Yours Always, the new music festival that was set to bring Benson Boone, sombr and a lineup of pop acts to Salt Lake City this fall, has been canceled less than two months before its original scheduled debut of Oct. 2-3.

Fans shared their dismay on Reddit, revealing that several ticket holders had received refunds for their purchases without reason over the weekend. Many also expressed suspicion about the fact that the festival’s online presence has essentially disappeared completely, with no reachable support email (one fan reported that the email bounced back to them as “invalid”), a deactivated website, and deleted social media accounts. According to an X user who posted a screenshot of an email from Yours Always Festival, the event has been canceled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

The two-day festival was first announced June 24 along with its diverse lineup, with Boone — whose smash hit “Beautiful Things” became one of the biggest songs of 2024 on the Billboard Hot 100, landing at No. 3 on the year-end chart — and sombr, who has quickly emerged as one of pop’s fastest-rising artists with multiple Hot 100 entries, set to headline. Beyond the two pop stars, the inaugural event was expected to also include Stephen Sanchez, Labrinth, Joshua Bassett, Daniel Seavey, Bella Kay, BØRNS, the Hellp, Voila and Thomas Day. The festival coined itself on its now-archived website as “a new music experience coming to Salt Lake City.”

Billboard has reached out to representatives for Boone and sombr for comment on the festival’s cancellation, including whether the artists’ teams were notified before ticket holders learned the event had been called off.

Britney Spears can’t stop saying gimme more Beyoncé lately. In a recent Instagram post, the Princess of Pop shared videos of herself dancing to some of Queen Bey’s music and revealed that she can’t get enough.

“So weird how all i listen to is the last @beyonce album,” Spears began, referencing 2024’s two-week Billboard 200-topper Cowboy Carter. “I absolutely love it but damn not sure why I go back to her earlier naughty album….the dress told me to do it I guess.”

In the clips, she seemingly improvises choreography to some of Bey’s older tracks, including “Haunted” from 2014’s Beyoncé. Wearing a short black dress and heels, Spears also dances freely to songs by her “S&M” collaborator, Rihanna, including “Love on the Brain” and “Unfaithful.”

Spears has enjoyed sharing dancing videos on her Instagram page for years, and it looks like she’s having fun with it once again in the months following her suspected DUI arrest — which was ultimately reduced to a less severe “wet reckless” charge — in March. Afterward, she checked herself into a treatment facility.

“Britney is going to take the right steps and comply with the law, and hopefully this can be the first step in long overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life,” her rep said in a statement shortly after the arrest. “Hopefully, she can get the help and support she needs during this difficult time.”

There’s also been developments in the long-rumored biopic about Spears’ singular life and career, with The Hollywood Reporter reporting in July that New Girl creator Liz Meriwether was locked in to adapt the hitmaker’s best-selling 2023 memoir The Woman In Me for the big screen. The book details the pop icon’s rise to superstardom — solidified by five No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 to date — as well as her challenges in romantic relationships and yearslong battle to break free of her legal conservatorship.

Phil Collins has detailed his recent battles with alcoholism in a wide-ranging interview with The Sunday Times published on Sunday (Aug. 3). In it, the 75-year-old reflected on large portions of his career, discussed his personal life and spoke on mending his relationship with Paul McCartney.

Collins revealed that in April 2024, he was hospitalized in Switzerland following a relapse with alcohol and that his manager of 50 years summoned his five children to see him at his bedside.

“Because there were some decisions to be made about ‘Do we keep Phil on life support?’ kind of thing. My kidneys were packing up, my organs were just seizing up,” Collins said. “People were coming to say goodbye. But I don’t remember them coming, I didn’t have no idea this was going on. They were all worried that they wouldn’t see me again. It could all have gone so terribly wrong.”

The former Genesis member discussed his alcoholism in his 2016 memoir Not Dead Yet and was sober at the time of writing; in 2012, he’d previously been admitted to intensive care with acute pancreatitis and got sober as a result.

After this period of sobriety, which Collins attributes to the medication Antabuse, the singe/drummer began abusing again, but cannot remember when. “When I was drinking, the calendar goes out the window,” he said.

“But I’d have wine when I woke up. That was what I’d want for breakfast, a glass of wine. But I didn’t drink into the night, you know. So I wasn’t really aware of having a problem, to be honest.”

In November 2023, Collins was rushed to hospital and discharged three days later; several weeks later, Collins was rushed back into intensive care and spent seven months in hospital. “I was very lucky to have come out of that. Needless to say, I haven’t had a drink since.”

Collins last performed live in 2022 as part of Genesis’ farewell tour. He is no longer able to drum due to nerve damage and numerous knee and spine surgeries.

Elsewhere in the interview, Collins discussed healing a rift with former Beatle McCartney after he said in a previous interview that the latter treated him “condescendingly.” McCartney read the interview and reached out, “saying, ‘I’m a bit disappointed, blah blah’. He said don’t be so … ‘sacrosanct’ was the word he used. I’m not sure what that means, but anyway it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth and obviously left a bad taste in his.”

An upcoming charity auction involving Collins and the King’s Trust helped mend the relationship, when McCartney agreed to donate an item after Collins wrote him a letter. “I wish I hadn’t said it, although it did happen. But we’ve made up, he’s happy about the fact that we discussed it, and I’m happy we discussed it, so it was just really lovely that it’s gone full circle now,” he said.

Collins will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a solo act in November alongside Billy Idol, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order, Oasis, Sade, Luther Vandross, and the Wu-Tang Clan. “I think people on the board thought I was already in,” Collins said on his belated entry. Had he not ever been inducted, “I’d have just put it down to being English and just being invisible.” Collins was inducted as part of Genesis in 2010.

Robyn and Zara Larsson have joined forces on “Talk To Me, Zara,” a new collaborative single that reworks a track from Robyn’s latest album.

The song is a new version of “Talk To Me,” originally featured on Robyn’s Sexistential — her ninth studio album, released in March. Larsson remixed the pulsing, Max Martin-co-produced original and added her own verse. The two Swedish stars debuted the track live at Copenhagen’s Royal Arena on July 14, when Robyn brought Larsson out as a surprise guest on the final night of the European leg of her Sexistential tour.

“Talk To Me, Zara” marks the second collaboration between the pair, with Larsson returning a favor: Robyn contributed a new mix of “Puss Puss” to Larsson’s remix album Midnight Sun: Girls Trip, released in May, which also featured reworkings from PinkPantheress, Shakira, Tyla, Kehlani and Madison Beer.

Sexistential was Robyn’s first album since 2018’s Honey and was accompanied by her first major headline tour since 2019. Robyn’s biggest cultural touchstone, “Dancing on My Own”, earned a Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording in 2011.

For Larsson, the collaboration arrives during a career upswing in the U.S. Her signature stateside hit remains 2015’s “Never Forget You” with MNEK, which peaked at No. 13 on the Hot 100, while “Ruin My Life” reached No. 20 on Billboard’s Pop Songs chart in 2018. This year she notched her first career Grammy nomination, for “Midnight Sun” in the Best Pop Dance Recording category, and returned to the Hot 100 for the first time in a decade when her 2016 single “Lush Life” went viral, capping one of the strongest chart runs of her career.

Paul Kelly is returning to Kings Cross for the first time in decades, announcing a one-night-only show at the Potts Point Hotel on Aug. 30 — steps from the long-gone venue where the Australian songwriter cut his teeth in the mid-1980s.

The Sydney neighbourhood looms large in Kelly’s catalogue and mythology, and his return carries a personal weight. The Potts Point Hotel sits beside the laneway that once housed the Manzil Room, a late-night haunt Kelly played repeatedly in the mid-to-late ’80s.

“A wee hours sticky-carpet venue, attracting all the denizens of the night — street workers, bohemians, drug dealers, desperadoes, off work musicians,” he recalled in a statement.

“We’d play three sets, starting around 1am. The painter Brett Whiteley sometimes dropped in to hear us.” Kelly noted the Manzil Room is now a block of apartments, musing, “I wonder if the residents sometimes hear our chattering ghosts, the faint distant throb of our music.”

Fittingly, a recently completed mural of Kelly by artist Scottie Marsh adorns the exterior wall of the Potts Point Hotel.

The show doubles as a launch. Kelly will release a deluxe edition of his 2025 album Seventy two days before the gig, and access to the intimate show is tied to the release — fans can secure a spot by pre-ordering the deluxe edition from Kelly’s official store or entering a ballot for tickets.

Separately, Kelly is marking the 40th anniversary of his landmark 1986 double album Gossip with a 2LP anniversary reissue.

Seventy, released last November to mark both Kelly’s 70th birthday and his 50th year in music, debuted at No. 2 on the ARIA Albums Chart and followed a sold-out Australian arena tour. It was his 30th studio album, extending one of the most decorated careers in Australian music.

A 17-time ARIA Award winner and ARIA Hall of Fame inductee, Kelly has topped the ARIA Albums Chart with Life Is Fine (2017) and Nature (2018), and is behind some of the most enduring songs in the national canon, including “To Her Door,” “How to Make Gravy” and “From Little Things Big Things Grow.” He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2017 for his contribution to the performing arts.

Petal, Ariana Grande‘s new studio album, tops this week’s new music poll.

Listeners voted in a poll published Friday (July 31) on Billboard, choosing the pop star’s eight full-length LP as their favorite new music.

Petal rose to the top in a week that included new music releases from Cardi B, Davido, Slayyyter and Shaboozey — plus a collab track from Erick Brian, Dale Pututi & Nesty, as well as one from Benny Blanco, Selena Gomez & Becky G — and more. By the poll’s closing time on Sunday, Petal collected 41% of the vote.

Grande’s new album made its way to fans on Friday, mid-Eternal Sunshine Tour.

It’s the follow-up to 2024’s Eternal Sunshine album, which spent three weeks atop the Billboard 200.

Arriving with Grande’s new 12-song collection was a satirical new music video that has her starring as Pepper, an actress on set playing a performer who tries over and over again to be “good enough” for her ruthless critics — and who finally loses her cool, with the help of a chainsaw. The visual is set to Petal‘s title track, which is the second single from the album; it follows the Hot 100 No. 1 “Hate That I Made You Live Me.”

On Sunday, it was reported Grande will take a break from the public eye once her tour wraps.

Trailing behind Petal on the poll: Erick Brian, Dale Pututi & Nesty’s “Efímero” lands in second place, with 26% of the vote, followed by Cardi B’s “AH HA” in third, with 18% of the vote.

See the final results of this week’s poll below.

Ariana Grande is set to take a break from the public once her Eternal Sunshine Tour wraps on Sept. 1. The pop star’s time off includes her pulling out of leading the revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George, which was expected to open next summer in London’s West End.

People first reported the news — which comes just after Grande released her highly-anticipated new studio album Petal — on Sunday (Aug. 2), publishing a statement attributed to a representative for Grande. Billboard has reached out to Grande’s team for comment.

“Ariana will be taking a step back from visibility after she completes the Eternal Sunshine Tour,” the statement said. “She looks forward to finishing the tour and ending it on a high note, both healthily and happily, and then taking a much-deserved break from public-facing work and appearances, which has led to endless, ongoing public scrutiny. This tour has been a beautiful experience for her. She loves her fans and has loved every minute of this tour so much.”

Grande is also bowing out of her previously announced appearance in the West End revival of Sunday in the Park With George. She was set to star in the London production opposite Wicked co-star Jonathan Bailey.

She’s currently on the last month of her Eternal Sunshine Tour, which next heads to Chicago for three concert dates (Aug. 3, 5 and 6) before a show-closing, 10-date run in London that spans Aug. 15 to Sept. 1.

Petal the album just arrived on Friday (July 31), and its title track was released as the LP’s second single.

A music video debuted alongside the track that echoes real-life critiques Grande’s received from the public; recent public commentary has been centered on her physical appearance and weight.

In the visual, which plays as a short film, the performer cuts down critics — with a chainsaw — after being told she’s “not good enough” and has “no sex appeal.” Audition notes saying that she “should get some work done” turn to “too much work done.” “The way you used to be, I miss that,” one naysayer says.

“Hate That I Made You Love Me,” the album’s first single, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Post-tour, fans can see her in movie theaters in Focker-in-Law, opening Nov. 25. The comedy is the latest in the Meet the Parents series, starring Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro.

Phil Collins has praised Taylor Swift, saying the pop superstar “deserves” her place as “the hugest thing in the world” after being “blown away completely” the first time he saw her perform 15 years ago.

Speaking to Vernon Kay on BBC Radio 2’s Tracks of My Years, Collins recalled meeting Swift at a Songwriters Hall of Fame event years ago, before she reached her current level of fame, and watching her perform her song “White Horse.”

“This very nice lady then got up on stage with a guitar and sang ‘White Horse,’ and it blew me away completely,” he said. “Not only was the song great, and the sentiment of the song really got me, but she sang it beautifully. And it was just so simple, you know, her on a guitar.”

Collins said he has “always had a soft spot” for the track since. “I’m so pleased that she’s the hugest thing in the world now because she kind of feels like she deserves it,” he said. “I mean it’s easy to knock someone that’s got so much success, but I think she really deserves it.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Collins revealed that his signature solo hit “In the Air Tonight” was largely improvised. “A lot of my lyrics are kind of improvised. The classic example of that would be ‘In the Air Tonight,’ which was pretty much 80% improvised,” he said, explaining that the song’s atmospheric sound came from a Prophet-5 keyboard and that he “certainly didn’t labour on it.” He described the result as “the scenario of luck… and good fortune” rather than craft.

The comments arrive during a landmark year for Collins, who will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2026 — 16 years after entering as a member of Genesis. Across his solo career he scored seven No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1980s, including “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),” “One More Night,” “Sussudio” and “Groovy Kind of Love.” “In the Air Tonight,” the 1981 debut solo single he referenced, reached No. 19 on the Hot 100 but became one of the most enduring recordings of his career, later finding new life through film, television and a viral 2020 reaction video.

Swift, for her part, holds the record for the most No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 among soloists with 15, and her most recent release The Life of a Showgirl debuted with a modern-era record of 4 million equivalent album units. “White Horse,” the song Collins singled out, appeared on Swift’s 2008 album Fearless and won two Grammy Awards, including Best Country Song.

Two Australian icons shared a stage in Brighton, England, on Friday (Aug. 1) as Kylie Minogue joined Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds during the band’s concert at Preston Park to perform their 1995 duet “Where the Wild Roses Grow.”

Minogue appeared midway through the Bad Seeds’ set for the murder-ballad duet, marking the first time the pair had performed the song together live since 2019, when Cave surprised the crowd during Minogue’s legends slot at Glastonbury.

Before that, the two sang it together in 2018 — the last time the Bad Seeds played the song live — as well as in 2013 and on several occasions in the mid-1990s following the release of Murder Ballads.

Minogue reflected on the reunion in an Instagram post after the show. “I’ll forever be your Wild Rose @nickcaveofficial,” she wrote, thanking the Bad Seeds and calling it a “wonderful crowd, wonderful night.” She also credited her white lace dress, complete with wild-rose embellishments, to Susie Cave — Nick Cave’s wife and the designer behind the fashion label The Vampire’s Wife.

Earlier that day, Cave and the Bad Seeds played a surprise rooftop set atop the city’s Resident Music record store, performing four songs. That set included “Train Long-Suffering,” a track from 1985’s The Firstborn Is Dead that had not been performed live in 27 years before the band revived it on their 2026 European tour, along with a cover of T. Rex’s “Cosmic Dancer” that Cave had previously only performed solo.

“Where the Wild Roses Grow” remains one of the most celebrated collaborations in Australian music history. Written by Cave and released as the lead single from the Bad Seeds’ 1996 album Murder Ballads, the duet cast Minogue as the doomed Eliza Day opposite Cave’s murderous narrator — a stark departure from her pop image at the time.

It became Cave’s biggest commercial hit, reaching No. 2 on the ARIA Singles Chart in Australia and No. 11 on the U.K. Singles Chart, and won the 1996 ARIA Award for Song of the Year. The accompanying video, which depicted Minogue lying in a river in a pose evoking Millais’ painting Ophelia, became a fixture on MTV and helped push Murder Ballads to the biggest commercial success of the band’s career.

Minogue, one of the most successful pop artists of her generation, has scored seven entries on the Billboard Hot 100 — including “The Loco-Motion” (No. 3) and “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” (No. 7) — and 11 titles on the Billboard 200, led by 2001’s Fever at No. 3. Her 2023 single “Padam Padam” won the first Grammy for Best Pop Dance Recording. Cave and the Bad Seeds, meanwhile, continue their 2026 European tour in support of their catalogue, one of the most acclaimed in modern alternative rock.

Rock legend Patti Smith was giddy and almost at a loss for words when she met Friday (July 31) with Pope Leo XIV.

“Hi,” she said softly as she sat down across from Leo at his desk in the Apostolic Palace.

Post-meeting, on Instagram, she had a bit more to say: “This is a moment that shall forever produce a smile,” she wrote of the encounter.

Wearing a crucifix necklace and hair in her trademark braids, Smith has become an increasingly visible presence at the Vatican thanks to her friendship with the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, undersecretary in the Vatican’s culture ministry.

She has said that while she is not Catholic, she was drawn in particular to Pope Francis and his “gentle, open, and steadfast sense of humanity.”

She also had a thing for Pope John Paul I: Her 1979 tune “Wave” is about a make-believe conversation with the pope who had just died after a 33-day papacy. It begins “Hi. Hi,” uttered in the same breathy voice Smith used with Leo on Friday.

The pope clearly was familiar with the tune. “That was marvelous,” he said.

Earlier this year, Smith performed during the inauguration of the Holy See’s Pavilion at the Venice Biennale contemporary art fair. The occasion, May 8, was the anniversary of Leo’s election.

Spadaro, who joined Smith at Friday’s audience, said the encounter between the two Chicago natives was around 40 minutes long. In a text message, he said it “felt more like a conversation between two people discovering they were old friends, sharing memories woven from words and music, dreams, visions, and hopes — both from yesterday and for today.”

He said at the end, Smith said “Bye. Bye.”

Smith met Francis in 2013 and sang for him in 2014. When he died, on April 21, 2025, she wrote a poem on social media, comparing Francis to a dandelion, “humble yet strong.”

“Nature and poetry and the suffering shall miss their champion,” she wrote.

It was Leo’s second encounter with a music legend this week. On Wednesday, Leo attended a concert in his honor by tenor Andrea Bocelli.