Music

Sabrina Carpenter accepted the Variety Hitmakers Rising Artist Award presented by H&M on Saturday, using the popular fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare” as a metaphor for her rise in the music industry. “Something that my mom always said to me as a little girl that really annoyed me was that I am the

Grammy Museum President and CEO Michael Sticka highlighted the museum’s work to reach more students post-COVID through the museum’s education program while accepting the Music Education and Advocacy Leadership Award presented by City National Bank at Variety’s seventh annual Hitmakers event. “Being the President and CEO of the Grammy Museum has been the highlight of

Billie Eilish and Finneas were honored with the Film Song of the Year at Variety‘s Hitmakers, presented by Sony audio, on Saturday for the “Barbie” power ballad “What Was I Made For?“ The duo’s award was presented by Bernie Taupin, the famed lyricist and longtime writing partner with Sir Elton John. “A lot of great people can

Changemaker of the Year, Maren Morris celebrated her honor at the Variety Hitmakers, presented by Sony audio, by listing off the women who inspired her including Taylor Swift, Sinead O’Connor and Billie Holiday. Introduced by singer and songwriter Maggie Rogers, her colleague praised Morris for using her voice to uplift others. to fight for gender

Billie Eilish has confirmed that she recently came out in her Variety Power of Women cover story, in which she first revealed her attraction to women. On the red carpet at Variety‘s Hitmakers event, Eilish shared that she didn’t intend to make a grand gesture of “coming out,” and was actually surprised by the public’s

It’s not hard to find on the internet: a group photo from a Grammy Museum workshop that featured Stevie Nicks as the guest teacher, circa 2011. She’s surrounded by musicians, executives and a few hopeful young musicians — including a young Billie Eilish and Finneas, who were 9 and 13 at the time, and have

Country music hasn’t had a huge presence in the mainstream top 10 since Florida Georgia Line provided a couple of big crossover blips in 2014 and 2017 with “Cruise” and “Meant to Be.” But that changed in triplicate in 2023 with three Nashville exports— the well-established Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs, plus a blazing-hot newcomer,

Viral revivals are a hallmark of the streaming era, with songs regularly springing back to life years — sometimes decades — after they were first released. Miguel’s “Sure Thing” is an aberration. Rolled out as a single in 2011, the romantic ballad cracked Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and crowned the R&B chart.

Laura Karpman is one of very few composers who has made a genuine difference in the scoring community. A five-time Emmy winner, she co-founded the Alliance for Women Film Composers, which is widely credited with helping to propel the nearly invisible community of female music writers into prominence. No one asks “why aren’t there any

Taylor Swift will earn more than $100 million from Spotify in 2023, according to calculations based on her leading number of streams for the year posted by the streaming giant in its year-end “Wrapped” tally. Based on the 26.1 billion streams she has accumulated since the beginning of the year, and using an average of

Since founding Nonstop Management at her kitchen table in 2017, Jaime Zeluck Hindlin’s boutique management company for songwriters and producers has become a stealthy power player in the music business. Getting the right people in a room is Hindlin’s specialty, but her range of clients contributing to three songs from the Hitmakers 2023 Top 25

Few artists ever have had a year on the scale of Morgan Wallen’s 2023. The crossover country star broke multiple streaming and radio records — such as having his smash “Last Night” become the longest-running solo No. 1 in Billboard Hot 100 history, with 16 weeks atop the chart — all while picking up the

Victoria Monét has long been considered an underdog. As far back as 2009, when she first chased her dreams of becoming a musician from Sacramento to Los Angeles, she’s spent much of her time out of the spotlight and confined to album liner notes as a songwriter, lending her pen to Ariana Grande and Chloe

Country music star Walker Hayes is getting the the small screen treatment. The musician, who earned the Sync of the Year award from Variety‘s 2021 Hitmakers event for his song “Fancy Like,” will be the inspiration behind a scripted drama in development from Untitled Entertainment. Untitled has acquired the life rights of Hayes, who will also

It’s probably not unprecedented but certainly rare for an artist to have two hits songs in one year as drastically opposite as SZA’s in 2023: one about killing an ex-lover, another about being so in love she’d kill for them. But such is the duality of SZA: “Kill Bill” and “Snooze,” No. 2 and No.

It’s remarkable enough that Republic Records has been Hitmakers label of the year four out of seven times — but they exceeded themselves in 2023 with 12 of the top 25 songs on our chart. Yes, country superstar Morgan Wallen held six of those slots, including No. 1 (with “Last Night”), but there are also two

Tyla has always wanted to be the world’s first global South African pop star — and she’s already well on her way. In the past month, Tyla’s summer single “Water” became her first Top 10 hit in the United States and also landed her a Grammy nomination for Best African Music Performance. “It makes sense,”

This year’s annual Snixxmas Charity event honoring Naya Rivera features a previously unreleased song by the late “Glee” star. “Prayer for the Broken,” first recorded by Rivera in 2012, now includes background vocals by her “Glee” co-stars Kevin McHale, Jenna Ushkowitz, Amber Riley, Heather Morris, Vanessa Lengies and Ashley Fink. “Prayer for the Broken” was

Taylor Swift’s publicist is shutting down rumors that the pop star was secretly married to ex boyfriend Joe Alwyn, writing “enough is enough.” Tree Paine, Swift’s longtime PR, made a rare post on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Thursday night slamming the Instagram gossip account Deuxmoi, which has made several claims that Swift and

Fresh on the heels of her new film “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé” arriving in theaters, Beyoncé has dropped a new song, “My House,” to coincide with its release. [embedded content] Viewers at screenings noted that the song appeared in the credits, and she released the distinctly Houston-adjacent “My House” on Thursday night, shortly after

Popular on Variety In 2019, Mexican singer-rapper Yng Lvcas found the beat that would drive his chart-busting “La Bebe” on BeatStars, the online musical marketplace where Lil Nas X found the track for “Old Town Road.” An amalgamation of classic reggaeton drums, it was the work of Hasa King Beatz, an Ecuadorian producer who put

Last month, Beyoncé made a surprise visit to the L.A. premiere of Taylor Swift‘s “Eras Tour” film. Now Swift has returned the favor, appearing in London on Thursday night for the debut of Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” movie. Swift wore a sparkly silver gown with a thigh-high slit to the event, and accessorized with black heels and

A Nashville judge has temporarily blocked John Oates’ proposed sale of his share of the Hall & Oates business partnership to Primary Wave until a private arbitrator hears the case, according to a Billboard report on Thursday. The move is the latest in the ongoing, rather mysterious legal battle between the estranged longtime musical partners.

How does a six-year-old song become a hit? In 2023, of course the short answer is TikTok, but it takes a lot more than that to make a song into a genuine hit single — let alone take the longest climb to No. 1 for a non-holiday song in the history of the Billboard Hot

During the pandemic, Nigerian artist Rema came to the U.S. to play his debut album, “Rave & Roses,” for Virgin Music Group. The Afrobeats star was joined by folks from Mavin Records and Jonzing World, where he’s signed, to unveil a project that included what would become his first massive hit to date, “Calm Down.” 

A densely layered multimedia project that combines music, comic book art, holograms and mini-movies, Metro Boomin’s “Heroes & Villains” is wildly ambitious. That scope and vision comes through in the music. “Superhero” sets the tone for the album with its propulsive beats and “The Dark Knight”-referencing Kanye West sample, while “Creepin’” finds the producer rebuilding

Who should be counted as country music’s currently most successful songwriter? You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who could come up with a metric where the end result is not clearly Ashley Gorley, who’s being honored as Songwriter of the Year at Variety‘s annual Hitmakers event. He has been a co-writer on five of the

It’s obvious from SZA’s music that she has a wide range of influences, from classic R&B to Joni Mitchell, jazz to pop-punk and beyond. But just how far those influences range becomes dramatically clear when she talks about the music in her house and at school growing up, and best of all, when starts looking

Regarded for his wrenching, joyful lyricism as a bard of all things Irish, Shane MacGowan – the singer-songwriter known mostly for his work as frontman of the Celtic punk phenomenon the Pogues – was truly a tender poet of universal concern. Social blight, childhood dreams, national pride, coy romanticism, bloody Anglo-Irish politics, painful histories, the

The three singer-songwriters who make up Boygenius are musing about what they did and didn’t intend to accomplish when they went into the studio to make “The Record.” The six Grammy nominations they just collectively reeled in for their first full-length album together? Not actually part of the master plan. Neither was establishing themselves as