Veteran punk rockers Bad Religion have cancelled a planned run of fall 2024 North American shows citing “unforeseen family circumstances.” The band announced the news on Wednesday 9August 28) in an Instagram post, writing, “Due to an unforeseen family circumstance, we are canceling our upcoming fall tour. We apologize for any disappointment and disruption this may cause. We appreciate your understanding.”

At press time no additional information was available on the cause of the tour’s cancellation, with the band telling fans that ticket refunds will be available at point of purchase. The tour — the follow-up to an earlier run of U.S. gigs this year with Social Distortion — was slated to kick off on Sept. 17 in Stroudsburg, PA a the Sherman Theater and keep them on the road through an Oct. 19 gig in Sacramento, CA at Hard Rock Live.

The outing was also slated to hit Huntington (NY), Portland, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo, Myrtle Beach (SC), Richmond (VA), Huntsville (AL), Nashville, Little Rock (AR), Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Davenport (IA), Sioux Falls (SD), Edmonton, Vancouver, Seattle, Spokane and Portland.

The band whose only consistent member has been co-founder and singer Greg Graffin, issued their seventeenth studio album, Age of Unreason, in 2019, followed by the August 2020 release of their autobiography, Do What You Want: The Story of Bad Religion. That same year the group whose thoughtful punk rock rages often incorporate social and political themes were also scheduled to celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary with a tour that was pushed off for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

See Bad Religion’s announcement below.

The U.S. recorded music market grew a little bigger in the first half of 2024 — but not by much. The retail value of total industry revenue reached $8.65 billion, according to RIAA figures released Thursday (Aug. 29), thanks mainly to a modest gain in streaming revenue and a jump in vinyl sales.  

While the period’s revenue is a record for the first half of a year, it marked just a 3.9% gain from the prior year’s period. The U.S. market has returned to a more workmanlike trajectory, putting high-single digit and double-digit gains in the rear-view mirror. By contrast, revenue was up 8.8% and 9.0% in the first half of 2022 and 2023, respectively. In the first half of 2021, as paid and ad-supported streaming benefitted from pandemic-era lockdowns that drove consumers to their devices, revenue rocketed 27.0%.

Vinyl EP and LP sales totaled 24.3 million units, up 10.7%, and were valued at $739.9 million, up 17%. Other physical formats gained, too, but the distance between them and vinyl grew larger. CD sales improved just 0.3% to $236.7 million. The other category—encompassing cassettes, CD singles, vinyl singles, DVD audio and SACD—improved 66.6% to $13.2 million. 

Physical sales increased its percentage of total revenue to 11.4% from 10.5% in the prior-year period and 10.2% in the first half of 2022. Vinyl has doubled its share of the market in five years, reaching 8.5% of total U.S. revenue — up from 4.2% in the first half of 2020.  

Streaming still dominates industry revenue and provided the single-biggest dollar gain of all the categories. Total streaming revenue grew 3.8% to $7.3 billion and accounted for 84.1% of total revenue, equal to the year-ago period. Paid subscription revenue hit $5.23 billion, up 5.1%, leading all streaming categories by a wide margin. The average number of subscribers reached 99 million, up just 2.6%, suggesting record labels benefitted from price increases by Spotify and other services.  

Other streaming segments had a smaller impact or lost ground over the past year. Limited-tier paid subscription revenue dropped 4.1% to $503 million. (Limited-tier services have limited catalogs, interactivity restrictions or other factors that differ from premium subscription plans.) Ad-supported, on-demand revenue rose 2.5% to $899 million. SoundExchange distributions were $517 million, up 3.9%. Other ad-supported streaming—statutory streaming services not distributed by SoundExchange—fell 2.7% to $159.1 million.

Download sales, once the cornerstone of the U.S. market, declined in share for the 14th straight year and amounted to just 2% of industry revenue. Total download sales fell 15.8% to $189.7 million. Track and digital album sales fell 16.1% and 18.5%, respectively. Ringtones and ringbacks dropped 51.1% to $2.9 million. The other digital category, which includes kiosks and music video downloads, grew 22.0% to $17.1 million.  

Synchronization royalties dropped 9.8% to $200.9 million, a sharp contrast to sizable gains of 25.3% and 29.9% in the first half of 2022 and 2023, respectively. 

In a statement, RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier highlighted revenue reaching a record $8.7 million and the evolving music ecosystem. “Spanning multiple licensing avenues from fitness apps to short-form video, artists and labels are embracing innovation with responsible partners so more Americans can engage with their favorite music however, whenever and wherever they choose,” he said. “This sustained growth fuels innovation and reflects music’s incredible value, laying the foundation for a healthy creative ecosystem where artists’ and songwriters’ visions can flourish over generations.” 

The CIA says that the suspects in the alleged plot to attack Taylor Swift‘s Eras Tour shows in Vienna, Austria were aiming to create a massive casualty event involving a “huge” number of victims. The information came during a briefing on Wednesday (August 28) from CIA deputy director David Cohen, who, according to the Associated Press, said that his agency discovered intelligence that helped to disrupt the planning and led to the arrests of the three young suspects.

Cohen discussed the foiled plot during the annual Intelligence and National Security Summit in Maryland, noting that the CIA informed Austrian authorities of the plan that resulted in Swift cancelling three planned shows in Vienna earlier this month after officials allegedly found links between the suspects and the Islamic State group.

“They were plotting to kill a huge number — tens of thousands of people at this concert, including I am sure many Americans — and were quite advanced in this,” Cohen said. “The Austrians were able to make those arrests because the agency and our partners in the intelligence community provided them information about what this ISIS-connected group was planning to do.”

The New York Times reported that Cohen did not say how the CIA learned about the planned attack and that counterterrorism warnings don’t always get a lot of attention, but the quick work to foil the Vienna attack — which potentially saved hundreds, if not thousands, of lives — was different. “I can tell you within my agency and others, there were people who thought that was a really good day for Langley,” he said, in reference to the location of the agency’s headquarters. “And not just for the Swifties in the workforce.”

Austrian concert promoter Barracuda Music announced on August 7 that the three sold-out Eras Tour gigs planned for Ernst Happel Stadium on August 8, 9 and 10 were cancelled due to an alleged terror plot aimed at disrupting the shows. According to Austrian authorities, the main suspect is an unnamed 19-year-old Austrian man who had reportedly been inspired by the Islamic State terror group. They said he planned to attack the estimated 30,000 Swifties expected to gather outside the stadium with knives or homemade explosives; the venue itself holds 65,0000 and more than 200,000 fans were anticipated for the shows.

During a raid of the main suspect’s home, police reportedly found chemical substances and other technical devices that were to be used in the attack. The main suspect’s lawyer has said that the allegations were “overacting at its best,” suggesting Austrian authorities were exaggerating the details in order to expand their surveillance powers. The AP noted that Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, previously said that other intelligence agencies helped Austrian investigators, who cannot legally monitor text messages.

Swift’s Vienna shows were scheduled to be part of the penultimate run on the Eras Tour‘s European leg, and were followed by a five-night stint at London’s Wembley Stadium (August 15-20), which went off without incident. The singer opened up about the scary terror threat in a statement last week, writing, “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows. But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives. I was heartened by the love and unity I saw in the fans who banded together. I decided that all of my energy had to go toward helping to protect the nearly half a million people I had coming to see the shows in London. My team and I worked hand in hand with stadium staff and British authorities every day in pursuit of that goal, and I want to thank them for everything they did for us.”

The cancellation of the shows left tens of thousands of Swifties — many of whom traveled from afar to attend the gigs — disappointed and upset, though in classic Swiftie fashion they rallied in the days after by combating fear with joy. After the shows were called off, the singer’s fans flooded the streets of Vienna for impromptu sing-alongs and spontaneous celebrations of their devotion to the pop star.

Authorities had previously said the main suspect confessed to a plan aimed at killing “as many people as possible” and that he had reportedly quit his regular job recently and “conspicuously changed his appearance and adapted to I.S. [Islamic State] propaganda.” Investigators also reportedly found I.S. and al-Qaida materials at the home of a 17-year-old suspect, who was said to have been hired in the week before the planned shows by a company that was to provide services to the stadium and was arrested by police special forces near the stadium. A third 18-year-old suspect has also been arrested, though none of the men have been charged yet and their names have not been made public per Austrian privacy rules.

Swift is currently on a brief hiatus before she is scheduled to pick up the final run of U.S. Eras dates on Oct. 18 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami.

During a recent stop in Salt Lake City for his Beautifully Broken tour, Nashville native Jelly Roll (real name (real name Jason DeFord) turned an ordinary lemonade stand visit into an unforgettable experience for three young vendors.

Instead of just purchasing a drink from the trio, the country star handed over nearly $700. Wendy Gardunio, the mother of one of the children, shared the experience on Facebook.

“My kid and her cousins wanted to do a lemonade stand. And they had a famous singer come and buy some lemonade. Who would have thought that we would run into Jelly Roll in West Valley? And for him to be so generous with giving them almost $700,” Gardunio wrote alongside photographs of the “Need a Favor” singer.

This isn’t an isolated event—Jelly Roll frequently supports the communities he visits during his tours.

The rocker announced on Friday (Aug. 23) that Beautifully Broken, the follow-up to his hit album Whitsitt Chapel, is coming Oct. 11. All revenue from pre-sales through his website will go to several charities, including Wounded Warriors Project, Folds of Honor, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), and Shatterproof.

Though a tracklist has not been revealed, according to the press release, his latest song, “I Am Not OK” (which he debuted on The Howard Stern Show) as well as “Liar,” “Winning Streak” and “Get By” — which serves as the 2024 college football season’s anthem — will all be included on the upcoming album, which is named after his headlining tour kicking off Aug. 27.

Jelly Roll released Whitsitt Chapel in June 2023. The album peaked at No. 3 on the all-genre Billboard 200, reached No. 2 on Top Country Albums and took the No. 1 spot on Top Rock Albums.

The star also nabbed 2024 Grammy nominations Best New Artist and Best Country duo/Group Performance for “Save Me,” his collaboration with Lainey Wilson, which peaked at No. 19 on the Billboard Hot 100.