While the 2025 song of the summer may still be undecided, there is no shortage of big-name artists making a sunny splash. In this new feature, we round up the albums, tours, reunions, anniversaries, news and grooves that you need to be tuned into this month.
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In case you missed it, Barbra Streisand’s new album, The Secret of Life: Partners Vol. 2 is out and packs a punch. The collection of duets features heavyweights like Sting, Mariah Carey, Paul McCartney and James Taylor. But Bob Dylan is the true get. While Babs and Bob first made contact in 1970 – Dylan sent her a note and flowers, asking her to sing with him – this is their first collab, singing the Ray Noble classic The Very Thought of You. “I had heard he wrote Lay, Lady, Lay for me,” she told AP. “So I thought, ‘Let’s make this lush, romantic track.’”
Bruce Springsteen just dropped a set of seven full-length, never-released albums spanning the period from 1983 to 2018. He says it’s just music he’s been playing “to myself and often close friends for years now.” There’s a lot of Springsteen buzz at the moment, thanks to the just-released trailer for Deliver Me From Nowhere, a biopic which covers the making of his 1982 album Nebraska. But until that arrives on screen, I advise revisiting The Boss’s high-energy – we’re talking dancing on top of the keyboards – performance of Glory Days on David Letterman’s final NBC show in 1993. It’s worth the seven minutes of your time.
Recently diagnosed with a rare brain disorder (Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus), Billy Joel cancelled his U.S and U.K. tour dates. But fans will get a chance to go behind the scenes with the piano man in a new documentary, Billy Joel: And So It Goes (Crave, July 18), which is more serious and revealing than most films in this genre. The singer gave in-depth interviews to Emmy-winning directors Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin (Jane Fonda in Five Acts), touching on his childhood in Long Island, N.Y., a couple of early suicide attempts, his three marriages and addictions – plus the surprising stories behind those classic, beloved songs. For example, he didn’t want to release Just the Way You Are, saying, “I thought it was too mushy.”
On July 30th, the day of his 89th birthday, Chicago blues pioneer Buddy Guy will release an album of new material, Ain’t Done With The Blues’. As a new generation discovers him in the box office hit movie Sinners, the guitarist and legendary performer is still touring and representing for the friends he lost: “Muddy, Wolf, Walter, Sonny Boy, B.B. … Before they passed, they used to say, ‘Man, if you outlive me, just keep the Blues alive,’ and I’m trying to keep that promise.”
Madonna delivers her long-rumoured Veronica Electronica album on July 25, a collection of remixes of the songs from 1998’s Ray of Light. While the original album was loaded with danceable hits, the club mixes became legendary. Here the Material Girl offers up ones by William Orbit, Sasha and more. Meanwhile, we all wait for the Madonna biopic. The feature film that was in the works, with Julia Garner (Ozark) set to star, has been stalled, but a new series at Netflix – in partnership with producer/director Shawn Levy (Deadpool) – is reportedly in the works.
Looking for a deeper dive into Sly and the Family Stone after Sly’s death last month at 82? Then check out the newly released recording of a 1967 show, The First Family: Live at Winchester Cathedral 1967. It took place on Easter morning in the famed venue in Redwood City, Calif., just four months after the band formed and before their first album came out. “This is absolute empirical proof that this band was absolutely brilliant right out of the gate,” says the reissue producer Alec Palao, who worked with Sly on his musical archives.
On the Road Again
Looking for the perfect night out? There are plenty of big name acts making their way to Canada this month, including Coldplay’s four nights (July 7,8,11 and 12) in Toronto at the Rogers Centre and a special one-night event at the city’s Roy Thomson Hall featuring Beck with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (July 18). Meanwhile, Paul Simon brings his A Quiet Celebration tour to Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre (July 25, 26, and 28). The New Jersey-born singer is back on stage after seven years – and after suffering significant hearing loss – to play his new album, Seven Psalms, and plenty of hits, including The Sound of Silence. Simon recently told late-night host Stephen Colbert that he wrote that song when he was 22 and “If any of my songs have the chance of making it to be 100 years, lasting 100 years, I think it may be that one.”
There are a couple of big parties happening overseas as well. If you can get to the Montreux Jazz Festival on Lake Geneva in Switzerland by July 4, you’ll catch a lineup of icons, including Neil Young, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie and Chaka Khan, the last of whom will be part of a special tribute to the legacy of Quincy Jones.
There’s also a big bash on July 5th at Villa Park in Birmingham, U.K., as Black Sabbath takes to the stage for Ozzy Osbourne’s final concert performance (the frontman revealed his Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2020). Seemingly every hard rocker to come after him – from Metallica and Slayer to Billy Corgan and Slash – will be there for this special celebration.
Rewind:
With the summer music festival season about to ramp up, here’s a sweet throwback to some OG festival favourites: Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills and Nash singing Get Together at the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1969. Enjoy!
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