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Lack of local content is notable this year in the music platform’s analysis of users’ personal music, podcast and audiobook choices

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It may be Fred Again, Donna Summer or Barkaa. Your musical “listening age” could be 21, 57 or three. You have listened to 14 minutes or 40,000.

But it’s not likely to feature much Australian content.

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© Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP

© Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP

© Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko/AP

Prolific musician was known for work on songs like Green Onions and Otis Redding’s (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay

Steve Cropper, the legendary guitarist whose work as an instrumentalist, producer and songwriter at Stax Records left an indelible impression on Memphis soul music, has died at the age of 84.

Hs son Cameron confirmed his death to Variety.

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© Photograph: Ed Rode/WireImage

© Photograph: Ed Rode/WireImage

© Photograph: Ed Rode/WireImage

Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty to giving actor ketamine in month before overdose death in Los Angeles in 2023

A Los Angeles doctor who sold ketamine to Matthew Perry before his overdose death has been sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

Dr Salvador Plasencia, 44, had pleaded guilty on Wednesday to giving Perry ketamine in the month leading up to the Friends star’s overdose death in 2023. Perry died at 54 after struggling with addiction for years, dating back to his time as one of the biggest stars of his generation for his role as Chandler Bing.

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© Photograph: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

© Photograph: Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP

John Irving marches to his own drummer. Hence his methodology when creating a work of fiction. Read More

C’est le grand jour. Depuis début décembre, les joueurs et les joueuses ayant débloqué l'accès anticipé peuvent se lancer dans le housing (logis) sur World of Warcraft. Une fonctionnalité attendue depuis deux décennies, mais qui a une particularité : elle n'est pas vraiment déployée dans le monde ouvert d'Azeroth.

C’est le grand jour. Depuis début décembre, les joueurs et les joueuses ayant débloqué l'accès anticipé peuvent se lancer dans le housing (logis) sur World of Warcraft. Une fonctionnalité attendue depuis deux décennies, mais qui a une particularité : elle n'est pas vraiment déployée dans le monde ouvert d'Azeroth.

Netflix’s series feels like the point of no return for the rapper and mogul. It’s so thorough in its harrowing detail that it will surely block any chance he ever had of a return to stardom

If its subject gets his way, the new documentary series Sean Combs: The Reckoning might not be available on Netflix for long. On Monday, lawyers on behalf of Combs sent a cease and desist letter to the streamer, demanding that the series be withdrawn based on the inclusion of footage that they claim violates copyright, and involves discussions of “legal strategy that were not intended for public viewing”.

After watching the series, you can see why Combs might be rattled. This is a man whose fall from grace last year was sudden and comprehensive, and yet Sean Combs: The Reckoning feels like the moment of no return for him. It does such a thorough job of laying out and backing up so many horrific allegations that his way back to stardom is surely blocked for ever.

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© Photograph: Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images for Sean "Diddy" Combs

© Photograph: Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images for Sean "Diddy" Combs

© Photograph: Shareif Ziyadat/Getty Images for Sean "Diddy" Combs

Following every dizzying spin of Chalamet’s table tennis hustler, Josh Safdie’s whip-crack comedy serves sensational shots – and a smart return by Gwyneth Paltrow

This new film from Josh Safdie has the fanatical energy of a 149-minute ping pong rally carried out by a single player running round and round the table. It’s a marathon sprint of gonzo calamities and uproar, a sociopath-screwball nightmare like something by Mel Brooks – only in place of gags, there are detonations of bad taste, cinephile allusions, alpha cameos, frantic deal-making, racism and antisemitism, sentimental yearning and erotic adventures. It’s a farcical race against time where no one needs to eat or sleep.

Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser, a spindly motormouth with the glasses of an intellectual, the moustache of a movie star and the physique of a tiny cartoon character (though that could just be the initials). He’s loosely inspired by Marty “The Needle” Reisman, a real-life US table tennis champ from the 1950s who was given to Bobby Riggs-type shenanigans: betting, hustling and showmanship stunts. The movie probably earns the price of admission simply with one gasp-inducing setpiece involving whippet-thin Chalamet, a dog, a bathtub, cult director Abel Ferrara in a walk-on role and a scuzzy New York hotel room. Talk about not being on firm ground. Similarly disorientating is the climactic revelation of Chalamet’s naked buttocks prior to one of the most upsetting displays of corporal punishment since Lindsay Anderson’s If….

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© Photograph: no credit

© Photograph: no credit

© Photograph: no credit

Endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, suicide and gaslighting … they are all laid bare on the singer-writer’s new album. But just as she finished recording it, she got a shock diagnosis. She explains why it’s made her determined to be in the moment

You couldn’t make it up, Jessie J says. There she was preparing for her first album release in eight years, ecstatically in love with her newish partner, and finally the mother of a toddler having struggled to conceive for a decade, on top of the world. Then in March she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The singer-songwriter, real name Jessica Cornish, is famous for telling it as it is. The album, Don’t Tease Me With a Good Time, was supposed to be an open book, dealing with every ounce of devastation she’d experienced since she last recorded music (endometriosis, miscarriage, failed relationships, gaslighting, suicide) with typical candour. The first single, No Secrets, was released in April. But by then there was a mighty secret. The cancer. Then second single, Living My Best Life, came out in May and Cornish was giving interviews about how she was living her best life, while still secretly living with breast cancer. A month later she went public, and in early July she had a mastectomy.

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© Photograph: Felicity McCabe/The Guardian

© Photograph: Felicity McCabe/The Guardian

© Photograph: Felicity McCabe/The Guardian