T-Pain at Austin City Limits Music Festival 2025 is exactly what a festival headline slot should look like. Backed by a full live band, he moves through a catalog that holds up completely, “I’m Sprung,” “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” “Bartender,” all of it landing with a crowd that knows every word. The NPR Tiny Desk Concert years ago reframed the conversation around his talent, making clear that the voice was always there underneath the Auto-Tune innovation that defined a generation of pop and hip-hop. This performance carries that same energy forward, a high-voltage, joyful set from an artist who remains a genuine showman and a significant architect of the modern sound.
The Vatican’s Swiss Guard Just Played Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and It’s Glorious
At a swearing-in ceremony for 28 new Papal recruits in Vatican City, the Swiss Guard band closed out the proceedings with the last thing anyone expected: a full, swingy rendition of Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” performed specifically to honor Pope Leo XIV, the first American Pope. The crowd reaction says everything.
Broken Social Scene’s ‘Remember The Humans’ Arrives With Tour, New Track, and a Reunion 20 Years in the Making
‘Remember The Humans’ is out today via Arts & Crafts, and Broken Social Scene’s first album in nearly a decade arrives with the full weight of everything that’s happened in between. Loss, reconnection, grief, joy, and a reunion with producer David Newfeld, the man behind ‘You Forgot It In People’ and ‘Broken Social Scene,’ two of the most important Canadian records ever made.
The Newfeld reunion is the spine of this album’s origin story. After a collaboration that ended without resolution almost 20 years ago, Kevin Drew happened to move nearby. One hangout became, in Drew’s words, “a hurricane of fun.” During the making of the record, both Drew and Newfeld lost their mothers. That shared grief pulled them closer. Newfeld put it plainly: “our moms would have wanted us to do this, and get it right after 20 years of not working together.”
With the album comes the focus track “Only The Good I Keep,” featuring Hannah Georgas, who leads the song with total authority. Drew wrote vocals for the track, then set them aside when he recognized the song had fully become hers. Georgas traces the lyric back to her own adolescence, describing it as “a reflection on the hardships I faced growing up, as well as the things that helped me make it through.” The video is co-directed by Drew and Jordan Allen.
The album also features Lisa Lobsinger on “Relief,” a song that came to her during meditation as a vivid memory of a BSS track that no one had ever written, which the band then made real. Feist brings an earlier outtake, “What Happens Now,” to life as something that feels like earned grace rather than nostalgia. The arrangements across the record are dense, horns and guitars and voices and electronics layered over each other, but melody stays sovereign throughout.
The critical response has been immediate. Rolling Stone says the band “still brim with the kind of heart-bruising magic that seems impossible to replicate.” Pitchfork called it “a bonus lap from one of Canada’s most venerated institutions.” Exclaim! put them on the cover. New York Magazine singled out “Hey Amanda” and “Relief” for their hook-driven, maximalist energy. The Needle Drop praised “The Call” for its bigness and dynamics.
Next month, BSS head out on the “All The Feelings” tour with Metric and Stars, a North American and European run that covers Austin, Los Angeles, San Francisco (sold out), Calgary (sold out), Edmonton (sold out), Brooklyn (sold out), Nashville (sold out), and Toronto (sold out), before moving through Dublin, Glasgow, London, Paris, and beyond. The tour wraps in Canada with stops in London, Ottawa, and Laval. Additional appearances include FIFA’s Fan Festival in Vancouver on June 26 and the Halifax Jazz Festival on July 11.
Drew sees the timing of all this as anything but accidental. “In 2026, you’re going to see a lot of resurgence of people going back to the roots of who they are, because things in their lifetime have gotten quite lost. I think we’ve let each other down, and I think it’s art that always tries to prevail, and tries to get us back on track.” ‘Remember The Humans’ makes that case without hedging.
‘Remember The Humans’ Tracklist:
- Not Around Anymore
- Only The Good I Keep
- Mission Accomplished (Kingfisher)
- The Call
- Relief
- And I Think Of You
- This Briefest Kiss
- Life Within The Ground
- Hey Amanda
- Paying For Your Love
- What Happens Now
- Parking Lot Dreams
“All The Feelings” Tour Dates with Metric and Stars:
June 8 – Austin, TX – Moody Amphitheater
June 9 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
June 11 – Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium
June 13 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater
June 16 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre
June 17 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
June 19 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
June 21 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic (SOLD OUT)
June 22 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
June 24 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
June 25 – Woodinville, WA – Chateau Ste. Michelle
June 28 – Calgary, AB – South Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (SOLD OUT)
June 29 – Edmonton, AB – Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium (SOLD OUT)
July 24 – Chicago, IL – Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
July 25 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre
July 27 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
July 28 – Philadelphia, PA – The Met
July 30 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount (SOLD OUT)
July 31 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount (SOLD OUT)
August 1 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
August 3 – Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle (LOW TICKET WARNING)
August 4 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium (SOLD OUT)
August 7 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre (SOLD OUT)
September 9 – Dublin, IE – 3 Olympia Theatre
September 11 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy Glasgow
September 12 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton
September 13 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
September 15 – Paris, FR – Salle Pleyel
September 16 – Antwerp, BE – De Roma
September 17 – Utrecht, NL – TivoliVredenburg
September 19 – Berlin, DE – Columbiahalle
October 3 – London, ON – Canada Life Place
October 5 – Ottawa, ON – The Arena at TD Place
October 7 – Laval, QC – Place Bell
Additional Dates:
June 26 – Vancouver, BC – Hasting’s Park (FIFA Fan Festival)
July 11 – Halifax, NS – Halifax Jazz Festival
Video: RY X Turned a Brazilian Desert Into a Cathedral With His Cercle Performance
In July 2023, RY X stood in the middle of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil, a vast desert landscape dotted with lagoons, and delivered a performance for Cercle that felt less like a concert and more like a meditation. Atmospheric indie-folk, electronica, and ambient textures merged into something genuinely transportive, with melancholic guitar, deep vocal lines, and subtle electronic layers building a soundscape that matched the landscape surrounding it. Live percussion and visual effects added dramatic depth, and his performance of “Howling” captured the particular magic RY X does better than almost anyone working in this space. The set drew from his 2022 album ‘Blood Moon’ alongside earlier material, including tracks from ‘Dawn,’ the 2016 album that first announced him as a singular voice. Cercle has built its reputation on pairing exceptional artists with extraordinary locations, and this one ranks among their finest recordings.
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr Finally Record a Proper Duet With “Home to Us”
Two Beatles. One song. First time ever. “Home to Us,” the new duet from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, is out now on MPL/Capitol, and the weight of what it represents is matched by the warmth of the track itself.
The song is the second single from McCartney’s forthcoming album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane,’ due May 29. It started simply enough: McCartney and producer Andrew Watt invited Starr to lay down a drum track. Then the scope expanded. Starr is the only guest drummer on the entire album, and “Home to Us” became something neither had done before in over five decades of working alongside each other.
McCartney wrote the song with Starr specifically in mind, drawing on their shared working-class Liverpool roots. Starr initially planned to contribute only a line or two. McCartney pushed for more. “I rang him and he said he thought I only wanted him to sing one or two lines,” McCartney recalled. “So we took my first line, Ringo’s second line, and then we had a duet. We’d never done that before.”
The emotional core of the track is rooted in place and memory. McCartney explains it directly: “In writing the song I’m talking about where we came from. In common with a lot of people, you come from nothing and you build yourself up. Ringo was from the Dingle, and that was well hard. He said he used to get mugged coming home, because he worked. Even though it was crazy, it was home to us.”
Backing vocals come from Chrissie Hynde and Sharleen Spiteri, both friends of McCartney who stepped in after he felt the track needed female voices. The result is a song with real texture and genuine emotional depth, built around alternating verses and a shared chorus that sounds completely natural.
‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’ is framed as an autobiographical survey of McCartney’s post-war Liverpool childhood. He plays most instruments on the record, echoing his 1970 solo debut ‘McCartney.’ The lead single, “Days We Left Behind,” arrived in March. The full album arrives May 29.
“Home to Us” is the first original vocal duet McCartney and Starr have ever recorded. Their previous collaboration, the 2023 Beatles track “Now and Then,” was built around a John Lennon vocal originally recorded in 1994 and restored using AI technology introduced to them by director Peter Jackson. That was billed as the final Beatles song. This is something different: Two surviving friends from Liverpool, singing together, for the first time.
Beastie Boys’ Mike D Ends a 15-Year Silence With Debut Solo Single “Switch Up”
Fifteen years is a long time to wait. “Switch Up,” the debut solo single from Mike D, is out now, and it marks the first new music from any member of the Beastie Boys since ‘Hot Sauce Committee Part Two’ in 2011.
The track started in Mike D’s home studio during sessions with his sons, Davis and Skyler Diamond, who record and perform together as the indie-dance duo Very Nice Person. What began as a family experiment became something worth releasing. The single was co-produced by Very Nice Person and Carter Lang, mixed by Derek “MixedByAli” Ali at No Name Studios, with artwork by San Francisco-based artist Thad Higa.
“Switch Up” premiered live on May 7 at Mike D’s sold-out show at Plaza Nightclub & Dance Hall in Los Angeles, dropping while he was still on stage. That kind of release is a statement in itself. The track carries drum ‘n’ bass influence, a melodic bassline, synth textures, guitar, and strings that arrive with real emotional weight toward the end.
The Plaza show is part of a series of deliberately intimate, unconventional performances Mike D has been staging. Previous stops included Brothers Marshall Surf Shop in Malibu and The Ojai Valley Women’s Club. Upcoming dates include Sid the Cat Auditorium in South Pasadena on May 10, and two nights at Xanadu Roller Arts in Brooklyn on May 22 and 23.
The road back to this moment has been gradual. In April, the Diamond brothers brought their father on stage for a surprise show, where he performed Beastie Boys cuts including “Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun” and “So What’cha Want.” The response made clear the appetite for new music was very much alive.
Since the death of Adam “MCA” Yauch in 2012, the Beastie Boys’ legacy has been maintained through vinyl reissues, a greatest hits album, a Spike Jonze-directed documentary, and an official New York square at the corner of Ludlow and Rivington, the site of the Paul’s Boutique cover shoot. In March, Mike D and Ad Rock released a deluxe reissue of ‘To the 5 Boroughs’ as a triple-vinyl and double-CD set with 11 bonus tracks.
“Switch Up” is a solo debut that carries real history behind it, and it holds up on its own terms. Whether it signals a larger project remains to be seen, but as a first move, it lands exactly right.
Upcoming Tour Dates:
May 10 – South Pasadena, CA – Sid the Cat Auditorium
May 22 – Brooklyn, NY – Xanadu Roller Arts
May 23 – Brooklyn, NY – Xanadu Roller Arts
Josh Groban’s ‘Cinematic’ Arrives With Jennifer Hudson, a Hollywood Star, and Arena Tour
Josh Groban has been building toward ‘Cinematic’ for a long time, and the album lands today via Reprise Records with the full weight of that anticipation behind it. Ten tracks. Ten film songs. One of the most carefully assembled vocal projects of his career. Listen here.
Produced by Greg Wells, whose credits include Wicked, The Greatest Showman, Adele, and Taylor Swift, ‘Cinematic’ was recorded in both Los Angeles and London. The source material runs deep: The Godfather, Casablanca, The Lion King, Ghost, Coco, Pinocchio, and more. Groban didn’t just cover these songs. He found new emotional territory inside them.
Standout moments are plentiful. “Unchained Melody” becomes a duet with Jennifer Hudson. “Moon River” features Josh’s father, Jack Groban, on trumpet. “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” is performed with the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles. A Sicilian-language rendition of “Brucia La Terra” from The Godfather is exactly as stunning as it sounds.
Groban speaks to the intention behind the project directly. “Each one represents a moment in film that has resonated across generations,” he says, “and I approached them with a deep respect for their original impact. At the same time, I wanted to find new emotional colors within them.”
Earlier this week, Groban received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a milestone that arrives at a fitting moment. He performs “Skyfall” on Good Morning America this Monday, May 11, appears on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Tuesday, May 12, and performs “Stand By Me” on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Thursday, May 14. His Q with Tom Power interview is out today.
This follows the completion of his GEMS World Tour, which covered Hawaii, Taiwan, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. The road doesn’t stop there.
In June, Groban heads out across North America with special guest Jennifer Hudson, opening in Montreal on June 2 and Toronto on June 4, then moving through Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Nashville, Atlanta, Tampa, and beyond through July 3 in Salt Lake City. This fall, he returns to The Colosseum at Caesars Palace for GEMS The Las Vegas Residency.
Off stage, Groban’s Find Your Light Foundation awarded over $1.5M to 257 nonprofit organizations in 40 states in its most recent grant cycle, reaching over 600,000 K-12 students. Since launching 20 years ago, the foundation has donated over $7.5M to arts education organizations across the U.S.
‘Cinematic’ Tracklist:
- As Time Goes By (Casablanca)
- Skyfall (James Bond’s Skyfall)
- Brucia La Terra (The Godfather)
- Can You Feel The Love Tonight (The Lion King) featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles
- When You Wish Upon A Star (Pinocchio)
- Unchained Melody (Ghost) with Jennifer Hudson
- Remember Me (Coco)
- Moon River (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) featuring Jack Groban
- Against All Odds (Against All Odds)
- Stand By Me (Stand By Me)
North American Tour with Special Guest Jennifer Hudson:
June 2 – Montreal, QC – Place Bell
June 4 – Toronto, ON – Scotiabank Arena
June 6 – Boston, MA – TD Garden
June 7 – Philadelphia, PA – Xfinity Mobile Arena
June 10 – Hershey, PA – Giant Center
June 12 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden
June 16 – Nashville, TN – Bridgestone Arena
June 17 – Atlanta, GA – Gas South Arena
June 19 – Tampa, FL – Benchmark International Arena
June 20 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live at Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Hollywood
June 24 – Columbus, OH – Schottenstein Center
June 25 – Detroit, MI – Little Caesars Arena
June 27 – Chicago, IL – Allstate Arena
June 28 – St Paul, MN – Grand Casino Arena
July 1 – Denver, CO – Ball Arena
July 3 – Salt Lake City, UT – Maverik Center
Josh Groban: GEMS The Las Vegas Residency:
October 2 – Las Vegas, NV – The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
October 3 – Las Vegas, NV – The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
October 7 – Las Vegas, NV – The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
October 9 – Las Vegas, NV – The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
October 10 – Las Vegas, NV – The Colosseum at Caesars Palace
Margaret Cho and Jane Wiedlin Team Up for the Gloriously Unfiltered “Yer Dihh”
Margaret Cho and Jane Wiedlin didn’t ease into 2026. They recorded “Yer Dihh” on New Year’s Day in San Francisco, and the result is exactly as bold, unfiltered, and unapologetic as that origin story suggests. The track is out now, and it’s making itself known.
Written by Margaret Cho, Jane Wiedlin, and Travis Kasperbauer, with music by Wiedlin and Kasperbauer, “Yer Dihh” is a pulsating, sex-positive banger built for clubs and cranked speakers. It was produced by Wiedlin and Kasperbauer at Lucky Recording Company, and it features both artists on vocals in full, committed form.
Cho doesn’t mince words about what the collaboration means to her. “The Go-Go’s was my very first concert and I lived my childhood dream of getting to collaborate with Jane Wiedlin on this amazing song,” she says. “It’s a banger and I’m so excited for everyone to bang to it.”
Wiedlin, a songwriter with decades of landmark pop history behind her, came into this one with her eyes wide open. “In all my years of being a songwriter, I did NOT see this coming,” she says. “It was 100% fun from start to finish. In these repressed and bigoted times, I’m so glad to support Margaret with a silly, hot, and sex-positive song.”
The video matches the track’s energy without blinking. Uncut and raw, it features an ensemble of comedy and drag superstars including Alaska Thunderfuck, Guy Branum, Dylan Adler, Sherry Vine, Dina Martina, Sam Oh, Rachel Scanlon, Scott Silverman, Kenny Hash, Roz Hernandez, Solomon Giorgio, Daniel Webb, Zach Noe Towers, Dana Goldberg, and Matteo Lane. It’s a full-on celebration and a deliberate statement.
“Yer Dihh” is the kind of track that reminds you what fearless pop collaboration sounds like, two artists fully in on the joke and fully committed to the groove. It demands to be played loud.
Diamond Cafe Turns Unspoken Longing Into Something Electric With “If Only”
Some songs live in the space between feeling and action. “If Only,” the new single from Diamond Cafe, goes straight there and doesn’t look back. Out now via Warner Music Canada, the track is written and produced entirely by Diamond Cafe himself, and it marks a distinct shift into darker sonic territory.
Heavy bass, a driving guitar line, and Diamond’s powerful vocals build tension from the first bar. The arrangement is tense and deliberate, pulling the listener into a moment of suspended emotion. He sings, “If only tonight was the night I could tell you, of all of the risk I would take,” and the line lands exactly as it should.
Diamond describes the creative core plainly: “‘If Only’ pulls from the texts I never sent. It lives in that space between what you feel and what you’re too afraid to say out loud. It’s everything I wish I said… just too late to matter.”
“If Only” follows “No Wonder,” released earlier this year, and continues a run of momentum that accelerated hard through 2025. That year saw Diamond Cafe handpicked by Teddy Swims as direct support for his North American arena tour, bringing his performance to tens of thousands of new listeners across the continent.
Beyond the arena run, Diamond sold out headlining shows in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Toronto, Chicago, and Paris, twice, within the same calendar year. Those aren’t numbers you accumulate by accident. They reflect an artist whose live show has become a genuine event.
Tastemaker platforms took notice early. Appearances on On The Radar and Cadillac Chronicles helped establish Diamond as a name worth watching well before the mainstream caught up. Pitchfork dubbed him a “pop-funk prodigy.” RANGE Magazine called him “Canada’s next sparkling, 24-carat superstar.” Supporters include Anderson .Paak, Zack Fox, F1 driver Lewis Hamilton, PNAU, and the legendary El DeBarge, who joined Diamond on stage for a surprise duet at his sold-out LA debut.
His creative résumé runs deep. Collaborations with Free Nationals, SG Lewis, Jenevieve, and Bones. Production credits alongside BNYX on Zack Fox’s wood tip EP. Featured appearances on Gashi’s album ‘1984’ and the Cool Kids’ album ‘BABY OIL STAIRCASE / CHILLOUT’. Sync placements in HBO’s Ballers, Netflix’s The Lake, and Prime Video’s Flinch round out a profile that crosses every lane.
Now signed to Warner Music Canada and with new music building, “If Only” is another sharp, emotionally precise entry from one of the most compelling artists working right now.
11 Albums That Could Be Movie Soundtracks
Cinema and music have always shared the same grammar. Tension, release, character, atmosphere, narrative arc. The best film scores don’t just accompany images, they generate them. And occasionally, a record arrives that does this without a single frame of footage attached. These 11 albums think in scenes. They have acts. They have protagonists. A good director would know exactly what to do with any one of them.
‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ — Pink Floyd (1973)
The Wizard of Oz sync has been documented and debated for decades, and the fact that it holds up at all is the point. This is an album structured around anxiety, mortality, and the passage of time, precisely the architecture of a great dystopian sci-fi film. Stanley Kubrick would have understood it immediately.
‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust’ — David Bowie (1972)
The concept is already written. An alien messiah descends to Earth as a rock star, gets consumed by the very audience that worships him, and disintegrates. The character arc is complete, the themes are rich, and the music is extraordinary. This film should have existed 40 years ago.
‘Dummy’ — Portishead (1994)
Every track on this record establishes location, mood, and emotional stakes within the first 30 seconds. That’s a screenwriting skill. The trip-hop production and Beth Gibbons’ voice build a 90s European noir world so completely that the screenplay practically writes itself. Carol Reed would have loved it.
‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ — Kendrick Lamar (2015)
This album has a three-act structure, a recurring narrator, thematic motifs that develop across the runtime, and a final scene where Kendrick interviews Tupac from beyond the grave. The spoken word passages function as voiceover. The whole record is a film that happens to be music.
‘Hounds of Love’ — Kate Bush (1985)
Side two, “The Ninth Wave,” follows a consciousness drifting between life and drowning. It’s nine minutes of the most precisely constructed surrealist filmmaking never committed to celluloid. Agnès Varda could have made something extraordinary with this material. Someone still could.
‘Random Access Memories’ — Daft Punk (2013)
This record understands production the way a cinematographer understands light. Every texture, every transition, every guest appearance is a deliberate compositional choice. The Giorgio Moroder monologue alone functions as a film prologue. Put this behind a futuristic romance and you’d have something close to perfect.
‘Blood on the Tracks’ — Bob Dylan (1975)
Dylan once said this album was inspired by Chekhov, and you can hear it. The characters are specific, the situations are vivid, and the emotional register shifts from track to track the way a great script moves between scenes. John Cassavetes could have done something devastating with this record.
‘If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power’ — Halsey (2021)
Halsey released a 45-minute feature film alongside this album, which confirms the instinct. The industrial production and gothic atmosphere build a fully immersive dark fantasy world. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross produced it, two people who already know exactly how to score a film.
‘Robbie Robertson’ — Robbie Robertson (1987)
Daniel Lanois produced this record, and his fingerprints are all over it, that particular quality of sound that feels like a place rather than a performance. Southern Gothic, atmospheric, and slightly out of time. This album is the score to a neo-noir film that nobody ever made, and that’s a genuine loss.
‘Viva la Vida’ — Coldplay (2008)
Brian Eno’s production gives this record an orchestral sweep that most film composers spend entire careers chasing. The title track sounds like the fall of an empire from the inside. As a historical drama or fantasy epic, this album would be doing half the director’s work for them.
‘The Black Parade’ — My Chemical Romance (2006)
A dying patient moves through death and whatever follows. The narrative is structured, the emotional arc is complete, and the music moves between operatic bombast and genuine tenderness with real dramatic control. This is a fully realized musical drama. The stage adaptation is overdue, let alone the film.