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Celine Dion scored a hole in one on Tuesday (March 4) after ESPN’s Marty Smith asked the singer which one of her classic hits best represents her golf game. Making an appearance at the TGL match between the Atlanta Drive GC and Jupiter Links Golf Club in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Dion didn’t hesitate. Explore […]
Glastonbury has unveiled the first names for the 2025 edition of the festival, with The 1975, Olivia Rodrigo and Neil Young billed as headliners. View the lineup in full below.
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The British group will top the Pyramid Stage for the first time on Friday (June 26), ahead of Rodrigo on Sunday’s closing night. Joined by his Chrome Hearts band, Young will return to Worthy Farm in Somerset, south west England for the second time following his last headline set at the site in 2009.
Loyle Carner, The Prodigy, and five-time BRIT winner Charli XCX are all set to close out proceedings on The Other Stage across the weekend (June 25-29).
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Other newly-confirmed acts include Doechii, Alanis Morissette, Tate McRae, Father John Misty, Ezra Collective, Lola Young, RAYE, Noah Kahan, Biffy Clyro, Gracie Abrams and Wolf Alice. See the full lineup below.
Rod Stewart, meanwhile, will perform in the coveted legends slot on the Sunday (June 29), having shared the news last November. The 79-year-old previously appeared at the festival as a headliner in 2002, joining Coldplay and Stereophonics as bill-toppers that year.
Tickets for Glastonbury 2025 went on sale in November and were snapped up by punters in under an hour following the introduction of a new online queuing system. A resale traditionally takes place in early April, which includes unpaid, or unwanted, tickets from people who have canceled their purchase. More details of this year’s resale are expected to arrive soon.
The 1975 have previously appeared twice at Glastonbury, with an early afternoon slot on the Pyramid Stage in 2014 and then gracing The Other Stage two years later. Their headline booking arrives ahead of rumoured new music, with frontman Matty Healy having told fans last February that a record was in the works.
Fans believed that Rodrigo would be one of the headliners due to her forthcoming U.K. touring commitments aligning – including a huge show at BST Hyde Park in London and two rescheduled Manchester gigs – with this year’s festival. The singer made her Glastonbury debut in 2022, where she was joined on stage by Lily Allen for a sprightly rendition of “F–ck You.”
Canadian rocker Young announced in January that he would be headlining Glastonbury, just days after he said that he would withdraw from the festival and called it a “corporate turn-off.” At the time, Young did not expand on the reversal of his decision, instead posting a brief statement to his website. “Due to an error in the information received, I had decided to not play the Glastonbury festival, which I have always loved,” it read. “Happily, the festival is now back on our itinerary and we look forward to playing! Hope to see you there!”
Last year, Glastonbury was headlined by Dua Lipa, SZA and Coldplay. The latter became the first act to top the bill five times, following headline performances in 2002, 2005, 2011 and 2016.
Julien Baker and Torres made a stylish stop at The Daily Show this week, suiting up—literally—for a performance of their latest single, “Bottom of a Bottle.”
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The duo, both dressed in custom-designed Nudie-style suits by Union Western, delivered the introspective country ballad alongside a full band, set against a glowing stage backdrop.
The song is a highlight from their upcoming collaborative album, Send a Prayer My Way, due April 18 via Matador Records. Alongside “Bottom of a Bottle,” the album features 11 other tracks, including the previously released “Sugar in the Tank” and “Sylvia.”
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The project has been years in the making, with its roots tracing back to 2016 when Baker and TORRES first played a show together. That night, the idea of making a country album was casually thrown out. Nearly a decade later, that passing comment has turned into a full-fledged record.
In conversation with host Michael Kosta, Baker and Torres—whose real name is Mackenzie Scott—shared how their friendship and Southern roots naturally led to the project.
“Julien and I have been friends for a while and when the pandemic lockdown occurred I texted her, kind of out of the blue, because I’d been thinking about making a country record for while,” Scott explained. “But I didn’t want to do it alone. And Julien was the first person I thought of because she’s from Tennessee. I’m from Georgia. It just made sense.”
The duo also addressed the album being labeled “queer country.” “I’m certainly proud of that,” Scott said. “We’re queer. But if it were up to me it would just be country.”
To support Send a Prayer My Way, Baker and Torres will embark on a North American tour starting April 23 at The National in Richmond, Virginia, and continuing through May 12 at The Admiral in Omaha, Nebraska. They also have a string of festival appearances lined up, including a set at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee, in late March and Zootown Music Festival in Missoula, Montana, in July.
Julien Baker is best known as a member of the indie supergroup Boygenius alongside Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Her 2021 solo album, Little Oblivions, debuted at No. 39 on the Billboard 200 and No. 4 on the Top Alternative Albums chart. Torres, an acclaimed singer-songwriter, has received critical praise for her 2021 album Thirstier.
Courtney Love delivered a surprise cover of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” during an event in London earlier this week, adding to her growing repertoire of unexpected live covers.
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The Hole frontwoman performed the iconic 1965 track at the Royal Geographical Society on Tuesday (March 4) while appearing in conversation with actor-writer Todd Almond. The event celebrated Almond’s new oral history collection Slow Train Coming: Bob Dylan’s ‘Girl From the North Country’ and Broadway’s Rebirth.
Following their discussion, Love stepped onto the stage alongside an acoustic guitarist, delivering a raw and impassioned rendition of the classic song, with Almond providing backing vocals.
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The performance took place nearly 60 years after Dylan famously played “Like a Rolling Stone” at the Royal Albert Hall, just next door to the event venue.
During the evening, Love also addressed longstanding speculation about a Hole reunion—shutting down rumors once again. Despite previously hinting in early 2024 that the band might reunite, she reiterated that there are no current plans to bring the group back together.
Love’s choice of cover continues a recent trend of unexpected performances. In February, she appeared onstage alongside Green Day frontman, Billie Joe Armstrong, who was performing at the U.K. venue The Garage with his side-project covers band, The Coverups.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Courtney Love,” Armstrong said halfway through the show according to fan video of the moment the singer unexpectedly took the stage. “Thank you, Billie Joe. My name is Courtney Love – you may not remember me. I’ve been living in a cave in Birmingham for about nine years. We’ll give this a f–king try, right?”
Love then crashed through revved-up takes on Cheap Trick’s 1977 power pop classic “He’s a Whore” and the 1979 Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers tune “Even the Losers” and, according to NME, came back for an encore of Cheap Trick’s iconic “Surrender.”
In 2021, she also surprised fans with a rendition of Britney Spears’ “Lucky,” and in 2017, she took on Selena Gomez’s “Hands to Myself.”
Love’s surprise cover comes as Dylan remains a focal point of discussion in music and film circles. The legendary singer-songwriter was recently reported to have declined an invitation to perform and present at the 2025 Oscars. His biopic A Complete Unknown received eight nominations but did not secure any wins.
Ice Cube has found himself caught in the chaos of Cyclone Alfred, with the rap icon stranded at his Gold Coast hotel as the storm barrels toward Australia’s southeastern coast.
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Appearing on The Project on Wednesday night, Ice Cube, real name O’Shea Jackson Sr, gave his take on the situation, joking, “I’m staying clear of it. You know, I’m right here on the beach. The beach looks like it is going to be in the lobby in a minute.”
The “It’s My Ego” rapper in Australia for a string of shows in Sydney and Melbourne also admitted this was a first for him, saying, “It is pretty cool, I haven’t been through a cyclone before. I can check this off my bucket list for sure.”
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Cube, with B Wise, will perform at Sydney’s ICC Theatre on Friday, March 7, then head to Melbourne’s Sidney Myer Music Bowl on Sunday.
While Ice remains in Gold Coast as the severe weather system approaches, authorities are urging residents to act immediately. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli warned, “There is a chance this cyclone will cross in the middle of the night with a high tide. That is not the time to be making your evacuation plan, now is the time.”
Cyclone Alfred, currently classified as a Category 2 system, is bringing dangerous conditions along the Queensland and New South Wales coastlines, prompting widespread disruptions. Public transport across Brisbane, Gold Coast, and other affected areas is being suspended from Wednesday, and several concerts and sporting events have been canceled.
Among the high-profile cancellations is Green Day’s final Australian concert, which was scheduled for March 6 at Gold Coast’s Robina Stadium as part of their Saviors tour. Promoters confirmed the show could not proceed due to the extreme weather forecast, with ticket holders urged to seek refunds.
Other shows being called off due to the impending weather event include Brad Cox, Courteneers, Alexisonfire and Underoath. Meanwhile, Cyclone Alfred has already caused flooding, power outages, and high winds in several coastal areas, with emergency services on high alert as the storm nears landfall.
Australian musician Nick Cave has always been full of surprises, from his incendiary live performances as the singer of The Birthday Party in the early ‘80s, to collaborating with Kylie Minogue as leader of Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds. However, few may have seen Staffordshire-style ceramic sculptures as the post-punk icon’s latest passion.
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While it’s not the first topic to come to mind when Cave’s name is mentioned, the 67-year-old has been hard at work as a ceramic sculptor for a number of years now, having first adopted the craft during the global pandemic. Later in 2022, he held his first exhibition, with a series of 17 figures depicting the life story of the devil going on display at Finland’s Sara Hildén Art Museum.
In a recent interview with The Art Newspaper, Cave discussed his fondness for the figures, and his ‘The Devil — A Life’ series, which is currently on display at Museum Voorlinden in Wassenaar, Netherlands.
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“I’ve collected Staffordshire-style sculptures for years. I just love these things,” he explained. “They’re not expensive works of art; you find them in second-hand shops. I just had them in front of me as I was just sitting at my desk. We sort of grew idle through Covid [and] were allowed to do things that we normally wouldn’t have done. I sat there looking at one of these Staffordshires just thinking, ‘I can do this.’”
According to Cave, his mother had loved the clay figurines he made as a teenager, and her passing at 92 during Covid left him with a “sentimental tug” that soon evolved into his newfound passion. “Mostly it was just that I thought, ‘F–k, you know, it can’t be that hard to make one of these things,’” he explained.
Admitting there is “no irony” to his love of the art form, Cave added that his 17-piece ‘The Devil — A Life’ series also served as a way for him to come to terms with some of the internal feelings that still resonated following the accidental death of his 15-year-old son Arthur in 2015.
“The whole thing started to have a more mysterious, mystical pull,” he explained. “Then they started to be in order, one after the other. They were trying to make sense of my predicament in a way that I couldn’t make sense of it in my songs, for some reason.
“Ultimately, this ended up being something about culpability and forgiveness around the death of my son,” he added. “That was something that I could never quite get to in my songwriting. To me, these became acutely personal.”
Cave’s most recent body of work, Wild God, arrived in August as his 18th studio album with the Bad Seeds. The record reached No. 2 on the charts in his native Australia, while peaking at No. 66 on the Billboard 200. The album received two Grammy nominations and was also nominated for the Australian Music Prize, ultimately losing out to Kankawa Nagarra’s Wirlmarni.
In an age where cult indie band Pavement could become one of the biggest hits of TikTok, it only makes sense that their life and history receive the big screen treatment. Now, we can see the trailer for this ambitious undertaking.
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Pavement played what is ostensibly their final performance back in October, as part of the New York premiere of Alex Ross Perry‘s experimental biopic/documentary, Pavements. The film has been in the works for some time now, with its roots tracing back to Perry’s 2022 production, Slanted! Enchanted! A Pavement Musical.
However, those hoping for a biopic in the style of the recent A Complete Unknown will be disappointed, with the film taking on an approach as avant-garde as Pavement’s music often was. Perry referred to the film in 2022 as a “semiotic experiment,” and reviews of its 2024 premiere have since seen it referred to as equal parts, documentary, mockumentary, biopic, musical, and a behind-the-scenes making-of featurette.
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In keeping with the unique focus of the wider film, a trailer has now been shared for the film-within-a-film biopic, Range Life: A Pavement Story. Presented by the fictitious Paragon Vantage, and soundtracked by Pavements’ own songs “Here” and “Shady Lane,” the trailer stars Stranger Things’ Joe Keery as frontman Stephen Malkmus as it focuses on the band as they grapple with success, record label intrusion, and their infamous 1995 mud-laden appearance at Lollapalooza.
“Progress is predictable and predictability involves science. I want nothing to do with science,” notes Keery as he lifts directly from Malkmus’ own words. “This is music — if it’s fun, it’s fun, if it’s work, it’s work, and that’s not fun.”
The trailer also features Nat Wolff as Scott ‘Spiral Stairs’ Kannberg, Fred Hechinger as Bob Nastanovich, Logan Miller as Mark Ibold, Griffin Newman as Steve West, and Jason Schwartzman as Matador Records’ Chris Lombardi.
Pavements is scheduled for release later in 2025, though a specific date has not yet been announced.
In real life, the California band were initially active from 1989 until 1999, releasing a total of five albums, including 1992’s Slanted and Enchanted, 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and 1997’s Brighten the Corners, which gave the group their highest-charting U.S. release when it hit No. 70 on the Billboard 200.
The group initially split in November 1999, with the previous month’s Major Leagues EP serving as their final piece of original material. Since then, the band’s members have been intensely active on other projects, including a run of reissues that complemented their original albums with a myriad unreleased and rare tracks.
In December, Kannberg revealed in an interview with the Kreative Kontrol podcast that the Pavements soundtrack will also feature the first new song from the band in more than 25 years.
“There will be a new Pavement song on the soundtrack, that’s all I’m going to give you,” he explained. “I just heard a mix of it today, and it’s pretty good. It’s not a big deal, it’s just cool because it’s something different and it’s a song that we all kind of loved playing.”
Roy Ayers, the multi-hyphenate composer and artist nicknamed the ‘Godfather of Neo Soul,’ has passed away at the age of 84.
News of Ayers’ passing was confirmed on Wednesday (March 5), with a statement shared via his official Facebook page.
“It is with great sadness that the family of legendary vibraphonist, composer and producer Roy Ayers announce his passing which occurred on March 4th, 2025 in New York City after a long illness,” the post wrote. “He lived a beautiful 84 years and will be sorely missed. His family ask that you respect their privacy at this time, a celebration of Roy’s life will be forthcoming.”
Born in Los Angeles in 1940, Ayers was surrounded by music from a young age thanks to his pianist mother and trombonist father. Ayers himself took to the vibraphone at the age of five when he was gifted a pair of mallets from Lionel Hampton.
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Performing music throughout high school thanks to a church choir and local bands, Ayers launched his musical career in earnest in 1962, serving as a sideman for saxophonist Curtis Amy and cool jazz outfit The Jack Wilson Quartet, releasing his debut solo album West Coast Vibes in 1963.
By 1970, Ayers had formed his own group under the name Roy Ayers Ubiquity, and in 1973 he found wider fame after soundtracking Jack Hill’s blaxploitation film Coffy, starring Pam Grier. Roy Ayers Ubiquity experienced years of chart success in the latter half of the decade, starting with 1975’s Mystic Voyage, which hit No. 13 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and 1976’s Everybody Loves the Sunshine, which reached No. 10 on the same chart, and No. 51 on the Billboard 200.
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The title track to the latter record would become one of Ayers’ best-known compositions, going on to be sampled by artists such as Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Common, and covered by the likes of D’Angelo, Jamie Cullum and Robert Glasper. It also cemented his status as one of the more prominent figures in the neo-soul scene, with the likes of Pharrell Williams citing Ayers as one of his most influential artists.
While 1977’s Lifeline saw “Running Away” hitting No. 19 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, Ayers’ career continued as a solo artist in the coming decades, with his biggest chart success coming by way of 1980’s No Stranger to Love, which reached No. 22 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
He remained a prominent force on the charts throughout the ‘80s, and while he never scored a track on the Hot 100, 1986’s “Hot” would hit No. 20 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, while his Eric Benet collaboration “When You Think Of Me” would give him his last appearance on the same chart, peaking at No. 46 in 2000.
Ayers would continue composing and performing into the 21st century, working with the likes of Erykah Badu, Tyler, the Creator, Kerri Chandler, and more. He is survived by his wife Argerie, and their two children Mtume and Ayana Ayers.
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The Jazz and Soul music giant Roy Ayers has passed away. He was 84.
Variety reports that the Jazz vibraphonist’s family confirmed that he passed away on Tuesday, March 4, after a “long illness.”
“It is with great sadness that the family of legendary vibraphonist, composer, and producer Roy Ayers announce his passing which occurred on March 4, 2025 in New York City after a long illness,” reads the Ayers family’s statement. “He lived a beautiful 84 years and will be sorely missed. A celebration of Roy’s life will be forthcoming.”
Ayers is perhaps best known for his song “Everybody Loves The Sunshine,” from his 1976 album of the same name, which has been sampled countless times by Hip-Hop and R&B musicians. Ayers often credited Mary J. Blige’s 1994 “My Life,” which liberally samples the aforementioned song, with reviving his career and enriching his bank account.
Also a composer and record producer, Ayers’ deep and rich catalog of music has long been mined for samples that got flipped into new beats that hipped a new generation of listeners to his grooves. Some of those recognizable songs include “We Live In Brooklyn, Baby,” “Searching,” and “Running Away,” where were in turn chopped and massaged into new works from the like of Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Mos Def, Kendrick Lamar. A Tribe Called Quest and many, many more. Also notable was Ayers’ crafting of the soundtrack to the Blaxploitation classic Coffy, which stars Pam Grier.
One of this writers favorites was Ayers connecting with The Roots on their “Proceed II.”
Rest in powerful peace Roy Ayers.
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Haim is back with new music and their characteristic sense of humor. The sister trio took to Instagram on Wednesday (March 5) to post a photo in promotion of their upcoming single “Relationships.” In the snap, Danielle, Este and Alana Haim are seen walking in a parking lot, basking in the sun with huge smiles […]