Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer will avoid prison time after striking and killing a man with his car in Los Angeles last year, according to a new report.

In an Alhambra, California, courtroom on Wednesday (May 28), Klinghoffer pleaded no contest to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence after hitting the man, 47-year-old Israel Sanchez, with his 2022 GMC Yukon on March 18, 2024, according to Rolling Stone. Sanchez, who was in a crosswalk when he was hit, was pronounced dead at a hospital later that day.

As a result of the no jail plea deal, Klinghoffer was sentenced to one year of informal probation and 60 days of community labor, Rolling Stone reports. Additionally, he must complete a driver safety class and pay restitution in an amount to be determined at a later date.

After Klinghoffer entered his plea deal, a prosecutor read a statement that warned against distracted driving, according to Rolling Stone: “If you continue to drive while distracted, and as a result of your driving someone is killed, you can be charged with murder.” Klinghoffer then said that he understood.

Also during the hearing, Sanchez’s only daughter, Ashley Sanchez, read a victim impact statement in which she called him “an extraordinary grandfather” whose “absence has left an irreversible void in our lives,” according to Rolling Stone. In addressing Klinghoffer, she said her father’s death had caused her “deep and lasting trauma” and called it an “avoidable loss.”

Klinghoffer still faces a wrongful death lawsuit over the incident. In the complaint, filed by Ashley Sanchez, her attorneys wrote, “Video of the incident shows that defendant Josh Adam Klinghoffer made no braking or slowing motion until after he fatally struck Israel Sanchez, indicating that defendant was likely driving while distracted.” The woman’s lawyers also claimed to have video evidence showing that Klinghoffer was “using a device mere seconds before” he hit Sanchez. The trial in that case is slated to kick off on July 1, according to Rolling Stone.

Representatives for Klinghoffer and Ashley Sanchez did not immediately return requests for comment on Wednesday.

A touring guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the late 2000s, Klinghoffer officially joined the band full-time in 2010 as a replacement for John Frusciante. After working on two studio albums with the group, he was fired in 2019 following Frusciante’s return. He has also served as a touring guitarist for Pearl Jam and released solo material under the name Pluralone.

Global success enjoyed by the likes of Central Cee, Charli xcx and Dua Lipa helped lift British music exports to a record high of £794 million ($1.72 billion) in 2024, according to new figures from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI).

The London-based trade body says last year’s total is the highest since it began analyzing labels’ overseas income in 2000, and that it’s more than triple the £243 million ($328 million) from 2013. The result also means that the U.K. remains the world’s second biggest exporter of music, making up around 8% to 9% of global streams, says the BPI.

Driving last year’s stats was a combination of established, globally successful British artists and a new generation of homegrown talent making waves on the world stage. In total, around 600 artists accumulated more than 100 million global streams throughout 2024, including high-charting releases from Central Cee, Charli xcx and Dua Lipa, alongside platinum singles for Myles Smith (“Stargazing”) and Good Neighbours (“Home”).

Data by Luminate shows that the list of top revenue-generating artists also includes contemporary himakers Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles and Sam Smith, as well as icons who first rose to prominence in the 1970s, such as Queen and Elton John. 

Consumption of British music increased in all but one of the main global regions in 2024, says BPI. This trend was led by an incrase of 29% in the Middle East and 12% in Africa. North America and Europe remained the biggest regions for export.

The BPI attributes many of these major gains to British record labels’ long-term investment in new talent and established acts. The organization reports that between 2020-2024, label businesses invested more than £2 billion ($2.7 billion) in artist A&R and marketing.

The rate of growth is declining, however. The BPI reports that income from the sales and streams of British music overseas increased by just 1.9% in 2024, compared to 7.6% in 2023 and 20% in 2022. In previous years, the consumption of British music globally was bolstered by extensive album and touring campaigns from superstars including Styles and Lewis Capaldi. Last year, however, no British artists ranked among the 20 most-streamed artists globally, according to the IFPI.

BPI chief executive Dr Jo Twist said in a statement: “It’s brilliant to see British artists, backed by their labels, continue to shine on the world stage, including a new generation of talent such as Charli XCX, Lola Young, and Myles Smith, among others. Their emergence shows we are on the cusp of future success.”

In her statement, Twist also stressed the importance of raising awareness around the government’s potential future approach to generative artificial intelligence training, as well as highlighting the need for further conversation around music education in the U.K.

Twist continued: “If we are to realise this potential in an increasingly competitive global market and keep British music a headline act, we need the right environment where the industry comes together to deliver growth to the UK. We have a Government that values not just the cultural power of British music but also the foundations of its success: creative arts education, labels that are supported and encouraged to invest in talent, successful programmes like the Music Export Growth Scheme, and a gold standard copyright framework that safeguards creativity and rewards human artistry.”

Ten years on from the release of his acclaimed seventh album, Carrie & Lowell, Sufjan Stevens has offered a surprising re-evaluation of the record.

Originally released in March 2015, Carrie & Lowell was Stevens’ first studio album since 2010’s The Age of Adz, and would ultimately peak at No. 10 on the Billboard 200, while topping the Independent and Folk Albums charts, and hitting No. 2 on the Top Alternative and Rock Albums.

Despite the highs of its success, the record was steeped in sadness and misery, with much of its musical and lyrical content being inspired by the 2012 passing of his estranged mother Carrie, and the relationship with his stepfather, Lowell Brams.

As part of the record’s anniversary reissue, Stevens has collected a batch of demos to accompany its release, pairing it all with an in-depth essay that sees him ruminating on the album’s recording process and his thoughts behind it all.

Speaking to NPR ahead of the reissue’s arrival this week, Stevens used the opportunity to share a harsh reassessment of the original album, going so far as to label it “evidence of creative and artistic failure from my vantage point.”

“I was trying to make sense of something that is senseless,” he explained. “I felt that I was being manipulative and self-centered and solipsistic and self-loathing, and that the approach that I had taken to my work, which is to kind of create beauty from chaos, was failing me. It was very frustrating. And for the first time I realized that not everything can be sublimated into art, that some things just remain unsolvable, or insoluble. I think I was really just frustrated by even trying to make sense of the experience of grief through the songs.”

Describing the recording process as “painful, humiliating, and an utter miscarriage of bad intentions” in his essay, Stevens doubles down on his stance, focusing on his mother’s inability to add her own voice into the record’s somewhat voyeuristic narrative.

“I’m kind of embarrassed by this album, to be honest with you,” he explains. “Because I sort of feel like I don’t have any authority over my mother and her life or experience or her death. All I have is speculation and my imagination and my own misery, and in trying to make sense of it all, I kind of felt like it didn’t really resolve anything.”

Continuing his retrospective look back at the record, Stevens is also asked whether he regrets having made the record. “Yeah, I do. I feel bad,” he explains. “It’s just a bummer that my mother’s not alive and can’t speak for herself. What would she say about all this? Maybe she would be proud. I’ll never know.”

The forthcoming anniversary edition of Carrie & Lowell also includes a demo version of the track “Mystery of Love,” of which a studio version would later appear on the soundtrack to Luca Guadagnino’s 2017 film Call Me by Your Name, ultimately scoring a nomination for best original song at the 2018 Academy Awards, and best song written for visual media at the 2019 Grammys.

Legendary rockers Brian May and Roger Taylor of Queen, master jazz artist Herbie Hancock and conductor/soprano and contemporary classical musician Barbara Hannigan received their Polar Music Prize awards from the hands of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in the Vinterträdgården room of Stockholm’s elegant Grand Hôtel on Tuesday (May 27).

The 500-plus-person audience, made up of Swedish royalty, music industry players (artists, songwriters, publishers, execs and more) and friends and family of the laureates, rose to its feet many times during the six-hour event, as each of the laureates delivered heartfelt speeches. Hannigan thanked her mentors with a special mention for her (five minutes older) twin brother Brian; Hancock spoke of his father’s support for his musical career even though he wanted his son to be an engineer; and May also talked about his late father Harold, who helped him build his original Red Special electric guitar (also known as the “Old Lady”), which May owns to this day.

The event began with a royal ceremony, in the presence of not just the King but several members of Sweden’s Royal Family, followed by a multi-course banquet. The laureates were serenaded during both halves of the Polar Music Prive evening by a number of Swedish and international musicians playing music written by or performed by the three musical icons during their careers.

Jazz vocalist/bassist Esperanza Spalding and pianist/producer Robert Glasper got an ovation for their rendition of the Hancock composition “Trust Me,” and returned to the stage to perform Hancock’s seminal “Watermelon Man.” Spalding then teamed with Argentinian pianist Leo Genovese for a stunning performance of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” in honor of Hancock’s 2007 album River: The Joni Letters. That tribute album to Mitchell won the Grammy for album of the year in 2008. The audience did not wait for that performance to end to give it a standing ovation.

Similar ovations showed the attendees’ love for Adam Lambert’s versions of Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever” at the ceremony and “Another One Bites the Dust” at the banquet, as May and Taylor looked on approvingly.

The biggest ovation of the night went to Sweden’s Ghost, who recently topped the Billboard 200 with their album Skeletá. Frontman Tobias Forge donned a golden mask and was accompanied by Swedish heavy metal guitarist Fredrik Åkesson and the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir, singing a cappella from a balcony high above the banquet tables, for a tour-de-force on “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

As the evening was coming to a close, Marie Ledin, managing director of the Polar Music Prize and daughter of the award’s founder, ABBA manager Stig “Stikkan” Anderson, received an overwhelming response from the banquet guests as she thanked her father as well as her mother Gudrun, the Royal Family, the laureates and the entire assembled audience.

Ledin spoke about each of the laureates in turn: “Let me begin with Queen – this much-loved band are truly rock royalty! As a big fan myself, I’ve been lucky enough to have seen them in concert several times here in Stockholm. They taught me that music can be bold, dramatic, fascinating and fun.

“Herbie Hancock is a true musical pioneer and one of the most influential musicians of our time. He has taught us that music can challenge us intellectually even as it enriches our soul. Herbie has deservedly earned the admiration of musicians across all genres.

“Barbara Hannigan is a visionary soprano and conductor, and a passionate advocate for contemporary music. With her avant-garde experimentation, she proves that classical music does not have to live in the past, but is a living, breathing art form in itself.”

The 2025 laureates were also honored by the presence of three previous laureates, Max Martin (2016), Anne-Sophie Mutter (2019) and Nile Rodgers (2024).

One more special guest was Anita Dobson, who was in attendance with her husband Brian May. Dobson is having an especially great week, as she has guest starred on every episode of the current season of the BBC’s Doctor Who and will play a large part in the season finale on Saturday (May 31), though she wouldn’t reveal any details about the conclusion of her story arc to Billboard (as she shouldn’t).

The Polar Music Prize was first awarded in 1992, to Paul McCartney and the Baltic States, newly independent from the former Soviet Union. Since then, the prestige of the prize has only grown, with awards going to artists from all over the world. A partial list includes Elton John, Ravi Shankar, Metallica, Ennio Morricone, Led Zeppelin, Renée Fleming, Grandmaster Flash, Pink Floyd, Peter Gabriel, Isaac Stern, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Sonny Rollins, Diane Warren, Gilberto Gil, B.B. King, Emmylou Harris, Yo-Yo Ma, Miriam Makeba, Björk, Wayne Shorter, Patti Smith, Dizzy Gillespie, Chris Blackwell, Iggy Pop, Angélique Kidjo, the Kronos Quartet, Youssou N’Dour and Chuck Berry.