VIA PRESS RELEASE | On 6 November 2026 George Michael Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment will release The Faith Tour, the hotly anticipated 18-track live album of previously unreleased recordings featuring hits from George Michael’s groundbreaking, multi-million selling WHAM! and solo catalogues.

Recorded during the iconic Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy stop on the European leg of the Faith Tour in 1988, the superstar’s first solo concert tour, the album showcases George’s extraordinary vocal talent and skill as a live performer. In what will be a gift to superfans, pop scholars and musicologists alike, The Faith Tour album exists as not just a precious time capsule from a defining era of pop music but also as a celebration of one of the most iconic and frequently referenced concert tours of all time.

The Faith Tour includes live renditions of all the classic hit singles from Faith, including “Faith,” “Father Figure,” “One More Try,” and “Monkey,”, all somehow sounding fresher than ever in this unique cinematic experience, leaving the viewer with no doubt as to how the singer, and particularly Faith, has served as a key influence and reference point to a whole swathe of today’s biggest stars from Taylor Swift to Sam Smith to Harry Styles.

Faith the album was written, arranged, produced, and performed almost entirely by George Michael and marked the emergence of a new type of pop icon, an artist capable of blending soul, R&B, and rock into a sleek, emotionally driven, and singular sound which appealed to fans of all ages in all corners of the globe. Following the album’s release, George became the only British male solo artist ever to achieve four US number-one singles from a single album on the Billboard Hot 100, a record that has yet to be matched.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | The Doors’ Robby Krieger and John Densmore team with the band’s longtime engineer and mixer Bruce Botnick for Unbound And Dangerous, a new double live album that revisits their 1970 Roadhouse Blues tour. Focused on hard-rocking performances, the collection sets a breathless pace, capturing The Doors at their menacing, bluesy best.

The 16-track collection arrives October 23 on CD and as a 2LP set pressed on translucent red vinyl, available HERE, Rhino.com and thedoors.com. A Blu-ray edition features Botnick’s new Dolby Atmos and high-resolution stereo (192/24) mixes. The album will also be available digitally from all DSPs.

Morrison Hotel became the Doors’ fifth consecutive Top 10 album in February 1970, reaching #4 in the U.S. and winning critical praise for its raw mix of blues and rock.

Jim Morrison, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, and Robby Krieger hit the road in support, recording several shows along the way during the Roadhouse Blues Tour. Highlights appeared a few months later in July on Absolutely Live, the group’s first-ever live album and another Top 10 hit.

Krieger, Densmore, and Botnick sequenced Unbound And Dangerous from those recordings, which include newly remixed performances from New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. “Soul Kitchen” is the lone exception, coming from the second show July 21, 1969, at the Aquarius Theatre in Hollywood.

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Celebrating Martin Chambers on his 75th birthday. —Ed.

A couple of days ago, I found myself doing something I haven’t done (no exaggeration) in years: dancing. I dervished about the apartment all by myself, like a lunatic, with the cat looking on from the safety of the bed, wide-eyed with imminent peril. I could tell the poor puss was thinking, “What the devil is he doing?” So I cried, “Listening to The Pretenders, you hairy little fool! And dancing!”

I would not call The Pretenders a great band, per se. A very, very good band, sure. Chrissie Hynde is an excellent songwriter and has one of the most distinctive voices in rock. Unfortunately, like Badfinger, The Pretenders are just as famous for their tragically high mortality rate as they are for their music.

During the 2-year hiatus between 1981’s Pretenders II and 1983’s Learning to Crawl, Hynde saw two bandmates, guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and bassist Pete Farndon, die in drug-related deaths. Technically, Farndon was no longer a Pretender—Hynde fired him shortly before he died—but still. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde on the subject of orphans, to lose one band member is bad luck—to lose two, sheer carelessness.

Hynde, an Akron, Ohio native, formed The Pretenders in 1978 in London, England, where she was working as a journo for NME and at SEX, the legendary fashion boutique of Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. She received a record contract on the strength of a demo recorded with a three-piece band that included Phil Taylor of Motörhead, then hired a permanent group that included Honeyman-Scott, Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers.

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I recently spoke with Jez Kerr and Martin Moscrop of A Certain Ratio.

Jez and Martin talked about the new recordings, becoming A Certain Ratio and the early Hacienda days along with Joy Division, plus future plans. And while they came up through Factory Records alongside all the classic acts that emerged in the late ’70s they built a sound out of funk bass, Afrobeat drums, brass, dub, and Latin percussion along with the angular edges of post-punk. This year marks two anniversaries: 45 years since they recorded Sextet, their 1982 third album that hit number one on the UK Independent Chart, and 40 years since Force, their 1986 fifth album and last for Factory.

They’re celebrating the anniversary with two companion releases, both just out via Mute. The Joy of Sextet is a new mix by Andy Meecham (The Emperor Machine), pulled from the original 1981 two-inch multitracks. Force Majeure is a nine-track set built around four-track recordings made by the late Stuart James, including an unreleased version of the title track. In October they tour the UK playing both albums in full.

You can find ACR across all social and at www.acrmcr.com. Follow along for tour dates and all A Certain Ratio happenings.

Radar features discussions with artists and industry leaders who are creators and devotees of music and is produced by Dylan Hundley and The Vinyl District. Dylan Hundley is an artist and performer, and the co-creator and lead singer of Lulu Lewis and all things at Darling Black. She co-curates and hosts Salon Lulu which is a New York based multidisciplinary performance series. She is also a cast member of the iconic New York film Metropolitan.

On their landmark 2006 LP Pink, Japan’s Boris are all over the place, delving into more metal genres than you can count and topping them off with a pair of ambient tracks. It would be downright disorienting if their fallback song strategy weren’t breakneck fast and furious. And noisy. Pink has been praised for being more melodic than Boris’ previous work. Melodic, I don’t hear.

How all over the place is Boris? The genres mentioned in association with Pink include doom metal, sludge metal, stoner rock, thrash, ambient, hardcore, garage punk, garage rock, noise prog, dream pop, post-metal, and post-rock. That’s a formidable laundry list, and I don’t hear all of them. In fact, I don’t hear most of them. What I hear is a metal band with a love for thrash who like to throw mucho dissonant freak guitar into the mix.

What I also hear is an album that metal fans, especially those who love frenetic guitars, jet engine noise, and hypersonic tempos, should love. And I was pleased to discover they even have a song that reminds me of Minneapolis’s psycho noise rock band Cows.

Genres I don’t hear: Norwegian death disco, thrash folk ambient, Serbo-Canadian techno-polka, and I could go on. I also searched in vain for Donnie Osmond screamo or a speed freak post-rock cover of Pentangle’s “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme.” Boy, does lead singer Jacqui McShee have hypnotic bug eyes!

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Van Halen’s final studio album, A Different Kind Of Truth, will be back in print on October 23 from Rhino on CD and as a 2LP set pressed on 180-gram vinyl in a double gatefold package.

A limited crystal-clear vinyl version will be available exclusively at participating indie retail stores and from Rhino.com. The lacquers were cut by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman Mastering. Pre-order here.

A Different Kind Of Truth features Eddie, Alex, and Wolfgang Van Halen and was the first original studio album with singer David Lee Roth since the band’s classic multi-platinum album 1984. Originally released on February 7, 2012, the album debuted at #2 on the Billboard 200 and received widespread acclaim from critics and fans alike.

Formed in Los Angeles in 1974, Van Halen changed the rock and roll landscape forever with the release of their self-titled 1978 debut album, displaying unparalleled stage presence, revolutionary musicianship, and extraordinary songwriting.

With more than 75 million albums sold worldwide, the band’s record of achievement is hard to top. Presented with two Diamond Award RIAA Certified Status’ for their albums Van Halen and 1984, the band has produced a repertoire of hits that remain some of the strongest and most influential rock songs ever written, which fans will admire for decades to come.

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Following last year’s acclaimed Deluxe Edition of Foreigner 4, Foreigner continues its fifty-year celebration with a newly remixed and remastered edition of Head Games, the band’s multi-platinum third studio album, originally released in 1979, now available October 30, 2026 on CD/Blu-ray and black vinyl. Pre-order here. The collection will also be available the same day via DSP. To celebrate the announcement, the newly discovered unreleased track “Trouble” is available digitally.

Featuring the iconic hits “Dirty White Boy” and the title track “Head Games,” the expansive new collection has been overseen by Foreigner bassist Jeff Pilson and the band’s longtime production collaborator, Wyn Davis. The collection also features a new essay by acclaimed music journalist Ken Sharp detailing the history and creation of this iconic album.

The 1979 debut of Head Games featured Lou Gramm (lead vocals, percussion), Mick Jones (lead guitar, piano, backing vocals, lead vocals), Ian McDonald (guitars, keyboards, synthesizers), Rick Wills (bass, backing vocals), and Dennis Elliott (drums).

The album was notable as it marks the first appearance of bass guitarist Rick Wills, and the last album to feature original founding members Ian McDonald and Al Greenwood. It was also the last Foreigner album to feature founder and lead guitarist Mick Jones on lead vocals.

Head Games Super Deluxe CD/Blu-ray edition features the original 10-track studio album newly remixed, alongside a full disc of outtakes and alternate versions that offer a revealing look inside the album’s recording sessions. The collection also unearths a previously unreleased concert from the Head Games tour, capturing Foreigner at a pivotal moment in the band’s rise, featuring classics including “Cold As Ice” and “Feels Like The First Time.” A Blu-ray completes the package with an immersive Dolby Atmos mix of the original studio album.

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Celebrating Don Brewer on his 78th birthday. —Ed.

A half century and change down the line, it boggles the imagination to think that Flint, Michigan’s Grand Funk (with or without that “Railroad”) were one of the biggest touring acts of the early Seventies. The proof lies in this shocking factoid—in 1971 (the Chinese “Year of the Funk”), the trio of Mark, Don, and Mel sold out Shea Stadium in 72 hours. It took The Beatles (The Beatles!) several weeks to do the same.

Manager Terry Knight was a key driver of the band’s success, and his messianic belief in their world importance took a hilarious turn in his liner notes (written on parchment scroll!) to the 1972 compilation Mark, Don & Mel. Wherein he compares “the Funk” to Moses, Cleopatra, and Napoleon and writes, “From the dawn of recorded history, stemming through the lifetimes of every man, woman, and child who ever walked upon the earth, there have been but a handful whose fate it was to become known as Phenomenon.” It was quite a tribute to a band whose output included songs like “High Falootin’ Woman,” but you have to admire his grandiosity.

Knight’s hype, a manic album release schedule, and over-the-top promotion (a huge billboard in NYC’s Times Square) helped fuel the fire, but Grand Funk did it mostly on their own, with nonstop touring and a high-energy, “obnoxiously loud” live show that emphasized shirtless torsos over finesse, subtlety, and great songs. Guitarist Mark Farner, drummer Don Brewer, and bassist Mel Schacher were three groovy dudes fashioning clunky, workmanlike grooves that not only achieved highly amplified mediocrity but came to personify it.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Leonard Graves Phillips, co-founder and lifelong member of Californian punk icons The Dickies, is poised to reveal all about his 50-year career with the band, in a hefty, high-quality hardback autobiography.

Published on August 21, The Dickies And Me comprises some 50 chapters spread across 230+ pages, all packed with the extreme ups and down of one of the longest-running punk bands in existence, as well as stories from Leonard’s turbulent life.

A riot of absurdist humor and thoughtful reflection, the story is accompanied by a host of incredible behind-the-scenes photos, and cartoon illustrations by the brilliant KRK Ryden who has collaborated with Devo and others.

It is half a century since Leonard, his friends Bob “Chuck Wagon” Davis and guitarist Stan Lee, plus bassist Billy Club and drummer Karlos Kaballero, first emerged as The Dickies—and swiftly became the first California punk band to appear on network TV and score a major record deal.

A lot of musicians, deals, and music have passed through the ranks since those frenetic beginnings, but still The Dickies remain true to their original ideals, a breakneck good-times punk band that is as comfortable maiming rock ’n’ roll’s most sacred cows as it is quick firing out its own wild compositions.

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Celebrating Al Jardine on his 84th birthday. —Ed.

Existence is unutterably strange. It’s a fact. The world is filled with miracles and marvels and inexplicable occurrences that defy all rational explanation and that stand, in fact, as rebukes to the very conception of rationality itself. Take the 45 rpm record I hold metaphorically before me. Soon, I will place it on my metaphorical record player. It’s by a band called The Beach Boys. Perhaps you’ve heard of them. Boy, could they sing!

But I’m not here to write about the baroque vocal skills of the band that gave us “Good Vibrations,” or how the Beach Boys gradually shed their squeaky-clean image to become hirsute, coke-snorting, acid-gobbling hippies. I’m here to talk about their choice in covers, specifically in the case of the metaphorical single that is now playing on my record player.

The A-side of the 1968 single, entitled “Bluebirds Over the Mountain,” was written and recorded by rockabilly artist Ersel Hickey in 1957. The B-side is entitled “Never Learn Not to Love,” and is a blatant (as in he took everything from soup to nuts) Dennis Wilson steal of “Cease to Exist,” a song written by one Charles Milles Manson, of swastika-carved-forehead and Tate/LaBianca murder-spree fame. Both tunes ended up on The Beach Boys’ 1969 LP 20/20.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Black Sabbath forged the dark sound of heavy metal in 1970 across two monumental albums—their self-titled debut and its multi-platinum follow-up, Paranoid. Today, new audiophile editions of both are available on reel-to-reel from Rhino High Fidelity.

Black Sabbath and Paranoid (Rhino High Fidelity R2R) were duplicated in real time from 1:1 copies of the US analog master tapes. The result is a master-quality listening experience that captures the full dynamics of these recordings. The 15 i.p.s. half-track 1/4″ tape is produced to the IEC equalization standard on premium RTM LPR90 tape stock and stored on a 10.5″ metal reel. Each Reel-to-Reel edition is limited to 500 copies worldwide and available exclusively at Rhino.com.

Released on Friday the 13th in February 1970, the self-titled debut from the Birmingham, England quartet conjured a sinister, visceral sound that reshaped rock music. Powered by Tony Iommi’s crushing guitar riffs, Ozzy Osbourne’s primal vocals, Geezer Butler’s seismic bass lines, and Bill Ward’s powerhouse drumming, tracks like “Black Sabbath” and “N.I.B.” set a high bar for heavy music. The album peaked at #8 on the U.K. chart and #23 on the Billboard 200, eventually earning platinum certification in the U.S.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mute—in conjunction with Threshold House—have shared a track from 1987’s Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders), the first in a series of releases in a new partnership between the labels that will see four early, often overlooked, works by Coil—remastered and released with restored artwork, previously unseen imagery and new sleeve notes.

Originally conceived by John Balance, Coil swiftly became a duo with Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson (Throbbing Gristle) and after their 1984 debut release, the one-sided 12” single “How to Destroy Angels,” they were joined by a young Stephen Thrower. On the recordings in the series, Coil are John Balance (1962–2004), Peter Christopherson (1955–2010) and Stephen Thrower. The series launches with Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders), the third in a trilogy that began with Scatology and Horse Rotorvator.

Where Scatology and Horse Rotorvator are revered, the period immediately after is sometimes skipped over, but these years were enormously potent moments in their history, ones where sex and sexuality, as core engines of their work, were cast under increasing shadow by homophobia and the fear of AIDS, both of which were deliberately fanned and propagated by the mainstream media.

Gold is the Metal (With the Broadest Shoulders) draws on work that had been sidelined during Horse Rotovator’s sequencing. It takes textural and instrumental pieces and shapes them into a fully-formed album.

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