Music This Week: Stevie Wonder Opens a 50-Year-Old Vault, Glastonbury Sells Out in 42 Minutes

LOS ANGELES — Fifty years to the day. That is the kind of symmetry you cannot manufacture, and it anchored this week in music: on September 28, Stevie Wonder handed the world four songs that had been sitting in a Motown vault since 1976, released on the exact half-century anniversary of 'Songs in the Key of Life.' Around it, the rest of the week stacked up fast — Glastonbury 2027 sold out in 42 minutes at the first ticket price ever to cross £400, Erasure announced their 20th studio album and a 2027 arena tour, Bullet for My Valentine roared back with their first new music in over five years, and Ozzy Osbourne gave fans an emotional first look at the 'Back to the Beginning' farewell. Five stories, one very loud week.

1. Stevie Wonder unseals the vault, exactly 50 years on

This is the week's heavyweight story, and it arrived with the kind of timing that only Stevie Wonder could pull off. On September 28 — exactly 50 years to the day after Motown released 'Songs in the Key of Life' on September 28, 1976 — the label's UMe arm issued 'Songs in the Key of Life — The EP,' a four-track collection of outtakes from those same original sessions. The release is explicitly framed as another 'A Something's Extra' — a nod to the bonus 7-inch EP that accompanied the 1976 double album, which fans have treated as part of the record's legend ever since.

What landed on the EP is not scraps. 'It's Easier' is a head-bopping shuffle with guitar from Michael Sembello and bass from Nathan Watts. 'My Life Story of Love' is a co-write with Susaye Greene — the singer-songwriter who also co-wrote 'I Can't Help It' for Michael Jackson's 'Off the Wall' — with keyboards from Greg Phillinganes. 'I'm Into Livin'' runs on a drum machine and synths, with saxophone from Jim Horn and backing vocals from Shirley Brewer, Thelma Houston and Deniece Williams. And 'I Can See the Sun in Late December' is the song Wonder gave to Roberta Flack for her 'Feel Like Makin' Love' album — a song he performed at a memorial for her.

The crucial detail for the purists: these tracks are newly mixed from the original sources by John Fischbach and Gary O Adante — who engineered the original album back when he was known as Gary Olazabal — and there are no contemporary overdubs. No guests recorded in 2026, no modern production gloss. This is archaeology, not a remix project, and in an era when legacy reissues too often arrive padded with half-baked 'duets,' the restraint is the statement.

It is worth remembering what the album behind it means. 'Songs in the Key of Life' won Wonder his third Album of the Year Grammy, went on to Diamond certification, and entered the National Recording Registry. The final studio session of the original album famously wrapped at 4:54 in the morning — bassist Nathan Watts marking the moment by calling out 'Fo'FiftyFo',' an inside joke in Wonder's circle that has outlived the night itself. Fifty years later, the circle is still adding chapters.

2. Glastonbury 2027: gone in 42 minutes, and the price crossed £400

Some festivals worry about demand; Glastonbury just does the math. General admission tickets for the 2027 festival — Worthy Farm, Somerset, June 23 to 27 — sold out in 42 minutes on Sunday, October 4. The sale opened at 9am BST, and See Tickets confirmed the full allocation was gone by 9:42. Coach packages had gone even faster, disappearing in under 30 minutes when they went on sale Thursday, October 1.

The number everyone is talking about is the price: £408 per ticket, including a £5 booking fee — the first Glastonbury in history to cost more than £400, up £29.50 from 2025. Buyers paid a £100 deposit, with the £308 balance due between April 1 and 7, 2027. And the market's response? Forty-two minutes. The price crossed a psychological line and demand didn't flinch — which tells you everything about where Glastonbury sits in the culture right now. It is not competing with other festivals; it is competing with nothing.

This will also be the festival's first edition since 2025, after the traditional 2026 fallow year gave the farmland a rest. No headliners have been announced yet — organiser Emily Eavis has said three Pyramid Stage headliners are already secured, with the names still under wraps — and cancelled or returned tickets will go to the official resale in spring 2027. If history is any guide, that resale will be the fastest-refresh button in Britain.

3. Bullet for My Valentine are back with 'Social Apocalypse'

The Welsh metallers are officially out of the quiet period. Bullet for My Valentine have returned with new single 'Social Apocalypse,' the first taste of their first album in over five years — and they're backing it with the biggest UK and European headline tour they have ever announced, including a date at London's O2 Arena. NME has the full report today. It is early days for details on the record itself, but the message of the comeback is unmistakable: this is not a nostalgia lap, it's a new chapter with the biggest stages they've ever booked.

The timing is worth noting: metal's mainstream moment has only grown in the last few years, and a band with Bullet for My Valentine's catalog arriving with fresh material and an O2 Arena date is the kind of booking that moves the whole genre's center of gravity. Fans who've been waiting since the last album cycle finally have something to circle on the calendar — a week when other tour news has been about cancellations, a band announcing their biggest tour ever is a breath of fresh air.

4. Erasure announce 20th album 'Radio!! Radio!!' and a 2027 arena tour

Vince Clarke and Andy Bell are not slowing down. Erasure have announced their 20th studio album, 'Radio!! Radio!!' — their first new studio album in six years — with lead single 'Wings of Love' premiered on BBC Radio 2. The announcement is backed by an arena tour across the UK and Europe in April and May 2027, with North American dates still to be announced. Spill Magazine has the full details.

The milestone arithmetic here is genuinely impressive: 2026 marks the 40th anniversary of Erasure's debut album, and the duo are answering it not with a victory lap but with album number twenty. In a pop landscape that treats most acts from the eighties as heritage exhibits, Clarke and Bell keep doing the thing that made them matter in the first place — writing new songs and taking them to arenas. The BBC Radio 2 premiere of 'Wings of Love' is the right launchpad, too: Erasure's relationship with that audience has been one of the most durable artist-broadcaster bonds in British pop.

5. Ozzy and Black Sabbath: the 'Back to the Beginning' trailer

Bringing the week to an emotional close: NME reports the trailer has landed for 'Ozzy & Black Sabbath: Back To The Beginning,' and by all accounts it is a tearjerker. The sentiment around the farewell is best summed up loosely — there has simply never been a precedent for a show like this. For a band whose story began in Birmingham more than half a century ago, the closing chapter is getting the sendoff it deserves, and the trailer makes that unmistakable.

That's the week: a vault opened exactly when it should have been, a festival that can't be stopped, and three comebacks — or farewells — that prove the old guard isn't done shaping the conversation. Last weekend's music roundup had Friday's drop day and Ella Langley's chart record; this week the legends took the wheel. And with Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' crossing a billion streams still echoing, it's officially a season of milestones. See you next Monday.