Music

Glastonbury Festival is known worldwide as one of the most expansive and ecclectic music festivals, with the best and most varied selection of music from superstar artists to emerging acts. This year saw Adele blow everyone away on the Pyramid Stage, LCD Soundsystem triumphantly return on the Other Stage, and a whole host of other amazing acts throughout the weekend. If you're a major audiophile and you want to bring a little crossover into you love of comics, we've assembled a list of some of the five best music or music inspired independent comics to check out while you run out the clock until the next Glastonbury.

You just don’t see that many music videos tied into movies very much these days, but it looks like Suicide Squad is shaking things up a bit. The full soundtrack list dropped last week along with a video for a song by twenty one pilots, and today brings yet another video for an original track from David Ayer’s devious DC anti-superhero flick — this one from Wiz Khalifa, Lil Wayne and Imagine Dragons.

The first trailer for Suicide Squad memorably featured Queen’s classic “Bohemian Rhapsody,” but you won’t find that version on the soundtrack. What you will find, according to the newly-unveiled track list, is a cover performed by Panic! At the Disco, along with that previously rumored song by Skrillex and Rick Ross, a familiar track by Eminem, and a ton of collaborations.

X-Men: Apocalypse doesn't come out in the US until May 27, but we've known for a while that it takes place in the 1980s. In fact, that's what inspired all the recent '80s X-Men fan art. Now the marketing team for the movie has gone a similar direction themselves, posting five images to the official X-Men Movies Facebook Page that insert characters from the movie into some classic '80s record cover art.

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze's new volume of Black Panther has already been one of the biggest crossover success stories of the year. It seems like everyone wants to get their hands on a copy, and President Barack Obama even name-dropped it in a recent commencement speech at Howard University, Coates' alma-mater. If you missed the first issue, or are struggling to keep up with the many plates that are spinning as Wakanda begins to crumble, Marvel has put together a video that features Coates going into detail about the new characters and status quo established in Black Panther #1, and it's set to the fierce tunes of rap supergroup Run The Jewels.

Hamilton, the musical about the rise and fall of founding father Alexander Hamilton, is a non-stop pop culture phenomenon. If you're in New York and find it's quiet uptown, it's because everyone wants to be in the room where it happens by scoring a ticket to the hottest show on Broadway. Since the show's debut, its composer and star Lin-Manuel Miranda has become a household name and a staple of late night talk shows, and has even performed songs from the show for President Barack Obama at the White House. Last year Miranda composed a piece for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, to be used in the cantina scene, and today he performed it live for fans waiting to see Hamilton, alongside his right hand man, Star Wars director JJ Abrams.

The world was stunned last Thursday by the unexpected death of Prince Rogers Nelson, known to the world simply as Prince. Prince was a legendary musician, whose records crossed all boundaries of style and genre. He was widely considered one of the best guitarists who ever lived. He was equally unparalleled as a singer, songwriter, and live performer. But he was also a visual icon. In his music videos, live concerts, and movies like Purple Rain, his flair for style and unique androgynous look caught the eye of fans regardless of gender or sexuality. Upon his death, people praised his music of course, but there were also discussions about him as a role model who showed that there was no right way to be a man. Prince was an inspiration to everyone who refused to be bound in by labels and social roles.

I think the record will show that I'm a pretty big fan of Hasbro's cartoons from the '80s, and one of the things I love most about them is how great the soundtracks are. Not just the theme songs, but the incidental music that provides the background for Jem and the Holograms, or that smooth jazz version of the GI Joe theme that plays under the closing credits. Heck, even in the years before More Than Meets The Eye came along and made me stop hating the Transformers, I still had to admit that the music was pretty great. The only problem is that I can't listen to it whenever I want, but now, it looks like that problem might be coming to an end. Composer Robert J. Walsh has confirmed that he's remastering the soundtracks for the Hasbro shows, with plans for Sony to release high-end versions that will include new footage and artwork, too.

This past weekend, some brave soul with the wherewithal to actually attend a Skrillex DJ set at Atlantic City‘s Wav Nightclub shot a brief video of the celebrity EDM icon spinning an unreleased track featuring hip-hop heavyweight Rick Ross. Though the audio quality of the video embedded above makes it relatively difficult to decipher the lyrics, sharp-eared listeners have positively identified mentions of Gotham City, villain Killer Croc, and a “purple Lamborghini” (the Joker’s whip of choice) in the song. What’s more, Ross the Boss drops the phrase “Suicide Squad” a few times over the course of the song, which has now incited rumors that the mysterious new cut is the theme music for the upcoming Suicide Squad movie. Unless, of course, this is in no way authorized and Ross just likes comic books a lot. Which would make sense, I suppose — dude loves to play fantasy.

Hans Zimmer has composed the scores for all three of Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies, Man of Steel, Amazing Spider-Man 2 and now Batman vs. Superman, but the Oscar winner now says after his most recent superhero movie will officially be his last.