Snoop Dogg on red carpet for 19th annual TIME100 Gala (Getty Images)
We’ve seen Snoop Dogg provide commentary for boxing and Olympics games, but now, he’ll be doing it for an NBA matchup.
Snoop will be making his debut as a NBA game analyst on Jan. 5, when the LA Clippers take on the Golden State Warriors at the Intuit Dome in his native Los Angeles. NBCSN and Peacock tapped him for the job, which fans will be able to watch on Peacock NBA Monday. He’ll specifically comment on the second half of the game alongside Terry Gannon and Reggie Miller, after taking part in pregame activities that include attending shootarounds and production meetings.
“This is a dream come true for me,” Snoop Dogg said in a statement. “I’m fired up to be joining Reggie Miller and Terry Gannon on the call for the Clippers-Warriors game on Jan. 5. I can’t wait to bring a fresh vibe to the analysis while celebrating the skills and strategy these teams bring every night.”
The Clippers/Warriors game will start at 10 p.m. ET.
Snoop will then make his way to northern Italy in February to help with NBCUniversal’s coverage of the Winter Olympics.
Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson during Willie Nelson and Friends: “Outlaws & Angels” – Show and Backstage at Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by M. Caulfield/WireImage for NBC Universal Photo Department)
Legendary musician Willie Nelson is the subject of a New Yorker profile, but what has everyone talking is BobDylan‘scontribution 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.”
Max B has dropped the seventh installment of his Public Domain series,Public Domain 7: The Purge. It’s the followup to 2021’s Negro Spirituals and his first album since being released from an over 15-year bid in prison. The 25-track project features A$AP Rocky, Kehlani, French Montana and Lola Brooke, among other artists, and was quickly followed by the release with the deluxe edition. Both projects are currently available on streaming services.
In the spirit of the holidays, Pharrell gifted Pusha T with a Rolls-Royce. Push captured his reaction in a video recently shared to social media. “I couldn’t pull in the cul-de-sac. We had to just drop on the street, it’s fine,” he says of the car, which he notes is in need of wash. “The Rolls got floor mats that looked like they took four cats and made door mats. I rubbed my feet in them.” Over the video, he wrote, “Aye @pharrell i love you man.”
Da Baby dropped the music video for “Out Ya Business” days after releasing the song. A birthday release, it features him rapping in an empty classroom, which ultimately becomes crowded with students listening closely to his words. His voice also serves as a guide to the students as they go about their mundane activities in the school. The video is now on YouTube.
Residents of Atlanta were blessed a few times this holiday season. Lil Baby, Lil Yachty and their respective foundations teamed for a holiday drive Sunday, where they gave toys, gift cards and winter coats to more than 2,000 local youth. Future‘s FreeWishes provided hundreds of meals and shoes to attendees at his drive in Decatur, and Latto gave back to over 500 local families at her her fifth annual Christmas in Claycoevent.
Fine Young Cannibals (L-R): David Steele, Roland Gift, and Andy Cox circa 1989 (LGI Stock/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
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.
Sean Ono Lennon accepts the Best Rock Performance award on behalf of The Beatles for “Now and Then” onstage during the 67th GRAMMY Awards Premiere Ceremony at Peacock Theater on February 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
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.”
Sombr on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ (Disney/Randy Holmes)
Sombr made a surprise appearance with the Jonas Brothers during the pop trio’s show at the Barclays Center in New York City on Monday.
The JoBros invited the NYC native onstage to perform a rendition of his breakout hit, “back to friends.”
“Last night I became the fourth Jonas Brother,” sombr writes in an Instagram Story alongside footage of the performance.
The Jonas Brothers played Barclays as part of their Greetings from Your Hometown tour, which featured support from The All-American Rejects on select dates. Other guests on the tour included All Time Low, Sum 41‘s Deryck Whibley and Chris Carrabba of Dashboard Confessional.
Performing with the JoBros caps a breakout year for sombr. Also in 2025, he released his debut album, I Barely Know Her, which includes the aforementioned “back to friends” as well as the hit “12 to 12.”
Sombr is nominated for best new artist at the 2026 Grammys.
For George Birge and his wife Kara Birge, Dec. 25 typically starts with a visit from Santa in Music City, followed by packing up the kids and hopping on a plane to their native Austin, Texas.
But this year, things will be different for 6-year-old Luke Birge and older brother George James Birge, who’ll be 9 in January.
“I finally this year, I was like, ‘Can we please stay at home for Christmas?,'” George Sr. tells ABC Audio. “So we’re gonna stay home for Christmas.”
“We’ve got a neighborhood with a bunch of friends in it and the kids love to all run around and it’s just warm enough around Christmas in Nashville. So [it’ll] be nice to wake up in our own bed, open some presents and then, you know, for once, instead of packing and feeling like Christmas, like [in] Home Alone,” he laughs, “running through the airport, we’ll get to kind of kick up, have a cup of coffee on the couch and enjoy it a little bit.”
The Birges did travel back to the Lone Star State for some time with family at Thanksgiving.
George will start 2026 with one of the most enviable gigs around, playing Luke Bryan‘s Crash My Playa getaway in Cancun in January, right before the start of his Cowboy Songs Tour.
Who’s the bestselling country artist of all time? It’s an answer that evolved over the last few months of 2025, as The Recording Industry Association of America tallied the latest numbers.
In early October, the RIAA declared Luke Combs not only the bestselling male, but the country artist with the most certifications in history, racking up 168 million units during his career.
You might recall it’s a record previously held by Garth Brooks.
“I mean, it’s all very unexpected, I think,” Luke said just prior to November’s CMA Awards. “You can’t plan to get to this point, you know. And obviously when I moved here, I just wanted to be able to make a living doing music, whatever that looked like.”
Luke was ever humble and quick to give the credit to his supporters: “It’s all been a blessing, and I’m very fortunate and I’m just thankful, man, for the fans. I mean, it’s all them.”
Near the end of October, the RIAA revealed Carrie Underwood shares similar honors, having sold 95 million units, including 22.5 million albums and 72.5 million singles.
“Accomplishments like this are more than I would have ever dared to dream of when I was starting out,” she said in a statement. “I owe everything to the fans, who have literally voted for me from the beginning of my career and have showed up and given me so much love for over 20 years. I feel truly blessed.”
When the final tallies were announced in December, it was Morgan Wallen who would come out on top.
He’s sold 239.5 million singles and 26 million albums, for a total of 265.5 million units, according to the RIAA. That makes him not only the bestselling artist in country music, but also the third-most-certified artist in any genre, behind Drake and Taylor Swift.
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.
2025 began with the surprise news that the original Black Sabbath lineup — Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward — would be reuniting for one final show. It was also announced that the concert would mark Ozzy’s final live performance, a promise that he sadly fulfilled upon his death just over two weeks after the show.
The concert, dubbed Back to the Beginning, was set for July 5 at Villa Park, a stadium in Sabbath’s hometown of Birmingham, England. Along with sets by Sabbath and Ozzy, the lineup promised nearly every big-name metal and hard rock band you could think of: Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Gojira, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon.
Additionally, music director Tom Morello put together all-star jams featuring artists including Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, Yungblud, Disturbed‘s David Draiman, Sammy Hagar, Aerosmith‘s Steven Tyler, Adam Jones and Danny Carey of Tool, blink-182‘s Travis Barker, Ghost‘s Tobias Forge and Chad Smith of Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Those who wouldn’t be able to attend the massive show in person would be able to watch it streaming online.
As ambitious as all that seemed, the main concern going into Back to the Beginning was Ozzy’s health, which had kept him from performing a full live set for over six years. Ozzy cautioned that he and Sabbath would “only be playing a couple songs each,” telling The Guardian, “I’ll be there, and I’ll do the best I can. So all I can do is turn up.”
When the big day finally came, Ozzy did indeed take the stage following hours of performances and tributes courtesy of the aforementioned stacked lineup. While seated, Ozzy was first joined by his solo band for a five-song set featuring classics including “Crazy Train,” “Mr. Crowley” and “Mama, I’m Coming Home.” He then returned while flanked by his Sabbath bandmates to rock out four more songs: “War Pigs,” “Iron Man,” “N.I.B.” and “Paranoid.”
Following the concert, the participating artists flocked to social media to reflect on the special experience. A new Ozzy memoir called Last Rites was announced days later, suggesting that while Ozzy may have played his final concert, he was still planning to be busy.
However, the celebrations soon turned to grief when, on July 22, it was announced that Ozzy had died at age 76.
Tributes poured in from every corner of the music universe and beyond, which remembered him not only for his artistic achievements but also his massive impact on culture in general. A funeral procession was held in Birmingham on July 30.
On Sept. 7, the MTV Video Music Awards staged a tribute to Ozzy featuring a performance by Yungblud alongside Tyler and his Aerosmith bandmate Joe Perry.
Members of the Osbourne family eventually issued their own statements, culminating with a return of The OsbournesPodcast featuring widow Sharon Osbourne, daughter Kelly Osbourne and son Jack Osbourne.
