Country Joe McDonald, anti-war singer who electrified Woodstock, dies at 84
Country Joe and the Fish’s best-known song, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,” captured the growing anti-war sentiment of the Vietnam era. (Image credit: Mario Tama)
Soul-baring ballads, alt-rock fury and neon-lit techno: five-star albums you may have missed this year
Valentina Magaletti drummed for her life, Sarz got hips swinging and Daniel Avery got slinky and serpentine: our writers pick their favourite unsung LPs from 2025• The 50 best albums of 2025• More on the best culture of 2025 Towards the end of Tether, there is a song called Silk and Velvet; its sound is […]
The 10 best jazz albums of 2025
Jakob Bro’s Bill Frisell collaboration finally saw the light, Cécile McLorin Salvant drew on her teenage pop memories and Anthony Braxton looked back to 1985• The 50 best albums of 2025• More on the best culture of 2025 UK saxophonist, composer and bandleader Tom Smith was dropping clues to his distinctively contemporary take on jazz […]
New Additions to Alan Jackson’s Final Concert are Family
Though none of them like to broadcast it too loudly because they want to stand on their own two feet, Alan Jackson has numerous relatives in the country music business. They’ve been added to his final show. On Saturday, June 27th, Alan Jackson will be performing at Nissan Stadium in Nashville in what is billed […]
New Adds to Saving Country Music’s Top 25 Current Playlist (#174)
There are now over 11,000 people following this playlist on Spotify alone. Nobody pays to get on this playlist. You have to earn it by releasing a great country song. And with limited spots, you know each song is tops. Dale Watson – “If You Really Love Me (Outlive Me)” – It might be a little […]
A glitzy new Johannesburg nightclub honors the late great musician Hugh Masekela
The spirit of legendary jazz musician Hugh Masekela lives on at a new club in Johannesburg dedicated to his memory.
Jack White: ‘I’m not going to put a painful thing out there for some idiot on the internet to stomp all over’
As a new book of his lyrics, poems and selected musings is published, the White Stripes’ singer, songwriter and general guitar hero reflects on poetry, politics and why writing a song is like reupholstering a chair On the jacket of Jack White: Collected Lyrics & Selected Writing Volume 1, the poet and critic Hanif Abdurraqib […]
‘I was mesmerised by Kate Bush and the Smurfs, so I had great taste’: Diane Morgan’s honest playlist
The Philomena Cunk star’s life was changed by the Fall and she knows a Spitting Image song inside out. But which haunting banger does she say is the best ever? The first song I fell in love with Baggy Trousers by Madness. I remember thinking it was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard, partly because […]
The best songs of 2025 … you may not have heard
From a folk murder ballad to an impassioned call for peace, Guardian writers pick their favourite lesser-heard tracks of the year The pick of 2025’s film, music, art, TV, stage and games, chosen by Guardian critics and writers There is a sense of deep knowing and calm to Not Offended, the lone song released this […]
Emily Nenni Readies New Album “Movin’ Shoes”
There are few more valuable assets in the arsenal of present-day country music than the voice of Emily Nenni, and how she so deftly wields it through her enveloping original songs. “When I was writing these songs, I was thinking about just how hard it is to live in this world,” Nenni says. “How are […]