Ladies are set to dominate a crowded March-April album slate with main releases from Ariana Grande to Taylor Swift.
Clockwise from left: Maggie Rogers, Shakira, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Kacey Musgraves and Taylor Swift.
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Spring isn’t essentially often known as an enormous time for brand spanking new album releases — however will probably be in 2024.
After ladies took residence the entire Huge 4 Grammy Awards in February (Taylor Swift received album of the 12 months, a record-breaking fourth win, for Midnights; Billie Eilish received tune of the 12 months with the Barbie soundtrack tune “What Was I Made For?”; Miley Cyrus received document of the 12 months together with her Billboard Sizzling 100 topper “Flowers”; and Victoria Monét received finest new artist), they are going to proceed to dominate the discharge calendar in March and past.
Throughout a six-week span, a coterie of music’s A-listers will ship new — and extremely anticipated — albums. Beginning with Ariana Grande’s Everlasting Sunshine and on by to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Division, the flurry will maintain listeners busy. And with impending releases from Dua Lipa, Normani and Billie Eilish — and doubtlessly SZA’s Lana, a deluxe model of her Billboard 200-topping SOS album — nonetheless on the best way, this succession is displaying no signal of slowing down.
Certainly, a lot new music from main stars indicators a packed touring season forward. And although Grande advised The Zach Sang Present in a current interview she is “not sure” about hitting the street to assist Everlasting Sunshine, she is going to make a grand return to Saturday Evening Stay because the present’s musical visitor on March 9. In the meantime, Swift’s monumental The Eras Tour is about to proceed by this December.
Under, Billboard breaks down the confirmed upcoming albums that can assist us ease into the hotter months forward.
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Ariana Grande, Everlasting Sunshine (March 8)
Grande’s seventh full-length will arrive greater than three years after 2020’s Positions — her longest span between albums. Positions adopted her definitive one-two punch of Sweetener and Thank U, Subsequent, each of which she supported on her Sweetener world tour, her largest trek up to now that grossed $146 million and offered 1.3 million tickets, based on Billboard Boxscore. Sweetener and Thank U, Subsequent soundtracked a extremely public time in Grande’s life; she was dealing with the demise of ex-boyfriend Mac Miller and newly engaged to Pete Davidson, which they ended after a number of months. Everlasting Sunshine places her again within the acquainted territory of heading off the opinions of followers and haters alike. Lead single “Sure, And?,” which debuted atop the Billboard Sizzling 100, dives proper into the headlines with lyrics like “Don’t touch upon my physique, don’t reply” and “Why do you care a lot whose — I journey?” Following Everlasting Sunshine, Grande will return her consideration to the film Depraved, with half one set for a November launch.
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Kacey Musgraves, Deeper Nicely (March 15)
Although Musgraves debuted in 2013 as a rustic artist, her acclaimed third album, 2018’s Golden Hour, cemented her standing as an authorized pop star and received the album of the 12 months Grammy. Its follow-up, the ethereal breakup treatise Star-Crossed, debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 (one spot greater than Golden Hour) however didn’t obtain the identical degree of essential acclaim. With Deeper Nicely, Musgraves returns to the stripped-down singer-songwriter mannequin that labored so properly earlier than. The title-track lead single arrived after nation and folks collaborations with Zach Bryan (the Grammy-winning Sizzling 100 chart-topper “I Bear in mind Every part”) and Noah Kahan (“She Calls Me Again”) and falls proper in line: Musgraves sings of individuals with “darkish vitality” who waste her time and chronicles her Saturn return, declaring, “I’ve gotten older, now I do know/ handle myself/I’ve discovered a deeper properly.”
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Shakira, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran (March 22)
Shakira’s forthcoming album will finish a seven-year lapse for the famous person, who final launched an album in 2017 — El Dorado, which spent 5 weeks at No. 1 on the High Latin Albums chart. The brand new album’s title nods to the fiery lyrics from her Bizarrap session final 12 months, through which she declared: “Las mujeres ya no llora, las mujeres facturan,” which loosely interprets to, “Ladies don’t cry anymore, they become profitable.” The session, “Shakira: Bzrp Music Classes, Vol. 53,” was considered one of two Sizzling 100 prime 10 hits for Shakira in 2023, alongside “TQG” with Karol G. As she advised Billboard in her September cowl story: “Now I can launch music at a sooner clip, though typically I feel being a single mother and the rhythm of a pop star aren’t appropriate … It’s fixed juggling as a result of I wish to be a gift mother … and except for that, I’ve to become profitable.”
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Beyoncé, Act II (March 29)
One of many largest winners on Tremendous Bowl Sunday wasn’t a soccer crew. In a Verizon business that aired in the course of the sport, Beyoncé introduced new singles “Texas Maintain ’Em” and “16 Carriages,” together with the forthcoming launch of Act II, the second of three components to her Renaissance album collection. The seemingly country-inspired mission is off to a robust begin as “Texas” scored Beyoncé her first Sizzling Nation Songs hit, debuting at No. 1, whereas “16 Carriages” entered at No. 9. 2022’s Renaissance scored Queen Bey her fourth album of the 12 months Grammy nomination and seventh Billboard 200 chart-topper. (All seven of her solo albums have entered at No. 1.) In the meantime, her Renaissance world tour was 2023’s top-grossing trek, based on figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. The stage is about for Act II to maintain breaking data — and, with new sonic path, breaking boundaries, too.
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Maggie Rogers, Don’t Overlook Me (April 12)
Rogers co-produced her third album with Grammy-winning producer-songwriter Ian Fitchuk, who additionally had a hand in Musgraves’ Deeper Nicely. (Each albums had been labored on at New York’s Electrical Woman Studios.) Don’t Overlook Me’s contemplative title-track lead single prominently options Rogers’ uncooked vocals and much more revealing writing. As she chronicles a fling, of whom she pleads, “Don’t neglect me,” she contrasts her personal actuality with these of buddies who’re heading towards marriage. “To me that sounds so scary,” she confesses. Rogers’ 2019 debut, Heard It in a Previous Life, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 whereas its follow-up, Give up, entered simply exterior the highest 10 at No. 12.
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Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Division (April 19)
On the 2024 Grammys, whereas accepting the most effective pop vocal album award for Midnights — her thirteenth Grammy win, after all — Swift introduced that her subsequent album was already on the best way. She stated she wished to thank her followers by spilling a secret she had been conserving for 2 years — after which revealed the title and launch date of her forthcoming eleventh album. She shared the quilt artwork that evening and shortly after revealed the tracklist, which incorporates options from Submit Malone and Florence + the Machine. Regardless of the key reveal, followers are nonetheless hungry for yet one more anticipated Swift launch: Status (Taylor’s Model), the rerecorded tackle her 2017 album. There’s little doubt it’s on the best way, however that’s one secret Swift isn’t fairly able to share.
This story initially appeared within the March 2, 2024, situation of Billboard.