Music

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea will release a new solo album in 2026.

The currently-untitled record sees Flea, as a press release puts it, “returning to his first instrument and musical love, the trumpet.”

The first preview of the album, a seven-minute track called “A Plea,” is out now. It features Flea on trumpet, electric bass and vocals, alongside an ensemble of jazz instrumentalists and vocalists.

Flea describes “A Plea” as a “yearning for a place beyond, a place of love, for me to speak my mind and be myself.”

“I’m always just trying to be myself,” Flea says. “I don’t care about the act of politics. I think there is a much more transcendent place above it where there’s discourse to be had that can actually help humanity, and actually help us all to live harmoniously and productively in a way that’s healthy for the world. There’s a place where we meet, and it’s love.”

You can watch the video for “A Plea,” which was directed by Flea’s daughter, Clara Balzary, streaming now on YouTube.

The most recent Chili Peppers album is 2022’s Return of the Dream Canteen, which marked their second record of that year, following Unlimited Love.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 



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We’ve got our first look at the end of the “most thrilling chapter of my life to date,” as Taylor Swift describes it.

A trailer for the upcoming Disney+ special Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour | The Final Show has dropped, and it documents the last show of Taylor’s record-breaking tour, in Vancouver, British Columbia, in December of 2024. The trailer focuses heavily on a part of the tour production that not every fan got to see: The Tortured Poets Department sequence, which Taylor added after she released the album in 2024.

The trailer opens with Taylor singing “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” but you also get to see the staging for most of the sequence, including a spaceship that hovers over the stage during “Down Bad.” The rest of the trailer is set to “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart,” as we see the other segments of the show flash by. 

The trailer ends with Taylor playing her “Surprise Songs” set on the piano and fittingly, changing a lyric in “Long Live” to, “It was the end of an era/ but the start of an age.”

Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour | The Final Show streams on Dec. 12 on Disney+; that same day, The End of an Era, a 6-episode docuseries about the tour, hits the platform. If you don’t have Disney+, ABC will air episode 1 of The End of an Era and a one-hour version of the concert special at 8 p.m. ET on Dec. 12.

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If you think the world couldn’t possibly need another version of the Irving Berlin classic “White Christmas,” Scotty McCreery humbly asks that you let him plead his case. 

You see, Scotty’s take on the much-recorded tune takes inspiration from both The Drifters and Elvis Presley. 

“I was almost nervous to record the song because I love it so much during Christmastime,” he tells ABC Audio. “And I had this version in my head that I’ll sing out loud in the shower, I’ll sing when I’m doing dishes, and I didn’t want to lose that version in my head in the recording process and not get it [recorded].”

“But I went in there and I just sang it for the band: ‘This is what’s in my head. Let’s make the music around this,'” he explains. “And the band crushed it.”

“And I know it’s another version of ‘White Christmas,’ but it’s my version,” he adds. “I hope you like it.”  

The new recording joins 2023’s “Feel Like the Holidays” in Scotty’s collection of yuletide recordings that started with 2011’s Christmas with Scotty McCreery. 

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Six actors have been added to the cast of Power: Origins, the prequel to the original Starz series Power. According to Deadline, Jason Dirden, Jennifer Ferrin, Lizzy DeClement, Lenny Platt, Armani Gabriel and Everett Osborne round out the cast.

Jason will take on the role of Traymont Stinson, the associate-turned-betrayer he played in Raising Kanan. Ferrin will play Tommy’s mother, Kate Egan, and DeClement will portray Jill, a recovering addict and nurse who falls in love Tommy.

Platt has been tapped to play a finance bro-turned-fitness entrepreneur named Lenny, and Gabriel has been casted as J-Boogs, Ghost and Tommy’s trustworthy corner boy. Osborne will take on Omay Moreau, a New York Jets tight end known for hosting extravagant parties. 

The six actors join Spence Moore, Charlie Mann and Mekai Curtis, who will star as Ghost, Tommy and Kanan in the series about their rise as young men determined to be successful in the New York City drug game.

It’s a story that will be told in more than 10 episodes, executive producer 50 Cent told Deadline.

“[Power: Legacy] is already shooting in New York, and it will have 18 episodes,” he revealed. “It’s like two seasons instead of the way we did it last time. So that’s gonna be cool. It’s exciting.” 

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Sombr was thrilled to find out this fall that Taylor Swift is a fan of his music. Now he’s hoping her love of his music will translate into an invitation to her wedding to Travis Kelce.

In an interview with Vulture about his favorite movies, music, concerts and other pop culture events of 2025, the “undressed” singer was asked to name the “cultural moment that fascinated you the most this year.” His answer was likely the same as millions of others: Taylor’s engagement.

“Man, I’m just happy for them,” he says. “I grew up with Taylor Swift, and seeing one of my favorite artists from my childhood getting engaged is really cool to see. I just hope they invite me to the wedding.” 

Along the same lines, sombr chose Taylor’s album The Life of a Showgirl as one of his favorite albums or songs of 2025, along with Olivia Dean‘s The Art of Loving, Ravyn Lenae‘s Love Me Now and Audrey Hobert in general.

Asked to name his most memorable concert, sombr chose himself — with some help. “Bringing out Sam Smith, Laufey, Foster the People, Cigarettes After Sex, and Suki Waterhouse as guests at my own concerts,” he said.

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Pearl Jam has announced a new photo book chronicling the band’s Dark Matter tour.

Titled React/Respond, the book includes over 125 images taken by photographer Geoff Whitman, who joined Eddie Vedder and company on the road throughout the international trek.

“Whitman joined the band for this run, starting out by immersing himself in the crowd to capture the shows exactly as fans experienced them—energetic, and in the middle of it all!” Pearl Jam shares. “As the tour moved forward and his relationship with the band developed, he gained further access to backstage and behind-the-scenes moments. Even with that expanded access, Whitman kept the fan perspective at the center of his work, letting it guide how he documented each night.”

The “Even Flow” rockers add, “The photographs in this collection bring those viewpoints together, blending the immediacy of the crowd with a growing look behind the scenes to present a genuine, dynamic record of the Dark Matter tour.”

React/Respond is due out in April and is available to preorder now.

The Dark Matter tour supported Pearl Jam’s 2024 album of the same name. It launched in May 2024 and concluded in May 2025.

Nearly two months after the tour wrapped, longtime drummer Matt Cameron announced that he was leaving Pearl Jam.

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Charlie Puth wants you to know that he’s well aware that his performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the upcoming Super Bowl LX won’t be as good as Whitney Houston‘s — but he’s going for it anyway.

When it was announced that Charlie would be singing the national anthem at this year’s big game, TikTok creator and self-described political commentator Link Lauren tweeted, “Man we’ve fallen from when Whitney Houston sang at the Super Bowl. Charlie Puth? He’s not gonna give us vocals I’m afraid.”

Charlie responded, “I’ll never claim to be as good of a singer as Whitney Houston ever was. But I assure you we’re putting a really special arrangement together- in D major. It’ll be one of my best vocal performances.”

Fun fact: “The Star-Spangled Banner” was originally written in B-flat major; Whitney sang her version in A-flat major.

Whitney’s version of the anthem, which she performed in 1991 at Super Bowl XXV, is often cited as one of the best renditions ever. It was even released as a single amid the Gulf War and reached #20 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rereleased to capture the patriotic spirit after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it reached #6 and was RIAA-certified Platinum.

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