On the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, we run down some of the best Spanish-language, indie-rock, and hip-hop you may have missed in 2022, including Puerto Rican singer-songwriter ILe’s genre-jumping Nacarile, Nas‘ late-career triumph King’s Disease III, albums from rising artists including Mediopicky, Horsegirl, Junior H, and Che …
Read More »'He Got Better and Better': Joe Satriani on the Legacy of Jeff Beck
When guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani started imagining a recording career for himself based around instrumental compositions, he knew it could be possible — thanks in large part to the fact that the late Jeff Beck had scored hit albums (Blow by Blow, Wired) without the help of a singer a …
Read More »'Guitar Saved Me!': Jeff Beck Looks Back in Never-Before-Heard Interview Audio
“The only friends I had were pretty low-life,” Jeff Beck said, looking back at his childhood in newly unearthed audio of an interview with Rolling Stone’s Kory Grow. “They were one step away from jail, most of them. The guitar saved me from that.” Beck – who died this week …
Read More »The Best Music You Didn't Hear in 2022
From DJ-turned-producer Uncle Waffles’ club-filling take on Amapiano to singer/songwriter Hailey Whitters‘ middle-American storytelling, some of the best music of 2022 may have slipped under the radar for some listeners. Even some great albums by veterans, including Willie Nelson‘s poignant A Beautiful Time and Ozzy Osbourne‘s unexpectedly strong Patient Number …
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 »'SOS' Secrets: SZA Reveals Unheard Lizzo Collaborations, Plus More Rock Songs
SZA has always incorporated plenty of guitar into her genre-hopping music, but there have been hints along the way that she might be ready for a full-on rock turn —covering Wheatus’ “Teenage Dirtbag” onstage in 2019 was the biggest clue. “I really love Blink-182,” she says in her in-depth interview …
Read More »SZA Was Ready For You to Hate 'SOS'
The whole world loves SZA‘s fantastic, genre-hopping new album SOS, streaming it so relentlessly that she’s displaced Bad Bunny as Spotify’s number one artist on the planet. But after five years between albums, that wasn’t the reception she expected. “I never thought in a million years that people would like …
Read More »Inside the Worst Music Decisions of All Time
Any truly exhaustive list of bad decisions made by musicians would stretch into the thousands, with many duplicate entries for “tried heroin for the first time.” So Rolling Stone‘s recent list of the top 50 worst choices, created by senior writer Andy Greene, narrowed it down by keeping it mostly …
Read More »Was 'Taxman' Inspired by 'Batman'? And Other Burning 'Revolver ' Questions
The Batman TV show, with Neil Hefti’s indelible “na-na-na-na-na-na-Batman” theme song, debuted in the U.S. in January 1966, hitting the U.K. in May. In April of that year, the Beatles started recording what would become the opening track of Revolver, George Harrison‘s “Taxman,” which resembles the Batman theme when the …
Read More »Willow Has a Dog Named Korn — and More of Her Hard-Rock Revelations
Willow made one of the best rock albums of the year with the nu-metal-influenced Coping Mechanism, but she’s quite aware that some people — especially “old white dudes” — love to question her rock and metal credentials. In reality, she’s been a metalhead since the age of five, as her …
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