The new album is led by original Blondie and remaining members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein. The album also features Glen Matlock of Sex Pistols, Zach Condon of Beirut, and Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig of Lucius.
The album follows 2017's Pollinator, which also featured Johnny Marr, as well as Blood Orange (aka Dev Hynes), Charli XCX, Sia, TV on the Radio’s Dave Sitek, Joan Jett, Laurie Anderson, The Strokes’ Nick Valensi, and others.
Sessions for High Noon began with John Congleton, who also produced Pollinator. Then the band worked with David Wrench for additional production and mixing.
About the record: "Is classic Blondie—an amalgamation of all our different influences and eras into something new," says Debbie Harry in a press release. "This music feels grounded in the present, shaped by who we are and how we're living now."
"It's been a long, strange ride, and somehow here we are with another Blondie album," says Chris Stein. I’m not sure what the fuck I'm supposed to say at this point, except that we're incredibly grateful for all your support over the years."
Rob Roth did the album's artwork, visualiser videos, and a short film he directed for the album. He worked with creative studio Untold Studios. Roth has been working with the band since 1999's No Exit. I wanted to create something unexpected, but something that still feels quintessentially Blondie, says Roth. High Noon exists in its own world—somewhere between the past, present and future. There are references to different eras and the band’s history, all mixed together to create something that feels both familiar and new.
According to the singer Neil Tennant, the song concerned the insincerity of how President George H. W. Bush's speeches at the time of the First Gulf War utilised Winston Churchill's wartime rhetoric, in a manner similar to how artists sample music from other artists.
"DJ Culture" was one of two songs written as singles for Discography, along with "Was It Worth It?" Pet Shop Boys decided to use a structure of spoken verse and sung chorus, similar to "West End Girls". The music for the chorus came from a piece Chris Lowe had composed on a Fairlight.
In early 1991, Tennant used the phrase "DJ Culture" to draw an analogy between DJs sampling music and people who "sample attitudes from the past", at a time when he felt the response to the Gulf War was inauthentic. He later described the concept: "Political postures and social attitudes are glibly sampled from the past and the present like beats on dance records".
Parsing the lyrics, Tennant said the refrain "Living in a satellite fantasy" is an observation on the lack of meaningful content on 24-hour satellite television. The trend of reinventing oneself is conveyed in the lines "Like Liz before Betty", about Elizabeth Taylor at the Betty Ford Clinic, and "she after Sean", referring to Madonna's new image after her divorce from Sean Penn. "And I, my lord, may I say nothing?" paraphrases Oscar Wilde's response after he was sentenced to hard labour for homosexual practices in 1895.
The song also included samples of French dialogue from the 1950 Jean Cocteau film Orphée, in which coded and poetic messages are sent over the radio.
Both singles for Discography were recorded at Sarm West with the Brothers in Rhythm production team. The chorus of "DJ Culture" features Tessa Niles echoing Tennant in a style inspired by the David Bowie song "Absolute Beginners" (1986). The duo asked producer Stephen Hague to do additional work on the 7-inch mix. Hague added a string line in the middle section, and he suggested a change to the chorus, resulting in the alternating lines "waiting for the night to end" and "wondering who's your friend".
Preceding the album's November release, "DJ Culture" came out on 14 October 1991 on 7-inch vinyl, 12-inch vinyl, cassette, and CD. The original release debuted on the UK Singles Chart at number 13 and spent two weeks in the top 40, and the remix entered the chart at number 40.
The single's B-side, "Music for Boys", was written by Lowe at Sarm West, inspired by stadium house music he had heard at the London Astoria. Lowe made two mixes, including an "Ambient mix". A third mix was done by Altern-8. In the US, "DJ Culture" and "Music for Boys" were released as a double A-side; it reached number 13 on the Dance Singles Sales chart.
The original cover photo, taken by Eric Watson, shows Lowe and Tennant with DJ equipment. The remix cover is a depiction of TV static.
The music video was directed by Pet Shop Boys' long-time collaborator Eric Watson and was choreographed by Jacob Marley, who had worked on the Performance Tour. Tennant and Lowe alternately appear as a pair of doctors, a pair of soldiers in desert combat dress, and a football referee and fan. Lowe portrays a judge presiding over the trial of Oscar Wilde, who is played by Tennant, in a visualization of the line "And I my lord, may I say nothing?" Watson observed: "It's a line-by-line interpretation of the lyrics, completely literal". Watson used computer-generated imagery to create a computer wargame for the opening sequence and composite shots such as Tennant and Lowe in front of the Acropolis. The production cost £150,000 and was their most expensive music video up to that point.
DJ Culturemix
Britpop band Sleeper have announced a new album, End of the World, and shared its first single, title track "End of the World." The new album is due out February 12, 2027 via the band's own label, Gorsky Records. The band features Louise Wener (vocals, rhythm guitar), Jon Stewart (lead guitar), Andy Maclure (drums), and Kieron Pepper (bass guitar). Wener says it's the most personal Sleeper album. "It's a very different record for me," she says in a press release. "I'm Gen X, we tend not to confront our emotions or display them easily to the outside world. There’s strength in that, but also solitude. I got to the point where I felt I was dissolving. Like if I didn’t put my discomfort somewhere, I’d cease to exist." Of the title track, Wener says: "It's a song about breaking free. The moment you turn round and say: Enough. I’m done. Whoever is hurting you—a partner, a family member, a way of life that no longer fits—leaving may feel like your world is ending. It might also be the most liberating thing you can do."
The song's primary inspiration was the 1983 Penelope Spheeris film Suburbia, and its depiction of violence and squalor in the suburbs of Los Angeles. The recent events of the Brixton riots of 1981 and of 1985 were another influence. The lyrics convey the boredom of suburbia ("I only wanted something else to do but hang around") and the underlying tension among disaffected youth. The music is punctuated by sounds of suburban violence, riots, and smashing glass, along with barking dogs—a motif derived from scenes in Spheeris's film.
"Suburbia" was written in 1985 at Terminal Studios in London. Chris Lowe composed the music; according to him, the bassline was inspired by Madonna's hit song of that time, "Into the Groove". Neil Tennant wrote the lyrics afterwards. They added car crash samples from an Emulator and riot noises from a film. The duo did not have time to rework the track during the 10-week recording session for Please, and the album version is essentially a polished version of their demo.
A completely new version was made for the single, using barking dogs recorded at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, audio of riots obtained from the BBC, and real breaking glass. Julian Mendelsohn brought in Fairlight programmer Andy Richards, who created a horn section sound with the synth line. Gary Barnacle played saxophone on the track. The single version is an edit of a longer piece called "Suburbia (The Full Horror)", which includes a spoken word segment with the refrain, "Suburbia, where the suburbs met utopia…", and ends in a series of explosions.
Pet Shop Boys had thought that their career might be on a downward trajectory when "Love Comes Quickly", the follow-up single to their number one hit "West End Girls", only reached 19 on the UK Singles Chart, but "Suburbia" alleviated those concerns.
"Suburbia" was released on 22 September 1986. It spent four weeks in the top 10 of the UK Singles Chart, with two weeks at its peak position of number eight. The duo promoted the single heavily in Europe, where it received widespread radio airplay. In West Germany, "Suburbia" was in the top 10 for nine weeks from 10 November 1986 to 12 January 1987; its peak position was number two, which it held for four weeks. The song was also a top 10 hit in Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Ireland, Switzerland, New Zealand, Sweden, and Austria.
The B-side of the 7-inch single had Lowe's first lead vocal appearance, "Paninaro". A 7-inch EP in a double pack sleeve, limited to 25,000 copies, came with the standard single on one disc and a Shep Pettibone remix of "Love Comes Quickly" backed with "Jack the Lad" and the short edit "Suburbia Part 2" on the other. "Suburbia (The Full Horror)" was released as a 12-inch single and is also on Disco and the reissue Please: Further Listening 1984–1986.
The 7-inch version of "Suburbia" has been included on the compilation albums Discography: The Complete Singles Collection, Ultimate, and Smash: The Singles 1985–2020. PopArt: The Hits includes the "Video Mix" from the music video, which has an intro featuring the spoken word refrain.
Two remixes of "Suburbia" by Arthur Baker, the "Club Vocal Mix" and the "Dub Mix", were originally used on a promotional 12-inch EP. In 2023, both remixes were released by Pet Shop Boys as digital downloads, and the "Club Vocal Mix" was included on Arthur Baker: The Classic Dance Remixes from Baker's Dance Masters series.
The sleeves for the single were designed by Mark Farrow with photos by Eric Watson. The standard 7-inch single (pictured) has a motion-blurred image of Tennant holding Lowe in a headlock. The main 12-inch single has a selenium-toned portrait of Lowe wearing a striped Poshboy shirt and a pair of Issey Miyake shutter sunglasses. Farrow won a Design and Art Direction silver award for the 12-inch sleeve, and Watson's portrait of Lowe is in the Photographs Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.
The video was directed by Eric Watson and features footage of the duo in a Los Angeles suburb, while they were there for that year's MTV Video Music Awards, and a contrasting image of British suburbia, filmed in Kingston-upon-Thames, a suburb of south-west London. It opens with the barking dog motif in an extended "Video Mix" of the song, and dogs appear throughout. Tennant and Lowe are shown walking in the streets among the residents and sitting on a sofa in a house full of unpacked boxes, which represent sudden wealth and the acquisition of things that haven't been used, according to Watson.
Suburbia Track List:
On Friday, The New York Times reported that Sheik's mother Suzanne Sheik had said her son died of organ failure, but the outlet later reported that she identified the cause of death as cardiac arrest. He died on Thursday while hospitalized in New York City, she said.
Another message posted to Sheik's Instagram page on Friday also confirmed his death:
"The world has a lost a singular talent, and deeply influential voice in music and theater,” reads the caption. “From his Grammy-nominated hit ‘Barely Breathing’ to his groundbreaking, Tony and Grammy Award-winning work on Spring Awakening, Duncan’s artistry touched many and leaves an indelible mark on the cultural landscape.
“Duncan was a father, husband, son, brother, and friend. He will be remembered for his sensitivity, wit, inteligence, and depth of spirit he brought to those who knew and loved him."
Growing up between South Carolina and New Jersey, Sheik learned guitar as a child and got his first synthesizer when he was 12. He was heavily influenced by Talk Talk, David Sylvian and Nick Drake. His self-titled debut album was released in 1996 and Rolling Stone gave it a four-star review, calling it "a defiant debut — beautiful and benevolent of spirit."
The single "Barely Breathing," from that album, spent 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at No. 16. It was nominated for best pop vocal performance at the Grammy Awards in 1998.
Sometime during the production of his third album, Sheik teamed up with playwright Steven Sater to compose the music for "Spring Awakening," a musical that opened on Broadway in 2006. "Spring Awakening" went on to win eight Tony Awards, including for best musical, as well as the Grammy for best musical show album.
Featuring 15 newly mixed songs, including all the hits and, for the first time ever, new studio recordings of Visage's Fade To Grey and Phil Lynott's Yellow Pearl, Chapters: The Best Of is available on 2LP black vinyl and 1CD (standard edition) in a six-panel digisleeve.
A 3CD deluxe edition adds 10 newly commissioned remixes by artists and producers who have worked with Midge, including Craig Armstrong, Richard Barbieri and Steve Jansen (Japan), Wolfgang Flür (Kraftwerk) and Chris Payne (Visage/Gary Numan), as well as new instrumental remixes.
Midge's remarkable life in music did not stand still from the moment he arrived in London from his native Glasgow in 1977. He joined Glenn Matlock's Rich Kids. The following year, he and Rich Kids' drummer Rusty Egan formed Visage with Steve Strange. The line-up was completed by John McGeoch, Barry Adamson and Dave Formula from Magazine and Ultravox! keyboardist Billy Currie. Their second single, Fade To Grey, was a Top 10 hit. The new collection will be out on 13 November.
CD Three The Music [2026 Instrumental Versions]
A Super Deluxe Edition exclusive release features a Blu-ray Atmos mix of the compilation and a hand-pressed edition of the 2LP on splatter vinyl.
Kings of Leon have announced their 10th studio album, O My Beloved, due November 6 through Love Tap Records and Virgin Music. The band has also shared the record's first single, "My Whole World," along with an accompanying music video.
The 13-track album marks Kings of Leon's first fully self-produced LP. According to the band, its stripped-back sound draws inspiration from the raw music they made after first arriving in Nashville, while the lyrics look back on family, childhood and the experiences that shaped their lives.
We have already surpassed anything we ever imagined we could do, and we've built something that is so special, singer Caleb Followill said in a statement that arrived with the announcement. "I thought, wouldn’t it be beautiful to make an album that is looking back on all of the things that we've done and appreciating how we got here."
"In the songs, theres our families, stories from our childhood, things that maybe didnt seem that significant at the time, but the way they find their way into these songs kind of lets me realize how impactful they really were in my life."
The guitarist and singer, Kurt Cobain, described "Smells Like Teen Spirit" as an attempt to write "the ultimate pop song", inspired by the soft-and-loud dynamics of the Pixies. The title derives from a phrase written by his friend Kathleen Hanna, the singer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill: "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit." Hanna was referencing the deodorant Teen Spirit, but Cobain misinterpreted it as a revolutionary slogan.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was met with acclaim and described as an "anthem for apathetic kids" of Generation X. It was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of "The Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
It was one of several songs written following Nirvana's first recording sessions with producer Butch Vig in 1990. Lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain began writing it a few weeks before recording their second album, Nevermind, in 1991.He said it was an attempt to write a song in the style of the Pixies, a band he admired:
I was trying to write the ultimate pop song. I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band—or at least a Pixies cover band. We used their sense of dynamics, being soft and quiet and then loud and hard.
When Cobain presented the song to his bandmates, it comprised just the main guitar riff and the chorus vocal melody. Cobain said the riff was "clichéd", similar to a riff by Boston or the Richard Berry song "Louie Louie". Bassist Krist Novoselic dismissed it as "ridiculous"; in response, Cobain made the band play it for an hour and a half. Eventually, Novoselic began playing it more slowly, inspiring drummer Dave Grohl to create the drum beat, which drew from disco artists such as the Gap Band. As a result, it is the only song on Nevermind to credit all three band members as writers.
The title derives from a phrase coined by Cobain's friend Kathleen Hanna, singer of the riot grrrl band Bikini Kill: "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit." Hanna and Tobi Vail, Cobain's then-girlfriend, had been at a grocery store earlier in the day, discovered Teen Spirit deodorant, thought the name was funny and joked that various things "smelled like Teen Spirit". Later on, Hanna wrote the phrase in sharpie on Cobain's wall. Cobain said that he was unaware of the deodorant until months after the single was released, and had interpreted it as a revolutionary slogan, as they had been discussing anarchism and punk rock.
Prior to the album recording, the band sent Vig demos for songs including "Teen Spirit". While the sound was distorted due to the band playing at a high volume, Vig felt it had promise. Vig and the band recorded "Smells Like Teen Spirit" at Sound City Studios in the Los Angeles, California neighborhood of Van Nuys in May 1991. Vig suggested changes to the arrangement, including moving a guitar ad lib to the chorus and shortening the chorus. The band recorded the basic track in three takes, and used the second take. Vig corrected some timing errors created by Cobain switching between his guitar effects pedals. Cobain recorded only three vocal takes; according to Vig, "I was lucky to ever get Kurt to do four takes
The lyrics to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" were often difficult for listeners to decipher, both due to their nonsensicality and because of Cobain's slurred, guttural singing voice. This problem was compounded by the fact that the Nevermind album liner notes did not include any lyrics for the songs aside from selected lyrical fragments. This incomprehensibility contributed to the early resistance from radio stations towards adding the song to their playlists; one Geffen promoter recalled that people from rock radio told her, "We can't play this. I can't understand what the guy is saying." MTV went as far as to prepare a version of the video that included the lyrics running across the bottom of the screen, which they aired when the video was added to their heavy rotation schedule.
The book Teen Spirit: The Stories Behind Every Nirvana Song describes "Teen Spirit" as "a typically murky Cobain exploration of meaning and meaninglessness". Azerrad plays upon the juxtaposition of Cobain's contradictory lyrics (such as "It's fun to lose and to pretend") and states "the point that emerges isn't just the conflict of two opposing ideas, but the confusion and anger that the conflict produces in the narrator—he's angry that he's confused". Azerrad's conclusion is that the song is "alternately a sarcastic reaction to the idea of actually having a revolution, yet it also embraces the idea". Additionally, the "famously obscure couplet" in the chorus—"A mulatto, an albino / A mosquito, my libido"—is, according to Azerrad, "nothing more than two pairs of opposites, a funny way of saying the narrator is very horny". In Heavier Than Heaven, Charles R. Cross' biography of Cobain, Cross argues that the song is a reference to Cobain's relationship with ex-girlfriend Tobi Vail. Cross cites the line "She's over-bored and self-assured" and states the song "could not have been about anyone else". Cross backs up his argument with lyrics which were present in earlier drafts, such as "Who will be the King & Queen of the outcasted teens".
The music video depicts a high school pep rally which ends in chaos, inspired by Jonathan Kaplan's 1979 film Over the Edge and the Ramones' film Rock 'n' Roll High School. It won two MTV Video Music Awards, and was in heavy rotation on MTV during the 1990s. Amy Finnerty, formerly of MTV's programming department, said the video "changed the entire look of MTV" by giving the channel "a whole new generation to sell to".
Smells Like Teen Spirit" was released to radio on August 27, 1991. On September 10, it was released as the lead single from Nevermind, Nirvana's major label debut on DGC Records. The song did not initially chart, and it sold well only in regions of the United States with an established Nirvana fanbase.
The single was intended to be a base-building alternative rock cut from the album, and was not expected to be a hit; the follow-up "Come as You Are" was planned as the single that could cross over to mainstream radio formats. However, campus and modern rock radio stations placed "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on heavy rotation. Danny Goldberg of Nirvana's management firm Gold Mountain said: "None of us heard it as a crossover song, but the public heard it and it was instantaneous ... They heard it on alternative radio, and then they rushed out like lemmings to buy it."
The video received its world premiere on MTV's late-night alternative rock program 120 Minutes on September 29, and proved so popular that the channel began to air it during its regular daytime rotation. MTV added the video to its "Buzz Bin" selection in October, where it stayed until mid-December. By the end of the year, the song, music video, and the Nevermind album had become hits. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and Nevermind became a rare cross-format phenomenon, reaching all the major rock radio formats including modern rock, hard rock, album rock, and college radio.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was also a critical and commercial success. The single peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart the same week that Nevermind reached number one on the albums chart. "Teen Spirit" hit number one on the Modern Rock Tracks chart and in April 1992 it was certified Platinum (one million copies shipped) by the Recording Industry Association of America. However, many American Top 40 stations were reluctant to play the song in regular rotation and restricted it to night-time play.
Smells Like Teen Spirit Track List:
US 7" single (DGCS7-19050)
Created in collaboration with Alan Turing biographer, Andrew Hodges, and performed by Pet Shop Boys and the Manchester Camerata Octet with narration by Juliet Stevenson and string arrangements by Sven Helbig, the work explores eight significant chapters in the life and death of Alan Turing, the pioneering British mathematician and cryptanalyst who laid the foundations of modern computing. The work has been revised and updated since its first performance at the BBC Proms in 2014. This new version, produced by Pet Shop Boys and Sven Helbig, will be released as an album on October 9th., via Parlophone Records. It is now available to pre-order in various formats at this link: AMFTF
Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Hodges will take part in a listening and conversation event for “A man from the future” on Thursday, 8th., October at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester which will feature a full playback of the album followed by a discussion about the work by Pet Shop Boys and Andrew Hodges. Tickets for the event go on sale on Monday, 7th., September at 10am BST via the link below. The conversation will also be filmed and made available online shortly afterwards.
Simple Minds started off in Glasgow way back in 1977 and the group's two longtime members, singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill, are about to celebrate their 50th anniversary nxt week and will publish their joint memoir Our Secrets Are The Same. But now it's time to share the band's new single "Beginner Boys" taken from their forthcoming album Sacrosanct. Kerr says that the brooding lead single "Beginner Boys" is about watching his grandsons grow up, "how strength, tenderness, courage, and gentleness might still belong together, even when the wider culture around them can send mixed signals. It's less a statement than a question I hope they'll spend their lives answering for themselves."
BBC Radio 6 Music will broadcast the 2026 edition on Sunday 4 October, within Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone (8–10pm) and Maconie will also speak to Tennant, Lowe and Hodges about the reworking, including their approach to combining electronic and orchestral music.
A man from the future will then air on BBC Radio 3 later the same evening, within Unclassified (11.30pm–12.30am), with Pet Shop Boys and Hodges joining presenter Elizabeth Alker in the studio to discuss the original performance and its revision. After that, both broadcasts will be available on BBC Sounds for 30 days afterwards.
The piece follows Turing's life chronologically across eight parts: his school days and early interest in mathematics, his time at Cambridge, his work breaking the German Enigma machine's codes during the Second World War, his role in the invention of the digital computer and his early predictions about artificial intelligence, his trial and conviction for a homosexual relationship, his death in 1954, the royal pardon granted to him in 2013, and his lasting influence.
The duo explain the piece was intended as a tribute to Turing's life and treatment. "Our motive in creating this work was to make a musical memorial to Alan Turing, who gave so much to his country and the world and was rewarded for it by being prosecuted for his sexuality. In both his professional and private lives, he was ahead of his time."
Lorna Clarke, BBC Director of Music adds: "When Pet Shop Boys debuted A man from the future at the BBC Proms twelve years ago, audiences were treated to an ambitious and moving tribute to the life and legacy of Alan Turing."
The 2026 recording is co-produced by Pet Shop Boys and German composer Sven Helbig, who also worked on the original 2014 orchestrations. This version leans further into electronic production, alongside a more intimate string arrangement from Helbig. Olivier-winning actress Juliet Stevenson, who appeared in the 2014 Royal Albert Hall performance, returns to deliver narration adapted from Hodges' biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma, which Hodges has updated for this revision. Manchester Camerata Octet perform the strings, with Manchester Grammar School choir also featured.
