Music

T he Palace Theater in Los Angeles was an odd place for a punk show. Its stage once featured worldwide stars like Harry Houdini. For many years it was an ornate movie theater. On this night in 2023, however, the cavernous five-story building was filled with bearded, flannel-wearing, middle-aged former …

Though Jordan Ward’s debut album Forward won critics over with its earnest and optimistic hodgepodge of the background-dancer-turned-foreground-artists dreams, roots, and quirks, in the two years since, Ward tells Rolling Stone the darker sides of striving have helped him deliver his equally ambitious sophomore album, Backward. Speaking exclusively with Rolling …

Big is moving to Paris, and Sabrina Carpenter is moving to 30 Rock. In the latest promo for her upcoming double duty appearance on Saturday Night Live on Oct. 18, the pop star steps into Carrie Bradshaw’s Manolo Blahniks to parody Sex and the City. “Sabrina, what are you up …

To many rap fans forged in the blog era, Wale’s cultural footprint is as well known as the admitted challenges he confronts on the new single “Mirroronnabenz.” With a backdrop where Afrobeat meets hip-hop soul, feeling both characteristic of and evolutionary for the Nigerian-American rapper, “Mirroronnabenz” finds Wale and producer …

If a dystopic voice asking you “to fulfill your mission” of rounding up undocumented immigrants has snuck its way onto your streaming airwaves, you’re far from the only one. In the last month, online users have reported seeing and hearing an increased amount of recruitment advertising from the Department of …

Justin Timberlake has paid tribute to D’Angelo, whose three solo albums —his debut, Brown Sugar, 2000’sVoodoo, and 2014’sBlack Messiah— reshaped the landscape of soul music and helped ignite a new era. Following D’Angelo’s passing on Oct. 14 at 51, Timberlake shared how the visionary’s work impacted his own musical journey …

Janelle Monáeand the Wondaland Arts Society are bringing back her month-long, city-spanning Halloween bash to Los Angeles. Wondaween 2025 kicked off earlier this month with Cinespia, which took place at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Oct. 11, and will continue with Monáe Manor at the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride. Monáe …

It was four days after Father’s Day. Midway through the Drive-By Truckers‘ informal late-night acoustic show in their hometown of Athens, Georgia, their 23-year-old guitarist and budding songwriter named Jason Isbell decided to premiere a song he’d just written as a Father’s Day gift for his dad. That song was …

Despite being raised in Nashville, Shooter Jennings is a Los Angeles guy through and through. He started his first rock band, Stargunn, there, embedded himself in the city’s underground arts scene as he evolved as both a solo artist and Grammy-winning producer, and now produces albums at Sunset Sound Recorders, …

Start with the laundry. Of the many times Bob Mould‘s band Sugar unexpectedly found itself at the center of pop culture in the Nineties, one in particular springs to mind for him: a 1992 festival in Belgium where Sugar were on the same bill as Metallica, Neil Young and Crazy …