Monsta X opens its next chapter with Unfold, the K-pop act’s third English-language album.

The new collection dropped at midnight, and was accompanied soon after with the official music video for album cut “heal,” a lush, midtempo number that draws on soul and gospel influences.

Unfold is said to be a musical journey “through the messy architecture of the human heart,” tracing the “emotional arc of fracture, distraction, and resolution.”

With the release, Monsta X becomes the first K-pop act to release three full-length albums in English. The lads aren’t mucking about; they full intend to cross borders.

They’re “not simply expanding their global footprint,” reads a statement from reps, “they are solidifying their role as a rare K-pop act that authentically speaks to the U.S. market while maintaining their signature intensity and performance excellence.”

The six-strong outfit has already made several moves in that direction. In 2020, they became just the third K-pop act to reach the Billboard 200 top 10, with their first English album All About Luv, which bowed at No. 5. Then, in 2021, Monsta X dropped their second English album, The Dreaming, peaking at No. 21 on the all-genres list.

Monsta X rung in Christmas 2025 with the Connect X concert movie, which celebrated their 10th anniversary as a group and as a tribute to the journey shared by members Joohoney, I.M., Hyungwon, Kihyun, Minhyuk and Shownu with their fandom, known as MONBEBE.

Earlier in 2025, Joohoney, Hyungwon and Kihyun were the final group members to complete their mandatory South Korean military service, after which time the band hopped back in the studio and released The X EP in September to mark their milestone anniversary.

Unfold houses the previously released “Growing Pains,” and “baby blue,” which Monsta X debuted at iHeartRadio’s 2025 Jingle Ball last December.

Stream Unfold in full below.

Bruce Hornsby says the “origin story” of his new album Indigo Park is “very clear.” And interesting — especially since he wasn’t even planning on making it.

Out today, April 3, Indigo Park follows, and is now part of, one of the most prolific stretches of a recording career that dates back 40 years to Hornsby’s triple-platinum debut (and title track signature hit) The Way It Is. From 2019 he’d released five albums in six years, including Absolute Zero, built from unused instrumental pieces Hornsby composed during his time scoring for Spike Lee, and two collaborations with the New York chamber troupe yMusic.

“I was trying not to write songs,” Hornsby tells Billboard via Zoom from his home in his native Williamsburg, Va. “I’d been so feck and so fertile creatively, so I was kind of burnt with all that — not just with the writing process but burnt with the recording and producing. So I was ready for a break from it all.”

But a new song idea — which became Indigo Park’s reflective and autobiographical title track —  interfered with that plan.

“It just wouldn’t let me go,” Hornsby recalls. “I kept giving it the Heisman, giving it the stiff-arm, but to no avail. After about four or five months into trying to not deal with this and having it come roaring into my head at three in the morning, four in the morning, I finally succumbed to the insistence of this idea and decided, ‘OK, I’ll take a deep dive and write this song.’

“I was getting chills while I was writing it and recording it, and that’s telling you something because you can’t force chills. It either happens or it doesn’t, but when it does happen you need to listen to that. You need to follow the chills.”

And when Hornsby’s opinion of the song was confirmed by his “little coterie of like-minded nerds and geeks whose opinions I trust” — including his brother and onetime lyricist John Hornsby — “it made me go, ‘OK, motherf***er, I guess you have to write nine more.”

With guest appearances from Bonnie Raitt, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and Blake Mills, songwriting collaborations with Robert Hunter and one of the last recordings by Bob Weir, Indigo Park is among Hornsby’s most ambitious and stylistically far-reaching of his 22 studio releases. That’s saying something in a catalog that’s played hopscotch between…well, just about every genre imaginable, from pop to contemporary classical and all points in-between. And while he’s at his piano throughout its 10 tracks, the album also finds Hornsby playing a Rickenbacker 12-string guitar — “It’s my Bruce McGuinn” record, he quips, referencing the Byrds co-founder who made the instrument famous — on six of the tunes.

“I’m just interested in pushing the norms and forms of the popular song and make a sound that I haven’t heard before,” explains Hornsby, who co-produced Indigo Park with Tony Berg and Will Maclellan and recorded mostly at legendary Sound City in Van Nuys, CA. “I know that sounds pompous, maybe, but I hope that every third song or so there’s something that’s hopefully gonna bend your ear and take you to a new and adventurous place where you may not have dealt with in the basically white-not universe we live in in popular music.”

Another Musical Hot House

Two of those “out there” moments come from his collaborations with Hunter, who passed away 2019; they mark the last of five songs the two wrote together from 2008. “‘Alabama’ is a totally wild song lyrically,” Hornsby notes. “It’s completely whacky, and I love it. And it made me feel like, ‘OK, here are these lyrics that are definitely atypical, so I need to write atypical music…something as crazy as the words,” drawing inspiration from Austrian classical pianist and composer Arnold Schoenberg. Hornsby also tapped sources such as Elliott Carter, Gyorgy Ligeti and Dmitri Shostakovich on other Indigo Park tracks, while “Silhouette Shadows” comes from another unused instrumental cue written for a Lee film.

“Modern classical music has been informing my music for quite awhile,” he notes.

Having Weir, who passed away back in January, on the album was particularly meaningful for Hornsby, who played as an adjunct of the Grateful Dead during the early ’90s and was part of the spin-off band the Other Ones as well as the Fare Thee Well 50th anniversary concerts in 2015. “Well, of course; it deepens the situation,” Hornsby acknowledges. Weir recorded his part for “Might As Well Be Me, Florinda,” the other Hunter co-write, during May of 2025, and Hornsby remembers that “we were all so happy about it when he sang it down to us at Sound City.

“Weir`s performance is fairly unbridled in the best way, kind of unhinged in a fantastic way, which of course fits the song,” he says. “I’d heard little rumblings about him having some health problems…then nothing, then all of sudden, gone. The same thing happened with (Bill) Walton, and with Robbie Robertson. That throws you.

“(Weir) was always so busy. We were on the phone and I said, ‘Man, you’re always here, you’re there, playing with the National Symphony, the London Symphony, doing these symphonic Dead concerts. Why?’ He said, ‘Man, I just don’t know how much time I have left, and I want to get as much in as I can’ — which, of course, at this point feels (prophetic).”

Mortality, or at least aging, is on Hornsby’s mind throughout Indigo Park as well, with songs that wax nostalgic and sentimental, as well as pensive — and even celebratory, as he sings in the title track, “Oh let these days be your delight…It’s only life, and life is enough/So whatever, it’s life and life only.”

“I thought, ‘OK, I’ve got this song, and it has a little bit to do with sort of aging and hopefully getting to be a little less of an idiot and a little smarter about things as you get older, ’cause you have a better perspective,” he explains. “That sent me heading into this idea that, ‘OK, I’m just going to write about where I am now.’ It’s the story of the record.”

The fun component, meanwhile, surfaces in the Raitt-featuring “Ecstatic,” a rhythmic, poetic track drawn from AAU basketball cheers — and even featuring the Louisiana State University women’s basketball team chanting and dancing in its music video. It’s not necessarily a musical environment you’d expect to find Raitt, but Hornsby said, “She did a great job. She heard it and was like, ‘Wow, I wasn’t expecting this.’ She said, ‘It’s so you,‘ maybe because of the sports origin story, but she’s so good on it.

“When she sent it down, we just went crazy. (Berg) got her on the speaker phone and we’re all exulting and he said to her, ‘Bonnie, I’ve always loved you, but now I’m in love with you…’”

The Way It Was…And Still Is

Though certainly a different kind of album, Indigo Park comes out almost 40 years to the date of The Way It Is, whose chart-topping title track put Hornsby on the map, winning the Grammy Award for best new artist, after a tenure in Sheena Easton’s band. Hornsby has often said that he finds his earlier releases “unlistenable” — “Mostly because I’m not a fan of that singer,” he says — but he appreciates what it meant for his career.

“The mass of the world knows me for that one song,” he acknowledges. “In America I was sort of a four- or five-hit wonder, but in the rest of the world it’s that song. Even (Don Henley’s) ‘The End of the Innocence’ wasn’t that big abroad. What I really feel in this area is that they missed the best part. I feel like I’ve continued to grow and develop through the years, evolve. I’ve just never allowed myself to be shackled in that prison people would like to place me in.

“Let`s face it; people go to a concert because they like more than few songs by the artist, and they go hoping or, mostly, expecting to hear faithful interpretations that help them stroll down memory lane. I totally get it, but it’s a creative prison. I’ve never been constrained by that idea. So I get nasty letters all the time, nasty Facebook screeds, and I’ve learned to live with that for 40 years now.”

Unafraid of stoking that ire again, Hornsby and his band, the Noisemakers, return to the road just after Indigo Park’s release, on April 9 in Cincinnati, with dates currently booked into October. He’s also been working with friend Jeff Daniels on music for a new play. And, as unintentional as the new album’s genesis, Hornsby may have a next venture in his sights already.

“I’ve just about written a song about an artificial friend, inspired by the Kazuo Ishiguro novel Klara and the Sun, and I kinda like this one,” he says. “It feels like a Beatles/Beach Boys thing, with some interesting chord movement. I can almost sit there and play it for someone so…maybe that’s the start of something.”

Stream Indigo Park below.

Pussy Riot co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova is in seriously hot water with Russian authorities, not for the first time.

Following an investigation, Russia’s Investigative Committee this week indicted the punk artist and activist for violating the so-called “foreign agent law” and added to the federal wanted list, reps for Pussy Riot explain.

Tolokonnikova had been accused of flouting Part 2 of Article 330.1 of the national criminal code, which carries punishment of up to 2 years’ prison for “foreign agents” on a range of offenses, including those who failed to register or didn’t label social media posts.

The Krasnoyarsk Krai Court twice found her guilty in 2024 of administrative offenses for violating foreign agent regulations, and later, while outside Russia, she is said to have distributed materials in a messaging platform without labeling them as being produced by a foreign agent.

Russia’s Ministry of Justice designated Tolokonnikova a “foreign agent” on Dec. 30, 2021.

Attention turns to Tolokonnikova after Pussy Riot, the masked Russian punk feminist collective, staged a protest at the Manhattan offices of tech company Ubiquiti on Friday, March 27 over their claims that the company’s Wi-Fi equipment is being used by Russian soldiers in their ongoing war against Ukraine.

Tolokonnikova later posted a video statement in which she said that the Russian military is allegedly using Ubiquiti to communicate with front line troops. In the clip, she talks in voice-over about the company she claims “powers Russian war crimes” over footage of three PR members in all black wearing pink balaclavas with x’d out eyes holding a sign that features that same provocative phrase.

When “Starlink was turned off, Russian guys went crazy,” she said in reference to ex-DOGE boss Elon Musk’s move in February to cut Russian forces’ access to his Starlink satellite service in order to give Ukrainian fighters an edge in the grinding four-year war. She quipped that the Russian fighters scrambled for an alternative, suggesting they were considering using doves to carry their messages.

As previously reported, members of Pussy Riot gathered outside Ubiquiti’s Manhattan offices to protest and deliver their list of demands. Hours after their action, they wrote that the company appeared to respond in the form of a message from payment processing partner Square, which informed PR that its Square account had been deactivated.

Pussy Riot have long been vocal critics of Russia’s leadership. Their 2012 “A Punk Prayer” protest made global headlines and resulted in members Tolokonnikova — who was added to Russia’s most wanted list in 2023 — and Maria Alyokhina being briefly imprisoned.

They’ve since staged a number of other protests, including at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia, as well as a field invasion during the 2018 World Cup Finals and a “celebration” of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 68th birthday in October 2020 in which they hoisted rainbow LGBTQ pride flags outside government buildings in Moscow in protest of the Russian government’s continued denial of LGBTQ rights. In 2023, the collective received the Woody Guthrie prize for their fight for freedom and justice.

More recently, Nadya has spoken up about Russia’s return to the Venice Biennale, one of the oldest, largest, and most prestigious cultural institutions on earth, and has created an online petition with thousands of other artists. In an open letter to Biennale President Pietroangelo Buttafuoco, she writes: “Accommodating official state representation while curating ‘dissent’ risks turning the latter into a performative gesture and virtue-signaling rather than a position…You claim to care about censorship, Pussy Riot is so censored in Russia that we were deemed ‘an extremist organization’ – simply visiting our website or liking images of our art is criminalized.”

Several countries, including the United States, have criticized the inclusion of Russia in the prestigious exhibition, while the European Commission has warned organizers it will suspend €2 million in support if the festival goes ahead with Russia among its exhibitors. Russia withdrew from Venice Biennale ahead of its 59th edition in 2022, just ahead of its invasion of Ukraine.

Tolokonnikova’s latest indictment “will not stop her from protesting Russia’s return to Venice Biennale,” explains a rep in a message to Billboard.

It’s Easter and U2 is sharing the goodies.

The legendary Irish rock band’s latest release is Easter Lily EP (via Island Records), a six-pack of new recordings that drops today (April 3), Good Friday. Easter Lily closely follows the release last month of the Days of Ash EP, timed to arrive on Ash Wednesday.

Where Days of Ash was U2’s “response to chaotic times in the outside world,” Easter Lily is a “much more reflective set of songs emerging from a more personal, private place that some may retreat to in such times,” reads a statement from the record company.

Its works explore themes of friendship, loss, hope, and ultimately, renewal, and includes a contribution from Brian Eno, a soundscape on the closing track “COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?),” which U2 depicts as a lullaby for parents of children caught up in war.

The new collection is a “separate, self-contained collection,” the Universal Music Group label’s message continues, and is something to tide over U2 fans as Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen and Adam Clayton knuckle-down on recording sessions for a new studio album. That project is said to be “ongoing.”

Bono has shared an update on the LP, the followup to 2023’s Songs of Surrender, which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart.

“We are in the studio, still working towards a noisy, messy, ‘unreasonably colourful’ album to play LIVE… which is where U2 lives. We still look to vivid rock n roll as an act of resistance against all this awfulness on our small screens. These are for sure ‘wilderness years’ for so many of us looking at the mayhem out there in the world,” the singer explains.

“It’s a time that has our band digging deeper into our lives to find a wellspring of songs to try meet the moment… With Easter Lily we ended up asking very personal questions like: Are our own relationships up to these challenging times? How hard do you fight for friendship? Can our faith survive the mangling of meaning that those algorithms love to reward? Is all religion rubbish and still ripping us apart…? Or are there answers to find in its crevices? Are there ceremonies, rituals, dances that we might be missing in our lives? From the rite of Spring to Easter and its promise of rebirth and renewal… Patti Smith’s album Easter gave me so much hope when it was released in 1978. I wasn’t yet 18. The title is a nod to her.”

The fourpiece “will attempt hoopla and fanfare at a later date to remind the rest of the world we exist but in the meantime,” Bono continues, “this is between you and us.”

Accompanying the new EP is a special digital e-zine edition of “Propaganda,” the first of which was published more than 40 years ago, in February 1986. Each of the bandmates contribute to “U2 – Propaganda – Easter Lily,” which includes a conversation between Bono and Franciscan friar Richard Rohr; and in-the-studio photographs shot by Mullen; song lyrics; a piece on their producer, Jacknife Lee; and more.

Formed in Dublin with their political hearts exposed on their collective sleeves, U2 would become arguably the world’s biggest band in the second half of the 1980s, a crown they managed to wear well into the ‘90s despite the explosion of grunge, indie, alternative rock, hip-hop and electronic dance music.

The band has landed 34 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, including two leaders, along with eight No. 1s on the Billboard 200 chart. Induction into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame came in 2005. U2 had the honors of being the first band to play the Sphere in Las Vegas, which they inaugurated in September 2023 with the residency, U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere.

Stream Easter Lily below and watch the lyric videos here.

“U2 – Easter Lily” tracklist: