There was a moment, a little over 30 years ago, when Dave Grohl channeled grief into music, and built what would become one of the biggest stadium rock bands of this century.
Grohl, the drummer with Nirvana, felt his world implode when Kurt Cobain took his own life on April 5, 1994. Instead of sliding away, Grohl got to work. He wrote an entire album of music, recorded all the instruments within a single week of October 1994.
The rocker assembled a band, Foo Fighters, slung the axe. He moved away from the kit and to the front and center of the stage. That first self-titled Foos album dropped in June 1995, the first of the rockers’ 12 studio albums. The first in career that saw the band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, on what was their first year of eligibility. The Beatles’ Paul McCartney was there to induct Grohl and Co.
Everything comes back to that first album, and those early kickass songs. The Foos kicked off their four-night musical residency on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday, for the late-night show’s Halloween takeover week. On night one, it was a performance of “Window” from the rock act’s 12th and latest studio album, Your Favorite Toy. On Tuesday night, Oct. 27, it was an old favorite, “This Is A Call,” a beacon from that first Foos album, one created out of misery.
The Foos were tight, and loud, for this blast from the past. They’ll bring that energy when they return to the road next week, for the start of another stadium tour of Australia. Your Favorite Toy is the followup to 2023’s But Here We Are, which peaked at No. 8 on the Billboard 200, for the band’s 10th top tier entry, a tally that includes two leaders (Wasting Light from 2011 and Concrete And Gold from 2017).
Watch the Foos’ late night performance below.
Australians will have a chance to experience the full ABBA smorgasbord when the Mamma Mia party comes to Sydney next year.
Created by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, Mamma Mia! The Party is an immersive theatrical dining event, where guests soak up the pop legends’ music in a restaurant recreated to look like a taverna on the Greek island of Skopelos, where most of the feature film was shot. Dinners are treated to Mediterranean cuisine and, of course, many of ABBA’s hits, performed by a live band and cast of 20 musicians and performers.
As the evening ends, fans can live out their “Dancing Queen” dream as the room becomes a 1970s-style disco.
Mamma Mia! The Party is booked for its Australian premiere in March 2027 at Sydney Event Centre at The Star. It’s executive produced by Ulvaeus and Pophouse Entertainment, and TEG Dainty in Australia, whose president and CEO Paul Dainty was behind the Swedish group’s legendary tour down under a half century ago.
“Bringing Mamma Mia! The Party to Australia feels particularly special for me,” Dainty remarks. “I had the extraordinary privilege of promoting ABBA’s first and only Australian tour back in 1977, and I still remember the phenomenal excitement that followed them across the country.”
Through the friendships made on that first and only ABBA trek to these parts, ABBA’s Benny Andersson and Ulvaeus entrusted Dainty to tour Mamma Mia! 25 years later. The British-born concerts veteran also has the option to produce the hugely-popular ABBA: Voyage in these parts.
“Australia’s love affair with ABBA has never really ended,” Dainty adds, “their music has become part of our cultural fabric.”
He’s not wrong. Australia held the torch for ABBA when music tastes shifted, briefly abandoned, then came roaring back to Björn, Benny, Agnetha and Frida. The Melbourne-originated tribute brand Bjorn Again has been giving ABBA fans their fix since the late ‘80s and, in the ‘90s, the Aussie indie film Muriel’s Wedding introduced a new generation to the supergroup’s catalog.
In 2021, ABBA’s first studio LP in 40 years, Voyager, was an immediate hit in Australia, blasting to No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart. It was the second ABBA album (and first studio set) to top the ARIA chart following the ABBA Gold compilation, which logged four straight weeks at No. 1 in December 1992.
Prior to the launch of the ARIA Charts in 1983, ABBA had leaders here with ABBA (11 weeks, December 1975 to February 1976), The Best of ABBA (16 weeks, March 1976 to July 1976) and Arrival (8 weeks, November 1976 to January 1977), the charts compiler reports.
The Mamma Mia! soundtrack, a collection of ABBA covers, also went to No. 1 on the ARIA Chart in 2018.
“To be now working with Björn and Pophouse to bring this extraordinary celebration of ABBA’s music to Sydney feels like a wonderful full-circle moment,” enthuses Dainty. “Mamma Mia! The Party is pure joy – it brings people together to eat, sing, dance and experience these songs in an entirely new way – and I can’t wait for Australian audiences to experience it.”
Sydney is the third city to host Mamma Mia! The Party after Stockholm, which is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, and London, now its seventh year, collectively clocking up over 1,500 performances and welcoming 700,000 diners.
Tickets for the Sydney experience go on sale Thursday, Nov. 12. Fans can join the waitlist at mammamiatheparty.com.au. Watch the official trailer below.
NE-YO performed the national anthem at game 4 of the 2026 World Series on Tuesday night (Oct. 27) in Tampa Bay, as the Milwaukee Brewers have their brooms out looking to complete the sweep of the Rays.
Holding his hat at his side, NE-YO brought his silky-smooth vocals to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” singing on the baseball field as a graphic of the American flag waved behind him. Watch the full performance here:
The R&B singer followed in the footsteps of Mickey Guyton (game 1), Kylie Cantrall (game 2) and Carly Pearce (game 3) as the national anthem performers in this year’s Fall Classic.
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“You go over the words like a madman,” NE-YO said in an interview with MLB Network prior to the performance. “Lord knows that you don’t want to get up there and forget the words. You do a lot of vocal exercises… I try to keep it somewhat traditional.”
If the Rays snatch a victory, game 5 will take place on Wednesday (Oct. 28) at the Trop. But it could be a historic night at Tropicana Field. The champagne bottles are sure to be popping if the Brewers indeed win game 4 to capture the franchise’s first World Series championship.
2026 marks the Brew Crew’s first appearance in the Fall Classic since 1982, when they fell short to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, which was when the franchise was still in the American League.
This is far from NE-YO’s first time singing the national anthem at a major sporting event. The “So Sick” artist previously performed at the 2016 NBA All-Star Game, Thanksgiving’s Detroit Lions-Chicago Bears game in 2021 and the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament’s final in 2023 in Las Vegas between the Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Lakers.
Sporting a cowboy hat, the 47-year-old returned in July with the release of his country-inspired Highway 79 album.
Watch NE-YO’s full interview with MLB Network ahead of game 4 below.
NE-YO will perform the national anthem at game 4 of the 2026 World Series on Tuesday (Oct. 27) in Tampa Bay, as the Milwaukee Brewers have their brooms out and will look to complete the sweep of the Rays.
The R&B singer follows in the footsteps of Mickey Guyton (game 1), Kylie Cantrall (game 2) and Carly Pearce (game 3) as “The Star Spangled Banner” performers in this year’s Fall Classic.
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“You go over the words like a madman,” NE-YO said in an interview with MLB Network prior to the performance. “Lord knows that you don’t want to get up there and forget the words. You do a lot of vocal exercises… I try to keep it somewhat traditional.”
Game 4 is set for 8 p.m. ET on FOX, while former Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Evan Longeria is slated to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. If the Rays snatch a victory, game 5 will take place on Wednesday (Oct. 28) at the Trop.
It could be a historic night at Tropicana Field. The champagne bottles are sure to be popping if the Brewers indeed win game 4 to capture the franchise’s first World Series championship.
2026 marks the Brew Crew’s first appearance in the Fall Classic since 1982, when they fell short to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, which was when the franchise was still in the American League.
This is far from NE-YO’s first time singing the national anthem at a major sporting event. The “So Sick” artist previously performed at the 2016 NBA All-Star Game, Thanksgiving’s Detroit Lions-Chicago Bears game in 2021 and the inaugural NBA In-Season Tournament’s final in 2023 in Las Vegas between the Indiana Pacers and Los Angeles Lakers.
Sporting a cowboy hat, the 47-year-old returned in July with the release of his country-inspired Highway 79 album.
Watch NE-YO’s full interview with MLB Network ahead of game 4 below.
Hov’s heading to the West Coast. On Monday (Oct. 26), the NFL made it official, announcing Jay-Z will be headlining the Super Bowl LXI Halftime Show at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Feb. 14, 2027.
Before the announcement, the Brooklyn rap deity was rumored to be the pick for the big game, as Puck reported Jay would be taking the stage on Oct. 20.
“From Reasonable Doubt to standing on the Super Bowl Halftime stage, this has been a journey,” Hov said in a press release. “Thirty years of music, work, and culture on the world’s biggest stage. This run continues to be a dream come true.”
Jigga has just about seen it all in his hall of fame career, but he’ll be helming the Super Bowl stage for the first time in 2027. Since 2019, Jay and Roc Nation have served as the league’s live music entertainment strategist, which has seen halftime shows from Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Usher, The Weeknd and Bad Bunny under his tenure, but now it’s Jay’s turn.
“For several years, we’ve had the privilege of working closely with JAŸ-Z and Roc Nation, and I’ve seen the extraordinary impact he has had on the Super Bowl Halftime Show,” added NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “When we first reached an agreement with Roc Nation to produce the show, I had just one request: that JAŸ-Z take the stage himself one day, whenever the moment felt right to him. I couldn’t be more excited for fans around the world to experience the artistry, creativity and cultural impact he will bring to the Super Bowl stage.”
Jay has been back outside throughout 2026, which set up his road to the Super Bowl. He returned to the stage at Roots Picnic in May and continued NYC’s summer of dreams with a Yankee Stadium trifecta in celebration of Reasonable Doubt‘s 30th anniversary and The Blueprint turning 25.
In the less than 24 hours since the NFL’s announcement, there’s been much debate about Jay holding fort and carrying the show as a mainly solo act or leaning on his Rolodex of starry collaborators to bolster his 15-minute set.
It’s been nearly a decade since Jay’s last solo studio album (4:44); could the Super Bowl be a launchpad for a new album as well? But first: If Hov does go the superstar guest route, here’s who we’d like to think will be joining him in Los Angeles.
After teasing their comeback last week, Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields’ Dead Man’s Bones finally rose from the crypt on Monday (Oct.26) with the release of the haunted rocker “Lost in the Night.”
The spectral song featuring Project Hail Mary star Gosling’s deadpan vocals and spidery guitar finds him singing, “Shadows growing longer in your dust/ The darkest dawn is on the rise for us/ Chase it all away/ Chase it all away/ Lost in the night/ Lost in the night with you.” The song, which revs up midway through thanks to a spare, driving beat reminiscent of 1970s synth punk pioneers Suicide, also features a chorus of echoey background vocals and was written by Gosling and Shields and co-produced by the duo and longtime collaborator Tim Anderson.
The accompanying black-and-white video stars Hamnet’s Noah Jupe and The Summer I Turned Pretty’s Rain Spencer dancing their way out of a cemetery through the night, laughing, hugging and staring deeply into each other’s eyes as if they were the only two people left on Earth.
Gosling and screenwriter/producer Shields (Krampus) teased their first new music in 17 years last week with a spooky post that was amplified by Gosling’s wife, actress Eva Mendes, who hyped the comeback on her Instagram feed. After the teaser posted, Mendes reposted it on her feed and bragged, “He came through on this promise to me. 🖤.”
Gosling’s 10-track debut solo album, Angel With Tatooed Wings, came out in 2000, and then he and Shields formed Dead Man’s Bones, whose self-titled 2009 debut featured backing vocals from the Silverlake Conservatory’s Children’s Choir. In addition to lead vocals, Gosling played piano, guitar, synthesizer, percussion, cello and bass on that album.
According to a release, after trying to record their sophomore collection in a couple of different Los Angeles studios and not finding the sound they wanted, “the duo took two guitars, two drum machines, and two synthesizers to a farm outside the city and recorded the song in a day. The result is a shadowy but undeniably hopeful homemade anthem that hints at an exciting new direction for the duo.”
Watch the “Lost in the Night” video below.
Disturbed are heading back to Australia and New Zealand in 2027 for their first headline tour of the region in more than a decade.
The seven-date arena run will begin April 22 at Auckland’s Spark Arena before heading to Christchurch, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne, wrapping May 9 at Perth’s RAC Arena.
Each night will feature two Disturbed sets. The first will see the band perform their 2000 debut album, The Sickness, in full, while the second will draw from more than two decades of hits.
The Australia and New Zealand dates follow the band’s The Sickness 25th-anniversary tour across North America, the U.K. and Europe, where Disturbed have been revisiting the album that launched their career.
Released in March 2000, The Sickness peaked at No. 29 on the Billboard 200 and became one of the defining hard-rock releases of the early 2000s. The album has since been certified five-times platinum by the RIAA. Its best-known track, “Down With the Sickness,” remains one of Disturbed’s signature songs, while the band later found another major crossover moment with their 2015 cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence.”
That track became Disturbed’s highest-charting entry on the Billboard Hot 100 and helped introduce the band to an even broader audience more than 15 years after their debut. Disturbed also put together an unusually consistent run on the Billboard 200 following The Sickness. Beginning with 2002’s Believe, the band scored five consecutive No. 1 albums: Believe, Ten Thousand Fists, Indestructible, Asylum and Immortalized.
Their most recent studio album, Divisive, arrived in 2022 and debuted at No. 13 on the Billboard 200. It also produced several rock-radio hits, including “Hey You,” “Unstoppable” and “Don’t Tell Me,” the latter featuring Heart’s Ann Wilson.
The upcoming tour comes as Disturbed continue releasing new music beyond Divisive. In 2025, the band returned with “I Will Not Break,” their first new single since that album cycle.
Disturbed’s touring business has also continued to grow. Billboard previously reported that the band’s 2023 Take Back Your Life tour grossed $17.4 million and sold 336,000 tickets, with average attendance rising significantly from their previous headline runs.
The 2027 dates will bring the anniversary production back to Australia and New Zealand after the band’s recent international run, giving fans the chance to hear The Sickness front to back before a second set spanning the rest of their catalog.
DISTURBED — AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND 2027
April 22 — Auckland, New Zealand @ Spark Arena
April 24 — Christchurch, New Zealand @ Wolfbrook Arena
April 28 — Brisbane, Australia @ Brisbane Entertainment Centre
May 1 — Sydney, Australia @ Afterpay Arena
May 3 — Adelaide, Australia @ Adelaide Entertainment Centre
May 5 — Melbourne, Australia @ Rod Laver Arena
May 9 — Perth, Australia @ RAC Arena
Taylor Swift was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame on Monday night (Oct. 26), using her acceptance speech to revisit the Music Row writing rooms, publishers and collaborators who shaped her earliest years as a songwriter.
Brad Paisley inducted the 14-time Grammy winner at the organization’s 56th annual gala at Nashville’s Music City Center, prompting an opening joke about a tour prank that apparently still hadn’t been forgotten.
“I’m really surprised to see you here, actually, because we’ve been estranged since 2007,” Swift joked.
The singer-songwriter recalled Paisley filling her tour bus with thousands of live crickets during their time on the road together. “For months, I couldn’t sleep. Just chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp all night,” she remembered, before deciding his introduction had been good enough to let “bygones be bygones.”
From there, Swift broke the Hall of Fame honor down into three words: Nashville, songwriters and fame.
“I knew from the time I wrote my first song that even if it couldn’t be my career, it would be my passion,” she told the room. “It would be what I centered my entire life around.”
Nashville, meanwhile, was “the place that I went to in my middle school daydreams” — somewhere the young songwriter imagined all of the lessons and wisdom she wanted to acquire existed in one place.
Fame came later, Swift noted.
“Fame, you know, that’s sort of a byproduct of my love for music,” the pop superstar explained. “It’s kind of like songwriter plus Nashville equals fame.”
With that success came what she described as “daily random doses of chaos.” When life starts to feel strange, Swift returns mentally to her earliest memories of arriving in Nashville, signing a publishing deal at 14 and writing songs every day.
“I was like a sponge,” she joked. “And I had really curly hair and it was yellow, so I kind of looked like a sponge too.”
Those formative years taught her that songwriting was a craft built through repetition.
“I think you truly learn a craft when you do it over and over and over,” the songwriter reflected. “And that is what the magnificent songwriters that work in this amazing town do.”
“There is no music community like this music community,” she added. “I know, I checked all the communities.”
Swift also credited Nashville’s writing community with teaching her some of the less glamorous realities of collaboration: how to push through creative blocks, which ideas are worth fighting for and when to let something go.
“I learned how to accommodate when your co-writer has a hangover, or when they’re going to need to talk about their divorce for a really long time before we write anything,” she joked.
Those writers, the newly inducted Hall of Famer explained, “in a lot of ways, raised me and guided me through my formative years.”
One memory she revisited in detail dates back to December 2005.
Her mother would pick her up from Hendersonville High School and drive her to Jody Williams Music, an independent publisher housed in a small Craftsman-style home. At the front desk was Katherine — whose boyfriend at the time, Swift revealed to the room, was Eric Church.
“Things have gone great for them,” she joked. “They’ve got a couple kids, married like 20 years now. His full name is Eric Church, just for clarity.”
From there, the then-teenage songwriter would run upstairs to a red-painted room to work with Liz Rose.
“I’d be like, ‘Liz, this happened in school today,’” Swift recalled. “And she’d get her notebook, and we’d just write so fast.”
After those sessions, she would head into a garden shed behind the building, where demo producer Nathan Chapman recorded her songs and played every instrument.
“He interpreted my music so intuitively that later on I would fight for him to produce my entire first album,” she recalled. “And it was our first album, both of us.”
Her self-titled debut celebrated its 20th anniversary on Oct. 24, just two days before Monday’s induction.
The “Love Story” singer also looked back on writing at Nashville’s Sony Fire Hall, where she could hear other songwriters working through the walls.
“I just kind of liked to pretend that I was in the real building,” she told the audience.
Looking back across the two decades that followed, Swift credited the foundation she built in Nashville with giving her the freedom to move between genres, collaborators and creative approaches.
“The only reason that I’ve been able to have that kind of dexterity in my creative process is because of the fundamentals and the foundation that I learned here in Nashville,” she said. “And I never forget that for a single second.”
“I’m so incredibly honored to be inducted into this sacred club, especially at this point in my life,” the newly minted Hall of Famer continued. “It’s not lost on me how crazy this is.”
She closed by describing Nashville as the place that “honed and polished” the part of herself she is most proud of.
“It just feels like one of those amazing Nashville moments I’m going to revisit on a rainy day,” Swift concluded.
Taylor Swift was inducted alongside Lyle Lovett, Shawn Camp, Lee Thomas Miller, Bruce Channel and the late J.I. Allison. Lainey Wilson performed a bluegrass rendition of “Love Story,” which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, while George Strait received the Career Maker Award.
From halftime producer to headliner: Jay-Z is set to headline the 2027 Super Bowl halftime show.
The news was announced during Monday Night Football (Oct. 26) after ESPN teased a “special announcement” heading into halftime. A teaser soundtracked by “Public Service Announcement (Interlude),” off 2003’s The Black Album, plays across a black-and-white video of Jay-Z in stadium seats, kicking off with the famous line: “Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name HOV — H to the O-V.” The tease was posted to social media after.
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Watch the teaser below:
The video includes the caption “GOAT’s out of the bag” since this became an open secret when it was reported first by Puck that Jay-Z — who’s been producing the halftime show alongside Roc Nation since 2020 — had given himself the nod to headline the 2027 Super Bowl set.
In fact, the rapper was expected to announce the news over the weekend, when he played a pair of shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, which will host the 2027 Super Bowl, on Friday and Saturday. Those shows came and went without an announcement, as did a full day of NFL games on Sunday, but now the news is official.
Given the Feb. 14 date of next year’s Super Bowl, fans are hopeful that Jay might be joined by his superstar wife Beyoncé for an unconventional Valentine’s Day celebration on the football field, among other possible special guests the rapper has collaborated with over the years.
Jay-Z, under his birth name Shawn Carter, has received six consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations as an executive producer of the Super Bowl halftime show, in the category of outstanding variety special (live). He won for two of those shows — the all-star hip-hop show in 2022 starring Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Mary J. Blige, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar and 50 Cent, and this year’s Latin spectacular starring Bad Bunny. Carter won a third Primetime Emmy in 2023 for co-directing the halftime show starring Rihanna, in the category of outstanding directing for a variety special.
Last year’s Super Bowl halftime show — presented by Apple Music — was headlined by Bad Bunny, with special appearances from Lady Gaga and Ricky Martin, as well as celebrities hanging out in his on-field casita.
Macklemore kicked off his Free Palestine benefit concert series in Dublin on Monday night (Oct. 26), bringing out Hozier, Kneecap and a stacked bill of guests at a sold-out 3Arena.
Joining the Seattle rapper onstage were Irish folk band Beoga, singer-songwriter Lina Makoul, M1 of Dead Prez and DJ Habibeats. Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham, activist and psychotherapist Nadia Greenspan and artist and organizer Samir Eskanda spoke as special guests, while Mark Ruffalo, The Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas, Cynthia Nixon, Ilana Glazer and Natasha Rothwell made remote appearances.
The three-city run is raising money for organizations that provide humanitarian relief, medical care, education and advocacy for Palestinians, according to organizers. When the series was announced in September, Live Nation named beneficiaries including Anera, Medical Aid for Palestinians, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, Jewish Voice for Peace and UNRWA USA.
The shows grew out of Macklemore’s abrupt exit from the North American leg of Ed Sheeran’s Loop Tour in September. During a stop at MetLife Stadium, he told the crowd “Free Palestine” and voiced support for people in Gaza and the West Bank. Macklemore later said New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft pushed for his removal, and Kraft confirmed he had barred the rapper from Gillette Stadium, citing those comments and what he called “a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery.” Sheeran said the decision was made by his promoter, not him.
The fallout spread quickly. Several support acts quit the tour in response, among them Beoga, who had been performing with Sheeran every night before landing a spot on Monday’s Dublin bill. Macklemore has also pledged his $1 million in net earnings from the tour to Palestinian aid groups.
Dublin came just days after Macklemore played his first show since leaving the tour, a 17-song set at Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Oct. 22, where he again called for a “free Palestine” and spoke about Sudan, Congo, Lebanon, Haiti and people affected by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Macklemore has topped the Billboard Hot 100 twice, both alongside Ryan Lewis in 2013 with “Thrift Shop” and “Can’t Hold Us.”
The series moves to Paris’ Accor Arena on Thursday (Oct. 29) and wraps at London’s OVO Arena Wembley on Friday (Oct. 30). All three dates are sold out.