Classic Hits

Billy Joel’s 2025 didn’t start out so hot. In January, the Piano Man postponed a show in order to have a medical procedure. He did perform two shows in February and continued to announce more concerts for 2025, including co-headlining dates with Sting, Rod Stewart and Stevie Nicks. But issues with his health halted his touring plans.

-Joel announced in March he was postponing shows for four months to allow himself time to recover from recent surgery and to undergo physical therapy under the supervision of his doctors.

-Then in May, Joel canceled all scheduled concert dates after revealing he had been diagnosed with normal pressure hydrocephalus, a disorder in which fluid builds up in the brain. According to a statement, Joel’s brain condition, “exacerbated by recent concert performances,” led to issues with his hearing, vision and balance.

-In an interview on Bill Maher’s Club Random podcast in July, Joel gave fans a health update, saying his condition was “not fixed” and “still being worked on,” but assured fans, “I feel fine.”

-And it wasn’t all bad news for Billy in 2025. In May, a new two-part documentary on the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, Billy Joel: And So It Goes, debuted at the Tribeca Festival.

-The documentary, directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin, debuted on HBO Max in July to critical acclaim and earned a nomination for best music documentary at the 10th annual Critics Choice Documentary Awards.

-Joel released a digital 100-track album, also called Billy Joel: And So It Goes, describing it as a “companion” piece to the documentary. It included eight never-before-heard songs. He also launched a yearlong YouTube series, dropping archival performances on the video-sharing platform.

In other Billy Joel news …

-Joel’s signature tune, “Piano Man,” hit 1 billion streams on Spotify. It was his second song to reach such a milestone, following “Uptown Girl.”

-20th Century Cycles, the motorcycle shop Joel opened in 2010 that housed his collection of more than 75 vintage motorcycles, closed. Joel auctioned off the bike collection.

-Joel was announced as the subject of New York City entrepreneur Michael Dorf’s annual Music Of charity concert series, with the tribute set for March 12, 2026, at Carnegie Hall.

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The Zombies have announced the dates for their third annual Begin Here festival. The 2026 event, which takes place in their hometown of St. Albans, U.K., will run from Oct. 30 to Nov. 1.

The Begin Here festival, which launched in November 2023, usually features a whole host of Zombies-related events. In the past, that has included record signings, special screenings of their documentary Hung Up On A Dream, a Zombies tour of St. Albans, Q&As and performances.

In the meantime, frontman Colin Blunstone‘s next performance is happening on the high seas. He’s booked to perform on the Flower Power Cruise happening March 28 to April 4. The cruise starts in Ft. Lauderdale and hits St. Thomas, St. Kitts and Nevis, with The Beach Boys, Micky Dolenz of The Monkees, Max Weinberg’s Jukebox and Blood, Sweat & Tears among the other acts on the lineup.

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It was another big year for Bruce Springsteen, which culminated in the New Jersey rocker’s life being depicted on the big screen.

Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere premiered at the New York Film Festival in September and opened in theaters in October. The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White starred as The Boss, and did his own singing, while Succession’s Jeremy Strong playing the rocker’s manager, Jon Landau. The film followed Springsteen’s efforts in making his 1982 solo album, Nebraska. White earned a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of the New Jersey rocker. 

Springsteen also celebrated a big anniversary in August 2025: the 50th anniversary of his iconic third studio album, Born to Run. To mark the occasion he released “Lonely Night in the Park” for the first time, a track that was recorded during the Born to Run sessions and was considered for the album, but was ultimately left off.

He also made a surprise appearance at the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music’s Born to Run 50th anniversary celebration in New Jersey, performing two songs from the album — the title track and “Thunder Road” — joined by current and former members of the E Street Band.

But those were only some of the many Springsteen-related highlights this year. Among the others:

– Springsteen made a surprise appearance at a Patti Smith tribute concert, People Have the Power – A Celebration of Patti Smith, at New York’s Carnegie Hall. He performed “Because the Night,” the song he wrote that became a hit for Patti.

– In May, Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off a European tour, and he stirred up controversy by criticizing President Donald Trump. He said America was “in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.” That prompted a response from Trump, who called Springsteen “highly overrated.”

– The tour also featured a surprise appearance by Paul McCartney at The Boss’ show in Liverpool. They teamed up for two songs: The Beatles‘ classic “Can’t Buy Me Love” and a cover of the Leiber & Stoller tune “Kansas City,” which The Beatles recorded in 1964.

– Springsteen’s tour, which launched in 2023 and wrapped in 2025, became the highest-grossing tour of his career, bringing in $729.7 million to surpass his previous highest-grossing tour, the 2012-13 Wrecking Ball World Tour, which brought in $347 million. It also sold 4.9 million tickets, more tickets than any previous Springsteen tour.

– Springsteen released the long-awaited follow-up to 1998’s box set Tracks. Tracks II: The Lost Albums featured seven previously unheard Springsteen records.

– The Boss was honored by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures with the inaugural Legacy Award, which “honors an artist whose body of work has inspired generations of storytellers and deeply influenced our culture.”

– To coincide with the release of Deliver Me From Nowhere, Bruce released Nebraska: Expanded Edition, a box set featuring previously unreleased material. It included the long-rumored Electric Nebraska, a present-day recording of Springsteen performing Nebraska in its entirety at New Jersey’s Count Basie Theatre.

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Paul McCartney has landed on top the Billboard Boxscore for November thanks to his Got Back tour.

The Beatles legend tops the chart after bringing in $51.7 million from sales of 150,000 tickets for 11 shows. The latest leg of the tour kicked off Sept. 29 in Palm Desert, California, and wrapped Nov. 25 in Chicago.

This is the second time McCartney’s Got Back tour earned him the #1 spot on the list. The tour previously topped the Billboard Boxscore in May of 2022.

McCartney’s Got Back tour, which initially launched in April of 2022 and has included shows in 2023, 2024 and 2025, has brought $410.7 million overall, with 2.4 million tickets sold.

In other news … The Beatles are helping fans get in the Christmas spirit with the YouTube release of The Beatles Holiday Yule Log (Merry Crimble) featuring classic Beatles tracks. The video features an image of roaring fire, with Christmas stockings hung on the mantel for McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr. There’s also a turntable with pictures of the band members and presents wrapped in Beatles wrapping paper.

According to the description, “this video is made to be left on all holiday long, whether you are relaxing, seeing friends and family, or simply letting it play in the background while you do nothing at all.”

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Fine Young Cannibals recently released FYC40, a “definitive anthology” of the British group who topped the charts in the late ’80s. And while the band only released two official albums, their music still endures — especially their first #1 hit, “She Drives Me Crazy,” which has appeared in multiple movies and TV shows over the years.

Fine Young Cannibals frontman Roland Gift says one use of “She Drives Me Crazy” really stands out to him: Dua Lipa‘s Chanel handbag campaign, which came out in January of 2025. “I was very impressed with that ad,” Gift tells ABC Audio.

“There was something about it,” he continues, adding, “I even wrote to the director saying ‘Good job,’ because her sort of lip-syncing [to the song] … was very unexpected, and it was charming. And I think … it’s probably my favorite use of an FYC song.”

Given the success of that song and their album The Raw and The Cooked, many fans were disappointed when Fine Young Cannibals split, and so was Gift. 

“I think we had a little bit more in us, and it was a shame that we couldn’t keep the marriage together. You know, that’s kind of a regret that I have,” he tells ABC Audio.

“We hadn’t experienced the kind of success that we’d had. The record company hadn’t experienced that kind of success. The managers hadn’t experienced that. So nobody was really able to contain … the heat that we’d created.”

“It’s great that people still are interested and people still like the songs, but I feel like we had a bit more,” he notes. Despite that, he insists, “We wouldn’t reform.”

But if you miss Gift’s distinctive voice, he has a new holiday song called “Everybody Knows It’s Christmas,” and he still tours, albeit only in the U.K. for the moment. 

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Legendary musician Willie Nelson is the subject of a New Yorker profile, but what has everyone talking is Bob Dylan‘s contribution to the piece, where he had quite a few things to say about the 92-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer.

Dylan has spent the last two summers on Nelson’s Outlaw Music Festival, and when asked by the New Yorker journalist to describe Nelson, Dylan replied with, “It’s hard to talk about Willie without saying something stupid or irrelevant, he is so much of everything.”

But apparently he somehow found the words.

“How can you make sense of him? How would you define the indefinable or the unfathomable?” Dylan shared.  “What is there to say? Ancient Viking Soul? Master Builder of the Impossible? Patron poet of people who never quite fit in and don’t much care to? Moonshine Philosopher? Tumbleweed singer with a PhD? Red Bandana troubadour, braids like twin ropes lassoing eternity?”

He added, “What do you say about a guy who plays an old, battered guitar that he treats like it’s the last loyal dog in the universe? Cowboy apparition, writes songs with holes that you can crawl through to escape from something. Voice like a warm porch light left on for wanderers who kissed goodbye too soon or stayed too long,” noting, “I guess you can say all that. But it really doesn’t tell you a lot or explain anything about Willie.”

Getting personal, Dylan explained, “I’ve always known him to be kind, generous, tolerant and understanding of human feebleness, a benefactor, a father and a friend,” adding, “He’s like the invisible air. He’s high and low. He’s in harmony with nature. And that’s what makes him Willie.”

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Sean Ono Lennon is clarifying comments he made during a CBS Sunday Morning interview in which he suggested he was worried that younger generations would forget about The Beatles and his parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

In the interview, Sean talked about being the keeper of his dad’s legacy, noting, “I’m just doing my best to help make sure that the younger generation doesn’t forget about The Beatles and John and Yoko. That’s how I look at it.”

Asked whether he really thought it was “even possible” to forget them, he responded, “I do, actually, and I never did before.”

In a post on X, however, Sean is suggesting outlets that picked up the story “tried to twist my words.”

“I am not immediately worried about anyone forgetting the Beatles,” he says. “I was speaking more broadly about culture in general, and how we do forget about things when we don’t actively work to preserve them.”

“For example everyone used to know Don Giovani but now Opera Houses having been closing all over the world en masse,” he adds. “Everyone used to be able to quote Shakespeare and now not so much.”

Finally, he notes, “The Beatles music is timeless and immortal in my view. But nothing is guaranteed and we have to choose what aspects of our culture to keep thriving for future generations.”

In a separate post, he wrote, “Too many people think they are deducing when they are inferring.”

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The Beatles may have broken up in 1970, but the band continues to live on and 2025 was no exception.

-Fans of the band got a new look at their 1990s Anthology project with reissues of the documentary series, music and book.

-Disney+ debuted a restored and remastered version of the Anthology documentary series, which aired on ABC in 1995, with the eight-part series expanded to nine episodes. In addition, the music was reissued as The Anthology Collection, a box set featuring the first three Anthology albums, along with a new fourth edition, featuring 13 previously unreleased recordings. Anthology 4 was also released as a standalone.

-A 25th anniversary edition of The Beatles Anthology book, featuring more than 1,300 photos, documents, artwork and memorabilia, was also released.

-This year also brought casting news for Sam Mendes‘ four Beatles films, The Beatles – A Four-Film Cinematic Event, due out in April 2028. The project, in which each film will be told from the point of view of a different band member, will star Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, Paul Mescal as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison. 

Among this year’s other Beatles highlights:

-Ringo released a new country album, Look Up, and as part of the promotion for his Grand Ole Opry debut. He also headlined two nights at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, joined by some famous friends, with the shows turned into a special that aired on CBS.

-The Beatles won another Grammy, taking home best rock performance for “Now and Then.” In addition, Lennon’s son Sean Ono Lennon won the Grammy for best boxed or special limited edition package for his work on the reissue of his late father’s Mind Games album.

-McCartney surprised fans in New York City by headlining three shows at the 575-person-capacity Bowery Ballroom. The shows were a lead-up to his performance on the SNL 50 anniversary special.

-A new documentary about Lennon and wife Yoko Ono, One to One: John & Yoko, directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, opened in theaters in April.

-Original Beatles drummer Pete Best announced his retirement from music.

-The Lennon documentary Borrowed Time: Lennon’s Last Decade, from director Alan G. Parker, debuted in London in May. The film eventually opened in the U.S. in December.

-McCartney returned to the stage in the band’s hometown of Liverpool, joining Bruce Springsteen for The Boss’ show at Anfield Stadium. They played two songs together, The Beatles’ classic “Can’t Buy Me Love” and a cover of the Leiber & Stoller tune “Kansas City,” which The Beatles recorded in 1964.

-McCartney brought his Got Back tour back to North America in September, starting with a warm-up show in Santa Barbara, California, before officially kicking things off in Palm Desert, California.

-A new box set celebrating John and Yoko’s activism, Power to the People (Super Deluxe Edition), produced by  Sean Ono Lennon, was released to coincide with what would have been John’s 85th birthday. It featured 123 tracks, 90 of which had either never been heard before or were previously unreleased.

-McCartney released a new book, Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, dedicated to his post-Beatles career in Wings. A new documentary focusing on that time period, Man on the Run, was acquired by Amazon MGM and will debut on Prime Video Feb. 25, 2026. It is also expected to be released in select theaters.

-The BBC announced it had picked up a new drama series, Hamburg Days, which will focus on The Beatles’ early days as a band. The six-part series is based on the autobiography by German artist, musician and longtime Beatles pal Klaus Voormann.

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Former KISS drummer Peter Criss is responding to reports that it will cost fans $1,000 to download a digital copy of his recently released self-titled solo album.

The reports surfaced after Criss’ Bandcamp page listed not only the physical copies of the album, but a digital link at a cost of $1,000 with the note, “Digital purchases are discouraged, That’s why the high price.”

But now in a post on Instagram, Criss is saying the issue lies with Bandcamp and he is not charging such a big pricetag for the download.

“Bandcamp had become an issue and I had requested Flatiron Recordings to disable the account associated with my records before the release day of my New record on December 19, 2025,” he wrote. “I am not in control of the Bandcamp account. Flatiron Recordings is. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and for the misinformation and implication that I am charging $1,000 for a download of my New record – I am Not.”

He then suggested fans “find another outlet to purchase” the album, sharing a linktree on his website for locations to purchase it.

Peter Criss is the first solo album from the rocker since 2007’s One For All.  

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James Taylor is sharing his 2026 tour plans with fans.

In a video posted on Instagram from a snowy New England, Taylor reveals that he will be hitting the road next year, giving fans an overview of where he’ll be playing.

“It’s a wintery scene here in New England, and a beautiful day, but a cold one,” he says in the video. “We’re thinking about the spring. We’re thinking about going on the road,” noting that they’ll be out west in California and Nevada in April.

“Then we’re gonna work our way back east and in June we’ll play a bunch of east coast gigs ending here in Western Massachusetts, at Tanglewood,” he adds, referring to his already announced shows July 3 and 4 at the Lenox, Massachusetts, venue.

But Taylor’s not just bringing his show to the U.S.

“Then we’re gonna hop across the pond and play in Europe again, which I’m really anxious to, eager to do,” he says, noting that he’ll be playing in Ireland, Scotland, England and Amsterdam.

“It’s gonna be a great spring and summer of touring for us and I’m really looking forward to getting back together,” he concludes the post. “Come out and see us.”
 

The post notes that exact tour dates will be announced in January.

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