on the streets of New York City.
“When Selena joins us, there’s about 120 paparazzi and they’re there all day,” Short told Poehler. “I’m sure they’re just waiting for her to fall or stumble or [be] mean — therefore they could make more money from it. That’s been her life. She does have security on the streets — we all do — but she’s so lovely with them and they’ve been in her life so long. The only time I ever saw her get a little stern is when they were a little abrupt to like this 14-year-old fan of hers, and she goes, ‘Never do that.’ You can’t fault her.”
Meanwhile Gomez recounted one particular on-set incident caught on camera while filming season two: “Someone said a vile word to someone else, and it was a photographer … I just looked at him and I gave him the finger. There’s just one shot of me [giving the finger]. And he missed it. He’s not even the one who got it. The other people started laughing, and I was like, I don’t even care. I’m just so … I can’t tolerate this kind of stuff. But then they want that kind of reaction, so I’m like, damnit.”
Poehler shrugged it off: “One finger in 33 years?”
“There’s probably been a couple more,” Gomez admitted.
“We can probably find them,” Poehler quipped.
The pop artist’s long debut LP is purposeful, tender and bold – a declaration of intent that should resonate far beyond her fanbase.
9/12/2025
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