Over the course of five fright-filled seasons, Stranger Things has had a knack for picking just the right song, at just the right time, to accompany some of the sci-fi horror series’ most action-packed moments. And, because the show took place in the 1980s, of course this week’s finale had to pay tribute to one of the eras most dominant pop superstars: Prince.

Some folks in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region thought for sure that the era-appropriate song that might help bring the season five story to a close would be something from beloved indie rockers The Replacements. There were two reasons for this theory: number one, WSQK DJ Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke) suggested in the next-to-last episode that the Paul Westerberg-led band’s music would be the perfect monster-fighting soundtrack. Plus, co-star Finn Wolfhard (who plays Mike Wheeler) has optioned the rights for a big-screen adaptation of the biography Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, which he plans to direct and co-write.

But, alas, in the final two-hour goodbye that dropped on New Year’s Eve, show runners the Duffer Brothers opted for two songs from Prince’s iconic 1984 Purple Rain album, both of which were perfectly placed, and, to hear them tell it, incredibly long shots to be approved by the late pop star’s estate. (Warning: the following contains spoilers about the Stranger Things finale.)

“Once we came up with the idea that the record was going to be the trigger for the bomb, we knew we needed an epic needle drop, and so many ideas were thrown around,” Ross Duffer told Netflix editorial site Tudum about the scene where Murray Bauman (Brett Gelman) rigs a record player to play side B of Purple Rain, which opens with “When Doves Cry,” in the lead-up to the most dramatic moment to date.

“I think there’s nothing really more epic than Prince,” Ross Duffer said of the siblings’ search for an album that started off with a celebratory song (“Let’s Go Crazy”) and then ended with one that had the appropriate dramatic gravitas (“Purple Rain”). “Prince lined up perfectly for us.”

“When Doves Cry” was the spot-on emotional pump-up in the run-up to the bomb’s remote triggering, when the gang takes off to escape the collapse of the interdimensional bridge, before the switch to the more emotionally churning Purple Rain title track as viewers are left to ponder Eleven’s (Millie Bonnie Bongiovi) fate. The only issue was the biggest issue: getting Prince’s music approved for TV is kind of impossible.

Ross said the brothers had never spent so much time talking about a musical cue for the show as they did for that sequence of events and what made their final choice even more alluring was that you pretty much never hear Prince’s music licensed for TV or movie soundtracks. “It just has not been used,” he said. “[Prince’s] estate does not generally allow that song to be licensed outside the Purple Rain movie.”

But for the Duffers, using “Purple Rain” was so exciting “because I think it summed up the emotion of the moment,” Ross Duffer said, with brother Matt noting that thanks to Kate Bush — whose “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” got a massively unexpected chart glow-up in 2022 thanks to its vital placement in season four of the series — the pair were able to secure the Prince rights.

When the Duffers said they wanted to feature the two songs in the finale, Matt Duffer said, “we were told that it was a real long shot, so we just crossed our fingers… Thank God they agreed.” In addition to the Prince songs, the finale episode, “The Rightside Up,” also featured tracks from Fleetwood Mac (“Landslide”), the Pixies (“Here Comes Your Man”), Iron Maiden (“The Trooper”), Cowboy Junkies (“Sweet Jane” cover), Etta James (“At Last”), Queen (“Who Wants to Live Forever”) and David Bowie (“Heroes”).

Noah Kahan had a lot to celebrate when the calendar flipped to 2026 this week. In addition to performing for a massive crowd at the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K. and filming a documentary about his rocket ride to international stardom, the singer also married his longtime girlfriend in an intimate ceremony in his native Vermont in August.

The “No Complaints” singer counted his good fortune and blessings in an Instagram post on Thursday (Jan. 1) in which he raised a glass to toast the past and the future. “28 was change and adaptation and understanding and growing and trying to go backwards and forwards at once and coming to terms with and accepting and being filled with gratitude and wondering why this happened to me and feeling left out of something important and trying to find the bottom of a never ending landfill,” he wrote in the run-on sentence message.

He continued, “and making the little guy proud and taking it all in and never turning my head away from the windshield even when I was terrified of the road in front of me and god I hope 29 teaches me even half as much.” Kahan celebrated his 29th birthday on New Year’s Day.

At press time the singer only has a handful of live dates on tap for 2026 so far, including a slot at the Out of the Blue Festival in Cancun, Mexico (Jan. 8-11) and this summer’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in Manchester, TN on June 14.

Kahan launched a TikTok account in December where he’s been sharing snippets of new music and, on New Year’s Day, wrote a heartfelt letter to fans wishing them a happy new year and promising that “it feels like I’m coming out of hibernation” this year, appearing to tease a possible follow-up to his breakthrough third studio album, 2022’s Stick Season.

Jack White has made it crystal clear over the past few months that he is not playing the MAGA GOP’s games. After repeatedly slamming Donald Trump last year for everything from his controversial gold-plated White House makeover and East Wing demolition to the President’s “vile,” hate-filled obituary for beloved moviemaker Rob Reiner, White has not held his tongue when it comes to calling out the divisive rhetoric and actions of Trump 2.0.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was at it again this week when he took aim at U.S. Rep Tim Burchett after the Congressman from White’s home state of Tennessee shared a misleading AI-generated video that appeared to show the “Seven Nation Army” star telling Trump supporters to not listen to his music.

While X flagged Burchett’s original post as containing fake footage using quotes falsely attributed to White (with the links to those videos seemingly deleted from the first version), the 61-year-old Republican who has served Tennessee’s second congressional district since 2019 doubled down in his accompanying message, which tauntingly read: “That cute girl from the Addams Family got really ugly and angry.”

The attempt at a schoolyard jab — in keeping with the Trump administration’s frequent use of social media to mock, belittle and denigrate its perceived opponents, sometimes using AI-generated memes or videos — indeed got White riled up. In a heated response posted on Tuesday (Dec. 30), White slammed his state’s rep for going so low.

“Can you believe that a U.S. congressman, that’s right, a CONGRESSMAN (from my state no less), a once hallowed and respected position in our society, would repost an AI generated video, containing a false comment that I never said and refuted (without researching that I might add) and like a 10 year old on a playground, add to it attempted insults to my physical appearance?” White wrote. “What kind of joke are we all living in now?”

Reacting to the post’s claims that White told MAGA supporters “don’t even think about listening to my music, you fascists,” White clarified, “All of trump’s lackeys and bootlicks like this elected official are cowards that would never talk this way to anybody like me or you in person. trump really lowered the bar when he brought his scourge to this government. Neither him nor his sycophantic congressmen and women manifest class or dignity, they all just regurgitate cheap, childish, grade school bullying points and fake christian(!) rhetoric. It’s really sad how embarrassing our leadership has become, I so wish the average American conservative could have a conversation with any intelligent people in other countries around the world, just for one brief moment, and actually see just what a joke our government (and by proxy our country) has become.”

White said his great state “deserves better” than Burchett, while taking aim at giving power and a voice to what he called “low class playground bullies” such as Trump and his state’s rep. Billboard has reached out to the congressman’s office for comment.

“The great state of Tennessee deserves better Mr. Burchett but you and your cult are too dug in and blinded to even realize it,” White wrote. “Holding a bible in one hand and a flag in the other while you stomp out our democracy day by day in the service of one man’s ego so that he can use taxpayer money to receive his fake peace prize and tear down the White House brick by brick. Embarrassing. I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, there will come a time in the future when none of these right wingers will admit to being a part of this cult from this time period. All the maga hats will be in landfills and actual intelligent and honorable leadership will take their place.”

Instead, White encouraged his fellow Americans to focus instead on such “highly educated and well spoken leaders” of the past including presidents John F. Kennedy and Franklin Delano Roosevelt and civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., “because when i look around now, I’m wondering if half of these so called representatives have ever actually read the constitution that they pledged an oath to,” the rocker wrote.

Last August, White lashed out at Trump for his White House renovations, calling the all-gold-everything decor “vulgar, gold leafed and gaudy,” comparing it to a “wrestler’s dressing room.” Then, in December, White expressed his outrage at Trump’s insult-filled comments about Spinal Tap director Reiner’s death. “Trump, you disgusting, vile, egomaniac loser, child,” White wrote, adding that using someone’s tragic death to “promote your own vanity and fascist authoritarian agenda is a corrupt and narcissistic sin.”

Amy Taylor, the fearless frontwoman of Amyl and The Sniffers, has filed a lawsuit against an award-winning American photographer who she claims sold photos from a magazine shoot without permission.

In papers filed with a California district court, Taylor’s reps accuse Jamie Nelson of unauthorized commercial exploitation of images originally snapped for Vogue Portugal.

The photos, part of the so-called “Champagne Problems” series, were published in July 2025, and have been shared widely on social media. However, prints remain for sale through Nelson’s website, with prices ranging from $1,500 up to $3,600, reduced from $4,000.

The series is a “visual dialogue between two kindred spirits,” reads Nelson page, both “fiercely embodying defiance, glamour, and authenticity.”

The shoot took place at Nelson’s “iconic vintage pink palace in Los Angeles,” and captures Taylor’s take-no-prisoner’s punk spirit, and wicked sense of Aussie humor.

According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the court documents include a portion of a letter sent by the band’s manager Simone Ubaldi, co-director of Sundowner Artists, to Nelson, addressing the commercialization of the photos.

“I cannot be clearer about this — [Ms Taylor] does not want you to sell images of her face, or her body as fine art prints,” the letter reads.

“If you had been transparent with her in advance of the shoot about your desire/intentions to sell the photos, she would have said no to the shoot.

“We simply would have said no to the shoot.”

Billboard reached out to Taylor and Nelson’s respective reps for comment.

Nelson’s photography has appeared in many celebrated publications, including Vogue, Playboy, and Vanity Fair, and she has worked with a long list of recording artists, including Halsey, Camila Cabello, Gwen Stefani, Megan Thee Stallion, and Maren Morris.

Amyl and The Sniffers are arguably Australia’s hottest rock band right now. The rockers are coming off a barnstorming year, during which they played Glastonbury Festival, earned a BRIT Award nomination, cleaned up at the ARIA Awards with four wins, and scored a first-ever nomination for the 2026 Grammy Awards.

Taylor took her own leap into electronic music with “you’re a star,” a collaboration with Fred Again, and the group opened for AC/DC on the legendary Australian rock band’s stadium tour of Australia. Amyl’s appearance was an early “bogan Christmas” present to fans of AC/DC, “the best band in the f—ing world,” Taylor said at the tour finale, Dec. 18 at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.