This past weekend, Bad Bunny was announced as the headliner for next year’s Super Bowl Halftime Show. Bad Bunny is one of the biggest stars in the world, and he previously appeared as a guest during Shakira and Jennifer Lopez’s performance at the 2020 Super Bowl. He seems like an obvious choice for this year’s show, especially given the NFL’s failure to lock down Taylor Swift. But you will probably not be surprised to learn that plenty of people in the extended Donald Trump universe are taking Bad Bunny’s booking as a provocation, and they’re already making threats.

Anytime you can be a benchmark for celebrity fitness is probably pretty cool. Or, at least I thought. Standing on the sidewalk about 70 feet away from SiriusXM’s Manhattan offices, Juvenile’s just told me he needs to get his ass back in the gym, motioning to his stomach before pointing to my own gut to make his point. “I’m getting a ‘you.’” Of course, l’m really handsome and amazing, so I laugh it off and don’t silently commit to walking two miles home today. It’s no big deal. Talking to a rap legend kinda is.

Things are not looking good for Sunset Fest Cabo, the destination music festival that markets itself as the “Woodstock of yacht rock.” The festival is supposed to go down in a few weeks, October 24-26 at Medano Beach in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, but most of the festival’s lineup has dropped off. At least for now, though, the show is supposedly still going to happen.

The ridiculously fun Portland pop-punk trio Suzie True will release their new album How I Learned To Love What’s Gone in a few weeks, and you should be fired up about that. Suzie True recorded the LP with producer Chris Farren, while Eve 6’s Jon Siebels recorded and mixed it. We’ve posted the early tracks “LEECHES (PLAY DEAD!)” and “Get Prettier Overnight!!!” Today, they’ve got a new song that doesn’t have any exclamation points in its title. I guess you could say the exclamation point is implied.

Atlanta’s Upchuck will share their new Ty Segall-produced album I’m Nice Now this Friday, and judging by the singles we’ve heard so far, it’s shaping up to be a good one. They’ve shared one final advance track today called “New Case.”

In a couple of weeks, Helen Ballentine’s hazy-reverie project Skullcrusher will follow 2022’s Quiet The Room with the new album And Your Song Is Like A Circle. We’ve already posted her songs “Exhale,” “March,” and “Dragon.” Now, just before the LP drops, she’s dropped another sad-lullaby bomb on us. This one is called “Living.” L-I-V-I-N, man.

Earlier this year, Circuit Des Yeux unveiled the extravagant album Halo On The Inside. Now the art-pop musician is back with an expanded edition called Halo On The Inside: Director’s Cut.

You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but you should really go see Nine Inch Nails live. Earlier this year, Trent Reznor’s long-running band headed out on their first proper tour in a few years, and it was fucking incredible. I saw the show in Baltimore, and that shit blew my wig back. Reznor and his stripped-down band have enlisted the best sound and light people that you could possibly imagine, and they have constructed a spectacle that allows them to dig into the nooks and crannies of NIN history and to play around with iconic tracks while still bringing the full-force anthems that launched a million high-school image reinventions. Last month, NIN finished their tour in Los Angeles and released their Tron: Ares soundtrack. If you missed the tour, you now have another chance. They’re bringing it back next year.

“Dozer,” the new single from UK trio Plantoid — drummer Louis Bradshaw, vocalist/guitarist Chloe Spence and lead guitarist Tom Coyne — opens with bright bursts of guitar, a steadily strutting drumbeat, and icy high-pitched vocals. But it ends in a different galaxy. It’s an ostensibly post-punk introduction that takes us on labyrinthine alien adventure. In 2025, “Dozer” is proof that prog-rock is alive and thriving.

Denver’s Destiny Bond make fast, mean, anthemic hardcore punk, and their sophomore album The Love is coming out in a few weeks. I thought lead single “Peace As A Punchline” was an absolute ripper. Today, Destiny Bond follow that one with two more, “Out Loud” and “Mind To The Mirror.” Both songs are short, hard, and direct. Both of them are just a tiny bit more than one minute long. The two tracks, the last ones that Destiny Bond wrote for the LP, appear in the tracklist as a one-two punch. Listen to both of them below.