Music

Music

JBL's BandBox concept asks a different question. What if one box could understand the music it is playing and reorganize it around you in real time. The Solo and Trio units use AI to separate vocals, guitars, and drums inside finished tracks, so you can mute, isolate, or replace parts on the fly. Suddenly the speaker is not just a playback device. It becomes the drummer who never rushes, the backing guitarist who never complains, and the invisible producer nudging you toward tighter practice.

But its last major update, Absynth 5, was released in 2009, and Native Instruments officially discontinued the instrument in 2022, citing a lack of resources to continue supporting software in desperate need of modernization. But now the Absynth is making a grand return with version six, created in collaboration with the original designer Brian Clevinger, and featuring presets from Brian Eno and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith.

That afternoon, they had been drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana and listening for six hours straight to the album Stained Class (1978) by the heavy metal band Judas Priest. At nightfall, they went to a playground next to a church with a 12-gauge shotgun. Raymond Belknap, 18, put the barrel under his chin, pulled the trigger, and died instantly. His friend, James Vance, 20, did the same but survived, although his face was disfigured.

Will Johnson (Centro-matic, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit) and the late Jason Molina's former band Magnolia Electric Co have been touring together as Magnolia & Johnson Electric Co, and on Friday night (10/12) they stopped in Asheville, NC for a show at The Grey Eagle, where they brought out a very notable Asheville native, MJ Lenderman. He joined them on a rendition of "The Dark Don't Hide It," and you can watch attendee-taken video below.

Barry Egan speaks to Kian Egan, Shane Filan, Nicky Byrne, and longtime manager, Louis Walsh

"I remember smelling the aroma of it frying in the farm kitchen as I walked outside on winter days [at our home] in Bon Aqua, Tennessee," he wrote in " The Cash and Carter Family Cookbook: Recipes and Recollections From Johnny and June's Table." "Dad would buy canned biscuits, eggs, and sliced bologna. He liked the bologna slices nearly crispy - some almost burned. He always loved crispy and well-done foods."

The 2026 US leg of the "Our Lady Peace: 30th Anniversary Tour" kicks off on March 5th in Chicago. The nearly month-long trek travels through cities like Orlando, Boston, and Detroit before wrapping up on April 4th in Pittsburgh. The Verve Pipe will appear as special guests as for the majority of the dates.

How Can I Get Tickets for Megan Moroney's 2026 The Cloud 9 Tour? Tickets for Megan Moroney's The Cloud 9 Tour are now on sale via Ticketmaster. Fans can also look for deals or buy tickets to sold-out shows through StubHub, where orders are 110% guaranteed through StubHub's FanProtect program. StubHub is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand.

1. Cowell is chasing a new direction Simon Cowell: The Next Act, which hit Netflix on Wednesday, follows Cowell in his bid to put together the next One Direction, and do his bit to reassert western dominance in the only sphere that matters: the pop charts! There hasn't been a boyband from the UK or America who I think is as exciting as these K-pop artists, Cowell declares. But while he's convinced of the ginormous opportunity for a male version of the Spice Girls, the six-part docuseries has been widely panned, with reviews describing it as anachronistic and even bleak.

December. What is it about this most wonderful time of the year? Lights appear. Playlists shift. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas or It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year spark memories and singing. A musical phrase takes us back to a childhood living room, a parent singing in the kitchen, a snowy sidewalk, the smell of cookies waiting to be decorated, a gathering long past. Nostalgia, celebration, reflection, gratitude, joy.

Lighting it up since 1975, San Francisco celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first giant public menorah outside Israel, a landmark Bill Graham project that went on to inspire thousands of menorahs around the world. This year's eight-night festival brings music, community gatherings, and nightly ceremonies honoring leaders and traditions across the Jewish community. Union Square Menorah Lighting Schedule 2025 December 14-22, 2025

Native Instruments and Ableton have had incredible success with their custom MIDI controllers that integrate with their DAWs (digital audio workstations), Maschine and Live, respectively. Native Instruments' Maschine (yes, it's the name of the hardware and the software) and Ableton's Push are pretty much the gold standard for integration between music-making software and hardware. Serato is hoping it can capture even a sliver of that magic with its pairing of Slab and Serato Studio.

Traditional wooden cellos and violins are exquisite but fragile. They crack in dry weather, warp in humidity, and require constant environmental monitoring. A professional instrument can cost tens of thousands of dollars, yet one bad flight or unexpected temperature change can cause irreversible damage. This vulnerability has long kept quality instruments out of reach for traveling musicians, students in varied climates, and performers who need reliability above all else.

"The song is rarely asked out for a dance, and I have always loved table tennis," he wrote. "Now there seems to be a real buzz about the film. Although I have it in my Academy pack we are waiting to see it on the big screen in the Christmas holiday. On tour we always have a table backstage for any of the crew or band to jump on."

Toys That Kill, one of the many beloved, long-running bands led by cult DIY punk hero Todd Congelliere, will release their first full-length album in a decade next year. It's called Triple Sabotage, and first single "Backwash Me The Antidote" finds Toys That Kill doing what they do best, churning out raw, revved-up garage punk with sweet melodies wrapped in steel wool.

Judging by mainstream music in 2025, humankind is not in a particularly creative place. The year's main storylines included the rise of AI slop and cartoon K-pop. A number of once-lively hitmakers churned out forgettable product. The most-streamed tracks came out in previous years; the songs of the summer sounded like winter. An escape from the malaise was simple: listening more broadly for new music. The best albums of this year were strange and personal.

I'm being a little facetious, but rock and even punk has has been steadily climbing its way back to the mainstream and we felt that more this year than we have in a while. Still, the vast majority of great punk bands are still occupying niche underground spaces, so you might have had to dig a little harder to see it but 2025 was an incredible year for music in and around the world of punk.

"Damascus" is a briskly-paced, uptempo groove that features Souleyman singing proudly throughout. Filling in the space between the drums and soaring vocals is Bey, rapping a refrain that drips potent imagery. "Navigating the waves in the dark, no map/ Stars in the heavens and the breeze on my back," he raps, extremely close to a chant.

Hercules & Love Affair have followed up 2022's dark, gothy and decidedly un-dancey In Amber with a return to the club. Andy Butler, who is H&LA, made the Someone Else Is Calling EP with Quinn Whalley of DECIUS and Paranoid London and Icelandic vocalist Elin Ey aka Hips & Lips. Whalley is an inspired collaborator, and the EP throbs with deep house bass, dashes of techno / acid house, and tons of attitude.

Announced just a few days prior to its release, 21 Savage's new album, What Happened to the Streets, documents the subtle maturation of an unblinking Atlanta rapper whose deadpanned threats are a prickly veneer around a grief-stricken survivor mentality. Tracks like the somber "Big Stepper" delve into the pain under the pomp, detailing struggles animating the put-downs we expect to encounter in this work.

It's a brisk November afternoon in the village of South Brent in Devon and, in a daffodil yellow cottage, two women are singing me lullabies. But these aren't the sort of lullabies that parents sing to their children. They are songs written and sung for terminally ill people, to ease them towards what will hopefully be a peaceful and painless death. We are at the home of Nickie Aven, singer and leader of a threshold choir.

Each episode of 'TikTok In The Mix' sees Jack Coyne of Trackstar sit down with a different artist for a candid chat about their work, their world, and the TikTok trends they've helped ignite. Expect sharp insights, plenty of honesty, and the kind of behind-the-scenes anecdotes that make TikTok today's home of music and culture.

What do you want to express that you feel you can't in everyday life? That's the question composer and producer Max Cooper posed to his audience in hopes of unearthing some of the hidden parts of our shared emotional landscape. In return, he received more responses than expected, many of which tapped into passionate displays of pleasure and pain. "It was like finding a secret window into our collective psyches," he writes.