When we publish our rankings of the year’s Best Albums and Best Songs each December, those lists represent the collective effort of dozens of music listeners at Rolling Stone, each with their own distinct likes and dislikes. Everyone hears the year in music a little differently — and in this …
Read More »NewJeans Owned 2022. They're Going Even Bigger in 2023
No one brightened up our year quite like NewJeans did with their debut this summer. Formed under ADOR, a new subsidiary of Hybe Corporation, the group brought nostalgic yet experimental and refreshing music, took Nineties and Y2K fashion to the next level, and gave us some truly addicting choreography. Minji, …
Read More »Yes, It's a Christmas Song: Adam Duritz Reveals the Untold Story of 'A Long December'
So, is Counting Crows‘ melancholy, much-beloved 1996 classic “A Long December” a Christmas song? The band’s frontman, Adam Duritz, has some thoughts. “There’s this big discussion that runs around,” he says on the new episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. (To hear the whole episode, press play above …
Read More »The Search for Guns N' Roses' Lost Masterpiece
I n the parking lot of a Panera, just off I-95 in Stafford, Virginia, Rick Dunsford climbed into the passenger seat of a white Ford F-350 pick-up. Depending whose account you believe, he was holding either $12,000 or $15,000 in cash. It was late afternoon on a Friday in July …
Read More »Rob Sheffield's Top 25 Songs of 2022
Give 2022 some credit—any year with Kate Bush crashing Top 40 radio can’t be all bad. So let’s celebrate a superbly crazy year for music, when brilliant tunes kept exploding all over the stylistic map. These are my 25 favorite songs of 2022. (Although many other gems are over on …
Read More »The Year Everyone Realized They Were Wrong About Taylor Swift vs. Kanye West
What do you recall about the feud between Kanye West and Taylor Swift? Maybe something about a misogynistic lyric in West’s 2016 song “Famous,” or Swift’s subtle-but-scathing swipe at the line at that year’s Grammys — or, later, Kim Kardashian’s claims that the track had Swift’s prior approval. Surely the …
Read More »Rob Sheffield's Top 20 Albums of 2022
What a year for music—any of my top half-dozen or so could have been Number One some other year. But these are my faves, with pop idols, guitar bangers, rap poets, disco visionaries. All these albums keep giving up new surprises for me. The double-digit years are always pivotal for …
Read More »Finneas Isn't Afraid to Break Norms in an Ever-Changing Music Industry
It’s hard to believe Finneas O’Connell — the multi-Grammy winning songwriter, producer, and musician who’s worked with everyone from Justin Bieber to Tove Lo to his younger sister, Billie Eilish — ever doubted a successful career in music; a profession he was motivated to achieve following a Green Day show, …
Read More »Saint Levant on Shattering Arab Stereotypes and Why He's Keeping the Mustache
Saint Levant joins our Zoom call from Amman, Jordan. It’s 7 p.m. there, and he has plans to record vocals after this interview. The day before, he released his single, “I Guess,” but the 22-year-old rising star has no idea how well it’s performing online. “I still haven’t checked social …
Read More »How Chris Olsen Became the Music World's Favorite TikTok Personality
A year ago, Chris Olsen was rising through TikTok, attracting thousands of followers with ultra-personal videos he started posting during the pandemic. His following became even larger when he began sharing updates with his ex-boyfriend Ian Paget, becoming popular in TikTok’s “couple niche.” Pretty soon, Olsen was such a ubiquitous …
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