Author: Rap Hooks

This week brought new releases from music superstars in the worlds of rock, pop, Latin, hip-hop, K-pop and beyond — but what was your favorite release of the week?

Kicking things off with pop royalty, Beyoncé surprise-released the R&B-tinged new single “Morning Dew (Donk)” last weekend. Switching gears to rock & roll, The Rolling Stones returned with their 25th studio album Foreign Tongues. In the rap space, Future delivered his new album The Real Me. And YEONJUN from K-pop quintet TOMORROW X TOGETHER is back with Part 02 from his No Labels series.

Other big drops: Suki Waterhouse’s third album Loveland, Teddy Swims’ new single “Break Up in Reverse,” The Linda Lindas and Hayley Williams’ team-up “Closer,” Chris Lake and Tiga’s “Party Time” featuring Aatig, Feid’s “A Xon De Que” and Coco Jones’ “Body So Tea.”

And that’s still not all! We also have Chris Avantgarde’s Hyperreal, Melanie Santiler’s “Gataza,” Jahmiel’s Against All Odds, Maddie Lenhart’s “Empty Room” and Wyatt Flores’ “Scared of Heights.”

All those choices, but which one is your favorite this week? Revisit our full New Music Friday Guide here, and make your selection below.

We don’t know all the details of what went down inside Madison Square Garden during Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce‘s July 3 wedding last week, but now we know how much they had to pay so they could host the event in the thick of New York City.

During a press conference on Friday (July 10), NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked by a reporter whether Swift would be paying back the city for police overtime needed to support her wedding weekend events in Midtown Manhattan, and the politician confirmed that she already has.

“Taylor Swift … has paid already the cost of the permit that was lodged, which was over $160,000 for that event and for the response to that event,” Mamdani told reporters. “That was a permit that was finalized, I think, in just the days before the event itself.”

The security permit included street closures and traffic management around the famed arena, starting with a rehearsal dinner event on July 2 through the wedding itself on July 3.

Most details have been kept under wraps, but in a press release announcing Swift and Kelce’s marriage, Swift’s rep confirmed that the pop superstar and football player wore outfits designed by Christian Dior Haute Couture; that the couple did not have traditional bridesmaids or groomsmen, but Swift’s brother Austin was her man of honor while Jason Kelce was Travis’ best man; and that actor/comedian Adam Sandler officiated the nuptials.

Two performers at the event have been reported as well, with Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts confirming that Stevie Nicks took the stage, and People sharing that Paul McCartney performed The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand” for the first time since 1963 at the MSG wedding.

Insomniac Events has reached a settlement that will keep the global dance music company involved in two Miami venues following a protracted legal battle with a group of the city’s club operators.

In a joint statement to Billboard on Friday (July 10), reps for Insomniac and business partners David Sinopoli, Davide Danese and Jose Gabriel Coloma Cano say they “have amicably resolved their dispute.” Insomniac, partially owned by Live Nation, previously worked with the trio of men to run Miami’s Club Space and Factory Town venues until a legal fight broke out two years ago.

“Insomniac will continue to operate Club Space alongside David Sinopoli and maintain its commitment to Factory Town,” the reps say of the settlement. “Davide Danese and Coloma Cano will continue to operate Jolene, along with David Sinopoli.  Davide Danese and Coloma Cano will also undertake new projects.“

In 2019, Insomniac acquired an ownership stake in Club Space, at that point co-owned by Sinopoli, Danese and Cano, as its first Miami venue. The business relationship was a success at first, leading the group to embark on another joint project for the upstart Miami venue Factory Town in 2022.

That’s when the trouble arose. Insomniac alleges that in 2024, Sinopoli, Danese and Cano began to make “outrageous demands” for more money and control of Factory Town. The three men, meanwhile, claim Insomniac “methodically and unilaterally” stripped away their ownership rights over the venue, leaving them with “all the work, all the risk and a drastically reduced upside.”

The two sides went into mediation in June 2025 and emerged with an initial settlement, under which Insomniac would buy Sinopoli, Danese and Cano out of Factory Town for $3 million. But that August, Insomniac sued the trio for allegedly violating that deal, claiming they continued to operate as if they controlled the venue, including by telling Ibiza promoters that they’d “won their lawsuit” and interfering with event planning.

Sinopoli, Danese and Cano countersued Insomniac a month later, claiming the settlement actually required them to collaborate on Factory Town’s annual Hocus Pocus Halloween party and programming for Art Basel Miami. The trio said Insomniac breached the deal by unilaterally making talent booking decisions, such as an offer to party brand CircoLoco at a 44% markup from the prior year’s deal.

The countersuit also included some inflammatory allegations against Insomniac’s CEO, Pasquale Rotella. The legal papers accused Rotella of “predatory tactics and greed” and called him “insufferable to work with,” adding that Sinopoli, Danese and Cano “had the misfortune of witnessing and experiencing first-hand Rotella’s cruelty, self-centeredness and volatility.” Insomniac characterized these claims as an irrelevant “smear campaign.”

The two sides entered renewed settlement discussions in the fall. Their lawyers notified the judge overseeing their case last month that they’d reached a deal, and the case has now been closed.

The queen of pop, Madonna, is crowned on Australia’s albums chart with Confessions II (via Warner Records).

That’s Madonna’s 22^nd ARIA Chart top 10 album, and 13^th No. 1 after True Blue (in 1986), I’m Breathless: Music From and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy (1990), The Immaculate Collection (1990), Erotica (1992), Bedtime Stories (1994), Something To Remember (1995), Ray Of Light (1998), Confessions On A Dance Floor (2005), Hard Candy (2008), MDNA (2012), Rebel Heart (2015), Finally Enough Love (2022).

That career swag places Madonna is some elite company. Only Jimmy Barnes, The Beatles and Taylor Swift have had more No. 1 albums, according to ARIA. Barnes is the all-time leader in that category, with 22 leaders including 16 No. 1s as a solo act, and another six with Cold Chisel.

Madonna’s fast start unseats Olivia Rodrigo’s you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (Geffen/Universal), down 2-1, while U.K. newcomer Sienna Spiro completes the podium with her debut album, Visitor (Capitol/Universal), new at No. 3.

Further down the list, published Friday, July 10, English heavy metal legends Deep Purple return with Splat! (earMusic/Orchard), their 24th studio album. It’s new at No. 19. Deep Purple has twice landed albums at No. 1, both released prior to the ARIA Charts era: Deep Purple In Rock (1970) and Machine Head (1972).

The Neighborhood’s 2025 collection (((((ultraSOUND)))) (via Warner Records) makes a belated noise on the chart, opening its account at No. 47. The U.S. rock act is currently in the market for a tour that concludes tonight at Melbourne’s Margaret Court Arena.

Over on the ARIA Singles Chart, Ella Langley’s “Choosin’ Texas” (Sony Music) collects a fifth non-consecutive No. 1, while her 2025 release “Weren’t For The Wind” improves 57-37, for a new peak position.

In a chart completely devoid of new releases, Sombr has a noteworthy climb with “My Body Isn’t Ready” (Warner), up 46-27. It’s the U.S. pop star’s fifth top 30 appearance in fewer than two years. Indeed, the New Yorker reached the top 10 with “Back To Friends”, “Undressed”, “12 To 12” and “Homewrecker.”

Colin Hay was on top of the world with Men At Work. And then, abruptly, he wasn’t. In time, the Scotland-born singer and songwriter would climb the mountain once again.

Hay has gone on to enjoy one of rock music’s remarkable second acts, both as a solo artist, as a member of Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band, and as a raconteur, his stories and music opening doors and minds everywhere.

Hay has the gift of the gab, an easy charm, and stories that easily beat what the rest of us can drum up. Few tales can compare to the meteoric rise of Men At Work which, for a moment in 1983, simultaneously had the No. 1 single (with “Down Under”) and album (Business as Usual) both in the United States and in the United Kingdom, a rare achievement for an act from Australia, then and now.

Speaking with two-time Grammy Award–winning producer and music executive Pete Ganbarg for the Rock & Roll High School podcast, Hay remembered the high times, some “classic blunders” made along the way, turning his back on booze, and the comeback.

“You always think that you’re handling things really well, but of course you’re not,” he says of Men At Work’s bright start. “We made a couple of classic blunders but I think more than anything else it just wasn’t a band that was destined to go the distance really in terms of the personnel. This is also in hindsight really, we may have had another couple of albums in us, but five musicians and one manager. The manager was my friend and a couple of the guys in the band wanted to sack the manager and he wasn’t gonna get sacked cause he was my friend. It very much turned into an episode of Survivor, who’s gonna get voted off the island.”

That situation “soured me on the whole thing,” he continues. “I thought, well what is the point of conquering the world together if you can’t enjoy it together. It should be enjoyed and honored together by all the people who did that and there were six of us who did it. I’ll never understand why they wanted to get rid of him. It was just stupid. Even to this day I still think it was stupid, so it was over pretty much.”

Men At Work completed two more albums, before calling it a day: Cargo (from 1983) and Two Hearts (from 1985).

Speaking with Ganbarg, Hay points to a moment in January 1991 that he got his life and career back on track. With a move to Los Angeles, Hay kicked the bottle. “That really was the start of my new life,” he explains.  

Hay doesn’t have any bad feelings, except for the bruising — and costly — copyright battle over the flute refrain in “Down Under,” which began in 2009 and concluded several years on, an “unforgivable” situation, he mentions. “It was horrible and it went for so long as well. It went for six years or something. There was nothing really I could do about it but defend it,” he reckons.

To make matters considerably worse, bandmate Greg Ham died in 2012, aged 58, two years after the Australian Federal Court ordered Men At Work to pay 5% of royalties earned from the song since 2002 and from future earnings.

“At the end of the day the sadness for me was the fact that Greg, who wasn’t in great shape anyway at that particular time, felt a sense of guilt about the fact that he played the line and yet he wasn’t sued,” Hay continues. “I was the one that was sued as the songwriter and EMI Music Publishing was sued also. And it had a great effect on my father, who had come to Australia as an immigrant and was so proud of what we’d done and I would play him the songs all the time before they were records so he knew the song was clean in terms of composition so smoke would come out of his ears…I’ll never forgive them for that.”

For the podcast, Hay discusses songwriting, resilience, how life’s great setbacks can ultimately lead to fresh starts, how Zach Braff introduced Hay to new audiences on Scrubs and Garden State, the unlikely fan in System of a Down’s Serj Tankian, and much more.

Listen here or rockschoolpodcast.com.