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From bands to bags to beer bins - everything you need to know ahead of Download festival

Donington Park is gearing up to host the UK's biggest festival of rock and metal music.

Model who alleges Kanye West choked her tells BBC she felt 'suffocated and scared'

West claims the encounter on a music video set was part of a "provocative theatrical performance".

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Stranger Things: The First Shadow announces final curtain in London and New York

The theatrical prequel to the Duffer Brothers’ smash-hit Netflix series is to shut down in the West End and on Broadway this winter, after selling more than 1.5m ticketsThe London and New York product...

Vagina lasers, bananas and an awkward Cumberbatch: 10 surprising moments in Madonna’s new video

Sabrina Carpenter, a car crash, a urinal, Kate Moss and, of course, those perplexing green lasers: Confessions II has it all. Let’s make some sense of it …Madonna’s new video is called Confessions II...

Tony Livesey steps back from 5 Live after allegations against David Sullivan

The presenter worked as editor-in-chief at Sullivan's Sport newspapers before joining the BBC.

‘We got banned from YouTube but they showed Saddam Hussein being hanged’: the wild viral visions of Romain Gavras

What will life be like in 2034? Will kids surf in quarries – or live in the woods since they think Earth is hollow? We meet the film-maker behind Gener8ion, whose dark predictions have a habit of goin...

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Tempest in the stalls as baby disrupts Kenneth Branagh RSC performance

Audience members said baby’s cooing and gurgling ruined Branagh’s return to the RSC after 30 years, with some seeking refundsBoatswain! The opening scene of Shakespeare’s seminal play The Tempest, in...

‘I was dazzled. I thought the walls would fall down’: the oral history of DMZ, the label and club night that gave dubstep its soul

In an extract from Aftershock, a definitive new history of dubstep, DMZ’s Mala, Coki and Loefah recall the bass drops and pacifist mentality that went into their creationBy the turn of the millennium,...

Ariana Grande and Ethan Slater split after three years

The pair met on the set of the first Wicked movie, for which Grande received an Oscar nomination.

Palmer and Joao Pedro feature in Madonna video

Chelsea forwards Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro make a surprise appearance in a promotional film for Madonna's new album.

Chaka Khan and Simple Minds to headline Radio 2 in the Park

The three-day flagship event is set to take place between 11 and 13 September in City Park, Stirling.

The best albums of 2026 so far

From Thundercat’s all-star funk to Kacey Musgraves’ hymns to solitude, we look at some of our favourite music of the last six months from across the pop spectrum• Listen to a Spotify playlist of every...

James Blood Ulmer, adventurous US guitarist and vocalist, dies aged 86

Musician who spliced jazz, funk and blues, including in a spell on a major label in the early 1980s, was celebrated as ‘fearless’ by his familyJames Blood Ulmer, the US guitarist celebrated for his av...

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Cello belonging to artist John Constable to be played for first time in 100 years

Exclusive: Landscape painter was also a keen musician and played a cello made for him by his friend and mentorHe was one of Britain’s greatest landscape painters, with masterpieces including The Hay W...

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Booker prize launches new Quick Read in effort to boost adult reading rates

Short story collection All Around the World will be available for £1 in attempt to widen access to quality fictionAn initiative that aims to widen access to Booker prize-winning authors is set to laun...

‘We were going off the cliff’: Soundgarden’s Kim Thayil on inventing grunge – and losing Chris Cornell and Kurt Cobain

As he publishes a memoir, the pioneering guitarist talks about rejecting spandex and hair metal, his fears for breakthrough hit Black Hole Sun – and completing nine unfinished Soundgarden songsKim Tha...

‘You escape the slaughter. But there’s a long tail of sadness’: musician Bedouine on the strangeness of Arab life outside the Middle East

With roots in Armenia, Syria and Saudi Arabia, the singer-songwriter now lives in the US. But despite her Carole King-style sound, her homelands are never far from her mindThe title song to Azniv Kork...

Post your questions for David Byrne

As the former Talking Heads frontman releases his concert film American Utopia in 4K, he will join us to answer your questionsThe big suit is what you think of first when you think of David Byrne on s...

Idris Elba: 'Don't try to make James Bond woke'

The British star also said some audiences would not accept a black male actor playing 007.

Stormzy among stars remembering killed Grammy winner

The musician whose real name was Mark Orabiyi - was "a gem", rapper Wretch 32 said.