John Paul Jones has re-recorded the 1971 Led Zeppelin classic “When The Levee Breaks” with help from 17 musicians from around the globe, including guitarist Derek Trucks, drummer Stephen Perkins, harmonica player Ben Lee, singer Susan Tedeschi, singer Elle Márjá Eira, slide guitarist Keith Secola, and vocalist Mihirangi. Sebastian Robertson …
Read More »'She's Not Free': Inside Roger Waters' Quest to Release a Jailed Kurdish Musician
Singer-songwriter Nûdem Durak was already two years into her 19-year prison sentence when one of the few threads that connected her to freedom was cut. Before her 2015 incarceration, Durak was living in Cizre, Turkey, singing songs in both Turkish and her ethnically native tongue, Kurdish. She was subsequently accused …
Read More »Raw Sampled Power: How a Stooges Doc Led to Crystal Method's Comeback
Anyone who hears the Crystal Method’s new single “Post Punk” may recognize a familiar voice laced throughout it: “I don’t want to be a punk. I don’t want to belong to any of it. I just want to be.” It sounds just like Iggy Pop talking about the Stooges in …
Read More »Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe Announce Rescheduled Summer Stadium Tour
Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe will embark on their long-delayed North American tour this summer. The trek, dubbed the Stadium Tour, will kick off in Atlanta on June 16 and conclude in Las Vegas on Sept. 9. Originally scheduled for 2020, the tour will include previously announced stops alongside five …
Read More »'Fifty Percent of the Time I'm a Troll': Charli XCX on Her Evil Alter Ego and Airtight New Album
Charli XCX has long been one of pop’s most galaxy-brained writers and performers, but she’s ready for what she calls her “main pop-girl moment.” With her upcoming album, Crash (due March 18), she presents a brilliant case: It’s an airtight pop project full of top-notch hooks that also functions as …
Read More »'Kim Damage Controls When Kanye Has These Cycles': What a Kardashianologist Thinks of Kanye's Public Outbursts
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West are among the most highly scrutinized celebrities alive today. MJ Corey, whose Kardashian Kolloquium accounts on TikTok and Instagram analyze the relationships and social media posts of the Kardashian family through the lens of academic media theory, knows this better than anyone else. “I sometimes …
Read More »'All I Do Is Think About Words': Wordle's Hip-Hop Appeal
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re living in a Wordle world. Ever since the popular spelling game came through in October 2021 and crushed the buildings, everyone’s suddenly more obsessed with taking over blocks than The Wire kingpin Avon Barksdale. It’s a quick rise that makes particular sense for the …
Read More »Yusuf/Cat Stevens on Songwriting, Spirituality, and Climate Hope
Plenty of songwriters spent the early 1970s looking for some kind of truth, but none of them sang about that quest with as much authentic conviction as Cat Stevens. On songs like “Where Do the Children Play?,” “Miles from Nowhere,” “The Wind,” and “Father and Son,” the London-born artist spoke …
Read More »'F-ck It, We Might as Well Make a Horror Movie': Dave Grohl on New Rock & Roll Chiller 'Studio 666'
Around three years ago, a film-marketer friend of Dave Grohl’s was in a meeting with a “huge movie studio.” When Grohl’s name came up, the studio floated the outlandish idea of a Foo Fighters horror movie. Grohl’s initial reply? “I said, ‘That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in …
Read More »Why Mickey Guyton's Super Bowl Performance Mattered for America
For all of its national holiday status, Super Bowl Sunday can be a complicated matter, especially when you consider the NFL’s tumultuous record surrounding issues of race. See the league’s handling of Colin Kaepernick or coach Brian Flores. But the NFL made the right call for Super Bowl LVI when …
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