From petrol pump attendant to Dylan-feted rocker and Judd Apatow muse: the delightfully unlikely life of Graham Parker

Fifty years ago Parker was hailed as rock’s next big thing, but he picked a different path: cult records, a Hollywood diversion, an aversion to stardom. Ahead of a UK tour, he looks back at his strange trajectory

Joey Ramone smiling! And having fun! At the beach! Roberta Bayley’s best photograph

‘Joey didn’t surf. And he didn’t like this photo. He said, “You made my legs look thin.” Like it was my fault he had skinny legs’

Simply the best? Is the Berlin Philharmonic really better than all the rest?

The orchestra – at the Proms this week – is hailed as among the best in the world, if not the best. For my money, that’s quite possibly right, but why?

‘Everything countercultural is doomed, isn’t it?’​ Sofie Royer, the bracingly brilliant pop star pondering life’s big questions

Referencing Tarkovsky and French theory, the Austrian-Iranian singer is writing some of today’s wittiest music – though she’s ‘too pop for the art world, too indie-darling for the mainstream’

‘It always comes around’: fans react to conviction in Tupac Shakur’s murder 30 years later

Rapper’s supporters reflect on ‘astonishing’ events leading to Duane Davis being found guilty over 1996 fatal shooting

‘He was always a bit of a groundbreaker’: David Bowie enters a new dimension in ‘extended reality’ documentary

Hundreds of unseen images of the star feature at the Venice film festival, alongside virtual worlds exploring wildfires, wolves and the birth of stars

Lawsuit against Lizzo brought by former wardrobe stylist dismissed

The star has denied allegations of bullying and harassment in the workplace in a suit that has now been thrown out

‘Get up, get breakfast, noise’: the teen going viral for enduring all 400 of Merzbow’s ear-splitting albums

The infamous Japanese noise artist has a vast and forbidding catalogue that commands a cult fandom. Sam Andrews, 18, is vlogging his way through the lot – and taking a stand for deep listening

‘It’s more freaky, more balls to the wall’: how alt-country won over a new generation

From Waxahatchee and Florry in the US to Brown Horse and Little Grandad in the UK, a wave of young songwriters are reinvigorating the subgenre’s earnest emotion and twang

The extraordinary untold story of Freddie Mercury: Mary Austin on her best friend – and love of her life

He was Queen’s flamboyant frontman. She was his shy girlfriend, dreaming of marriage until they both realised he preferred men. Thirty-five years after his death, in the week he would have turned 80, Mary Austin talks about their unbreakable bond

Duane Keith Davis found guilty of 1996 murder of Tupac Shakur

Las Vegas jury returns verdict against ex-South Side Compton Crips gang leader in killing of US rap legend

Dolly Parton laid to rest in private Nashville funeral

The queen of country was interred next to her late husband in an intimate ceremony attended by close family

Reading and Leeds festival review – post-GCSE blowout shows how dominant dance music now is

Charli xcx and Fontaines DC are spellbinding and there’s an awesome array of genres, but the biggest turnouts are for tech house names like Kettama and Josh Baker

A job that changed me: Being a theatre usher cracked open my heart to beauty

The performances often gave me goose bumps, but I also got to observe the highs and lows of audience behaviour

A$AP Rocky review – arena spectacular has plenty of helicopters but little sense of direction

The polymath rapper’s stage show, which also features SWAT teams and a warship, is truly bravura stuff – but you can’t help feeling this is an artist at a creative crossroads