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NEIL PEART DIED 6 YEARS AGO. LAST WEDNESDAY, HIS BAND PLAYED MEXICO FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 24 YEARS. June 18th, Palacio de los Deportes, Mexico City. Rush hadn’t been to Mexico since the Vapor Trails tour in 2002. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and new drummer Anika Nilles walked out to a sold-out arena that waited almost a quarter century for this. But what nobody expected was what happened right before the lights went down. Canada won 6-0 in the World Cup. Then Mexico won their match. The building was already shaking before “Xanadu” even started. Rush played 22 songs across nearly 3 hours — two full sets, two Neil Peart tribute collages threaded through the night. This tour now has 58 shows and over 500,000 tickets sold. Rush posted the next morning: “The most joyful fans. The streets were ALIVE all night.” That Wednesday in Mexico City wasn’t just a concert. It was 24 years of waiting finally landing in one room.

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Rush Returns to Mexico City After 24 Years: A Night of Memory, Energy, and Tribute On June 18th at Palacio…

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NO ONE HAD EVER SUNG AT THE TEMPLE OF CONCORDIA. THEN IL VOLO SHOWED UP. The Temple of Concordia has stood in Agrigento, Sicily for 2,500 years. It survived wars, earthquakes, centuries of silence. But it had never heard a live concert — until Il Volo walked in. In the summer of 2024, Piero, Gianluca, and Ignazio stood in front of those ancient columns under the Sicilian night sky. They sang ‘O Sole Mio. They sang Hallelujah. And then something happened that nobody expected. South African soprano Pretty Yende stepped out. Her voice hit Amazing Grace, and it echoed between those stone pillars like nothing from this century. This was their 8th PBS special. They’ve crossed 1 billion YouTube views. But standing there, in that valley where Greek temples still glow gold at sunset — it felt like their first time. Three voices. One night that the stones themselves seemed to remember.

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No One Had Ever Sung at the Temple of Concordia. Then Il Volo Showed Up. For 2,500 years, the Temple…

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“IT’S A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL.” — THE MAN BEHIND 30+ YEARS OF SMASHING PUMPKINS ISN’T PLAYING. Billy Corgan didn’t wait for anyone to ask. On the And The Writer Is… podcast, he just said it. “I refuse, refuse, patently refuse to use AI in my music creation.” No hesitation. No “maybe someday.” Just a hard no. But then he said something that stopped the room — he compared what’s happening right now to the death of silent films. Entire careers wiped out overnight when talkies arrived. He believes AI will do the same to songwriters. “We’re flirting with the thing that will destroy us as an economy, as a movement,” he said. “You’re asking to be wiped out.” For Corgan, the doubt, the pressure, the nights you feel like you’ve got nothing left to say — that’s not the problem. That’s the whole point. That’s where real songs come from. No machine can sit with that emptiness and turn it into something that makes a stranger cry.

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Billy Corgan Draws a Hard Line on AI in Music Billy Corgan has never sounded like someone eager to soften…

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A VOICE BUILT FOR VERDI’S DARKNESS — SINGING ROSSINI’S MOST JOYFUL 5 MINUTES. Dmitri Hvorostovsky was a Verdi baritone to the bone. Dark roles. Heavy emotions. Tragedy woven into every phrase. That’s where he lived for over 180 nights at the Met alone. So when he stepped up to sing “Largo al factotum” — Figaro’s wild, breathless entrance from The Barber of Seville — no one knew what was coming. This is pure Rossini chaos. Figaro bragging, laughing, shouting his own name like a man who loves himself too much. Figaro! Figaro! Figaro! But Hvorostovsky didn’t just sing it. He owned it. The same man who walked into Cardiff at 26 and stunned the world by beating hometown hero Bryn Terfel — now standing on stage doing something completely outside his territory. And somehow, he made it sound effortless. Light. Free. Grinning through every note. A voice made for sorrow, choosing joy — and making everyone in the room smile with him.

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A Voice Built for Verdi’s Darkness, Singing Rossini’s Most Joyful Five Minutes Dmitri Hvorostovsky was known for gravity. His voice…

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NEARLY 9 YEARS AFTER CHRIS CORNELL DIED, HIS GREATEST INHERITANCE WASN’T LEFT IN A RECORD VAULT — IT WAS STILL TREMBLING IN TONI’S VOICE. May 18, 2017. Detroit, Michigan. Chris Cornell was gone at 52, only hours after stepping off a stage. He left behind one of the most unmistakable voices rock music had ever known — a voice that could sound wounded, furious, and beautiful all at once. Soundgarden. Audioslave. Temple of the Dog. Songs that did not just fill arenas. They lived inside people. But Toni Cornell inherited something no award could hold. She did not know her father only as a legend. She knew him as home. As a voice in the next room. As a presence that made music feel personal before it ever felt historic. Then the world lost Chris Cornell. And one day, Toni stepped forward and sang. Not to imitate him. Not to compete with his shadow. But to prove that some voices do not disappear when the man is gone. They change shape. They soften. They survive inside the child who was listening all along.

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Nearly 9 Years After Chris Cornell Died, His Greatest Inheritance Was Still Trembling in Toni Cornell’s Voice On May 18,…

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“AT 26, A BOY FROM SIBERIA BEAT THE HOMETOWN FAVORITE AND MADE THE WHOLE WORLD REMEMBER HIS NAME.” Dmitri Hvorostovsky was 26 when he stepped onto the stage at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 1989. A baritone from Krasnoyarsk — a closed city in Siberia. Nobody outside Russia knew his name. He sang Verdi. The room went still. He beat Wales’ own Bryn Terfel in the final — on Welsh soil. But what most people didn’t know about him back then would’ve surprised everyone. As a teenager, he ran with street gangs. Music wasn’t even part of his life yet. Then he found his voice. And it changed everything. People magazine named him one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. He performed over 180 times at the Metropolitan Opera. In 2003, he sang wartime songs at the Kremlin Palace in front of 6,000 people — while 90 million watched on Russian TV. He passed away in 2017 at 55, after a long fight with brain cancer. But that voice — deep, warm, and full of something you can’t quite name — still echoes.

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The Night Dmitri Hvorostovsky Changed Everything In 1989, a 26-year-old baritone from Krasnoyarsk stepped into one of the most watched…

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“NOBODY TOUCHES MY GUITAR!” — AND THEN CHUCK BERRY PUNCHED KEITH RICHARDS STRAIGHT IN THE FACE. Keith just retold this story in a new Guardian interview. Back in the ’60s, he walked into Berry’s dressing room and spotted the guitar sitting there. He reached out — just to look. Berry walked in. And what Keith says next might surprise you coming from a guy who got punched by his own hero. “Nobody touches it!” Bam. Right in the face. Keith isn’t mad about it. Never was. He worshipped Berry. He says watching Berry play was like watching a man become his instrument. That spark made a teenage Keith beg his mother for an electric guitar. Now, 63 years after the Stones’ first single — a Berry cover — their 25th album Foreign Tongues closes with another: “Beautiful Delilah.” The man punched him. And Keith still couldn’t walk away.

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Nobody Touches My Guitar: Keith Richards, Chuck Berry, and the Moment That Became Rock History Some stories in rock and…

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IN 1934, THIS DUET WAS BROADCAST LIVE ON 120 RADIO STATIONS ACROSS THE WORLD. NOW JONAS KAUFMANN JUST BROUGHT IT BACK. When Franz Lehár premiered “Giuditta” at the Vienna State Opera in January 1934, it was his last and most ambitious work. The opening night was broadcast live on 120 radio stations across Europe and the United States. It was that big. Among the most tender moments in the score is the duet “Schön wie die blaue Sommernacht.” But what Kaufmann and Nikola Hillebrand did with it on this new recording — that’s something words alone can’t quite capture. The album “Magische Töne,” released April 2026 on Sony Classical, was recorded in Budapest with the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra under Dirk Kaftan. Twenty-two tracks of operetta and opera from the Austro-Hungarian era. Kaufmann’s voice carrying melodies written in a world that was about to fall apart. Hillebrand matches him note for note. Two voices, one duet, 92 years of distance — and it still lands right in the chest.

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Jonas Kaufmann Revives a Historic Duet From Franz Lehár’s Giuditta When Franz Lehár premiered Giuditta at the Vienna State Opera…

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“WHEN YOU’RE IN MY BAND, I CAN PROMISE YOU THREE THINGS: YOU’RE GOING TO SEE THE WORLD, GET PAID, AND GET STITCHES.” — ALICE COOPER TO NITA STRAUSS ON HER FIRST DAY, 12 YEARS AGO. On Nita Strauss’s very first rehearsal with Alice Cooper back in 2014, the man looked at her and said: “I can promise you three things — you’re going to see the world, get paid, and get stitches.” All three came true. Over 12 years, she got whipped by the whip during “Go To Hell.” Stabbed by the sword during “Billion Dollar Babies.” Tore her meniscus coming down the stage stairs and needed surgery. And most recently — got licked right on the tongue by Cooper’s live snake. But none of that is why people remember her name. What nobody saw coming was this: the woman who kept bleeding on Alice Cooper’s stage became the first female guitarist ever to earn an Ibanez signature model. She played for millions of fans worldwide, and when she finally stepped away this year to have her first baby, she handpicked her own 22-year-old replacement. Every scar, earned.

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When Alice Cooper Promised Nita Strauss Three Things, He Meant Every Word On Nita Strauss’s very first rehearsal with Alice…

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“6 YEARS AGO, TOM MORELLO SAID THERE WAS ‘A RECORD’S WORTH’ OF UNRELEASED AUDIOSLAVE SONGS WITH CHRIS CORNELL. TODAY? THEY’RE ‘NO CLOSER’ TO RELEASING THEM.” Somewhere in a studio vault, there are songs nobody’s ever heard — Chris Cornell’s voice on tracks left over from all three Audioslave albums. Tom Morello first confirmed it back in 2019. Leftover songs, some of which he calls “really great.” He promised they’d come out “at some point.” But six years later, that “some point” still hasn’t come. Morello recently admitted there’s no plan, no timeline. “We just don’t have it together,” he said. He wants those songs out in the world. He just can’t make it happen yet. And what makes it harder to sit with — Soundgarden is actually finishing their final album with Cornell’s unreleased vocals right now. Songs he recorded between 2015 and 2017, with producer Terry Date helping the surviving members complete the work. Same voice. But only one band found a way to bring it back.

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Tom Morello, Chris Cornell, and the Audioslave Vault That Still Has Not Opened There are music stories that fade with…

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“HE’S BEEN SINGING TO A MAN WHO DIED 35 YEARS AGO — AND HE STILL CAN’T HOLD BACK HIS TEARS.” Brian May sits alone on a stool, cradling his guitar, and begins singing “Love of My Life” — the ballad Freddie Mercury wrote in 1975. His voice is quiet. Almost like he’s not performing at all, just talking to someone who isn’t there anymore. Then Freddie appears. Not in flesh — through an optical illusion built from Queen’s legendary 1986 Wembley footage. His voice fills the arena, powerful and soaring, and suddenly 35 years of absence just dissolve into nothing. But here’s what breaks people. As the song ends, Freddie reaches his hand toward Brian. And Brian — every single night since 2012 — reaches back. Sometimes he waves. Sometimes he bows. And some nights, he just sits there wiping his eyes. He knows that hand will never touch his. He reaches anyway.

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A 7-YEAR-OLD BOY MOVED TO AMERICA WITH NOTHING BUT A CELLO. NOW HE HAS 20 GRAMMYS AND OVER 120 ALBUMS. Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris to Chinese parents. His father put a cello in his hands when he was four. When the family moved to New York, he was just a quiet kid nobody recognized. He studied at Juilliard, then Harvard — but what he chose to do next surprised everyone who expected him to stay in the classical world. He recorded Argentine tango, bluegrass, Brazilian music, traditional Chinese melodies. He played cello at the World Trade Center on the first anniversary of September 11. This June, Forbes placed him at No.25 on their first-ever list of America’s 250 Most Successful Living Immigrants — right next to names like Sundar Pichai and Satya Nadella. A cellist. Among tech billionaires. That says everything.

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HE WENT TO MONTEREY EXPECTING MUSIC. HE WALKED OUT KNOWING HE HAD SEEN A FORCE OF NATURE. In 1967, Clive Davis was still new to the sound that was rising from the streets, clubs, and young hearts of America. Then he saw Janis Joplin. She did not look polished. She did not sing safely. She stood with Big Brother and the Holding Company and poured pain, fire, loneliness, and freedom into one voice until the room could barely hold it. Many executives would have heard noise. Davis heard history. That moment helped bring Janis to Columbia Records and pushed her voice far beyond San Francisco. For Janis, it was a door opening. For Clive, it was the moment he understood that rock music was not just a trend. It was a generation telling the truth out loud. Janis would not live long enough to grow old with her legend. But Clive Davis heard her before the world fully understood her. And sometimes, that is what changes everything.

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WHEN TRUMP, ZELENSKYY, AND MELONI SAT IN THE SAME ROOM — IT WASN’T POLITICS THAT BROUGHT THEM TOGETHER. IT WAS BRAHMS. At the G7 Summit in Évian last week, something quiet happened between all the handshakes and closed-door meetings. President Macron stepped up to a microphone — not to talk policy, but to introduce four musicians. Yo-Yo Ma from America. Renaud Capuçon from France. Timothy Ridout from Britain. Beatrice Rana from Italy. Four countries, four instruments, one stage inside La Source Vive — a brand-new concert hall that had just opened its doors. But here’s what got people talking about the setlist. They played Morricone’s Gabriel’s Oboe. John Williams’ Schindler’s List theme. Then the fiery finale of Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1. And when it was all over, in front of 150 of the most powerful people on earth, they chose one encore — Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. A local children’s choir also performed that evening, hand-picked after impressing Brigitte Macron during an earlier visit. One night. No agenda. Just music in a room full of people who rarely agree on anything.