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Arts, Culture & Music

The Live Nation trial could reshape the music industry. Here’s what you need to know

By Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, NPR

March 3, 2026

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have engaged in anticompetitive practices that profoundly harm musicians, venues and ticket buyers.

On Tuesday opening statements will begin for the federal antitrust trial against Live Nation, one of the largest entertainment companies in the world.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, NPR News Tagged With: live music, Live Nation, Ticketmaster

Gothic romance reaches new ‘Heights’ as fan communities collide

By Ann Powers

February 26, 2026

Charli xcx's original soundtrack serves as a kind of secondary narrator for Emerald Fennell's adaptation of Wuthering Heights. The film arrives in a landscape where the fan cultures of pop music and romance literature have already been intertwining in striking ways.

Of course now was the moment for a Charli xcx-assisted Wuthering Heights: Pop fandoms and literary ones have rarely had more in common, especially when it comes to epic romance.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, NPR News Tagged With: books, romance, soundtracks

Nashville legacies are in the spotlight during Black History Month

By jewly hight

February 13, 2026

Black leaders march down Jefferson Street in 1960.
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This February marks one century of Black history month. While events across the nation are bringing greater awareness to African American cultural contributions, there’s a lot happening to highlight the history made right here in Nashville.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: Black history, civil rights, civil rights movement, Jefferson Street, Jefferson Street Sound Museum, Museum of Christian and Gospel Music, Reverend James Lawson, U.S. Civil Rights Trail, Zora Neale Hurston

Farmer dreams of the region becoming the truffle ‘center of the universe’

By Derek Parham, WKU Public Radio

February 9, 2026

A fluffy, mottled white and brown dog is in an orchard of hazelnut and oak trees. He wears a fluorescent orange harness labeled "Luca: NewTown Truffle."

Truffle cultivators are becoming increasingly common across Appalachia and the southeast region, and say the climate and soil quality are ideal for growing the coveted fungi.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, Environment, WPLN News Tagged With: Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, farming, foraging, fungi, truffles

Where are all the protest songs?

By Ann Powers

February 6, 2026

Yasmin Williams, seen here performing during the 2022 Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival in Franklin, Tenn., had a confrontation last year with the interim president of the Kennedy Center, where she had been scheduled to perform, over the institution's rollback of DEI initiatives. Williams did not cancel her performance.

Protest requires people to take a stand and hold firm. Pop songs are designed to appeal across demographic lines. In music, as in the rest of the world, resistance takes place closer to the ground.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: protests

Amid power outages, an unusual number of locals visit Nashville’s honky tonk district

By Justin Barney

February 3, 2026

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While winter storms caused major power outages in Nashville, the downtown music scene saw a lot more visits from displaced locals as they took up hotel rooms usually occupied by tourists.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: honky-tonk, Lower Broadway, Roberts Western World, tourism, winter storm 2026, Winter Storm Fern

Grammys 2026: 10 takeaways from a historic, chaotic night

By Stephen Thompson, NPR

February 2, 2026

Bad Bunny's DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS picked up album of the year and best música urbana album during Sunday’s telecast.

The Grammy Awards were full of milestone wins, chaotic performances and viral moments, as well as speeches that frequently addressed this moment in American history.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: Grammys

Key Changes: Noting what feels new about the 68th Grammys

By jewly hight

January 30, 2026

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The Grammy Awards have gotten knocked for being slow to adapt. But the 68th edition of the awards show is likely to feel more like a responsive update.

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: alternative music, Americana, Claude Kelly and Chuck Harmony, contemporary country music, Durand Bernarr, Grammy, Grammys, Haley Williams, Key Changes, Louis York, Lukas Nelson, Margo Price, Molly Tuttle, Nate Smith, traditional country music, Willie Nelson, Zach Top

A new biography of Justin Townes Earle clarifies the singer-songwriter’s complex legacy

By jewly hight

January 23, 2026

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In the late 2000s, Justin Townes Earle emerged as one of the most magnetic singer-songwriters in roots music. He died in 2020 of a fentanyl overdose in Nashville, and now journalist Jonathan Bernstein has an engrossing biography, “What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome.”

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: biography, books, Jonathan Bernstein, Justin Townes Earle, roots music, Steve Earle

Nashville rapper iNTRO contains multitudes

By jewly hight

January 16, 2026

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On “Duality of Man,” rapper iNTRO paints a self-portrait from many different angles, continually shifting in style and subject matter alike. “What is a rapper? … I’m also doing these other things that aren’t necessarily rapper-esque, like baking banana bread.”

Filed Under: Arts, Culture & Music, WPLN News Tagged With: iNTRO, Nashville artists, Nashville hip-hop

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