A two-month road trip came to a close for the pop-bluegrass band Nickel Creek Wednesday night at the Wiltern, and the trio seemed in a mood to celebrate. “This is our last night,” said fiddler Sara Watkins, “and then we drive home!”

“Of the tour, that is,” added mandolinist Chris Thile, getting a little bit ahead of the audience.

“Right, of the tour,” repeated Watkins. “I guess we should clarify that in this particular band.”

Coldplay have gone about planning the release of their sixth studio album, Ghost Stories, with all the precision of a military campaign, perhaps in deference to the fact it’s their first release since moving over to Warner Music Group’s Atlantic Records as part of Universal’s divestiture of their Parlophone label.  The only thing Chris Martin and company didn’t count on – or perhaps they did, given the contents of the record – is his much-publicized break-up with Gwyneth Paltrow, and perhaps that, more than

Bon Jovi will celebrate 30 years of rock and roll with a major catalog reissue campaign kicking off July 1.

Midway through her 75-minute show Monday, Lykke Li sensed that the sold-out crowd at downtown’s Theater at the Ace Hotel came to dance. She half-apologized for writing “a pretty sad album” -- heartbreak is at the center of her third full-length I Never Learn -- and after cheers rose for danceable tunes, Li was careful to point other songs in the show where dancing would be acceptable.

Like most songwriters, Christina Perri is as much storyteller as she is a musician. The L.A.-based singer’s headlining performance at the Wiltern on Saturday night was punctuated by various anecdotes and musings, many leading into the songs she was playing off both her 2011 debut Lovestrong and the recent Head or Heart. “I’m very chatty today,” Perri noted at one point, her enthusiasm for the performance palpable.

Epic Records chairman L.A. Reid said the BBMA premiere of Michael Jackson's "Slave to the Rhythm" did not necessarily mean it would be the follow-up single to "Love Never Felt So Good." "It's certainly one of the songs (being considered)," Reid said, noting they would be studying feedback from Sunday's performance. "We pick the first single; fans pick the second."

You don’t necessarily have to love Lindsey Stirling’s music to love the idea of Lindsey Stirling as a seemingly confounding success story in a pop market that could stand a lot more such head-scratchers.  When the violinist’s independently released, nearly all-instrumental album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in early May, it was almost as novel as a cat-tackles-dog video. Was her music classical, pop, fusion, New Age, or EDM?

With their eleventh studio album, ...and then you shoot your cousin, due for release next week, The Roots are setting expectations that are high even by their standards. Drummer and co-founder Questlove, after all, is midway through publishing a six-part series in New York magazine entitled "How Hip-Hop Failed Black America" — a failure this record's promo material explicitly promises to tackle. No pressure, guys.

“You can be whoever you want tonight,” Lady Gaga told her "Little Monsters" minutes into her show at Madison Square Garden Tuesday night. Judging from the wildly risqué outfits of many -- both male and female -- what they really wanted was to be her.