‘It brings soul into this sterile world’: the Birmingham clubbers fighting to save their patch – and Britain’s nightlife

Digbeth is the city’s most thriving party district, but railway upgrades could tear it apart. Here, clubbers explain why they are doing everything to stop that happening

Stephen Kovacevich obituary

Pianist whose performances and recordings of Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms expressed terrifying power and also charm and humour

Steve Ellis, frontman of Everlasting Love hitmakers Love Affair, dies aged 76

Singer hit No 1 with pop-rock band in 1968 and scored three more Top 10 hits with them, before solo career featuring collaborations with Paul Weller

Meeting Elvis was ‘my biggest day with the Beatles’, says road manager’s book

Mal Evans’s tale of historic meeting among revelations in forthcoming memoir unpublished before his death in 1976

Teenage violinist wins BBC Young Musician 2026, after first all-female final

Judges hail Sofia Demetriades’s performance of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto as full of insights, poetry and maturity

‘Ceilidh renaissance’ lures gen Z offline in search of real-life joy

Young dancers at the Ivy House in south-east London join the older crowd amid a renewed appetite for authentic, community events

‘Algorithms make everything predictable’: why the CD is making a comeback

As John Lewis reports a 96% rise in searches for CD players, music fans share their reasons for ditching streaming

‘Dear Charlie’: letter revealing move to snare future Rolling Stones drummer up for auction

Brian Jones wrote to Charlie Watts in 1962 asking him to leave his R&B group and join his ‘far better’ band instead

Sam Fender tells fans high ticket prices for Proper Massive tour are ‘getting changed’

Fender criticises stadium pricing, calling it ‘bollocks’ and says it ‘won’t be happening’ on his tour

Lime bike jousts? Why youth culture is embracing the medieval era

From chainmail-wearing pop stars to high-fashion catwalks, the spirit of the middle ages is erupting into the zeitgeist

Raye wins 2026 Mercury prize for This Music May Contain Hope

Singer who has had record-breaking Brit awards success adds to haul thanks to massively ambitious big-band album

Amy Winehouse musical in development for West End

Stage show based on late singer reportedly set to feature her best-loved songs with involvement from her father Mitch

Can UK pop cut immigration and stop the boats? I suppose we’ll find out with GB News Music Radio

An ‘all British, all day’ station is a nativist dream come true – but good luck with the playlist. And anyway: how many artists will want to be on Farage FM? asks Guardian columnist John Harris

Vast Beatles museum, hailed as ‘extraordinary’ by Paul McCartney, to open in Liverpool in 2028

City’s Beatles Story museum to move to 100,000 sq ft new home and official ownership, along with Yellow Submarine makeover of Liverpool’s second-tallest building

Getting Ziggy with it: David Bowie’s alter egos inspire dance show that will transform his songs

Subject to Change: A Dance for David Bowie will explore how the musician ‘practised a form of artistic reincarnation’, says choreographer Marcos Morau