On Sept. 27, Blink-182 released its latest album, “Neighborhoods.” It was the group’s first album release in eight years, following the release of the self-titled “Blink-182” in 2003. To the fans who had waited through those eight long years, wearing out classic Blink tracks from the band’s first four albums, the possibility of another album release seemed minute. Most fans would not have dared to wish it. But the album is finally here, and after quite the hiatus, we can truly say that Blink-182 is back.

Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” one of the three celebrated Da Ponte operas, is currently featured at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City; if you’re interested, the Cinemark at Hampshire Mall is having a live screening of the matinée performance on Oct. 29, starting at 1 p.m.

The Renaissance music of the 16th century is easily associated with sexual dramas. Susan McClary, the most eminent scholar of feminist musicology, wrote a whole book, “Modal Subjectivities,” to describe the various sexual scenes she found in late Renaissance music during the final decades of the 16th century. To understand such drama, it is necessary to trace the footprints of such music, which was born out of a confusing and chaotic time.

Have you ever seen an opera before? For me — and, I’m sure, a good portion of our student body — the answer would be no. The time and money required to go see an opera are quite considerable, not to mention that opera is not an art form that many young people have been routinely exposed to. This season of The Met: Live in HD, however, the Metropolitan Opera’s award-winning series of live transmissions of world-renowned operas to movie theaters around the world, will change my answer from no to yes.

Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. — Theodor Adorno

Steve Reich, the American composer celebrated for minimalist compositions like “Piano Phase” (1967), “Clapping Music” (1972) and “Different Trains” (1988), just released a piece entitled WTC 9/11 for string quartet and prerecorded tape. Commissioned by his long-term collaborator the Kronos Quartet, it premiered at Duke Univ. this March as a musical tribute to the 10-Year memorial of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Is there a market for something like that?” asked an audience member of Carnegie Hall soloist Jeremy Denk, after having heard him play several piano études of the Hungarian-American composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) at a Seattle Chamber Music Festival concert this summer.

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