Forty years since ‘Please’ arrived and redefined what a pop duo could sound and look like, Pet Shop Boys get the definitive visual retrospective they’ve always deserved. ‘Pet Shop Boys Volume,’ out April 7 from Thames and Hudson, is a 560-page document of everything Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have built across music, art, film, theater, design, and fashion. Over fifty million records sold. Three Brit Awards. Six Grammy nominations. Number ones including “West End Girls,” “It’s a Sin,” and “Always on My Mind.” The catalog alone is staggering, but this book is about the full picture.
Authors Chris Heath and Libby Sellers move through the duo’s entire visual output year by year, covering sleeve artwork, video stills, stage sets, costume designs, photoshoots, and collaborations with luminaries including Es Devlin, Zaha Hadid, Derek Jarman, and Wolfgang Tillmans. Philip Hoare’s original introduction is joined by new contributions from Sellers on Pet Shop Boys’ place in design history, and a foreword from Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller on the enduring power of their image. The jacket itself is designed by longtime collaborator Mark Farrow.
‘Pet Shop Boys Volume’ is a visual feast and an authoritative record of four decades of creative innovation from the most distinctive duo in pop history.
The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is taking its International Jazz Competition to Paris for the first time in its nearly four-decade history, and the 2026 edition has a focused, powerful theme: jazz vocals. In partnership with the Fondation Louis Vuitton, the competition will bring together exceptional young vocalists from around the world, all 30 and under, competing for more than $100,000 in scholarships and prizes. First place takes home $50,000.
The competition weekend lands October 10-11 at the Fondation’s Frank Gehry-designed Auditorium. Semifinals run Saturday, October 10, with the Finals and an All-Star Gala Concert closing things out Sunday evening. Acclaimed vocalist and Institute Trustee Dee Dee Bridgewater leads the jury. The whole event streams globally on Medici.tv, FLV Play, and YouTube.
Bandsintown, la plataforma lÃder mundial de descubrimiento de música en vivo y eventos, anunció una nueva integración con Apple Music que lleva los listados de conciertos de Bandsintown directamente a la plataforma de streaming. Con el lanzamiento de iOS 26.4, las fechas de la gira aparecerán automáticamente en las páginas de artistas de Apple Music, en la pestaña de Inicio y en una nueva pestaña de Conciertos dentro de la Búsqueda, lo que amplÃa la forma en que los fanáticos descubren la música en vivo mientras la escuchan.
Cómo funciona Los artistas pueden conectar la URL de su página de artista de Apple Music dentro del panel de control de Bandsintown for Artists. Una vez conectados, los eventos se sincronizan globalmente con Apple Music en un plazo de 24 a 48 horas y aparecen en dos nuevas ubicaciones:
Páginas de artistas: se muestra una sección de “Próximos conciertos” cuando los artistas están de gira
La integración se basa en el rol existente de Bandsintown que impulsa los datos de eventos en vivo en todo el ecosistema de Apple, como Shazam, Apple Maps, Spotlight Search, Apple Photos y Apple Music Set Lists. Con la incorporación del entorno de transmisión de Apple Music, los artistas ahora pueden llegar a los fanáticos con información de conciertos en el momento en que están escuchando activamente.
“Bandsintown ha impulsado los listados de conciertos en todo el ecosistema de Apple durante años, desde Shazam y Apple Maps hasta Spotlight Search y Photos”, señaló Fabrice Sergent, cofundador y socio gerente de Bandsintown. “La expansión a Apple Music brinda a todos los artistas a nivel mundial una lÃnea directa a los fanáticos apasionados, haciendo que sus espectáculos salgan a la luz justo cuando los oyentes están más inspirados para verlos en vivo”.
Los listados de conciertos están disponibles en dispositivos con iOS 26.4, actualmente en versión beta pública y para desarrolladores, y pronto se hará un lanzamiento más amplio.
Bandsintown Concerts, la galardonada aplicación y sitio web para fans, ofrece el catálogo de música en vivo más completo del mundo, y utiliza IA para generar más de 400 millones de recomendaciones personalizadas de conciertos al mes basadas en los hábitos y preferencias musicales de los fans.
Bandsintown for Artists proporciona a 700.000 músicos de todos los tamaños herramientas para publicar eventos, anunciar giras, gestionar preventas y ventas, y promocionar conciertos en sus propiedades digitales mediante nuestros widgets y API.
Bandsintown Pro ofrece soluciones automatizadas de marketing y distribución de eventos a más de 65.000 lugares, festivales y promotores, lo que los ayuda a aumentar la visibilidad de los eventos en todas las plataformas digitales, a la vez que ahorran tiempo y venden más entradas.
Topanga Days returns this Memorial Day weekend, 5/23-5/25, with three days of music, food, and community. Headlining the event will be longtime blues rockers, Canned Heat, New Orleans funk/soul/jazz legend and Grammy winner, Cyril Neville, and longtime So-Cal favorites, Long Beach Dub Allstars.
The Topanga Days festival will also feature several other acclaimed musical acts including Golden Dawn Arkestra, Will Worden, Ny Oh, Omar Velasco, and Wall of Sound (Grateful Dead Tribute).
“This year’s Topanga Days lineup is a true journey into musical exploration,” says James Webber, booking agent and board member. “Bringing Canned Heat back to where it all began will be extra special, and there’s no doubt Cyril Neville and the Long Beach Dub Allstars will get the crowd vibing. Add that to great food, beer and wine, and kid-friendly activities, and you have yet another epic Topanga Days weekend.”
Founded in 1973, the Topanga Days Country Fair began as a grassroots fundraiser to support the Topanga Community Center, and has since blossomed into a popular annual event for music and art lovers everywhere.
“Topanga Days has always attracted a community of diverse individuals looking to celebrate the natural beauty and communal positivity of Topanga Canyon,” says Nonie Shore, VP of Events. “This is a time where guests can let loose, enjoy good music, and explore the magical side of Topanga in a truly idyllic setting.”
Topanga Days also features unique wares from local artists and craftsmen, as well as extensive family-friendly activities including an eclectic Memorial Day Parade, kids’ Fun Zone, face painting, games, and the annual pie eating contest.
“Memorial Day weekend can’t come soon enough,” says Sophie Zeiler, VP of Fundraising. “Topanga Days brings out the best in our community, and we’re always honored to inspire all our attendees each year.”
Topanga Days takes place 5/23 – 5/25 from 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. on the grounds of the Topanga Community Center at 1440 N. Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Topanga, CA 90290.
Single Day Online Pass Adults: $31.80 for TCC members / $63.60 for non-members Kids (ages 6-12): $16 for TCC members/ $31.80 for non-members Ages 5 & Under: Free Active Military with ID: Free on 5/25
3-Day Online Pass Adults: $74.20 for TCC members / $148.40 – non-members Kids (ages 6-12): $37.10 for TCC members / $74.20 non-members 5 & Under: Free
FunZone Online Price $21.20
Prices increase at the door. Purchase discounted tickets online in advance.
Parking is available on the street with free shuttle service. Limited handicap parking is provided on the Community Center grounds. Only service dogs with vests and appropriate + current papers allowed.
Queens native and street-level rock troubadour Jesse Malin has a story that demands to be told in full. ‘Almost Grown: A New York Memoir,’ co-written with Debra Devi and out April 7 from Akashic Books, traces Malin’s life from a scrappy kid in a broken home to CBGB at thirteen, Madison Square Garden in his twenties, and collaborations with Bruce Springsteen, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Lucinda Williams. It reads less like a rock memoir and more like ‘The Basketball Diaries’ with a guitar slung over its shoulder.
The book doesn’t sidestep the hard parts. In 2023, Malin suffered a rare spinal stroke that paralyzed him from the waist down. His recovery, including stem-cell therapy in Buenos Aires, became a widely covered story picked up by Rolling Stone, the New York Times, CNN, and beyond. The outpouring of support produced ‘Silver Patron Saints: The Songs of Jesse Malin,’ a tribute record featuring twenty-eight artists. By December 2024, he was back on stage for two sold-out nights at New York’s Beacon Theatre. That’s the kind of resilience this book is built around.
Paul McCartney sat down with director Morgan Neville for a wide-ranging conversation about ‘Man on the Run,’ now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The two covered the full arc of McCartney’s post-Beatles life, from the formation of Wings to the creative and personal decisions that shaped one of rock’s most consequential second acts. It’s a rare, unhurried look at an artist reflecting on his own story with real candor.
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Matthew Hild has written the Olivia Newton-John biography that serious fans and music historians have been waiting for. ‘A Little More Love: The Life and Legacy of Olivia Newton-John’ arrives May 14, 2026 from Bloomsbury Academic, and it goes well beyond the sequins and the headlines. This is the full picture, built on extensive archival research and original interviews with friends and associates who knew her best.
The numbers alone tell part of the story. Over 100 million records sold. Starring roles in Grease and Xanadu. A Billboard-ranked hit in “Physical,” named the most popular single of the entire 1980s. Newton-John wasn’t just a pop star, she was a generational force who shaped what popular music looked like for over four decades.
But Hild’s real contribution is what sits beneath the catalog. He traces Newton-John’s decades-long public battle with breast cancer, her fierce advocacy for environmental causes, animal rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, and the personal resilience that defined her off-camera. These aren’t footnotes. They’re the spine of the book.
The biography moves from her early years in Australia through her final recording, a deeply moving duet of “Jolene” with Dolly Parton. Every chapter brings new detail, including never-before-shared insights that reframe how readers will understand her choices, her career, and her character.
‘A Little More Love’ is a meticulously researched, deeply human portrait of one of pop music’s most enduring figures.
There’s a reason vinyl never died. And I don’t mean that in the romantic, hipster-candle-and-whiskey sense — I mean it in a purely technical, this-is-what-the-data-and-your-ears-are-telling-you sense. Streaming is convenient. It’s remarkable, actually, that you can pull up almost any record ever made in three seconds on your phone. But convenience and fidelity are not the same thing, and for certain albums, the gap between what you’re hearing on Spotify and what the artist actually put on tape is wide enough to drive a truck through.
These are the twelve records where that gap matters most. Some of them were recorded with analogue warmth so thick you can almost feel it. Some were mixed with a stereo image so carefully constructed that a needle in a groove is the only thing that fully honours it. And some are just cool — the kind of cool that a 12-inch sleeve and a side break and the ritual of actually getting up to flip the record was invented for.
If you own a turntable and you don’t own these, you’re leaving something on the table.
‘Back to Black’ — Amy Winehouse
Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi recorded this with an almost militantly analogue philosophy, and it shows. The warmth of the brass, the snap of the drums — digital compression flattens exactly what vinyl preserves. This is one of those records where the format and the feeling are inseparable.
‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust’ — David Bowie
Ken Scott’s production is a masterclass in spatial sound — instruments placed in the stereo field with surgical intentionality. On vinyl, Bowie actually occupies a room. On streaming, he’s just in your ears. The difference is not subtle.
‘Rumours’ — Fleetwood Mac
One of the most painstakingly recorded albums in rock history, with sessions that stretched across multiple studios and countless takes chasing a sound that was never quite finished. The fidelity reward for playing this on vinyl is immediate and almost unfair — the kick drum alone will rearrange your furniture.
‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ — Kendrick Lamar
This is a dense, layered, deliberately maximalist record that was mixed to reward close listening. The live instrumentation — recorded with actual jazz musicians in actual rooms — breathes differently on vinyl. It’s also one of the most important records of the last thirty years, and important records deserve the format that takes them seriously.
‘Led Zeppelin IV’ — Led Zeppelin
Jimmy Page was one of the most studio-literate guitarists of his generation and he engineered significant portions of this record himself. The dynamic range on “When the Levee Breaks” alone — recorded in a stairwell at Headley Grange — is something that streaming literally cannot reproduce at full resolution. Vinyl can. Barely, but it can.
‘Kind of Blue’ — Miles Davis
Recorded in two sessions in 1959 at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio, this is one of the best-captured live ensemble recordings in the history of the format. The room is in the recording. On vinyl, you hear it. On a phone speaker, you’re just getting the notes.
‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ — Pink Floyd
You knew this one was coming. Alan Parsons engineered this record specifically for the stereo capabilities of the vinyl format, and it shows in ways that are almost cruel to experience on anything else. The heartbeat that opens the album, the cash registers on “Money,” the seamless segues between sides — this is a record that was designed as an object, not a playlist.
‘Kid A’ — Radiohead
Counterintuitive, maybe, given that this is an electronic record built largely on synthesizers and drum machines. But Nigel Godrich mixed it with a warmth and depth that digital playback tends to sanitize. On vinyl, the textures that Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood were chasing actually land the way they were intended.
‘Aja’ — Steely Dan
Becker and Fagen were borderline pathological about studio quality and spent more time and money on this record than almost anyone thought was reasonable. It paid off. ‘Aja’ is one of the most technically accomplished recordings ever made, and audiophiles have been using it to test turntable setups for decades for exactly that reason.
‘Carrie & Lowell’ — Sufjan Stevens
This is a quiet record — devastatingly quiet — and quiet records expose everything a format can and can’t do. The delicacy of the finger-picking, the intimacy of the vocals, the space between the notes — vinyl handles silence differently than digital, and on this album, the silence is doing half the work.
‘Abbey Road’ — The Beatles
Geoff Emerick’s engineering at EMI Studios was genuinely revolutionary, and the late-period Beatles had access to the best analogue equipment in the world at the peak of their studio ambition. The medley on Side B is one of the greatest pieces of sequenced music ever committed to a record, and it was conceived for a record — specifically a vinyl record with two sides and a needle that has to travel from the outside in.
‘Sleep Well Beast’ — The National
Aaron Dessner recorded much of this in his home studio with a combination of vintage analogue gear and modern production tools, and the hybrid warmth comes through on vinyl in a way that streaming slightly blunts. Matt Berninger’s baritone was made for a format with this much low-end presence. Put this on at midnight and report back.
Every week I get asked some version of the same question: “How do I know if my music career is actually working?” And every week I watch artists make the same mistake — they open Spotify for Artists, see their monthly listener count, feel good or bad about it, and close the app. That’s not data analysis. That’s astrology.
Let me walk you through three artists who, whether they knew it or not, had the data tell a story worth listening to.
Hozier
Here’s something that should stop you cold. Take Me to Church was released in 2013. It peaked on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2014. And then, a full decade later, it re-entered the charts because of TikTok. We’re not talking about a blip — we’re talking about hundreds of millions of new streams generated for a ten-year-old song.
What does this mean for artists? Catalogue is not dead. It might be more alive than it’s ever been. The metric nobody watches closely enough is what I’d call stream age — the average age of a song when it gets played. For Hozier, that number is staggering, and it’s growing. If you’re an independent artist, your three-year-old EP is not buried. It’s inventory. It’s sitting in an algorithmic warehouse waiting for the right fifteen-second clip to blow the doors off.
The data point to watch: your songs’ monthly streams broken down by release date. If older tracks are climbing, something cultural is happening. Find out what before someone else tells the story for you.
Chappell Roan
The Chappell Roan story is one of the most instructive slow-burn-to-explosion arcs in recent memory, and the industry mostly missed it until it was impossible to ignore. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess came out in September 2023. For months, the album’s streaming numbers were modest by major label standards. Then they weren’t.
What the raw numbers don’t show you is the shape of the growth. Roan’s audience didn’t arrive in one wave — it arrived in pulses, each one tied to a specific live performance, a specific festival set, a specific word-of-mouth moment. The Coachella effect was real, but it was the third or fourth pulse, not the first. Artists who only watch total numbers would have seen a modest debut and written it off. Anyone watching the rate of change would have seen an accelerating curve months earlier.
The data point to watch: week-over-week percentage growth, not raw totals. A song with 50,000 streams that grew 40% last week is a more interesting story than a song with 2 million streams that’s flat. Flatness is entropy. Acceleration is a signal.
Stromae
I want to talk about Stromae because he’s a genuinely global case study that English-language music media chronically undercovers. Here’s a Belgian artist singing primarily in French who managed to crack markets from Brazil to Japan to sub-Saharan Africa. The question is: how does the data explain that?
If you look at his Spotify numbers geographically, you’ll notice something unusual — his listener base doesn’t cluster the way most artists’ do. Most artists have a home market that dwarfs everything else. Stromae’s map is remarkably distributed. That’s not an accident and it’s not just because the music is great. It’s because he and his team were paying attention to where the organic growth was happening and then actually showing up there — tours, press, local partnerships.
The data point to watch: your listener geography, and more specifically, where you’re growing without having done anything to cause it. Unsolicited growth in a market you’ve never targeted is the closest thing to a free lead you will ever get in this industry. Most artists ignore it entirely. Stromae’s career is partly a story of not ignoring it.
The through-line here isn’t really about any of these three artists specifically. It’s about the difference between checking your numbers and reading them. Monthly listeners tell you where you are. Rate of change tells you where you’re going. Geographic distribution tells you where you haven’t been yet.
The artists who figure that out — really figure it out — tend to be the ones still around for the conversation ten years later.
