Mentions: Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Dolly Parton, Harry Styles, Doja Cat, Miley Cyrus, Chappell Roan, Prince, Stevie Nicks, Elton John, Kelly Clarkson, Hayley Williams, Tyler, The Creator, Avenged Sevenfold, and more.

Hello, hello!

The big industry news this week: four musicians sued the AI music platform, Suno, in a federal court in Massachusetts. Record companies previously sued the platform for copyright infringement. But this 84-page complaint, led by Grammy-winning Americana artist Jason Isbell, claims Suno stole their names.

The legal term is “right of publicity.” Your name and your face belong to you. A soup company cannot put your photograph on a can of soup without asking you first. Or, in this case, if a Suno user asks for a “Jason Isbell”-style song, the machine should not crank out a country song with fingerpicked guitar, a twangy vocal, and cover art of a dilapidated Baptist church. It’s not copying an actual Isbell song. It’s copying a whole imitation of the person without permission.

Suno claims it blocks famous names on the platform. Awkwardly, there is a stupidly simple workaround. If you enter in “m i c h a e l j a c k s o n,” Suno produced two songs called “Glovebox Moonwalk” in the style of 1980s pop funk and the artwork of a single white glove. ……… Goddamn spacebar.

With all this going on, let’s just say the timing was not ideal for Mary J. Blige’s new, um, Suno commercial. (You’ve gotta laugh. Right? RIGHT?) The ad is shot verité style. Blige enters a dark recording studio and politely listens to an AI demo presentation while wedged against the door (“it’s pretty dope.”)

Before you jump on the “we’re cooked” wagon, Mary’s facial expressions in this ad are those of anyone politely saying “that’s amazing” while someone they love explains how easy it is to buy a $2 street taco in Ethereum. Nodding. Holding eye contact. Inwardly pleading for death. All we’re saying is… No hateration.

Play On!

—The Editors

All the music we mention is in the weekly playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Erykah Badu & The Alchemist dropped the collab album Before the World Blows: The Abi and Alan Experiment, and if you need something educational to listen to before school starts up, make it this. Start with “Breezy.”

• Turnstile’s NEVER ENOUGH: VERSIONS is absurdly good. The guest list reads like someone booked the whole festival. We love “CEILING: HAYLEY WILLIAMS VERSION,” “SEEIN’ STARS: ELTON JOHN VERSION,” and “BIRDS: SLAYYYTER VERSION.”

• The Linda Lindas are still punk, pissed, and political on Gotta Get Out, but with some new tricks. We love the electronic edge on “Everybody Told Me.”

• The Prince estate opened the vault for Timeless, a new album of 10 rare and unreleased tracks. Warning: it’s a bit raw, but that’s half the fun.

• Jennie’s “Heaven” is exactly the kind of mid-tempo pop hit that keeps us coming back, thanks to that dangerously addictive chorus.

• Tyler, The Creator is back and we’ve had “Look Like My Mama” on repeat.

• Tiny Habits “Love Ruins Everything” is for anyone in need of a modern-day Earth, Wind & Fire fix.

• Newport’s “Fickle” is light, boppy, guitar-forward, and somehow sounds like The Shins with a little more pop in their step.

• Haute & Freddy’s “Touch Touch” sounds like someone found a wormhole to peak ‘80s pop. We are so in.

🎤 Live:

• Chris Kirkpatrick—the craziest looking member of *NSYNC and, more importantly, the namesake of Sarah’s black-and-white family hamster (RIP)—was always relegated to the back of the boy band triangle. But at the Pop 2000 Tour at the New York State Fairgrounds, Chris was front and center, baby. He took the Justin/JC lead parts, flanked by O-Town, and absolutely killed it.

  

  @staticnoisemagThe nostalgia hit HARD at the NYS Fair. @Chris Kirkpatrick of @*NSYNC brought the @pop2000tour crowd right back to the early 2000s, and yes…we were singing along. 😍 Who else grew up with *NSYNC on repeat? 👀 #NYSFair #Pop2000Tour #ChrisKirkpatrick #NSYNC #90sKids

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  First question. Does he just remember all those moves? I like to imagine Chris has been solemnly practicing the No Strings Attached tour choreo in a meat locker, like Rocky Balboa, for 25 years. Knowing. Knowing the day would come when Justin would be gone. Maybe dead. JC, Lance, Joey, too. All gone. The millennials of Syracuse would need a hero, and by God, Chris would be ready.

• Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival was a well-reviewed success and included the likes of: Chappell Roan, Doechii, Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan & Stevie Nicks.

  • Also! Olivia Rodrigo and Stevie Nicks are confirmed to be on the upcoming Practical Magic 2 soundtrack. We’re cautiously optimistic.

• MUNA brought Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder onstage for “Silk Chiffon.” This is basically the gay Super Bowl.

• Kelly Clarkson closed out Kellyoke forever with KPop Demon Hunters’ “Golden.”

💀 Laugh:

• Nathan Fielder negged Noah Kahan during a cameo at a Vancouver show.

• Luke Bryan’s feeds have been overtaken by commenters posting “Fart Goes the Butt,” mocking deeply simple lyrics from an upcoming song.

• Olivia Rodrigo has entered the Baja Blast cinematic universe with the Taco Bell collab You Seem Pretty Pink for a Baja Blast. Lol, okay, sure.

• Tyga earns Pitchfork’s first 0.0 since 2006 on his AI-assisted album.

• Dolly Parton’s CNN tribute mistakenly featured a Vegas impersonator. Blame the intern, AI, or the intern using AI.

• Santana says forgiveness prevents cancer. Huge if true!

• Harry Styles quipped about ex-Taylor Swift’s wedding during his MSG show.

• A drunk woman stole an ambulance outside an Avenged Sevenfold and Good Charlotte show in Phoenix, Arizona, and crashed it into a truck; she’s been charged with DUI and vehicle theft. Inspo:

  

💕 Love:

• Sean Ono Lennon and partner announce the birth of their baby boy, Aurelius, John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s first grandchild. No pressure, kid.

• Dolly Parton’s estate is planning DollyFests in Nashville and London instead of a public memorial.

• Alex van Halen (Van Halen) is knighted in the Netherlands. Rock royalty, now officially royalty.

• Taylor Hanson of “MMMBop” fame has joined the cast for Dancing With the Stars. Liz’s 1997 self has taken control of the vessel.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Doja Cat livestreamed her first listen to “Choosin’ Texas,” and bailed at one minute and 17 seconds. “Yeah this not my vibe.” An opinion! What a concept. It made us nostalgic for Breakfast at Sulimay’s, the OG YouTube channel where elderly Philadelphians gave their “honest reactions” over breakfast at a local diner, greeting the latest Animal Collective and Clipse with the enthusiasm of a scheduled root canal.

• Ella Langley isn’t hurting for praise, either. “Choosin’ Texas” just banked its 20th week at No. 1, the longest run any non-holiday song has managed in the Hot 100’s 68 years. The only thing in her way? The Death Star of Christmas music, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” parked at 22 weeks. Per Billboard:

• Miley (Cyrus) is going first-name-only for her new album, entering Dolly-Cher-Elvis-Prince-Adele-Rihanna territory. Casual rebrand.

• Spotify adds a playlist notes feature, because apparently your song picks need footnotes.

• Mr. Taylor Swift returns to podcasting and dishes about the wedding of the century in the first 15min of the show:

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “The Hardest Thing,” by Julia Jacklin

• “iPod Touch (Madeon Remix),” by Ninajirachi

• “Tough Love,” by Bugs

• “Bedhead,” by Balu Brigada

• “Happier Than Ever,” by Kelly Clarkson

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Dolly Parton, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Olivia Rodrigo, Drake, Oasis, Liam Gallagher, Willie Nelson, Clairo, Kacey Musgraves, Grimes, Weezer, Tame Impala, Fontaines D.C., & more.

What a week!

There has already been so much beautiful writing about Dolly Parton that we’re not going to pretend we have the definitive thing to add. What this Editor does have is a recent trip to Nashville, a childhood memory of Dollywood, and a theory about why Dolly could get away with levels of self-branding that would get almost anyone else today dragged online. So let’s get to it!

Back in July I was in Nashville where Dolly Parton was everywhere. I saw her new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame, walked past the not-yet-opened Dolly Parton’s SongTeller Hotel, and complained about the musical of her life headed for Broadway. All Dolly, all the time.

If you really think about it, Dolly should have been annoying. She should have been exhausting. For anyone else, this degree of self-franchising—a theme park, hotel, museum, cake mixes, travel stop, musical and release plan stretching into 2046 —would scream TOO MUCH BRANDING. If Taylor Swift tried half of this today, the internet would have taken her down long ago. Whereas Dolly built the Appalachian answer to Six Flags and named it after herself and everyone basically said: yes, obviously.

See, I first entered the Dolly-verse in 7th grade, when my Odyssey of the Mind team (sounds like drugs, was not drugs) went to Global Finals in Knoxville and spent downtime at Dollywood. I remember seeing the museum there and thinking her costumes were wildly tacky. I was also deeply unimpressed that the park seemed to have approximately one roller coaster. At 12, my Dolly Parton takeaway was: great gowns, beautiful gowns, but do these rides go upside down?

The key I didn’t realize at the time: Dolly did not give a fuck what anyone thought. The tacky style, the hair, the earnestness, the products. Turns out, I think she really did love the rhinestones. She really was that nice. She was also giving away millions of books to kids. Long before everyone became a personal brand, Dolly built one of the biggest on Earth, and it all worked in her favor. We allowed it because she was going to do it anyway!

And maybe that’s why she, and only she, could get away with being so much. Even in death she will surprise us with a new single in the year 2046. Will there ever be another Dolly? In a world where everyone has way too many fucks to give, probably not. I’m just glad I got to judge her as a kid and come to my senses as an adult.

Play On!

—The Editors

All the music we mention is in the weekly playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Weezer’s album Weezer is the band circling back to its ’90s roots. Start with “The LA Sound,” “C.E.O.,” and “Shine Again.”

• Olivia Rodrigo’s “Serena Joy” is a solid dip into punk political songwriting, in her continuing effort to honor (or rip off) The Cure.

• Nickelback “Leave Me Behind” is a comically over-the-top power ballad for the ages.

• beabadoobee “Memories” is subdued indie-pop and is rumored to be the happiest track on the new record.

• Remi Wolf “Bottle” oozes authenticity and her melodies are pure earworms. We’re fans and can’t wait for the rest of the album.

• Lizzy McAlpine’s “Ugly Things” is close to making us crave a fall breeze and a PSL sweater. Slow, acoustic, sweeping vocals. Check, check, check.

• Fontaines D.C. “Marianne” is dark, ‘80s-inspired, and apparently “cinematic,” take that for what you will.

• Tokyo Tea Room’s “Hypnotised” is disco shimmer: smooth, cool, and as effortlessly stylish as its video. This one’s going on all the playlists.

🎤 Live:

• Tame Impala is on tour with Wet Leg opening. We’re excited for this one.

• Willie Nelson and Neil Young are teaming up for two shows in September, plus they’re performing at Farm Aid.

• Bonnaroo, the Tennessee music fest, is taking a year off to recover from severe weather damage. Bummer. See you in 2028!

• Fontaines D.C. are coming to in Brooklyn and LA in September.

• Yebba dropped live dates kicking off in October, you know, for anyone looking to cry in public.

• diiv is on the the road through October with Interpol on some supporting dates.

• Slayyyter covers Hole’s “Violet” and it’s exactly the ‘90s revival we support.

💀 Laugh:

• Dolly Parton’s legacy includes her Taco Bell order. Important archival material.

• Clairo bought an $8,000 wine at NYC’s Minetta Tavern, which Keith McNally promptly told Insta about. We may need to revisit our definition of “indie.”

• Miss Chile performs death metal during the talent portion of the Miss World Competition. Give her the crown already!

• The Amazing Acro-Cats are bringing skateboarding cats and a full-on feline rock band to Philadelphia, which feels like enough information to buy a ticket.

• Kacey Musgraves kicked off her tour the only way she knew how: floating on bedazzled balls.

💕 Love:

• Dolly Parton apparently had an Eminem connection, the rapper revealed on Insta, a pairing we did not have on our bingo card.

• Paul McCartney and John Lennon crack each other up in a rare “Day Tripper” demo, a nice reminder that the Beatles were also just guys goofing around at work.

• Diane Warren, legendary songwriter, is living the life: up for what could be her 18th Oscar nom (still no competitive wins!) and… adopting a runaway pig.

• Jessica Simpson gets her own documentary via Netflix slated for 2027.

• Drake loves Ella Langely just like the rest of us:

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap!” Dolly Parton quotes that belong in the Library of Congress.

• Grimes is back on her shit, telling Embedded she thinks the infinite scroll is a crime against humanity. Maybe we are also on her shit?

• Soundgarden’s surviving members are reuniting for the NFL Kickoff Halftime Show in Seattle, with Taylor Momsen on vocals and Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready on guitar. Seattle rock Avengers, assemble.

• A Harvard study found traffic fatalities jump 15% on major album release days. We already fear for our lives when Taylor Swift drops an album!

• Liam Gallagher has apparently quit Twitter, which fans have naturally decided means an Oasis tour announcement is imminent.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Jolene,'“ by Beyoncé

• “I Will Always Love You,” by Linda Ronstadt

• “Light of a Clear Blue Morning,” by Waxahatchee

• “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” by Justin Townes Earle, Dawn Landes

• “Shine,” by Dolly Parton

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to Tim Curry. Legend!

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Madonna, BTS, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Noah Kahan, Carly Rae Jepsen, Beck, Grimes, Jack White, Lauryn Hill, Tyler, the Creator, Charley Crockett, Frankie Valli, Marco Rubio, Maynard James Keenan, Troye Sivan, and more!

Hello hello,

In light of the terrible news of Hayden Panettiere’s death this week at just 36, we wanted to add a special Play On postscript for one of our favorite performances of the past 15 years: her glorious yet underappreciated turn as Juliette Barnes on the music business soap opera, Nashville.

If you never watched—or vaguely remember it as that show where Connie Britton played Shania Twain or something—here’s the TL;DR. Nashville premiered in October 2012, the same month Taylor Swift released Red and began her long walk out of country. Bro-country was about to swallow radio whole, and by 2015, a consultant would infamously call women the “tomatoes” in country radio’s salad. Beneath all the scripted melodrama, the question at the heart of the series was a real one: what do female country artists have to become and what must they endure to be heard in country music?

Britton’s Rayna Jaymes was the revered veteran; Panettiere’s Juliette Barnes was the young country-pop starlet coming for her spot. Little, blonde, and mean, Juliette was shorthand for a Carrie-Miranda-Taylor tornado poured into a bodycon dress. She was ruthless, volatile, and framed as the synthetic pop princess beside more “authentic” musicians.

But the characterization wouldn’t hold, in part, because Panettiere could genuinely sing. Over six seasons, that raw ability took Juliette through a musical arc more ambitious than the actual country artists during the same time span. Bubblegum crossover to Opry defiance. Pop. Gospel. Rock. Duetting Patsy Cline with Steven Tyler (Aerosmith).

More than any other character on the show, the distinction between the fake country star and the real actress playing her started to get a little blurry. Big Machine Records—the actual label that broke Taylor Swift—released songs she recorded from the show. Eleven landed on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart.

Among them was “Undermine,” co-written by a then-little-known Kacey Musgraves. This was before Same Trailer Different Park. Before Musgraves became one of the artists who would help rewire country music’s progressive wing. In that sense, you could say, a fake country star was cutting the real songwriter who was about to remake the genre.

In our post-Breaking Rust world, where AI-generated bands top the charts alongside biologically-generated ones, we think fictional artists deserve a little more due. Josie and the Pussycats. 2Gether. Hannah Montana. The Fabulous Stains. Hell, The Beets. But especially Juliette Barnes, brought to life by Panettiere, whose ferocious talent made a fictional country star astonishingly real.

Which is also why we spent all of “Espresso” summer waiting for Sabrina Carpenter to reveal she was just Hayden doing a Lady Gaga “Jo Calderone” bit. Aaand we’re still not convinced.

Play On!

—The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Phoebe Bridgers’ Lost Weekend was worth the six-year wait. After boygenius, a breakup, and a lot of life, she sounds confident, making acoustically driven, atmospheric depression chic with genuinely no-skips (you gotta be in the mood!), standouts are: “Bobby,” “Lost Boys,” and “Never Going Back!”

  • Taylor Swift can’t stop listening to it, so you know it’s good. And we’re not even being sarcastic as she rarely recommends music!

• Jungle’s Sunshine is warm soul, slick disco, and glossy R&B all rolled into one. Basically, put this on when you need positive vibes without thinking too hard.

• Katseye’s EP Wild is perfectly decent pop. A little hollow, sure, but why are we asking Katseye for more than a good time?

• Icona Pop’s Ritual is doing good things for Sweden’s pop reputation. There are definite skips, but we appreciate “Ritual” and “Yellow Top.”

• Erykah Badu & The Alchemist’s “Witch Doctor” is a soulful, hazy trip. It’s a masterclass in chill from a legend.

• deadmau5’s remix of Angine de Poitrine’s “Fabienk” is a delightful curveball: weird grooves, techno flare, and somehow exactly right.

• Denzel Curry & Kenneth Blume’s “DIFFERENCE” ft. Yebba moves fast and keeps you hooked with good rap, unexpected synths, and a killer piano loop.

• After, “Fell Asleep in the Sun” blends 2000s pop, shoegaze (echo and reverb), and trip-hop (hip-hop beats paired with electronic sounds) into something more reflective about aging and rest. Me, in a nutshell.

• Grimes & Hatsune Miku’s “Miku-Maxxing” is a chaotic, hyper-digital team-up between Grimes, Japanese Vocaloid producer SatapanP, and virtual pop icon Hatsune Miku. It sounds exactly like you think it would.

• The Head and the Heart’s cover of Loudon Wainwright III’s “The Swimming Song” is warm, calming, and just the right amount of wistful.

• Beck’s “Disappearing Act” is a slow burn of strings and harmonies that practically demands a little contemplation.

• Troye Sivan’s “She’s the Best” video with Nicole Kidman is beautiful but it’s the song’s new sounding direction that has us excited for the album to come.

🎤 Live:

• Beach House is playing a few shows in September and October, which feels like the best way to enter fall.

• The Jonas Brothers announced a 45-city tour. Newsflash: “Burnin’ Up” remains a bop and has no expiration date.

• Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, Shaboozey, and Lenny Kravitz will headline the Global Citizen Festival on 9/26, alongside John Legend, Lainey Wilson, and Tomorrow x Together. Hugh Jackman is hosting because, sure, why not.

• Tyler, the Creator’s Camp Flog Gnaw announced its lineup, with Turnstile, Steve Lacy, Future, 2Hollis, Lola Young, and more. It’s like madlibs for music!

• The Stray Cats are back! You cannot kill rockabilly, and we’ve always said that.

• Chappell Roan joined Noah Kahan onstage at his sold-out Rose Bowl show in CA, which is basically millennial/Gen Z folk-pop Avengers.

💀 Laugh:

• Charley Crockett and Jack White are beefing after Crockett dropped satanic doo-wop duo Twin Temple as his opener, White picked them up, and then trolled Crockett’s cowboy persona with a John Wayne spoof. Men!

• Christian metal band Demon Hunter is suing Netflix over the name KPop Demon Hunters. We regret to inform you the demon-hunter trademark wars have begun.

• The Grammys may rethink their new Asian Pop category after BTS pulled out of the awards completely, preferring to compete in the main categories like everyone else. Duh, Grammys. 🤦‍♀️

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a podcast he doesn’t listen to country music because “most of the songs are about, like, somebody whose wife and dog left them.”

• Tool’s Maynard James Keenan is opening a sushi restaurant called Queen B in Old Town Cottonwood, AZ, on 9/4. Finally, somewhere to eat after a 13-minute drum solo!

• Frankie Valli says he has not retired, despite his brother announcing that he had and then apologizing for being “misinformed.” This story has big someone’s Facebook got hacked energy. Oh, old men!

• Phoebe Bridgers celebrated her birthday and album rollout with appendicitis. Nothing says new era like emergency abdominal surgery.

💕 Love:

• Okay, we know we’ve complained about the Broadway-ification of culture, but 10 Things I Hate About You is getting the musical treatment with Lena Dunham writing and Carly Rae Jepsen and Ethan Gruska (producer for Phoebe Bridgers and boygenius) on music. Annoyingly, we’re intrigued.

• Charli xcx stopped by Song Exploder to chat how she made “Camera.” This is for the production nerds among us.

• NPR made a list of cover songs that are better than the originals. Brave reporting.

• Green Day’s Mike Dirnt has some very cool gear for sale on Reverb. I’m nosy. I love a celebrity garage sale.

• RIP Columbia House, the iconic music club that once gave you 12 albums for a penny and is finally shutting down. End of an extremely specific era.

• Oasis dropped a new trailer for their doc, Don’t Look Back in Anger, which hits theaters on 9/11.

• The Beatles biopic has reached Abbey Road, with Harris Dickinson (John), Barry Keoghan (Ringo), Paul Mescal (Paul), and Joseph Quinn (George) recreating the iconic crosswalk album shot. We’re cautiously optimistic about this!

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Ellie Goulding is suing her former managers, saying they pushed her toward Live Nation deals without disclosing that Live Nation owned their company. Which is a pretty important detail, guys.

• AI was detected in 40% of music released in July 2026. Cool cool cool. 🤖

• The MTV Video Music Awards are still a thing! Nominations are out and Madonna leads with 26 noms.

  • Song of the Year includes BTS’ “Swim,” Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas,” HUNTR/X’s “Golden,” Madonna & Sabrina Carpenter’s “Bring Your Love,” Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” PinkPantheress & Zara Larsson’s “Stateside,” and RAYE’s “WHERE IS MY HUSBAND!”

  • Somehow, Olivia Rodrigo got zero nominations.

  • MTV also appears to have killed the Best Rock category. Rude.

  • Proud newsletter moment: our beloved GENER8ION “STORM” starring Yung Lean scored a Best Video nom. We told you it was good.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Puppet Show,” by Mollie Elizabeth

• “Melatonin,” by Tinashe

• “Ten Over Ten,” by Royal Blood

• “Let Forever Be,” by The Chemical Brothers & Noel Gallagher

• “Flowers” – Demo, by The Chicks

• “Born Slippy,” by Underworld

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to Frank Beard of ZZ Top. “‘Cause every girl crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man.”

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Olivia Rodrigo, Charli xcx, Rihanna, Usher, Madonna, Kathleen Hanna, Chappell Roan, Dave Matthews Band, U2, A$AP Rocky, Death Cab for Cutie, Third Eye Blind, Katseye, and more.

Hey there!

In full editorial transparency, we wanted to start a recurring thing where we ask cool yet unexpected people what they’re listening to. Simple and fun, right? Turns out it’s wildly harder than we imagined. Put someone on the spot and suddenly they’ve never heard a song in their life (we won’t name names!).

In other news, you’ve probably seen this recent Sam Altman (AI overlord) tweet and its perfect response:

One brave soul, however, came prepared. The answer we got from the super cool tech journalist Joanna Stern of our favorite New Things newsletter felt especially pertinent. When we asked what she’s been listening to, she went somewhere we weren’t expecting (the mark of a great journalist, no?):

Like many people, I had a strong reaction to Sam Altman’s post on X about playing AI-generated podcasts and answers for kids in the car. My immediate response was: My core parenting philosophy is that car time is for making my kids listen to my ’90s rock playlists so they get a proper education in the classics. In my car, “the classics” means the Goo Goo Dolls, Third Eye Blind, Radiohead, etc. Specifically, I never tire of listening to Third Eye Blind’s “Motorcycle Drive By.” It’s a song I’ve been listening to for more than 20 years, especially when I want to clear my head, sing some great lyrics at the top of my lungs and briefly pretend I’m back in the late ’90s.

We’re not sure that Joanna meant to make us reconsider the music we’d affectionately file under “dad rock” as a cultural institution, but here we are. Frankly, when the alternative is AI slop from the kids’ menu, the whole thing starts to look less like a punchline and more like something wholesome, noble, and maybe even important.

And we don’t say that because Third Eye Blind still absolutely holds up. We’d argue that what mattered was never really the music. LoL, we know, but hear us out: somebody in the front seat had decided, hey, this is what we’re listening to. You, a child with no power and no access to the Spotify Jam, were simply along for the ride.

Who didn’t spend some portion of childhood trapped in the backseat listening to their parents’ music as they insanely drove from Central Illinois to Miami, Florida for vacation? This Editor was subjected to the likes of Steely Dan, Exile, The Eagles, Thomas Dolby, and Pat Metheny. Then: torture (what even is jazz rock fusion?!). Now: somehow the exact stuff I put on when my childhood pop idols, Hanson (who were, in small world fashion, mentored by Third Eye Blind back in the day!) can’t cut it, which happens more often than I’d ever admit to my parents.

I’d call that inheritance. Not even the songs themselves, but the fact that they came from somebody. There was a person attached to them. An opinion. A mildly oppressive insistence that, no, we are not changing the station.

So yes, AI can make your kid a podcast about his soccer game or upcoming birthday (we have questions), but what it can’t do is force a ten-year-old to sit through “Reelin’ in the Years” against her will, hate you for it, and then, years later, catch herself playing it for her own kid.

Play On!

—The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Hayley Williams’ Powersnatch just dropped their second EP, with four new tracks. Our pick is “Machete,” featuring the killer line: “I don’t wanna be a machete to a meadow / I just need to haunt the woods I know.”

• Role Model’s Chuck Timely & The Hourglass album dropped and we tried to resist and it’s no use. We’re into this guy. Between “High Hopes 3000” and “Harmony” it’s easy, good stuff.

• Madonna & Kylie Minogue “Love Sensation” is a must listen for your musical education. These legends have earned it.

• Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Don’t Leave Me on the Dance Floor” is a throwback dance tune with ABBA vibes and extra synth. A definite do.

• Audrey Nuna’s “superHuman” is quite the return to music after the wild success of KPop Demon Hunters.

• Sam Smith’s “When He’s Gone” is Southern-moody and serving Adele-level attitude. We mean that as the highest compliment.

• Ravyn Lenae “Familiar Dreams” is a silky mid-tempo bop about that timeless bad idea: unblocking someone you haven’t seen in over a year.

• Alemeda & Fousheé’s “The World Keeps Spinning” is alt-pop perfection, pairing two distinct voices that blend beautifully on a song about loss while, well, the world keeps spinning.

• Liim “1980” (ft. AJRadico) is a retro-leaning rap track with smooth piano and a groove that sneaks up on you.

• Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill) and hubby Ad-Rock (Beastie Boys) collab on a quirky and catchy cover of Justin Bieber’s “Let Me Love You” to benefit Contra-ICE.

🎤 Live:

• Olivia Rodrigo’s Daisy Chain Fields festival on 8/29 in Irvine, CA has no overlapping sets, with Chappell Roan, Bikini Kill, Doechii, Garbage, and more.

  • Olivia Rodrigo also handpicked Etsy sellers for her festival merch, and sales jumped more than 2,000%. The Olivia economy is thriving!

• Dave Matthews Band is back on the road through the fall. Liz, circa 2006: “Do you think they’ll play ‘Two Step’?” Some things never change.

• Grace Potter, Portugal. The Man, Dawes, and more hit Burlington, VT, September 18–20 for Grand Point North Festival.

• Brandi Carlile rescheduled her UK and European tour to spring. The “personal circumstances” excuse is doing a lot of quiet, dignified work here.

• The Strokes welcomed Charli xcx on stage for a rendition of “Take It Or Leave It” at Outside Lands in SF.

• Death Cab for Cutie put on a masterclass of a Tiny Desk Concert. This one’s for you, elder millennials.

💀 Laugh:

• Usher may or may not have sent an Usher impersonator to do Usher’s job.

• Green Day has launched their own 24/7 streaming channel. It’s basically around the clock “Time Of Your Life” which is great if like me, you want to relive your 6th grade graduation.

• Travis Barker and Tom DeLonge (Blink 182) got so high with Cypress Hill they wanted to go home. Some stories really do write themselves.

• StubHub is spending millions to fight a bill that would cap concert ticket resale prices. Evil laugh. Villain behavior. Very on brand.

• Malcolm Todd releases a cover of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own,” for a Gap campaign called “denim on your own.” Stop it.

💕 Love:

• Sending love to Katseye’s Sophia who is stepping back from the group to focus on her mental health and wellness.

• A$AP Rocky says Rihanna is “cooking” her next album. We’re hopeful and also assume it’s a very, very slow roast.

• Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Flea is selling his Malibu home for $7.9M. Warm wood accents, media den, koi pond… need we say more?

• What does a $4000 coat sound like? Yep, curating fashion brand playlists is a real job.

• Role Model admits to botching his BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge cover of Olivia Rodrigo’s “maggots for brains.” We love a man who can own his mistakes!

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• In my ongoing pursuit of understanding techno music, TikTok fittingly served me a Homestar Runner throwback during my nightly doomscroll. It’s like it knew I was about to catch a techno show at Under the K Bridge Park in Brooklyn: a back-to-back featuring Charlotte de Witte and Yousuke Yukimatsu, each playing a solo set before joining forces. My first time seeing EDM live. I went in feeling excited yet apprehensive at best.

  

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  So, the strange thing about being a fan of a DJ is that they never talk to you. No crowd banter, no “Hello Cleveland!” Just a body suddenly appearing behind the decks to pick up the mix where the last one left off so the music never stops. Refreshing, considering Lorde was my favorite live show last year, and girl can talk for many minutes about truly nothing.
  
  Heres’s another groundbreaking revelation: different DJs sound different. To the untrained ear it’s oonce oonce oonce and boom, a DJ is a DJ is a DJ. But I’d describe Charlotte de Witte as minimal and surgical, every transition technically perfect, building you up and bringing you back down, over and over. Holding a crowd’s attention for 90 minutes of dance music is an engineering problem, and she solved it. I, personally, cannot do long division. (Sophomore year speech class, I presented about MDMA use at raves, a thing I had certainly never been to or experienced. Yet, what I actually wanted was to turn the lights off, hand out glowsticks, and play the intro to U2’s “Beautiful Day” in the name of public education. In hindsight, the speech was probably more persuasive for trying MDMA than against it. Anyway, I digress.)
  
  Then, Yousuke Yukimatsu came in swinging: layers of musical chaos, harder everything, no real peaks or valleys, just sprinting. Three minutes in, his shirt was already off, and maybe 40 minutes later I found my mind wander, possibly because I am akin to a toddler who needs the DJ to periodically jangle some keys (or change-up the intensity) in front of me.

  

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  The best part? Watching them trade off in the b2b. Not every transition was seamless, this was all done live and impromptu, but the packed crowd never stopped moving. Mostly I watched them work: dialing in songs, chasing transitions, feeding off the crowd. At one point a fan handed de Witte a record mid-set and she signed it without missing a beat. We love.
  
  Will I be back? No doubt. I’d go again solo or with a big group, both feel equally correct for this kind of show. Also, turns out sunglasses at a rave aren’t a bit, they’re necessary. The lights and lasers were not messing around. Overall, my 16-year-old self is quite pleased with herself.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Virtual Insanity,” by Jamiroquai

• “Boston,” by Stella Lefty

• “ninetynine,” by Slow Fiction

• “The Peace,” by underscores

• “Something To Be Said,” by Saint Clair

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to producer extraordinaire William Orbit (Madonna, Blur, All Saints).
RIP to BrooklynVegan.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Shakira, Katseye, Linkin Park, Lucy Dacus, Ariana Grande, Cardi B, Bono, President Obama, Charli xcx, Olivia Rodrigo, Coldplay, Megadeth, Noah Kahan, Jon Stewart, Will Ferrell, Massive Attack, Selena Gomez, and more.

Hi! Hi! Hi!

You know what’s stuck in our heads this week like that annoying popcorn kernel between your molars? Rolling Stone published a piece making the case that more artists should call Ed Sheeran to write their songs. We get that the Rolling Stone writer just wants Katseye to succeed—don’t we all—but AT WHAT COST?

Here are the facts: Sheeran currently has writing credits on two of the top ten songs in the world by other artists—Shakira and Burna Boy’s “Dai Dai (FIFA World Cup Official Song 2026)” and Katseye’s “Animal.” That’s before we even get to his own back catalog, which has achieved a level of omnipresence usually reserved for Santa Claus.

This Editor argues that Sheeran is no longer an artist so much as a category, somewhere between “acoustic guitar” and “wedding registry,” distributed to every generic terrestrial radio station—shout-out to Bloomington, Illinois’ 101.5 WBNQ—and to dentist offices and gyms the world over.

Even Katseye know this. One member described “Animal,” the song he wrote for them, this way: “‘Animal’ is more like you’ll listen to it at the grocery store, in the car on the radio, or you’ll hear it at the mall just walking around.”

A critic didn’t say that. We didn’t say that. The artist said it.

That’s not a description of a song. That’s a description of background noise delivered by the person whose job it was to sing it like it mattered.

So sure, more artists could call Ed Sheeran. He’ll deliver, reliably, the way a vending machine delivers. That’s not necessarily an indictment of Sheeran. He’s a gifted artist doing the job he has clearly decided to do.

It is, however, an indictment of Rolling Stone: a publication that once helped define the future of music now using its cultural authority to lobby for more of the safest, most inescapable sound on earth.

Play On!

—The Editors

This week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Linkin Park dropped the trailer for “Unshatter,” their documentary on rebuilding after Chester Bennington's 2017 death and returning with Emily Armstrong. Grief, reinvention, a new voice trying to hold an old thing together.

• Elvis Costello preps a 49th anniversary box set for "My Aim Is True." 49 is a weird number for an anniversary, but what the hell.

• Susanna Hoffs’ (The Bangles) “Casablanca” was apparently sparked by a run-in with Bob Weir (The Grateful Dead) in 1998, which is a sentence. She's on tour starting September. Pay your respects, her voice has earned it.

• Remi Wolf “Twiggy” is so good. Her words: it’s written about people who “lack both butts and emotional availability.” We’ve all dated that resume, girl.

• Citizen “Good Fortune” is the Midwestern rock band from your youth, back and charged up. Windows down, back roads, no plans, you know the drill.

• Ariana Grande’s petal is being called angry and heady. We’d call it downcast, and we’d call it a one-and-done listen.

• Cardi B’s “AH HA” is a shit-talking anthem served with a side of not today, Satan.

• Slayyyter’s “Brand New Chanel$” is a real evolution. Less grimy distortion, more intention, in both the music and the writing. We’re into the glow-up.

• Lucy Dacus “Clay Pigeons” is a tribute to country legend Blaze Foley. Quietly devastating, her voice is a treasure.

• Club 8’s “The Sweetness of Honey” is one more reason Sweden’s had a monopoly on indie pop lately. Dare you not to have this stuck in your head by the weekend.

• Bonobo feat. Joy Crookes “Always on Your Side” is the groove for when the night’s winding down and you need something to bring you back to earth gently.

• benny blanco, Selena Gomez, Becky G’s “Te Olvido (La La)” should’ve dropped in June and ridden the wave straight through Labor Day. Perfect summer song, great video, directed by Danny Trejo, of all people, and we’re saying that as people who are not benny blanco fans (the dirty feet thing, we can’t get past it).

🎤 Live:

• Lollapalooza wrapped in Chicago with a few real moments: SB19 became the first all-Filipino group to play the fest, Slayyyter got bumped up to a bigger stage, Charli xcx controlled the rain, Olivia Dean closed Saturday with a speech honoring her Jamaican-Guyanese and English heritage, while Tate McRae closed Sunday by lying down in a pool of metallic liquid mid- “Sports Car” and standing back up dripping in gold. Idol worship, baby!

• North West’s debut headlining tour, the 14-date “Molly x North Kimokawaii Tour” with Molly Santana, got canceled days before it started. The website now 404s and nobody’s said a word. Blue dot fever (lack of ticket sales), perhaps?

• Yours Always Fest in Salt Lake City has been cancelled, and fans are now convinced the whole thing may have been a sham to begin with.

• Worm Fest hits Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn this Saturday, which is a great show, we’re sure. What we can’t explain is why Jon Stewart posted about it. Genuinely no notes, just questions.

• Olivia Rodrigo & Coldplay are rolling out $30 mystery tickets for upcoming shows. The catch: your seat could be anywhere in the building and you find out when you get there. Bold, honestly. Chaos pricing.

• Weezer is hitting the road with The Shins and Silversun Pickups. A lineup that makes total sense and also feels like it was assembled in 2004.

• Megadeth just announced their spring tour. Still going. Respect.

• Lord Huron has, fittingly, a cozy winter tour starting in December. They’re a sweater-weather band to us.

• Headed to Japan next week? Summer Sonic has Metallica, Linkin Park, Daft Punk, Massive Attack, The Flaming Lips, My Chemical Romance, and more. Call in sick for a few days. We might!

• Maha Fest is bringing Wet Leg, Bright Eyes, Whitney, and more. Unfortunate name, we know. Not that MAHA, we promise!

💀 Laugh:

• At Lollapalooza, fans passed a bag of pee crowd surfer style. Live music is healing.

• Zac Brown gave everyone at his Fenway show a free cruise. We regret to inform you that the ticket price for his next show did not go down.

• deadmau5 dropped a live remix of Angine de Poitrine. Unlikely pairing of the week: math rock aliens meet a guy who wears a giant mouse head to his day job.

• Noah Kahan says he’ll never get tired of singing about New England. The man knows his lane and he is staying in it, respectfully.

• Olivia Rodrigo & LEGO have a collab and it’s genuinely a little unhinged in the best way.

• Ever heard of “The Gen Alpha Melody?” It’s the reason every song lately sounds vaguely like a song you already know. Apparently it’s about to be everywhere, so get familiar!

💕 Love:

• Bono & Eddie Vedder joined thousands of fans to honor Glen Hansard, following his death after a motorcycle crash. Vedder performed “The Song of Good Hope,” Bono read from “Beautiful Day,” and the service closed with a group rendition of “Forever Young.” A rough loss for a musician who spent his career making other people feel like they mattered.

• All the Lolla surprise guests, because apparently everyone showed up: Lorde brought out Charli xcx, Smashing Pumpkins pulled Olivia Rodrigo, Yungblud, and former bandmate Melissa Auf der Maur onstage, and Olivia Dean brought out Sam Fender for the first-ever U.S. performance of “Rein Me In,” now the longest-running No. 1 in the UK. A lot of “wait, did that just happen” energy!

• President Obama dropped his Summer Playlist.

• Charli xcx, watching Zara Larsson’s Lollapalooza set. That’s it, that’s the item, we just think it’s endearing.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Meet Gatta Morta, the newest supergroup, featuring members of Melvins, Butthole Surfers, and more. A lineup that basically guarantees the record will be loud, weird, and a little unwell. As it should be.

• Joni Mitchell’s former Malibu home is on the market for a mere $27 million.

• Massive Attack got banned from performing in Singapore after a Palestinian flag appeared at one of their shows.

• Ariana Grande is stepping back from public life after her tour wraps in September. She said the decision came from “a thoughtful and empowered place,” and after the last few months of relentless commentary on her appearance, that space sounds earned.

• Newest nepo baby alert: Magnus Ferrell, son of Will Ferrell, has music out. Very Charlie Puth-coded, if you’re wondering, and we mean that as a real observation, not a dig.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Switchblade,” by beabadoobee

• “Happiness Is So Sad,” by Swedish House Mafia, Lykke Li

• “Venus In Furs,” by The Velvet Underground, Nico

• “Oh No Now My,” by This Is Lorelei

• “Busby Berkeley Dreams,” by The Magnetic Fields

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Katy Perry, Willie Nelson, Yoko Ono, Ella Langley, Bon Jovi, Shannon Shaw, ODB, Kacey Musgraves, Big Thief, Hayley Williams, Gwar, Prince, Miley Cyrus, and more.

Hello! It’s Thursday!

Which means we’re talking Ella Langley. In the beginning, was our coverage of her improbable rise a little heavy because we stan? … Yes. But! This week she hit a music milestone we did NOT see coming: she broke Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey’s chart records. “Choosin’ Texas” just logged its 15th week at No. 1 on the Hot 100, officially the longest reign by a solo woman with no featured act attached (holiday songs excluded), in the history of a chart that goes back to 1958. Rolling Stone’s Marissa Moss summed it up: Langley “may have lost her man to a woman from Texas,” but in the process she caught Harry Styles, whose “As It Was” she’s now tied with.

In local news, New Yorkers were choosin’ Jersey. At the final night of Bon Jovi’s nine-show Madison Square Garden residency — Jon’s first tour since his 2022 vocal cord surgery no less — Bruce Springsteen was the surprise encore. They played Bon Jovi’s “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” from 2005’s Have a Nice Day, which I will go on record saying is full of bangers!!! Then Springsteen’s classic “The Promised Land,” off 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town. Guess the backstage call was the “Livin’ on a Prayer’” crowd might not be livin’ for “Streets of Minneapolis.”

And finally, in local-er news, we got very lucky to stumble into the Voltz Clarke Gallery during last weekend’s downpour, right at the tail end of “Ian Curtis: Insight,”on loan from the University of Manchester’s John Rylands Library. It was a fan dream: framed journal entries, letters, handwritten lyric sheets…

But, please indulge my inner Larry David for a second, because one thing was hard to ignore: barely any edits. Did Ian really did just open a notebook and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" fell out of him more or less fully formed? Same for “She’s Lost Control,” “Atmosphere,” all of it. Meanwhile, I spent an hour that day rewriting a text that ultimately said, in full, “haha yeah.”

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Orville Peck “Too Little Too Late” is the newest single ahead of his next album, Mule (due 9/18), country rootsy in all the right ways.

• Charli xcx Music, Fashion, Film is peak post-brat era, short, sharp, and fixated on mortality while joking her way through what even makes art worth making.

• Chloe Qisha’s “Baby Girl” is pop perfection with a groove, catchy guitar lines and tight production. Co-writer Caroline Ailin also gave us “New Rules,” so yeah, the pedigree checks out.

• Robyn “Talk to Me (Remix)” feat. Zara Larsson is somehow better than the original, and that’s saying a lot. Zara Larsson: approved.

• Tove Lo’s “DNH” is sexy, fun, and built for exactly what she told us to do with it: put it on repeat and go cause some drama xx.

• Coco & Clair Clair’s “Coldplay” is gauzy, cool, kinda romantic, with a Purity Ring haze and a beat that never lets up.

• The Strokes’ Reality Awaits is a win for experimentation. Julian Casablancas’ voice was made for weird autotune. It’s a doomsday vibe. We’re into it.

• Tom Morello’s “Date Night” is the best stand-in for wildly good rock guitar we’ve got until Rage Against the Machine blesses us with another reunion.

• Dinosaur Jr. “Blowin’ Up” has buzzy guitars and is nearly folk-like with a vocal delivery that’s got Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) written all over it.

• Winter’s “Without You” (feat. Soccer Mommy) is gentle, quiet shoegaze for crisp cloudy days. Winter is coming.

• Jensen McRae & Brandi Carlile’s “God Has a Hitman” is folk-pop at its heaviest, an intense acoustic burn with beautiful harmonies doing the emotional damage.

• Olivia O’Brien’s “I Always Say I’m Leaving” is brutally honest therapy-synth-pop, catchy enough for anyone who’s rehearsed the breakup speech in the mirror.

• Jennie “Less than a Lover” is so smooth and will be stuck in your head whether you like it or not.

🎤 Live:

• Big Thief announces their Somersault Slide 360 Tour kicking off in August.

• Kacey Musgraves mysteriously cancels tour dates including her Chicago opener on 8/20, plus Boston (8/29) and Brooklyn (9/2). No explanation, just vibes.

• Jimmy Eat World & The Format take on the Hollywood Bowl on 11/7, because nostalgia doesn't book itself.

• Katy Perry’s concert film The Lifetimes Tour - Live from Paris is coming to a theater near you. Single aunts and their 8-year-old nieces, this is your Super Bowl.

• Bon Iver became “Bon Dylan” for a set, playing all Bob Dylan covers for his Eaux Claires fest. Sure, why not.

• Hayley Williams (Paramore) may have won Newport Folk Festival outright, bringing out Jack Antonoff, Lucy Dacus, Jenny Lewis, Karly Hartzman (Wednesday), This Is Lorelei, Joy Oladokun, Liam Benzvi, Annie DiRusso, Kelsey Lu, Remi Wolf, and Madi Diaz. That’s not a guest list, so much as a hostage situation but everyone’s happy to be there.

💀 Laugh:

• Aaron Dessner, producer of Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, and more, says Gracie’s song “Death Wish” is “definitely not” about Taylor. Sir, that is exactly what you'd say if…

• Kelly Clarkson thought she had cyclospora, elaborating “Bridesmaids ain’t got s--- on what happened in my room.” Godspeed, Kelly.

• Mac Sabbath, a McDonald’s themed Black Sabbath Tribute Band, is touring with Gwar. Sentences we never thought we'd write.

• Katy Perry was actually trapped in a bottle because her fans wouldn’t roll her back to the stage. Are they fans or frenemies?

💕 Love:

• Waxahatchee & Kevin Morby welcomed their baby boy. This is a nepo baby we can all get behind.

• Sending love to Carly Simon, who revealed her Parkinson’s diagnosis.

• Willie Nelson says data centers suck. No notes, Willie.

• Ramones, Linkin Park, and Smashing Pumpkins are slated for stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.

• Yoko Ono still lives at The Dakota in NYC, and will soon be everyone’s longest standing neighbor there.

• Ol’ Dirty Bastard now has his own street in Brooklyn, ODB Jones Way.

• Fred Again.. and LATIN MAFIA are trapped in a livestream until the music's finished. They’re still going! It’s Big Brother but the prize is a mixtape.

• Charli xcx is officially a work of art hanging in the National Portrait Gallery in DC, considering her “one of the defining artists of our time.”

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Prince is getting the Broadway treatment. Purple Rain hits the stage in spring 2027, and somewhere a tourist in a beret is already buying tickets. Sigh.

• Dua Lipa has a lineup at the London Literature Fest. “New Rules,” but make it a book club.

• BTS won’t submit to the Grammys after the Grammys invented a “Best Asian Pop” category just for them. The Grammys deserve this slap in the face.

• Miley Cyrus signs to Atlantic Records. New music? New music soon, queen?

• SOFI TUKKER is selling their Williamsburg, BK apartment for $3.6M. Good for them! Side note: you can totally put in celebrity owned as a Zillow search term.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Tonight,” by girlsweetvoiced (she wildy samples Joni Mitchell in this one).

• “Barthelona,” by SOFI TUKKER.

• “Freddies ‘n’ Teddies,” by Shannon Shaw

• “Soup for One,” by CHIC (discovered via Questlove’s excellent playlist)

• “One More Thing,” by L7

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to Glen Hansard.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Madonna, BTS, Justin Bieber, Shakira, Prince, Bad Bunny, Janet Jackson, The Rolling Stones, Steve Lacy, Gracie Abrams, King Princess, 2hollis, & more.

Hello! It’s Thursday again!

Love and unity. Sigh. Didn’t we learn anything from Bad Bunny about halftime shows?

Yes, the first FIFA World Cup halftime show was bad. Everyone has said so. Even Liam Gallagher (Oasis)! We don’t need to relitigate it here. But we have been thinking about why these shows are so hard to pull off.

This one was “curated” by Chris Martin (Coldplay), which, from what we can tell, means he helped choose the performers and came up with the theme of—you guessed it—love and unity. And, he may or may not have personally demanded the Muppets.

The lineup should have worked. Madonna. BTS. Justin Bieber. Coldplay. Shakira. Kermit. Strange bedfellows, but an undeniably global assortment of people and puppets.

Oh, and there were children singing about love. Bieber changed his lyrics to sing, “It’s the World Cup, hallelujah,” which we have unfortunately been thinking about ever since. Thank God for Madonna and Shakira, who seemed to understand this was a massive sporting event and not the last night of a tween musical theater camp.

So, what actually makes one of these shows good?

Prince playing “Purple Rain” in the pouring rain worked. The setlist was great, the pacing was greater, not to mention that Prince was one of the best musicians alive. Bad Bunny’s show was very different, but it knew exactly what it was. It was rooted in Puerto Rico. The guests belonged there. And even with all those guests, nobody forgot whose show it was.

That’s where FIFA’s World Cup halftime show went wrong. A global audience doesn’t need a show that has been flattened into the safest possible version of everything. It might just want someone with a real idea. “Love and unity,” however, is not much of an idea. It's the group project answer. The one nobody loves, but nobody can get fired for either.

And a real idea will likely piss some people off. Fine! Beyoncé’s 2016 halftime show gave cable news several days of material because people were upset about Black Panther berets. At least the performance had something to say.

Which brings us to Janet Jackson and #nipplegate. Bring her back. She is still one of the best performers alive. She’s a Jackson. And after the way she was treated following the 2004 Super Bowl, putting her back on a global stage would be an almost absurdly perfect redemption arc.

Also—and we keep coming back to this—why didn’t FIFA just give the show to Madonna or The Rolling Stones? Both have massive global appeal. Both have done this before. Both have new music. Madonna could have brought out BTS. The Stones could have brought out Bieber. Kermit could have watched from the sidelines with an orange slice. Done!

A modest request for whoever’s booking the next one: fewer performers, more ego, more danger. Please.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Steve Lacy’s Oh Yeah? is a new album you should probably have an opinion about. Fortunately, it’s worth listening to.

• Gracie Abrams’ Daughter From Hell doesn’t deserve the hate it’s getting. Is it extremely intense in its feelings? Yes. Are we into it? Also yes.

• Another installment of The Neil Young Cover Series is taking shape, this time with King Princess, Draco Rosa, and more to come.

• 2hollis’ “Hurt” is your listening homework. Lorde and Charli xcx are taking notes, so perhaps we should too.

• Kim Petras’ “Pop Sound” is hyperpop lore, finally unearthed.

• Sylvan Esso’s “Concrete Glen” is a departure from the Sylvan Esso we remember, but it works. Experimental, still catchy, and those vocals are unmistakeable.

• Dragonflies (Nigel Godrich & Dhani Harrison) “Slower” brings together Radiohead’s longtime producer and George Harrison’s son. Yes, you should be curious.

• Krill “Commemorative Plaque” is the band’s first new release in a decade. In the mood for some nostalgic indie rock?

• Soft Loft “Wednesdays” is muted, feel-good pop-rock with an earworm of a chorus.

• Rayland Baxter “The Fool” was produced by Nick Waterhouse, is about falling fast in love, and is ideal for driving, dinner, or making one questionable romantic decision.

• Le Ren “Every Age” is the most romantic song we’ve heard in a long time: soft, swoon-worthy, and about loving someone through every season.

• Chelsea Wolfe’s “Cold” is spooky, dark, and making us yearn for fall in July.

• Kacey Musgraves’ “Mexico Honey” video is hot. One critique: couldn’t the guy have been Noah Wyle? I mean, look at him. It’s what the people (Liz) want!

• Charli xcx’s “Camera” video, starring Vincent Cassel, is very James Dean-cool. Not to mention, her new album Music, Fashion, Film is out tomorrow, 7/24.

🎤 Live:

• Insane Clown Posse announced the Gathering of the Juggalos lineup for this August in Macks Creek, MO: Hatebreed, Vanilla Ice, Milli Vanilli, and SNL’s Sarah Squirm. You know, a perfectly normal group of people.

• Rilo Kiley will play their final headlining show of 2026 at LA’s Hollywood Forever Cemetery on 9/26. Can you imagine a better band-venue pairing? No, you cannot.

• Wynonna Judd at Bowery Ballroom in NYC? Didn’t see that coming, but we’re there. 10/8—and she’s touring elsewhere, too.

• We’re late to this sold-out show, but Chicago is celebrating John Prine’s 80th birthday from 10/7–10/11 with a stacked lineup: Amos Lee, Josh Ritter, Joy Oladokun, Nathaniel Rateliff, Ratboys, and Valerie June. RIP to the man!

• Mannequin Pussy and Wednesday are touring through winter. Seasonal depression has met its match.

• Don Was (The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt) is on the road through the end of October. Do yourself a favor and see this legendary producer rock.

• Korn’s “Freak on a Leash,” but make it classical? Finally, something for the nu-metal fan with season tickets to the symphony.

💀 Laugh:

• Olivia Rodrigo may be dating a finance bro, and the people are freaking out. Love is dead.

• The Ramones 50th anniversary was celebrated by Travis Barker, Billie Joe Armstrong, and more—but the families of two members apparently missed the invite.

• Olivia Dean and The Killers headline Ocean Way Festival in Santa Monica, CA, but there’s no parking. Good night and good luck!

• Robbie Williams had a mysterious white substance drop onto his World Cup mic. Robbie got the last laugh though.

💕 Love:

• Avril Lavigne apparently performed at Taylor Swift’s wedding. He was a sk8er boi…

• Beyoncé’s dad says a whole bunch of Destiny’s Child remixes are coming. Thanks, Dad!

• John Mayer has been secretly funding brain research. Please insert “Your Body Is a Wonderland” joke here.

• Lorde called out Spotify over its AI-generated song descriptions which she calls inaccurate. Seems like AI doesn’t quite understand Lorde either.

• Lily Allen is getting an Amazon Prime documentary in 2027, covering her life through West End Girl. Prepare the tea.

• Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? has been named the biggest UK studio album. Ever. Somewhere, Liam Gallagher is smiling.

• Djo took an endearing call from the NYC mayor during his Forest Hills show. Finally, constituent services we can support.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Apparently, we spoke too soon. The concert bathroom crisis continues, with fresh incidents at Noah Kahan and Morgan Wallen shows. Yes, again. At this point, “please use the bathroom” may need to join “no flash photography” and “please put your phone in this small locked pouch” in every venue’s preshow announcement.

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  We understand not wanting to lose your spot—or making a few questionable logistical choices in the name of fandom. But once venue staff are mopping up after you with the same gloves they use for spilled beer, the concert has stopped being a communal music experience and become a biohazard drill.

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  Guys. The artist will still be there when you get back. There is plenty of setlist left. Please just go to the bathroom.

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  Or perhaps there’s a less obvious solution. Moviegoers already look out for one another by publishing the best times to pee during three-hour epics. Why not do the same for concerts? Setlists on big tours barely change. Surely your fellow Noah Kahan fans can identify the five-minute window when he’s waxing poetic about Vermont and you can safely go pee-pee in the potty.

  Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

  This Editor is about to start potty training a two-year-old, so honestly, the timing of this crisis feels useful.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Rasputin,” by Boney M.

• “What You Waiting For?” by Gwen Stefani (Extra credit, check out the origin of this song by legend Linda Perry).

• “Be Her,” by Ella Langley

• “Touching Yourself,” by The Japanese House

• “House in LA,’ by Jungle

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to L7’s Jennifer Finch.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Jack White, Britney Spears, Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Phoebe Bridgers, Ariana Grande, Michelle Branch, Limp Bizkit, Nickelback, Phish, Pitbull, & more.

Hello!

Bad news for the alt-halftime-show crowd: despite Kid Rock’s tireless efforts, English is over. Luminate’s midyear report says English-language music fell to a historic low of 87.1% of U.S. streams. Spanish now claims nearly one in ten. South Korea is officially the world’s third-largest music exporter, behind only the U.S. and the U.K., on the strength of basically ONE ALBUM. Of course: BTS’s Arirang.

But the stat we cannot stop thinking about: CD sales surged 16% this year, and roughly half of the Gen Z and millennial consumers buying them do not own a CD player!!!!! Two of the most educated generations in world history are purchasing CDs as objects. As a person who owned a CD wallet so overstuffed it functioned as a car airbag, it’s a little sad they will never know the specific grief of a walkman dying mid-chorus after you’ve successfully de-skipped the B*Witched album with a Limited Too halter top and your own hot breath.

Elsewhere in the report: R&B/hip-hop is still America’s biggest genre but keeps shedding share, dance music is surging on a wave of 2015–2017 nostalgia, and rock streaming is 75% deep catalog, which is rude timing for The Rolling Stones, who released their 25th album Foreign Tongues and it RIPS. These men have been a band for sixty-four years. Their fiercest streaming competition is themselves, circa 1972.

Speaking of the entire globe: the first-ever World Cup final halftime show happens Sunday at MetLife, and the lineup, curated by Chris Martin of Coldplay, will feature Madonna, Shakira, BTS, and Justin Bieber. The pre-match ceremony adds Jennifer Hudson on the anthem, Robbie Williams, Nicole Scherzinger, Laura Pausini, the streamer IShowSpeed, a Tom Cruise “special appearance” because no global event is complete until he repels off something, and — The Muppets.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Fiona Apple “Horns of a Bull” is here! The Apple TV series Lucky dropped with her theme song intact. We have been waiting. It’s eery and we are into it!

• Queens of the Stone Age “Easy Street” featuring Nikki Lane is woozy and romantic about all the wrong things. Nikki Lane is excellent and deserves every room she's in. Josh Homme contains multitudes.

• Beck “In the Night” is gorgeous and will put you in a dream state, which is either a compliment or a warning depending on your afternoon plans.

• The Linda Lindas & Hayley Williams “Closer” is a soaring pop-punk collab that sounds like the band have been studying the right records. Hayley Williams (Paramore) would know.

• Michelle Branch & New Radicals revisited “The Game of Love” for Branch’s upcoming EP Everywhere and Back Again — a full circle moment with Gregg Alexander, who wrote the original.

  • Fun fact: Gregg Alexander (New Radicals lead singer) once got snowed into a studio this Editor worked at, got drunk — or something like that, memory is fuzzy — and spent the evening explaining how everyone had stolen his songs. He was not wrong, and we have never forgotten it.

• Slow Fiction “Turning Down Flowers” pairs driving guitars with raw, specific lyrics about modern womanhood and selective empathy. Keep an eye on them.

• Sweeping Promises “Accent” is jangly, jittery, and distorted in all the right ways, with a bass line that will absolutely end up on the soundtrack of the next indie darling. You heard it here first.

• Man/Woman/Chainsaw “Something Else to Give” layers guitars, drums, and strings over lyrics about loving someone who gives nothing back. Classic.

• Porcelain “Apocalypse” is grimy, chugging post-hardcore for anyone who’s been waiting for hardcore to let them back in. Heavy without being impenetrable.

• Kelela’s new avatar trades some of her signature synths for guitar and rewards the patience it asks of you. There are chill layers, lyrically and sonically, that take time to surface. Worth the dive.

• mary in the junkyard’s Role Model Hermit is whispered reverberant choruses, cello lines, and drums that land like the last fat drops of a downpour. Best consumed while on your period (or equivalent), in your feelings, or both.

  Worth mentioning:

  • Gracie Abrams Daughter from Hell drops tomorrow (7/17). Early word is good. We’ll report back.

  • Jack White Frozen Charlotte is out. You already know if this is for you.

  • Suki Waterhouse has a new album out, Loveland. She has been quietly building something and this feels like the moment it clicks.

  • Finn Wolfhard released Fire From the Hip. Yes, that Finn Wolfhard.

  • Allison Russell In the Hour of Chaos deserves every ear it gets.

🎤 Live:

• Jay-Z played Yankee Stadium and by all accounts it was exactly what you'd expect from Jay-Z playing Yankee Stadium. Which is to say: epic.

• Cardi B plays the newly reopened Pacha NYC on 7/25. The club is back.

• Elton John has announced two more farewell shows in Mexico on 10/2 and 10/3. What’s opposite of an Irish goodbye?

• Oasis is reportedly extending their reunion across Europe and the UK, with a possible residency in the works. Liam and Noel are getting along, apparently.

• Bourbon & Beyond Fest is 9/24-9/27 in Louisville, KY: Foo Fighters, Kacey Musgraves, and enough bourbon to make both feel transcendent.

• Michelle Branch re-entered the tour chat, further proof of our millennial-woman-resurgence theory. Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore, Ashlee Simpson, & Lindsay Lohan already called dibs on the year, but there's room!

• William Shatner is playing Riot Fest in Chicago the weekend of 9/18 with a metal band. We have so many questions and also no follow-ups.

• Phoebe Bridgers performed “Lost Boys” with a School of Rock band — the kids were genuinely incredible — then followed it up the next night with an acoustic version of the song backed by, you guessed it, an old man band. The full range of human experience, in two nights.

💀 Laugh:

• Nickelback is back. This is not a drill.

• Limp Bizkit brought out Tom Green at Ottawa Bluesfest. Elder millennials, this one’s for you. You’ve earned it.

• Pitbull set a Guinness World Record for the largest gathering of people wearing bald caps. We respect the commitment to the bit.

• Phish fans do drugs, Hamilton County, Indiana has learned. The county isn’t mad, just disappointed.

• Ariana Grande is doing Harry Potter impressions to promote her R.E.M. Beauty line and somehow our cart is full. Please send help.

💕 Love:

• Sending love to L7’s Jennifer Finch following her brain cancer diagnosis.

• Jack White offered Twin Temple his opening slot after they were dropped by Charley Crockett for being too Satan-adjacent.

• Anthony Hopkins is releasing a classical album. Life is, indeed, a dream.

• PinkPantheress is making her acting debut, joining the long and storied tradition of musicians who have decided one art form wasn’t enough.

• Britney Spears is getting a biopic from New Girl creator Liz Merriweather. We have complicated yet hopeful feelings!

• Sam Cooke’s granddaughters (The Womack Sisters) are entering the family business.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Ariana Grande has dropped out of American Horror Story Season 13 due to her concert tour. The horror, it turns out, was the scheduling.

• Madison Square Garden’s leaked celebrity risk list has DaBaby high risk, Morgan Wallen and Lily Allen medium, Selena Gomez low. It also reportedly tracked and labeled LGBTQIA artists. Less quirky venue gossip, more serious problem.

• Iron Maiden sold a 50% stake of their catalog, name, likeness rights, and — crucially — Eddie the mascot.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• CAKE, “The Distance.”

• Sheryl Crow, “Leaving Las Vegas.”

• La Roux, “Babyline.”

• Wet Leg, “hi from me.”

• Tame Impala, “Hummer.” (Smashing Pumpkins cover)

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Ben Folds Five, Madonna, Deep Purple, Beyonce, Chappell Roan, Green Day, Kylie Minogue, the Jonas Brothers, Lewis Capaldi, Fiona Apple, Patti Lupone, Victor Willis, The Strokes, & more.

Hello and happy Thursday — some news doesn’t break so much as arrive in rhinestones.

Broadway is getting a new Dolly Parton musical.

Dolly: A True Original Musical will open at the St. James Theatre on January 19, 2027, which is perfectly and inevitably, Dolly’s 81st birthday. If anyone has earned the right to schedule her own coronation, it’s her.

And yet.

There is a version of this announcement that feels genuinely exciting. There is another version that feels like a line item in a legacy-management spreadsheet. Carole King. Michael Jackson. Tina Turner. Frankie Valli. The roster of musical artists who have been Broadway-ified is long enough now that the announcement itself has become a genre. You hear it and immediately think: who is going to play Dolly? And who could possibly sing “Jolene” in a way that doesn’t make you wish you were just listening to Dolly sing “Jolene”?

The problem isn’t the songs. The problem is that Dolly’s songs are autobiographical in a way that makes them almost impossible to hand off. “I Will Always Love You” was written about a real goodbye, a real creative break, a real decision she made in her twenties that changed her life. “Jolene” came from the raw material of real life too: a flirtatious bank teller, a flash of jealousy, a name borrowed from a young fan. These aren’t just great songs, they’re first-person testimony.

So putting an actress in a blonde wig and asking her to deliver that testimony eight times a week is either an act of radical empathy or a very expensive karaoke night, and Broadway has not always been great at knowing the difference.

It wasn’t always like this. When Green Day announced American Idiot was becoming a musical back in 2009, it felt like a provocation: a punk record about alienation and rage being handed to Broadway, which seemed bananas and turned out to be genuinely interesting. That was before Back to the Future: The Musical, Beetlejuice, Frozen, and the full millennial-IP-to-stage pipeline made it clear that Broadway had found its business model and was going to work it.

Dolly deserves this more than almost anyone. The songs are inarguable. Her story is extraordinary. She is still writing, reworking, showing up, and recently opening her own truck stop in Cornersville, Tennessee. We could not have invented that if we tried.

Dolly deserves a monument. We’re just not sure a jukebox musical is one.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Madonna’s Confessions II is here and it IS the summer. She’s back with Stuart Price, back sampling “French Kiss,” and — to the delight of our old and battered millennial ears — she brought back Stromae.

• Beyoncé surprise-dropped “Morning Dew (Donk)” on 7/4 to launch a countdown to the B’Day 20th-anniversary reissue (which at least one of us would argue is her best album). The song originally leaked in 2023, went viral on TikTok, and the Hive streamed a bootleg for three years like raccoons eating out of an unlocked dumpster.

• U2 released “Street of Dreams,” the first single from a still-unannounced album that will be their first in nine years. Don’t know about you, but Liz here is jumping up and down and foaming at the mouth with joy.

• Green Day put out “I’m Never Gonna R.I.P.” on 7/7, a rockabilly goof in which Billie Joe, 54, tells Death to take a number. Off the NIMRODS soundtrack, the movie hits theaters 8/14.

• Ciara dropped “Yes,” a bona fide mid-tempo R&B bop that dares you not to shoulder-bounce by the second chorus.

• Ben Folds Five announced a 30th-anniversary reissue of their self-titled debut, due 9/4, pairing a remaster with the “Shelved First Attempt” — the $14k version they scrapped, which Folds found in his own archives. The original trio will reunite for their first shows in 13 years. (SHAMON!)

• Deep Purple released SPLAT!, their 24th album, a concept album (obviously) about the end of humanity as “a metamorphosis beyond physical existence,” a sentence delivered in voiceover by Ian Gillan, who will outlive the sun.

• Franklin Jonas & Noah Cyrus, the littlest Jonas and the littlest Cyrus, reunite on a folk weeper, “High and Sad.”

• The Strokes released the “Going Shopping” video featuring national treasure Walton Goggins doing the Chevy Chase role in a “You Can Call Me Al” homage.

🎤 Live:

• Sam Smith’s next batch of mind-blowingly intimate ‘To Be Free’ residencies will be in Manchester and London before the year is out. Say it with us. Rationalize. That. Airfare.

• Classic rockers Jonas Brothers announced a third MSG date for their “Burning Up All Over” shows. And by next week, there will no doubt be a fourth.

• Ringo Starr announced a 10-date run, wherein he’ll return to Forest Hills Stadium for the first time since The Beatles played their first-ever stadium shows there.

• Zedd is headlining the U.S. Open Finals afterparty. Sure!

• Garth Brooks announced a tour where every ticket is the same price. Whether it’s populism or PR, “Friends in Low Places” is getting sung by a lot of people this fall. And, for once, it’s not just by us.

• The Eagles added an additional four shows to their run at Las Vegas’ Sphere. By the way, don’t let the sound of your own wheels make you crazy.

💀 Laugh:

• Wilco and the Breeders are now Yo-Yo World Record holders, having joined 5,000 simultaneous spinners at Solid Sound Festival.

• Kylie Minogue received an apology from Australian Prime Minister, after he went on a podcast, played “shag marry date,” and said Minogue would be his pick for “All of the above.” Which begs the question: What is the government’s press director smoking?

• Chappell Roan told Rosalía that one of her best songs, “Casual,” came from getting ghosted by a songwriter. But did she get her favorite bra back?

• Noted edgelord music journalist Peppa Pig told Pitchfork she finds Clairo overrated, or rather, “I don’t know her,” prompting Charli xcx and PinkPantheress to mobilize in her defense.

💕 Love:

• Lewis Capaldi bought a £2,000 round for an entire London pub celebrating England’s World Cup win over Mexico. And Rita Ora was there.

• Fiona Apple wrote the theme song for Anya Taylor-Joy’s new miniseries, which means new Fiona Apple music may be imminent. Fingers crossed, breath held, we will wait as long as it takes.

• Patti LuPone’s gay cruise ship was denied entry by Turkey. Her response: “I am furious, but I am sailing.” Which was exactly what we said upon hearing Village People icon Victor Willis passed. RIP.

• The Spice Girls now officially own Spice World, per Mel C, and it’s coming to streaming. We have waited our entire adult lives for this sentence.

• Phoebe Bridgers made a video game to accompany “Lost Boys” — an endless runner where your player dodges goblins on a motorcycle with a knight, and if it gets caught, instead of restarting the game, it replays the most emotionally harrowing moment of its life as the screen stalls out for 14 hours.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI: Prediction markets — platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket where you can bet real money on whether something will happen — will apparently let you bet on anything. Elections. Award show winners. Music charts. Last week, Spotify caught on to the jig.
  
  Malcolm Todd’s song “Earrings” hit Number One on Spotify’s daily U.S. chart overnight: a 70% jump that Spotify subsequently traced to manipulation tied to Kalshi, where people had been betting on whether the song would chart. The math is not complicated. If you can bet on an outcome and you can influence the outcome, you will influence the outcome. Todd himself appears to have had nothing to do with it, which makes him the most innocent person in a story that gets weirder the longer you look at it.
  
  Spotify pulled 500,000 streams, announced additional chart safeguards, and said it has “best in class detection” for manipulation (which is exactly what you say when something just happened on your platform).
  
  The larger issue isn’t going away. Kalshi lists tons of betting props tied to Spotify and Billboard charts. Polymarket has a Golden Globes partnership. A MrBeast editor was accused of insider trading on Kalshi over the YouTuber’s own videos earlier this year. What’s emerging is a new category of problem: a financial instrument that rewards people for manipulating the very thing it’s measuring. Regulators have not caught up. The entertainment industry has not caught up. The gamblers, however, are doing great. (You gotta know when to hold 'em.)
  
  The music industry spent years worrying about bots. It did not spend enough time worrying about bettors.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “To Love Somebody,” by Holly Humberstone.

• “Pepper,” by Butthole Surfers.

• “Wink Wink,” by Chari xcx.

• “All Summer,” by Nipsey Hussle, Bino Rideaux, BH.

• “7,” by Prince.

• “My Body Isn’t Ready,” by sombr.

• “Discovery Channel,” by Hayley Williams.

• “Blood,” by mary in the junkyard.

• “I’m Yours,” by Tricky, Mitch Sanders.

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to “Total Eclipse of the Heart” singer, Bonnie Tyler.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Taylor Swift, Noah Kahan, Steve Lacy, SZA, Kylie Minogue, Muse, Hayley Williams, Erykah Badu, A$AP Rocky, Danny Elfman, Chris Martin, Dua Lipa, Gracie Abrams, Grimes, & more.

Hello dear readers!

Happy 250th birthday, America — a nation forged in liberty, firearms, and now Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding. The Madison Square Garden nuptials (or watch party?) reportedly kick off this weekend: rehearsal dinner Thursday, black-tie for up to 999 Friday, NDAs airtight enough to make the Manhattan Project look like a group chat.

In more troubling news… something is deeply — “lmao” — CHEMICALLY wrong with pop concerts right now.

Sweet little Olivia Rodrigo says she has “smelled” diaper-clad fans in the front row as superfans wear them to avoid losing their spot on a bathroom run. Noah Kahan begged his audience to “please dear god just go to the bathroom” after a Philadelphia show went viral for a floor incident, then admitted he’d done the same thing onstage in Charlottesville, “because I am dedicated to my craft.” And a 5 Seconds of Summer stop in Fort Worth produced its own viral clip of venue staff mopping up human waste. Guys. We know it sucks, but Porta-potties exist.

In other news, Steven Van Zandt (Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band) listed his Greenwich Village penthouse, a converted Romanesque Revival church with 20-foot ceilings and stained glass, for $15 million. The listing calls it “unapologetically bold,” which, according to Rolling Stone means it’s decorated like “the VIP area at a Hard Rock Cafe.” Tracks, for a man whose entire personality is bandana.

And for those whose YouTube algorithms are not perfectly synced to offer this content, Madonna showed off her sentimental penis statue collection for Vogue.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Phoebe Bridgers, “Lost Boys.” We waited 4 years for it, and boy did she deliver: fuller sound, sneaky chorus, subtle horn counter-melody. Spoiled.

• Steve Lacy, “is it cool? ft. SZA.” Lacy’s smooth minimalism plus SZA’s vocals equals an extremely repeatable groove. Add to playlist, play 19 times.

• Snow Patrol & Kylie Minogue, “These Alarms.” A weird emotional-dance-pop chimera from names we never expected to share a billing, and somehow, it works.

• Muse, “Hush (feat. Ellie Goulding).” Another pairing from the “wait, what?” files. Dramatic, synthy, and apocalyptic, with Ellie Goulding sounding like she’s singing over the end credits of Earth.

• Empress of, “Wild Storm” is lovely synth-pop with strings and real weight. Rediscovered after the Altadena fires destroyed her family home, it carries grief and release.

• Cobrah & Grimes, “Sign From God” is dark, catchy, robotic, and vaguely like a goth cyborg got baptized at the club. Classic Grimes!

• Tiberius b & Power Snatch, “Training / Great” is technically two songs, both worth your time. Hayley Williams’ electro-punk side hustle has range.

• Dinosaur Jr., “Several Got Away.” Scratchy guitars, impassioned vocals, controlled chaos. Best consumed loudly in a car while pretending you have somewhere dramatic to be.

• Tycho & Sea Lemon, “Anotherwave” is dreamy, reverb-drenched, and still boppable. Workday soundtrack or outdoor-show personality reset.

• Tokyo Tea Room, “All Night” is smooth, funky, and unfussy. A steamy-summer-night makeout song, and we do not say that lightly.

• Queen of Jeans, “Still Learning” is a classic indie sad song: perfect vocals, introspection, and the sense that personal growth should really come with PTO.

• Hayley Law, “Last Summer.” Yes, that Hayley Law from Riverdale, and yes, this is actually good. Nostalgic pop/R&B with diary-driven charm.

🎤 Live:

• Hayley Williams covered Sinéad O’Connor’s “Mandinka” in Dublin. Casual, devastating, illegal to make us feel this much on a weeknight.

• Erykah Badu announced a 2026 fall North American tour. Good news for people who like concerts to start on spiritual time.

• Dinosaur Jr. have a new album and fall U.S. tour. Scratchy guitars, aging knees, eternal vibes.

• Ella Langley extended her U.S. tour. The yeehaw economy remains strong.

• John Waters announced a 2026 Christmas tour. Finally, holiday programming for the naughty list.

• A$AP Rocky performed live with Danny Elfman, composer for Batman, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Fifty Shades of Grey… Somewhere, an algorithm quit its job.

💀 Laugh:

• Aaron Lewis’ (Staind) new album was used as shredded packing material for the latest Taylor Swift single. I’d consider that a sign, dude.

• Fetty Wap and Jimmy John’s launched the #1738 Fetty W(r)ap Meal (after the rapper’s hit song “1738”), and somewhere in Peoria, Illinois a strip mall just achieved enlightenment. Subway, your move.

• Olivia Rodrigo and LEGO teamed up for a new collection. Finally, a way to recreate heartbreak brick by brick.

• Noah Kahan asked fans to stop stealing his hometown road sign. Between this and #poopgate, rustic sincerity has become a public works issue.

• Chris Martin’s (Coldplay) “not very good” attempt at a James Bond theme is going to auction. Nothing says legacy like your creative L getting its own estimate at Sotheby’s.

• Miranda Hope from Secret Lives of Mormon Wives released a country song called “FU4THAT.” That is all.

💕 Love:

• Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys) returned to the stage after suffering a stroke. Punk remains undefeated and louder than your primary care physician recommends.

• Lzzy Hale, Lita Ford, and more are getting the Rock Hall treatment in a new “Women in Metal” exhibit.

• Mick Jagger said working with Paul McCartney on The Rolling Stones’ collab was “very easy.” Two up-and-comers, seeing if they have chemistry.

• Dua Lipa is opening her own library full of banned books. At last, a pop star side quest with Dewey Decimal ambition.

• Gracie Abrams, daughter of J.J. Abrams, says she “gets it” when people call her a nepo baby. Hear that? Growth! Reflection! Parental IMDb pages!

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI: Tidal is drawing a line in the AI sand. The streamer says it will accept AI-generated music, but as of now, any track it identifies as 100% AI-generated is ineligible for royalties. Starting in mid-July, those songs will also get a visible tag so listeners know what they’re hearing.

  Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

  Translation: the robot songs can come inside, but they don’t get drink tickets — and soon they’ll be wearing a name tag, too.

  Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

  Tidal says it will also block or remove AI music tied to fraud, including fake artist impersonations, deceptive uploads, high-volume spam, or weird streaming activity. In other words, if your “new Drake song” was actually made by a laptop with vibes and no conscience, Tidal would like a word.

  Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

  Why this matters: streaming royalties are already brutal for human musicians. If platforms let infinite AI sludge compete for the same tiny royalty pool, actual artists get squeezed even harder. Tidal’s policy is basically saying: listeners deserve to know what they’re hearing, and royalties should go to music directly produced, written, and performed by people.

  Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

  Will this solve the AI music problem? No. But it’s one of the clearest moves yet from a streamer saying the future can’t just be 40 million fake songs in a trench coat.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Party in the U.S.A.,” by Miley Cyrus

• “Peaches,” by The Presidents Of The United States Of America

• “American Teenager,” by Ethel Cain

• “This is America,” by Childish Gambino

• “Living in America,” by James Brown

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Stevie Nicks, Mitski, Hayley Williams, Phoebe Bridgers, SOPHIE, FKA twigs, Lil Yachty, PJ Harvey, Drake, Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Mandy Moore, Matty Healy, James Blake, & more.

Hi! New here? Good timing.

Mea culpa, everyone. Look it up; I’ll wait.

Olivia Rodrigo has done something I did not think was possible: changed my mind. And listen, I had notes. Last fall, my wife and I settled in for the Sarah McLachlan documentary Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery, which this Editor watched with great personal investment. I was a sentient (queer) twelve-year-old when Lilith Fair was actually happening. I did my 7th grade social studies biography on Sarah McLachlan. I have been this person my entire life. Then Olivia Rodrigo appeared onscreen to share her opinions on Liz Phair, or whatever. Olivia Rodrigo, who was born in 2003. After Lilith Fair had already completed its entire run. Reader, I rolled my eyes so hard I briefly saw the back of my own skull.

There was also the matter of her song “good 4 u,” which sounded enough like Paramore’s “Misery Business” that Hayley Williams and former guitarist Josh Farro eventually ended up with credits and royalties, in the way these things now happen: quietly, expensively, and with lawyers nearby. If you’re not a wild music person, your reaction should be “wait, this happens?” It happens constantly. Music is full of this.

But here’s what changed: Rodrigo just announced Daisy Chain Fields, an all-women festival at Great Park in Irvine, CA on 8/29, with a lineup that includes Chappell Roan, Doechii, Bikini Kill, the Breeders, Mitski, Karen O, Sarah McLachlan, and Stevie Nicks. Each performer is doing the gig for free and one hundred percent of net proceeds go to women’s and girls’ charities.

It turns out she did her homework. The all-women festival concept isn’t exactly new, but the girl who showed up in the Lilith Fair documentary to share opinions she hadn’t technically earned yet went ahead and booked Sarah McLachlan for her own festival. That’s the difference between treating music history like a mood board and actually handing younger listeners a map.

My eye roll, in retrospect, was premature. If she can get someone born in 2008 to discover Garbage, to find Shirley Manson’s voice and Butch Vig’s production, then fine. We can be friends. Call me an actual fan. Music keeps cycling the past back through the present, making old arguments new, and occasionally making you admit in public that you were wrong.

This is one of those times.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Phoebe Bridgers announced a new single out tomorrow as well as her new full length album Lost Weekend out 8/14.

• The Killers’ Brandon Flowers has a new single, “Plans,” out tomorrow and will embark on a solo tour in 2026.

• Carly Rae Jepsen is releasing a double album called Day and Night (9/18), because one album’s worth of longing was apparently not enough. Expect a single, “On Wires” tomorrow, too.

• Beabadoobee announced her upcoming album Pylon, featuring Hayley Williams, Turnstile, Pinegrove, and half of The 1975: a guest list that has our full attention. The single “Sun Has Set” is fine. The album, we suspect, will be another story. Her first arena tour was also announced.

• Big Freedia and SOPHIE’s “Let Me See Ya (feat. MUNA)” is pure dance-floor combustion. Years after SOPHIE’s death, her influence is worth studying, but this one is best understood by sweating through your shirt.

• DAINE’s “PQC” sounds like your phone is exploding with blown-out distortion, faraway piano loops, and glitchy hyperpop vocals.

• Slow Fiction’s “Satellite” is fuzzy, dreamy, Alvvays-adjacent indie rock, the exact song for the end of a good night when you’re not ready for it to be over.

• Lorelei’s “Billy Came Back” is a driving tune with a soothing baritone, perfect for road trips and the passenger who keeps saying, “Wait, who is this?”

• Tiny Habits’ “Anything He Was (feat. Matty Healy)” is a lovely James Taylor-ish heartbreak song. Which is to say it probably won’t be on anyone’s wedding playlist to a Kansas City Chiefs tight end.

• Ruth B.’s “Didn’t I” is a downtempo, piano-driven showcase for one of pop’s prettier voices. She should be more famous, and “Lost Boy” remains another heartbreaker worth revisiting.

• PJ Harvey’s “Voyager” is like a satellite trying to phone home from deep space, trembling effects and all. The Interstellar soundtrack is nodding approvingly.

• FKA twigs’ “On Your Mind (feat. Lil Yachty)” was written after her derailed Coachella set and US tour. The result is a sleek, catchy release valve with choreo.

🎤 Live:

• Noah Kahan, Post Malone, Salt-N-Pepa, and Shaboozey will perform on NBC’s Macy’s 4th of July Special, a lineup honestly much better than the words “Macy’s 4th of July Special” usually promise.

• Buddy Guy (blues legend, guitar hero) turns 90 in October and Radio City Music Hall is throwing him a party with Eric Clapton, John Mayer, Jon Batiste, and more. Tickets on sale tomorrow.

• Mötley Crüe’s summer tour features Vince Neil, Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, and John 5 in for Mick Mars.

• Stanley Simmons, the duo featuring the sons of KISS legends Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons, launch their first full-scale US tour in September.

• Turnstile are hitting the road this September and October with a rotating cast of top chaos agents, including Slayyyter, Clipse, Die Spitz, and Vince Staples.

• Bright Eyes are touring this fall, just in time for collective sighs and window-staring season.

• Deftones have announced Dia De Los Deftones, their annual San Diego fest. It all goes down 11/7, which gives everyone plenty of time to locate their black t-shirt.

• Noah Kahan’s Out of the Blue Fest will hit Riviera Cancún from 1/7 to 1/10/2027, with Hayley Williams, Mt. Joy, The Head and the Heart, and more to come.

💀 Laugh:

• Backstreet Boys claim Drake told them his first kiss was to one of their songs. Filed under: things we cannot verify but choose to believe. Importantly, BSB were also asked to pick between *NSYNC and O-Town, because some journalists still have range. (They chose O-Town!)

• Taylor Swift describes getting “songwriter zoomies” while writing the Toy Story 5 song “I Knew It, I Knew You” in 8 hours. Like a golden retriever after a bath, but the golden retriever is a billionaire with a guitar.

• Chappell Roan's “Hot to Go” is becoming a Sesame Street potty training anthem called “Got to Go.” No song is safe. Check out this Cookie Monster/Bruno Mars parody in the meantime. Truly wild.

• Zara Larsson appeared on Chicken Shop Date with Amelia Dimoldenberg, where Amelia bravely admitted to the Swede that she has never been to IKEA.

• Mandy Moore showed up onstage with Bowen Yang & Matt Rogers to perform “Only Hope” from A Walk to Remember: a fully unhinged 2002 film we are choosing to reappraise immediately and without apology. This is the timeline we live in and it’s fine here.

💕 Love:

• Daryl Hall (Hall & Oates) revealed he recently received a kidney transplant from “a very kind and generous living donor.” An inspired collab if we ever saw one.

• Watch this space: Phoebe Bridgers’s mom is a realtor who occasionally uses Instagram to hype her daughter, because no one is immune to true mom energy.

• of Cup of Jo/ made a one-hour-and-forty-five-minute makeout playlist, which is either wildly optimistic or very well planned. We respect the commitment.

• Slayyyter let Rolling Stone shuffle her music library, and honestly? This is the kind of transparency we want from public figures.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI: James Blake took to Instagram to call out the increasingly fake, botted, bought, gamed, optimized, AI-haunted state of the music industry and somehow landed on an actually useful piece of advice for artists: “You’re probably doing better than you think.”
  
  His point, basically: in 2026, every visible measure of success comes with an asterisk. Comment sections can be stuffed with fake fan accounts. YouTube views can be bought. Streaming numbers can be juiced by bot farms. Reviews can be clouded by label influence, access, perks, and the ongoing collapse of music journalism as a sustainable profession. And now, even the question of whether a song was made by a human being has arrived uninvited and refused to leave.
  
  Blake later clarified in the comments (along with many other notables chiming in) that he was not talking about all journalists, and made a point to shout out the critics and writers still doing the work with integrity. But his broader argument is hard to shake: when every part of the system can be manipulated, artists should probably stop using the system’s numbers as proof that they are failing.
  
  Bleak? Yes. Comforting? Also yes. A rare music industry rant that ends not with “everything is doomed,” but with “maybe don't let the dashboard numbers ruin your life.”

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Dracula,” by Tame Impala

• “Lucifer,” by A.G. Cook

• “Stack-A-Lee,” by Dr. John

• “Ring of Stones,” by Tele Novella

• “Mr. Alligator,” by JJerome87 (side project from Joe Newman, frontman of alt-J)

• “Vending Machine,” by Valley

Listen to it all right here.

RIP to the man with the golden ears, Clive Davis, who gave us Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin, Carlos Santana, Janis Joplin, Alicia Keys, Carrie Underwood, and many others.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Shania Twain, Rosalia, Foushee, Phish, Duane Betts, Sad13, Carly Simon, Taylor Swift, Elliott Smith, BTS, DeBarge, Vince Staples, Kesha, and more!

Hello and happy Thursday!

The G7 spent the week fighting about who gets to own AI and a ceasefire with Iran is allegedly being signed tomorrow. But the real news, friends, is that Shania Twain is opening all twelve nights of Harry Styles’ “Together, Together” residency at Wembley this month.

The two met backstage, swapped numbers, and bonded over the fact that Harry’s mother raised him on Twain. “I’m so grateful to my mother that I was introduced to your music,” she says he told her on Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now podcast. “You’ve been the queen to me ever since.” Twain called Styles’ mom for her birthday, congratulating her on her “fabulous son.” When said son headlined Coachella in 2022, he pulled Twain onstage — a moment she admitted she “took too casually.” What did he think he’s Elvis or something?

Twain also has a new album, and she’d like you to know it’s a journey. It’s called Little Miss Twain (out 7/24). The single “Dirty Rosie” is out, and she frames the record as a return to her roots: “the rock and R&B I loved so much, but still with that Western twang.”

Speaking of journeys, Rosalía’s elaborate LUX Tour landed at MSG on Tuesday — two nights, twice postponed by the Knicks’ Finals run — with a jewelry-box entrance, a live orchestra, and ballet-flamenco-techno baroque art-pop. There’s a literal confessional booth in the show, and Tuesday’s penitent was Maggie Rogers, who told 20,000 people about a date with a New York Times journalist that curdled when she discovered he was already dating one of her own friends. Here’s hoping it’s this guy.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s music headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Olivia Rodrigo dropped you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love, rewriting several of the songs after her breakup with Louis Partridge. Some people are mad about this; we are not, because artists are allowed to revise their own albums and also because this one is dangerously no-skips!

• Sublime released Until The Sun Explodes, their first album since 1996, with Bradley Nowell’s son Jakob at the mic and Travis Barker (Blink 182, Mr. Kourtney Kardashian) producing. It could have been a Long Beach séance; instead, wildly, it kind of works.

• Bebe Rexha gave us DIRTY BLONDE, and the people demand she be released from the Khia Asylum. With a David Guetta collab, Manny Marroquin mixes, and undeniable bops like “One Day” and “New Religion,” this blonde has served her time.

• Duane Betts released Isle of Hope, a Dave Cobb-produced Southern rock/Americana record from the son of an Allman Brother. Recorded in five days, it’s summer road-trip music for people who want guitars, feelings, and maybe one tasteful gas-station sunglasses purchase.

• Carly Simon is teasing her first album in 20 years with “Howl,” a song that is catchy in the way children’s songs are catchy, except this time we are delighted instead of trapped in a minivan.

• Julia Jacklin, “Get Away From Me (I Think I’ll Love You Soon)” sounds like a boundary and a confession, catchy enough to make the mixed signals your problem too.

• Rose Gray, “Club to Your Arms” is for anyone who has ever left the dance floor and immediately made a questionable romantic decision. The hook is so good.

• ADÉLA’s “Red Bottoms” is a pop gift best accepted immediately, before the rest of the world catches up and starts acting like they discovered her first.

• Fousheé, “Drive” is smooth, moody, and hazy in a homemade-bedroom-pop kind of way, with additional production and arrangement from Dirty Projectors’ Dave Longstreth. Built for staring out the passenger-side window with main-character restraint.

• Ledbyher, “Dirty Rumours” is dark, rhythmic, sassy, and produced by Clams Casino. We support gossip when it comes with this much atmosphere.

• Rebecca Black, “Speakerphone.” Yes, that Rebecca Black, and yes, she has been making genuinely fun pop long enough that we may all owe “Friday” an apology.

🎤 Live:

• The Smashing Pumpkins and Chris Stapleton are playing a bipartisan America250 concert on 7/4, which sounds like America trying to agree on one playlist before the cookout starts.

• The Lumineers are playing the U.S. Open, which counts as a genuine glow-up for a tournament whose musical bookings are usually more “pleasant bonus” than “actual headliner.”

• III Points announced its Miami lineup for 10/16 & 10/17, with Kelela, Flying Lotus, Charlotte de Witte, Lil’ Kim, & more. Finally, a festival for people who pack both earplugs and a going-out top.

• Sad13, the solo project of Speedy Ortiz singer-guitarist Sadie Dupuis, is teasing new music and July tour dates. If you’ve somehow missed her, now is a great time to develop taste retroactively.

• First of all, Phish has a Riviera Maya destination festival. Second of all, it now features DJ sets from Questlove and James Murphy, plus Fred Armisen.

• Vince Staples announced his Crybaby tour through November because sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is process your emotions in a room with merch.

• Kesha was the surprise sleeper hit of Bonnaroo this year, proving the people still yearn for glitter, chaos, and a chorus they can scream like a threat.

💀 Laugh:

• Donna Summer’s estate made a deal on her catalog, recordings, and name, image, and likeness rights. Apparently, she still works hard for the money (RIP!).

• Amy Grant says her label once worried she couldn’t carry the 1991 hit “Baby Baby” alone and floated a duet partner: Aretha Franklin. Somewhere in the multiverse, adult contemporary briefly became a contact sport.

• Why are festival lineup posters so hard to read? asks an elder millennial (me) pinching, zooming, and learning that font size is youth culture now.

💕 Love:

• Elliott Smith now has an asteroid named after him, (861969) Elliottsmith: proof that even tasteful sadness deserves an eternal orbit.

• Taylor Swift was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame as its youngest-ever female honoree, with Steven Spielberg introducing her because… subtlety is for other people.

• Dev Hynes, aka Blood Orange, is scoring A24’s The Invite (out in July), which Olivia Wilde stars in and directs. The string-forward, creeptastic soundtrack feels right for a dinner party going off the rails.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• The Grammys are adding Best Asian Pop Music Performance: K-pop, J-pop, C-pop, and beyond, with a “meaningful use of Asian languages” requirement the Academy has yet to actually define. BTS, freshly reunited and fresh off a big American Music Awards night, are the presumptive favorites for the inaugural prize. Whether their most Grammy-visible songs even qualify under the language rules is an open question, which means the Recording Academy may have built a category nominally for K-pop’s biggest act and then made it technically complicated for them. Classic Grammys.

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  The full slate of new categories for 2027: Best Asian Pop Music Performance, Best Latin Song, Best R&B Collaboration or Duo/Group Performance, Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance, and Best Traditional Folk Album. Two of those have the word “traditional” in them, which is either a descriptor or a warning, depending on how you feel about contemporary pop and folk. See also: Best Contemporary Folk Album, formerly Best Folk Album, a restructuring that mirrors what happened to country after Beyoncé won Best Country Album for Cowboy Carter, and the category split the next cycle. Make of that what you will.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Tell Me (U Want It),” by Underscores

• “Your Woman,” by White Town

• “Rhythm of the Night,” by DeBarge

• “The Less I Know the Better,” by Tame Impala

  • BONUS! The making of the song is brilliant:

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Madonna, Rosalía, Phoebe Bridgers, Olivia Rodrigo, Robert Smith, Charli xcx, The Chicks, Duffy, Morgan Wallen, Lauryn Hill, Alanis Morissette, Lorde, & more.

Greetings, Players — we’re trying something new here!

So: green lasers shooting out of the vaginas and asses of futuristic models. Madonna’s back.

At this stage in her career, no one tells Madonna no. Not Sabrina Carpenter, not Benedict Cumberbatch, not Kate Moss, not Julia Garner, not even her own daughter Lourdes Leon: all of them and more, somehow, appear in “Confessions II – The Film,” a 13-minute visual experience built around new music that is, to be generous, fine. The film itself? Worth watching, if only to study what happens when an icon is given a camera, a contact list, and absolutely no adult supervision.

Can you imagine getting that phone call?

“Yes, Ms. Carpenter, it’s more of a Mad Libs video: we follow Madonna from a generic apartment, through a forest of dancers slinking around in janky underwear, onto a packed dance floor, and finally into a club bathroom. Then you appear, for reasons best understood by God and Madonna. What do you say?”

Sabrina said yes. They all said yes. No one says no.

Worth noting: “Confessions II – The Film” was directed by TORSO, who also directed Charli xcx’s “SS26,” released shortly after Charli declared, with characteristic sarcasm, that the dancefloor is dead. TORSO is out here directing both the eulogy and the revival. Whose side are you on, TORSO? Team Dancefloor or Team Loitering Beautifully Near a Speaker?

But back to the feedback-free zone that is Madonna’s creative orbit, because this is not really about Madonna. It is about what happens when famous people become too famous for anyone around them to say, “Are we sure about this?” I have been adjacent to this phenomenon in the wild. In a former life as a recording studio rat, I once watched a legendary pop star open a songwriting session for a new musical with “Let’s rip off this song” and the song was fun.’s “We Are Young.”

The room nodded. Someone queued it up. No one said anything.

Reader, that musical went on to win many Tonys, including Best Original Score. The joke, entirely, was on me. I was eventually asked to leave by said legendary pop star, either because she wasn’t used to having another woman in the room, which was absolutely the impression I got, or because I failed to arrange my face politely after hearing someone announce, out loud, a plan to reverse-engineer early Jack Antonoff.

No notes were given. Many awards were won. History belongs to the shameless.

Play On!

— The Editors

The week’s music headlines in a playlist!

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Death Cab for Cutie, Modest Mouse, and Evanescence all released new albums, giving elder millennials a full emotional buffet.

• Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter released Mirage – Ballet for 16 Dancers, a minimalist ballet score. The man who made us lose our minds to “Get Lucky” would now like us to sit very still. We will oblige!

• Soft Cell’s potentially final album Danceteria arrives 9/25, a love letter to early ‘80s New York that Dave Ball finished two days before his death. Devastating, glamorous, very on-brand.

• WILLOW released “Talk On The Hill,” which sounds exactly as moody, mystical, and cool-girl remote as you’d hope.

• Steve Lacy’s “The Feeling” is a slinky and makeout friendly jam. Please use responsibly.

• Jack White dropped “Dollar Bill,” from his upcoming album Frozen Charlotte.

• Wishy announced Nature's Pill (10/2) with “Lovesick,” a jangly Cure-at-their-poppiest rush of yearning. Pile it on.

• Slow Pulp “Better Man” has big “need a new lover” energy and the kind of trembly indie guitar that immediately takes up residence in your brain.

• Graham Hunt’s “Waiting For You To Come Home” was made at Pachyderm Studio, aka In Utero holy ground, and sounds like college radio in the best way.

• GB “Starsound” is perfect for being buzzed on the train home or in the Uber Black you called “a little treat.”

• Ye released “Gemini Season,” directed by and starring his wife, Bianca Censori. Raise your hand if you, like my two-year-old, enjoy moo moos.

🎤 Live:

• Rosalía’s sold out MSG show was moved for a potential Knicks Finals game. The Knicks are so back they’re making scheduling conflicts aspirational, which is annoying, historic, and extremely New York.

• Alanis Morissette is bringing her sold-out Vegas residency to L.A. for four nights in November. Butterfly with a Machete is a “confessional musical stage play” with music, stories, dance, video, and … sketch comedy. We also process trauma through bits.

• Charli xcx announced her “Music, Fashion, Film” tour that will kick off late summer.

• Ariana Grande’s first tour in 7 years opened in Oakland (one of 41 sold-out shows), where she asked 17,000 screaming fans to be quiet and they obeyed. We can’t get one (1) group chat to do that.

• Olivia Rodrigo brought out the actual Robert Smith (The Cure) at Primavera Sound to debut “What’s Wrong With Me,” arriving 6/12 with her new album.

• Lauryn Hill plays her first unplugged show since 2002 on a lawn in East Hampton 7/25. A hedge fund manager is about to have the most important night of his life.

• Lorde opened her first Gov Ball in 9 years with a snippet of an unreleased song: “don’t look for me now that I’m gone.”

💀 Laugh:

• Morgan Wallen got run out of Pittsburgh by, in order: 15,000 bees colonizing his stage, a phone-chucking incident, and a “severe weather” cancellation over winds that never showed. He called the rumors “nonsense.” The bees, at least, left peacefully.

• The Voice is sending its next winner to Gov Ball 2027, which is one way to get on that lineup.

• Green Day has a comedy film out 8/14 called Nimrods, about three buddies road-tripping to LA for the chance to open for the band on New Year’s Eve. And hear us out: the movie actually looks funny.

• “T.R.M.” Spotify billboards mysteriously showed up in NYC and LA. Is this an album rollout, a cult, or just three letters with a marketing budget? Polymarket, do your worst.

💕 Love:

• The Grateful Dead’s lost Joan Didion interview has resurfaced. Somewhere between literary artifact and psychedelic time capsule, we have questions.

• Jimi Hendrix now has a street in NYC — West 8th, officially "Jimi Hendrix Way" — and as a former Electric Lady employee, I am biased and fully in favor. A studio apartment on that block now runs $4,500 a month. Jimi would hate it here.

• Duffy announced her first live concert in 15 years with the sweetly understated, “I would love nothing more than for some of you to attend.” Pop comeback, but make it handwritten thank-you note.

• The Chicks performed “Not Ready to Make Nice” on Kimmel for Taking the Long Way’s 20th anniversary, in matching red with a string section. Twenty years later: still not ready, still correct.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Opinion: Phoebe Bridgers is taking her arena tour phone-free and we are here for it. Every attendee at every stop of The Lost Tour will have their phone locked in a Yondr pouch for the duration of the show, a policy she tested at a surprise sold-out Madison Square Garden set last week. It’s not a new concept (Jack White and Paul McCartney have done it) but scaling it to 15,000-person arenas is a different proposition entirely.

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  For the vertically challenged among us who have spent entire shows staring at a forest of outstretched arms and glowing screens capturing footage that will be rewatched exactly zero times, this sounds less like a gimmick and more like basic concert hygiene. Yes, the logistics will be a nightmare. Distributing and collecting thousands of pouches at arenas isn’t a vibe. It’s a ground operation. But so is watching an entire show through the cracked iPhone of a 6’2” man named Connor.

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  There’s something almost radical about paying arena prices to simply be in a room with music and other humans: undistracted, undocumented, no proof-of-experience required. Some people believe a concert didn’t happen unless they posted 47 seconds of it to reels. Bridgers is betting the tradeoff is worth it. Based on the alternative, it’s not much of a bet.

• ICYMI: A new study says listeners aged 13 to 24 are increasingly gravitating toward older music over current releases. In other words, teenagers are voluntarily listening to your music.

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  The key stats: the share of that age group who say 2020s music is their favorite dropped from 55% in 2021 to 44% in 2025. Meanwhile, those favoring ’90s-and-earlier music climbed from 18% to 25%. The ’90s are currently the fastest-growing decade by streams, up 8% year-over-year.

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  The explanation? Elder millennials have been passing their formative music down to their now-teenage kids, a polite way of saying a generation of children was held hostage in the backseat on long car trips. TikTok, biopics, vinyl, and TV placements are doing the rest. Michael Jackson is surging from the biopic. Prince and Kate Bush both got the Stranger Things bump, and poor Kate hasn’t stopped running up that hill since 2022.

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  The takeaway: nostalgia is no longer just for people who were actually there. Which is either beautiful or deeply unsettling, depending on how you feel about a 17-year-old discovering Radiohead in 2026 and calling “Creep” underrated.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Use Me,” by Bill Withers

• “Diddley Daddy,” by Chris Isaak

• “Swallowed,” by Bush

• “Brutalist,” by Kim Petras

• “Take Me Back,” by Charlotte Cardin

• “Difficult Love,” by Malcolm Todd

• “We Might as Well Be Strangers (feat. Wednesday),” by Weezer

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Charli xcx, Phoebe Bridgers, Joanna Newsom, Scooter Braun, Blood Orange, Olivia Rodrigo, Brandi Carlile, Shania Twain, Kelela, Jenny Lewis, & more.

Oh hello!

Let’s cut to the chase. Still no Beyoncé rock album. But! The cultural dial is hovering ever-closer as this week we did get more news on Charli xcx’s “Rock Music” front, and Jay-Z, broke six years of solo silence at the Roots Picnic by opening with a four-minute freestyle torching Drake, Ye, and Nicki Minaj, mere weeks after telling GQ he wasn’t sure rap beef belonged in the culture anymore.

If you missed that, Complex had the context-heavy recap, listing everyone who Jigga torched and, helpfully, why. If you are like us, this will take you down some deep rabbit holes, so schedule accordingly. Nicki posted an AI-generated picture of Jay as a “Queen” barb and threatened to expose a “ring of thieves” in music? Woof. Here’s the clip and the lyrics. Decide for yourself!

Elsewhere, we are salivating until 7/24, when Charli xcx’s seventh album, Music, Fashion, Film, arrives. We learned it will be eleven songs, thirty minutes and five seconds, and not a wasted breath. The cover is a black-and-white portrait of John Cale (The Velvet Underground), Marc Jacobs, Martin Scorsese, and the Editors of Play On. At least, symbolically:

Two singles are already out: “Rock Music,” on which she cheekily pronounces the dancefloor dead, and “SS26,” which gave the album its name (“We’re walking on a runway that goes straight to hell, nothing’s gonna save us, not music, fashion or film.”) and manages to be about the apocalypse and a runway show simultaneously. As her producer A.G. Cook said, the record is about that very 2026 sensation of there being “so much, almost too much.”

Speaking of! Taylor Swift wrote an original song for Toy Story 5—”I Knew It, I Knew You,” with Jack Antonoff, naturally. It’s a country-leaning number sung from inside the felt heart of Jessie the cowgirl. It’s out Friday, the movie’s out 6/19, and we have already pre-cried.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the music headlines in a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Paul McCartney, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Taylor Swift said to listen, which means we don’t really have a choice, do we.

• Violet Grohl, Be Sweet To Me. Yes, she’s a nepo baby but she’s also genuinely original, and a rock resurgence is a rock resurgence.

• Kelela, “Point Blank.” Built on drum 'n' bass and UK garage, it's the minimalist soundtrack to realizing no amount of care is going to fix him.

• Fana Hues, “Recognize.” While you wait for Phoebe Bridgers to come back, Fana Hues is holding it down in exactly the right wheelhouse.

• Blood Orange, “Essex_Honey.mp3” (feat. Sky Ferreira). Two IYKYK artists in one track is either a gift or a flex, and honestly it’s both.

• Ariana Grande, “Hate That I Made You Love Me.” An Eternal Sunshine outtake, apparently, except it's about her fans and she’s sorry we’re like this.

• Rayvn Lenae, “Handle.” Warning: this chorus will take up permanent residence in your brain.

• Black Marble, “Jim Carol New Year.” Like Bleachers, but more interesting and with significantly less Springsteen cosplay.

• Keo, “That’s Me.” The British band making the most compelling case for rock’s comeback that we’ve heard in a while.

• ROLE MODEL, “High Hopes 3000.” This is just The Georgia Satellite’s “Keep Your Hands To Yourself” remade for 2026 and we will not be taking questions.

• Vince Staples, “Cotton.” Simple production, a solid piano track, and a Vince verse that makes it a crowd pleaser for basically everyone. Rare!

• aespa & Becky G, “LEMONADE.” Pure pavement-pounding pop built for a gorgeous summer day when you need the aux cord to carry you.

• Big Thief debuted three songs (“Carry,” “Forgive the Dream,” “Space and Time”) in a gorgeous outdoor acoustic set. No production, no frills, no notes.

🎤 Live:

• Phoebe Bridgers is at it again, playing a pop-up show at the small, intimate listening room known as Madison Square Garden.

• American Football announced a tour running June through December. The emo band behind your college ex’s entire personality is coming to a city near you.

• Jenny Lewis plays the Hollywood Bowl 7/10–7/12 for three nights of Wes Anderson film music alongside Beck, Jackson Browne, and Mark Mothersbaugh — which sounds like a Mad Libs filled out by a vintage cardigan.

• Janet Jackson is doing a UK show this summer with Wyclef Jean, and we’re not saying you should book a flight, but we’re not not saying it either.

• Riot Fest returns to Chicago 9/18–9/20 with Tool, Alanis Morissette, Bright Eyes, Pixies, The Beths, & more: a lineup that covers every phase of your emotional development from ages 12 to 35.

• Making Time runs 9/18–9/20 in Philly with Kim Gordon, Bicep, Daphni, & more. Basically one of the best indie electronic festivals in the country.

• Portola Fest hits San Francisco 9/26–9/27 with Robyn, Fatboy Slim, Tove Lo, Swedish House Mafia, Melanie C on the decks, & more. Clear your schedule, hydrate, and make your peace with dancing alone in a crowd of thousands.

• Snail Mail & Soccer Mommy are co-headlining together in October, a pairing so perfectly calibrated for a certain kind of listener (hello!) that it feels personal.

• Julia Jacklin is touring November through March, which is the correct amount of time to spend in a dark room with her music.

• Gracie Abrams announced a global tour from December to May behind her new album Daughter from Hell, a title that doubles as what our parents called us sophomore year.

💀 Laugh:

• The Highwomen have made country music considerably gayer, and we mean that as the highest possible compliment.

• Brandi Carlile has been tapped for a Peloton series, which is great news for your cardiovascular health and terrible news for your emotional composure.

• Flo Rida has his own chatbot called FloGPT, a sentence that contains multitudes and raises questions we are not prepared to answer.

• President Trump calls those who dropped out of Freedom 250 Concert Series “third rate artists” and might carry the show himself: “The man who gets larger audiences than Elvis.” God bless America.

• Susan Boyle has been dropping dramatic comeback hints, which means she’s either releasing an album or she just learned what a finsta is.

💕 Love:

• Dua Lipa took over Google Maps to share her favorite bars and restaurants, which is the most parasocial thing to happen to us this year and we are completely fine with it. (Yes, she also got married to Callum Turner!)

• Olivia Rodrigo was spotted raving with Charli xcx, which is either a friendship origin story or the best album collab setup we’ve ever seen.

• Shania Twain is getting a biopic, which means we’re one step closer to a full theatrical recreation of the “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” and honestly that’s all we’ve ever wanted.

• Happy Joanna Newsom Day to all who celebrate, including and perhaps especially husband Andy Samberg. Well done, Nevada City, CA!

• Fiona Apple co-wrote a song on Cara Delevingne’s debut album, aka the collab your therapist warned you about.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI: Scooter Braun sat down with Suzy Weiss on the “Second Thought” podcast and whether you know him as the guy who discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube, the villain of the Taylor Swift masters saga, or simply as Sydney Sweeney’s new boyfriend, this is a genuinely fascinating listen.
  
  On the Taylor situation specifically, he says he met her three times, never had a real conversation with her, spent $300 million buying Big Machine partly because he was excited to work with her, and still frames the whole thing as something he never fully understood. For $300 million and zero clarity, we’d at least want a moon rock or the Wu-Tang album Martin Shkreli bought.
  
  Whether Braun is the villain, the fall guy, or just a man who accidentally bought himself a timeshare in Swiftie hell, he makes for a compelling interview because even if he’s been out of the music industry for a few years now, he helped build the modern version of it, back when breaking an artist on YouTube still sounded like witchcraft and not a label meeting agenda item.
  
  He also talks Kanye, whom he once managed, describing the genius before the fallout became deeply upsetting; Live Nation, which he argues is not evil so much as an exceptional company that got big enough to make Congress remember concerts exist; and the personal unraveling that changed his life. did her homework, pushed where it mattered, and got him to actually open up. Worth your time.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Beg For Me (Remix),” by Lily Allen, JADE

• “Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby,” by Cigarettes After Sex

• “Fire It Up,” by Rick James

• “R.I.P Peace,” by Liim

• “Eastside Girls,” by MUNA

• “Lucid,” by Halsey

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentions: Busta Rhymes, Future Islands, Brandi Carlile, Mike D, Charli xcx, Ellie Goulding, Neil Young, The Chicks, My Chemical Romance, Ozzy Osbourne, & more.

Oh Hey!

We’re back. Last week, it was the Academy of Country Music Awards. This week, the American Music Awards, and say what you will about them, but you cannot accuse them of shrinking quietly into the night.

Dick Clark created the AMAs in 1974 as a counterweight to the Grammys: more populist, more performative, less gatekeeper-y. Fifty-two editions later, the mission is technically the same while the execution is... a lot.

The show wrapped its latest edition with a pile of performers and an awards list that appears to have been assembled by someone yelling “more categories!” into a conference room. KATSEYE, Teddy Swims, Teyana Taylor, Billy Idol, Keith Urban, and New Kids on the Block were all on the bill, making the whole thing feel less like an awards show and more like a Spotify playlist accidentally sorted by emotional availability.

The AMAs have always occupied a strange place in the music ecosystem: not prestigious enough to be the Grammys, not unserious enough to be pure fan service, and not quite chaotic enough to become appointment viewing by accident.

This year, they seemed determined to solve that problem by simply getting bigger. The show expanded from 37 awards to 50, adding breakthrough categories, Americana/Folk, Song of the Summer, Throwback Song, Vocal Performance, and enough genre-specific prizes to make you wonder whether every artist in attendance left with a Millennial-grade participation trophy and tote bag.

Maybe that was the point. In 2026, relevance isn’t about authority. It’s about staying visible long enough to be clipped, streamed, reposted, argued over, and turned into a stan war by brunch. The AMAs may not have told us what music matters most. But they did tell us what the music industry thinks might still get people to watch live TV.

But then they reunited the Pussycat Dolls — with Busta Rhymes?! — and all was forgiven.

Keep on keepin’ on, AMAs.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the music headlines in a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Future Islands, From a Hole in the Floor to a Fountain of Youth. The band went into the vault — deep cuts, rarities, live tracks — and came out with an album that sounds like it has been through three breakups and a weather event.

• Bleachers, everyone for ten minutes. You’re here for Springsteen-sized yearning and Jack Antonoff’s deep, slightly monotone group-chat confessions.

• Lola Young, “From Down Here.” Lola Young once again sounds like she is singing from the emotional basement, and somehow the acoustics are incredible.

• Brandi Carlile, “Life On The Run.” Brandi remains incapable of making anything that doesn’t sound like the final scene of a very good movie.

• Father John Misty, “The Payoff.” Father John Misty returns with a vibey folk rock song that also sounds like a tax problem.

• CORNELIUS, “AEONS” feat. Sean Ono Lennon. This smooth song sounds exactly like something you would find in a record store and pretend you already knew about.

• Mike D, “What We Got.” Mike D (Beastie Boys) has returned to remind everyone that some simply have lifelong permission to be cooler than you.

• The Darkness, “Masters of the Universe.” The Darkness continue their commitment to making songs that sound like flaming guitar solos on a motorcycle.

• Jungle, “The Wave.” Summer has decided it’s coming. You don't have to agree, but you can dance.

• Meg Stalter, “Prettiest Girl in America.” Yes, she’s from Hacks. Being one of the funniest people around was not enough so now she is making music too. Sure!

• Charli xcx, “SS26.” So chill it will be on one Editor’s rotation all summer.

• Big Freedia & SOPHIE, “Blaze That Ass.” A title so subtle it practically arrived wearing a monocle. Big Freedia and SOPHIE (RIP) are not here to whisper.

• Olivia Rodrigo, “The Cure.” This is fun because you can hear the influences — Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, and just enough ’90s alt-rock cosplay to make it work. Hats off to Olivia.

🎤 Live:

• Zara Larsson, Lola Young, Carly Rae Jepsen, & more hit All Things Go NYC hits 9/26–9/27. Hydrate now. The yearning will be communal.

• KATSEYE’s WILDWORLD TOUR is completely sold out. Sorry, you can’t go. Please enjoy watching the clips filmed from Section 900.

• Ellie Goulding debuted “Black Prada Dress” at Radio 1’s Big Weekend. We've tried very hard to write her off, but this bop will not be denied.

• Neil Young made his first live appearance after canceling his European tour, presumably summoned by the scent of righteous indignation and one very distressed flannel.

• Will Smith, Christina Aguilera, The Roots, & more will headline Philly’s 7/4 “Unity Concert for America,” a lineup that feels less like national healing and more like someone hit shuffle on America’s unresolved issues.

• Flo Rida, Bret Michaels, C+C Music Factory, and Vanilla Ice are among the performers at The Great American State Fair in DC. User discretion is advised.

• The Chicks announced a 20th anniversary tour through the fall for Taking the Long Way — the album that ended their career and then saved it, which is honestly a better arc than most people get.

💀 Laugh:

• My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Yellowcard are soundtracking the Muppets’ Rock ’n’ Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios, confirming what we always suspected: Miss Piggy is Warped Tour-coded.

• Ozzy Osbourne is returning as an AI-powered avatar. Ozzy’s son assured everyone it “is not gonna be fucking lame,” which is exactly what you say when there is still a meaningful chance it could be fucking lame.

• Pearl Jam have announced a new “mystery” drummer, because apparently even legacy rock bands are doing masked reveals now.

• Legendary songwriter and musician Linda Perry called Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day) a “little pussy” in a beef nobody asked for and everyone is reading.

• Diplo says DJing his son’s kindergarten graduation was one of his “most important sets.” A crowd young enough to believe “Diplo” is a kind of dinosaur.

• Paul McCartney closed out SNL’s season finale with Will Ferrell on cowbell: a sentence that would have been insane in 1965 and is completely normal now.

💕 Love:

• Rivers Cuomo (Weezer) has a YouTube playlist of him covering Outkast, Dolly Parton, Whitney Houston, & more, titled “randum cuverz.” It is, in fact, random.

• Mick Jagger has joined the film Three Incestuous Sisters with Josh O’Connor, Dakota Johnson, Saoirse Ronan, Jessie Buckley, & Isabella Rossellini. A cast so good it almost makes you forget Mick Jagger is in it.

• Hootie & The Blowfish did a perfect medley at the AMAs and raised the only question that matters: why did we all hate them so much?

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI: Spotify and UMG have decided AI covers are happening whether anyone likes it or not, so they’re building a fenced-in playground where fans can make licensed remixes, artists can get paid, and the music industry can pretend it is not terrified.

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  The new tool will let Spotify Premium users create AI-powered covers and remixes from participating Universal artists and songwriters, with the companies framing the whole thing around consent, credit, and compensation. Artists can choose not to participate, which is good, because not everyone wants their life’s work transformed into “Espresso” but make it medieval taverncore” by a dude from college who just discovered prompts.

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  Still, gear up. Because once this exists, everyone you know is becoming a DJ overnight. Your coworker. Your cousin. The friend who already says “I made you something” with too much confidence. The guy who owns one turntable and calls every dinner party a “set.” They are all about to be given a legally sanctioned remix button, and we are simply not ready.

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  The official pitch is that this creates a new revenue stream for artists and songwriters. It also creates a new category of group chat chaos, because the first time someone sends you a Taylor Swift song “in the style of late-stage Daft Punk meets Gregorian chant,” you will have no choice but to say, “wow, this is really something.”

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Middle of Nowhere,” by Kacey Musgraves

• “Round Of Applause At The End Of The World,” by Wild Pink

• “Don’t Play That Song,” by Aretha Franklin

• “Are You That Somebody?” by Aaliyah

• “Kids in America,” by Kim Wilde

• “Exhilaration,” by The Dare

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentioned: Gracie Abrams, Billie Joe Armstrong, Drake Milligan, Drake, Rostam, Harry Styles, Aqua, Miranda Lambert, MUNA, Kevin Morby, The Chicks, & more.

Hello!

This week, the cultural radio dial belongs to Ella Langley. The 27-year-old walked out of the Academy of Country Music Awards holding seven trophies—a record—including Artist-Songwriter of the Year. And if you’re still catching up on her, the only description you need is one I am thrilled to type: Gen-Z Reba. Start with the heartbreak ballad “Choosin’ Texas.” There’s a steel guitar weeping all over it, the slow dawning of a love gone wrong, and Miranda Lambert. Speaking of, do yourself a favor and watch them absolutely rip up “Kerosene” from last year’s ACMs. You are so welcome.

I first heard Langley as the guest hook on “Hell at Night” by the Texas rapper BigXthaPlug. Her voice—soulful, bluesy, grown—holds down BigX’s gravelly boom wherein he basically just catalogues all the tiny, beautifully mundane misfortunes he hopes befall his ex. “I hope you turn your heater on and it blows cold.” I love this guy. How soon can he meet Natalie Maines? We’ll pack a lunch!

Langley has a new duet with Morgan Wallen, “I Can’t Love You Anymore.” Now, some of you might avoid Wallen the way you’d avoid a warm, pre-chewed wad of gum on an August sidewalk. To those people, I have bad news. This is a dang-near flawless ‘80s country slow groove that will fully colonize your brain.

It’s still early to call it for Song of the Summer, though. The heavyweights are still climbing into the ring. Drake, Ariana Grande, Olivia Rodrigo, Slayyyter, Kateseye, Noah Kahan, and old Somb-y. But staying in country for a sec, last weekend, I went to see Drake Milligan open his U.S. tour beneath the glittering disco-ball cowboy boots of Desert 5 Spot. The set had everything you could want from a country show: dynamic, swaggering, and I left thinking, “Man, I really need to listen to more Merle Haggard.” And so do you.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the music headlines in a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Rostam, American Stories. Tasteful, meditative, beautifully produced. We'll always show up for Rostam, even if this one's better suited for a Sunday morning than a Friday night.

• Drake, Iceman, Maid of Honour, & Habibti. Obligatory mention! He dropped three albums at once (43 songs, 2.5 hours!!), became Spotify's most-streamed artist in a single day in 2026, and somehow still found time to re-litigate the Kendrick beef. Unwell behavior, very on brand.

• Kevin Morby, Little Wide Open. A love letter to the Midwest, produced by Aaron Dessner, and critics are losing their minds over it. Tornado sirens, cicadas, and all.

• Porches, Mask. Recorded on four-track in his basement, and it shows in the best way. We’d describe as unvarnished and a little hungover.

• Gracie Abrams, “Hit the Wall.” The lead single off her upcoming album Daughter from Hell is a devastating Aaron Dessner-produced gut punch.

• GIVĒON, “JEZEBEL.” If you like your R&B deep, smooth, and a little dramatic, this one's got just enough bounce to make it a great entry point.

• Mollie Elizabeth, “Run Rabbit.” Whimsy on the surface, childhood trauma underneath, it’s the TikTok-viral dark fairytale pop you didn't know you needed.

• STELLA LEFTY & Vincent Mason, “Something To Lose.” Two of country’s fastest-rising stars link up. It’s warm and just twangy enough. We are into it.

🎤 Live:

• Way Out West fest keeps stacking the bill (The Cure, Blood Orange, Ravyn Lenae, Wilco, Zara Larsson, The Hives, & more). We’d go to Sweden in August for a lot less than this.

• Capitol Hill Block Party is bringing MUNA, Tinashe (DJ set), Parcels, & Wet Leg to Seattle in early August, and that’s a pretty great reason to have friends in the Pacific Northwest.

• Billie Joe Armstrong’s (Green Day) punk side project Pinhead Gunpowder just announced a fall tour.

• Corona Capital Mexico City has a solid lineup for its November fest: Gorillaz, CHVRCHES, Twenty One Pilots, The Offspring, Lola Young, & more.

• Angine de Poitrine, a viral French-Canadian math rock duo in polka-dotted costumes who perform in an alien language just added more tour dates:

💀 Laugh:

• Shakira has been acquitted of tax fraud in Spain and will be reimbursed $64 million. The hips don’t lie, and apparently neither did the tax returns.

• Here's everyone Drake dissed on Iceman — Kendrick, Jay-Z, J. Cole, Dr. Dre, & more — a benevolent king, he is not.

💕 Love:

• Harry Styles redesigns his tour floor plan because fans complained — a benevolent king, he is.

• Legendary recording engineer Russell Elevado (D’Angelo, Erykah Badu) takes over Devon Turnbull's HiFi listening room installation at Cooper Hewitt in NYC for a listening session. So, sit down, shut up, and let the sound system do the talking.

• thnks fr th mmrs: Aqua, architects of one of the most unhinged pop songs ever made, have called it quits after 30 years. They gave us “Barbie Girl” and honestly that's a lifetime of work. We respect it.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• The Library of Congress Enters Its Main Character Era: The Library of Congress announced its 2026 National Recording Registry inductees, and history now officially includes Taylor Swift’s 1989, Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies,” Weezer’s Blue Album, “Feliz Navidad,” and the 1993 Doom (video game??) soundtrack — which feels less like a preservation list and more like someone’s old iPod got subpoenaed by Congress.

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  The take: this is the first class that truly understands America as it exists in the wild — crying to Vince Gill, yelling “uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh” at a wedding, letting “Buddy Holly” radicalize you in middle school, and pretending you are above “Shake It Off” until the chorus hits and your body betrays you.

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  “Single Ladies” being preserved by the federal government feels correct. That video did more for hand choreography, commitment discourse, and black leotard sales than most legislation. Meanwhile, 1989 entering the archive means future generations will know that yes, in 2014, America briefly organized itself around crop tops, Polaroids, and pretending “Style” wasn’t about Harry Styles.

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  The Registry’s mission is to preserve recordings that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” and nothing says cultural significance like the nation finally admitting that the Doom soundtrack and Beyoncé belong in the same civic vault. The winners are gamers, Swifties, Beyhive members, Weezer guys, and every grocery store speaker system that treats “Feliz Navidad” like a hostage situation with maracas.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Jeep,” by Kim Petras

• “Stem the Flow,” by Paris Paloma

• “One Note Samba,” by Antonio Carlos Jobim & Frank Sinatra

• “Big Time Nothing,” by St. Vincent

• “Commander,” by Kelly Rowland & David Guetta

• “What You Want (Fcuckers Remix),” by Angele, Justice, Fcukers

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

🎁 BONUS! Catch Slayyyter’s first late night performance on Jimmy Fallon (in a beercan bralette. On NBC. We love to see it.). She hails from St. Louis, this Editor hails from the Midwest, and together we are out here THRIVING despite the lack of mountains or general cultural acknowledgment. Go off, girl. This one's for the flyover states. 🌽

Play On!

Mentioned: Lykke Li, Shania Twain, Tove Lo, Santana, The Prodigy, Kylie Minogue, HAIM, Oasis, Phoebe Bridgers, Matty Healy, Bo Burnham, & more.

Hey! Hi! Hello!

Following suit from last week’s intro note, no sooner had that newsletter hit inboxes than your Editor received another mysterious text from an artist: this time, Lykke Li. At this point, my phone is basically a haunted jukebox with push notifications.

With her new album The Afterparty dropping, she was enticing NYC fans to RSVP to a “pregame party” performance. The catch? Only 70 people got in. Somehow, despite my epic loss at 7-Minutes in Heaven with Charli xcx the week prior, I was quick enough to secure my spot. Healing is possible.

A wild choice: Lykke Li gave no one a plus-one. Fans were left to meet fans in the wild, chatting about how long we’d been listening and that she is a fascinating case study… Is she in the Khia asylum, or is she too indie for admission? Your Editors are indecisive Libras born on the same day — don’t look to us for answers!

Upon arrival at the small basement in a Dimes Square wine bar, I asked the bartender what they knew: Lykke Li would go on in an hour. That's journalism, y'all.

As the woman of the hour descended the stairs, all 70 of us settled in for an energetic, deeply intimate set of hits and select new songs. She talked, laughed, and looked genuinely moved when we sang everything back to her. True to her word, she had us out within 60 minutes to carry on with our lives, which is frankly more respectful of people’s time than most corporate off-sites and all weddings.

This should be the new norm. She didn't just give fans access, she removed every excuse not to actually show up as one. No plus-ones, no buffer people, 70 strangers in a basement. You had to just be a fan. Now, I’ve been listening to the The Afterparty on repeat and have new pals who are reading this very newsletter. Hello, basement people!

Trust those vague texts from your favorite artist. Realize there are others who have loved your artist for well over a decade and genuinely cannot explain why she isn’t bigger, except perhaps that being emotionally devastated in a tasteful Swedish way is still somehow considered “niche.” That, and she is the soundtrack for the most pivotal scene in film today.

And the breaking news of the night: Lykke Li said The Afterparty is definitely not her last album!

And if you haven’t listened yet? Do. It is very good.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the week’s music headlines in a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• MUNA, Dancing on the Wall. New album, new tour, new reason to text irresponsibly.

• The Rolling Stones, “In the Stars” / Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr, “Home to Us.” Rock history is still clocking in.

• Babehoven, “Blue Around You.” A weighted indie blanket with fiddles.

• The Mountain Goats, “Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds.” New folk music for people who remember the phrase “winning.”

• Shania Twain, “Dirty Rosie.” Do not mess with Shania’s truck!

• Tove Lo, “I’m your girl right?” A perfect buzz with high production value.

• Charli xcx, “Rock Music” / b-side “i keep on thinking bout you every single day and night.” Our take: The b-side is better!

• Harmony Tividad, “Mulholland Drive.” The music video is directed by Terrence O’Connor, so naturally it looks like a feeling you can’t quite explain.

🎤 Live:

• Olivia Rodrigo announced tour dates spanning fall to spring. The venues will be loud. You will feel old. It will be great.

• Deep Purple, Journey, Roger Daltrey (The Who), and Santana are all on tour, which means your dad is having the best summer and no one is safe from hearing about it.

• The Prodigy return to NYC after 17 years at Under the K Bridge on 9/25.

• FIFA books Madonna, Shakira and BTS for the World Cup Halftime Show, completing a lineup your algorithm assembled in 2019.

💀 Laugh:

• Dua Lipa is suing Samsung for $15 million for allegedly using her face to sell TVs without permission. Good for her. She is not your QLED girlie.

• A Weird Al Yankovic musical is coming to Broadway. Let it run forever.

• Oasis and Disney are partnering on a reunion tour doc, which means the Gallagher brothers are officially Marvel-universe-level IP. Somehow, perfect.

• Breaking, via USA Today:

💕 Love:

• Este Haim and Zachary Dawes are taking care of the music for the film Sunny Dancer. HAIM was the conduit for everyone's Oscar, now the eldest sister is coming for her own piece of cinema.

• Kylie Minogue has a Netflix doc coming out 5/20. Umm, how is it 2026 and this sacred gay text did not already exist?

• Phoebe Bridgers is playing secret pop-up shows at UFO destinations, which absolutely tracks. Rumor has it the new songs are “very sad folk.” You don’t say?

  • Recent photos place her with Jack Antonoff, Matty Healy, Christian Lee Hutson, Bo Burnham, and Alex G, aka an album announcement, a group therapy intake form, or a hostage situation.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “BRAND NEW BITCH,” by Cobrah

• “Good Thing,” by Fine Young Cannibals

• “Symptomatic,” by SKATERS

• “Right Place Wrong Time,” by Dr. John

• “Bags - Recorded at Electric Lady Studios,” by Clairo

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentioned: Charli xcx, Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert, SZA, Kurt Vile, Mel C, RÜFÜS DU SOL, Mary J. Blige, The Go-Go’s, Aaliyah, Fred Again.., The Replacements, & more.

Hi! Hi! Hi!

Last week, we posted a funny little video of an up-and-coming artist playing the tiny Pete’s Candy Store, where, naturally, Olivia Rodrigo casually sat in afterward for a surprise stripped-down set. The artist, Industry Monk/Zach Kennedy, rightfully rode the clip into virality. Apparently, pop stars have decided the new flex is not bigger, but closer. Kacey Musgraves had been playing small shows leading up to her new album release and even staged a replica of her childhood home for fans to walk through, because why simply promote an album when you can invite everyone into the memory palace? Less “stadium spectacle,” more “pop star materializes in a room you could have theoretically walked to.” Maybe the new luxury in pop isn’t access; it’s proximity.

Then on Saturday, your No. 1 Charli xcx fan editor received a mysterious text.

With nothing else on the calendar and the mystery location due north, I set off to investigate. The destination turned out to be Big Mercy Sound, a recording studio Taylor Swift used for The Tortured Poets Department, because apparently even scavenger hunts now come with lore.

After checking in, we queued for about an hour to see whether we’d be randomly selected for one of 20 spots: a private, one-on-one conversation with Charli.

There were maybe 250 hopefuls. Tragically, your editor was not chosen. I remain brave.

From what I gathered, each person got about seven minutes with Charli to talk about whatever they wanted: mostly “making things” and the creative process. The event sounded less like a meet-and-greet and more like creative therapy with an artist who has seen every corner of pop life: the cult devotion, the industry grind, the near-misses, and finally, the massive, world-bending breakthrough of Brat. Yes, Charli had hits before Brat (we are not doing revisionist history here) but Brat was the Big One.

I went to enough journalism school to know better than to call a few pop happenings a trend. But between Olivia popping up at Pete’s, Kacey inviting fans into a replica of her childhood home, and Charli staging a tiny fan-and-artist confessional, it did feel like a little flare from the universe: the internet may be where fandom gets loud, but real life is where it gets weird and sweet.

And even without my seven minutes in Charli heaven, the best part was the line. I met fans who knew every reference, every era, every tiny piece of lore. The vibe was very “friend of a friend who would absolutely become your friend.” A little scene. A little chosen family. A little pop-girl group therapy.

Maybe that sounds obvious, but fandom can feel strangely siloed now: loud online, lonely in practice. And at least as a New Yorker, we take perverse pride in knowing absolutely nothing about the people standing inches away from us at all times. The Charli line was a nice reminder that liking the same thing as someone else is still a perfectly good reason to start a conversation.

So at the next show, say hi to the person standing next to you. Ask what song they’re hoping to hear. Compliment the merch. Trade lore. It will be good for you, I promise.

You might just discover that deep down, we’re all 365 party girls waiting to hang.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the headlines in a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Kacey Musgraves dropped Middle of Nowhere. Willie Nelson, Billy Strings, and Miranda Lambert duet on “Horses and Divorces,” which we hope is about the shitty dive bar on Bedford Ave.

• Isaiah Rashad and SZA reunite on “BOY IN RED.”

• Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter’s “Bring Your Love” is officially out. Madonna’s album Confessions II lands 7/3. Happy goddamn 250th, America.

• American Football released LP4. Twinkly guitars and asking your wife to settle the paperwork.

• Mick, Keith and Ronnie (The Rolling Stones) launched Foreign Tongues (out 7/10) with Conan O’Brien in Brooklyn. Conan: “After years of toiling in obscurity… this is their time.”

• Kurt Vile drops the single “Zoom 97.” Perfect end of the night tune.

• Mel C, the artist formerly known as Sporty Spice, dropped Sweat and the single “Drum Machine.”

🎤 Live:

• All Things Go Fest in Columbia, MD announced its September lineup, featuring Mitski, Hayley Williams, Brandi Carlile, Father John Misty, Slayyyter, and more.

  • And for anyone with a twee cardigan in storage: She & Him are playing the fest, their first live show in 4 years — as if Zooey Deschanel saw the bat signal and grabbed her ukulele.

• Paula Cole added more fall dates to her 30th Anniversary Tour for her iconic album This Fire.

• Mary J. Blige extends her Las Vegas Residency Shows into the fall.

• Austin City Limits dropped its 2026 lineup for October, and it is very much doing the thing: Charli xcx, Lorde, Twenty One Pilots, RÜFÜS DU SOL, The xx, plus Skrillex for Weekend 1 and Kings of Leon for Weekend 2.

• Iron Blossom Festival returns to Richmond, VA this September with LCD Soundsystem, Jack White, Dijon, Phantogram, and more on the bill.

• Stevie Nicks and Sabrina Carpenter duetted on “Landslide” inside the Temple of Dendur. Stevie, 77, turned to Sabrina, 26, after the last line and said, “I don’t know… we don’t know.” Excuse us while we go lie on the floor.

💀 Laugh:

• North West, 12, released her debut EP N0rth4evr. Rolling Stone gave it 4/5 stars. Nearly the same her father earned for Yeezus and Life of Pablo. Who says music journalists don’t have a sense of humor?

• Diplo told the WSJ Future of Everything Festival that the future of going out is “experiences, not drinking.” Bold claim from a man whose music has personally given me alcohol poisoning.

• Ray Dalio loves New Orleans Jazz Fest. Meanwhile, Trombone Shorty is finalizing his Davos panel.

💕 Love:

• The Go-Go’s Gina Schock gets the exhibition treatment in an immersive look at women in rock history. The ‘80s pics!! On view in San Francisco through 5/17.

• New information to us: Aaliyah was a Nine Inch Nails fan. We… love… that!

• Taylor Swift negotiated a clause requiring UMG (her label) to share Spotify stock-sale proceeds with its artists. Now that the label is selling half its stake, her fine print could mean millions for Universal artists. Icon behavior, contractually.

• Fred again.. uploaded a 108-hour video of every set from his USB002 tour. He says it’s “the longest video on YouTube ever?” with a question mark, which we admire.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• Concert Review: Maya Hawke played a small, sold-out Bowery Ballroom show on Saturday, 5/2, the kind she described as a friends-and-family affair, and reader, the family showed up. Uma Thurman was there, working the balcony like the mayor of the ballroom. Maya’s brother was there too, lovingly heckling from the crowd. To be clear: the nepo baby credentials were not in question. Sadly, for my eyeballs and general morale, Ethan Hawke was nowhere to be found.

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  The show marked the final stop on Hawke’s tour behind her fourth album, Maitreya Corso, which had come out roughly 24 hours earlier, meaning most of us had approximately one business day to learn 99% of the setlist. The performance itself was lovely and loose: an acoustically stripped-down set with her husband/producer/collaborator Christian Lee Hutson, lots of funny song backstories, and a very warm room.

  

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  But here’s where things got interesting: she didn’t play “Missing Out,” one of her best-known songs, because she said it was too hard to sing every night on tour. Which… fair, technically. But also: this was the last stop. It was a big hometown-ish, family-filled, sold-out show. And then she proceeded to sing the chorus a cappella, which seemed like the hardest part anyway. So naturally, one had to wonder: Maya, my girl, why not just give us the whole song?
  

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  She’s a nepo baby who can write, play, and sing, which is its own category of unfair, but skipping one of the few songs people came in already knowing, on the last night of the tour, in front of your mom? Bold choice. I left charmed, entertained, and just a little bit personally victimized by the absence of “Missing Out.”

• Side Quest: Billie Eilish’s concert film, Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour, hits theaters this week, and to promote it she dropped by Amy Poehler’s "Good Hang." A delight, as ever. But those of us who identify as Survivor fiends were listening like hungry raccoons, scrabbling for any scraps about Season 50. Specifically the cursed monolith known as the “Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol.” Here’s the thing. I am not asking anyone to learn what a Billie Eilish Boomerang Idol is. INCLUDING BILLIE! I just wish she’d summoned her inner Rick Devens and, you know, faked it! For the fans. For the greater good. Instead, when Amy asked about Survivor, Billie minimized the whole thing and looked deeply uncomfortable. Fine. Maybe you didn't ask for this. Maybe, as friend of this newsletter and Professor Christian Hubicki, Casey Epstein-Gross posited, you are “definitely not watching this season.” But heavy is the head, Billie. Plus. THERE WAS PRECEDENT! Julia Louis-Dreyfus went on “Good Hang” and brought up, of her own free will, how much she loves Survivor. Where’s my Elaine Benes Little Kicks Immunity Challenge?? Eh, two eps to go. Still a chance.

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Lovefool,” by Colatura

• “Everything In Its Right Place,” by Gigamesh, Elohim, Thomas Adagio

• “Can’t Hardly Wait,” by The Replacements

• “21st Century Cool Girl,” by Chloe Qisha

• “Head On,” by Ducks Ltd., Illuminati Hotties

• “I Can’t Stand to See You,” by Horsegirl

• “Everytime You Touch Me (Love So High),” by Moby, KING BOOO!

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentioned: Olivia Rodrigo, Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Nile Rodgers, REM, Adrianne Lenker, Jeff Tweedy, Noah Kahan, Lucy Dacus, Feist, Fred Armisen, Jewel, Hurray For The Riff Raff, and more.

Hello!

This week, Olivia Rodrigo sailed straight to Number One with the instant-classic “Drop Dead,” so naturally it’s the week Taylor Swift is the spiritual centerfold and cover star of The New York Times Magazine’s splashy 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters package. Olivia did not make the list. (David Byrne voted for her, bless him.)

The package itself: an unranked list, compiled from feedback from more than 250 music-industry insiders and then hashed out among six NYT critics. The framing was deliberately narrow — contemporary practitioners working in the ever-evolving tradition of the great American songbook — but the tent ended up gloriously wide, stretching from Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Carole King to Mariah Carey, Missy Elliott, Young Thug, Kendrick Lamar and Bad Bunny, with stops at Fiona Apple, Lana Del Rey, Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Diane Warren, Nile Rodgers, Jay-Z and, yes, Taylor.

Several of the honorees sat for video interviews about how they actually DO this thing. We loved Jay-Z on the lessons Biggie taught him; Rodgers on rewriting the same song eight, nine, ten times before he’ll let it out the door; and Taylor recalling the random audio technician who happened to record the incoherent ranting of a heartbroken twentysomething that would become our national anthem. Lost hero, come forward! Anytime Swift wants to talk about “All Too Well” (10 min. version) again, I am posted up like my cat by his food bowl, eternally hungry for the same story I have already heard 400 times.

In a few weeks, Swift will also be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, which is the best industry event of the year. It’s the kind of award only artists care about, which is exactly why it rules: an incredibly emotional, deeply nerdy, wildly ADD night where you could be watching the first REM reunion in 15 years one minute and a Timbaland medley the next, having the unprompted epiphany that you do not listen to enough Magoo. Then you, impulsively, with one swipe, add his entire discography to your gym playlist, where you will encounter him for years afterward like an invasive plant. Across the room, Carrie Underwood is inexplicably alone at her table, thinking the same thing.

Okay. So. The list. Lots of rage bait — even though the thing is unranked! — but the REAL juice was buried in the methodology tab, where they published a chunk of the actual ballots from the artists and industry insiders they polled.

Reader, this is far more interesting than the list itself. Part of what makes the ballots fun is that you get a much wider, more honest scope of names — musicians lifting up their heroes, descendants, and peers into the credibility wheel they all pretend to despise.

Highlights include:

1. Diane Warren listed alongside Dylan, Jay-Z, and Carole King: AS SHE DAMN WELL SHOULD BE. (Shout-out Desmond Child for putting her on his ballot.)

2. Dua Lipa’s only pick? Patti Smith. Hell yes.

3. Lots of love for Jimmy Webb (whose biography is excellent BTW even if you have no idea who the hell he is), Joanna Newsom, and Adrianne Lenker.

4. Justin Vernon’s (Bon Iver) ballot did a lot of heavy lifting, writing in Danielle Haim, Paul Westerberg, and Dijon.

5. Jeff Parker of Tortoise wrote in Solange and Donald Fagen. Corin Tucker shined her light on Sharon Van Etten and Mitski. Darryl “DMC” McDaniels wrote in Beck and Linda Perry. Finneas — who, FOR THE RECORD, should have been on the list — gave props to Ben Folds.

And Jeff Tweedy wrote in Jeff Tweedy, which we are generously choosing to interpret as a clerical error.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the headlines in a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Noah Kahan is back with The Great Divide. Prepare your flannels accordingly.

• Shaboozey’s “Born to Die” is good, pure, boot-stompin’ country.

• Finn Wolfhard’s “I’ll Let You Finish” is pretty decent! The Stranger Things cast remains weirdly good at the music thing. (Hello Djo & Maya Hawke!)

• MUSE dropped “Cryogen,” a heavily guitarred and drummed affair.

• Death Cab for Cutie’s “Punching the Flowers” sounds like a therapy breakthrough with a gardening problem. Typical Death Cab, honestly.

• Beach Bunny teamed up with legends Aly & AJ for “Clueless.”

• Foo Fighters return with the single, “Window.” We approve.

• Lucy Dacus released “Planting Tomatoes,” officially launching sad girl farmers market season.

• Duran Duran & Nile Rodgers dropped “Free to Love.” Chic behavior, literally!

• Yung Lean stars in GENER8ION’s “STORM” double-single and video. The choreographed schoolboy thing works, the song rips, and that breakdown at [4:39] is perfection.

🎤 Live:

• Sleater-Kinney and Liz Phair are touring together throughout September. Love.

• Taking Back Sunday, Thrice, and Saves the Day are hitting the road for a while! Your 2004 away message just screamed.

• LCD Soundsystem and Feist are headed out together for a few dates. Your coolest friend’s coolest friend already has tickets.

• Suki Waterhouse announced her vibey summer to fall tour.

• Fred Armisen is touring Comedy for Musicians But Everyone Is Welcome. Finally, a safe space for drummers and the people who love them.

• Hayley Williams is expanding her tour, announcing she’ll be playing extremely cool-ass venues like Hollywood Bowl (LA) and Forest Hills Stadium (NYC).

• New York’s Central Park SummerStage announced its 2026 concert schedule: Laurie Anderson, Mavis Staples, De La Soul, Spoon, Horsegirl, and more. Time to romanticize sweating outdoors with strangers!

💀 Laugh:

• Taylor Swift says fans can take things to an “extreme place” when trying to decipher who her songs are about. Girl… you left us breadcrumbs, a compass, and a limited-edition vinyl variant.

• Live Nation unveiled a $30 summer concert series ticket. Are we being scammed by the scammiest scammers who ever scammed? Respectfully asking.

• A sports reporter. The New England Patriots head coach. An alleged affair. A terrible Spotify playlist entered into evidence. Fine, we’re apparently paying attention to sports now.

• This guy apparently didn’t realize he was opening for Olivia Rodrigo at a tiny NYC venue:

💕 Love:

• Ariana Grande confirmed a new album is coming in July. The album cycle is about to… defy gravity.

• Madonna is using Grindr as a marketing tool. The lady knows her audience.

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI, Geese is Supposedly a Psyop: Music is having its biggest conversation in a minute about what “organic” hype actually means in the TikTok era. This has been all over music discourse this week, and it's worth understanding why. This Wired piece started it by calling out Geese, who you may or may not have heard of depending on how well the algorithm is doing its job, and framing the hype around them as a little too perfectly engineered to make us think they’re cool. This Guardian story looked at the backlash and the digital marketing machinery quietly behind it. The concern isn't that the fandom is fake, it’s that listeners are realizing some breakout moments may be more carefully curated than they appear. Social media makes promotion feel like word-of-mouth, blurring the line between genuine discovery and paid momentum. Basically: turns out “everyone is suddenly talking about this” sometimes has a marketing budget. Sigh. This is why we can't have nice things!

• Side Quest: Finally saw the Lilith Fair documentary (it's on Hulu) in all its glory, and I am a little mad that none of my “friends” alerted me Jewel is wearing an Aerosmith t-shirt in her talking-head interview. If someone wanted to make a voodoo doll of me, this is what it would look like. The film traces the inspiring, uphill, utopian achievement of conjuring this cultural gem out of nothing, and you spend two hours feeling infuriated about how far we have backslid as a society, angrily putting away dishes at midnight to “Building a Mystery.” (Honestly: just a normal night.) The best thing a music doc can do is jog your memory of all the incredible albums you’d half-forgotten by all these amazing artists. Liz Phair, Missy Elliott, Aimee Mann, Erykah Badu, and Fred Durst (kidding; he does make a cameo, but tragically not to perform “Rollin’” with the Indigo Girls).

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Maniac,” by Kid Sistr

• “All I Really Want,” by Alanis Morissette

• “Jealous Guy,” by Donny Hathaway

• “Don’t Delete The Kisses,” by Wolf Alice

• “Amor (feat. CERES),” by Charlotte de Witte

• “The River of Dreams,” by Billy Joel

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!

Mentioned: Beck, Adrianne Lenker, Indigo Girls, Olivia Rodrigo, Fcuckers, Patti Smith, Rosalia, Bright Eyes, Avril Lavigne, Beck, Kim Petras, Lily Allen, and more.

Hi! Hi! Hi!

As another Coachella comes to a close, we’re once again called to have a take, and this year it’s this: why does no one seem capable of dancing and holding their phone at the same time? At Play On, we reject the false binary. You can dance and document!

The latest evidence came during Sabrina Carpenter’s set, when she brought out Madonna for “Like a Prayer” — one of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. One Editor recalls first hearing it on a homemade mixed tape, alongside Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted Snake” and Kylie Minogue’s “The Loco-Motion.” She was five and, needless to say, operating with extraordinary range.

Predictably, the Material Girl was amped, sounded great, and generally served as a useful reminder to the youths that she’s still kickin’ and has new music out soon. So, no, the notable thing somehow wasn’t Madonna or Sabrina. The real headline was the crowd.

Check out Entertainment Tonight’s clip of the moment in question and watch the audience:

@entertainmenttonightSabrina Carpenter helped welcome Madonna back to Coachella after 20 years, with the pair performing "Like a Prayer" together. The last time the Queen of Pop appeared on the musical festival's lineup was on April 30, 2006. (🎥: YouTube / Coachella) #sabrinacarpenter #coachella

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We’re merely observing here, but there is an all-time pop moment unfolding, and the energy around it is about the same vibe as the Sweetgreen pickup counter on weekdays. No judgment, just data. Had it been us, we would’ve filmed the chorus, then snaked our way closer to the front while everyone else remained in a phone-raised trance. We’re fairly confident no one would have noticed.

This is live music now, kids. Either embrace the #Couchella livestream from the comfort of your home, where the camera angles are better and no one’s phone is blocking your view, or use the audience’s zombie state as a tactical opportunity to improve your position mid-set. Choose your fate: 2027 passes go on sale 5/1.

Play On!

— The Editors

(All the headlines distilled into a playlist!)

This Week In Music:

🚨 Releases:

• Olivia Rodrigo is back with the extremely catchy “Drop Dead.” We regret to report she’s done it again.

• Rosalía’s “Focu Ranni” is orchestral and divine. She simply refuses to miss.

• Beck rides in on his white horse with “Ride Lonesome.”

• Kim Petras dropped “Need for Speed” after seriously shading her label. Beautifully efficient behavior.

• Maisie Peters and Julia Michaels’s “Kingmaker” is getting us through the Phoebe Bridgers drought one wistful sigh at a time.

• Failure’s “The Rising Skyline” featuring Hayley Williams is moody, introspective alt-rock catnip.

• Modest Mouse are back with “Picking Dragons’ Pockets.”

• Kacey Musgraves’s “Middle of Nowhere” is the second single from her upcoming album of the same name, and we cannot wait for more.

• Nine Inch Noize from Nine Inch Nails and Boys Noize is intense, industrial, and not here to make your life zen.

• mgk and Fred Durst made “FIX UR FACE.” We just felt you should know.

• Lana Del Rey doing “First Light” for a James Bond video game is not the exact job we pictured for her, but we are listening.

🎤 Live:

• The road is calling: Karol G, Beck, Modest Mouse, Failure, Mac DeMarco, and Bob Dylan are all heading out on tour.

• Bright Eyes is celebrating 21 years of releasing I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning and Digital Ash in a Digital Urn with a handful of special shows. We love this emo anniversary.

• CBGB Festival is coming to NYC with Morrissey, Patti Smith, Interpol, Violet Grohl, and more. Light emotional support candles accordingly.

• The Totally Tubular Festival is bringing 80s night to a city near you with Thomas Dolby, A Flock of Seagulls, The Motels, The Producers, Animotion, The Escape Club, and Tommy Tutone.

• Form Arcosanti’s Arizona lineup is here: Turnstile, Lorde, Geese, Adrianne Lenker, Blood Orange, Fcukers, and more. A chic desert opportunity that isn’t Coachella!

• Noah Kahan did Tiny Desk, which feels spiritually correct:

💀 Laugh:

• Madonna is having a hard time: First, Coachella barely blinked at her cameo, and now her costumes are missing. Respect for elders is in free fall.

• How long until Drake’s Iceman album promo sculpture melts? A quantum physicist weighs in. Journalism is alive and well, everyone.

• Dave Matthews Band is getting praise for green touring, which is lovely, though some of us remember when the band’s tour bus dumped 800 pounds of human waste onto a boat tour in Chicago. Sustainability is a journey!

• Taylor Momsen (The Pretty Reckless) was hospitalized for a spider bite while on tour with AC/DC. This comes two years after being bitten by a bat while also on tour with AC/DC. Girl, that tour be CURSED.

💕 Love:

• Sending love to Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls after she shared a diagnosis affecting her vocal cords, jaw, and diaphragm.

• Phoebe Bridgers is headed to the silver screen in the A24 crime drama Primetime with Robert Pattinson. Sad girls, please report to the multiplex.

• Hayley Williams may or may not appear on Beyoncé’s Act III (rumored rock) album. We have entered the speculation wing of the museum.

• Justin Bieber sang “One Less Lonely Girl” to Bieber-super-fan Billie Eilish at Coachella. Huge day for her!

🌀 Extra, Extra!

• ICYMI: A jury may have recently found Live Nation guilty of operating as an illegal monopoly in the concert business, but sadly our concert tickets are not about to become charmingly affordable. For one, the case is not over: the judge still has to decide what the actual remedy will be — anything from new restrictions to a possible breakup — and Live Nation plans to appeal, because… of course it does. For another, Ticketmaster is only one villain in this cinematic universe. As much as fans love to blame the ticketing platform, artists and their teams often set the face-value prices, and fans keep proving they will pay absolutely unholy amounts anyway. Add in sky-high demand, fees, and a thoroughly broken live music ecosystem, and the result is the same: yes, the system may be rotten, but no, our coveted Harry Styles ticket is not suddenly dropping to $47.

• Opinion: Avril Lavigne recently released a cover of Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” for the movie Mile End Kicks, and it’s so faithful to the original that it raises a fair question: what exactly are we doing here? It’s fine, sure, but if you’re going to cover one of the most instantly recognizable songs of the last 30 years, you should at least bring a little chaos, perspective, or one bizarre choice — a drumline, an orchestra, a gospel choir, something! Otherwise, it’s more a very well-funded karaoke moment. We expected more from you, Avril!

🎧 What’s Playing?

• “Hanging Out To Dry,” by Florence Road

• “Dance Hall Days,” by Wang Chung

• “EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED,” by Tiffany Day

• “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” by Sufjan Stevens

• “Kiss Me,” by MARO

• “Name,” by The Goo Goo Dolls (damn you, Love Story soundtrack!)

Listen to it all right here.

Play On is brought to you by the evil minds of Liz Smith and Sarah “Mad Dog” Grant.

What are you playing this week? Send song screenshots and your blurriest concert pics to readplayon@gmail.com.

Play On!