Will Jennings, a distinguished Grammy and Oscar-winning songwriter and lyricist, has died at the age of 80. No cause of death was publicly announced, although Jennings had apparently been ill for quite some time. Jennings will be remembered for co-writing two emotional Academy Award-winning anthems, “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic that was recorded by Céline Dion (which also won Grammys for Song of the Year and Record of the Year), and “Up Where We Belong” from An Officer and a Gentleman, which was sung by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. Jennings also co-wrote Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” from the movie Rush, which earned Will a Golden Globe for Best Original Song as well as Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

Jennings also worked with Whitney Houston, Steve Winwood, Dionne Warwick, Barry Manilow, and Tim McGraw, among others, writing two No. 1 hits with Winwood, “Higher Love” and “Roll WIth It,” while also writing the lyrics for Warwick’s Grammy winning song, "I'll Never Love This Way Again.” Jennings was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, and was also a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. (Variety)

On Friday (September 6), Jennifer Hudson revealed the details of her first-ever holiday album, The Gift of Love, which will be released on October 18. The 42-year-old EGOT winner made the announcement with a holiday-themed Instagram video that features Hudson singing a soulful rendition of the Christmas classic, “Jingle Bells,” while placing presents under the tree. Hudson captioned her post, “The Gift of Love ♥️ My first-ever holiday album will be out 10/18! I cannot wait for it to be yours!” The clip also reveals the album’s cover art featuring Hudson wearing a shimmering gown, while stating that this year, “Holiday Season starts October 18, 2024.”

The Gift of Love is Hudson’s first album in ten years, dating back to 2014’s JHUD, as well as her first release on Interscope Records. The singer covers seasonal favorites like “The Christmas Song,” “O Holy Night,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “My Favorite Things,” and “Auld Lang Syne,” alongside her own original numbers. Hudson teams up with her boyfriend Common for a duet on her new song, “Almost Christmas,” while she’s joined by the South African quintet The Joy on the holiday standard, “Carol of the Bells.” (People)

Travis Scott‘s team is publicly disputing the overall chart placement of the rapper’s mixtape Days Before Rodeo, which came in at No. 2 behind Sabrina Carpenter‘s No. 1 album Short ‘n Sweet on last week’s Billboard 200. Scott’s team says that Billboard and Luminate’s sales measurement is “unreliable and incomplete,” while alleging that nearly 1,300 units of Days Before Rodeo that sold ahead of the cutoff time were ultimately not counted toward the first week’s sales. The letter was sent by an unnamed rep at Cactus Jack Records to Luminate, with claims that Scott (who recorded slightly over 361,000 sales) would have sold just enough units to edge out Carpenter’s 362,000 sales to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.

“This was never about Travis versus Sabrina — it’s about the integrity of the process and the questionable tactics used in U.S. charting,” said a representative for Scott. “This could happen to any artist.” A spokesperson for Billboard told Rolling Stone that they “stand behind our chart data and methodology.” (Rolling Stone)

Sabrina Carpenter’s Short n’ Sweet remains on top of the Billboard 200 chart for a second week, after debuting at No. 1 a week ago. Short n’ Sweet had a big second week, with the album earning 159,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. Only three other albums have topped Carpenter’s second week sales total In the past 12 months: Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department tallied 439,000 units, Swift’s 1989 (Taylor’s Version) earned 245,000, and Drake’s For All the Dogs moved 164,000. Two notable debuts reached the Billboard 200 Top 10 this week, as LE SSERAFIM’s CRAZY opens at No. 7, while Destroy Lonely’s Love Lasts Forever enters at No. 10.

The rest of the Billboard 200 Top 5 is filled out by Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion moving up one spot to No. 2, Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess rising up a slot to No. 3, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time jumping up at spot to No. 4, and Swift’s former No. 1 The Tortured Poets Department climbing up one spot to return to the Top 5 at No. 5. (Billboard)

Following his guest appearance during Dr. Dre’s Super Bowl halftime performance in Los Angeles in 2022, Kendrick Lamar will now headline his own halftime show during Super Bowl LIX at the Superdome in New Orleans on February 9, 2025. The announcement was made by the NFL, Roc Nation, and Apple Music only hours before the first Sunday of the 2024 NFL season kicked off. “Rap music is still the most impactful genre to date. And I’ll be there to remind the world why,” Lamar said in a statement. “They got the right one.” Jay-Z, whose Roc Nation is co-producer of the halftime show, added, “Kendrick Lamar is truly a once-in-a-generation artist and performer." (Rolling Stone)

During a recent episode of Nova 96.9's Fitzy and Wippa with Kate Ritchie in Sydney, Australia, Keith Urban was busy praising Miley Cyrus when he paid the Grammy-winning singer a strange compliment. Urban had just performed a cover of Cyrus’ hit song, “Flowers,” on the show, and the 56-year-old country superstar then gushed about how he has "always loved Miley,” before going on to say this about her. "I love that voice, man, that voice. She sounds like an ashtray. And I mean that as a compliment. She sounds like the carpet at the RSL!” Later in the interview, Urban discussed the authenticity of some new country artists currently flourishing in Nashville. "It's a funny thing because you still need the support of the system in Nashville,” Urban said. “And if you go about it the right way, like Post [Malone] did, you'll see the love.” (People)

The 2025 Stagecoach Festival is set to take place from April 25-27 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California, with headliners Luke Combs, Jelly Roll, and Zach Bryan. This will be the first time that Bryan and Jelly Roll will headline the main stage, while Combs will headline for the first time since 2022. Lana Del Rey is also featured on the lineup, and she famously joined Paul Cauthen at this year’s festival for a duet of “Unchained Melody.” LDR might even perform songs from her forthcoming country album, Lasso, at the fest.

The rest of the lineup features an eclectic mix of acts like Shaboozey, Sturgill Simpson, Backstreet Boys, Nelly, Creed, T-Pain, Brothers Osborne, Midland, and Sammy Hagar. “Last year I got to play Stagecoach for the first time and it was incredible,” Jelly Roll said in a statement. “And I didn’t just get to play. I got to hang out as a fan of artists I love and take my daughter to see some of the best entertainers in our format. Coming back to headline Stagecoach this year is a dream-but I’ll be attending as a fan this year as well, so get ready. See you in April.” (Billboard)

One week before Usher was set to give one of the biggest performances of his life at the Super Bowl Halftime Show at Allegiant Stadium on February 11, the R&B superstar found out that the custom made Jordan 4s he requested wouldn’t be ready in time. So, Usher turned instead to the famous custom sneaker designer, Dominic “The Surgeon” Ciambrone, to come to his rescue and save the show. The pair initially met through their mutual friend Lil Jon, and Ciambrone was already working with Usher to design his sneaker roller skates that he would wear during a portion of the performance, so he handled Usher’s new request in stride.

“I’m like, ‘Yeah, easy,'” Ciambrone recalls. “I think we had a week to do everything — and that shoe was incredibly difficult. The chrome material needed to shine so bright, and we remade that pair of shoes 20 times. We finished Saturday night before the Super Bowl, and a friend of mine drove it from L.A. to Vegas straight to me. It was a beautiful moment for me and my team, because we work so hard on these projects. I don’t think people understand how difficult this is.” (Billboard)

Chappell Roan noticed that tickets for her upcoming concert at FirstBank Amphitheater in Franklin, Tennessee sold out suspiciously quickly, and the breakout pop superstar decided to do something about it. Roan posted a video to X on Wednesday (September 4), expressing her frustration about all of the scalpers who bought up so many of the tickets to her October 1st show, preventing a lot of her true fans from securing tickets to see her perform.

“Scalpers and bots just bought up all the tickets, so we went through and canceled all the scalper tickets we could,” Roan said in the video. “So, from that, we’re gonna release a limited number of tickets to you because I want to make sure that tickets go to people who actually want to come and, like, are fans. I genuinely am so pissed about the scalper situation and think that people actually deserve to get to my show. This is a larger issue. We’re dealing with it. But thank you for understanding, and I cannot wait to see people who deserve to be here. It means everything to me.” In addition to upcoming dates on The Midwest Princess Tour, Roan is also set to perform at the MTV VMAs on September 11. (Uproxx)

Spotify has won a prolonged lawsuit claiming that Eminem’s music was streamed illegally “billions” of times on the platform. Eminem's publisher, Eight Mile Style, had initially sued Spotify back in 2019, claiming that the music streaming service had failed to get proper licenses for hundreds of the rapper’s songs. The judge wrote that Eight Mile knew for years that its songs were being played on Spotify, but had chosen to do nothing in order to build a more lucrative legal case against them.

“Eight Mile Style was not a hapless victim,” Judge Aleta A. Trauger wrote. “While Spotify’s handling of composer copyrights appears to have been seriously flawed, any right to recover damages based on those flaws belongs to those innocent rights holders who were genuinely harmed, not ones who, like Eight Mile Style, had every opportunity to set things right and simply chose not to do so for no apparent reason, other than that being the victim of infringement pays better than being an ordinary licensor.” Eight Mile Style has not publicly commented on the decision, while Eminem himself was not involved in the case. (Rolling Stone)

Lady Gaga is finally set to share the first full track from her forthcoming solo project, which the 13-time Grammy winner and her Little Monsters have taken to calling LG7. The first single from Gaga’s new album will arrive sometime in October, while LG7 will be released in February of 2025. In a post on X revealing Gaga’s busy itinerary surrounding her upcoming co-starring role in Joker: Folie à Deux, a tantalizing line at the end of the document reads, “XX October: LG7 first single.”

And in a recent interview with Vogue, Gaga disclosed that her new album will be out early next year, saying her new work is a mix of sadness and joy. “There’s a lot of pain associated with this adventure. And when I start to explore that pain it can bring out another side to my artistry,” Gaga shared. “ When I’m here at this studio [Rick Rubin’s Shangri-La], I’m relaxed and I am able to face my demons and what’s remarkable is… that’s the music. I’m able to hear it back. I feel like this new album, in a lot of ways, is about that time but from a place of happiness instead of misery.” (Billboard) 

Paula Abdul has announced that her Straight Up! To Canada Tour has been canceled. The 21-city trek was set to start on September 25 in Victoria, British Columbia, with scheduled opening acts Taylor Dayne and Tiffany. Abdul also revealed her shows in Anchorage on September 21 and Fargo on October 12 are off. The two-time Grammy winner made the announcement on Instagram on Wednesday (September 4). “

It’s with an incredibly heavy heart that I need to share with you an update regarding some injuries I’ve recently sustained,” Abdul shared. “In an effort to keep going, I’ve received targeted injections that will allow me temporary relief, but the demands of an entire tour is a different story. I’ve been advised that one of my injuries requires a minor procedure followed by a 6-8 week recovery time, therefore it will prohibit me from proceeding with the Straight Up! To Canada Tour as well as the dates in Alaska and North Dakota. I want to extend my deepest apologies to all my amazing fans in Canada and the US, you mean the world to me and this truly breaks my heart.” Rescheduled dates have not been announced. (People)

Morgan Wade released her new album, Obsessed, on August 16. But the songs didn’t start out as something meant for a record. "As long as I can remember it was me writing songs for myself and that is what this was," Wade disclosed. “I didn't know what I was doing with these songs. I just know I was writing, and I was bringing songs from the past back to life.” One of those songs is a powerful collaboration with Kesha on “Walked on Water,” which Wade says is about “a killing of the ego.”

Wade had been a fan of Kesha’s since she was 15, and has tried to work with her for years. Finally, they were introduced in Los Angeles through a mutual friend, and Wade said the collaboration came naturally. "We just met and sat on the beach," she said. "Then we went to the studio that night. She sang the second verse of 'Walk on Water' and I was like, 'I cannot believe this is actually happening.' She is just such a powerhouse. The fact that she would come sing on something of mine in this new time for her, I was super honored." (People)

During a recent episode of Drink Champs, DJ Spinderella disclosed that Salt-N-Pepa were once warned that they would be arrested if they performed their Top 20 Billboard Hot 100 hit, “Push It.” The rap group’s former DJ said the threat of arrest was due to what venue executives and event organizers perceived were sexually explicit lyrics in the song.

“It was not a sexual song,” Spinderella shared. “We were literally talking about dancing on the dance floor. And people took that and took it the other way, and it actually worked for us. Being on stage and being told that, ‘If you play that song here, you can get arrested.’ So, there were times where that was almost the case. And somehow, we got to a point where we just had to convince everybody that this is not about what you think it’s about. And that is the truth.” Sandra “Pepa” Denton echoed Spinderella’s sentiments about the controversy surrounding “Push It” to Page Six back in 2021. “We were saying ‘push it,’ they thought we were saying, ‘Pu**y, real good.’ So the police were waiting for us,” Pepa told the tabloid. (Billboard)

Sade‘s first new song in more than six years is set to be released this November, as her track, “Young Lion,” is set to appear on the TRAИƧA benefit album coming from the Red Hot organization. Sade will be featured alongside an impressive list of artists on the sprawling 46-track concept album, which will also include music from Sam Smith, André 3000, Julien Baker, Fleet Foxes, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Laura Jane Grace, Devendra Banhart, Bartees Strange, Faye Webster, Moses Sumney, Hunter Schafer, Arthur Baker, Teddy Geiger, and more.

The reclusive Sade has not released a full-length album since 2010’s Soldier of Love, while her most recent singles are both from 2018 soundtracks, “Flower of the Universe” from A Wrinkle in Time and “The Big Unknown” from Widows. The TRAИƧA compilation features new songs, covers, and exclusive tracks, with sales of the album going to support trans awareness and causes. According to the press release, the project started to come together in 2021, and is one of the most ambitious projects from the Red Hot non-profit, which has raised more than $15 million since 1989 to benefit HIV/AIDS relief and awareness. (Billboard) 

After Halsey launched a global, five-city scavenger hunt to reveal the album artwork for her forthcoming album, The Great Impersonator, the three-time Grammy nominee shared the release date for her record as a reward for her dedicated fans. On Tuesday (September 3), Halsey posted on X, sharing details of the scavenger hunt where fans in London, New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, and Sydney would discover the cover art for her record along with four variants featuring different photos of Halsey in era-specific wardrobes, hairstyle, and makeup from the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s.

“My next trick is not mine at all. It’s yours,” she wrote. “Tomorrow, you will reveal the album cover for ‘The Great Impersonator’ along with four variants." And today, Halsey disclosed that her highly anticipated album will arrive at the end of next month. “My 5th studio album “The Great Impersonator” coming October 25th. I made this record in the space between life and death. And it feels like I’ve waited an eternity for you to have it. I’ll wait a bit longer. I’ve waited a decade, already.” (Billboard)

The Weeknd has just revealed that his forthcoming studio album will be titled, Hurry Up Tomorrow. The musician, whose real name is Abel Tesfaye, disclosed details of his new record in a lengthy, cinematic statement on Instagram on Wednesday (September 4). Hurry Up Tomorrow will serve as the final installment of the Weeknd’s current musical trilogy, following 2020’s After Hours and 2022’s Dawn FM.

“Yesterday was fourteen years ago… We held our breath, falling into a shimmering sea in the after hours of the night… Attempted to cleanse the wounds with melodies and lights, a bulletproof bandage to shield what lies beneath,” the Weeknd’s scrolling text on Instagram disclosed.  “More songs could help, but what do I have left to say? Woe is me in my gilded cage, right? The very thing that once made me invincible failed me on the world stage. A new trauma surfaced, opening floodgates. A new path awaits. When today ends, I’ll discover who I am.”

No specific release date for Hurry Up Tomorrow has been disclosed as of yet, but Tesfaye had previously stated that his upcoming record will mark his final release under the Weeknd moniker. (Rolling Stone)

Justin Bieber just celebrated the birth of his first child, and now it has been revealed that the pop superstar is back in the studio. In a new interview in the New York Times, celebrated indie musician Mk.gee disclosed that he has recently been in the recording studio with Bieber, and he’s impressed with the results of their collaborations. “He’s searching,” he said. “Anything that comes out of his mouth: That’s pop music. You can really do pretty wild stuff behind that, just because it represents something.”

But Mk.gee shared that the sound he is after isn’t specifically pop music, but rather, “the promise of pop music… Experimentalism has no meaning unless it’s done on the grandest scale," he said. "I just don’t want to join somebody else’s citadel. I want to build my own thing, my own castle with my friends, because that’s what’s needed. And if people want to come, they can come.” Bieber hasn’t released a new studio album since 2021’s Justice, while he and his wife Hailey just welcomed the arrival of their first child, a baby boy named Jack Blues, last month. (Stereogum)

Internet hype was building around the possibility that actress Emma Roberts would portray Britney Spears in the biopic adaptation of the singer’s best-selling memoir, The Woman In Me. But on Friday (August 30), the pop star shared a message on Instagram that disclosed that she is apparently involved in an upcoming film project, but it is not her biopic. “The project I might be doing isn’t a biopic story … it’s a fictional musical where I play an extremely intelligent character 😉 !!!,” Spears wrote in the contradictory post. “It’s flattering to be in such good company like Jon Chu !!!”

Universal Pictures reportedly won a bidding war to adapt Spears’ memoir into a film, with Wicked director Jon M. Chu and Marc Platt apparently leading the development of the film. Last month, Spears revealed on X that she’s been working on a “secret project” with Platt, writing, “Excited to share with my fans that I've been working on a secret project with #MarcPlatt. He’s always made my favorite movies … stay tuned 🌹🎥” No official casting or development timeline has been announced for the biopic or Spears’ “fictional musical” at this time. (Billboard)

Back in 2023, Imagine Dragons recorded a song called “Children of the Sky” for the video game Starfield. The Las Vegas pop rock band has yet to play the song live on their current Loom World Tour because they are apparently saving it for a special occasion. “Children Of The Sky” is set to make its live debut at Imagine Dragons’ upcoming Hollywood Bowl show on October 27, with the special one-night-only performance featuring accompaniment from the Los Angeles Film Orchestra led by composer Inon Zur. Then things get truly interesting. The song will then be “transmitted back to Earth from the surface of the Moon as part of Lonestar’s Freedom Mission flying with Intuitive Machines to the South Lunar Pole in early 2025,” according to a press release. “Our goal is to inspire the next generation of kids to be excited about the future of space and technology, which is why we chose ‘Children of the Sky’ as the first song in history to be broadcast from the Moon,” said Ryan Micheletti, an investor in Lonestar. (Uproxx)