Tag Archives: rolling-stone-music-now

“In the music business, people think that if you’re different, it’s a marketing problem,” says Don Was, who’s in the sixth decade of a one-of-a-kind career: producer for superstars, bass player, Blue Note Records president, and co-founder of the eclectic band Was (Not Was). “Instead of being a problem, it’s …

Jim James was going through a lot circa 2005, when he wrote the songs for what would become My Morning Jacket‘s classic fourth album, Z. Two of his close friends had taken their own lives, and James was drinking too much and grappling with depression. “I thought it would be …

Back in 1994, Oasis‘ first U.S. tour didn’t go very well. After a legendarily disastrous, crystal-meth-fueled performance at Los Angeles’ Whisky a Go Go, they canceled nine shows. Thirty-one years later, things are a little different: The reunited band just blazed through five sold-out stadium concerts in the States that …

For almost a decade, Christopher Guest has been “essentially retired,” the actor/director reveals in the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. After he directed Mascots for Netflix in 2016, he recalls the streamer telling him they’d make any film he wanted —but he didn’t have an idea for one. …

Director Rob Reiner has never made a sequel in his long career, and he hadn’t ever contemplated a follow-up to the most beloved rock comedy ever made, 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap. But then Harry Shearer, who plays Tap bassist Derek Smalls, fought a long battle to reclaim ownership of …

J ohn Fogerty rerecorded some of the best-known songs by his long-gone band for his new album, Legacy: The Creedence Clearwater Revival Years, a Taylor Swiftian move that’s best understood as the culmination of his decades-long journey toward reclaiming those hits. Fogerty spent years in a series of ugly legal …

With strong albums from veterans Alex G, Japanese Breakfast, and Car Seat Headrest, and killer debuts from newcomers like Lifeguard, 2025 has been packed with great indie rock. In the latest episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, we look back at the year in indie so far, with …

In between standing on business in paparazzi clashes and dodging endless rumors about his personal life, it turns out Justin Bieber was busy in the studio, making a genuinely interesting album. Swag is full of well-chosen collaborators — Gunna, Sexyy Red, Cash Cobain, Lil B, Dijon—confessional lyrics, and even surprisingly self-aware skits recorded …

Sabrina Carpenter is as good as any current pop star at cultivating controversy and attention —the latest evidence was the now-subsided furor over her absurd Man’s Best Friend album cover, which seems to take cues from Spinal Tap’s Smell the Glove. “She’s leaning into it and laughing about it at …

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 …