Music Features

“I’ve always been a write-what-you-know kind of guy,” Bob Mould says on what he describes as a rainy San Francisco morning. “So this time, I was trying to consciously create a little bit of a different world to work in.” He ended up changing his world in two ways. On …

You go around the world in roots and melodrama on these three albums, all from experienced specialists in forensic romanticism and all at new peaks in their searching. Murray A. Lightburn, Hear Me Out (Dangerbird) With his plaintive, swooning voice and the luxuriant sweep of his records with the Canadian …

If anyone told you this time last year that Ariana Grande would drop a song that simultaneously samplesThe Sound of Music and jacks Soulja Boy’s “Pretty Boy Swag,” would you have believed it? We’ve come a long way from the bubblegum-R&B of her early years. “7 Rings” is a sexy, …

This story was originally published on June 26, 2015 In the late 1970s and early 1980s, musical artists like Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Steely Dan, Toto, Hall and Oates, and dozens of others regularly popped up on each other’s records, creating a golden era of smooth-music collaboration. And on June …

In 1983, Rolling Stone’s Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll opened with these words: “There’s no stopping rock & roll. It is the most vital, unpredictable force in pop culture, and the exception to every rule.” Pop culture has changed a lot over the last three decades — within a few …

If you don’t love Lizzo, you must not be paying attention. Arguably the most likable pop music figure to come around in recent years, the rapper/singer/flautist has put out a consistently thrilling body of work and collaborated with legends like Prince and Big Freedia. More recently, Lizzo has become a …

Make no mistake, the album is fighting for its life. Sales of music’s most beloved format are in free fall in the United States this year. According to figures published by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), the value of total stateside album sales in the first half of …

30 years later, 1988 still stands as rap’s greatest year. The lyrical molotovs of Nation of Millions and Straight Outta Compton, the post-modern (and pre-lawsuit) free-for-all of sampling, the national spotlight of a new show called Yo! MTV Raps and much more. To celebrate 30 years, Rolling Stone’s Best of …

The opening, lilting guitars of “Roseate,” the first single from Greek-American singer Ioanna Gika’s upcoming debut solo LP of the same name, may make you wonder why she’s on tour with beloved indie metal group Deafheaven.“Goodbye / In waves the message rang through the sea,” Gika sings in a half-coo, …

No matter whereLenny Kravitz is, he can write a song. “I write music on anything,” he says nonchalantly. “I write in my head, I write on the guitar, I write on the drums.” For the past three decades, the singer-songwriter has been seizing control of his inspiration and turning it …