Billboard News

22 years it was first launched in the U.K., ubiquitous music identification app Shazam has announced it has now surpassed 100 billion recognitions.

First launching on Aug. 19 2002, Shazam began its life as an SMS service where users would dial a number, hold up their phones to identify the song being played, and then receive the name and artist via a text message. While it grew in popularity and influence over the years, it was in 2006 that Shazam was launched as an app, before becoming available on both Apple and Android devices in 2008.

By 2011, the service had recognized more than one billion songs, and by the following year, that number had increased to five billion, with the 15 billion milestone following in 2014. In 2017, it was announced that Apple had acquired Shazam for $400 million.

Now, Apple have announced that Shazam has hit the impressive milestone of 100 billion song recognitions across its lifetime. The news comes just five years after the service celebrated 20 years with news it had surpassed 70 billion recognitions.

“This monumental milestone not only reflects how much people enjoy using Shazam, but also their appetite for new music,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats in a stateent.

“Music discovery is at the core of everything we do, and we keep innovating to make sure music lovers around the world can tap the Shazam button no matter where they hear music playing!”

Apple have also shared a handful of statstics to put the 100 billion figure into perspective, noting that the number is equivalent to 12 songs identified for every person on Earth, and that one person would need to use Shazam to identify a song every second for 3,168 years to reach 100 billion.

An Apple Music playlist was also created by the company which features the 100 most-Shazamed songs across the app’s lifetime.

Atop the list is Tones and I’s “Dance Monkey” with 45 million identifications to its name, closely followed by fellow Australian act Gotye and his 2012 Kimbra-featuring hit “Somebody That I Used to Know”.

Passenger’s “Let Her Go”, Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect”, and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis’ “Can’t Hold Us” round out the top five, with acts such as Lewis Capaldi, Hozier, The Weeknd, KALEO, and Sia completing the top ten.

Morgan Wallen was crowned entertainer of the year at the 2024 CMA Awards, which were held on Wednesday (Nov. 20) at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. Wallen’s coronation comes less than four years after a career-imperiling moment where he was caught on video using a racial slur, and suggests that he is now back in Nashville’s good graces. (He did come up short in his other six categories this year, so he’s perhaps still not all the way back.) Wallen was a no-show, perhaps sensing that he was still persona non grata.

Related

Here Are the 2024 CMA Awards Winners: Full List

11/20/2024

Wallen’s win for entertainer of the year means that Chris Stapleton has now lost in that category eight times without winning. That’s the most nominations for entertainer of the year without a win. Miranda Lambert and Carrie Underwood are currently tied for second place on the list of artists with the most nominations without a win (six).

But Stapleton won three awards on the night, more than any other artist. This brings his career total of CMA wins to 18. Only two other artists have won 18 or more CMA Awards. Brooks & Dunn, who won another award this year, lead with 19 awards. Vince Gill, like Stapleton, has won 18 awards. At this year’s show, Stapleton pulled ahead of George Strait (17 wins) and Alan Jackson (16).

Stapleton won male vocalist of the year for a record-extending eighth time. He’s far ahead of the pack in terms of most wins in the category. Runners-up, with five wins each, are Gill, Strait and Blake Shelton. (By way of comparison, the top winner in the female vocalist of the year category, Lambert, has won it seven times.)

Stapleton also won single and song of the year for “White Horse.” It’s the third time he has doubled up and won both awards on the same night. He also won both awards for “Broken Halos” in 2018 and “Starting Over” in 2021. Stapleton is the first artist in CMA history to win single of the year three times. Stapleton’s single beat a pair of long-running No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100: “A  Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey and “I Had Some Help” by Post Malone featuring Wallen.

This was also Stapleton’s third win for song of the year. Only two other songwriters have won three or more times in this category. Gill leads with four song of the year wins. Don Schlitz also won it three times.

Lainey Wilson won two awards, second only to Stapleton. She took female vocalist of the year for the third year in a row. She’s the sixth woman to win in this category three or more years in a row. Tammy Wynette was the first singer to accomplish the feat (1968-70), followed by Reba McEntire (1984-87), Martina McBride (2002-04), Underwood (2006-08) and Lambert (2010-15). Wilson also won music video of the year for “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.” This ups her CMA tally to nine wins, all in just three years.

Old Dominion won vocal group of the year for the seventh consecutive year. They’re the first group ever to win in this category seven years running, though they still have a ways to go to catch up to The Statler Brothers for most total wins in the category (nine).

Brooks & Dunn won vocal duo of the year for the 15th time; the first time since 2006. Everyone was wondering if Brothers Osborne or Dan + Shay would win this time, or could The War and Treaty possibly win in an upset? Few thought Brooks & Dunn would reclaim the award they won 14 times between 1992 and 2006. When Brooks & Dunn first won the award, they beat reigning champs The Judds. With this latest win, they beat reigning champs Brothers Osborne.

Megan Moroney won new artist of the year on her second nomination. She lost to Jelly Roll last year. (Artists are allowed two nominations in this category.)

Cody Johnson’s ninth studio album, Leather, won album of the year. Its win was considered a surprise given the strong competition, including Stapleton’s Higher and Jelly Roll’s Whitsitt Chapel.

Guitar player Charlie Worsham won musician of the year for the first time, ending Jenee Fleenor’s five-year hold on the award. With Worsham’s win, steel guitarist Paul Franklin lost in the category for the 32nd time. That’s not a typo – Franklin has been nominated, and lost, in the category 32 times.

Jeff Bridges is many things – and “legendary actor” is certainly one of them. Not only did Bridges bring The Dude to life in 1998’s The Big Lebowski, creating one of the most beloved (and imitated) cinematic characters of the last 30 years, but he beautifully portrayed an alcoholic country singer in 2009’s Crazy Heart and won the best actor Oscar for it.

Shortly after Crazy Heart, Bridges – who used to play around on the guitar with Kris Kristofferson when the two worked together on 1980’s Heaven’s Gate – began taking music more seriously in a professional sense. After performing live a few times and trying his hand at covering some country classics, Bridges recorded his own self-titled album of country music in 2011 with legendary producer T Bone Burnett.

So yes, he’s an actor, a singer and a legend. But it seems that Bridges may not be a particularly attentive listener when it comes to country music today, at least based on his appearance at the 2024 CMA Awards on Wednesday (Nov. 20). While presenting entertainer of the year (the biggest award the Country Music Association gives out) at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, Bridges announced that Morgan Wallen – one of the most popular artists today in any musical genre — was the winner. But instead of pronouncing Wallen as, well, Wallen, Bridges said “Morgan Waylon” (or perhaps “Morgan Whalen” — maybe he’s been reading Moby-Dick lately).

“Morgan’s not here, man, Morgan couldn’t make it tonight, so I’m gonna accept on his behalf,” Bridges said after bungling the surname pronunciation.

“Let’s hear it for Morgan!” he continued as 2024 CMAs co-hosts Luke Bryan, Peyton Manning and Lainey Wilson rushed the stage to relieve him at that moment with some closing comments and jokes about their bespoke CMA host t-shirts.

Wallen, Waylon. Tomato, tomatoe. Well, you can’t be right all the time, can you? And it’s nothing a white Russian – or a rug that really ties a room together – can’t fix.

More than two decades since it was released, Chicago indie veterans Wilco have announced a 20th anniversary edition of their fifth album, A Ghost is Born.

The new deluxe edition package arrives via Nonesuch on February 7th, 2025 and complements the original recording with a myriad new extras.

Available in both a nine-CD or nine-LP/four-CD format, the packages include the initial album paired with alternates, outtakes, and demos which chart the record’s conception, in addition to a full 2004 concert recording from Boston’s Wang Center and the band’s “fundamentals” workshop sessions.

In total, 65 previously unreleased tracks are accompanied by a 48-page hardcover book which features liner notes from Grammy-winning writer Bob Mehr and previously unpublished photos. Alongside its announcement, the band have also shared an alternate version of “Handshake Drugs”, recorded at New York’s Sear Sound in November 2003.

Released in June 2004, A Ghost is Born arrived as Wilco’s fifth album and as the follow-up to 2001’s difficult (though critically-acclaimed) Yanke Hotel Foxtrot. Peaking at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, it was the group’s highest-charting album up to that point, and garnered reviews that equally labelled it their most “difficult and uncompromising album to date” and “the ever-evolving band’s richest work”.

Notwithstanding, the album went on to be named Best Alternative Music Album and Best Recording Package at the 2005 Grammy Awards, and became revered amongst fans as one of Wilco’s best.

“I was worried the album was going to feel like something dark and not me anymore,” frontman Jeff Tweedy told Mehr as part of the record’s new liner notes. “But the album was ahead of me as a person.

“It was the part of me that I was trying to preserve—enthusiastic and furious about the world, as well as open and loving. I reached that in the music, before I could get there emotionally on my own.”

Temperatures rose at the 2024 CMA Awards when Jelly Roll stepped out onstage for his second performance of the night, joined by Keith Urban for a rousing performance of “Liar.”

Backdropped by bursts of flames and rhythmic balls of sparks, the two musicians brought the heat, with the “Son of a Sinner” singer passionately belting out his lyrics while the Australian-American country star shredded on guitar next to him. “You ain’t nothin’ but a liar/ Yeah, I walk right out the fire,” Jelly sang, with his wife — podcaster Bunnie XO — mouthing along to the lyrics in the audience. “Yeah, you try to keep me down/ Try to put me underground/ But I’m only going higher.”

Related

Here Are the 2024 CMA Awards Winners (Updating Live)

11/20/2024

Bowing at No. 74 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 18 on the Hot Country Songs chart, “Liar” appears on Jelly’s Billboard 200-topping album Beautifully Broken. The Tennessee native previously debuted the track in May at the ACM Awards.

Jelly was up for numerous awards at the 2024 CMA Awards, including entertainer of the year, which an absent Morgan Wallen won at the very end of the night. He was also in the running for album of the year with 2023’s Whitsitt Chapel and male vocalist of the year, but the prizes went to Cody Johnson’s Leather and Chris Stapleton, respectively.

Earlier that night, the “Need a Favor” musician took the stage for the first time, performing a religious rendition of his collaboration with Brooks & Dunn “Believe.” The three-hour show was hosted by Peyton Manning, Luke Bryan and Lainey Wilson and took place at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville.