Plastic Tears have released a music video for “Bad Ballerina,” and it delivers exactly what the song calls for. The Finnish melodic rockers originally unveiled the track in late 2024, and the video now gives it a visual dimension built around a character who’s tough, self-possessed, and not interested in being anyone’s victim. Director Eco Inkinen layers subtle visual details against the band’s intense performance to build an atmosphere that’s both compelling and genuinely sharp, expanding the song’s story without overexplaining it.
Ticketmaster and CashorTrade Team Up to Keep Concert Tickets at Face Value for Real Fans
Ticketmaster has launched an integration with CashorTrade that lets verified concert tickets be resold on CashorTrade’s fan-to-fan marketplace at face value or below. It’s a direct shot at scalpers, and it’s built on technology that actually backs up the promise.
CashorTrade has been fighting this battle since 2009, building a community-driven marketplace around profile transparency and peer accountability long before the conversation went mainstream. The platform already has the trust of artists like Phish, Umphrey’s McGee, Waxahatchee, The Disco Biscuits, moe., and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, among others. “What started in the parking lots as a fight for fairness has grown into something much bigger,” says CEO and co-founder Brando Rich. This integration is the next logical step.
The mechanics are straightforward. Ticketmaster tickets can be listed on CashorTrade, authenticated through Ticketmaster’s verification technology, and capped at or below true face value with no markups. Sellers choose who they sell to, and buyers receive a newly issued ticket directly through the CashorTrade app. “Fans deserve more ways to buy and sell tickets at the original price, with confidence that what they’re getting is legitimate,” says David Marcus, EVP of Music at Ticketmaster.
The integration builds on Ticketmaster’s Face Value Exchange, launched in 2019 to give artists the option to cap resale prices. Expanding that infrastructure through a platform with CashorTrade’s credibility and community roots makes the whole system more useful for everyone except the scalpers.
Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, and Little Big Town Join the 61st ACM Awards Performer Lineup
The 61st Academy of Country Music Awards just added three heavy hitters to its performance lineup. Kacey Musgraves, Little Big Town, and Miranda Lambert will join previously announced performers Cody Johnson, Lainey Wilson, and Riley Green when the show streams live on Prime Video from MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Sunday, May 17, 2026. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com.
Musgraves makes her ACM Awards performance debut with a new song from her upcoming sixth studio album ‘Middle of Nowhere’, out May 1. That alone makes this a night worth marking. Little Big Town, eight-time ACM Award winners, bring their signature vocal blend to a special performance, while Miranda Lambert, the most decorated artist in ACM Award history, is set to deliver what the show describes as a showstopping set. With nominations being announced April 9 and more performers, presenters, and the host still to be revealed, the lineup is clearly just getting started.
ACM Awards Week kicks off before the main event with “ACM Lifting Lives Country on the Green: Riley Green & Friends” at Topgolf Las Vegas on May 15, featuring Lauren Alaina, Randy Houser, and Rodney Atkins. The following night, “ACM Next Wave: Country’s Beach Bash” at Mandalay Bay Beach brings Ashley Cooke, Braxton Keith, Dasha, Flatland Cavalry, Tucker Wetmore, and more. The full weekend is built for fans who want more than just the telecast.
The 61st ACM Awards streams live globally across 240+ countries and territories on Prime Video, with the broadcast also available on the Amazon Music channel on Twitch and in the Amazon Music app.
Skip to contenOpen Reel Ensemble Turned Wikipedia’s 25th Anniversary Into a Reel-to-Reel Dance Floor Momentt
Open Reel Ensemble celebrated Wikipedia’s 25th anniversary the only way they know how: by physically syncing magnetic reel-to-reel tape with Wikipedia articles to create “Cyklepedia,” an electronic dance piece that turns an encyclopedia into an instrument, proving once again that the most unexpected source material makes for the most compelling music.
Current Trends in Corporate Video Production and How an Expert Can Help?
By Mitch Rice
The new-age video production has shifted away from the highly scripted, stiff presentations towards realistic storytelling. Today, companies place importance on human connection by showcasing real employees and genuine customer testimonials rather than professional actors. This trend builds trust with viewers who crave transparency and relatability in an online-first world.
Today, the importance of high-end visuals remains. However, it’s the video’s core narrative that determines its ultimate success. By focusing on the ‘why’ behind a brand, today’s businesses can create a strong emotional impact on their audience.
Saying yes to immersive and interactive content
Simply put; by enabling audiences to choose their journey, interactive video is changing the way people connect with branded content. Users stay on a webpage longer than they would otherwise due to features such as 360° views, clickable elements, and augmented reality. Working with leading agencies, such as Gorilla Creative, helps you navigate the complex technical requirements of interactive videos. Advanced tools will ensure your message stands out among many others and provide useful insights into your audience’s behavior. These are all critical components of modern interactive campaigns:
- Clickable CTA’s: It is necessary to direct your viewers to the contact forms and product pages instantly.
- 360° virtual tours: You need to offer an immersive view of the facilities or large-scale project sites.
- Branching narratives: It is necessary to give the audience complete control over the story’s progression to increase engagement.
Vertical and social-first video optimization
With more people using mobile devices for web browsing, businesses need to ensure their corporate videos are designed for vertical viewing and optimized for sharing on social media. Short-form content published on LinkedIn or Instagram typically has higher reach and engagement than traditional wide-screen videos. Therefore, experts suggest creating “snackable” pieces of content that relay your brand’s main message within the first five seconds of play.
This will help ensure you can continue to connect with your audience as they consume information quickly on the go. To stay relevant and visible digitally, you must adapt your image to meet requirements for vertical viewing.
The importance of professional expertise from a company
When you partner with an expert service provider, they will help ensure that your video marketing efforts are coordinated with your overall marketing and SEO objectives. Professionals have access to state-of-the-art production equipment, lighting expertise, and superior post-production expertise compared to most internal teams. A professional production team will manage the entire process from initial concept through scriptwriting to final production, including color correction and sound design.
Working together in this manner helps avoid common bad practices, such as poor audio quality or inconsistent messaging, which could damage your brand’s reputation. By working with a strategic partner, you receive:
- Creative direction: Creating a distinctive concept that can put your brand in a better place compared to other market players.
- Strategic distribution: Suggesting where and how to post content for increased organic search impact.
- Technical accuracy: Ensuring high-resolution exports that appear professional across all screen sizes and devices.
Summing it up
Therefore, to keep up with the latest video trends, you must be committed to innovation and trying out new digital developments. As AI and automated video production continue to develop, creativity will be even more important to help differentiate you from other companies or individuals creating videos. Investing in professional video production services will build your online footprint and help generate high-quality leads.
Data and information are provided for informational purposes only, and are not intended for investment or other purposes.
Al Green, Public Enemy, Patti LaBelle and More Headline America’s Longest-Running Free Music Festival
Eighty-nine years in, Stern Grove Festival still does what almost no one else does: world-class live music, completely free. San Francisco’s longest-running summer tradition returns June 14 through August 16, 2026, with a lineup that spans Al Green, Public Enemy, Patti LaBelle, Major Lazer, Japanese Breakfast, Violent Femmes, Suki Waterhouse, Charley Crockett, and Bomba Estéreo, among others. Free tickets are available via lottery at sterngrove.org.
The eucalyptus-lined amphitheater at Sigmund Stern Grove draws over 100,000 people across the summer, and this season more than half the lineup comes from the Bay Area itself. That’s a deliberate choice, reflecting the festival’s ongoing commitment to local artists at a moment when independent musicians are facing real economic pressure. “Stern Grove is a place where that joy is shared across generations,” says Executive Director Bob Fiedler, “where thousands of people can come together and feel something bigger than themselves.”
Founded in 1938 by Rosalie Meyer Stern on the principle that live music should be free and accessible to everyone, the festival is now stewarded by her great-great grandsons Matthew Goldman and Jason Goldman. “As we celebrate our 89th season, supporting live music feels more important than ever,” says Board Chairman Matthew Goldman. The continuity matters. So does the mission.
The season closes with The Big Picnic Weekend on August 15 and 16, a two-day fundraising finale. Public Enemy headlines Saturday, followed Sunday by Al Green with The GLIDE Ensemble and Goapele. It’s a closer that earns the name.
2026 Stern Grove Festival Lineup:
June 14 – Peter Cat Recording Co. + Marinero
June 21 – Bomba Estéreo + La Misa Negra
June 28 – Japanese Breakfast
July 5 – Major Lazer + Fijiana + DJ Bad Juuju
July 19 – Charley Crockett + Nicki Bluhm
July 26 – Suki Waterhouse
August 2 – Violent Femmes + Tune-Yards
August 9 – Patti LaBelle + Destini Wolf
August 15 – Public Enemy
August 16 – Al Green + Goapele + The GLIDE Ensemble
Nazareth Dig Deep Into a Defining Era With the ‘Born Under The Wrong Sign’ Box Set
Nazareth built their reputation on grit, volume, and a refusal to stay in one lane. ‘Born Under The Wrong Sign (1976-1979)’, a 5CD box set arriving June 26, covers four albums from one of the most restless stretches of their catalog, and adds 27 bonus tracks including single versions, outtakes, and an alternate version of ‘Expect No Mercy’ that’s never been properly heard.
The collection opens with ‘Close Enough For Rock ‘n’ Roll’, recorded at Le Studio in Montreal and featuring “Telegram,” the four-part rock opera that opened their live shows throughout the era. ‘Play ‘n’ The Game’ follows, with Manny Charlton producing and the band pushing into arena rock and AOR territory with Southern rock and psychedelic touches woven through. It’s a period that often gets overlooked in favor of the ‘Hair Of The Dog’ era, and this box makes the case for a serious reassessment.
‘Expect No Mercy’ brings the heaviness back, with Dan McCafferty’s gravelly vocals front and center over gritty guitar riffs, and Frank Frazetta’s iconic cover art giving the album a visual identity that’s held up for nearly five decades. The original alternate version, spread across disc four, adds a completely different sequence and includes tracks that didn’t make the final cut. It’s the kind of deep archival inclusion that makes a box set worth owning rather than just admiring.
‘No Mean City’ closes the collection, marking the addition of Zal Cleminson on second guitar and a heavier twin-guitar sound that pointed toward where hard rock was heading into the 1980s. Rodney Matthews, who also designed covers for Thin Lizzy and Diamond Head, handled the artwork.
‘Born Under The Wrong Sign (1976-1979)’ arrives June 26.
Track Listing:
Disc One
Close Enough For Rock´N´Roll (1976)
1. Telegram (Parts 1 – 4)
2. Vicki
3. Homesick Again
4. Vancouver Shakedown
5. Born Under The Wrong Sign
6. Loretta
7. Carry Out Feelings
8. Lift The Lid
9. You’re The Violin
Bonus Tracks
10. My White Bicycle (Single)
11. You’re The Violin (Edited A-Side)
12. Loretta (Alternate Single Version)
13. Carry Out Feelings (US Single Edit)
14. Lift The Lid (Alternate Single Version)
15. My White Bicycle (Original Version)
16. Telegram (Edited Version)
17. On Your Way
18. So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star
Disc Two
Play ´N´ The Game (1976)
1. Somebody To Roll
2. Down Home Girl
3. Flying
4. Waiting For The Man
5. Born To Love
6. I Want To Do Everything For You
7. I Don’t Want To Go On Without You
8. Wild Honey
9. L.A. Girls
Bonus Tracks
10. Good Love (B-Side)
11. I Don’t Want To Go On Without You (Alternate Edit)
12. Waiting For The Man (Alternate Edit)
13. Somebody To Roll (Edit)
14. Born To Love (Edited Version)
Disc Three
Expect No Mercy (1977)
1. Expect No Mercy
2. Gone Dead Train
3. Shot Me Down
4. Revenge Is Sweet
5. Gimme What’s Mine
6. Kentucky Fried Blues
7. New York Broken Toy
8. Busted
9. Place In Your Heart
10. All The King’s Horses
Bonus Tracks
11. Greens (B-Side)
12. Desolation Road (B-Side)
13. Gone Dead Train (Edited Version)
14. Expect No Mercy (Alternate Version)
15. Place In Your Heart (Alternate Edited Version)
16. Kentucky Fried Blues (Edited Version)
17. Expect No Mercy (Live)
Disc Four
Expect No Mercy (Original Version)
1. Kentucky Fried Blues
2. Gone Dead Train
3. Shot Me Down
4. Greens
5. Life Of A Dog
6. New York Broken Toy
7. Revenge Is Sweet
8. Desolation Road
9. Can’t Keep A Good Man Down
10. Moonlight Eyes
Disc Five
No Mean City (1979)
1. Just To Get Into It
2. May The Sunshine
3. Simple Solution (Parts 1 & 2)
4. Star
5. Claim To Fame
6. Whatever You Want Babe
7. What’s In It For Me
8. No Mean City (Parts 1 & 2)
Bonus Tracks
9. Snaefell (No Mean City Outtake, 1979, Instrumental)
10. May The Sunshine (Single Edit)
11. Whatever You Want Babe (Single Edit)
12. Star (US Version)
13. No Mean City (Alternate Edit)
14. Simple Solution (Edit)
The Strokes Tease New Album ‘Reality Awaits’ Ahead of Coachella and Beyond
The Strokes have a new album coming, and they’ve announced it the way only they could. A teaser trailer dropped on the band’s social media Monday with four words and a tagline: ‘Reality Awaits’. “In the flesh, it’s even sexier.” No release date, no tracklist, no overthinking it.
The announcement lands as the band has been warming up with small club dates in San Francisco, playing the Warfield on April 4 and Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on April 6, ahead of back-to-back Coachella appearances on April 11 and April 18. Festival dates at Outside Lands and Bonnaroo are also on the books. The Strokes are clearly building toward something, and the live shows are part of the process.
‘Reality Awaits’ will be the follow-up to 2020’s ‘The New Abnormal’, making it the band’s first studio album in six years. That gap hasn’t cooled anything. The club shows have confirmed the band is locked in, and the festival circuit is about to find out exactly where they are right now.
There’s more to come. For now, the tease is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do.
BTS Just Answered the Internet’s Biggest Questions and the World Is Not Calm
BTS sat down with WIRED to tackle the internet’s most searched questions about the group, and the result is exactly what it should be: seven of the most watched people on the planet being completely themselves. Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook work through the queries with the kind of chemistry that only comes from years of doing everything together, and the whole thing lands as both genuinely funny and quietly revealing. The internet clearly had questions. BTS had answers.
LA Indie Favorites Atta Boy Break a Four-Year Silence With the Quietly Powerful “Haven’t Yet”
Four years is a long time. Atta Boy have spent theirs touring, writing, surviving a disaster, and building something worth the wait. “Haven’t Yet,” out now via Diamond City, is the Los Angeles quartet’s first new music since 2022’s ‘Crab Park’, and it arrives as the opening statement of a new album expected late spring.
The song sits squarely in the space Atta Boy know best: emotionally direct, carefully constructed, and harder to shake than it first appears. It tackles the communication breakdown inside a relationship, the kind that compounds quietly until both people feel alone. “It’s about the loneliness that can come with avoidance in a partner,” says guitarist and vocalist Eden Brolin, “and ultimately the continuous commitment to mending that on a level playing field.” That’s a lot to carry in a single, and the band carries it well.
The new material was written and demoed in late 2024, with the band reconvening in January 2025 to record, only to be halted by the Los Angeles wildfires. The pause reshaped things. Guitarist Freddy Reish had built his own studio, The Pink Feather, named after his grandparents’ saloon, giving the band room to push further than their usual compressed recording timelines had allowed. A group that originally formed in high school, with well over a decade together, took full advantage of the space.
“Haven’t Yet” had already been road tested live, supporting CAAMP and during select headline dates last autumn. Keyboardist Dashel Thompson notes the song got a strong reception at every show. Listeners who caught those performances will recognize it immediately. Everyone else is about to.