Music

Mastodon paid tribute to their former guitarist Brent Hinds during their first show following his death on Aug. 20.

At the end of the band’s show Friday at the Alaska State Fair, drummer/vocalist Brann Dailor told the crowd that he and his bandmates had “lost somebody very special to us.”

“Brent Hinds, 25 years with us as our guitar player, one of the most creative, beautiful people that we’ve ever come across in this world, tragically left us,” Dailor said. “Very, very unfortunate. We loved him so, so, so very much.”

Hinds was a founding member of Mastodon, and played with the unchanging lineup of Dailor, guitarist Bill Kelliher and bassist Troy Sanders for the band’s entire run until March 2025, when they announced they’d “mutually decided to part ways.” However, in the months following his departure, Hinds made several comments criticizing his former bandmates.

“We had the ups and downs of a 25-year relationship,” Dailor said Friday. “It’s not always perfect, it’s not always amazing, but we were brothers to the end. And we really loved each other and we made a lot — a lot — of very beautiful music together.”

“We’re just at a loss for words,” he continued. “We’re absolutely devastated and crushed to lose him and to be able to never have him back again, but you guys made it O.K. for us to come on stage and do this tonight.” 

Following the concert, Mastodon posted a statement on Facebook reading, “Alaska, thanks for showing up and lifting our spirits, you were exactly what we needed yesterday.”

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The album that changed Sabrina Carpenter‘s life turned 1 on Saturday, and she took to Instagram to celebrate the milestone.

Short n’ Sweet — which earned Sabrina her first Grammys and first number-one hit, gave us the phrases “Make me Juno” and “That’s that me, espresso,” and even inspired a Saturday Night Live skit — was released on Aug. 23, 2024.

On Instagram, Sabrina wrote, “Pausing from [Man’s Best Friend] to say happy one year of Short n’ Sweet. one year of kiss marks, camaraderie, and being so f****** horny.”

“Camaraderie” is a lyric from her single “Bed Chem,” while the other phrase is from her song “Juno.”

“This album is one of my most prized possessions and brought me closer to myself as well as so many beautiful people and places,” Sabrina continued. “Thank you for still listening every single day x thank you for coming to the shows and singing till your lungs give out, thank you for loving these songs and every damn lyric as much as i do!”

She concluded, “Thank you to all my friends i got to make every song with, every video with, create the live shows with. One of the most fun years I’ve had in my whole life. I’ll never take it for granted!!! Love you all infinitely. SNS for life.”

On her Instagram Story, she also gave some love to the deluxe version of Short n’ Sweet, which was released in February 2025. “Though she is not a year old, let us still remember ~her~,” Sabrina wrote on her Story.  The deluxe included the single “Busy Woman.”

Meanwhile, on Aug. 29, Sabrina will release a brand-new video for the song “Tears,” from her upcoming album Man’s Best Friend, out that same day.

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“I’m home, New York City!” That’s what Lady Gaga yelled from the stage Friday night as she brought her Mayhem Ball tour to Madison Square Garden for the first of six hometown shows.

While the set was essentially the same as the previous shows on the tour, Gaga did prepare “something special” for her New York crowd. After performing “Die With a Smile” solo on the piano, the fans gave her a prolonged ovation, and she became emotional, wiping tears from her eyes.

“I know that it’s me standing up here, but you’re all standing in here with me … I feel so honored to be here tonight at Madison Square Garden,” she said. “I’m sure you can tell if you listen to the music that I am from here. Everything about my artistry, I think, was born in this town.”

“I’m sure that all of my albums could not have been made without New York, but I am sure this album would not have been made without New York,” she noted. She then launched into the Born This Way track “Hair” for the first time since 2017. 

At the very end of the show, she threw in another Born This Way deep cut, the New York-centric “Heavy Metal Lover,” which she hadn’t played since 2013.

The rest of the concert was a series of dazzling set pieces that blended nearly every cut from Mayhem with classics including “Paparazzi,” “Poker Face” and “LoveGame.” They were grouped loosely by theme into four acts that told the story of Gaga struggling with her masked alter ego, “The Mistress of Mayhem,” to find balance amid the chaos.

She recreated the choreography from “Abracadabra,” rode in a boat for “Shallow,” sang “Bloody Mary” atop a dress that was several stories high, lit up a veil that stretched the entire length of the stage with rainbow colors, danced with a giant skull and sang in a massive sandbox. 

The adoring crowd — sporting more corsets and fishnets than a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening — gave Mother Monster deafening applause, but never louder than for the Artpop song of the same name.

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Rainbow Kitten Surprise has shared a new song called “100 Summers,” a track off the band’s upcoming album, bones.

“This record is the raw unfiltered sound of Rainbow Kitten Surprise doing what we love to do,” says frontwoman Ela Melo. “This is more raw than just about anything I’ve ever written, so, yeah, I sat there and cried with it for a second.”

“You know when you’re able to talk about hard s*** because you’ve already had to deal with it, and so now the healing of it is what’s coming up,” she continues. “You’re trying to make sense of what happened to you, and why, and ultimately, hopefully, forgive yourself and forgive whoever. So I think ‘100 Summers’ is doing that.”

You can watch the video for “100 Summers” on YouTube.

Bones, the follow-up to 2024’s Love Hate Music Box, drops Sept. 26. 

RKS’ North American tour continues Sept. 1 in Vancouver.

(Video contains uncensored profanity.) 



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Dayseeker has released a new song called “Shapeshift,” a track off the band’s upcoming album, Creature in the Black Night.

“This song is about the anxiety I live with on a daily basis,” says vocalist Rory Rodriguez. “An open letter to myself about how it shifts and molds me into a different version of me.”

Creature in the Black Night is due out Oct. 24. It also includes the single “Pale Moonlight,” which currently sits in the top 20 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Airplay chart.

Dayseeker is currently on tour with Ice Nine Kills. They’ll hit the road with In This Moment in September.

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Ed Sheeran has released an acoustic video for his latest single, “A Little More.” It shows him playing the song while standing by a pool at Cuadra San Cristóbal, a modernist private estate in Mexico City that’s being redeveloped as a cultural center and museum. He’s shown standing in front of a wall that happens to be the same shade of pink as his upcoming album Play.

Backstreet Boy Howie Dorough celebrated his 52nd birthday in Las Vegas — where the group is currently headlining at Sphere — by hanging with Flava Flav and then doing an impromptu solo performance of “I Want It That Way” at The Barbershop Cuts and Cocktails at The Cosmopolitan. You can see footage of the performance posted by the venue’s band, The Regulators, on Instagram.

Aug. 22 marked the first birthday of Justin Bieber‘s son, Jack Blues. While Justin hadn’t posted anything at press time, his mom Hailey Bieber shared photos on Instagram of herself holding the blonde boy, writing, “1 year of you my beautiful boy. Happy 1st Birthday Jack Blues, you are joy personified.” She also shared pics on her Instagram Story of a bunch of “1st Birthday” balloons, which look like they’d been put in his playpen.

Ava Max spills the tea about the upheaval in her career to Rolling Stone, detailing why she switched management and started working with new producers for her new album Don’t Click Play. She says her recently scrapped fall tour is “postponed … not canceled,” adding, “I think once I start touring again, it’s not going to stop for a few years now. Now it’s just going to go, go, go.” As for why she didn’t delay the release of the album, she says, “I don’t want to hold music from the fans anymore.”

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Most artists spend weeks, if not months, rehearsing for their tours. But Benson Boone claims he’s spent the past few years literally winging it — until now.

Benson is launching his American Heart tour Friday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he tells People it marks the first time he’s rehearsed for a series of live dates. Benson tells the magazine that in the past he and his band would “know the music” and “just figure it out onstage.” This time around, he says, things are “vastly different.”

“It’s so much bigger and it feels like a humongous step from last tour,” he says. “[We have] a far bigger stage than I’ve ever seen before and there’s little choreographed moments and better outfits and everyone’s a little more locked in.”

“We rehearsed for like two weeks, which probably doesn’t sound very interesting at all, but that’s a big deal to me,” he notes.

The tour, which is scheduled to wrap up in December, is just the latest accomplishment for Benson, who’s had a big year. He says the three moments that stand out the most, though, were playing Coachella with Queen guitarist Brian May, making his self-mocking video for “Mr. Electric Blue” and, most of all, singing “Beautiful Things” at the Grammys.

“I met so many new people that I look up to and that I think are so incredible,” he says of the Grammys. “I feel like that’s the first time a lot of people saw me.”

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Don’t call it a comeback, but Jeep has returned with the Jeep Cherokee, tapping LL COOL J to help with the reveal. He took the stage Thursday at an event in Brooklyn’s Domino Park. He also narrates the new “America’s Original Influencer” campaign, which is soundtracked by his song “Mama Said Knock You Out.” 

“I’ve been driving Jeep 4x4s for years – IYKYK. We go way back, so it’s an honor to be part of the iconic Jeep Cherokee’s return,” LL said in a press release. “Our bond is built on mutual respect: style, originality and always striving for the top. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone who chooses to ride with us on this journey.”

Jeep will continue promoting the Jeep Cherokee at Domino Park with an activation taking place Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET. The free event will feature “immersive photo-worthy environments and heritage vehicles that capture the spirit of many eras of the Jeep Cherokee,” according to a press release, as well as lawn games, food trucks and live music.

The new Jeep Cherokee Collection can be seen and purchased on Jeep’s website.

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You can check out Miranda Lambert and Chris Stapleton‘s ’70s-inspired music video for “A Song to Sing” on YouTube now. It was shot at Brentwood Skate Center near Nashville.

Keith Urban‘s live version of his hit “Straight Line” (From the High and Alive World Tour) is out now. It’s from his upcoming, as-yet-unnamed concert record. 

The debut EP from new trio Lost Saints is out now, titled Emotions.

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