Well, listeners, it's Saturday evening and we're living through one of those rare moments where the music industry reminds us why we fell in love with this strange, beautiful business in the first place. Let me walk you through what's been happening.

Trey Anastasio just kicked off something special at the Beacon Theatre in New York. He's running a three-night stand through tomorrow celebrating the fifth anniversary of his 2020 Beacon Jams residency. These shows are bringing back the Trey Anastasio Band and The Rescue Squad Strings, and here's what matters—the proceeds are benefiting the Divided Sky Foundation. This is music with purpose, listeners. This is what happens when artists remember that stages are about community, not just commerce.

On the new music front, we've got quite the Friday dropping. Ed Sheeran's putting out Skeletons while Taylor Swift collaborated with The Chainsmokers on The Fate of Ophelia Remix. But it's not just the big names—we're seeing Jessie J with I'll Never Know Why, Lil Baby with Middle of the Summer, and some intriguing work from 070 Shake and Jacob Mühlrad called Arms. The new music landscape is crowded, but there's still genuine artistry breaking through.

This week also saw some substantial album releases. We got Neil Young, Madonna, and some deeper cuts from artists like Sudan Archives with The BPM on Stones Throw Records. Tortoise dropped Touch through International Anthem, and FKA twigs released EUSEXUA Afterglow. There's that beautiful intersection happening where legacy artists and emerging voices are sharing the same release week.

Now here's where it gets complicated, and this is where I have to put on my critic hat. Warner Music and Suno settled their AI dispute, creating what some are calling a licensing blueprint for the entire industry. The deal includes artist opt-in controls for voice and likeness, download limits, and requirements for fully licensed training data. But listeners, the devil's in the details we're not seeing—they won't disclose the financial terms. Some artists are worried about control and compensation despite these promises. This settlement matters because it signals how the music industry might navigate the AI revolution, but the outcome is far from certain.

We're also watching how AI is fundamentally reshaping what it means to create music. Spotify now lets users monetize tracks they don't perform on. The streaming industry is bracing for potential disruption when AI-generated content floods the platform, potentially undercutting human musicians' income streams. It's the collision between technological possibility and artistic livelihood.

This is the moment we're living in, listeners. Innovation and tradition in an uneasy dance.

Thanks for tuning in today. Make sure to subscribe for more on how music shapes our world. This has been a quiet please production, for more check out quiet please dot ai.

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