Switch 2020

Urgency has been Pearl Jam's calling card since their inception, which is why it was a jolt to hear the band sound so settled on 2013's Lightning Bolt. Maybe it's the times, maybe it's the choice to switch producers – the group swapped their longtime collaborator Brendan O'Brien for Josh Evans, who co-produced the album with the band – but Gigaton hits with the strength of a full-force gale. Weather is a galvanizing concern on Gigaton, with Pearl Jam structuring their 11th album around the looming climate change crisis. There's little subtlety in this regard: the title refers to the amount of ice lost at the arctic poles, the album's cover depicts a melting glacier, and the lyrics are lousy with apocalyptic imagery, not all of it derived from the climate.

Special deluxe edition featuring 2 unique shows! In 2018 Sheffields finest made their long-awaited debut at Londons O2 Arena. Def Leppard performed the ground-breaking Hysteria album in its entirety. In 2019, the newly minted Rock & Roll Hall of Famers * to Las Vegas for their infamous Sin City residency, featuring stunning video walls, two stages and rarely performed album cuts, making for an unforgettable concert experience…

This is the final chapter of a trilogy of albums in which I explored and arranged popular songs. The entire project was made in collaboration with vocalists Theo Bleckmann and Kate McGarry, pianist Gary Versace, and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. For the first recording, Songs I Like A Lot, I selected the majority of the songs for the album. Many of the songs I chose were from my childhood, and as I started to really listen to them again, I was surprised by how well I actually knew them. The second recording, Songs We Like A Lot, is composed primarily of songs that Theo and Kate liked and chose for me to arrange. Uri Caine held down the piano chair on this recording. And for this third and final recording, Songs You Like A Lot, we asked listeners to nominate their favorite songs for me to arrange. We then had an internet-wide vote on a list of nominated songs, and I chose (with the help of Kate, Theo and Gary) from the top 20 most popular songs.

In following up 2018’s Ember, post-grunge stars Breaking Benjamin decided to switch it up for their seventh studio album. Instead of writing a set of completely new tunes, they’ve recorded acoustic versions of some of their most popular songs, added string orchestration, and invited special guests to perform on half of them. As such, Aurora features guest shots from Flyleaf’s Lacey Sturm, Underoath’s Spencer Chamberlain, Red’s Michael Barnes, and former Three Days Grace singer Adam Gontier. For good measure, they included one brand-new track, “Far Away,” featuring Scooter Ward of Cold. “I felt it was a good time for us to do this,” Breaking Benjamin founder and leading light Ben Burnley tells Apple Music. “All the songs are completely reimagined. Lacey was the first one I asked, and then it snowballed from there. I wish every song could have a guest, but the schedule didn’t allow.”