Nick Jonas wants you to get up close and personal.

Following the release of his solo album Sunday Best (via Republic Records), the Jonas Brother announces a special run of intimate shows across six east coast cities this June, all bearing the name A Night With Nick.

A Night With Nick will get underway June 4 at Fallsview Casino Resort in Niagara Falls, NY; visit venues in Hanover, MD; Charlotte, NC; Atlanta, GA, Danville, VA; and wraps up June 13 at Hard Rock in Atlantic City, NJ.

According to reps, Jonas will showcase songs from Sunday Best alongside fan-favorite tracks from his catalog, and more in what will be a limited series of shows.

Sunday Best opened at No. 30 on the Billboard 200 chart, and was led by the single “Gut Punch,” which Jonas debuted live last November while on tour in Las Vegas, and later performed on The Tonight Show.

It’s Jonas’ fifth solo album, and the follow-up to 2021’s Spaceman, which reached No. 12 on the Billboard 200. Since then, he released two albums with brothers Joe and Kevin: 2023’s The Album and 2025’s Greetings From Your Hometown, both of which charted in the top 10.

Later in the year, the JoBro and Power Ballad star will take a sharp turn when he co-stars with Kathryn Newton (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) in MRC’s holiday horror film White Elephant. According to Deadline, the film directed by Eli Craig (Clown in a Cornfield) will tell the story of “Eight friends. One prize. Zero trust. Their annual festive holiday gift exchange spirals into a cutthroat game of Christmas carnage.” Jonas is among the producers through his Powered By Jonas company.

Go large with the popcorn, because Jonas is slated to co-star in a bunch of big screen projects, including the latest Jumanji sequel from Columbia Pictures, alongside Dwayne Johnson, Jack Black and Kevin Hart, and he’s also on board for the high-stakes thriller Bodyman, from director Gary Fleder (Reacher).

Pre-sales for A Night with Nick begin today, April 23, from 10:00 am ET, and the general ticket on-sale begins Friday, April 24, at 10:00 am ET.

“A Night With Nick” Dates:

June 4 — Fallsview Casino Resort, Niagara Falls, NY

June 6 — The HALL at Live!, Hanover, MD

June 7 — The Fillmore Charlotte, Charlotte, NC

June 10 — Tabernacle, Atlanta, GA

June 11 — The Pantheon at Caesars Virginia, Danville, VA

June 13 — Hard Rock, Atlantic City, NJ

With two trophies each, Ball Park Music and Jem Cassar-Daley were the big winners at the 2026 Queensland Music Awards, presented Wednesday night (April 22) on the Gold Coast for the very first time.

Cassar-Daley was on hand to collect the pop award for “Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving,” and doubled up with song of the year.

On winning the night’s major prize, Cassar-Daley quipped: “To say I wasn’t expecting this is an absolute understatement.” When her name was called out, she was eating a “few little carrot sticks” with her mother, the veteran broadcaster Laurel Edwards. “Honestly, every year I feel like I’m more and more blown away by the talent that comes out of Queensland, and Brisbane. But it’s also the support from venues, metro and regional.”

By winning song of the year, Cassar-Daley, daughter of homegrown country music great Troy Cassar-Daley, is awarded with a plaque on the Walk of Fame in Brisbane’s Brunswick Street Mall. She already has one, for nabbing song of the year in 2024 with “King of Disappointment.”

Ball Park Music capped a massive 12 months with a brace for their eighth album, Like Love, which won QMAs for album of the year and highest selling album. Like Love went to No. 1 on the ARIA Albums Chart in April 2025, the band’s first leader after long streak of near-misses which included three titles that peaked at No. 2: Puddinghead (2014), Ball Park Music (2020), and Weirder & Weirder (2022). Later in 2025, the band opened for Oasis on the reunited Britpop legends’ stadium tour of Australia.

“We have loved being a band for almost 20 years now. To get together and to make songs together, has always been a labor of love,” frontman Sam Cromack remarked after winning album of the year. “It’s a great honor to win an award but it’s never been the driving force. We absolutely love making music together and performing music. So to have an honor like this is very special.” With his final words, a blunt reminder of the important things in life. “Go and start a f—ing band,” he remarked.

Young Franco, too, knows a little about life in the winners’ circle. Just 24 hours after he was inducted into the Valley Walk of Fame, a permanent reminder of his 2025 song of the year win for “Wake Up” featuring Master Peace, Franco made the trip 50 miles south to the QMAs where he snagged the 2026 electronic award for “Lose Control.” Franco was tapped for Spotify’s RADAR emerging artist program in 2024, as he opened for Dom Dolla on the EDM superstar’s record-breaking tour of Australia.

Other winners at the 2026 QMAs included Hollow Coves (export artist of the year), FISHER (highest Selling single for “Stay”) and 4ZZZ, the Brisbane community radio station that was presented with the lifetime achievement award in recognition of 50 years on air, supporting homegrown acts, and for the station’s epic fights for good causes.

4ZZZ isn’t just a station. It’s an institution in the domestic music community. “This award is a testament to every artist we’ve ever played before anyone else would, every volunteer who showed up on a Sunday morning and every listener who tuned in because they wanted something real,” commented 4ZZZ presenter, Quentin Ellison of Friday Neon. “Queensland music has always been world class, and we’ve just been lucky enough to have a front row seat.”

Guests and presenters at the Miami Marketta included ex-Powderfinger and the Church guitarist Ian Haug; former Powderfinger bandmate, now venue operator and night-life economy commissioner John “JC” Collins; Hutchies chairman Scott Hutchinson; and Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate.

“We’re serious about our creative enterprise and understand the importance of supporting events such as the QMAs,” commented Tate. “We’re not just talking about it, we’re investing in our cultural capital with new venues such as the Gold Coast Music Hall under construction and the Gold Coast Arena in the pipeline.”

Launched in 2006 and presented by QMusic, the awards are the state’s peak recognition of musical excellence with support by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland. Each category is judged by a panel of over 100 industry professionals.

Performers included Screamfeeder, DZ Deathrays, Dami Im, Sunny Luwe, Tori Darke and others, while Ash McGregor and Matt Okine were presenters.

The full list of QMAs category and scholarship winners can be seen at qmusic.com.au/qma and below.

Full list of the 2026 Queensland Music Award Winners

Category Award Winners
Blues/Roots — Lontano, “Way Too Long”
Children’s Music — Joff Bush, I Don’t Have a Chimney (ft. Emma Dean)
Contemporary Classical — Abigail Lui & Camerata, Memory in the Distant Hills (presented by Griffith University)
Country — Tori Darke, “Remember Me Like That”
Electronic — Young Franco, “Lose Control” (presented by Comiskey Group)
Folk — The Dreggs, “We Don’t Talk”
Heavy — Upsetter, “Best Years of My Life” (presented by The Lanes Fortitude Valley Festival)
Hip Hop — Say True God?, “COUNT US IN” (presented by Eumundi Brewery)
Jazz — Dami Im, Bubble
Music for Screen — Georgia D’Arcy, Creek
Music Video of the Year — Loki Liddle & Joshua Tate, “Breaking Into Heaven (from the album Selve) (presented by PixelFrame)
Pop presented by ARUGA — Jem Cassar-Daley, Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving
Rock presented by Miami Marketta — DZ Deathrays, Skyline
Soul/Funk/RnB — BADASSMUTHA, BUB
World Award presented by 612 ABC Brisbane — Tenzin Choegyal, Snow Flower

People’s Choice Awards presented by Oztix and The Music
Festival of the Year — Maleny Music Festival
Metro Venue of the Year — The Tivoli
Regional Venue of the Year — Miami Marketta

Major Awards
Album of the Year — Ball Park Music (presented by Gold Coast Music Awards)
Highest Selling Album — Ball Park Music (presented by QMusic)
Highest Selling Single — Fisher, “Stay” (presented by QMusic)
Export Artist – Hollow Coves (presented by Sounds Australia)
Song of the Year — Jem Cassar-Daley, “Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving” (presented by City of Gold Coast through Invest Gold Coast)
Lifetime Achievement presented by Hutchies – 4ZZZ

Industry Excellence
Accessible & Inclusive Venue – Den Devine
Breakthrough Artist presented by SAE University College – Odd Mob
Indigenous Artist of the Year – JUNGAJI
Producer of the Year, presented by APRA AMCOS – Mallrat
Regional Artist of the Year – Djawarray

Scholarships, Fellowship and Award – supported by the Queensland Government through
Arts Queensland
(The awards were presented at the Queensland Parliamentary Friends of Music event in March)
Billy Thorpe Scholarship – Frank and Louis
Carol Lloyd Awards – Paulina
Dennis Mop Conlon Scholarship – Dubbzone
Grant McLennan Fellowship – Banff

Dark days are in the rearview, the mirrorball is back. Duran Duran’s new era is all disco, baby.

The British new wave legends return with “Free to Love” (via Tape Modern), an ode to the era of party music that exploded from the late ‘70s, when tight rhythm sections collided with funk and glitter on the dancefloor.  

If it evokes Chic’s “Good Times,” there’s a reason for that. “Free to Love” is a collaboration with Nile Rodgers, the latest in a working relationship that stretches back to 1984’s “The Reflex,” the first of Duran Duran’s two songs to hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (“A View to a Kill” also topped the singles chart in 1985).

On it, frontman Simon Le Bon sings: “Be free to win or lose / do what you want to do / be free to see it through / out there I’m free to love.”

“Free to Love” is accompanied by an official music video, that dropped in the small hours of Thursday, April 23. The live performance clip is framed like a throwback episode of Top of the Pops, the seminal British weekly music chart show on which Duran Duran were regulars in the 1980s. It all plays out with tongues planted firmly in cheeks, though the sight of founding bass player John Taylor with blonde spiky hair would’ve blown Duranie minds back in the day.

With “Free to Love,” Duran Duran appear to have moved on from their Halloween era, which dawned with their 16^th and latest album, Danse Macabre, a collection that opened and peaked at No. 4 on the Official U.K. Chart in 2023.

The Rock Hall-inducted British band is locked in for a run of 2026 shows, including a residency next month at Bleaulive at the Fontainebleau Las Vegas, arena and festival spots in North America and across Continental Europe, and a headline date July 5 at BTS Hyde Park.

Rodgers, too, has a busy itinerary in the months ahead with concerts booked for the U.K. and Europe, North America and elsewhere.

Duran Duran was arguably the biggest band in the world in the first half of the ‘80s, and have survived, and at times, thrived, when so many of their contemporaries were shafted by the changing sands of music. Along the way, the group has collected every conceivable award, including the Brit Awards’ Lifetime Achievement, two Ivor Novellos, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, two Grammy Awards, and, in 2022, long-overdue induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 2024, Le Bon was been named a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by King Charles, a salute to his services to music and charity.

Watch the music video below for Duran Duran’s “Free to Love” featuring Nile Rodgers.

No, it’s not a drill: Boards of Canada is all set to release an album of new material.

The electronic music act will crush a decade-plus drought next month with the release of Inferno, an 18-track double album that will spread across 70 minutes.

Inferno‘s tracklist, which can be seen below, doesn’t feature the meditative track “Tape 05,” which BoC and Warp Records dished up last week, an easter egg in an unexpected cryptic social media drip feed.  

For BoC’s long-suffering fans, Inferno is a bolt from the blue. The duo’s last album, 2013’s Tomorrow’s Harvest, proved to be their biggest commercial success, based on international chart placings.

Then, deafening quiet. Thirteen years of it.

Only the most hopelessly optimistic BoC fans would’ve anticipated a new era. And yet here we are, with confirmation coming by way of separate social posts, one combining dramatic, but minimal, BoC music, with hexagonal imagery and video cut from a simpler time. It’s sunburnt nostalgia, bottled.

Boards of Canada is comprised of Scottish brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin, a universe-building pair that is both enigmatic, secretive and adored by connoisseurs of minimal electronic music.

The siblings rarely give interviews, they’ve performed only a small handful of live shows, mostly in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and their official music videos can be counted on one hand.

BoC’s impact shouldn’t be measured in hits, or streams. Though their fourth and most recent album release, Tomorrow’s Harvest, did set career chart highs for the act. That collection peaked at No. 7 in the United Kingdom, for their first top 10 entry, and at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, their first appearance on the all-genres U.S. albums chart.

A comeback of sorts emerged in 2019 with “XYZ,” a previously-unreleased tune from their Peel Session of July 1998, which appeared on a new Warp Records 30th anniversary package, WXAXRXP Sessions.

Inferno is due out May 29 on special-edition limited red translucent 2LP vinyl in triple gatefold sleeve with 16-page booklet, standard black 2xLP vinyl, as well as CD and digital formats. Check out the Inferno tracklist, and latest BoC social posts below. Pre-order and pre-save at boardsofcanada.com.

Inferno tracklist:

From the baseball field to Sabrinawood, Geena Davis and Madonna have reunited.

Thirty-four years after starring in A League of Their Own together, Davis and Madonna once again ended up on the same stage, this time at Coachella. The Queen of Pop and the Academy Award-winning actress were reunited when Sabrina Carpenter tapped them to make surprise appearances during her Coachella weekend 2 headlining set on Friday. Davis expressed her excitement over seeing her former co-star by sharing a new photo of the duo to Instagram on Wednesday (April 22). Of course, she referenced their film’s characters in the caption.

“Mae – so happy to see you again! Love, Dottie,” Davis wrote.

One fan won the comments section by writing of the photo: “I know there’s no crying in baseball but I’m literally crying.”

Both Davis and Madonna played pretty significant roles in the second Sabrinawood — Carpenter’s performance inspired by a reimagined Hollywood. Davis, with dyed blonde hair and in the driver’s seat of a vintage car, portrayed an older version of the “Espresso” singer. While at a fictional drive-in movie theater, “Older Sabrina” delivered a monologue reflecting on how her niece never got to see her as the youthful musician she once was. (In a fitting reference, Carpenter’s weekend 1 older self was portrayed by Davis’ Thelma & Louise co-star Susan Sarandon.)

Madonna’s role in Sabrinawood was very different from Davis’: The fellow blond diva took to the stage to perform the Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers “Like a Prayer” and “Vogue” and a yet-unreleased duet with Carpenter. The same day she hit the stage with the “Please Please Please” singer, Madonna released her new song “I Feel So Free,” the first taste of her upcoming album Confessions II.

Karol G’s Coachella magic sends her streaming soaring, while four songs from her first weekend setlist (on April 12) re-enter Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs chart (dated April 25).

The first Latina headliner in the history of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival, Karol G’s catalog of songs generated 40.5 million chart-contributing on-demand official streams in the United States during the April 10-16 tracking week, according to Luminate. That sum translates to a 34% boost from the week prior, when her catalog logged 30.3 million (tracking week April 3-9).

Among Karol G’s first weekend spot, four songs re-enter the multi-metric Hot Latin Songs chart, which incorporates airplay, streaming activity and digital sales into its formula. Leading the resurgence is her former No. 1, “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido,” which re-appears at No. 6, driven largely by 3.8 million official chart-contributing streams, equating to a 26% growth.

After previously dominating for 14 consecutive weeks at No. 1, the song remains Karol’s longest reign among her nine chart-toppers. Plus, it is tied for the second-most weeks at No. 1 for a song by a female soloist, unaccompanied by another act, with Daniela Romo’s “De Mi Enamorate” (in 1986-87). In top spot is Yuri’s “Que Te Pasa,” with 16 weeks in 1988.

Among songs by women, in terms of total weeks at No. 1, including collaborative tracks, Shakira continues to rule through “La Tortura,” with Alejandro Sanz, which pulled 25 weeks atop in 2005.

Karol G’s “Latina Foreva” gains momentum with a 57% surge, logging 2.2 million streams. The boost propels the song back to No. 15, after its debut and peak at No. 3 in June 2025.

No. 14-peaking “Amargura” returns at No. 19 with 2 million streams, up 34% during the tracking period. Meanwhile, former chart-topper “Provenza,” which spent one week at No. 1 in 2022, reappears at No. 22 with 1.9 million streams, up 29%.

Back to “Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido,” the song also makes a splash on a global level. It climbs 153-115 on the Billboard Global 200 chart. Plus, it rises 124-109 on the Global Excl. U.S. chart.

Gains for Karol G’s headlining turn during the festival’s second weekend (on April 19) will be reflected on next week’s charts (dated May 1).

James Valentine, the versatile Australian artist, author and broadcaster who was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame as a member of Models, and whose pivot to broadcasting earned him millions of fans and international awards, has died following a battle with cancer. He was 64.

“James passed peacefully at home surrounded by his family, who adored him,” Valentine’s family remarks in a statement, issued Thursday, April 23.

A talented saxophonist with an ear for jazz, Valentine was a prominent recording and touring artist through the 1980s with a string of Australian bands, including Models, Absent Friends, and the Wendy Matthews Band, Jo Camilleri, Stephen Cummings, Kate Ceberano, and others.

Valentine performed on the band’s fourth, and most commercially successful album, Out of Mind, Out of Sight, which peaked at No. 84 on the Billboard 200 in 1986, and logged 18 weeks on the chart. The collection yielded three domestic top 40 hits “Big on Love,” Barbados” and the title track, which reached No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1986, and chalked up 13 weeks on the list.

When Models were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame during a ceremony in Sydney back in 2010, Valentine took his place on stage with his former bandmates. Just days later, co-frontman and bass player James Freud died by suicide, aged 51.

“We were probably a big deal in our heads,” Models drummer Barton Price tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “but James never took it that seriously.” Bandmate Roger Mason adds, “he was a very down-to-earth person. In fact, I’d have to say, annoyingly, he was the most mature one in the band.”

Valentine, it turned out, was a talent in the studio and was magic on the mic. He hosted radio and television programs across the ABC for 30 years, including 20-plus years presenting the 702 ABC Sydney Afternoons radio show.

His inquisitiveness and passion for exploring the matters that make us tick made his show a popular one well outside of Sydney; in 2020, he collected a Bronze Award for Best Two-Way Telephone Talk/Interview Show at the New York Festival’s Radio Awards.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led tributes to Valentine. “He was someone who was always worth listening to,” Albanese told 702 ABC Sydney. “He was so interesting and he was so full of life. All of our thoughts are with his family and his friends and, indeed, the ABC family today.”

ABC chair Kim Williams depicted Valentine as a “creative polymath,” while New South Wales premier Chris Minns recounted the late artist and presenter’s “quirky, unique way of talking with people in Sydney,” noting “he was both an interested and interesting person, which is unique. He will be hugely missed.”

Australia’s Governor-General Sam Mostyn has revealed that Valentine was last weekend made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), a prestigious award in the national honors system, recognizing exceptional service or achievement.

“His ideas were, as they were on radio, just lovely, gentle, sensible, really important things about how community comes together and how we all have a role to play,” Mostyn explains.

INXS bass player Garry Gary Beers recorded and played in Absent Friends with Valentine. “James was a truly great sax player and a very very decent guy,” he writes in a social post. “I will always remember him as the guy who was always smiling, always happy to be in the moment and a guy you could depend on.”

In March 2024, Valentine told listeners that he’d been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, and took a leave of absence to pursue treatment. He returned to the Afternoons slot in 2025, but left once more in June when scans revealed a tumor had been detected in his omentum.

Valentine is survived by his wife Joanne and their two children.

Spotify is in the early stages of giving artists a tool to disclose how generative AI was used in the creation of their music. The new tool started rolling out this month in beta, first to Distrokid users, and it will continue to become available for other distributors in the coming weeks. The rollout is part of what was first promised in September 2025 as part of a Spotify blog post titled, “Spotify Strengthens AI Protections for Artists, Songwriters and Producers,” which detailed a number of ways the company would be improving its response to the rise of AI-generated songs.

That blog post has been recently updated to note that now, “where artists have chosen to disclose through their label or distributor, you’ll see credits for specific contributions like vocals, lyrics, or production in Song Credits on mobile” and that this is “a first step in [Spotify’s] long-term commitment to transparency.”

It goes on to explain that “because [Spotify] depend[s] on artist disclosure, the absence of a credit doesn’t mean AI wasn’t used. Not all distributors enable artists to disclose yet, but we intend to expand this more broadly over time,” adding, “we know this isn’t a complete solution on its own.”

Those who elect to use the new tool can explain exactly how AI was used in the creation of their song. This includes whether it was used in production, composition or even individual instrument parts.

Since January 2025, a number of streaming services have started experimenting with tags and disclosures for songs that contain AI elements. French streaming service Deezer, for example, uses a proprietary AI detection tool to scan for 100% AI-generated content and automatically applies a tag to those tracks. In March, Apple Music launched “Transparency Tags” as a “delivery requirement” for labels and distributors, including AI use in a sound recording, composition, artwork or music video.

Spotify’s post says that adding this disclosure within song credits will be made available as it continues to try to reach “industry-wide alignment” to build out a “truly comprehensive system” for labelling AI use across all streaming services. According to the original blog post, this system is being developed through DDEX (Digital Data Exchange), which is an international standards-setting organization for music metadata.

In a September episode of Billboard‘s On the Record podcast, Spotify’s global head of marketing and policy, music business, Sam Duboff, said that “the starting point has to be shared language through the existing supply chain of music about what the formatting of that will be.” He pointed to the rise of artists, songwriters and producers who are increasingly using AI in the creative process, like Brenda Lee to create a Spanish version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” or a K-Pop Demon Hunters songwriter who talked about brainstorming lyrics with ChatGPT, and how this system could create more transparency for fans.

“It’s early days for AI tech,” Duboff continued. “I know it feels like it’s moving fast, but consumption of AI-generated music’s insanely low. We have some time for artists, songwriters, producers to take the lead in figuring out how they want to use these tools. We don’t want to act like we know where AI music’s headed and exactly every policy and role we need to future-proof for the next two or three years. But also, we didn’t just want to wait and do nothing.”

The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office publicly revealed the cause of death for 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez on Wednesday (April 22), six days after D4vd was charged with her murder.

According to a press release from the medical examiner, Rivas’ cause of death was determined as “multiple penetrating injuries caused by object(s).” Her manner of death was ruled a homicide.

“After several months, I am grateful this information can now be released, not only to the public, but also to the grieving family enduring loss,” Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Odey Ukpo said in a statement.

Rivas’ decomposed partial remains were found in the front trunk of an impounded Tesla registered to D4vd (real name: David Anthony Burke) in September after police responded to reports of a “foul odor” coming from the car in a Hollywood tow lot. They discovered two bags containing severed, decomposed body parts that were later identified as Rivas.

D4vd was arrested on April 16. On Monday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman revealed the rapper was charged with first-degree murder in Rivas’ death. Hochman’s office alleged in a press release that D4vd killed Rivas with a “sharp instrument” in a plot to protect his music career after Rivas threatened to reveal that the then-20-year-old had engaged in illegal sexual acts with her as a minor. D4vd was also charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child under the age of 14 and mutilating a body.

In a statement shared with CBS News and ABC on Tuesday, Rivas’ family spoke out about her murder, thanking the Los Angeles Police Department and the District Attorney for their “hard work.”

“Celeste was a beautiful, strong girl who loved to sing and dance,” the family wrote. “We love her very much and she always told us that she loved us. We miss her deeply. All we want is justice for Celeste.”