Andrick Cantos
Demi Lovato finds a confident stride with “Low Rise Jeans,” the latest release in the pop veteran’s dance era.
The fresh cut dropped at midnight, not long after she road-tested it early in the set of her It’s Not That Deep Tour opener Monday (April 13) at Orlando’s Kia Center.
“Low Rise Jeans” has the type of production that screams for commercial radio airplay. Produced and co-written with Zhone, it’s pop with a punch, a retro twist and a hip-hop sensibility.
On it she sings: “I’m in my low-rise jeans/ You don’t need your imagination/ In my see-through tee/ I can feel your anticipation.”
On that Florida date, the first stop on her 18-date, arena-headlining tour of North America, Lovato brought out besties Selena Gomez and guest performer Joe Jonas, and played her latest release over the arena’s speakers at night’s end.
Lovato has marked this year out another major career outing, both on the road, the airwaves, and in film. She stars opposite Golden Globe winner Rose Byrne in the drama Tow, which hit select U.S. theaters on March 20, and she’s also executive producing Camp Rock 3, which is expected to debut on Disney+ this summer.
The It’s Not That Deep Tour is in support of Lovato’s 2025 album of the same name. Following its release last October, the collection bowed at No. 9 on the Billboard 200, for her ninth top 10 appearance on the all-genres albums chart.
The new jam will be housed on her deluxe album release, It’s Not That Deep (Unless You Want It To Be), due out next Friday, April 24. Released via DLG Recordings/Island/Republic Records, It’s Not That Deep earned Lovato her first No. 1 album on Billboard’s Top Dance Albums chart, opening at the summit.
The tour continues Saturday, April 18 in Philadelphia, PA.
Stream “Low Rise Jeans” below.
Billboard’s Friday Music Guide serves as a handy guide to New Music Friday’s most essential releases each week — the key music that everyone will be talking about today, and that will be dominating playlists this weekend and beyond.
Last week, we featured Lady Gaga & Doechii, The Strokes and KATSEYE.
This week, Olivia Rodrigo swerves wtih her third album’s misleadingly titled first single, sombr straps on the vocoder, Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize make their partnership streaming-official — plus much more. Check out all of this week’s picks below.
Olivia Rodrigo, “Drop Dead”
Few artists can command as much attention and interest with the start of a new album era as Olivia Rodrigo, whose sense of quality control and purposefulness with her music is almost without peer among the new pop star class of this decade. So all eyes and ears will certainly be on “Drop Dead” this week, as the first taste of June’s upcoming You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love LP. And despite having a title that would seem to place it in line with the furious heartbreak of prior lead singles “Drivers License” and “Vampire,” “Drop Dead” quickly turns out to be a misdirect: The song is a lush and swoony but still propulsive love song about a first-night’s infatuation (as in “Kiss me and I might drop dead”), with The Cure’s namechecked (and previously Rodrigo-covered) “Just Like Heaven” providing its guiding light. The new sound and vibe should get fans even more pumped for OR3, and seems all but certain to be one of the year’s biggest and most acclaimed pop-rock songs.
sombr, “Potential”
sombr debuted his new single at his then-untitled Weekend One Coachella performance, flanked with a number of ballerinas (who he referred to as the “sombrinas”), teasing that the song would be out Apr. 17. Well, here we are, and here it is: “Potential” features more of the discofied sound sombr has been exploring since last year’s hit “12 to 12,” with more heartbroken lyrics, a callback to his 2025 mega-success (“It was a difficult breakup/ But I wrote some songs that got me famous”) and some Random Access Memories Daft Punk-style vocoder warbling. Another winner, basically. (And yes, that is The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s Gavin Casegano starring alongside sombr and U.K. influencer Madeline Argy in the video; guy just can’t keep himself away from love triangle situations.)
Nine Inch Noize, Nine Inch Noize
If you couldn’t make it out to the desert to catch Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize‘s collaborative set as Nine Inch Noize at Coachella last weekend, no worries — you’ve got one more chance to catch them this Saturday. And failing that, we’ve also now got Nine Inch Noize, the self-titled team-up album that essentially recreates the set they delivered to the rabid Sahara Tent crowd on Saturday, with audible fan noise to help convey the live excitement. The tracklist includes new spins on NIN classics like “Closer” and “Copy of A,” as well as on fan favorites like “She’s Gone Away” and the Soft Cell cover “Memorabilia,” and closes with “As Alive as You Need Me to Be” from TRON: Ares, the teamup’s 2025 rock airplay hit. “Listen LOUD,” NIN’s Trent Reznor advises in a press release, and rightly so.
Lana Del Rey, “First Light”
A Lana Del Rey James Bond theme?? Well…. sort of. “First Light” is LDR’s theme to the new Bond video game of the same name, with no accompanying film yet in the offing. Still, don’t expect her to pull up short on the epicness as a result: “First Light” goes impossibly hard with the strings, trumpets and overall drama, as Del Rey really sinks her teeth into the part — even having fun with the video game soundtrack part of it, with lyrics like “Dying just to know whether you’ll play your life like a game,” and a constant refrain of her asking “Will you play?” We’re kind of intrigued, now.
Tyla feat. Zara Larsson, “She Did It Again”
“Close enough, welcome back ‘Can’t Remember to Forget You’” reads the top comment on the r/Popheads thread for the new Tyla and Zara Larsson collab “She Did It Again.” It makes sense as a comp to the Shakira and Rihanna near-classic, both with the geographically disparate teamup of South African star Tyla with Swedish phenom Zara Larsson, and the song’s fun and flirty music video. Given the two hitmakers’ penchant for going viral, this one is almost certain to catch fire at some point, and the song’s chewy chorus and frisky chemistry make it more than just an algorithmic hit.
Rosalía, LUX (Complete Works)
Want more of Rosalía‘s LUX? Of course you do: As sumptuous and satisfying as Rosalía’s 2025 opus was — our staff’s No. 2-rated album for the entire year — there’s always room for more of her towering vocals and soul-stirring arrangements in our lives. This week’s Complete Works digital reissue of the album adds three new songs previously only available on the album’s physical edition, as well as a “Francotidora” version of original album highlight “Dios es un Stalker.” The most notable of the bunch is likely the soaring “Focu ‘Ranni,” with its Passion Pit-like garbled-vocal refrain and its gorgeous climax, sung in Sicilian.
Thursday night (April 16), Paul McCartney gave a magical, mystery tour through his new solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, for 30 fans.
Hosted at producer Andrew Watt’s newly christened Diamond Dust studio in Sherman Oaks, McCartney and Watt described the making of the album track by track before playing each song. In between, an animated McCartney regaled the audience with stories about his fellow Beatles, before playing a handful of deeply nostalgic songs.
Overall, the album, which comes out May 29 on Capitol Records, is delightfully Beatle-esque in parts in terms of melodies, instrumentation, bold tempo and stylistic changes and, of course, McCartney’s vocals, which sound by turns sturdy and robust and then delicate and vulnerable. Watt stressed that for the most part (other than the strings and orchestration), McCartney played all the instruments on the album, including drums…though he got a very able assist from Ringo Starr on one track: “I said [to Watt], ‘Are you going to get Chad [Smith]?’ And he said, ‘Why don’t you have a go?’ And I did!”
“No one else can do that,” Watt said of McCartney’s multi-instrument prowess. A modest McCartney replied, “A few people can do it,” before taking a beat and cutely tilting his head and adding, “but not many.”
The superfans were shuttled from the Capitol Records Tower to the studio, and while McCartney’s presence hadn’t been promised, when the fans (and three journalists) entered the small room and saw two burgundy velvet chairs with three acoustic guitars lined up behind them, flanked by two large speaker stacks, anticipation rose that McCartney would definitely make an appearance.
Shortly before 7 p.m. PT., Watt, McCartney and McCartney’s wife, Nancy Shevell, entered the room, with McCartney miming playing the guitar. “We’re going to play the album and we’re going to explain how we made it,” McCartney said, adding, “Welcome my missus, Nancy.”
And that’s exactly what happened. For close to 90 minutes, a delightfully loquacious McCartney dived into the making of the album, starting with how he met the 35-year old Grammy-Award winning Watt, who has become the go-to producer for legendary artists, including the Rolling Stones, Elton John and the late Ozzy Osbourne, after producing such acts as Justin Bieber, Post Malone and Miley Cyrus.
McCartney met Watt for a “cup of tea,” but they immediately began noodling around and trading licks and “I’m like, ‘okay, we’re going to work together,” McCartney said. “Sometimes, I like to find a crazy chord and [find] maybe that will inspire me,” he said, grabbing an acoustic guitar from behind him to replicate the chord. The small audience burst into applause, leading McCartney to joke, “it wasn’t that good.” From there, they came up with the opening track and began working on the album, which was recorded in Los Angeles and England.
“When I first met Andrew, I thought, ‘He’s a bit pushy,’” McCartney said. “And he is, but that’s what you want in a producer. You don’t want a shrinking violet.”
Below are the songs on the album, McCartney’s first solo set since 2020, with some of his comments on each. As every tune played, McCartney mouthed almost every word or would sometimes play air drums, and Watt, who smartly ceded the floor to McCartney, would often play air guitar.
It’s another chart double for Olivia Dean in Australia, where several artists enjoy a bump from Coachella.
Dean’s The Art Of Loving (via Universal) enters a twelfth non-consecutive week at No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart, ahead of Laufey’s A Matter of Time (AWAL), which flies 43-2 following the release of an extended version, dubbed The Final Hour.
Closing out the podium on the latest frame, published Friday, April 17, is BTS’ former leader ARIRANG (Virgin Music Group/Geffen), down 2-3.
The top new arrival belongs to U.S. country artist Ella Langley, whose Dandelion (Columbia/Sony) flowers at No. 4. That’s a serious improvement on her 2024 album Hungover, which peaked at No. 26 and this week dips 26-30. Langley lands a top 40 hit with album cut “Be Her,” new at No. 33 on the singles tally.
Perth punk band Sly Withers has the top new release by a homegrown act with To Be Honest, new at No. 11. The independently-released To Be Honest is the rockers’ fourth studio album and third to crash the ARIA Chart after Gardens (from 2021) and Overgrown (2022) both reached No. 10.
Making her first appearance on the chart is English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone, with her sophomore album Cruel World (Universal). It’s new at No. 18.
Sabrina Carpenter and Justin Bieber are both on the bounce after their weekend 1 Coachella headline performances. Carpenter’s Man’s Best Friend improves 13-5 and Short N’ Sweet gains 11-7 (both via Island/Universal), while Bieber’s Swag (Def Jam/Universal) vaults 54-12. The Canadian pop star’s low-key concert in the California desert gave a burst of chart energy to his former No. 1 “Daisies,” up 36-10, while “Yukon” lifts 81-23.
Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Olivia Dean replaces herself at the top of the leaderboard, again, as her duet with Sam Fender, “Rein Me In” (Dew Process/Universal), climbs 2-1 for a second non-consecutive week in charge. Dean’s “Man In Need” dips 1-2, and “So Easy (To Fall In Love)” holds at No. 6.
Katseye also performed at Coachella and they’re on the way to Australia for a promotional visit. With all that activity, the international girl group is thrust into the ARIA Chart at No. 19 with “Pinky Up” (Interscope/Universal), the top debut of the week. It’s Katseye’s second top 50 appearance after “Gabriela” reached No. 27 earlier this year.
Finally, American singer, songwriter and musician Malcolm Todd bags an ARIA Top 40 with the funky “Earrings” (Columbia/Sony), new at No. 34.
Zayn Malik isn’t letting his old One Direction bandmates Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan have all the fun. The British pop singer is back with his fifth studio album, Konnakol (via Mercury Records/Island Records U.K.), a collection that houses the previously-released recording “Sideways” and lead single “Die For Me.”
Konnakol is Zayn’s first since 2024’s Room Under the Stairs, which peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard 200, and No. 3 on the U.K.’s Official Albums Chart.
Zayn co-produced the new LP with Malay (Frank Ocean, Lorde), extending a working relationship that dates back to his debut solo album Mind of Mine (2016) and its followup Icarus Falls (2018).
The former 1D star will go full bore with his promotional work in support of the new record. He’ll make his first late-night TV interview, with a performance, for Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show on April 21.
Next up, an April 23 appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, and on May 12, he kicks off his largest solo tour to date, with a show at AO Arena in Manchester, England.
Produced by Live Nation, the KONNAKOL Tour will visit major cities across the world including London, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and São Paulo, and is scheduled to close with a concert Nov. 20 at Kaseya Center in Miami, FL. It’s billed as his first-ever solo arena trek.
He should be match fit. Zayn complete his first-ever Las Vegas residency earlier this year, where he debuted and teased unreleased material from Konnakol.
The new album’s name is a reference to the art of performing percussion syllables vocally, a style found in South Indian Carnatic music. It’s “the act of creating percussive sounds with one’s voice,” he explains in a statement, “but what it means to me lies somewhere much deeper. It is a sound that holds the reverberation of a time before words existed.”
He added, “I have always drawn on my heritage for inspiration since I first started making my own music — this album is a development of that understanding, knowing more now than ever, who I am, where I come from and where I intend to go.”
Zayn made history as a member of 1D, and was the first to split from the band in pursuit of a solo career. He made the best possible start with his first single “Pillowtalk,” which led the Billboard Hot 100 and the Official U.K. Singles Chart. Its parent album, Mind of Mine, also went to No. 1 on both sides of the Atlantic.
Stream Konnakol below.
Don Schlitz, one of country music’s all-time songwriting greats, a hitmaker who collected almost every possible accolade including two Grammy Awards, the first of those for “The Gambler,” died Thursday (April 16) at a Nashville hospital following a sudden illness. He was 73.
Schlitz achieved greatness with his first recorded song, “The Gambler,” which he wrote at the age of 23. It went on to win the Grammy for best country song in 1978, and gave its performer Kenny Rogers a launchpad into the stars. It was a reporter who informed Schlitz that the song had been nominated for the Country Music Association’s song of the year, remarking that it would be the first line of his obituary. The song won, and the late songsmith will forever be remembered for it.
Today, “The Gambler,” a timeless tale of a card shark with sharp wits, is played everywhere that people party.
Born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, Schlitz briefly attended Duke University before moving to Nashville at age 20. The story goes that he caught the bus to Music Row with just $80 in his pocket. He knew how to play his cards right.
Schlitz was no one-hit wonder. He also crafted hits for Randy Travis, The Judds, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Tanya Tucker, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Keith Whitley and Alison Krauss, his creations including “On the Other Hand,” “Forever and Ever, Amen,” “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her,” “The Greatest,” and “When You Say Nothing At All.” All “are touchstones and inspirations that continue to influence songwriters and singers decades after they were written,” reads a statement from the Grand Ole Opry, which in 2022 inducted Schlitz as a member. “His words and music have articulated the extraordinary emotions inherent in common experience.”
Commercial success was followed with a slew of lifetime achievement awards, and many more major honors from his peers. Schlitz was named ASCAP country songwriter of the year for four consecutive years, from 1988-91, and his collection includes a hattrick of CMA song of the year awards and a brace of ACM song of the year awards. He won a second Grammy in 1987, also in the category for best country song, with “Forever And Ever, Amen.”
Induction into the Nashville Songwriters Association Hall of Fame came in 1993. Then, in 2012, Schlitz was elevated into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Rogers was on hand that night to salute Schlitz. “Don doesn’t just write songs,” the late superstar singer remarked, “he writes careers.”
Later, Schlitz was inducted as a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2017, at a the time when only five other songwriters were admitted: Bobby Braddock, Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard, and Boudleaux and Felice Bryant.
Schlitz’s Grand Ole Opry nod saw him become the only non-artist songwriter inducted into the show in its 100-year history. The prolific music man also wrote the music and lyrics for the 1999 Broadway musical “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”
The Grand Ole Opry performance this Saturday night (April 18) will be dedicated in Schlitz’ honor. Other service plans are pending, reps say.
Schlitz is survived by his wife, Stacey; his daughter Cory Dixon and her husband Matt Dixon; his son Pete Schlitz and his wife Christian Webb Schlitz; his grandchildren Roman, Gia, Isla, and Lilah; his brother Brad Schlitz; and his sister Kathy Hinkley.
Nine Inch Nails doesn’t just arrive. Trent Reznor’s industrial metal act steams in, crushes, always leaves an impression.
At the stroke of midnight, NIN delivered that full-body experience with the help of Boys Noize, by way of the collaborative album Nine Inch Noize.
Coming in at 46 minutes, with 12 mashups, the collection was announced ahead of their global debut performance as Nine Inch Noize at Coachella on Saturday (April 11), where reworked classic NIN cuts “Heresy” and others got the live treatment at the Sahara Tent at Coachella.
Nine Inch Noize drops like a hammer ahead of Coachella weekend 2, which should see a repeat performance of Reznor and Co. with the pioneering German techno producer on Saturday evening, April 18.
The collaborative album is a natural progression, and walks the tightrope of capturing the studio sound with the chaos of a concert; it’s both a club record and a beating with a metal club. Boys Noize (real name: Alex Ridha) has been the opening act for Nine Inch Nails’ 2025/26 Peel It Back tour, a 63-date international run during which the two acts also played a segment of the show together.
Previously, Ridha worked with Reznor and Atticus Ross last year when he remixed the duo’s lauded, techno-forward soundtrack to the film Challengers.
The Peel It Back tour concluded in March in Sacramento, CA., a show at which frontman Trent Reznor clarified a statement he’d made at an earlier show in Tulsa, OK, that suggested the band was calling time on touring. “I don’t know if we’re going to be touring anymore after this,” he remarked in a fan-filmed video from the show, “but I’m proud of the show that we’re doing right now. And I’m f—ing grateful that you’ve chosen to spend your evening with us tonight. Thank you very much.”
That’s obviously not the case. “To be clear, I think I said something the other day that then got misconstrued into something that is not intentionally, necessarily true,” he later remarked. “What I said was, ‘This is the last show of this tour and we don’t have any shows booked and we don’t have any plans to book any shows anytime in the future, so far.’”
He continued, “that doesn’t mean we may not tour again. We may tour again. It won’t be next month, it won’t be this year. I never said we were intentionally stopping, and I never meant that.”
NIN has been prolific of late, and full of surprises. The heavy-edged act recently released a companion album to its Tron: Ares soundtrack, titled Tron Ares: Divergence. It’s the followup to TRON: Ares, the first-ever film score from Oscar-winning composers Reznor and Atticus Ross (credited under their Nine Inch Nails), which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 album chart.
Nine Inch Nails has landed eight songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and made 18 appearances on the all-genres Billboard 200, including two leaders: 1999’s The Fragile (one week at No. 1) and 2015’s With Teeth (one week). NIN was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2020.
Stream Nine Inch Noize below.
Olivia Rodrigo‘s new song “Drop Dead” just, well, dropped.
On Friday (April 17), the pop star shared her first single in years to kick off her You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love album era. The track is one of 13 that will appear on the June-slated LP, her first full-length since 2023’s Billboard 200-topper Guts.
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“Drop Dead” also gives fans their first look at the concept behind Rodrigo’s new album, which she explained in a recent interview with British Vogue. “I realized all my favorite romantic love songs were beautiful because they had a tinge of fear or yearning in them,” she said, revealing that You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love is full of “sad love songs.”
“Falling in love, [I thought] that the second I’m in a really great relationship, I’m gonna start feeling good about myself, and this stuff is going to fall into place. But it just doesn’t work like that,” she continued at the time. “I’m definitely a lover girl. Like, I want to be in something committed and so in love. And yeah, it’s hard these days.”
Leading up to the track’s release, the Grammy winner shared videos on social media teasing “Drop Dead.” “I hope you never finish that beer,” she wrote over a video of herself sipping a Guinness, paired with a wispy, buoyant snippet of the single.
In another clip, she gazes out the window of a moving train. “it’s feminine intuition,” reads pink text over the video.
So far, both of Rodrigo’s lead singles to her past two albums have debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. First, “Drivers License” made her a global superstar ahead of the release of debut LP Sour, after which “Vampire” topped the chart ahead of Guts.
Now that it’s finally out, listen to “Drop Dead” below.
Altas expectativas rodeaban el estreno de El drama, la nueva película de A24 protagonizada por Zendaya y Robert Pattinson y dirigida por Kristoffer Borgli (responsable de Sick of Myself y Dream Scenario). Con una premisa simple —una boda por celebrarse que tambalea por una razón desconocida—, una estética atrapante y un combo actoral cautivador, el […]
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Glitz and glam dressed Guayaquil’s Sanchez Aguilar Theatre on Wednesday night as the music industry celebrated the fifth annual Premios REM de Sayce (REM Awards).
Jombriel (real name: Jonathan Cedeño), was the night’s top winner, nabbing four awards including the coveted composer of the year and song of the year for “Vitamina” in collaboration with DFZM and Jotta. The latter was even featured on Barack Obama’s Favorite Music of 2025 list.
“I am grateful to God, my team, and my family,” he said in a short-and-sweet acceptance speech. “I dedicate this to my son because I became a father in December. Cheers to being single!”
The breakout star from Esmeraldas, named one of Billboard’s Latin Artists to Watch in 2026, also walked away with the awards for most-streamed male artist and most-played male artist on the radio.
The REM awards (Ranking Ecuatoriano de la Música) is presented by the Society of Authors and Composers of Ecuador (SAYCE), honoring the most popular and consumed artists, composers, and songs of the year. The nominees and winners are based on the local charts in Ecuador reported by the Spanish music operating system BMAT that monitors what is streamed, heard on the radio, played on television, to name a few.
“These are Ecuador’s most prestigious awards—the awards honoring the most-listened-to artists in the country,” Juan Fernando Velasco, president of Sayce and Latin Grammy-nominated artist, tells Billboard. “We have been growing steadily over the past five years, successfully positioning these awards as the most significant element within Ecuador’s music industry, as well as an inspirational brand. This plays a fundamental role in the industry; these awards provide not only recognition but also validation and exposure.”
The evening included unexpected wins, heartfelt tributes, and show-stopping performances from artists such as Dayanara, Andreina Bravo, Jossimar, and Don Medardo y Sus Players—all perfect examples of Ecuador’s booming music scene.
Below, see the full Premios REM winners list:
Audience Favorite: Andreína Bravo
Female Trajectory Artist (Popular Genre): María de los Ángeles
Male Trajectory Artist (Popular Genre): Gerardo Morán
Group/Duo Trajectory Artist (Popular Genre): Don Medardo y Sus Players
Most-Streamed Female Artist (Digital Platforms): Dayanara
Most-Streamed Male Artist (Digital Platforms): Jombriel
Most-Streamed Group/Dup (Digital Platforms): Unísono
Most-Streamed Female Artist (Alternative): Luz Pinos
Most-Streamed Male Artist (Alternative): Gonzalo Ávila
Most-Streamed Group/Dup (Alternative): Estamos Perdidos
Most-Played Female Artist on Radio: Dayanara
Most-Played Male Artist on Radio: Jombriel
Most-Played Group/Duo on Radio: Verde 70
Composer Trajectory Award: Segundo Rosero
Best New Artist: Machaca
Composer of the Year: Jonathan Cedeño (Jombriel)
Song of the Year: “Vitamina,” Jombriel, DFZM, Jotta
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