Beloved Hollywood fashion designer Bob Mackie is over the moon that Taylor Swift is repping one of his famously rhinestone-encrusted creations on the cover of her The Life of a Showgirl album. Speaking to E! News, Mackie, 85, said he was “kind of shocked” that the singer picked a real-life showgirl outfit he designed for the face of her 12th LP.

“Because I was thinking Taylor Swift to be this little girl who used to write songs about fairytale princesses,” said Mackie. “She’s amazing and much taller than I thought she would be and older than I thought she was. I thought she was still 14 or something. Not true!”

“Sultan of Sequins” Mackie, whose legendarily sparkly, jewel-encrusted costumes have been worn by everyone from Diana Ross to Elton John, Whitney Houston, Miley Cyrus, Judy Garland, Beyoncé, Liza Minelli and, perhaps most famously, Cher, paid tribute to the cover shot in an August Instagram post describing its provenance.

“The ensemble worn by @taylorswift was designed by Bob Mackie for the ‘Jewel Finale’ of the Las Vegas show Jubilee! Produced by Don Arden; the show featured over 1,000 costumes based on Florenz Ziegfeld stage shows with elaborate couture costumes worn by the showgirls,” he wrote. “It was the longest running showgirl spectacular in history and ran from 1981 to 2016.”

Mackie also provided some of the details of the the elaborate get-up and an image of one of the Vegas performers wearing a version of it, explaining, “The bra, undergarments, and armbands are all French wirework and backed with a blush fabric for a nude illusion. The bra and underwear have set stones and drops at the under-bust of the bra and the waistline of the underwear.”

Universal Music Group and Stability AI have announced a strategic partnership to develop music creation tools powered by “responsibly” trained generative AI. 

The two companies said on Thursday that the collaboration will aim to support artists, producers and songwriters by integrating AI into the creative process while ensuring commercial safety and proper licensing. Stability AI’s research and product teams will work closely with UMG and its artists to explore new recording and composition methods, gather feedback and tailor tools to the needs of the creative community.

This alliance follows UMG’s quite recent agreement with Udio, which included a legal settlement over copyright infringement and a licensing deal that compensates artists for both AI training and outputs. UMG has been a pioneer in AI innovation, forging partnerships with platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Meta, while actively defending artists’ rights against unauthorized AI training.

Stability AI, known for its two-year-old Stable Audio models, specializes in generating high-quality, licensed music using text-to-audio technology. Their models, trained on professional datasets like Audio Sparx, offer control over audio generation through “latent diffusion” — a technique first introduced in their image-based Stable Diffusion product.

Beyond music, Stability AI has recently partnered with Electronic Arts to innovate game development and with WPP to enhance marketing through AI. 

“This agreement is an extension of our fundamental orientation that our artists and songwriters are the cornerstone of our business,” said UMG’s chief digital officer Michael Nash. “With AI, as with everything else we do, we start with what best supports our work to help them achieve creative and commercial success and build from that foundation to forge new and better commercial and creative opportunities. And as we’ve made abundantly clear, we will only consider advancing AI tools and products based on models that are trained responsibly.”

Prem Akkaraju, CEO of Stability AI, said the partnership “marks the next chapter of music creation,” adding, “we put the artist at the center and build AI around their unique needs because real transformation has always come from a combination of art and science.”

If you attended one of the Oasis ’25 reunion shows this summer you will likely never forget the soul-stirring echo of 50,000+ fans shouting out the lyrics to “Wonderwall” along with singer Liam Gallagher as if the tune was the Oasis National Anthem.

Which it basically is.

That explains why on Thursday (Oct. 30) Oasis announced that they are marking the 30th anniversary of one of their most indelible hits, which has racked up more than three billion streams to date. The band’s biggest hit and an unmovable staple of their live shows will be celebrated with a limited-edition (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? 7″ singles box set due out on Dec. 12, a replica of a highly collectible 1996 cigarette-style CD box set.

The new box includes four 7″ singles — the 2014 remastered versions of “Wonderwall,” “Some Might Say,” “Roll With It” and “Don’t Look Back in Anger” — along with their original b-sides, respectively, “Round Are Way,” “Talk Tonight,” “It’s Better People” and “Step Out.”

In addition to playing around the world on a reunion tour that nobody ever thought would happen, Oasis have spent the year looking back at some of their musical highlights. Last month, they released the 25th anniversary reissue of their Wembley Stadium live album, Familiar to Millions and the 25th anniversary reissue of their fourth album, Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, as well as an unplugged version of “Morning Glory.” To celebrate the launch of their first run of shows in 16 years in July, the group also issued a box set collecting all their studio albums.

This month they also announced a massive book chronicling the tour, Oasis Live ’25 OPUS.

Oasis will march on Friday night (Oct. 31) with the first of three shows at Marvel Stadium in Melbourne, Australia, followed by two gigs in Sydney next weekend and a final run of shows in Argentina, Chile and Brazil to round out the month.

Though a Nov. 23 show at MorumBIS in São Paulo, Brazil is currently the final scheduled date, earlier this month Liam Gallagher answered a fan’s complaint about one of his favorite songs not make the set list by offering up a cryptic tease about future dates. “Chill Winston it’s not even HALF TIME yet it’s a tour of 2 half’s,” Gallagher wrote. To date, spokespeople for the band have not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on potential 2026 tour dates.

Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.

Lily Allen will take her acclaimed West End Girl LP on tour in 2026 throughout the U.K. The shows will make for the British star’s first full tour in seven years.

Allen released West End Girl on Friday (Oct. 24) via BMG and the record shares intimate and explicit details on the breakdown of her marriage to Stranger Things star David Harbour; the pair were married in 2020 and separated earlier this year.

The 40-year-old will play the album in full at a run of dates in March 2026, kicking off at Glasgow’s Royal Concert Hall on March. 2. She’ll then play a run of shows that take her to Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Cambridge, Bristol, Cardiff, wrapping up with two nights at the London Palladium on March 21.

The show – Lily Allen Performs West End Girl – will see the singer-songwriter perform her brand-new album in its entirety and in the order the songs appear on the record. Tickets for the shows go on sale at 10 a.m. (GMT) next Friday (Nov. 7).

West End Girl is Allen’s first album since 2018’s No Shame and her fifth overall. Allen’s debut solo single “Smile” from Alright, Still hit No. 1 on the U.K. charts in 2006, and she has two chart-topping LPs to her name: It’s Not Me, It’s You (2009) and Sheezus (2014).

The album details alleged infidelity by a partner, assumed to be Harbour. On the tracks “West End Girl” and “Nonmonogamummy,” Allen details a situation in which she felt pressured to enter into an open relationship, the terms of which were subsequently violated by her partner. On songs such as “Madeline” and “P—y Palace,” she also sings about alleged infidelity. The pair tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in Las Vegas in 2020 after meeting on dating app Raya the year prior.

Speaking to Interview magazine, however, Allen says that some creative license has been used in her songwriting, disclosing that “some of it is based on truth and some of it is fantasy.” She also detailed the songwriting process and her feelings on the songs now that she is removed from the relationship. “At the time, I was really trying to process things, and that’s great in terms of the album, but I don’t feel confused or angry now. I don’t need revenge,” Allen said.

“I wrote this record in 10 days in December, and I feel very differently about the whole situation now,” she added. “We all go through breakups and it’s always f—ing brutal.”

Lily Allen U.K 2026 tour dates:

Billboard’s Live Music Summit will be held in Los Angeles on Nov. 3. For tickets and more information, click here.

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has unveiled its full hosting lineup for the 2025 ARIA Awards, with Nova radio personality Tim Blackwell and triple j presenter Concetta Caristo confirmed as co-hosts for the main event.

The ceremony, presented in partnership with Spotify, is set to take place Wednesday, Nov. 19, at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney on Gadigal land. The 2025 broadcast will air live on Paramount+ from 5 p.m. AEDT, with a free-to-air broadcast of the red carpet from 7 p.m. AEDT on 10, followed by the awards show later in the evening.

ARIA also confirmed that Latifa Tee will join the co-hosting team for the main event, while Angela Bishop, Georgie Tunny and Latifa will lead the red carpet coverage.

Returning for his second consecutive year as host, Blackwell brings more than two decades of radio experience, currently anchoring the number-one rated drive-time show Ricki-Lee, Tim and Joel on Nova. Caristo, who co-hosts triple j Breakfast with Concetta and Luka, has emerged as a vibrant voice for youth audiences, and previously co-hosted ABC’s Logie-nominated New Year’s Eve special.

Latifa Tee, DJ and broadcaster, currently hosts triple j’s House Party and The Nudge, and will help bridge the red carpet and mainstage moments. Rounding out the coverage team, Bishop and Tunny return with extensive live entertainment and awards coverage experience on Network 10.

Blackwell said in a statement, “Australian music has had an incredible year. We’re punching way above our weight all over the world! To be back as your host for the second year in a row, I couldn’t be prouder to be part of the night celebrating the best artists on the planet.”

Caristo echoed the excitement: “Co-hosting the ARIA Awards and celebrating Australian music on the big stage is truly a dream come true! I get to hang out with so many incredible artists at triple j, and I can’t wait to celebrate them all on Australian music’s night of nights.”

The 2025 ARIA Awards will be streamed on Paramount+, with additional highlights, performances and moments shared across ARIA’s official social channels. The show is supported by the NSW Government through Destination NSW.