Billboard News

As part of our continuing efforts to serve the music industry and its creators, Billboard Pro now features a music industry events calendar for readers.

The calendar will act as music’s most complete summary major national and international industry events, from conferences to festivals to networking mixers and more. Just as Billboard is music’s must-read source for news, charts and analysis, now it also is the go-to for business happenings.

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April 2026

May 2026

June 2026

July 2026

August 2026

September 2026

October 2026

November 2026

December 2026

January 2027

March 2027

March 2028

Want your event listed? For more information contact [email protected].

When Nova Scotia native Anne Murray attained the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart dated April 24, 1986, it marked the only time in her career that two noted Canadian producers, both from British Columbia, pitched in on the project.

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David Foster (Kenny Rogers, Whitney Houston) guided just one cut on Murray’s 10-track Something To Talk About album, created from a melody he cowrote with Jim Vallance (Tina Turner, Glass Tiger), a frequent Bryan Adams cowriter. They mostly had just a topline and chords when they introduced it to Murray, who then called Nashville songwriter Randy Goodrum (Murray’s “You Needed Me,” Steve Perry’s “Oh Sherrie,” Toto’s “I’ll Be Over You”) to concoct some lyrics.

The result was “Now and Forever (You & Me),” a midtempo pop-country single loaded with electronic keyboards, spiky guitars and backing vocals from Mr. Mister lead singer Richard Page.

“Now and Forever” started at No. 58 on the Hot Country Songs chart dated Jan. 25, 1986, progressing to No. 1 over a 14-week climb. It marked the last of her 10 trips to the country summit, which began with her cover of a George Jones chart-topper, the re-gendered “He Thinks I Still Care,” which reached the summit on July 27, 1974.

Overall, Murray amassed 25 top 10 country singles, four top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100 and 19 Adult Contemporary top 10s. “Now and Forever” peaked at No. 7 on AC. Now retired from music, Murray was celebrated in an Oct. 27, 2025, Nashville tribute that featured Trisha Yearwood, Martina McBride, Collin Raye and k.d. lang.

Olivia Rodrigo has been gutsy in relationships, and she’s had relationships go sour. But she’s never had one as serious as the relationship that inspired her new album, You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love.

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Olivia Rodrigo's 'Drop Dead' Debuts at No. 1 on ARIA Chart

In an Audacy Check In interview posted Thursday (April 23), the pop star opened up about how third studio LP (due June 12) differs from 2021 debut album, Sour, and 2023 follow-up Guts, both of which topped the Billboard 200. “I think the challenge for me was to write songs about romantic love positively,” she offered.

“I think when I set out to write this album, I was really in love — sort of my first ‘big girl’ relationship,” she continued without naming her significant other. “Writing a song about happiness is a lot harder than writing a song about heartbreak … it was sort of challenging myself to make a love song and also talk about some of the more negative feelings that go along with being in romantic relationships, like longing and yearning and jealousy and missing your partner when they’re away.”

Rodrigo was last linked to actor Louis Partridge, with the pair first sparking dating rumors in fall 2023. Even before formally announcing You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, she was open in a March interview with British Vogue about how her next body of work would be full of “sad love songs.”

“I realized all my favorite romantic love songs were beautiful because they had a tinge of fear or yearning in them,” she told the publication at the time. “I felt a similar way about falling in love, 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.”

Watch Rodrigo’s full interview with Audacy Check In above.

V’ghn might have a sixth sense. The Grenadian soca sensation knew “Jab Decisions” would be a season-defining hit ahead of its release for Spicemas 2025 — and he also had the idea for his current tour long before its titular song came to fruition.

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On Saturday (April 25), V’ghn will return to his home country of Grenada for his Jab Decisions Tour finale at the island’s National Stadium. Also serving as his 30^th birthday celebration, the massive show boasts a lineup that includes fellow Caribbean music stars Terra D Governor, Voice, Lyrikal, Nailah Blackman, Mical Teja, Full Blown, Skinny Fabulous, Christo, Coutain, Ding Dong, Dred Lion, Bubbah 473, Dash and 2025 Spicemas Road March winner Lil Kerry.

The blockbuster show also arrives alongside the news of V’ghn’s new publicity team. On Friday (April 24), the soca star confirmed that he joined forces with veteran publicist Yvette Noel-Schure and award-winning publicist Tenille Clarke of Chambers Media Solutions. Notably, Noel-Schure, whose clients include music industry titans like Beyoncé, is a fellow Grenadian, and Clarke hails from the twin-island republic of Trinidad & Tobago, making the new partnership a true cross-Caribbean collaboration. After teaming up to power KestheBand’s latest era, and now adding V’ghn to the fold, Schure and Clarke are collecting Caribbean music stars like infinity stones.

Saturday’s all-night extravaganza marks the conclusion to the Jab Decisions tour, which transported V’ghn to major global cities such as Miami, New York, London and Toronto. The cross-continental trek is jointly produced by him and Top-Notch Entertainment, with support from both Pure Grenada and the Grenada Ministry of Tourism, Creative Economy & Culture.

“I had the idea to go on tour about three days after dropping ‘Jab Decisions,’ since it was one of the last songs released for the [Spicemas] season,” he tells Billboard. “I also just wanted to incorporate Terra into whatever I was doing. He was happy to join, but I realized it could be even bigger. I’ve always wanted to include a multitude of Grenadian artists and create history. Soca is one, and every island contributes to the genre. We have to stick together. That oneness will drive the streams and the numbers.”

V’ghn’s early pitches to promoters were all shut down, he says, but “telling me ‘I can’t’ is like telling me, ‘I can’ in a different language.” So, he spoke with Tracy Garrett-Baptiste, head of department for creative economy at the Grenada Office of Creative Affairs, for over a month, eventually convincing her to throw some support behind the artists and their accommodations. By that point, other promoters realized songs recorded by the expected tour lineup were dominating the season, so they began to latch onto V’ghn’s idea as well.

“Jab Decisions” began with V’ghn lying down in a friend’s room in London and vibing to different beats. “[Producer] Kay Frass sent me the beat about two months before I recorded it,” V’ghn recalls. “He’s been sending me beats for years, and I told him one of these days, the right song is going to come. When he played me that beat in [Grenada’s] Lavo Lanes while we were bowling, I said, ‘This is the one I’m writing a song on, and I’m going to give you a hit.’”

It took him a while, but V’ghn eventually got around to mumbling an early melody pass, which he sent to Frass, who then demanded he finish it as soon as possible. With a clearer understanding that he was onto something, V’ghn recorded the full song and shared a snippet on an Instagram story post. Despite the departure from his signature, groovy soca-rooted sound, fans and peers alike demanded the immediate release of the song.

Building on his sonic experimentation, V’ghn also tapped his first Grenadian collaborator in some years, Terra D Governor, despite fans recommending Boyzie and Voice throwing his hat in the ring via Instagram DM. By the end of August’s Spicemas celebrations, “Jab Decisions” cemented itself as one of the season’s biggest anthems — and V’ghn didn’t even touch down in Grenada until the evening of Carnival.

As he prepares to take the stage for his Jab Decisions tour finale, V’ghn is hoping to bring the rich history and culture of soca music and jab jab to a new generation. On Monday (April 20), he took to his official Instagram page to reveal that Grenada’s PBC boys’ choir will be joining him onstage for “Keep It Together,” an introspective, DJ Puffy-helmed cut that arrived on Jan. 30.

“As the only youth ambassador for WIPO [World Intellectual Property Organization] in the Caribbean, it’s my duty to incorporate the youth and get them involved in things like this,” stresses V’ghn. “I’ve been wanting to work with the PBC choir; it’s just the right moment and the right time. I remember trying choir in school, and those are moments that stick with you. And there are a few guys who probably look up to me, so I want to motivate them and make them feel like they’re on the right path. I want to be an example of what they can be and even surpass.”

Given that his as-yet-untitled new album is slated to arrive this summer on Aug. 20, V’ghn is headed straight to the studio following Saturday night’s show. “I’m tapping into being more open with music, giving more of my experiences in life in the songs,” he teases. “Expect more of me in my music, more of who I am and who I want people to understand me to be.”

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Olivia Dean’s “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” sways a spot to No. 1 on Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart (dated May 2).

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The sultry song becomes the British singer-songwriter’s second leader in as many visits to the chart, following “Man I Need,” which ruled for six weeks in January-February (and continues its run in the top five that dates to mid-December). She cowrote both singles.

Dean is just the seventh woman artist to have topped Pop Airplay on two initial tries (in lead roles). She joins Lady Gaga, who reigned with her overall-record first six entries, Avril Lavigne (three), Christina Aguilera, Iggy Azalea, Beyoncé and Mariah Carey (two each) since the chart began in fall 1992.

Both “Man I Need” and “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” are from Dean’s Polydor/Island/Republic album The Art of Loving. The set has ranked in the Billboard 200’s top 10 since mid-January, reaching No. 3, with its two biggest hits prominent in streaming, as well as on radio, having drawn a respective 13.9 million and 11.2 million chart-contributing official U.S. streams April 10-16, according to Luminate.

Notably, while “Man I Need” spotlights down-the-middle pop, Dean’s new leader dances into bossa nova, an obvious outlier for top 40 radio in any era.

Still, Dean’s momentum, among other potential factors, helped the best new artist Grammy winner hit No. 1 a second time.

“I feel the success of Olivia Dean is emblematic of the great variety of artists and songs we have across the format right now,” Mark Adams, iHeartMedia vp of pop programming and program director of WHTZ (Z100) New York, tells Billboard. “I’m thinking about the Latin and pop-soul influences of Bruno Mars, the pop, jazz and blues that help define RAYE, the innovative disco/funk from Harry Styles, the joyous dance and synth-pop from Zara Larsson and the soul and R&B-inspired sounds of Teddy Swims.”

Adams, who also cites the “pop awesomeness” of established stars such as Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter and Olivia Rodrigo, muses that, in an era of streaming and blurry genre boundaries, “today’s radio listeners have been exposed to artists, sounds and influences that, in many cases, may be far older than they are. I think that helps contribute to being less bound by tradition and more excited to just embrace great music.”

Molly Cruz, Audacy top 40 format vp, concurs. “‘So Easy (To Fall in Love)’ isn’t a traditional [pop] sound, but it’s a great reminder that hit records aren’t defined by genre — they’re defined by connection,” she says. “It’s important that we listen to our audience instead of just following the norm. We’re also seeing a broader trend right now around soulful, vocal-driven records. Artists like Olivia Dean, RAYE and Sienna Spiro are all resonating.

“It speaks to where pop music is today, and it’s an exciting moment for the format.”

All charts dated May 2 will update on Billboard.com on Tuesday, April 28.

Olivia Rodrigo is a big fan of Justin Bieber’s headlining set at this year’s Coachella.

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In an interview with Audacy Check In posted Thursday (April 23), the Gen-Z pop star praised a number of acts she saw recently at the second weekend of the festival — including Nine Inch Nails and David Byrne — before raving about the Saturday main-stage closer. “I did see Bieber, it was so epic,” she told host Bru. “I loved it.”

“When he sang ‘Baby,’ I think I lost my mind,” she continued about the lead single from Bieber’s 2010 debut album. “I thought it was so beautiful the way he did it with the laptop, too. It almost felt like he was paying homage to his younger self, having his younger self on screen, seeing him in real life so happy. It was really powerful.”

Bieber’s was one of the most talked-about sets from this year’s Coachella. Beyond serenading Billie Eilish on stage and duetting with SZA at weekend two, he also poignantly searched through YouTube videos of his preteen self on his computer as the crowd looked on.

That same day, Rodrigo made a surprise appearance during Addison Rae’s set to perform “Drop Dead,” the former’s newly released lead single from upcoming album You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love (June 12). “I’ve known her [Rae] for so long,” the Grammy winner said on Audacy Check In. “She has such a vision and is such like a positive, wonderful person and I’m just so happy she’s having so much success.”

“We’re friends,” Rodrigo added of how the cameo came to be. “We text all the time, and I text her, and I was like, ‘Maybe I could come out at Coachella. I feel like the song is so fun and free and very you.’ And she was so stoked.”

Watch her full interview below.