The news arrives several decades after the legend began living — and writing — about the U.S.

Joni Mitchell at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in February

Sixty-four years after she first arrived in the United States, Joni Mitchell has officially become a U.S. citizen.

Mitchell shared the news via Instagram, holding an American flag. She also posted a video of her receiving official documentation, paired with the caption “A journey that began 62 years ago.”

The news arrives six years after Mitchell’s longtime Canadian pal Neil Young obtained his U.S. citizenship (his process was delayed because of the “good moral character” provision on the immigrant application, when he admitted to smoking weed).

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As Rolling Stone reported earlier this year, Cameron Crowe’s upcoming Mitchell biopic will star Meryl Streep as an older version of Joni. “It’s a movie that will be not from a distance,” Crowe said of the project. “This is from her perspective, her life, looking out.”

Last spring, Mitchell was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2026 Juno Awards, where she appeared onstage and performed alongside Sarah McLachlan and Allison Russell. “I had a [brain] aneurysm, which changed my life — oddly, for the better,” she said during her acceptance speech. “I went into a coma, which helped me to quit smoking. And my house filled up with the most wonderful nurses. I was on the road with men for years and years; now I live with a house full of women. So my life has changed for the better, out of a catastrophe, like a phoenix who grows a better life.”Next month will mark the 50th anniversary of Mitchell’s landmark album Hejira, which appears on Rolling Stone’s new list of the 76 Best Albums of 1976.

Over the weekend, many Canadians looking for Halloween costumes were surprised to find they could buy a replica of Québec microtonal math-rock duo Angine de Poitrine's costumes, at Québec-based specialty retailer Party Expert. Advertised as a couples costume, the dress and mask for Khn and Klek are sold separately, with the dress and glove kit being sold $59.99, while the mask will set you back $44.99. They are currently sold out online, although some Klek masks are weirdly still available.

The description for the ''Polka Dot Attack'' costume does mention Angine de Poitrine directly, though nothing indicates that the famously reserved band gave their authorization. The retailer's website says the costume ''guarantees a memorable entrance at the office party or the costume contest, easy to spot among the witches, vampires and zombies.''

Screenshot of the Party Expert website

2026 will certainly be remembered as the Saguenay band's year. Angine de Poitrine quickly gained notoriety earlier this year, after a viral live performance for KEXP. They were part of the inaugural class of Rollling Stone Canada's 'Future of Music' issue, and recently became the first artists to earn both the Polaris Album Prize and the SOCAN Polaris Song Prize.Currently on a sprawling tour of Europe, the group returns to Canada in November for concerts in Toronto, Québec City and Montréal.

DistroKid said it removed songs from streaming platforms after UMG filed a copyright suit against.

Last week, Josh Sahunta, a singer-songwriter based in Nashville, received a strange text from a friend and collaborator: Why had he removed his album Mellowdrama from Spotify? The 2022 LP was one of Sahunta’s most-streamed projects and contributed significantly to his streaming royalty income. He had no reason to take the album down himself, and no idea what his friend was talking about.

Searching for answers, Sahunta saw that much of the album was not only grayed out on Spotify, but also his account with DistroKid, the largest music distribution platform by volume. Soon, Mellowdrama would disappear from Apple Music, YouTube, and other streaming platforms, too. But Sahunta couldn’t find any reason for the takedowns until he contacted DistroKid customer support directly.

They told him Mellowdrama — which Sahunta wrote and recorded himself — had been flagged for copyright infringement. They did not say what recordings he’d allegedly infringed upon, nor name a rightsholder filing the claim. But DistroKid nevertheless hit Sahunta with a copyright strike, freezing his royalty payments and potentially hindering his ability to put out future releases.

Sahunta sent a flurry of emails trying to fix the mistake. After receiving no replies, he decided to share his story on Instagram last Tuesday and his comments and DMs were flooded with messages from other artists dealing with the exact same problem.

Independent artists, Sahunta tells Rolling Stone, “are unfortunately the most powerless group in the music industry. And the irony is we comprise the majority of music on streaming, yet we’re so easily taken advantage of and screwed over by these companies that claim they are for independent artists… They’re preying on the people that are paying for their services and keeping their businesses afloat.”

DistroKid has since acknowledged the issue in a statement shared with Rolling Stone. “A very small number of recordings distributed through DistroKid have been removed in response to claims made by [Universal Music Group],” Distrokid’s Vice President of Artist Services, Amanda Ferri, said. (It’s unclear how many legitimate artists have been affected by the takedowns.)

UMG filed a lawsuit against DistroKid in September, accusing the distributor of deceptive business practices and “blatant” copyright infringement. Despite promoting itself as a ”leading music distributor for artist-backed releases,” the lawsuit claims DistroKid has been “flooding platforms with AI-generated ‘slop’ that siphons revenue and listeners from legitimate artists and right holders.”

Universal Music Group did not immediately return a request for comment.

“We strongly dispute the allegations underlying UMG’s lawsuit and regret the disruption to affected artists,” Ferri continued. “We are working to minimize that disruption while protecting artists’ ability to release their music.” (This statement was first shared with The Verge, which reported on the takedowns last week.)

Among the offenses alleged in the suit, UMG said DistroKid allows users to upload unauthorized remixes or sped-up versions of copyright-protected songs to streaming services, as well as straight-up instrumental copies that have new vocals laced over them. UMG further claimed that DistroKid lets uploaders attach protected album art to infringing tracks, potentially confusing listeners and tricking them into playing the wrong song.

At one point, UMG’s lawsuit highlighted several of DistroKid’s high-volume account holders, which boast names like “Lofi Chill,” “Chill Flow Radio,” and “Mellow Vibes Radio,” and regularly distribute hundreds of tracks a month. Noting these “production rates are implausible for any human artist,” UMG claimed a “technical analysis” of these catalogs confirmed that “the vast majority of their tracks… are raw outputs from the AI song generator, Suno.” (UMG is involved in a separate copyright infringement suit with Suno, accusing it of training its model on protected recordings.)

“DistroKid’s willingness to be a home for such sham artists has inured to its benefit. Its distribution rate has exploded in the AI era,” the lawsuit claims, noting at one point that DistroKid recently sold a majority stake to a private equity firm, CVC Capital Partners, for $2 billion.

Like many companies or organizations that find themselves facing massive copyright infringement claims, DistroKid appears to have taken steps to remove some of the allegedly infringing content it may have helped place on streaming platforms (while still, as noted in the statement above, denying UMG’s underlying claims). How so much original music, like Sahunta’s, got caught up in this scraping operation remains unclear.

Joel Gouveia, an artist manager who wrote about the takedowns on his Substack last week, believes DistroKid likely used some kind of algorithm or AI-based program to root out potentially infringing songs. But as Gouveia notes to Rolling Stone, these AI detection tools are themselves still relatively new and imperfect.

“Instead of taking the precautionary [measure], taking their time, using humans to figure out if this music is in fact made by humans, they mitigated the risk,” he tells Rolling Stone. “They just did mass takedowns. I think, at the end of the day, they will fix it and hopefully these artists won’t be completely SOL [shit outta luck], but it’s really sad to see.”

(DistroKid declined to comment further on the tools it used to issue the takedowns, or the efforts its taking to rectify erroneous notices.)

As of Monday, Oct. 12, much of Sahunta’s Mellowdrama is still grayed out on Spotify and is completely unavailable on Apple Music and YouTube. The silver lining, such as it is, is that by sharing his story on Instagram, other distributors have offered him deals. But he remains wary that this could just as easily happen elsewhere.

“I think the real lesson for me here was just that, as an independent artist who doesn’t have the infrastructure of a label to help prevent these things and advocate for me: when something like this happens, I’m powerless,” Sahunta says. “I can’t really do anything to defend myself.”

Slayyyter in "I Think He's Got a Girl" video.

It looks like Slayyyter’s Wor$t Man in America is a cheater, as the musician conveys in the accompanying video for the upcoming album’s latest single, “I Think He’s Got a Girl.”

In her self-directed new visual for the ballad, Slayyyter is seen in a luxe home, appearing in an array of vintage outfits, striking gorgeous pinup poses, all alone. From lounging in the pool, to barbecuing and hanging out in different rooms, she laments a relationship that’s unraveling as she comes to the realization that the object of her affection has moved on with another.

“You’re too quick on the draw, lie every time you talk/It makes me feel so crazy, like I got everything wrong,” she sings. “You’re quiet on the phone, what time you coming home?/I hope it doesn’t mean what I know it means” before coming to the realization on the belted chorus: “I think he’s got a girl.”

The counterpart album to Wor$t Girl in America, Wor$t Man in America arrives on Dec. 4 via Columbia, and includes nine tracks. In addition to “I Think He’s Got a Girl,” which appears to be the inverse of Wor$t Girl’s “Unknown Loverz,” she’s also already released LP tracks “Crank 2” and “Beat Up Chanel$,” which offered fresh takes on Wor$t Girl tracks “Crank” and “Brand New Chanel$,” respectively.

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Slayyyter explained the impetus for Wor$t Man in America, saying, “I want to live here for a little longer, so I’m kind of making an inverse album, if you will. I just want the core of everything to feel like me, because it finally feels that.”

Alanis Morissette is bringing an unexpected collection of collaborators to Good Weather for Immaculate Conception, her first full-length holiday album. Arriving on Nov. 6, it features Brandi Carlile, Steve Martin, Martin Short and several other guests across 14 tracks.

The Canadian singer today shared its first single, “Beautiful Star of Bethlehem,” featuring Carlile and Martin. The album's tracklist includes traditional Christmas standards, previously released covers and two original songs.

Among the other guests, Short appears on the album’s closing track, “Merry Christmas.” Joy Oladokun joins Morissette for “Silent Night,” while Amythyst Kiah contributes to “Momma Mary.” The record also features Trans Voices, the U.K.’s first professional vocal ensemble of trans and nonbinary singers, on “O Tannenbaum.”

Speaking to Alex Cooper on the Call Her Daddy podcast in September, before officially announcing the album, she described the record as “this labor of Christmas love for me.”

The release brings several of Morissette’s seasonal recordings together on one album. She has previously released “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” her take on the John Lennon and Yoko Ono classic, in 2020, followed by “Little Drummer Boy” in 2022, “Last Christmas” in 2023 and “O Holy Night” in 2024.

Those recordings join selections including “What Child Is This?,” “Ave Maria” and Joni Mitchell’s “River” on the new album.

Troye Sivan at the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards held at Peacock Theater on September 27, 2026 in Los Angeles, California.

Welcome to our weekly rundown of the best new music — featuring big singles, key tracks from our favorite albums, and more. This week, Troye Sivan makes a sultry request to his lover on a house track, Dawn Richard pivots to 2-step garage on a hypnotic banger, and Remi Wolf turns up the heat on a jangly highlight from her new album. Plus new tunes from Cameron Winter, Daddy Yankee, Joyce Wrice, Grimes, and Star Moles.

Troye Sivan, “Canada Dry” (YouTube)

Remi Wolf, “Burn Me Blue” (YouTube)

Dawn Richard, “Only Fans” (YouTube)

Cameron Winter, “It All Fell In the River” (YouTube)

Slayyyter, “I Think He’s Got a Girl” (YouTube)

Offset, Don Toliver, “Every Night” (YouTube)

Daddy Yankee, “BOTZ (Besame Otra Vez)” (YouTube)

Gunna, “Pop It” (YouTube)

Joyce Wrice, “Dangerous” (YouTube)

Carly Rae Jepsen, “Yes” (YouTube)

Sheryl Crow, “I’ve Got Your Number” (YouTube)

Judeline, “La Falda” (YouTube)

Grimes, Vadakin, “Accelerando” (YouTube)

Pitbull, “In the Bahamas” (YouTube)

Ralphie Choo, “Amarillo Nena” (YouTube)

David Byrne, Daniel Pemberton, “Let Me Sell You a Dream” (YouTube)

Ovrkast, “Home” (YouTube)

Star Moles, “Born Again” (YouTube)

Jess Williamson, “Hum of the City” (YouTube)

Greta Van Fleet, “Into the Beginning” (YouTube)

Baby Wave, “The Scene Is Changing” (YouTube)

Cece Natalie, “Flood Whole Towns” (YouTube)

Zo Trapalot, “You Betta” (YouTube)

Twentythree, “Crack” (YouTube)

Earthsignchels, “Crazy?” (YouTube)

John Glacier, “Lights” (YouTube)

Marina Herlop, “Flor De Los Precipicios” (YouTube)

Thao feat. Adrian Quesada, “Nguyen Nguyen Lose Lose” (YouTube)

Anish Kumar, DJ GTi, Sofia Kourtesis, “Radio Nacional” (YouTube)

Unflirt, “Air Turns Blue” (YouTube)

Zsela, “Kinda Guy” (YouTube)

Bankrollmaiya, “Pull Up Stunnin” (YouTube)