Grim days call for fierce love. And Mavis Staples, one of the most enduring figures in American music, lays it down. 2025’s Sad and Beautiful World marks the fifteenth solo album from a national treasure and multigenerational talent. Here, Mavis stands side by side with us in the face of dangers she knows all too well. The record spans seven decades of the American songbook, a range nearly as vast as Mavis’ career. On it, she reinvents timeless songs as well as including original music.

Now 86, Mavis has performed since the age of eight. After starting out in the Staple Singers more than seventy years ago, she remains the group’s lone surviving member. Here, she still carries her family’s gifts and knowledge with her as a living heritage.

She considered retiring in 2023 but found she has too much left to express through music. And now, despite our dark days, as she said in the wake of her 85th birthday party last year, “You have to stay hopeful and have faith that things are going to get better.” She can’t keep us from the danger facing the country or magically restore the progress that’s being undone. However, she knows from her own experience that people can find a path through, a way to keep going.

Thus, Staples may be one of the last true ones standing. Now, she isn’t waiting around to be revered for the wisdom she brings. Here, she’s too busy still leading the charge, still showing us how it’s done. Steadfast in triumph and adversity, Mavis Staples still makes music—and history—just when we need her most.

Grammy-nominated indie-pop band Lucius delivers a mesmerizing experience of mirrored kinship and honesty. Also, they have earned a reputation for their engaging live performances and spellbinding harmonies. In 2025, the band released their fourth studio album, Lucius, which Rolling Stone called “the best album of their career.” Lucius’ most personal and purposeful album to date explores relationships, motherhood, and life’s complexities with a unique vulnerability that the band’s familial nature made possible. The New Yorker praises, “The band’s new self-titled album reaches the pinnacle of a vibrant, harmonic enterprise,” while Paste describes their sound as “girl-group revivalism, cosmic pop, and a kind of bicoastal harmonizing that once echoed through western canyons.”

Throughout their acclaimed career, Lucius has performed on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”. Also, BBC’s “Later! with Jools Holland”, PBS’ “Austin City Limits” and “The Kelly Clarkson Show”. Lucius are Holly Laessig, Jess Wolfe, and Peter Lalish.