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With more than 60 song credits, Armenta’s songwriting prowess can be heard across some of the most popular música mexicana albums to date, whether by Fuerza Regida, Tito Double P, Peso Pluma or Dareyes de la Sierra.

“I consider myself a tailor,” said Armenta, 25. “[I’ll create] a sound that will be good with your vocal timbre, with your tones, with the vocal intention you need.”

The singer-songwriter wrote Fuerza Regida’s gritty hit “Marlboro Rojo” in 45 minutes, ensuring that the song’s aggressive, battle-ready lyrics also captured a romantic spirit. (“The devil’s bullets and I only think of your eyes,” sang Jesús Ortiz Paz, a.k.a. JOP.) And he wrote “Dos Días” for Tito Double P and Peso Pluma one early morning after a wild night out with friends; you can hear the emotional hangover in the way the vocalists’ rugged voices flail in desperation.

“The most important thing is always to convey something where people can immerse themselves in a feeling,” said Armenta, whose full name is Miguel Armenta.

He dialed into our interview from a tour bus departing from Austin, Texas, en route to the next concert venue on the Dinastía Tour by Peso Pluma, Tito Double P and friends. Armenta was instrumental in writing and producing Tito Double P’s 2024 debut “Incómodo,” a 21-track project that helped distinguish the Mexican corrido singer from his already famous cousin, Peso Pluma.

“I feel that it’s a project that has solidified the responsibility we have as composers and as artists, [it’s] an album full of hits,” said Armenta, who later wrote tracks on Tito Double P and Peso Pluma’s joint 2025 LP “Dinastía.”

Since the beginning of March, Armenta has joined the pair of cousins on stage for their acoustic- and brass-powered song “London,” a track on the deluxe edition of “Dinastía” that indulges in fantasies of living like kings. The song was cut from Armenta’s own 2025 debut, “Portate Bien,” a blend of corridos tumbados with melodic touches of reggaeton and pop.

“I had just bought my own house and I wrote [‘London’] feeling like king of the world in my own studio,” Armenta said. “I thought that song was dead, but I got a call from Double P [Records] asking if I was interested in releasing it with them.”

Armenta’s entry into the música mexicana realm was not as calculated as his lyricism; at least not at first. Coming from a family full of industrial engineers, the Sinaloa-born, Tijuana-raised composer initially set his sights on a degree in biomedical engineering. “I liked the idea of being able to use technology to create advancements that benefit humanity,” he explained.

His passion for music, however, lingered persistently in the background. Starting from when he was 11 years old, Armenta would write lyrics in journals and strum along to the guitar his brother bought him. “He didn’t like that I used his guitar, so he bought me one,” he recalled.

He also gravitated toward independent YouTube artists who uploaded their raw compositions online. By age 18, he would compose one of his first R&B songs, titled “Dame” — though the tenderly sung track wouldn’t be published until two years later.

“It was the first song that I bet on as an artist, and I spent the very little money that I had on it,” Armenta said. “A literal sacrifice. I knew that the song had something, but I didn’t know what until later.”

In about 2020, Armenta helped compose some songs for Angel Ureta, a friend who signed with Street Mob Records, founded by Fuerza Regida’s JOP. Armenta eventually developed a working partnership with the indie label, which continued sign popular música mexicana acts like Calle 24, Chino Pacas and Clave Especial.

One of Armenta’s earliest hits with Fuerza Regida came in late 2022 as “Bebe Dame.” The band recorded the song alongside Grupo Frontera, who earlier that year had reached TikTok popularity for the cumbia nortena spin on “No Se Va,” a 2018 pop song by the Colombian band Morat.

Armenta proposed the adoption of his own track from the vault, “Dame,” which by that point had fewer than 1,000 views online. With some lyrical tweaking by Edgar Barrera — a 29-time Latin Grammy-winning songwriter, who Armenta later befriended — the revamped version, “Bebe Dame,” became an immediate sensation.

It helped score Fuerza Regida their first career entry into the Billboard Hot 100 at the start of 2023, later peaking at No. 25. By 2024, Fuerza Regida became one of the biggest streaming Latin acts in the U.S., alongside Junior H, Peso Pluma and Bad Bunny.

In 2024, Armenta and Barrera reunited again in secret to hash out what would be Grupo Frontera and Fuerza Regida’s joint EP, “Mala Mía” — “without either group knowing,” Armenta said. Their viral corrido-cumbia single, titled “Me Jalo,” secured Fuerza Regida’s first Latin Grammy nomination, and Grupo Frontera’s fourth, under the category of regional song at the 26th Annual Latin Grammy Awards.

“Edgar and I focus a lot on how to evolve sounds,” Armenta said. “We are in the process of recognizing [the value of] música mexicana, that we can’t let this die.”

Between 2024 and 2026, 12 of Armenta’s songs have been recognized by the BMI Latin Awards — which honors songwriters, composers and publishers — including Fuerza Regida and Grupo Frontera’s joint collaborations “Bebe Dame” and “Me Jalo,” as well as Fuerza Regida’s “TQM,” “Nel” and “Por Esos Ojos.” Tito Double P’s “Dos Dias” and “Escapate” (feat. Chino Pacas) also received accolades.

For now, the songwriter shows no signs of stopping his lyrical magic, though he figures he might part ways with the music world 10 years from now — but not before winning a couple of Grammy Awards, he said, or even starting his own publishing label for songwriters and composers. (“My mom says I’m going to get gray hairs,” he added.)

“I think that life put me here to have fun,” Armenta said. “I had another destiny, but life accommodated itself to place me in this valuable situation.”

Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.

“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.

As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.

Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.

The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.

1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage

A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.

But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.

Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.

2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority

As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.

Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.

3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine

Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.

Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.

4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits

One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.

The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.

5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes

A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.

If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.

When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.

Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.

6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing

While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.

As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).

Anyone who thinks Coachella’s biggest surprises are reserved for Weekend 1 was proven wrong Friday night as Sabrina Carpenter welcomed Madonna on stage during her Weekend 2 headlining set. The crowd exploded with waves of cheers as the iconic pop star came on stage.

Madge joined Carpenter as a surprise guest during “Juno,” in which Carpenter reemerged in a gown that was a nod to Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus” for a torch-passing duet of Madonna’s 1990 pop-house gauntlet “Vogue.”

The classic was followed by the debut of the gloriously upbeat “I Feel Free,” the first track from the pop icon’s forthcoming new album “Confessions II,” due out July 3.

The singer announced the record, a sequel to 2005’s “Confessions On A Dancefloor,” on April 15, alongside a 60-second teaser video for “I Feel Free.”

The Coachella performance, however, marks the first time the song has been heard in full — a fitting full circle moment 20 after Madonna played the Sahara Tent in 2006, complete with the same boots and costuming from that gig. “Confessions II” will be Madonna’s first full-length album since 2019’s “Madame X.”

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“Let’s try to be together. Let’s try to avoid disagreements,” Madonna said as she spoke about the moon and planets aligning.

Before the pair ended with “Like a Prayer,” accompanied by a choir, Madonna had another reason to be grateful.

“This is probably the first time I’ve ever performed with someone shorter than me,” Madonna said to Carpenter as the crowd laughed. “Thank you for giving me that experience.”

Senior Audience Editor Vanessa Franko contributed to this report.

In the weeks before Justin Bieber’s headlining performance at this month’s Coachella festival — the 32-year-old teen-pop survivor’s first major concert after a lengthy stretch in the celebrity wilderness — speculation began to mount that he planned to play only songs from his recent “Swag” and “Swag II” albums.

And indeed, for 45 minutes or so last Saturday, it seemed like that was what he’d come to do as he sang new song after new song on Coachella’s giant main stage. But then he pulled out a laptop, fired up YouTube and started singing along with some of his old hits — a thrilling subversion of our expectations for a big festival set and a poignant act of self-examination by an artist who’s lived more than half of his life on our screens.

For the singer, Bieberchella was clearly a trip down memory lane. But it also offered the audience a chance to look back on a career that’s encompassed virtually every major shift in pop music over the last two decades.

Ahead of Coachella’s second weekend, then, here’s a list, ranked from worst to best, of every hit that Bieber has put inside the Top 10 of Billboard’s flagship singles chart, the Hot 100. Pop, of course, is an art as much as a science, meaning statistics get you only so far: Some important Bieber songs aren’t here, not least among them “Lonely,” which may be his finest vocal performance but stalled out at No. 12 on the chart. Other throwaways made it on the list thanks to Bieber’s gamesmanship or Billboard’s methodological quirks.

Yet these 27 songs tell a fascinating story about a boy, about a man, about a talent possibly more vital today than ever before.

27. ‘Never Say Never’ (peaked at No. 8 in March 2011)

Co-written and co-produced by the guy who would later top the Hot 100 with “Rude” by the band Magic, this booming kiddie-rap track was introduced as the theme song for Jaden Smith’s 2010 remake of “The Karate Kid” before Bieber used it in a 2011 concert film of the same title. The voice is high; the beat is blah.

26. ‘Monster’ (peaked at No. 8 in Dec. 2020)

Just a month after he dropped “Lonely,” Bieber returned to his teen-idol woes — far less movingly, alas — in this dreary duet with Shawn Mendes.

25. ‘Stuck With U’ (peaked at No. 1 in May 2020)

The nicest thing you can say about the doo-woppy “Stuck With U” is that Bieber and Ariana Grande donated the song’s proceeds to first responders navigating the early months of the COVID pandemic. Do not rewatch the video unless you want to be reminded of the smiley horrors of Zoom life.

24. ‘No Brainer’ (peaked at No. 5 in Aug. 2018)

We’ll get to Bieber’s convivial 2017 hook-up with DJ Khaled and friends. As for this shameless sequel, Khaled’s “another one” tag has never been less necessary.

23. ‘Cold Water’ (peaked at No. 2 in Aug. 2016)

Sleek. Pretty. Forgettable.

22. ‘As Long as You Love Me’ (peaked at No. 6 in Sept. 2012)

How high was Bieber riding as he prepared to release 2012’s “Believe” LP? High enough to swipe the title of the Backstreet Boys’ classic teen-pop ballad for this junior-dubstep jam. Stick around (or don’t) for Big Sean’s guest verse about needing “you” to spell both “us” and “trust.”

21. ‘Holy’ (peaked at No. 3 in Oct. 2020)

In which Bieber and Chance the Rapper preach about marriage like two horny youth pastors.

20. ‘Anyone’ (peaked at No. 6 in Jan. 2021)

What if Phil Collins had recorded “In Your Eyes” instead of Peter Gabriel?

19. ‘10,000 Hours’ (peaked at No. 4 in Oct. 2019)

Timed to commemorate his and Hailey Baldwin’s wedding among the salt marshes of South Carolina, Bieber’s crack at high-gloss country music was warmly welcomed by the Nashville establishment; it even spent two weeks atop Billboard’s Country Airplay chart. No surprise, really: To listen to earlier stuff by Dan + Shay, Bieber’s collaborators on “10,000 Hours,” is to hear how extensively white-soul singing had reshaped country by the early 2010s.

18. ‘I Don’t Care’ (peaked at No. 2 in May 2019)

Has any would-be song of the summer ever song-of-the-summered harder? Bieber and Ed Sheeran’s breezy dancehall bro-down was clearly modeled on the sound — and the success — of Sheeran’s “Shape of You.” (Call it “Shape of II.”) Yet the duo’s chemistry feels real enough to believe that all of these hooks — hey, they just happened.

17. ‘I’m the One’ (peaked at No. 1 in May 2017)

Bieber’s first Khaled collab has a merry bounce that softens the braggadocio from him, Quavo, Chance the Rapper and Lil Wayne, whose verse opens pricelessly like so: “Looking for the one?/ Well, b—, you looking at the one.” Fun chart fact per Billboard: The week after “I’m the One” bowed atop the Hot 100, Bieber became the first artist ever to score new No. 1s back to back when his remix of “Despacito” replaced “I’m the One.”

16. ‘Boyfriend’ (peaked at No. 2 in April 2012)

A decade after Justin Timberlake stepped out from NSYNC, JB blatantly ripped JT’s “Like I Love You” for this heavy-breathing flirtation. “Baby, take a chance or you’ll never, ever know/ I got money in my hands that I’d really like to blow,” Bieber pants over a spacey, Neptunes-style beat. (Later, he suggests fondue.) In an ironic twist, given the song’s all-grown-up-at-18 energy, “Boyfriend” was blocked from No. 1 by “We Are Young” from Jack Antonoff’s old band, Fun.

15. ‘Ghost’ (peaked at No. 5 in April 2022)

A hurtling lost-love lament that doubles as a farewell to a departed grandparent (as in the song’s music video, which stars the late Diane Keaton).

14. ‘Let Me Love You’ (peaked at No. 4 in Oct. 2016)

In the final Top 10 hit of Bieber’s EDM era, a pleading tenderness in the singer’s vocals cuts appealingly against DJ Snake’s strobing Sahara Tent beat.

13. ‘Baby’ (peaked at No. 5 in Feb. 2010)

New puppy, old love.

12. ‘Yummy’ (peaked at No. 2 in Jan. 2020)

“Hop in the Lambo, I’m on my way/ Drew House slippers on with a smile on my face,” Bieber sings — not the last time he’d plug one of his or his wife’s brands in a lyric. A country remix with Florida Georgia Line adds shout-outs to Waffle House and Chick-fil-A.

11. ‘What Do You Mean?’ (peaked at No. 1 in Sept. 2015)

The path to Bieber’s first No. 1 on the Hot 100 was cleared by a better, more interesting song that reframed him as a dreamboat experimentalist. (More on that one in a minute.) But if “What Do You Mean?” deploys a more conventional tropical-house production, it’s still built around one of the singer’s loveliest vocals. And the fake pan flute still hits.

10. ‘Despacito’ (peaked at No. 1 in May 2017)

Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s pop-reggaeton seduction had already found an enormous audience among Latin music fans when Bieber jumped on a remix after hearing the song in a Colombian nightclub. Yet the star’s presence — in a Spanish-language chorus whose lyrics Bieber learned phonetically over the course of a four-hour recording session — turned “Despacito” into a global juggernaut. In the U.S., the song became the first Spanish-language chart-topper since “Macarena” two decades earlier; it also became something of a protest tune amid the anti-immigrant rhetoric of President Trump’s first term in office. Said Scooter Braun, Bieber’s then-manager, in a 2017 interview with The Times: “A song in Spanish is all over pop radio in an America where young Latino Americans should feel proud of themselves and their families’ native tongue.”

9. ‘Essence’ (peaked at No. 9 in Oct. 2021)

Like “Despacito,” this slinky Afrobeats track was a hit before Bieber got involved. (Among its fans: President Obama, who put it on his best of 2020 list.) What distinguishes the version with Bieber is how gently he slides between the Nigerian singers Wizkid and Tems, who both joined him for a rendition of “Essence” at Coachella.

8. ‘Stay’ (peaked at No. 1 in August 2021)

At a mere 2 minutes and 22 seconds, this breakneck electro-pop duet with Australia’s the Kid Laroi (who also put in a cameo at Coachella) is the shortest of Bieber’s 27 Top 10 singles. Yet with 63 weeks on the Hot 100, it’s also his longest-lived chart hit — and his most-streamed song on Spotify.

7. ‘Intentions’ (peaked at No. 5 in June 2020)

“Stay in the kitchen cooking up, got your own bread/ Heart full of equity, you’re an asset.”

6. ‘Beauty and a Beat’ (peaked at No. 5 in Jan. 2013)

The most fondly remembered of Bieber’s teen-idol hits anticipates the EDM makeover to come even as it stays rooted in his squeaky-clean persona: “We’re gonna party like it’s 3012 tonight” is truly something only a kid would say. Seven months after “Beauty and a Beat” peaked on the Hot 100, Bieber was infamously caught on video urinating in a mop bucket in a New York City restaurant kitchen; this song would be his last Top 10 single for more than two years.

5. ‘Peaches’ (peaked at No. 1 in April 2021)

A sumptuous R&B jam about procuring one’s peaches from Georgia and one’s weed from California, this three-way joint with Daniel Caesar and Giveon was nominated for record and song of the year at the 2022 Grammys. (It lost both prizes to another sumptuous R&B jam in Silk Sonic’s “Leave the Door Open.”) Extra props here for the vivid contrast among the singers’ voices and for the Kool & the Gang-ish synth solo at the end.

4. ‘Love Yourself’ (peaked at No. 1 in Feb. 2016)

A sick burn delivered oh so sweetly.

3. ‘Where Are Ü Now’ (peaked at No. 8 in July 2015)

Behold the dreamboat experimentalist. In search of a fresh sound after Bucketgate, Bieber found it with Skrillex and Diplo, veteran dance-music producers who took a morose piano ballad that Bieber and his frequent accomplice Poo Bear had demoed and turned it into a glimmering boudoir-rave fantasia. “I was like, ‘Diplo, Skrillex — I don’t really know if that’s, like, where I wanna go,’” Bieber later told the New York Times. “They did it, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is blowing my mind.’”

2. ‘Daisies’ (peaked at No. 2 in July 2025)

Is putting a nine-month-old song at No. 2 on this list an act of recency bias? Maybe. But what a song! Against a bracingly lo-fi guitar lick played by his pal Mk.gee, Bieber sings with beautifully understated soul about coming into an emotional maturity he admits he avoided for too long.

1. ‘Sorry’ (peaked at No. 1 in Jan. 2016)

A plea, a flex, a come-on — this delirious pop masterpiece contains multitudes. “Is it too late now to say sorry?” Bieber asks, and the trick of a song born from a branding problem is that it summons the sensation of endless ascent.