#2025-album-highlights

#2025-album-highlights

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is nearly here and our team is already preparing for a weekend full of sunshine, music and Beliebers.

I'm excited to announce something that's never been done before. Better Than Ezra is teaming up with Soundbreak AI to do a songwriting contest. Go on soundbreak.ai, write with me, or write with [bass guitarist] Tom Drummond. Come up with your best idea, your best song.

The only song here that really matters. Written just hours after the murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis and released a few days later, Springsteen names names (looking at you, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem) and speaks bold, specific truth. With a title that recalls his own impactful Streets of Philadelphia, a melody reminiscent of Bob Dylan, and an urgency not felt since Neil Young's Ohio, it may not be groundbreaking musically, but Streets of Minneapolis is exactly what we need right now.

A MARTINEZ, HOST: As we finish this year, let's listen to some of the musicians we lost in 2025. Sam Moore was half the R&B powerhouse Sam & Dave. He sang on smashes such as "Hold On, I'm Comin'," "I Thank You" and this one. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOUL MAN") SAM AND DAVE: (Singing) I'm a soul man. I'm a soul man. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: We also lost the guitarist on that song, Steve Cropper. He defined the sound of Memphis soul with the Stax Records House Band. He appeared on hits by Otis Redding, Booker T. & The M.G.'s and Wilson Pickett.

The Recording Academy just made a move that's splitting the music world down the middle. Their stance on AI-generated music promises to protect human creativity-but the guidelines? They've opened more questions than they've answered. The declaration sounds straightforward: only music with "significant human creative contribution" qualifies for Grammy consideration. Dig into the details, though, and you'll find a policy so riddled with ambiguity that artists, producers, and industry insiders are left guessing where the boundaries actually lie.