Music Features

When Lars Ulrich reflects on Metallica‘s massive Damaged Justice tour now, he marvels that they were able to pull it off at all. “No band as extreme as ours had ever done a full arena tour,” he says. “So it was definitely a crapshoot, and it paid off.” “Those were …

Folk singers have been questioning and denouncing metaphorical border walls in song for decades, from Freddy Fender’s 1982 “Across the Borderline” to the Flatlanders’ 2009 “Borderless Love” to Anail Mitchell’s 2010’s “Why We Build the Wall.” Portland singer-songwriter Anna Tivel contributes her own entry to this long tradition on “Fenceline,” …

In his new book,The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5, and My Life of Impossibilities, MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer has some wild stories to tell: His Detroit band’s improbable journey from polite covers act to noisy rock insurrectionists; his own descent into crime and imprisonment; and his comeback as a …

When 22-year-old pop singer and dancer Normani flew the Fifth Harmony coop to embark on a solo career, timing could not have been more perfect for a big, brazen pop anthem. With all the choreo queens — Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyoncé — occupied by tours or side projects, the skilled …

Autumn is closing in rapidly, but thankfully we have Rina Sawayama’s midtempo pop jam “Cherry” to remind us what Summer feels like. Japanese-British singer/model Sawayama made a splash last year with the release of her self-titled debut EPRina, but it’s nothing in comparison to tidal wave she could be set …

“I thought it would be cool if Harry started his own scrappy punk rock band,” explains Paul DeGeorge, co-founder of the series-inspired fan band Harry and the Potters. Since its inception 20 years ago, J.K. Rowling’s billion-dollarHarry Potterserieshas spawnedfeature films, snacks, board games, housewares, jewelry and its own Universal Studios …

In the fall of 1968, Wayne Kramer saw his dreams come true when Elektra Records came to Detroit and signed his band, the MC5. “This was the deal I was looking for,” he writes in his new memoir The Hard Stuff, “with a very hip label that had pockets deep …

Aretha Franklin, who died on August 16th at age 76, recorded more than 40 full-length albums in her six-decade career. It’s a deep catalog, crowded with indisputable classics and hidden gems. Rolling Stone’s music staff is paying its R.E.S.P.E.C.T.s to the Queen with tributes to our favorite Aretha LPs. Next …

Aretha Franklin will be mourned as the “Queen of Soul,” which is as it should be. It was her rocket ride up the charts under Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler in 1967 and 1968 that established “soul” as a cultural given and transformed Franklin into the mythic presence she’d remain for half …

Animal Collective are here to freak you out. Again. The long-running psych-pop crew have teamed with Miami videographers Coral Morphologic for an album and film called Tangerine Reef – a weird, hypnotic, sensual, occasionally Cronenberg-ian look under the waves that gets up close and personal with spawning sealife. A strong …