Something — actually some things — are definitely happening for Peter Frampton right now, with the British-born rocker’s present and past colliding via a couple of new projects.

On May 15, Frampton released Carry The Light, his 19th studio album as a solo artist and first of all-new songs in 16 years. And this week he’s premiering the new documentary Frampton, directed by longtime band member Rob Arthur, with a special screening on Thursday (June 4) at the Tribeca Festival in New York.

And all of this comes just a few months after celebrating the 50th anniversary of Frampton Comes Alive!, the iconic concert set that topped the Billboard 200 for 10 weeks, spawned two top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 and made him the Taylor Swift of his day back in 1976.

“Yeah, it all comes to roost at the same time,” Frampton, 76, sporting a denim shirt over a Tom Petty tee, tells Billboard via Zoom from Bigsby Park, his home studio at his residence in Nashville. (Bigsby, the namesake dog, stretches out on a white sofa nearby during the conversation.)

“Celebrating (Frampton Comes Alive!) was very exiting — but daunting that it’s 50 years since that thing! And then (Carry The Light) and the documentary were sort of like this,” he adds, waving his arms to indicate their parallel paths, “and then all of a sudden they aligned. We didn’t plan it; it just luckily happened that way. We were going to release the album a month earlier, but then Tribeca contacted us… so we put it back so the album would come out and two weeks later it’s Tribeca, and then we could talk about both rather than talk about one thing or the other.”

Rest assured there’s a lot to talk about in both cases.

Showing The Way

The Frampton documentary was Arthur’s brainchild, broached after Frampton began privately revealing the degenerative Inclusion Body Myositis (IBM) diagnosis that’s slowly limiting his mobility and forced him to adjust his playing style — although anybody who’s seen him live since 2019 would be hard-pressed to notice. But the prospect of Frampton stopping at some point — “I thought, ‘This is the greatest gig on the planet. What am I gonna do when Peter’s done?’,” Arthur recalls — inspired him to learn film craft and, in turn, pitch the idea of a documentary.

It began as chronicle of Frampton’s Finale — The Farewell Tour in 2019. “Peter said, ‘Why don’t you just film all the concerts?’” Arthur says with a laugh. “I’m like, OK — you do know I’m on stage? I’m the keyboard player, right?” Nevertheless, he employed three cameras to capture the onstage action and, since the gear was on the road, also filmed behind the scenes and began interviewing Frampton.

“I’m like, ‘Wow, OK, this isn’t just a concert documentary. This is a story,’” says Arthur. Frampton’s management supported the idea, and while the Covid pandemic slowed down progress, it also gave Arthur — who started the Phenix Features film company with Frampton during the pause — time to hunker down and organize the endeavor. “Luckily I was around Peter a lot,” he says. “The chemistry between the two of us… we’re friends. He liked the way he looked with me in the room, without other strangers. It’s more of a conversation. The basis of the movie is my take on him as a friend, and of course I know his legacy very well.”

Because of that relationship, Frampton adds that he was able to focus on Carry The Light, with his son Julian Frampton co-producing, while Arthur worked on the film. “I trust Rob implicitly,” he says. “I had a lot to do with it. I know everything that’s in there. But we were working on two projects at once, and I mainly concentrated on the album and wasn’t involved day to day (with Frampton). I kept seeing it every now and again, and I love the way he told the story.”

Arthur says his ultimate goal was “to tell a career retrospective” and a life story, dating back to Frampton’s upbringing in Kent, England, where his mother, whose own acting ambitions were quashed by her own mother, encouraged his artistic pursuits. Frampton even takes Frampton and his brother Clive back to Bromley Technical High School, where their father was head of the art department and where a young Frampton played guitar with upper classman David Jones (nee Bowie) and formed bands such as the Little Ravens, the Trubeats, the Preachers and Moon Train — the latter of which was managed and produced by Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman.

Arthur filmed Frampton playing Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” on the steps at Bromley — “I almost choked up there; one of the camera girls was crying,” he remembers — as well as at Abbey Road studios, where Frampton recalls being part of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album. Others appearing in the film include: Wyman; the Who’s Roger Daltrey, who inducted Frampton into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2024; Ringo Starr; Herb Alpert, who signed Humble Pie and then Frampton to A&M Records during the early ’70s; Alice Cooper, one of Frampton’s co-stars in the ill-fated Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band film; Andrew Brown from Frampton’s pre-Humble Pie band the Herd; Humble Pie’s Jerry Shirley; Sheryl Crow; Heart’s Nancy Wilson; Tom Morello; Styx’s Tommy Shaw; Kate Hudson; Joe Bonamassa and others. Frampton’s first wife, Mary Lindes, provides insights. “We’ll always be lifelong friends,” he notes, as do Frampton’s three children.

There And Back Again

Frampton provided hours of Super 8 footage he shot during the ’70s, including from while he was in the hospital following a near-fatal June 1978 car crash in the Bahamas. He also gave Arthur license to explore the darker aspects of his career, including substance abuse issues and his well-chronicled fall from popularity after Frampton Comes Alive! — even having to ask Atlantic Records chief Ahmet Ertegun for a loan at one point. Frampton also entertained an inquiry from Pete Townshend about replacing him, on stage at least, in the Who.

“Nobody likes talking about failure, but that’s a big part of it,” acknowledges Frampton, who was equally candid in 2020’s Do You Feel Like I Do?: A Memoir. “I wanted people to see it’s not all glamor, I wanted to show the story all the way through — the good, the bad and the ugly. It was me baring my soul, just like I did in the book, really — it’s the same story, but different details, so it was very important to say I failed, even though (failure) doesn’t sit well with me, being a positive man in many ways.”

Arthur, meanwhile, contends that Frampton is ultimately a triumphant tale.

“One thing I have to give (Frampton) total credit for was he was very transparent. He said, ‘Put it all in there!`” Arthur says. “I said, ‘Are you sure?` I got him to talk about stuff that he’s never talked about, and I said, ‘I’m gonna use this.’ (Frampton) said, ‘I know, I know. It’s OK.’ And it turns out his life did follow this beautiful arc; he was the biggest thing in the world, and three years later he was done and the world left him. So then it’s perseverance and a triumphant last third act.

“(Frampton) just wrote me last week, ’cause he watched it again, and he said, ‘Rob, I just love this doc. It’s painful to watch at times, but I love it.’ There’s my payday right there. That’s it — success! The fact he gives me a thumbs-up is giant.”

Julian Frampton was equally moved. “It’s a phenomenal story,” he says. “A lot of people will learn some things they didn’t know about his career and his family life. I never saw a lot of that footage before; it was like a time machine, watching a 24-year-old version of your dad on the beach and stuff like that, with all that hair. It’s a great thing.”

Frampton and Arthur are hoping the Tribeca audience will feel the same way — and they’re already looking ahead to Frampton‘s life beyond the festival. “We’re looking to find a streaming home, (but) we don’t know who that’s gonna be yet,” Arthur says. “We’re gonna have to see where it leads us after Tribeca. I’ve gotten some amazing feedback from great directors who have seen it, which makes me happy. So I think we’ve got something that’s super marketable and really entertaining.”

Carrying The Light

Carry The Light, meanwhile, kept Frampton plenty busy while Arthur was putting Frampton together. The Framptons recorded the 10-track set mostly in Nashville, at Frampton’s Studio Phenix and Bigsby Park and other locations, with a rhythm section of bassist Glenn Worf and drummer Chad Cromwell. Guests include Morello on the raging “Lions at the Gate,” Crow (“Breaking the Mold”), H.E.R. on the instrumental “Islamorada” and saxophonist Bill Evans on “Can You Take Me There” and “Tinderbox.”

Graham Nash features on “I’m Sorry Elle,” inspired by Frampton’s wait to meet his granddaughter born during the height of Covid, while Benmont Tench from Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers plays keyboards on “Buried Treasure,” which takes its title from the late Petty’s SiriusXM show that Frampton enjoyed.

Frampton says the IBM diagnosis pushed him “to play as much as possible, while I still can,” which led to two covers sets — All Blues in 2019 and the instrumental Frampton Forgets the Words  during 2021. But he’s been long eyeballing another set of his own compositions to follow 2010’s Thank You, Mr. Churchill. “All of the songs are either brand new or they’re within the last six years of being written,” he says, noting that he came up with the riff for the topical “Lions at the Gate” about six years ago, during a session recording “Peggy Sue” for a Buddy Holly tribute project.

The title track, meanwhile, incorporates a Shawnee stomp dance, courtesy of guitar tech Nick Gibson and his tribal family in Oklahoma, and the idea of elders passing wisdom on provided a tentpole theme for the song and the album. “The thing that upsets me right now is that we will never learn from the past,” Frampton explains. “My father and many others from the Second World War would be turning in their graves right now; they fought to get rid of (fascism) and enhance the Constitution of America and hopefully straighten out Europe a little bit — which they did. So it really angers me that we have what we have now.”

With Carry The Light Out, Frampton is already working on a next album. “There’s six tracks waiting in the wings,” Frampton says, “and I’ve already got four embryonic ideas ready for me and Julian to sit down and do the same thing again, which is exciting ’cause I get to spend more time with him.” The IBM is preventing Frampton from making tour plans at the moment, however. “It’s obviously getting more and more difficult to play,” he acknowledges, but that doesn’t diminish his determination to keep trying.

“Somebody said something like ‘he’s not just a classic rocker anymore, and if there’s ever something I would love to hear, that would be it, that I’m current,” Frampton says. “I do feel that way, because I do feel like it’s an incredible album. I don’t usually use superlatives for my own stuff, but I knew this album is good. I knew Frampton Comes Alive! was good. I knew (1972’s) Wind of Change was great. I knew (Humble Pie’s) Rockin’ the Fillmore was fantastic. (Carry The Light) is the best of the best we had. We never settled for anything less than the best we could do, and it think you can hear it.”

The fifth month of 2026 was mostly about one artist: Drake. The embattled rap superstar returned not just with his highly anticipated Iceman album, but two additional albums in Maid of Honour and Habibti, taking the top three spots on the Billboard 200, swarming the Billboard Hot 100 in unprecedented fashion, and generally dominating discourse and discussion like no other artist so far this year. The Drake eclipse largely overshadowed the rest of the month in pop stardom — but plenty of other artists still did make their presence felt with big hit songs, impactful albums, spotlight award-show moments and hype-building drops from upcoming projects.

This week on the Greatest Pop Stars podcast, we catch up with everyone — yes, of course including and led by Drake — who defined May 2026 in pop stardom. Host Andrew Unterberger is joined by Billboard staffers Kyle Denis and Rebecca Milzoff to share and debate our respective May top five lists, while also naming some honorable mentions, some disappointments, and some artists who we’re looking forward to in the next few months of the year. (If you want to listen back to our first four 2026 recaps, or any of our 2025 episodes, you can check them all out here.)

And of course, we ask all the most pressing questions about the month in pop stardom: Did Drake really need to drop three albums at once to get back to where he was? How are we currently stacking Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide up against its predecessor Stick Season? Is Kacey Musgraves on her way to being accepted back into the country mainstream? Is Michael Jackson really about to have one of the summer’s breakout hits with a decade-old posthumous song? Did we get what we wanted from Gracie Abrams’ first new single of 2026? Which ’90s alternative reference point are we currently citing for Olivia Rodrigo’s “The Cure”? And perhaps most importantly: What is up with that Role Model album title?

Check it out above, and subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast on Apple Music or Spotify (or wherever you get your podcasts) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!

And as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts — if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:

Transgender Law Center

Trans Lifeline

Destination Tomorrow

Gender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe

Human Rights Campaign – In Your Area

Also, please consider giving your local congresspeople a call in support of trans rights, with contact information you can find on 5Calls.org.

DJ AG took over Billboard’s THE STAGE at SXSW London on Wednesday (June 3) bringing his eclectic taste to the U.K. festival.

The London-based performer was accompanied by a number of musicians artists during his set which spanned genres across garage, hip-hop, r&b, pop and beyond.

AG (real name: Ashley Gordon) has found an ardent following in recent years for his guerilla DJ sets and big name guests. Over the years, Will Smith, Akon, AJ Tracey, Skepta, Ciara and more have appeared during his live sets which are regularly streamed live on AG’s growing social channels.

Hosted in Ely’s Yard in Shoreditch, east London, AG hosted a number of rising artists throughout the showcase. U.S. artist Cameron McCloud, who recently won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest as a member for Cure for Paranoia, pulled up for a cameo, alongside head-turning performances from Australian act Tikara and London-based Iyamah. 

U.S. group Infinity Song joined AG for a short spot ahead of their showcase event at the nearby Shoreditch Town Hall venue as part of the Mahogany Showcase. House Gospel Choir, who performed with Harry Styles at the 2026 BRIT Awards and his One Night Only show in Manchester, also made an appearance with an uplifting guest spot.

SXSW London is currently in the midst of its second edition, bringing together leading voices in music, film, culture, technology and business for a wide-ranging program of panels, performances and screenings.

THE STAGE is a fixture of SXSW in Austin, Texas, with 2026’s lineup including Billboard 200 chart-topper Don Toliver, Mau P and Junior H. At the inaugural 2025 SXSW London, Tems performed a sold-out show at London’s Troxy as part of THE STAGE.

Elsewhere performances at SXSW London 2026 include Rachel Chinouriri, Tiwa Savage, Shame, ODUMODUBLVCK and more. 

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Stu Mackenzie and Lucas Harwood of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Julia Jacklin, and trials, lead the first wave of Artist In Conversation sessions at BIGSOUND 2026, one of the most popular daytime spots during Australia’s annual conference and showcase smorgasbord.  

King Gizz, as they’re affectionately known in these parts, are BIGSOUND alum, having performed during the nighttime program back in 2013. The prolific group has gone on to own their lane in the psych-rock space, smashing out a remarkable 25 albums (including five in one year), launching a label (p(doom) Records) and standing out as one of Australia’s leading music exports.

Jacklin, too, has graced the BIGSOUND showcase stages. The indie alt-pop artist made her BIGSOUND debut in 2016, just ahead of the release of Don’t Let The Kids Win, the first of her three studio albums.

A two-time ARIA Award winner, Jacklin this week announced her first-ever global record deal with venerated indie label 4AD, and shared details of her 2026/2027 tour that will see her perform throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Continental Europe.

Also confirmed for BIGSOUND’s Artist In Conversation lineup is Ngarrindjeri hip-hop producer, composer and innovator, a founding member of Funkoars and one half of A.B. ORIGINAL, his politically-charged project with Yorta Yorta artist Briggs (an Artist in Conversation participant last year) that won two ARIA Awards and the coveted Australian Music Prize  for best Australian album of the year (with 2016’s Reclaim Australia).

Trials (real name: Daniel Rankine) recently supported Hilltop Hoods on their 10-date arena tour of Australia, and last month released his debut solo project hendle. Also, he has been throwing his support behind Full Stop Australia, one of the country’s leading sexual, domestic and family violence response and recovery services, with profits of his merchandise t-shirt sales from every show donated to the organization.

Previous Artist In Conversation guests have included Tony Watson (aka Tones And I), Kelis, Mallrat, Blur’s Dave Rowntree, and Amy Taylor of Amyl And The Sniffers.

This year’s 25^th anniversary edition of BIGSOUND will play out in the vibrant entertainment district that is Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, from Sept. 1-4.

International guests confirmed for BIGSOUND 2026 include reps from Partisan Records, Pitchfork, Bonnaroo, Soho House, MOM+POP, ROAM Artists, Reeperbahn, DMT Law Firm, Carpark Records, The Great Escape, True Panther and SXSW.

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“BIGSOUND has always been a place where real connections happen, and this year we’re focused on creating even more opportunities for Australian and New Zealand artists and industry to connect with each other and the global market,” comments Kristy Ellis, interim CEO, QMusic, producers of BIGSOUND. “The program focuses on the conversations the industry is having right now — how the business is changing, how we stay ahead, and how Australian and New Zealand artists continue to grow on the global stage.”

Visit bigsound.org.au for more information.