VIA PRESS RELEASE | GRAMMY® Award-winning Rock & Roll Hall of Fame® Inductees and iconic New Jersey R&B group Kool & The Gang will unveil their new Greatest Hits collection on October 17, 2025 via Island, Mercury Records, and Universal Music Enterprises (UMe). It notably stands out as the band’s first new vinyl release in decades. Greatest Hits will be pressed on limited-edition 1LP platinum ice vinyl as a special online exclusive as well as black 1LP vinyl and 1CD. Pre-order HERE through the group’s Official Store.

Assembling a definitive sampling of smashes, the group serves up a “Kool Dozen” of signature staples and generational anthems. The album flaunts everything from funky gems such as “Jungle Boogie,” “Ladies Night,” “Celebration,” and “Get Down On It” to the soulful “Cherish” and more. Greatest Hits features a compelling and extensive historical essay penned by one of the band’s closest confidants. In July, Kool & The Gang dropped the “Kool Summer” EP, collecting 6 brand new Official Remixes of various classics from their catalog by the likes of Young Franco, DJ Crazy, Prince Hakim Bell, and more.

Kool Summer has generated millions of streams in addition to earning acclaim from the likes of The Urban Music Scene and more. Right out of the gate, WE RAVE YOU applauded how “They teamed up with top-tier producers from around the world to breathe new life into tracks like ‘Celebration,’ ‘Get Down On It,’ and ‘Fresh,’ blending nostalgia with cutting-edge production.” In the EP’s wake, Digital Journal also spoke to Co-Founder and bassist Robert “Kool” Bell for a career-spanning interview.

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Paul Weller is regarded as one of the most important pop music artists of all time in his native UK. Weller is nearly peerless among British musical artists who first came up after the ’60s. His first group, The Jam, along with the Sex Pistols and The Clash, were the most important seminal UK punk bands of the 1970s. Of them all, no other member of any of those groups has had the kind of sustained success, critical acclaim, and singular place in music as Weller.

After The Jam, Weller formed the criminally underrated Style Council. Since their breakup, he has recorded nearly 20 solo studio albums, which have only solidified his stature and following. Unlike many artists to emerge from the 1960s or 1970s, Weller never rests on his laurels, relies on his earliest works in concerts, or seems to be slowing down or losing his touch. The only other English artist who comes to mind who has some of these attributes is Richard Thompson.

After three albums on Polydor in the UK, Weller, now 67, is back on Parlophone, with the album being domestically released here in the US by Warner Bros. The album is somewhat of a follow-up to his 2004 album Studio 150. Both albums are exclusively made up of covers and sometimes focus on songs from artists from the US. Both also have a more stripped-down acoustic and rural feel. It’s American folk and singer-songwriter music played in the smoky basement of an English pub. The difference in the two is that Studio 150 had a more rootsy, even at times blues and R&B feel, while the new album is more lush.

It’s telling that Weller starts off the album with a cover of a Richie Havens song. Havens was one of the most beloved, forceful, and singular artists to emerge out of the Greenwich Village folk scene. His incendiary performing ability was on full display in his live set that opened the Woodstock festival in 1969, and he would successfully transition into the ’70s singer-songwriting genre, although he was more of a song interpreter.

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Emerging onto the scene in the late 1970s, Adrian Sherwood has worked on hundreds of records as a producer but has only released a small number of full-length records under his own name. The Collapse of Everything, which is available now on vinyl (clear and black), compact disc, and digital through On-U Sound, is his fourth LP, and it finds Sherwood in solid form as he welcomes guests high of profile and worthwhile including Keith LeBlanc (RIP), Doug Wimbish, and Brian Eno.

Adrian Sherwood’s new album opens with its title track, “The Collapse of Everything,” setting the album’s sturdy dub foundation into motion as the flourishes of flute that recur throughout the track help to establish a humid, indeed tropical vibe. It suffices to say that Doug Wimbish’s bass is huge here and across the record, as he plays on seven of the ten tracks.

“Dub Inspector” follows, commencing a snakier journey, the dub roots deeper and the horns suggesting a slow-motion trip through a psychedelic bazaar complete with winding lines of belly dancers. “The Well is Poisoned (Dub)” unfurls the thudding, echoing beats, the long, grumbling foghorn tones, swirls of dub ambiance courtesy of Brian Eno, who contributes guitar, vocal, and effects to the track, and the teetering seesaw of bowed cello from Ivan “Celloman” Hussey

Next, “Body Roll” offers an unruffled glide through a labyrinthine maze of city streets as saxophone and flute return to the mix. Its title, taken from the 1973 Japanese film by Kinji Fukasaku Battles Without Honor and Humanity, begins with a faux-Oriental feel, slyly augmenting the zigzagging atmosphere with synth squirts, machine gun discharges, and an almost John Carpenter-esque keyboard pattern in the concluding seconds.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Craft Recordings announces a reissue of Alison Krauss & Union Station’s GRAMMY®-winning Live album.

Captured over two nights in 2002, the multi-Platinum-selling title showcases the legendary bluegrass band’s emotive musicianship through songs like “Baby, Now That I’ve Found You,” “When You Say Nothing at All,” “The Lucky One,” and the GRAMMY®-winning “Cluck Old Hen,” plus favorites from the bestselling soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou? The 3-LP, 25-track album will be pressed on 180-gram vinyl at QRP with lacquers cut by Matthew Lutthans and presented in a stunning triple gatefold package. The album returns to vinyl on November 21st and is available for pre-order now.

An International Bluegrass Hall of Fame inductee, a recipient of the National Medal of Arts, and one of the most decorated artists in GRAMMY history (with 27 wins to date), Alison Krauss has played a pivotal role in popularizing modern bluegrass around the world. The singer, fiddler, and producer has received widespread acclaim through high-profile collaborations (including those with Robert Plant), best-selling soundtracks (O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain), and numerous best-selling releases—both as a solo artist and with her longtime band, Alison Krauss & Union Station.

A virtuosic singer and fiddle player, Krauss began her career as a teenager, releasing her debut album, Too Late to Cry, at just 16 years old. Two years later, she introduced Alison Krauss & Union Station with the GRAMMY-nominated Two Highways. The band quickly hit its stride with a trio of best-selling, GRAMMY-winning albums: 1992’s Every Time You Say Goodbye, plus the Gold-certified So Long So Wrong (1997) and 2001’s New Favorite—the latter two of which reached the Country Top 5.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | This October marks the 50th anniversary of Tom Waits’ 1975 album Nighthawks at the Diner. Taking its title from Edward Hopper’s painting, the record captures the singular spirit of Waits’ early live performances: intimate, theatrical evenings where inventive songwriting mingled with storytelling and sharp-witted asides.

Recorded over four sessions at Los Angeles’s Record Plant with a small invited audience, Nighthawks stands as a rare artifact of this formative period. It crystallized the persona that would bridge The Heart Of Saturday Night and his early opus, Small Change. The album also features some of his most iconic songs of the era, including “Eggs And Sausage,” “Warm Beer And Cold Women,” and the epic, rambling “Spare Parts.”

ANTI- Records is releasing the album in three limited edition variants of yellow vinyl to celebrate the Nighthawks anniversary: Tom Waits webstore exclusive in 180g ducky yellow, indie record stores will have a 180g yellow marble, and Spotify fans first exclusive in 180g yellow smoke.

Included in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Song Writers of All Time and a 2011 inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Waits is a legendary artist who explored the full canon of American and European songwriting—from folk to jazz to blues and gospel to cabaret and spoken word—all in service of his experience of the human condition from every rung of the ladder. He has a voice and eye so singular that “Waitsian” has become an adjective used by critics and dictionaries to describe his aesthetic and style.

Celebrating Billy Rush, born on this day in 1952. —Ed.

Sportscaster and Boring Guy Bob Hamilton: Welcome to the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, where we’re getting ready for the New Jersey Championship bout between Bruce Springsteen and “Southside Johnny” Lyons.

Sportscaster and color man Bob “Bazooka” Frills: Look at that crowd. You can practically smell the blood. Smart money says this one’s gonna be the biggest blowout since the Boss KO’d Jon Bon Jovi.

A microphone is lowered to a stage announcer in a cheap Vegas tuxedo: In this corner, we have Asbury Park World Champion belt holder Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen! (Wild chants of “Bruuu-zer! Bruuu-zer!”) And in this corner, we have perpetual Asbury Park runner-up and “Grandfather of the Jersey Sound,” Southside Johnny! (Smattering of polite applause, cry of “Loser!”).

Bob Hamilton: Before the bell rings for Round One, let’s talk a bit about this face-off.

Bazooka Frills: Springsteen’s a straight-up brawler. He’s got a terrific right hook and always goes for the kill. A while back, he decked Bobby “Hurricane” Dylan with a savage punch to the throat, and the poor guy hasn’t sounded the same since. Southside Johnny, on the other hand, punches like David Bowie having a hissy fit. And he’s a notorious bleeder. I see a TKO, first round.

Bob Hamilton: There’s no denying Southside Johnny’s the underdog here, but I wouldn’t write him off. His highly regarded 1976 debut, I Don’t Want to Go Home, was damn good. It proved he sure knows how to start a party. On the other hand, he’s spent his entire career in the shadow of the Boss.

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Herbal Tea is the solo project of the Bristol, UK-based singer-songwriter Helena Walker, and Hear as the Mirror Echoes is her debut album, released August 29 on vinyl, cassette, and digital through Ordinal Records in the US and Gold Day in the UK. Drawing upon dream pop, shoegaze, and indie folk, Herbal Tea blends these influences seamlessly and gives them an appealingly lo-fi, DIY spin. Cohering into a work of quiet, assured beauty, the record’s nine songs mark the emergence of a major talent.

Herbal Tea hasn’t completely come out of nowhere; Helena Walker brought the project to light on Bandcamp with the digital single “second heart” back in 2018. Additional singles followed along with the “Unwrap” EP on cassette in 2021. She’s also established Herbal Tea in live performance, including a tour with Gia Margaret and opening a sold-out show by Ex:Re.

Hear as the Mirror Echoes’ opener “Seventeen” goes heavy on the dream pop drift, but with a solid songwriting core that can bring to mind both Hope Sandoval and Memphis-era Chan Marshall, and with piano as the melodic foundation lending distinctiveness. Guitar fortifies the song from way down in the mix, but with “Grounded,” acoustic folky strum rises to the fore and combines with some gorgeous vocal sweep.

As the track progresses, the instrumentation expands to briefly include percussion, the momentum increasing only to scale back into layered dream-poppy textures and a backward masked coda. “Kitchen Floor (4 A.M.)” retains the guitar focus but is less folky, drinking instead from the eternal fount of melancholy lo-fi pop.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | A new full-song preview from the forthcoming David Gilmour live film Live at the Circus Maximus, Rome was unveiled today, highlighting the title track from the 2024 UK number one album Luck and Strange.

Live at the Circus Maximus, Rome, which is being released via Sony Music Vision and Trafalgar Releasing, will be shown in cinemas and IMAX worldwide on 17th September for a limited time only. The film sees Gilmour return to Rome’s historic Circus Maximus at the beginning of the Luck and Strange Tour, his first in nearly a decade. Long-time Gilmour collaborator Gavin Elder filmed the sublime spectacle against the backdrop of the ancient ruins of Rome. Tickets and full screening details for both IMAX and standard format cinemas are available at davidgilmour.film.

The Luck and Strange Concerts features 23 tracks across 4LPs or 2CDs recorded at selected shows from the tour and blends solo tracks from David’s most recent album, including a stirring rendition of “Between Two Points” with Romany Gilmour as well as classic Pink Floyd anthems such as “Sorrow,” “High Hopes,” “Breathe (In The Air),” “Time,” “Wish You Were Here,” and “Comfortably Numb.”

For the lucky fans who experienced these once-in-a-lifetime shows, Live at the Circus Maximus, Rome and The Luck and Strange Concerts are the perfect reminders of Gilmour’s soulful, expressive, and meticulously melodic guitar playing and the brilliance of his incredible band. For those who missed the shows, the album and the film offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experience this extraordinary musical event.

Celebrating Rob Halford on his 74th birthday. —Ed.

Six Six Six/My Judas Priest tix/I’m out in the parking lot/And I’m looking for kicks!

What am I supposed to say about Judas Priest, Birmingham England’s contribution to heavy metal, that hasn’t already been said by those three great music critics, Bart Simpson and Beavis and Butthead? Judas Priest has received the imprimatur of the greats, for being the guys who put out “Breaking the Law” and “Living After Midnight” on their groundbreaking 1980 LP British Steel, and what’s more introduced plenty of your basic heavy metal tropes (S&M gear, operatic vocals, the twin guitar attack) that we now take for granted. In short, I’m going to have to reach to find anything original to say about Judas Priest, and I’m not sure I have the cojones. Beavis and Butthead’s rendition of “Breaking the Law” captures the essence of the band better than any critic ever will.

But I’m nothing if not intrepid, and Judas Priest has released 17 studio albums starting with 1974’s Rocka Rolla, which leaves me with lots to natter on about. Like the infamous civil action following the suicide of one young man and the attempted suicide of another, which their parents alleged were the result of a backwards masked message on a Judas Priest album saying “Do it.” It’s possible the subliminal message was there, but it’s also possible the message was encouraging the pair to buy Big Macs, or learn Esperanto. Personally I think the whole backwards masking thing is bunk, but just in case it’s real and works, I’ve placed a subliminal message or two in this review encouraging you to click on the Like button.

What else can I say about the great Judas Priest? Well, singer Rob Halford used to appear on stage on a Harley-Davidson, which I would probably think was pretty rad if I hadn’t (no kidding) seen Karen Carpenter do the exact same thing in the mid-seventies. And she never wrecked said Harley while doing so, as Halford did, colliding with a drum riser obscured by the dry ice that metal fans so love.

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In this excerpt from DIO: The Unholy Scriptures, we hear from Ronnie’s New Yorker partner-in-crime Vinny Appice, on the novel construction of Holy Diver track “Invincible.” No surprise, but Vinny turned out to be a key part of the Dio sound on the album, when it’s rare for a drummer to exhibit this degree of personality. And speaking of important drummers, Vinny also tells us about pranking his older brother, storied percussion legend Carmine.

As for Vinny’s memories of making the record, Appice told Jimmy Kay that, “Holy Diver was recorded at Sound City. Everybody knows Sound City now, thanks to the Dave Grohl movie. Holy Diver was a great time in everybody’s life in the band. Vivian was new. He was like a young kid and Jimmy was Jimmy (laughs). We were just having a great time. Every night we would go to Sound City at seven o’clock, get in the rehearsal room and write and smoke a lot of pot. They would drink; I didn’t really drink. But we smoked loads of pot and we’d record stuff. And our soundman, Angelo Arcuri, who recorded Holy Diver, was there every night.”

“We even got to the point of… we’d get really stoned and put down riffs and stuff, and the next night we would come in and we’d ask Angelo to play the riff on the cassette we made. It’s a four-track cassette so you could put everything upside down and it goes backwards. And that’s what he did by mistake. And we were laughing at him, ‘Ah, you jerk, you put it in upside-down.’ We’re laughing, and then we go, ‘Wait a minute; that sounds pretty good.’ So we’re listening to some backwards stuff now. And we said that sounds good—let’s learn the riff backwards. So we learned the riff backward, and we used it in the song ‘Invisible.’ The song ‘Invisible’ is the riff forward and the riff backwards, too, in the song.”

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Some bands are so dumb they’re smart. The Cult was not such a band. Hardly the sharpest knife in the metal knife drawer, they so flummoxed me I recently wrote on Facebook, “Are the Cult for real? I mean, they’re joking, right?” To which my pal and former bandmate John McConnell replied, “They are real. ’80s hair band crossed with ’80s goth band with a dash of Danzigesque shit.”

I responded to him by saying he’d pretty much written my Cult review for me, and frankly I didn’t know why I was bothering. But The Cult’s 1987 LP Electric IS worth writing about, because on Electric the band spent (in vocalist Ian Astbury’s words) “a quarter of a million pounds making an album that sounded like soup.” Only to scrap the whole thing and look to gonzo super-producer Rick Rubin, who (again according to Astbury) bluntly asked the boys, “Do you guys wanna make English pussy music, or do you want to rock?”

They should have said English pussy music. Because what Rubin proceeded to do was dumb an already dumb band down even further, and as I’ve already said, The Cult were not so dumb that they were smart. They were dumb as a sweat sock full of turnips. The Cult was a band without a brain, and Ian Astbury was a big voice with no apparent cognitive functioning, and the lack of cerebral activity trickled down from there.

Rubin’s genius idea was to strip the band down to metal basics. According to studio engineer Tony Platt, what Rubin did was appropriate “the guitar sounds from Back in Black, the drum sound from Highway to Hell, and the voice sound from Led Zeppelin.” Problem is AC/DC is the prototypical band that is so dumb it’s smart, and while you might be able to swipe their sound, you can’t swipe smarts. And it goes without saying that Ian Astbury is no Robert Plant. To quote my friend Charlie King, “Ian Astbury is the most Hostess Twinkie motherfucker ever.”

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