Mick Jagger, 80, rare photos with girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 36, and son, 7

Mick Jagger, 80, rare photos with girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 36, and son, 7

Mick Jagger is celebrating his son Deveraux’s seventh birthday in some very rare family photos. The rocker’s girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, shared a collage of the couple in honor of their little one’s big day on […]

Five of the best music books of 2023 | Best books of the year

Dance Your Way Home- A Journey Through the Dancefloor Emma Warren (Faber)

Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through the DancefloorEmma Warren, FaberA dyed-in-the-wool clubber, Warren knows of what she speaks when it comes to the dancefloor: there is a lot of personal reminiscence in the endlessly […]

TikTok’s biggest hits are videos you’ve probably never seen

A TikTok logo surrounded by jazzy lines and colorful accents

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge It’s the most wonderful time of the year: when TikTok publishes its annual roundup of the biggest hits, and I get to see what everyone else has been […]

‘I’ve been sacked for asking for time off to tour’: the perils of being a musician with a second job | Music

Anchoress

The first Musicians’ Census recently found that almost half of working UK musicians earn less than £14K a year from music. It’s fine for the lucky handful making millions, such as Ed Sheehan or Adele, […]

Festival organisers sound alarm as big-name artists shun their events | Music festivals

Fans pack out Victoria Park in London for the Field Day festival

Set on the front meadow of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, minutes from the Guinness brewery, it is no surprise the first wave of tickets for Dublin’s Forbidden Fruit festival sold out within days. […]

Emperor’s new clothes: why the French are ready to embrace Napoleon again | Napoleon Bonaparte

Joaquin Phoenix, Ridley Scott and Vanessa Kirby attend the UK premiere of Napoleon.

A Hollywood war epic about the world’s most famous Frenchman – directed by an Englishman – was bound to contain its share of historical inaccuracies. So Ridley Scott’s big-budget battle extravaganza, Napoleon, which opens worldwide […]

‘Spanish-dominated’ Latin Grammys’ move to Seville provokes controversy | Spain

Rosalia poses with four of the eight Latin Grammy awards she won in 2022.

Hordes of fans wait anxiously along fenced barriers clutching their phones, itching to catch a shot of some of the world’s most famous musicians. Some scream in excitement as cars with blacked-out windows roll up […]

Dolly Parton: Rockstar review – country legend’s first rock album is like endless karaoke | Dolly Parton

The artwork for Rockstar.

Dolly Parton has done it all. She has asserted her primacy over the reactionary forces of Nashville’s music industry, sold 100m records, written umpteen classic songs, broken into Hollywood, opened her own amusement park and […]

‘I had no idea it would be so painful!’ Could you survive the real-life Squid Game? | Reality TV

Rhik pits himself against the honeycomb challenge.

My feet are numb. I’ve been trapped in an awkward squat for several minutes, lactic acid eating through my thighs. The 20ft-tall mechanical doll stares mercilessly, her dress orange, her head full of motion sensors, […]

Alan Sparhawk review – beautiful, obliterating hymns to Low’s Mimi Parker | Music

Cyrus Sparhawk, Alan Sparhawk and Dave Carroll on stage

This time last year, Low were due to headline Le Guess Who, an experimental music festival in Utrecht. Instead, the beloved US indie band had to cancel their tour dates owing to the declining health […]

Jazz rulebreaker Hiromi: ‘The piano is a plane that can take me anywhere’ | Jazz

‘I have always loved the challenge of changing minds’ … Hiromi.

There aren’t many jazz performers like Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara. With her hair artfully piled almost a foot above her head, the 44-year-old launches into muscular assaults that traverse everything from fast-paced bebop to contemporary […]

Dua Lipa: Houdini review – vanishing-act anthem destined for total ubiquity | Dua Lipa

Album artwork for Houdini.

At first blush, the notion that Dua Lipa named her comeback single after shorthand for pulling a vanishing act is a bit eyebrow-raising. Since she released her second album, Future Nostalgia, in 2020, the 28-year-old […]

Giggs & Diddy review – potent chemistry unites Peckham and NYC | Rap

Giggs, Diddy and Shyne are lapped up by the crowd.

If you’d have predicted 15 years ago that Peckham’s Giggs and US rap mogul Diddy would one day share a stage in Shepherd’s Bush, you might have received some strange looks. Road-rap legend Giggs half-talks […]

Manchester Unspun: How a City Got High on Music by Andy Spinoza – from Cottonopolis to Manc-hattan | History books

‘Engaging thesis’: Andy Spinoza

Some years ago, when a national newspaper editor headed north to view the property boom that is transforming Manchester’s city centre and its skyline, Andrew Spinoza was entrusted with the job of tour guide. “I […]