Summertime and the living is, well, complex, and dark, and also bright and joyous. So why not spin two new LPs to match the many moods of the season?
“Good Together,” Lake Street Dive
Yacht rock is made by earnest artists who can do sophisticated, jazzy rock but would rather make sunny, summery, buoyant pop in the vein of Motown, the Brill Building, and the pre-1966 Beatles. Lake Street Dive isn’t yacht rock, but the band plays with those same elements: sincere songwriting made by musicians with jazz chops and a delicious pop bounce.
The difference — and you can hear this all over new album “Good Together” — is that Lake Street Dive aren’t falsely sunny. The quintet’s sunshine is earned by climbing over pain, chaos, and our maddening modern moment.
The ex-Boston band hasn’t lost a step since lineup shuffles brought singer-songwriter-keyboardist Akie Bermiss in 2017 and guitarist James Cornelison into the fold. In many ways, the group is tighter: see a title track that could be the Jackson 5 at its “I Want You Back” best. Actually, the whole first side bumps with soulful, funky, stomping Top 40, even when the lyrics are more introspective than triumphant.
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The flip side bumps too, but Lake Street Dive shows its depth as it slows down. In “Seats at the Bar,” the band has written the world’s first great love song about skipping sitting at a two top. “Twenty Five” presents a lost relationship not as tragedy but as happy memory.
The album closes with its one grand song, maybe just to prove this band can do it all: “Set Sail (Prometheus & Eros)” is an epic duet like something that could end an arty blockbuster musical, or end any dark and bright summer.
“Born in the USA,” Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen crashed the summer of ’84 40 years ago with an album that split the difference between America’s deep anxieties and its simple pleasures. Like Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” and Bob Marley’s “Exodus” before it, “Born in the USA” runs through a staggering range of electric emotions and big ideas that, when totaled, document a time and place.
The recently reissued LP is bookended by the chronically misunderstood title track about Vietnam vets abandoned by their country and “My Hometown,” about a town with a legacy of racial violence and a future of dying economic prospects. Between the anger and gloom, Springsteen presents narrators burning for love — one desperate to reclaim a relationship that ain’t coming back (“Downbound Train”), another looking for a respite from pain through sexual salvation (“I’m on Fire”).
But along with disappointment and desperation, these small-town (and so often, small-time) men often come with gleeful-if-misplaced optimism. In the goofy, hooky, endless fun of “Darlington County,” there’s “me and Wayne on the Fourth of July” looking to use $200 and promises that their dad owns the World Trade Center to score dates. No song has lyrics that scream middle-aged angst with music that shouts louder that life is a blast like “Glory Days.” And “Dancing in the Dark” is such a perfect pop song it put a 35-year-old into the charts next to 20-somethings like Madonna and Prince.
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“Born in the USA” is the sound of the summer for those who can dance even as they admit their lives and their country is a mess.
BOSTON (WHDH) – The maker of the online learning platform Canvas has reportedly reached a deal wit the hackers who took down the site last week to get their data back.
The company did not reveal what was given to the hackers in exchange for the return of more than 275 million users’ data, but said they confirmed the data was detroyed.
Canvas was down for several hours last week because of the cyberattack.
The hacking group said nearly 9,000 schools worldwide were impacted, including Harvard University.
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They said they accessed billions of private messages and personal information.
(Copyright (c) 2026 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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Investigators identified Tyler Brown of Boston as the man who allegedly opened fire on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, leaving two victims with life-threatening injuries.
Middlesex County District Attorney Marian Ryan said Brown fired 50 to 60 shots on the busy road shortly after 1 p.m. Monday.
Two male victims were hit in vehicles, Ryan said. They are in critical condition and fighting for their lives.
A Massachusetts State Police trooper and a civilian with a license to carry a firearm went toward the gunman and fired their weapons at him. Officers treated Brown at the scene, and he was brought to a Boston hospital, where he is in intensive care, according to the district attorney.
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This video shared with NBC10 Boston appears to show a man opening fire at cars on Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Monday, May 11, 2026.
Authorities have, so far, shared limited information about the suspect.
“Mr. Brown is from Boston, and apparently was in the process of moving here. We understand that Mr. Brown was under the supervision of either the Massachusetts Probation Department or Department of Parole,” Ryan said.
She did not elaborate on why Brown may have been on probation or parole.
“We will address Mr. Brown’s criminal record, if any, at the arraignment,” she said.
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Ryan added that she did not know enough about Brown’s condition to say whether he would be arraigned in court or in a hospital bed. The timing was also not clear.
He will face two counts of armed assault with intent to murder and firearms charges, and “a variety of other charges as we unfold what took place, exactly, and we have a chance to speak to the many, many people who were out there,” Ryan said.
An inbound stretch of Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road will be closed each night through August for tunnel repairs, officials announced.
Starting Monday, the closures will begin at 8 p.m. and last until 5 a.m., state officials said.
Road closures begin at North Harvard Street in Allston and stretch along the Charles River Esplanade to Mugar Way in Boston, near the Hatch Memorial Shell, officials said.
Traffic will be detoured into Cambridge over the Anderson Bridge, along Memorial Drive, and then be routed into Boston over the Longfellow Bridge.
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The closures will allow ongoing repairs to the Storrow Drive Tunnel in the Back Bay.The work is the first phase of a two-stage project to extend the lifespan of the tunnel, which carries roughly 50,000 drivers to and from downtown Boston daily.
The outbound portion of the tunnel and accompanying roadways will not be affected.
State transportation officials said changes to the work schedule will be made when necessary to minimize impacts during major local events at TD Garden, Fenway Park, or during the FIFA World Cup and 250th anniversary celebrations scheduled for this summer.
Additional changes may be made without notice due to weather.
Transportation officials have not specified when the closures will end.
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Bryan Hecht can be reached at bryan.hecht@globe.com. Follow him on Instagram @bhechtjournalism.
