If a meteor were to strike Villa Park in Birmingham, England, on Saturday, that’d be the end of hard rock and heavy metal as many know it. On July 5, in that venue, the original four-man lineup of Black Sabbath will be performing their “Back to the Beginning” farewell show …
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Update July 3, 2025: The pseudonymous Andrew Frelon, who spoke to Rolling Stone on Wednesday as a spokesperson for the viral AI band Velvet Sundown, and runs a Twitter account that purports to represent the band, now says in a Medium post that he was running an elaborate hoax aimed …
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Earlier this month, Zohran Mamdani went on Hot 97, New York’s preeminent hip-hop radio station, to tell the story of how he first entered politics. It’s a tale he’s told many times: In 2015, Mamdani started knocking on doors for an aspiring Queens city councilman, Ali Najmi. But when he …
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If you assembled a focus group of today’s country artists and asked them to list their biggest influences, a few names would probably rise to the top: Johnny Cash and Hank Williams; Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. More contemporary icons like Shania Twain and George Strait would come up, and …
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Death run is his duty: Ben Gibbard, frontman for Death Cab for Cutie and the Postal Service, finished the Western States 100 ultramarathon Sunday morning — the fifth time he’s competed in a 100-mile race. “I can’t believe I made it,” he told Runner’s World. The 48-year-old Gibbard nearly didn’t …
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T he doors of the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles felt like a vortex last Friday: Fans walked in wearing Hawaiian shirts, leis, and tropical flower clip-ins, ready to be transported into the Elvis Presley Blue Hawaii world of Remy Bond. A burlesque dancer opened the show, and for …
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We’re officially halfway through 2025, and it’s truly giving “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” vibes. This month’s column is going to lean into the good — a few Afropop moments of innovation, excitement, and inspiration that have made waves this year. This is …
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The Beatles’ Abbey Road has been a classic ever since they released it in 1969 — their most popular album, and one of the most acclaimed and influential rock albums ever made. It’s their all-time biggest hit, yet it just keeps getting more beloved every year. On the Rolling Stone …
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What if Bruce Springsteen had followed up his synth-and-drum-machine-driven 1994 hit “Streets of Philadelphia” with a whole album largely in that vein? What if he’d dropped an album of Great American Songbook-style ballads instead of 2017’s Western Stars? Springsteen’s just-released boxed set Tracks II: The Lost Albums is packed with …
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“I feel like this is the moment in that movie, The Shining, you know?” Daniel Allen deadpans. “It’s the door scene. We’ve been chopping at this door for so long, and we finally broke through. ‘Hey! It’s us from Alabama!’” Allen is the lead singer and co-founder of the Vegabonds, …
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