Music

There’s so much AI content floating around online these days that you never know what’s real. Maybe that’s why we can forgive sombr for thinking that a quote from Taylor Swift praising him was fake.

Taylor did an interview in October in which she said, “Tate McRae is amazing. Sombr is amazing. There are so many incredible artists that I love listening to … I’m supporting them by streaming their music constantly in my house.”

Speaking to Vanity Fair, sombr said, “[E]very time anything cool happens to me, I’m sleeping. And I sleep really late, so I always wake up and already have a bunch of texts about it, spoiling it. … I just woke up and I opened my texts: ‘Taylor Swift mentioned you!’ I was like, No, no way. This is AI. But it wasn’t!”

“I was … six years old listening to pop radio, and it was Taylor Swift. Now I’m on pop radio with Taylor Swift, and she says she listens to my music,” he continued. “Life doesn’t feel real. And what do you mean, I’m a pop star? I’m still trying to process it all.”

The best new artist Grammy nominee had a similarly suspicious reaction to hearing his song on the radio for the first time. “I remember, when it first started picking up, I was going to meet my friends, and I got into an Uber and ‘Undressed’ was just on, and I had never experienced something like that, so I got really scared,” he told Vanity Fair.

“I was like, Am I getting kidnapped? Then I looked at the screen on the car and it was just on a radio station. Ever since then, it’s gotten to be more normal.”

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Juelz Santana doesn’t believe it’s necessary for kids to learn how to read. He contends in a recent episode of the No Funny S*** show that it’s not as important as learning about financial literacy.

“By the time they get to ninth grade they should be learning how to start businesses, but they don’t really need to learn how to read,” he said. 

Though he clarified that people are not “supposed to be illiterate,” he doubled down on his argument that reading comes second to learning math, as there are ways to survive without knowing how to read.

“You could listen to a book on YouTube. You can still obtain the information. You don’t have to know how to read. … I believe common sense is better than everything,” Juelz said, noting he recently listened to Robert Greene‘s The 48 Laws of Power.

He even pushed back on host Kenny “KP” Supreme, who argued that reading is essential to reviewing and understanding contracts.

“Reading is just when people want to embarrass you and try to play you … or, ‘You can’t read your contract.’ Anybody who said you can’t read your contract, they didn’t read their contract,” Juelz said. “They had a lawyer read their contract. They just saying it to be funny.”

The full episode is now available to watch on YouTube.

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You can work off the calories after your Thanksgiving meal Thursday by walking around your local independent record store and picking up exclusive vinyls released for the 2025 Record Store Day Black Friday event. Here’s a roundup of just some of the items you can score this year.

Benson Boone‘s 2023 EP, Pulse, is coming to vinyl for the first time. It’s pressed on electric yellow and bright blue splatter vinyl, and it comes with a 12×24 poster.

Bruno Mars‘ debut EP, It’s Better If You Don’t Understand, is on vinyl for the first time. It features “Count On Me,” “Talking to the Moon” and two other tracks.

Billie Eilish is putting out live recordings from Amazon’s Songline series, which have never before had a physical release. The four-track LP includes live versions of “Birds of a Feather,” “Wildflower” and more.

Chappell Roan is releasing a 7″ vinyl with “The Subway” on one side and “The Giver” on the other.

Kesha has a 7″ vinyl version of her 2024 Spotify Singles cover of Lindsey Buckingham‘s “Holiday Road”; the B-side is Kesha’s unreleased version of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which dates from 2010.

The deluxe version of Role Model‘s Kansas Anymore (The Longest Goodbye) is available as a 2-LP set on colored. It includes a few live performances, including one of “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” plus a collaboration with Laufey.

James Bay is releasing his debut album, Chaos and the Calm, featuring “Let It Go” on ruby/black marble vinyl with alternative cover art.

Matchbox Twenty is releasing Mad Season (Live 2001), a 2-LP set on truffle color vinyl documenting concert recordings from their tour promoting their second album, Mad Season. It includes hits like “If You’re Gone” and “Bent.”

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You can work off the calories after your Thanksgiving meal Thursday by walking around your local independent record store and picking up exclusive vinyls released for the 2025 Record Store Day Black Friday event. Here’s a roundup of just some of the items you can score this year.

Billy Joel is releasing his Live From Long Island concert as a three-LP standalone set. The 1982 show, recorded at Long Island’s Nassau Coliseum in December 1982, features most of Billy’s hits, including, “Allentown,” “Piano Man,” “Pressure,” “Big Shot,” “You May Be Right” and “Just the Way You Are.”

Who Believes In Angels? Live At The London Palladium documents the March 25 concert Elton John and Brandi Carlile did at the London Palladium. It features a concert poster and live versions of songs from the duo’s Grammy-nominated album, as well as Elton hits like “Your Song,” “I’m Still Standing” and “Tiny Dancer.”

Phil Collins is releasing 12″ers, a six-track EP of extended mixes of songs from his album No Jacket Required.

Benson Boone‘s 2023 EP, Pulse, is coming to vinyl for the first time on electric yellow and bright blue splatter vinyl and includes a 12×24 poster.

Bruno Mars‘ debut EP, It’s Better If You Don’t Understand, is on vinyl for the first time. It features “Count On Me,” “Talking to the Moon” and two other tracks.

Billie Eilish is putting out live recordings from Amazon’s Songline series, which have never before had a physical release. The four-track LP includes live versions of “Birds of a Feather” and more.

Matchbox Twenty is releasing Mad Season (Live 2001),a 2-LP set on truffle color vinyl documenting concert recordings from their tour promoting their second album, Mad Season. It includes hits like “If You’re Gone.”

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Travis Scott has a new album that he hopes will drop soon. A clip said to be filmed in Europe while he was on his Circus Maximus tour has surfaced on the web and sees him responding to whether he has recorded new music. “Oh yeah, like a whole album,” he said. As for when fans will be able to hear it, he added: “Soon, hopefully. Yeah, I made a whole album on tour.” The Circus Maximus tour, according to a Live Nation press release, has the most tickets sold on a solo rap tour and is the highest-grossing solo rap tour in history.

De La Soul stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live! Tuesday night to perform a pair of songs from their new album, Cabin in the Sky. Posdnuos and Maseo took the stage with “Run it Back” before going into “The Package.” The performance is now available to stream on YouTube.

Nas and DJ Premier‘s collaborative album, Light-Years, is dropping on Dec. 12. The album will close out Mass Appeal’s Legend Has It series, which saw the release of seven new albums from iconic hip-hop artists, including Slick Rick and Mobb Deep. Light-Years is now available to presave, with limited physical products currently on sale.

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You can work off the calories after your Thanksgiving meal Thursday by walking around your local independent record store and picking up exclusive vinyls released for the 2025 Record Store Day Black Friday event.  Here’s what’s available:

Jelly Roll is releasing Beautifully Broken (Pickin’ Up The Pieces) in a physical format for the first time. The LP is pressed on “tequila sunrise”-colored vinyl and collects the 13 tracks from the digital deluxe version of Beautifully Broken, including collaborations with Keith Urban, ERNEST and pop star Halsey.

Post Malone is releasing Long Bed, the nine tracks from the digital deluxe version of his album F-1 Trillion, physically for the first time. It’s pressed on neon orange vinyl.

Morgan Wade‘s putting out a limited-edition purple vinyl pressing of the five new songs from the deluxe edition of her 2025 album, The Party is Over (recovered). It includes “Hardwood Floor (String Session).”

Fans of ’90s country will want to get Dwight Yoakam‘s And Then I Wrote… The First Three Albums Of The ’90s, available as a four-LP boxed set. It collects If There Was a Way, This Time and Gone, and throws in a full side of rarities from the era. Those albums include hits like “Turn It On, Turn It Up Turn Me Loose,” “You’re The One,” “Nothing’s Changed Here,” “Ain’t That Lonely Yet,” “A Thousand Miles from Nowhere,” “Fast as You,” “Try Not to Look So Pretty” and “It Only Hurts Me When I Cry.”

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Twenty One Pilots‘ Josh Dun has shared a drum cover of the Turnstile song “T.L.C. (TURNSTILE LOVE CONNECTION).”

The performance is featured on Dun’s YouTube channel, where he’s also posted drum covers of Metallica‘s “Master of Puppets” and Rage Against the Machine‘s “Bulls on Parade.”

“Posting songs that inspire me in some way or another. Whether that’s just a feeling or a desire to get better,” Dun says. “[Turnstile’s] Daniel Fang is a drummer worth watching to get inspired, and this song is rad.”

Dun just paid tribute to another drummer, Meg White, when Twenty One Pilots covered “Seven Nation Army” in honor of The White Stripes getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. 

Turnstile, meanwhile, released a new album, NEVER ENOUGH, in June. It was accompanied by a visual album that premiered at the Tribeca Festival.

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With a busy 2025 behind him, Dylan Scott doesn’t have a date on the books until April 2026, though that’s certain to change once he announces his new tour. 

With “What He’ll Never Have” continuing its climb in country’s top 20, it’s a good time for Dylan to enjoy the fruits of his labor. 

So what are his plans for the holidays?

“Whatever my wife tells me we’re doin’, that’s what we’re doin’,” Dylan quips.

At least for turkey day, that means he and Blair Robinson will head for his hometown, before leaving 8-year-old Beckett Robinson, 6-year-old Finley Robinson and 2-year-old Barron Robinson behind. 

“This year, Thanksgiving, we’re taking the kids to Louisiana,” he tells ABC Audio, “and then the grandparents are gonna watch the kids while my wife and I go to New York City right after Thanksgiving.” 

“So I’m thankful this year for grandparents,” he adds.  

Dylan just released “Two Christmas Trees” for the 2025 holiday, a cover of a song his father wrote in the ’80s. If you’re looking for more familiar yuletide tunes from Dylan, you can check out his Merry Christmas album from 2019.

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The Pretty Reckless‘ Taylor Momsen has a lot to be thankful for this holiday season.

For one, her band’s latest single, “For I Am Death,” hit #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart, giving The Pretty Reckless their eighth leader on the ranking.

“It’s very cool!” Momsen tells ABC Audio of the “For I Am Death” success. “It’s kind of surreal, we haven’t even played it live yet.”

“For I Am Death” premiered in August and marked the first new, original Pretty Reckless material in four years.

“It’s kind of blowing my mind a little bit, but in the best way possible,” Momsen says. “I love that song so much, so I’m proud it’s the first thing we’ve put out in awhile, and I’m so thankful that people like it.”

Meanwhile, Momsen performed at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Nov. 8 in honor of Soundgarden, and The Pretty Reckless put out a holiday EP featuring a rocking version of Momsen’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas song “Where Are You Christmas?” And if that weren’t enough, Momsen is performing during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday.

“The universe is aligned or something, I don’t know,” Momsen laughs. 

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