Music

The Weeknd and Shakira are headlining this year’s Global Citizen Festival, the advocacy organization announced on Tuesday. 

The festival, which will take place on the Great Lawn of New York City’s Central Park on Sept. 27, will also feature performances by Tyla, Mariah the Scientist and Ayra Starr, with more artists to be announced in the coming weeks. Hugh Jackman will host the event, and free tickets can be earned by taking action on the issues that Global Citizen is focusing on this year.

Those issues include providing energy access for people across Africa, ensuring 30,000 children around the world have access to education and sports, and protecting the Amazon rainforest. Visit GlobalCitizen.org to find out how to earn free tickets.  You can also buy tickets.

“I’m honored to headline the incredible Global Citizen Festival in Central Park this September,” Shakira says in a statement. “Music has always been my way of connecting with people and leaving a mark on the world. I can’t wait to perform, unite, and inspire action.”

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Russell Dickerson‘s not too proud to admit that calling his tour Russellmania was a risk.

“I look back and I’m like, ‘This could have gone really bad.’ But it turned out really good. You know, it’s like, it is silly, obviously. It’s just, we’re having fun. We’re being ridiculous,” he tells ABC Audio. “But like, if it wasn’t working, you know, it’d be embarrassing. ‘Cause like, ‘Dude, you named your tour Russellmania? You’re an idiot. Like, what are you doing?'” 

Happily, it’s sold so well that Russell’s added a third round of dates to his itinerary.

“Almost every show in round one was sold out,” he points out. “Round two is like some of the biggest venues by like double that we’ve ever played — sold out — and ‘Happen to Me‘ is just like popping off.”

“Happen to Me” has risen into the top 10, fueled by Russell’s viral dancing videos.

“It’s now a heavy burden that I carry,” he quips. “I have a responsibility to dance at a higher level.”  

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Rob Thomas will release his new solo album All Night Days on Sept. 5. It’s his first non-Christmas solo album since 2019, and he says you can blame the COVID-19 lockdown for messing up his nice, neat schedule.

Generally, Rob says, there’s a “nice ebb and flow” to his career: He makes a Matchbox Twenty record and then does a solo album. But COVID forced the two projects to spill into each other. 

“I started [this record] basically in 2020 when we were still all locked down … and we weren’t going to do a Matchbox record. We were just going to tour,” he tells ABC Audio. “And then after … the third postponement [of the tour,], we decided, ‘Well, we should make a record.’ And then I put my record kinda on the back burner.”

The result was the 2023 Matchbox record Where the Light Goes. “Three songs that would have been on this record wound up on the Matchbox record,” Rob explains. “And then three songs that would’ve been on the Matchbox record made their way onto this record. So they just kind of replaced each other out.”

The unexpected Matchbox record and the subsequent tour put him back several years, and he realized he had to put out his solo record before 2026, because that’s when he and Matchbox will regroup to mark their 30th anniversary.

“I’ve been making this record for five years … I wanted to make sure that I gave it its due and I got to put out a record of these songs … because I worked hard on them and I think that they’re worth listening to,” he notes.

“But then I wanted get out of the way by the time Matchbox came back in, because that’s a much bigger animal.”

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One of the many films that Charli XCX has been involved with over the past year will see the light of day as part of this year’s Venice Film Festival, which runs Aug. 27 through Sept. 6.

The film, 100 Nights of Hero, will close the festival’s Critics’ Week, which is for directors on their first or second films. Charli stars alongside Emma Corrin, Felicity Jones, Richard E. Grant and Nicholas Galitzine; Julia Jackman directs. You can see a photo of Charli in the film on the festival’s website— she’s pictured wearing an elaborate blue velvet gown and standing on a balcony.

According to the website, 100 Nights of Hero is set in an alternate world and focuses on Maika Monroe‘s Cherry, a woman who is unhappily married. She’s torn between romantic feelings for her husband’s friend Manfred, played by Nicholas, and for her maid Hero, played by Emma, who’s part of a secret society that collects stories of women who rebelled and were unjustly punished for it. Charli plays a character named Rosa in the movie.

On her Instagram Story, Charli posted the headline of a story about the film being part of the festival and wrote, “Julia Jackman, you are the best.”

In addition to 100 Nights of Hero, Charli is part of the upcoming movies Faces of Death, Sacrifice, I Want Your Sex, Erupcja, The Gallerist and The Moment.

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My Chemical Romance has been putting out a series of mysterious videos to promote their summer tour, during which the band is playing their 2006 album The Black Parade in full. The videos seem to depict a vaguely European country under a dictatorship, accompanied by odd symbols. Now we know what those symbols are.

Artist Nate Piekos, who runs the site Blambot.com, has shared how he and MCR frontman Gerard Way came up with a language for the country depicted in the video teaser.

“Gerard filled me in on his concept of the tour, which would lean heavily on a fictional dictatorship rooted in an equally-fictional Eastern Bloc country,” Piekos shares. “He wanted to create a language that was both made-up, and yet felt entirely real.”

The language, Piekos explains, would be called Keposhka.

“We started delving into 1930s and [’40s] posters from Russia, England, Italy, and other countries, compiling a morgue file of reference images,” Piekos says. “We would send pictures to each other and try to figure out what appealed to us. After poster art, we moved on to brutalist architecture and then period typefaces.”

In all, Piekos delivered 14 fonts for Keposkha.

“I’m really looking forward to your reactions to the immersive experience that Gerard and the band has planned for you,” Piekos says. “Maybe I’ll see you at a show!”

You can read more at Blambot.com. Additionally, two of Piekos’ original hand-drawn Keposkha concept sketches are up for auction on eBay.

MCR’s tour continues Saturday in Los Angeles.

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The Warning has announced a new live album and concert film, Live from Auditorio Nacional, CDMX.

The album is due out Aug. 22, and the film will screen in select AMC movie theaters on Aug. 21.

“Experience the most special performance of our career yet,” The Warning says. As its title suggests, the set was recorded at the Auditorio Nacional venue in Mexico City.

You can watch the trailer for Live from Auditorio Nacional, CDMX streaming now on YouTube. For screening info, visit AMCTheatres.com.

The Warning released their latest album, Keep Me Fed, in 2024. It includes the single “S!CK.”

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Elton John recently told Lola Young that he’d “bet my house” on the fact that the track “d£aler” on her upcoming album will be a #1 hit. You’ll get to judge for yourself very soon: She’s releasing it on Friday.

Kelly Clarkson posted footage from her Las Vegas show, during which she sang a cover version of The White Stripes‘ classic “Seven Nation Army.” She captioned it, “One of my favorite Kellyoke’s I’ve ever done and have been doing for years!” Kelly has been covering one song per concert during her Studio Sessions residency; other covers include tracks by The Beatles, Dolly Parton and Måneskin.

Demi Lovato is walking back her 2022 declaration that her career as a pop singer is dead. At the time, Demi posted a photo of herself surrounded by her team, with all of them dressed in black. The caption read, “a funeral for my pop music.” But she’s been teasing a new pop/dance sound lately, so in an Instagram Story she posted a video of herself sitting back in a chair in the recording studio and then slowly rising up. The caption reads, “my pop music coming back to life after we had a funeral for it.”

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Having battled the Demogorgon, Vecna and other Stranger Things, Joe Keery has now conquered the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart.

Keery’s band Djo has reached the top of the ranking for the first time with the single “Basic Being Basic.” 

Djo is one of eight acts to hit #1 on Alternative Airplay for the first time in 2025, along with Tame Impala and Justice, Lola Young, Balu Brigada, Jonah Kagen, sombr and almost monday. 

“Basic Being Basic” appears on the new Djo album, The Crux, which was released in April.

Djo will launch a U.S. headlining tour in September.

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Demi Lovato has been teasing a new pop/dance direction for her new album — and according to Rolling Stone, that’s exactly what we’ll be getting from her.

A source tells the publication, “Over the past few years, Demi has found love, joy, and newfound confidence, making the choice to approach life with much more lightness and fun. She took this sentiment into the studio, which can be felt in every track on this celebratory dance-pop album.”

According to Rolling Stone, Demi’s new music harkens back to songs like her 2018 Clean Bandit collab “Solo,” her 2017 Cheat Codes collab “No Promises” and her own 2013 track “Neon Lights.”

For the project, due out later this year, Demi hired Zhone, who worked on Kesha‘s “Joyride” and Troye Sivan‘s “Rush,” as executive producer. He tells Rolling Stone, “This album is about letting inhibitions go, and we had so much fun making this music! It really comes across throughout.”

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