Rob Hirst, Midnight Oil drummer and founding member, dies aged 70

Musician who drove much of the band’s ferocious sound and co-wrote many of its biggest hits was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2023

Andrew Clements obituary

Chief classical music critic of the Guardian admired for writing without fear or favour

Is this man the future of music – or its executioner? AI evangelist Mikey Shulman says he’s making pop, not slop

Worth a staggering $2.45bn, Suno is an AI music company that can create a track with just a few prompts. Why is its CEO happy to see it called ‘the Ozempic of the music industry’?

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds review – an electrifying crescendo of faith, fury and fragile joy

Returning to Australian stages after nine years, the band delivers a fierce, generous set that draws on four decades of music

Emmylou Harris review – spine-tingling goodbye from 78-year-old country legend

The lived-in dustiness of her voice only enriches her storytelling, with her greatest songs now more devastating than ever

David Byrne review – hope, humanity and dancing in a superbly paced and choreographed show

Solo songs and Talking Heads classics mingle in a spectacular performance that doesn’t pull any punches

A Gathering for Gaza: Genesis Owusu, Julia Jacklin and Angie McMahon celebrate art as resistance

Thousands attend Melbourne event to raise money for non-profits dedicated to the plight of Palestinians

Sleaford Mods: The Demise of Planet X review – vulnerability and versatility widen potty-mouthed appeal

The duo’s 13th album finds Jason Williamson as baffled and infuriated as ever at the state of the world, with help from some unexpected collaborators

BTS named their new album Arirang. What is so striking about their choice?

The title is loaded with meaning for all Koreans, and will give fans globally an insight into the folksong culture that shaped the world’s biggest K-pop group

‘We wouldn’t still be playing if we’d got stinking rich’: the Damned celebrate 50 years of punk, goth and holy grail hunting

An appetite for self-destruction left Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Rat Scabies hugely influential but financially insecure. They’re back with a big show and their first album together since 1995

Robbie Williams: Britpop review – a wayward yet winning time-machine trip back to the 90s

Framed as the music Williams wanted to make post-Take That, Britpop surpasses pastiche and swerves unpredictably. Homoerotic paean to Morrissey, anyone?

Harry Styles announces fourth solo album, Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally

After a series of cryptic billboards teasing fans, the As It Was singer reveals the title and release date of his first record since 2022

‘A nasty little song, really rather evil’: how Every Breath You Take tore Sting and the Police apart

Sting and his former bandmates go to the high court over a royalties dispute this week – the latest chapter in the song’s remarkably fractious story

Ariana Grande to make London stage debut alongside Jonathan Bailey in Sunday in the Park With George

The singer will reunite with her Wicked co-star in a revival of the musical inspired by artist Georges Seurat in summer 2027

A Day with David Bowie: how a visit to a psychiatric clinic changed him – and his music

In 1994 the singer and Brian Eno spent a day with ‘outsider’ artists. Intimate photographs, showing in Australia for the first time, reveal the effect it had