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Jon Batiste will receive the inaugural Ray Charles “Architect of Sound” Award at the annual Grammy Hall of Fame Gala, which is set for May 16 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA. The award is to be presented annually at this event, which is presented jointly by the Grammy Museum and the Recording Academy.
The “Architect of Sound” Award recognizes an artist whose impact on music echoes Charles’ pioneering spirit. A 17-time Grammy winner, Charles is widely-regarded one of the most influential artists of all time. He was in the inaugural class of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame recipients in 1986 and also received the Kennedy Center Honors that year. He received the Recording Academy’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987 and has 10 recordings in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Jamie Foxx won an Oscar for portraying Charles in the 2004 biopic Ray. The film remains one of the top 10 top-grossing musical biopics.
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“Ray Charles is a beacon for me, a blueprint,” Batiste said in a statement. “He is a singular example of musical genius, artistic freedom and craft of the highest level that will continue to inspire humanity for generations and stand the test of time. I am honored to receive this award. It is vitally important to me to carry on our cultural legacy of true artistic greatness and lead the way for generations to come.”
Michael Sticka, Grammy Museum president/CEO, said, “Ray Charles was a trailblazing artist whose influence knows no bounds, and Jon Batiste is a true reflection of that legacy. Beyond his immense talent, Jon has been a dedicated partner in advancing the Grammy Museum’s mission to make music education more accessible. Honoring him with the inaugural Ray Charles ‘Architect of Sound’ Award is not just fitting — it’s a celebration of two artists who have shaped the sound of generations.”
Valerie Ervin, president of The Ray Charles Foundation, added, “Ray Charles was always pushing music forward — blending genres, breaking barriers, and inspiring generations. He would be deeply honored to have his name attached to an award that celebrates artists who share his fearless creativity and dedication to their craft. Jon Batiste embodies that spirit.”
Batiste has won seven Grammys, including album of the year for We Are, and an Oscar for best original score for Soul (in tandem with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross). His latest album, Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1), is the first in his solo piano series, reimagining classical works through a fresh lens.
Batiste will take the stage for two performances at the Gala, which will also feature musical moments from a lineup of artists to be announced soon. The event will additionally honor this year’s label honoree, Republic Records.
The show will be produced by former Grammy Awards executive producer Ken Ehrlich, alongside Ron Basile, Lindsay Saunders Carl and Lynne Sheridan, with musical direction by Cheche Alara, a Grammy- and Latin Grammy Award-winning composer, producer and conductor. CBS News journalist Anthony Mason returns as host.
The Gala will celebrate the 2025 Grammy Hall of Fame inducted recordings, which include iconic recordings such as JAY-Z’s Reasonable Doubt, Cat Stevens’ Tea for the Tillerman, Santana’s Supernatural, and recordings from Big Star, Clara Ward, Eddie Floyd, Emmylou Harris, Fela Kuti & Afrika 70, Geeshie Wiley, Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine, J.D. Crowe & The New South, Linda Martell, and Luther Vandross.
The Grammy Hall of Fame was established by the Recording Academy’s National Trustees in 1973. The inducted recordings are selected annually by a committee, with final ratification by the Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. With 13 new titles, the Grammy Hall of Fame currently totals 1,165 inducted recordings. Eligible recipients will receive an official certificate from the Recording Academy.
Tickets for the Grammy Hall of Fame Gala are on sale now. For more information, visit the Grammy Museum website.
Amid a characteristically packed schedule of events at Miami Music Week 2025, Femme House continued carving out a place for itself and the many artists and industry folks who align with its mission to make the dance world a more inclusive place through education, music, camaraderie and community building.
Founded by Hermixalot and LP Giobbi in 2018, the nonprofit — which works to create opportunities for women, gender-expansive, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ creatives — hosted a series of events during the annual dance industry gathering, which took over Miami from March 26-31.
On March 27, the organization hosted the first ever Femmy Awards, an afternoon gathering at Palm TRee Club that honored some of the dance world’s most essential female pioneers — DJ Minx, DJ Lady D, Crystal Waters and Barbara Tucker, shining a light on the Black, female creators who helped forge the dance scene in its early days and who’ve been consistent presences in the decades since.
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The awards, a festive occasion that elicited a lot of cheering and also some tears as award winners were announced on the the packed patio, also honored many other women and allies, with beloved party brand and label HE.SHE.THEY winning for best record label, Lightning in a Bottle winning for most diverse festival and The Martinez Brothers appearing to accept the Ally Award, among many other winners. See exclusive photos from The Femmy Awards below.
British producer TSHA won the best producer of the year, with her speech acknowledging “all the DJs who’ve put me on their lineups… I saw the Martinez [Brothers] are here…they’ve always put me on their lineups — and not as the warmup DJ, which is what happens a lot. I usually get stuck as the warmup, but they haven’t done that, so thanks guys. And to all my fellow producers, singers, DJs and my girls here, you guys are amazing, this award means the world to me and I will continue to support you, too.”
While accepting her award for producer of the year, techno star Sara Landry shouted out fellow techno queen Nicole Moudaber, who was also at the ceremony, calling her “one of the original pioneers of techno in this space, an original glass ceiling breaker; I would not be where I am without you, thank you Nicole.” Landry also acknowledged fellow techno producers Amelie Lens and Charlotte de Witte, saying their “fearlessness has made it so much easier for me, and your community and sisterhood have lifted my spirits even when I’m feeling like absolutely dogs… It’s a joy and a pleasure to go backstage and to see your spaces and be welcomed in loving and open arms.”
Landry also acknowledged the pioneers in the room, acknowledging the “women who went through what I’m going through now, before these spaces existed to honor them for the work that they do. We have all have had some very difficult times; it’s hard to be the only woman in the room, and the sisterhood and the camaraderie I’ve gotten from the incredible women in this industry, whose kindness and acceptance and willingness to welcome me into this space when I was a f—ing nobody from Austin, Texas, y’all have made such a difference to me… I solemnly swear to pay it forward and continue to do that.” See the complete winners list here.
Beyond The Femmys, Femme House’s Miami Music Week programming a showcase for LP Giobbi’s Yes Yes Yes label, with DJ Minx headlining the event and the party going until 5 a.m. on Friday morning. Despite this late night, Hermixalot (the artist born Lauren Spalding) and Giobbi were back in action by Friday mid-morning, first hosting a brunch for friends of Femme House and then a panel discussion featuring DJ Lady D, Crystal Waters and Kaleena Zanders, three Black female dance music vocalists who spoke to the injustices Black female singers have faced within the dance world, which has historically profited from the voices of Black women without providing proper acknowledgement and fair compensation.
“The reason I curated this panel in this way is because these are the voices, literally,” Hermixalot said while moderating the event. “These are the artists literally, this is the culture literally. I wanted to give them a chance to call all you industry folks in and tell you how to do it and how to do right by them, because they’ve earned that right. This is about creating equity, impact and longevity. These women are the personification of those ideas, and I think it’s important that we listen to them and that we honor what they have to say and that we act on it appropriately.”
Speaking from decades of experience, Chicago house icon DJ Lady D advised that it’s necessary for any curator with a platform to make space for the originators of dance music culture. “There are only a few pioneers of this movement left,” she advised, “and I think that festivals and places like that should be putting those people that are still here on stages. They should be intentional about that.”
Waters, meanwhile, stressed the importance of having a good lawyer to check contracts to make sure they’re benefitting singers. She noted that “there’s a lot of legal stuff that I don’t think a lot of people know or understand,” referring to how crucial it is for vocalists to be listed as featured artists on tracks in order to receive royalties. “Educate yourself, get an attorney, get that stuff straight, because there’s a lot of little pinpoints where you can protect yourself for years to come, especially with the AI coming in, you’re going to have to start thinking ahead.”
The house music star also noted the importance of just speaking up and standing your ground. “Men will tell you ‘no’ as a default,” Waters advised, “and if you just let it go, they’ll push you to the side, so you have to be persistent, you have to kind of be a b—h, but you don’t have to be a nasty one.”
Speaking as a younger voice of the dance world, Zanders said that given “how mistreated vocalists and Black women are in this industry, I felt a responsibility to stay in dance music, to fight the fight.” She continued that she has her own list of checks and balances when choosing collaborators, emphasizing that she tries to have the producers that reach out to her for a possible collaboration “see the human in me first, because they often don’t see that at all.”
Pragmatically, the conversation also focused on the importance of singers being listed as primary artists in the backend of DSPs (even if they’re listed as featured artists on the front-end of these platforms) to ensure maximum and accurate streaming revenue. Zanders advised that while you “might have to follow up 1,500 times” with DSPs to ensure these correct listings, “you have to fight the fight.”
Billboard is the official media sponsor of the 2025 Femmy Awards.
The 2025 Femmy Awards
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The 2025 Femmy Awards
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Bruce Springsteen is really throwing open the vaults for his upcoming Tracks II: The Lost Albums box set. But, unlike the his 1998 four-disc odds and sods Tracks collection, The Boss’ sprawling sequel will contain seven previously unheard full length records. According to a release on Thursday (April 3), the 83-track collection due out on June 27 through Sony Music will “fill in rich chapters of Springsteen’s expansive career timeline — while offering invaluable insight into his life and work as an artist.”
In a statement, Springsteen said, “The Lost Albums were full records, some of them even to the point of being mixed and not released. I’ve played this music to myself and often close friends for years now. I’m glad you’ll get a chance to finally hear them. I hope you enjoy them.”-
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The box will include the lo-fi LA Garage Sessions ’83, described as a “crucial link” between the bare-bones Nebraska and the full-throated Born in the U.S.A., as well as the drum loop and synthesizer experimentation for the Streets of Philadelphia Sessions. The project covering the years 1983-2018 is a peek into 35 years of home recording and songwriting that the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer said provides insight into work that no one has heard before.
“The ability to record at home whenever I wanted allowed me to go into a wide variety of different musical directions,” Springsteen said. Some of that includes the “sonic experimentation” on “Faithless,” a film soundtrack he wrote for a movie that was never made, as well as the country-leaning, pedal steel-fueled sound of Somewhere North of Nashville, featuring songs such as “Repo Man,” “Tiger Rose,” “Silver Mountain,” “Janey Don’t Lose Your Heart” and the title track.
There’s also the “richly-woven border tales” on Inyo songs including “Indian Town,” “The Aztec Dance,” “Our Lady of Monroe” and “Ciudad Juarez” and the “orchestra-driven, mid-century noir on such Twilight Hours tracks as “Sunday Love,” “Lonely Town,” “September Kisses” and “High Sierra.” Another album, Perfect World, featuring the songs “I’m Not Sleeping,” “Idiot’s Delight,” “The Great Depression,” “If I Could Only Be Your Lover” and “You Lifted Me Up.”
Springsteen previewed the album on Thursday with the muscular, devastating Perfect World song “Rain in the River,” on which he sings, “Down at the water, I head my Marie/ She said, ‘Now Johnny, your love mean no more to me’/ Than rain in the river/ Than rain in the river.” He also posted a 90-second trailer for the album on Thursday morning, in which he says, “I often read about myself in the ’90s as having some lost period or something. And I really, really I was working the whole time.”
The rock icon explains that during the COVID-19 pandemic he “finished” everything he had in his vault, totaling 83 songs — 82 of which have never been heard before — including 74 that have never been heard before in any version.
The Lost Albums will come in limited-edition 9-LP, 7-CD and digital formats, with distinctive packaging for each previously unreleased record, as well as a 100-page cloth-bound hardcover book with rare archival photos, liner notes on each album from essayist Erik Flannigan and a personal introduction from Springsteen. A 20-track compilation entitled Lost and Found: Selections From The Lost Albums will be released on June 27 on two LPs and one CD.
Check out “Rain in the River” and the full track list for Tracks II: The Lost Albums below:
LA Garage Sessions ’83
1. Follow That Dream
2. Don’t Back Down On Our Love
3. Little Girl Like You
4. Johnny Bye Bye
5. Sugarland
6. Seven Tears
7. Fugitive’s Dream
8. Black Mountain Ballad
9. Jim Deer
10. County Fair
11. My Hometown
12. One Love
13. Don’t Back Down
14. Richfield Whistle
15. The Klansman
16. Unsatisfied Heart
17. Shut Out The Light
18. Fugitive’s Dream (Ballad)
Streets of Philadelphia Sessions
1. Blind Spot
2. Maybe I Don’t Know You
3. Something In The Well
4. Waiting On The End Of The World
5. The Little Things
6. We Fell Down
7. One Beautiful Morning
8. Between Heaven and Earth
9. Secret Garden
10. The Farewell Party
Faithless
1. The Desert (Instrumental)
2. Where You Goin’, Where You From
3. Faithless
4. All God’s Children
5. A Prayer By The River (Instrumental)
6. God Sent You
7. Goin’ To California
8. The Western Sea (Instrumental)
9. My Master’s Hand
10. Let Me Ride
11. My Master’s Hand (Theme)
Somewhere North of Nashville
1. Repo Man
2. Tiger Rose
3. Poor Side of Town
4. Delivery Man
5. Under A Big Sky
6. Detail Man
7. Silver Mountain
8. Janey Don’t You Lose Heart
9. You’re Gonna Miss Me When I’m Gone
10. Stand On It
11. Blue Highway
12. Somewhere North of Nashville
Inyo
1. Inyo
2. Indian Town
3. Adelita
4. The Aztec Dance
5. The Lost Charro
6. Our Lady of Monroe
7. El Jardinero (Upon the Death of Ramona)
8. One False Move
9. Ciudad Juarez
10. When I Build My Beautiful House
Twilight Hours
1. Sunday Love
2. Late in the Evening
3. Two of Us
4. Lonely Town
5. September Kisses
6. Twilight Hours
7. I’ll Stand By You
8. High Sierra
9. Sunliner
10. Another You
11. Dinner at Eight
12. Follow The Sun
Perfect World
1. I’m Not Sleeping
2. Idiot’s Delight
3. Another Thin Line
4. The Great Depression
5. Blind Man
6. Rain In The River
7. If I Could Only Be Your Lover
8. Cutting Knife
9. You Lifted Me Up
10. Perfect World
Cristóbal Tapia de Veer is checking out of The White Lotus. Permanently. The show’s composer told The New York Times that he is leaving after the current season following a string of creative disputes with show creator and director Mike White. “I feel like this was, you know, a rock ’n’ roll band story,” Tapia de Veer told the paper about the disagreements. “I was like, ‘OK, this is like a rock band I’ve been in before where the guitar player doesn’t understand the singer at all.’”
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And while he’s just now speaking out, Tapia de Veer said he’s been having creative conflicts with White since season one, as well as conversations with producers he described as verging on “hysterical” amid their reported requests that he make his themes more “upbeat and less experimental.”
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He described announcing to the creative team a few months ago that he was not coming back, but not telling White for “various reasons… I wanted to tell him just at the ed for the shock or whatever,” he said. Asked how White responded, Tapia de Veer said the show runner “says a lot of things” that he can’t really talk about at the moment, then described the situation as being like a scene from the 1978 French drag comedy La Cage Aux Folles.
“You know how there’s Albin, which is like the star, and there’s Renato, who is the producer who is always taking care that Albin doesn’t lose his mind about something, because Albin is the diva and Renato is the guy who is trying to make everything work,” he said. “To me, the show felt very much like that.”
He also said when he got the script for the first season he thought it was very “well-written,” but given the comedic, “reality TV kind of vibe” he thought it didn’t fit his typically “super dark and edgy” musical vibe.
“But when we had the talk with Mike, I just told him in a joke that I thought we could do some kind of ‘Hawaiian Hitchcock,’ and he really grabbed on that and he started laughing,” Tapia de Veer said, adding that White’s original temporary score had a “chill, sexy” Ibiza club vibe with “literally no edge to it” that felt like “nice background music.”
The Chilean composer who has won three Emmys for his work on the series about rich people behaving horrendously in paradise also discussed the vitriol he’s received from fans about “Enlightenment,” his radical, percussion, accordion and handclap revamp of the show’s theme song for the current Thailand-based season that has been very divisive.
For the record, Tapia de Veer said he loves his season three theme and was hoping the current run — which ends on Sunday (April 6) — would at some point include a longer version he’d written that would elide back into the more recognizable, fan-favorite melodies from the first two seasons. As for what direction he was given for this season, Tapia de Veer said there was none, so he began experimenting with a collection of Thai gongs, a Thai violin called a saw u and an Italian accordion his mom sent him that he didn’t know how to play.
The original plan, Tapia de Veer said, was to bring back the apparently beloved “ool-loo-loo-loo” vocalizations form the first two seasons in a longer version of the season three theme, “because people will explode if they realize that it was going there anyway.” He told a producer about that plan and that person thought it was a good idea. But then, he said, White cut the extended edit. “He wasn’t happy about that,” Tapia de Veer said. “I mean, at that point, we already had our last fight forever, I think. So he was just saying no to anything.”
Listen to the extended cut of The White Lotus theme that Tapia de Veer uploaded to YouTube last month below.
Even after all this time, Bon Iver‘s Justin Vernon can’t quite conjure the words to describe how it feels to watch videos of tens of thousands of Swifties singing along to “Exile,” the Folklore song he co-wrote and recorded with Taylor Swift. “Out of body,” is how Vernon described the feeling on The Tonight Show on Wednesday (April 2) when host Jimmy Fallon asked what it felt like to see Swift perform it on her record-breaking Eras Tour.
“Sadly, I didn’t ever get to sing it with her on her tour… she got to come sing it with us, but I saw those clips and I’m like, ‘Gosh, they sound better than one of me can sound,” Vernon said. “No really, it was pretty powerful to just see that and to hear how that sounded. It was amazing.”
Vernon also talked about the “I Think About It All the Time” revamp he did for Charli XCX’s Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat remix album last year, which featured a sample of Bonnie Raitt’s 1989 song “Nick of Time.”
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“My friend Danielle Haim told me, ‘you should sample ‘Nick Of Time’ the old Bonnie Raitt song and I was like: ‘That’s such a good idea’, because Charli’s song was about running out of time,” Vernon explained, noting that he and Raitt — who is his “number one” favorite artist — have been friendly over the years. “Our greatest living singer,” he said of Raitt.
Vernon said when he called Raitt to ask for her permission the answer was a quick, simple, “‘Yep… let’s do it,’ she just had to kind of give us her blessing on using the sample, but she was , of course, touched. And she’s a huge fan of Charli’s, as am I.”
The singer was on to promote next week’s release of his fifth studio album, Sable, Fable (April 11), which he described as being a kind of two-part journey. The first portion, Sable, he said, is “sad and hard to get through and kind of drudgy and a look at the past… a look back at this kind of cabin man, man in a cabin narrative that I’ve been absorbing over these years. [And] the rest of the record is me kind of doing whatever I needed to do right now to be happy for once.”
Watch Bon Iver on The Tonight Show below.
The Masked Singer pulled off one of its biggest surprises of the season during Wednesday night’s (April 2) “Boy Band Night” episode, revealing rapper, actor, and Wu-Tang Clan member Method Man as the celebrity beneath the Stud Muffin costume.
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The reveal came after Stud Muffin delivered a smooth and cheeky rendition of Bell Biv DeVoe’s “Poison,” complete with coordinated choreography and a clue package that hinted at his ties to hip-hop, brotherhood, and birthday shoutouts from BBD themselves. Clue deliveries during the episode came from Masked Singer alums Omarion (B2K) and Wayne Brady, the latter calling Method Man his “travel buddy.”
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“I had fun with it,” said Method Man, whose real name is Clifford Smith, Jr. “I’m always down to do something unexpected, and The Masked Singer let me just go out there and play. That’s what it’s about.”
Panelist Rita Ora had been adamant in her guess from Stud Muffin’s first appearance, and her celebration after the unmasking confirmed she’d been waiting for the win. “I knew it was you!” Ora exclaimed. “Your voice is so distinct — and you moved like a pro!”
The reveal drew gasps from the judges, with Robin Thicke and Ken Jeong both shocked by Method Man’s commitment to the disguise.
Jenny McCarthy-Wahlberg floated guesses like MC Hammer and 2 Chainz earlier in the night, while Thicke aligned with Ora in the final moments.
The Wu-Tang legend is just the latest high-profile name to appear on season 13 of The Masked Singer, which has leaned into music nostalgia and heavy guest star cameos this year. Method Man’s appearance follows the show’s recent nods to boy band royalty like NSYNC’s Chris Kirkpatrick and B2K’s Omarion, both of whom joined the panel this week to dish out clues.
Best known for his iconic role in Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man has also had a prolific career in acting and production, with credits spanning How High, The Wire, Power Book II: Ghost and beyond. His last solo album, Meth Lab Season 3: The Rehab, dropped in 2022 and featured collaborations with Redman, Jadakiss, and KRS-One.
Season 13 of The Masked Singer continues next Wednesday with the Group C finals. As for Method Man? He’s officially out of the oven.
ONEFOUR have announced details of their long-awaited debut album, Look At Me Now, set for release on June 13 via Sony Music Australia.
Alongside the album news, the Western Sydney rap group have also revealed plans for their biggest national tour to date, with full dates expected to drop on Friday (April 4).
“It’s for those who want more,” the group said in a statement. “The ones who wake up and know they’re destined for greatness, no matter what obstacles they face. It’s a message of hope, a letter to the pain and a welcome to a better future that has no boundaries.”
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Comprising J Emz, Celly, Lekks and Spenny, ONEFOUR have built a loyal following through their raw storytelling, global collaborations, and viral moments.
Their songs “The Message” and “Spot the Difference” have been certified double and triple platinum in Australia, respectively, and their “SPINNIN” remix became a TikTok sensation, landing them in Spotify’s Viral 50 charts in over 30 countries.
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The album will mark a significant milestone for ONEFOUR, who have become one of the most talked-about names in Australian music over the past five years. Rising out of Mount Druitt, the group first made headlines for their raw drill sound, but soon became lightning rods for controversy and police scrutiny. Their story became the subject of the acclaimed 2023 Netflix documentary ONEFOUR: Against All Odds, which chronicled their rapid rise and the systemic barriers they faced.
Look At Me Now follows a string of recent singles from the group, including their February release “Phone Call” featuring UK pop artist Mabel. Produced by Grammy-nominated producer 18YOMAN, along with Chelsea Warner and Sykes Beats, the track samples Bob Marley’s classic “Is This Love?”
“This one’s special to us,” ONEFOUR’s Spenny said in a statement. “Bob Marley’s an artist that was loved and listened to often in our households so it’s an honour to be able to sample one of his bangers. To have Mabel feature on this track wid us & DONPROD with the music video made a lot of sense cause we really trynna take this thing international.”
In the past year, the group also supported The Kid LAROI on his Australian tour and picked up a 2024 APRA Award nomination, further cementing their mainstream breakthrough.
ONEFOUR’s upcoming Look At Me Now tour will take them across 13 dates around Australia before they head to the U.K. and Europe later in the year. Tour poster and ticketing info is expected Friday morning (AEDT).
French electronic duo Air are keeping the Moon Safari celebration going — and they’re doing it in style.
Following last year’s deluxe 25th anniversary reissue of their 1998 debut album Moon Safari, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel have announced an exclusive remix LP for Record Store Day titled Blue Moon Safari.
The release features new interpretations of the classic tracks by British producer Vegyn, known for his work with Frank Ocean, Travis Scott and James Blake. It marks the first time Air have officially released a full-length remix project of the album.
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Alongside Blue Moon Safari, fans will also be able to get their hands on a vinyl-only edition of Moon Safari: Live & Demos, a collection that promises rare and unreleased recordings from the duo’s original sessions and performances during the Moon Safari era.
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The new releases arrive amid a fresh wave of activity for the duo, who kicked off their anniversary run in 2023 with a handful of intimate live shows, performing Moon Safari in full for the first time. Now, Air are expanding their tour globally, with a newly announced run of international dates spanning South America, Europe, and the United States.
Among the stops are major festivals including Flow (Helsinki), La Prima Estate (Italy), and We Love Green (Paris), as well as prestigious venues such as the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, where the group will perform with the LA Philharmonic Orchestra on Sept. 21.
Originally released in 1998, Moon Safari was a landmark record in the downtempo and electronic space, praised for its lush textures, cinematic instrumentation and dreamy atmosphere. Featuring standout tracks like “All I Need,” “Kelly Watch the Stars,” and “Sexy Boy,” the album helped define the sound of French electronic music in the late ’90s and has influenced countless artists across genres.
The upcoming Blue Moon Safari remix LP and Live & Demos vinyl arrive April 11 via Parlophone / Warner Music France, with the remix set to be a Record Store Day exclusive on April 20. Pre-orders for both editions are now available.
Blue Moon Safari drops April 11 via Parlophone/Warner Music France and is available for pre-order now.
Michael Clifford, the lead guitarist of Australian pop-rock outfit 5 Seconds of Summer, has become the latest member of the band to embark on a solo career, with debut single “Cool” launching his new journey.
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The track follows in much the same vein as what fans of 5 Seconds of Summer may have expected from a Clifford solo venture, with “Cool” capturing the polished rock sound he’s become associated with and pairing it with more introspective songwriting.
“This song speaks for itself, and my hope is that when fans hear the lyrics, they’ll understand me and hopefully themselves a little better,” Clifford said in a statement. “I’ve been deliberating on this music long enough, so I can’t wait for everybody to hear it— and ‘cool’ is just the beginning of what’s to come.
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“I want this project to make people smile,” he added. “I’m just out here doing a bunch of sidequests. Now that I’m a dad, everything other than that feels like a sidequest!”
Released via the pop-punk label Hopeless Records, “Cool” is a taster of Clifford’s forthcoming debut album, SIDEQUEST, which will be detailed at length in the near future. The track was co-written by Clifford alongside his bandmate Calum Hood, and features co-production from acclaimed musicians JT Daly and Andrew Goldstein. It also comes accompanied by a Bobby Hanaford-directed music video.
5 Seconds of Summer first formed in Sydney, Australia in 2011 and released their self-titled debut album in 2014. All five of the band’s albums have peaked atop the Australia ARIA charts, while only 2020’s Calm and 2022’s 5SOS5 prevented the same feat on the Billboard 200, with the records reaching a very respectable peak of No. 2.
Members of the six-time ARIA Award-winning group began launching solo careers following the release of Calm, with drummer Ashton Irwin releasing his Superbloom album in 2020, with second album Blood on the Drums arriving in July 2024.
Vocalist and rhythm guitarist Luke Hemmings would follow suit in 2021 with his debut album When Facing the Things We Turn Away From, following it up with the Boy EP in April 2024. Currently, bassist Hood is the only member of the group to have not issued solo material, though he has been active in the fields of songwriting, composition, and production.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s Office has requested that Young Thug’s probation be revoked, according to a motion filed on Wednesday (April 3).
Thug (whose real name is Jeffery Williams) ended a lengthy criminal trial in October 2024 when he pleaded guilty to charges leveled against him. The case, built around Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, claimed that Thug and his alleged YSL gang had committed murders, carjackings, drug dealing and many other crimes.
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At the conclusion of the trial, Thug was sentenced to 40 years with five to be served in prison commuted to time served. As a result, he was given 15 years probation, with a further 20 to be commuted if successfully completed.
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However, a new motion has been filed in Fulton County Superior Court which has seen the State of Georgia request Whitaker revoke Thug’s probation, alleging that his “continued presence in the community under probationary supervision presents a clear and present danger to public safety and undermines the rule of law.”
Per Channel 2 Action News, the crux of the filing revolves around what prosecutors have labelled “escalating threats and witness intimidation.” They note that Fulton County Investigator Marissa Viverito is in the process of testifying in a “multi-defendant gang murder preliminary hearing” which has seen the Court order witnesses not to be shown on television while testifying. However, a user on social media posted an image of Viverito online with a caption stating, “She doesn’t want to be shown on screen? Well, here she is.”
On Tuesday (April 1), Thug is alleged to have shared a since-deleted repost the image, pairing it with a caption claiming “Marissa Viverito is the biggest liar in the DA’s office.” According to the filing, the post “quickly went viral,” resulting in over two million views, and resulting in “direct threats to Investigator Viverito and her family.”
The filing also claims that as a result of Thug sharing the post, the home addresses of Vivirito and her parents were distributed online, with one post reportedly sharing an image of Vivirito’s mother’s house and stating, “If the hate is really real then pull up on her mama crib.” Another post is alleged to have been shared later which threatened the assassination of District Attorney Fani Willis.
“The escalation from targeting a testifying witness to making a direct death threat against the elected District Attorney of Fulton County is a grave and unprecedented attack on the justice system,” the filing stated.
In response to the probation revocation request, Thug shared a statement on his X (formerly Twitter), writing, “I don’t make treats to people I’m a good person, I would never condone anyone threatening anyone or definitely participate in threatening anyone. I’m all about peace and love.”
The filing alleges that the behavior is a “calculated campaign of intimidation, harassment, and misinformation designed to undermine the legal process,” and have requested the Court take “swift and decisive action by revoking the Defendant’s probation and remanding them into custody without delay.”
Currently, no hearing date has been set. Meanwhile, Thug is scheduled to give his first performance following his trial in June as part of Chicago’s Summer Smash Festival.