Michelle Zauner has a big day coming up.

Yesterday, the Japanese Breakfast mastermind shared a mysterious postcard image with the tantalising promise of “big news” landing tomorrow – i.e. today (7th January). Given what we already know about her South Korea-recorded fourth album (featuring what she’s called a return to proper guitar-driven bangers), it’s easy to find oneself practically vibrating with anticipation.

The new record will follow the magnificent ‘Jubilee’, and based on the new tracks she’s been sneaking into recent setlists, the standard has been upheld. Watch this space, Dear Reader – we’ll be refreshing our feeds and inboxes like proper little musical detectives until all is revealed. 

Big news day tomorrow 💧

📸 @katmagiks pic.twitter.com/uT0ymcYKe2

— Japanese Breakfast (@Jbrekkie) January 6, 2025

Our favourite bedroom pop sensation PinkPantheress has emerged from her creative cocoon – she’s cooking up fresh tunes for 2025.

Taking to social media with snaps of herself deep in production mode, the ‘Boy’s a liar’ hitmaker confirmed she’s ready to follow up massive debut album ‘Heaven Knows’ with something new, declaring “Oh, we are soooo back!” (Those extra o’s are doing some heavy lifting).

While we’ve had a few treats to tide us over – including a banger with Kaytranada (‘Snap My Finger’) and that sneaky feature on Camila Cabello’s ‘Pink XOXO’ – this marks her proper return to the spotlight after taking some well-deserved time to focus on herself. The announcement comes after she stepped back from some major live shows, including Field Day 2024 and those massive Coldplay support slots, but now she’s refreshed and ready to reclaim her crown as our reigning queen of hyperpop-tinged bangers.

oh we are soooo back #2025

i missed y’all❤️❤️thanks for waiting on me🥲 pic.twitter.com/dQUXgvaW2U

— pinkpantheress (@pinkpantheress2) January 1, 2025

Ice Spice found herself in a bit of a pickle down under on her birthday, after turning up fashionably (read: extremely) late to Brisbane’s Wildlands Festival and getting her mic cut faster than you can say “like, what?”. Ice Spice managed to squeeze in precisely two bangers – ‘Deli’ and ‘Princess Diana’ – before getting the musical equivalent of a timeout, with her mic going dead mid-way through ‘In Ha Mood’. The birthday girl later offered up perhaps the most relatable excuse in pop history at her Perth show: “It takes a long time to look like a Barbie.”

The festival organisers weren’t having any of it though, citing their strict NYE scheduling and the looming midnight countdown as reasons for the swift cut-off. Ice Spice had rocked up at 10:55pm for her 10:30pm slot, giving the crowd a whopping six minutes of performance time before the plug was pulled at 11:01pm. The incident marked a somewhat chaotic end to her global ‘Y2K!’ tour, which wrapped up at Adelaide’s leg of the Wildlands Festival – presumably with better timekeeping.

Everyone Says Hi – the new project from Kaiser Chiefs’ former rhythm-master-slash-song-scribbler Nick Hodgson – have dropped their latest indie-pop sparkler ‘Lucky Stars’.

The track, which emerged from a nostalgic writing session in Hodgson’s old Leeds flat (alongside previous banger ‘Brain Freeze’), is the latest from the supergroup-worthy lineup featuring alumni of The Kooks, Howling Bells and The Dead 60s.

The band will be celebrating their self-titled debut album (landing 31st January) with a proper tour of the nation’s finest record shops. Catch them at Lancaster’s Kanteena (27th January), Hull’s Adelphi (28th January), London’s Rough Trade Denmark Street (31st January), Portsmouth’s Pie & Vinyl (1st February), Marlborough’s Sound Knowledge (2nd February), Bristol’s Rough Trade (3rd February), Kingston’s Banquet Records (4th February), Nottingham’s Rough Trade (5th February), Leeds’ Crash (6th February), and Liverpool’s Jacaranda (7th February).

Post Malone has gone and reminded us why he’s quite a nice bloke. While most of us were wrapping presents on Christmas Eve, Posty was busy making a Houston bartender’s entire year, casually dropping a casual $20,000 tip at local dive bar The Railyard.

The recipient, single mum Renee Brown, had been dreading working the holiday shift – until our tattoo-faced angel turned up to sprinkle some proper Christmas magic.

Posty insisted on being charged something – anything – just so he could leave the life-changing tip, eventually being billed a whopping $1 for his troubles. Brown, who’s been having a particularly rough year, plans to use the money to catch up on rent and maybe start that business she’s been dreaming about. Awwww.

Fresh from dropping their debut album ‘The Academy’, Minnesota-raised indie darling Lutalo is back with a new track that’s basically a messy relationship status set to music.

‘I Figured’ dives head-first into that spicy territory between love and lust, exploring those can’t-live-with-’em-can’t-live-without-’em situations. If you’re keen to catch Lutalo performing their relationship revelations in person, you’re in luck (well, if you’re in North America, anyway). They’re embarking on a massive headline tour kicking off 14th January at Toronto’s Monarch, zigzagging through the States with stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Brooklyn, before wrapping things up with a homecoming show at Burlington’s Radio Bean on 14th February – Valentine’s Day, naturally. Someone’s got a flair for the dramatic.

Pop’s original glitter-throwing party starter Kesha is celebrating 15 years since she first taught us all how to brush our teeth with a bottle of Jack, marking the anniversary of her debut album ‘Animal’ with a properly heartfelt Instagram post.

The record that gave us eternal bangers like ‘Tik Tok’ (before TikTok was even a thing), ‘Your Love Is My Drug’ and ‘Take It Off’ arrived on New Year’s Day 2010, changing the face of pop forever with its dgaf attitude and party-till-you-drop manifesto.

The celebration comes as Kesha enters an exciting new era of her career, having recently launched her own independent label, Kesha Records. She’s already dropped two absolute gems through the imprint – ‘Joyride’ and ‘Delusional’ – proving that while ‘Animal’ might be all grown up, its creator is still very much that bitch (her words, not ours).

You can read what she had to say here.

Well, Rock For People clearly woke up and chose violence with their 30th anniversary announcement, casually dropping both Sex Pistols (featuring Frank Carter) and actual Guns N’ Roses onto their already ludicrous lineup.

As if having Slipknot, Linkin Park, and Avenged Sevenfold wasn’t enough to make heads explode, they’ve gone and added about forty more acts including Biffy Clyro, pop queen Sigrid, and Belfast’s troublemakers Kneecap.

The absolutely massive celebration is taking place at Park 360 in Hradec Králové from 11th-15th June 2025, with the festival expanding to five full days of chaos. If you’re thinking of nabbing tickets, you might want to move faster than Axl Rose running late to a show – they’re already 90% sold out. The festival’s even having to make their site bigger to accommodate all this mayhem, which feels appropriately extra for a 30th birthday party.

You can read more here.

Rising Sunderland star Tom A Smith has started the new year by casually dropping the most ambitious cover project we’ve heard in ages – a full-album reimagining of Wunderhorse’s ‘Midas’.

The indie wonderkid shared his complete interpretation of the Number 6 charting album on Soundcloud at the start of the year (January 1). You can catch Tom A Smith doing his own brilliant things on tour this month, kicking off a co-headline run with Girlband! at York’s The Fulford Arms on January 23. The tour will bounce through Huddersfield, Lancaster, Hull, Brighton, Southampton and Birkenhead before wrapping up at Norwich Art Centre on February 7.

And in heartwarming news, the recent GoFundMe campaign to replace his stolen gear (including that precious guitar from his grandad) has smashed its target, raising over £12,000 – proof that sometimes the indie community really does come through when it matters.

Every year I reinterpret one of my favourite albums. This year I chose Midas by Wunderhorse. This is Arizona and here’s a link below pic.twitter.com/46yAsxXCah pic.twitter.com/pgLRQiWjAX

— TOM A SMITH is me (@tomasmithmusic) January 1, 2025

Right then, you beautiful lot – we’ve gone and done something rather spectacular. We’re running a shiny new rolling news feed, because let’s face it, things move fast in ‘the world’ of ‘music’.

From surprise drops that make you spill your tea to festival announcements that have you frantically checking your bank balance, we’re tracking every delicious morsel of music news as it happens.

No fancy industry waffle or pretentious posturing – just pure, unfiltered music news delivered with a side of Dork charm. What’s not to like?