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December 2023
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423 articles
- December 31
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- "It was a very magical time. The right people came together at the right moment": Ronnie James Dio's track-by-track guide to Dio's classic Holy Diver
- The man who holds the world record for most drumstick hits in one minute has now played the guitar solo from Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird on a stand-up kit
- Robert Fripp and Toyah have covered Lick It Up by Kiss and we may never sleep again
- “It was reportedly a very taxing LP to make… but even today the beautiful mysteries remain intact”: Midlake’s The Trials of Van Occupanther is conceptual, esoteric and more prog than indie
- "Every successful band has someone who is really driven and I’m that man. It’s the first time since the early days that I’ve felt ambitious." Solstice and the making of Light Up
- Riots, breakups and a ghost in the attic: The track-by-track guide to Megadeth’s Rust In Peace
- "I don't want to be a clown any more. I don't want to be a rock'n'roll star": The radical rebirth of Jimi Hendrix and his Band Of Gypsys
- Arch Enemy split with guitarist Jeff Loomis
- "A baptism of fire, fuelled by youthful naivety, stubbornness and folly:" What it was like to witness AC/DC in Australia in 1975... as a 10-year-old
- Lawsuit accuses Slipknot of using Joey Jordison's death for profit
- December 30
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- “The phone rang, it was Steve Harris: ‘Are you interested in joining Maiden?’”: this is what it’s like to audition to replace Bruce Dickinson in Iron Maiden, by three singers who went for the job
- Slade's Noddy Holder shares encouraging cancer update after previously being given six months to live
- "Within five seconds of seeing each other, it was hugs, kisses... the drama and bulls**t just melted away": Mike Portnoy on the meeting which led to his return to Dream Theater after 13 years
- December 29
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- "Dave Grohl is coming out of the Christmas tree for the drums": watch Miley Cyrus cover Journey classic Faithfully at intimate Los Angeles show
- Controversy, Colbert and a Grammy Award: How Ghost finally broke America with Cirice
- Every Cave In album ranked from worst to best
- “It’s not until I’ve finished a record that I think, ‘Oh my God, I have to go out onstage in front of all these relative strangers, singing my heart out about all these personal, private things”: Bruce Soord’s struggle to deliver Luminescence
- We celebrate the 80s prog revival on the cover of the new issue of Prog, which is on sale now!
- B-movie monsters, IQ tests and The Village People: 50 obscure Kiss facts only hardcore Kiss fans know
- Watch Indian politician Conrad Sangma rip through guitar solo from Iron Maiden's Wasted Years
- "She has this way of writing honest songs that draw people in and connect people: her songs relate to everyone": Warren Haynes on working with Dolly Parton
- "Saucy enough to flavour a thousand barbecues": How a fabled Texan brothel inspired a ZZ Top classic
- "I have an addictive personality. I have five hundred guitars, five hundred amps. Things escalate": Joe Bonamassa comes clean
- Metallica release official footage of Master of Puppets performance from Saudi Arabia show
- The Best 50 Albums of 2023: as voted by the readers of Classic Rock
- December 28
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- Watch Robert Plant receive a foam pie to the face in 13 minutes of anarchic kids' TV with Cozy Powell
- Killing Joke’s Jaz Coleman pays tribute to late guitarist Geordie Walker: “When the going got tough and the money ran out, others left – you never.”
- A Kreator documentary is coming in 2025
- "I told my wife, 'When I die, bury me in those shoes.'": The Specials' Lynval Golding's emotional tribute to Terry Hall
- Metallica’s James Hetfield looks ahead to 2024: “I’m continuing to try and improve myself, get better, have a better attitude”
- Every Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack ranked from worst to best
- In Memoriam: remembering the rock musicians we lost in 2023
- “When Motörhead leaves, there will be a hole there that just can't be filled”: Remembering Lemmy
- "Bands like Yes would spend six months doing an album, but in that time we'd do two albums and three tours": How Nazareth recorded Miss Misery
- Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong loves the "gritty, pissed off underdog" that is Millwall FC
- Dave Grohl raises thousands for charity with drawings that help fans get wasted and sneak hash into gigs
- The Procol Harum albums you should definitely own
- December 27
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- Metallica launch official pro-shot video of The Unforgiven from Saudi Arabian show
- 20 metal bands with no bad albums
- I went, ‘Yeah, David Bowie, you’re a complete c*nt'... and that was the start of a 13-year relationship.” Film director Tim Pope on working with Bowie
- "It would’ve been nice to have done more with Keith": Jimmy Page recalls 1974 jam with Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards which stayed in the vaults for 45 years
- “It doesn’t add much to the myth of an album that deserves mythologising”: Muse’s Absolution – XX Anniversary Edition
- Metal Hammer's 50 best albums of 2023 (and the stories behind them)
- “I’m so fortunate not to have died. I’ve overdosed, been pistol-whipped, shot at, stabbed, run over in a car... and I’m still here”: Glenn Hughes, The Voice of Rock, has lived the lives of 10 men, and he's not finished yet
- “An underprized classic… with new mixes enhancing rather than simply fiddling with the original”: 50th anniversary version of Nektar’s Remember The Future
- “We didn’t grow up on Christian music, we didn’t grow up in the church, we grew up with metal and the Hollywood club scene”: Stryper, Petra and the story of Christian AOR
- In 1979, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow began making their fourth album, Down To Earth. Cue pranks, tantrums, line-up changes, bad vibes and really bad hair days
- Paramore fans have questions after band's social accounts are wiped clean and website is pulled
- Why I ❤️ Deep Purple's Burn, by Matt Sorum
- Ozzy slams clickbait death hoax video: "I'm not dead. I'm not going any-f***ing-where."
- "Even now it can still get the tears running down my face": Paul Stanley - the soundtrack of my life
- December 26
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- "I don't think that song has any semblance of meaning - it's one of those rambling songs": Mick Jagger on the Exile On Main St classic that's the sound of a band at their peak
- Dirty Deeds Around The Christmas Tree? Hear an AC/DC classic transformed into a feel-good festive cracker
- "We'll embark on a sonic journey through the band's diverse and ever-evolving music": Stanford University is offering a course studying the music and culture of the Grateful Dead
- “This one has done better in the first three weeks than our debut did in a year!" The story of Panic Room's Satellite
- The ten best film scores of 2023
- “I don’t think Van Halen would put that on the B-side of their worst record”: Desmond Child on his initial reaction to Aerosmith's Dude (Looks Like A Lady), and how he helped turn it from a dud into a huge hit
- “I can hear mistakes and imperfections, but spirit has transcended the years. When we play those songs live, they still work”: Dream Theater’s embryonic debut album
- “Genesis was the key to everything really, and also Yes." How Tin Spirits made second album Scorch
- The 10 best doom and stoner metal albums of 2023
- The guide to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records in 10 essential songs
- The Tom Waits' albums you should definitely own
- The story behind Jackson Browne's favourite Jackson Browne album cover
- As teenagers Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck jammed and traded licks. As young men they changed the sound of rock'n'roll. In 1999 they sat down to talk about it
- Robert Fripp broadcasts 23-second Christmas message of love and creativity
- The riff is a belter, the lyrics arrived out of thin air at Ringo Starr's house, and the promo video for it is pure pantomime – the story behind Beavis and Butthead’s favourite Judas Priest song
- December 25
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- "Kids came in their thousands, and the first two rows looked like Attila The Hun’s frontline troops – frothing at the mouth": four years on the road with America's ultimate party band, Van Halen
- "The record is a guitar extravaganza": Heavy Lifting, the first MC5 album since 1971, will feature Slash, Tom Morello, Alice In Chains' William DuVall, Vernon Reid, and more
- The 10 best goth albums of 2023
- "I read an article where you said it was awkward cos you were more famous than us": watch The Offspring's Dexter Holland interview the actor from the Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) video
- How Dolly Parton corralled a Who's Who of rock royalty to record her landmark Rockstar album: "There's more aggression in rock'n'roll – you've got to treat it with respect"
- 14 peace anthems and the stories behind them
- “He wasn’t taken seriously on the London scene because he was into mime and he wasn’t a total hippy”: the turbulent story of David Bowie’s early years
- Watch Doro, Nervosa and Burning Witches in new documentary How Women Are Conquering Metal
- Beartooth promise big things for upcoming North American tour: "We're putting on an arena show in clubs."
- December 24
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- 10 Slade songs that prove they're not just for Christmas
- "Yes, we all want to bang our heads at Christmas, but we also want to sit down with a cup of tea and a mince pie and have a bit of a chillout": Rob Halford's 8 favourite Christmas songs
- "People were crowdsurfing in the lotus position." Dharma are a Taiwan-based Buddhist collective that play death metal and have a nun in their ranks. Chances are, you've never met another band like them
- "The label said ‘What do you want to do next, lads?’ and we laughingly said, ‘Christmas song!’": Justin Hawkins on the creation of The Darkness' festive classic
- "Some people said that seeing the band again made their lives complete": Remembering Status Quo's Rick Parfitt
- Metal Hammer writers' top metal albums of 2023
- “Do seven versions of one piece border on overkill? Resolutely and resoundingly no”: Magma’s Une Histoire De Mekanïk - 50 Years Of Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh
- ‘Jon Bon Jovi said, ‘I put your CD on and it blew away ours.’ I guess it should piss me off. Like, where’s my cheque?” the story of Black ’N Blue, the band Gene Simmons tried and failed to turn into superstars
- Watch Mark Tremonti perform O Holy Night at Christmas Special concert
- Slipknot, Korn, Smashing Pumpkins and Nickelback named in US Senator's report on wasteful government spending
- December 23
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- That time Prog met Spinal Tap's Derek Smalls!
- “We played for practically 24 hours. When somebody got too tired, somebody else would take over. It was a functional, practical thing to enable the band to play for ever!” When the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind became a single band
- The 10 best thrash metal albums of 2023
- “We thought it would be clever to open the show with an instrumental but it sits much better in the middle”: Rob Trujillo on the setlist tweaks Metallica made as they embarked on the M72 World Tour
- John Dexter Jones discusses Jump's return to live action
- “I called Keith Richards about doing it. His manager said: ‘Keith has already got a band. They’re called the Rolling Stones’”: the epic story of Kings Of Chaos, rock’s billion dollar supergroup
- Motley Crue cancel New Year's Eve show citing issues beyond their control
- First Kiss avatar shows set to take place in 2027
- December 22
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- Every Metallica live film ranked from worst to best
- "It’s Christmas and we’re all lying, to make up for the chasm between us": Listen to Du Blonde's fabulously cynical Christmas single It's Christmas and I'm Crying
- "It’s more than sales – it inspired an entire generation of young girls to know they had a place in heavy music." Inside Fallen: the album that turned Evanescence into instant 21st century metal superstars
- "The melodies are mega... the songs'll blow your mind": Liam Gallagher and John Squire announce collaborative album, with debut single Just Another Rainbow coming next month
- "Every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim’s abuse": US court reinstates right of 'Nevermind baby' Spencer Elden to sue Nirvana over iconic album sleeve
- The 50 best metal songs of 2023 (as voted by Metal Hammer readers)
- Bring Me The Horizon have parted ways with Jordan Fish: "We want to thank him for the musical journey he took with us"
- “I want it to be a celebration of instrumental guitar in all its forms”: Meet Maebe, the British guitarist mashing up prog genres to build his ultimate wall of sound
- "I was always looking for something beautiful to grasp on to": Duff McKagan on love, God, and the truth of punk
- "If you stormed in here and said the new record was rubbish, I would probably quit": Joe Strummer's struggle after The Clash
- "As metal staggered to its feet and limped out of the 80s, it was on the cusp of becoming stronger than ever before": How heavy metal got its mojo back
- The 10 best Keith Moon performances, by Kenney Jones
- December 21
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- The best melodic rock albums of 2023
- "As an album it's pretty good but as a handbook for Mott's future it's fantastic": Mott The Hoople's All The Young Dudes (50th Anniversary Edition)
- “When I listen to Sheik Yerbouti and Joe’s Garage, it reminds me of what a giant he was." Frank Zappa's incredibly busy and industrious 1979
- Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes posts portion of hyper-heavy new song Kool Aid online
- “There’s a new era coming”: We interviewed the artist who made Sleep Token’s incredible new masks
- “He was incapable of saying anything fond about anyone or anything. Affection didn’t exist in his life, only weird sex”: how Frank Zappa survived the 70s
- Metal Hammer writers name their best gigs of 2023
- A new David Gilmour album is expected to be released in 2024
- Enslaved and Shaman Elephant release new live clip of Sequence
- “The hallmarks of Pink Floyd during the Obscured By Clouds era, with some deftly disturbing guitar plunges… A uniquely gifted and unfathomable band”: Thee Hypnotics’ Come Down Heavy remains hard to define
- Richie Sambora on Dolly Parton: "If you're not a fan, then you don't understand music very much"
- "I'd like to establish a solo career before I start to live off past glories": Watch a subdued but hopeful Phil Lynott give his final ever TV interview
- "I saw one royalty cheque... and I never saw anything else from that point on": Edwyn Starr's raging classic War may have made his name, but it didn't make him rich
- "I've always been lucky because I don’t have to practice": guitarist Albert Lee has spent 60 years as a professional musician and he's still going strong
- "I was torn between Ozzy and Genesis - what the hell do I do?": A story of "the next Black Sabbath", missed opportunities and vanished dreams
- December 20
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- "If you see anyone throwing things, beat them up": Watch Axl Rose berate a crowd in Argentina via his translator in 1992
- "He used to do it all the time": Noddy Holder reckons Ozzy Osbourne started the tradition of shaving a sleeping drunk's eyebrows
- There’s a brewery that gives you free beer if you’re good at guitar: “It’s essentially a souped-up Guitar Hero for adults.”
- “I had this huge chip on my shoulder… People were incredibly hostile. My confidence was a mess. I was an ‘80s icon’ for 15 years and that drove me mad”: Whatever you think of Gary Numan’s work, it’s progressive - and even he can live with it now
- Watch Killswitch Engage’s full headline set at Bloodstock festival 2023
- The 10 best alt metal albums of 2023
- “On this last tour, you can tell that something has happened." Tobias Forge discusses Ghost's impressive levelling-up during their most recent North American tour
- "I've taken a lot of inspiration from the UK dance music scene." Watch Sleep Token drummer II give the band's first ever recorded interview
- “Everybody thought they were gonna get blown to bits!” The track-by-track guide to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
- “It should be illegal to be in a band, and only those willing to be arrested and locked up should try and pursue music”: Bill Nelson was only partly joking with his pre-punk manifesto
- Chris Shiflett interviewed Alex Lifeson on his podcast: the experience changed the way he thinks about his own playing
- "I want to be going on tour, recording albums and having millions of fans who adore me": Meet Michael Catton, the singer with Iron Maiden in his veins and the 80s in his music
- Roger Waters pays tribute to "The Last DJ" Jim Ladd, takes potshot at his bosses at Sirius XM
- "They couldn't transport the snakes in the cattle trailer because it upset the Longhorn and the buffalo": How ZZ Top took Texas on the road in the most sanity-defying tour ever staged
- December 19
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- Hollywood star Nicholas Hoult embarks on an epic journey in new Rolling Stones video
- The best prog albums of 2023
- Metallica snuck the Batman theme song into one of their riffs, Kirk Hammett admits
- “John Squire, without a doubt the best guitarist of his generation and in the world in my opinion”: Liam Gallagher drops hints that his collaboration with Stone Roses' John Squire is incoming
- Vended announce extensive UK and European tour schedule for spring/summer '24
- Bill Nelson discusses the concept behind new album Starlight Stories
- Save up to 47% in Marshall’s epic Christmas sale - speakers and headphones reduced
- Watch an Iowa-era Slipknot play a crushing set during the 2001 Ozzfest tour
- The 10 best hip-hop albums of 2023
- Per Wiberg shares lyric video for new song The Serpent's Here
- The 10 least popular Metallica songs (according to Spotify)
- "Family always comes first for me." Ozzy on the Osbournes resurrecting their podcast, their legendary reality TV show and why he's not done with music by a long shot
- The 10 best metalcore albums of 2023
- Synyster Gates on the reactions to Life Is But A Dream: "I think, for a lot of people, this is the death of Avenged Sevenfold."
- "I was just trying to channel Ozzy." Metallica's Rob Trujillo reveals the 72 Seasons song he'd take to a desert island
- Temic share video for live acoustic version of Acts of Violence
- Watch The Darkness record a special 20th anniversary performance of their 2003 single Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End) with an "angelic" 12-piece choir
- “Stately swathes of melodic guitar, stomping-goblin work-song chants, Rick Wakeman-riding-a-plesiosaur keyboard soloing:” Moon Safari’s Himlabacken Vol 2 is an epic complement to its predecessor
- "I used to shut the curtains, put on the headphones, drop the needle and not move a muscle till the final note": This is the soundtrack of K.K. Downing's life
- Former member of Mr Bungle named by police as a "person of interest" in missing person/homicide investigation
- December 18
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- "This is not gonna be the end of Magnum, but the future might have to be a bit different": Magnum cancel upcoming dates as Tony Clarkin is diagnosed with a rare spinal condition
- "Hardcore fans always talk to us about the first five albums, the cooler, blurrier, druggy art school ones that no-one bought": why Simple Minds tired of cult status and went for broke
- “Eyeballs will go for anything – they’re the whores of our senses. Ears are a little more discriminating…” Keith Richards' Guide To Life
- The 10 best indie albums of 2023
- The 10 best black metal albums of 2023
- “We couldn’t get a deal for Jethro Tull. The one person interested would only sign them if they dropped the flute player”: How Chrysalis rose from a booking agency to a leading prog record label
- Watch U2 perform Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) live for the first time since 1987
- A brief history of the metal Christmas song – and why there’ll (probably) never be a heavy holiday classic
- "Honestly, I don't care if I lose my voice. It's just life, isn't it?": Justin Hawkins on The Darkness, life as a YouTube icon, and predicting the pandemic
- Christmas comes early to Paramount+: Get a year’s subscription with 50% off - now just £34.95
- EBB announce new EP The Management Of Consequences
- "The Bathers are literate, expressive and romantic – which in a tough town like Glasgow is pretty much the most rebellious thing you can be": Sirenesque by The Bathers, the best-kept secret and weirdest anomaly in Scottish music
- "Collaborate with Amy Lee? That would be incredible!" Guitar hero Sophie Lloyd on why Evanescence mean so much to her - and to rock music in general
- “He would do crazy things like take 100 tabs of acid in a day then jump out of the window of a moving taxi, or paint himself blue": Shane MacGowan's wife Victoria Clarke on the unorthodox, unbreakable love she shared with The Pogues' late frontman
- "It’s the biggest heavy metal party in the world." Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Guns N' Roses and Tool, plus insane ticket prices, 40° heat and, er, lobster dinners. Inside the brilliance and the absurdity of Power Trip festival 2023
- “It’s the big joke, bands doing their 15th farewell tour! And I get it… a year or two goes by and you think, ‘You know, I’d sure like to do that again. Why not?’” Neal Morse on the chances of a Transatlantic reunion
- "These are hard-livin', whiskey-drinkin', gun-totin' Southerners who eat grits for breakfast, fried beans for lunch, and an entire raw buffalo for their dinner": Flirtin' With Disaster by Molly Hatchet
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Amon Amarth, The Record Company, Marillion and more
- 32 of the greatest onstage moments in the entire history of the rock guitar
- Tommy Lee accused of sexual assault in a helicopter
- Relive the majestic moment Keith Richards clubbed a stage invader with his guitar
- "We actually took it to a musicologist because we didn’t want to get sued": the story behind George Thorogood & The Destroyers' Bad To The Bone
- December 17
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- The best debut albums of 2023
- "The festival spun out of control": when the Happy Mondays brought chaos to Glastonbury in 1990
- Louder's writers pick their 10 favourite albums of 2023
- “Flood said, ‘Finish the song or it’s off the record’”: the near-miss story of Smashing Pumpkins’ classic hit 1979
- "He's not well...you guys gotta be loud." Watch Vessel take a step back from singing at last night's historic Sleep Token show at Wembley Arena, as band reveal startling new, nu metal-style masks
- The 10 best progressive metal albums of 2023
- Watch ten rock stars from the 90s in their earlier bands
- “You want to know some secrets about Leonard Cohen?”: the time that Adam Cohen wrote about his relationship with his famous dad
- “The true owners are not the creators; it’s the listeners. They hear everything that’s working. Who needs to know the detail about how difficult it was?” Wind & Wuthering got Genesis through the punk era - but not without a struggle
- “I never liked it. I never understood it. And it made no difference to the way we played, not for a second”: how Bad Company defied punk to make their classic third album Run With The Pack
- Original AC/DC drummer Colin Burgess dead at 77
- December 16
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- “When the Boogie Nights scene came on, I said, ‘Man, I think I’ve been in that guy’s house in the early 80s!’”: the rise, fall and porn-assisted resurrection of AOR heroes Night Ranger
- "Wouldn’t it be funny if we went down?": the night The Beatles almost reunited on Saturday Night Live
- "It's the biggest song we’ve ever had... and it wasn’t even for sale": the story of Pearl Jam's unexpected smash hit Last Kiss
- Oceans Of Slumber share video for emotive new track Poem Of Fire
- The Bardic Depths share video for new single You've Written Poetry My Boy
- The 10 best death metal albums of 2023
- December 15
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- "We went to this crazy burlesque show, took off our shirts, and put these nipple tassels on. I've got the photos to prove it!": Green Day reveal how recording 'Saviors' in London threw up some new life experiences
- Watch fan-filmed footage of Metallica’s first-ever Saudi Arabia show
- Sunn O))) announce spring '24 shows in the UK, Ireland and continental Europe
- Slipknot’s Shawn “Clown” Crahan teases new music and a documentary about the band: “Look Outside Your Window is definitely arriving next year. You have my word.”
- "I will deny all knowledge if questioned about this": revisiting the day that a Sex Pistol urinated on Elvis Presley's grave
- David Jackson and René van Commenée share new Christmas single Gateway
- “We were name-checked on American Dad!" We chat to Dave Hunt, frontman of beloved British extreme metallers Anaal Nathrakh, about filthy music, cartoons and "unapologetically juvenile" album covers
- The Emerald Dawn and Solstice to headline Soundle Festival
- Prog's ultimate Christmas Tracks Of The Week
- A Chapter Called Children Of Bodom: the Finnish metal icons' final show is captured beautifully in this full-throttle, triumphant album
- "Thank you to all of you for the music." Elton John reveals his 15 favourite songs of 2023
- "I didn’t think I had it in me": Steven Wilson has released a surprise Christmas song after an unlikely challenge from a friend
- Outbreak festival unveils Basement as first 2024 headline act, with Thursday, Joyce Manor, Nothing, JPEGMAFIA among stacked supporting bill
- The 50 best rock albums of 2023
- December 14
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- Phil Manzanera announces Revolución to Roxy memoir
- Simon Godfrey announces plans to tour the UK for first time in a decade
- “Steve Hogarth is a revelation among an impressive, if seemingly random, array of singers”: Trevor Horn’s Echoes – Ancient & Modern
- How to gift Spotify, Apple Music and other music streaming services
- Here are the best new metal bands you need to hear this month
- Skindred, Arlo Parks and Young Fathers among nominees for Best Alternative Music Act at the 2024 MOBO Awards
- Marilyn Manson's former assistant wins the right to sue the singer for sexual assault, abuse and harassment during a "horrific" year working for him
- "We did this because of the community: I was like, 'I need to bring these people together.'" From podcasters and sculptors to fanzine editors and tarot readers, we meet the super-fans helping Sleep Token become one of metal's biggest success stories
- "You better calm down": Watch a furious Shirley Manson drop 36 'f-bombs' in under 2 minutes while breaking up a fight at a Garbage show in Los Angeles
- Ihsahn shares dynamic video for new single Twice Born
- Korn announce European shows for 2024, with Spiritbox as support for one of them
- “I’m not going to say it’s a masterpiece, but it is a beautiful and a totally worthwhile entry in the Pink Floyd canon”: The highs and lows of Richard Wright’s solo work
- The Otis Redding albums you should definitely own
- "My country might be in shambles right now, but I'm the king of these shambles": The Wanton Bishops' Nader Mansour on the beauty of Beirut
- “All I could do to accommodate requests for new sounds for them was just to abuse the equipment": How The Beatles' Revolver revolutionised music
- Vote for your favourite rock albums of 2023
- December 13
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- Ace Frehley thinks that the Kiss avatars are "not rock and roll" and "geared towards children"
- 10 pop stars who’ve championed heavy metal bands
- The 50 best metal albums of 2023 - as voted by the readers of Metal Hammer
- “I was seven months pregnant. The doctor said I couldn’t travel but I explained that I was going to be playing with John McLaughlin… she said, ‘Okay, well you have to go!’” Hedvig Mollestad started out feeling like a failure
- "I'm really trying to be what I am, which is a little off": Watch the creepy video for ex-Motley Crue guitarist Mick Mars' dark, grungy new single Right Side of Wrong
- Jonathan Hulten shares poignant and reflective stand-alone single The Well
- "I’ve never felt comfortable about that title" Ozzy Osbourne explains why he doesn't like being called metal
- 10 alternative Christmas anthems to soundtrack your festive season and drown out Wham! and Mariah Carey
- "It’s everything from super-organic to super-symphonic, to super-poppy, to super-harsh." We get in the studio with Amaranthe to find out why the Swedish pop-metallers have gone "a little bit crazy" for new album The Catalyst
- “When I was about 14 a friend recommended Yes and ELP to me. To be completely honest I didn’t really like the music… I don’t think I’ve ever actually bought a prog album!” Derek Sherinian, keyboard warrior
- "It was an awkward situation, too, with me being kind of naked": Graveyard's Joakim Nilsson on darkness, recording in forests, and running into famous musicians in the sauna
- "Those were crazy times. I wouldn’t change it for the world": how Goodbye Yellow Brick Road reinforced Elton John's status as a global superstar
- "Have I got time to go to the bathroom?" 12 minutes with Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle will tell you everything you need to know about the tedium of touring
- December 12
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- "This is something I wouldn’t have believed if you’d told me 20 years ago": Chino Moreno couldn't be more thrilled that The Cure's Robert Smith appears on the new Crosses album
- Sweet have been going for more than 50 years: now they're thinking about AI to take them into the future
- "You expect white supremacy, but not from your own people": Living Colour claim they've been shunned by black entertainment outlets for playing "white people" music
- ZZ Top announce first European tour in five years
- "I finally understood that I was in the middle of a Nirvana reunion": revisiting the night that 'Sirvana' - Sir Paul McCartney and the surviving members of Nirvana - rocked Madison Square Garden for charity
- The 10 best electronic albums of 2023
- ”They called me about a week after Jeff Porcaro passed… they’d grown up together, they’d lost a blood brother, and suddenly the all-American West Coast band has a tea bag in it!” How Simon Phillips joined and left Toto
- The Dillinger Escape Plan to reunite with their original vocalist for a 25th-anniversary show
- Killswitch Engage guitarist Adam D and ex-singer Howard Jones have nearly finished making an album together: “More to come.”
- Derek Sherinian and Bumblefoot unveil new band Whom Gods Destroy
- 10 massive metal bands we want new albums from in 2024
- "I’ve got my own coach that I only share with a few people. Some might look at me like ‘Dang!’ but listen: I paid my dues.” Maria Brink on her rock 'n' mom, open mic nights and earning In This Moment's seat at the table
- "People thought we were begging for money": How Patreon saved Ne Obliviscaris from falling apart in the face of threats, wildfires and loss
- "I'm at this weird crossroads": Mike Shinoda faces the future, but exactly what that future holds, is not yet clear
- Save 34% on a complete vinyl setup with this amazing Bluetooth turntable and bookshelf speaker bundle at Amazon
- Rob Reed and Les Penning release new Christmas song The Lonely Goatherd
- “People would say, ‘Oh, you don’t look like you should be doing metal.'" We went on tour with Scene Queen, the bimbocore leader who's turning metal stereotypes on their heads (and infuriating gatekeepers with "twerkle pits")
- "The memories and experiences...I wouldn't trade for the world." Jay Weinberg shares new statement following departure from Slipknot on what would have been his ten year anniversary with the band
- Jane Getter to release new studio album Division World
- Five Finger Death Punch announce Europe and UK tour for summer '24
- “A band can be one thing for so many years then change into something completely different”: Once a bit metal, Leprous now have more in common with Marillion than with ritualistic rebellion against ideology
- "I love that we do this thing that other musicians relate to": Page Hamilton on Helmet's rock royalty fans and advisors
- Driven by an obsession and a devotion to music, John Brennan amassed a huge collection of rock star signatures - and now he's selling them off
- Watch Nancy Wilson and Sammy Hagar join forces for a stellar cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb
- December 11
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- LA music industry legend Rodney Bingenheimer accused of sexually assaulting six women when they were minors
- “There’s usually a pile of songs, some to use now and some years from now… On this album the first chords are from something I wrote 30 years ago”: The patience of The Flower Kings’ Roine Stolt
- Cast your votes in the 2023 Prog Magazine Readers' Poll
- "The big corporations took everything over, and they're interested in making money." Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson reveals his theory on why rock music is struggling to produce new festival headliners
- 10 rock and metal covers of Christmas classics that sound made up but actually happened
- Every The Jesus and Mary Chain album ranked from worst to best
- Mr. Bungle announce first shows in Europe since 2000 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Mike Patton's Ipecac label
- Franck Carducci & The Fantastic Squad announce Spring UK live dates
- "They had drawings of me as the T-1000": Billy Idol explains why he missed out on android assassin role in Terminator 2
- “I think they just want to know that I am feeling something”: How Sleep Token conquered America and became metal's hottest new band
- Watch Slash, ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and Myles Kennedy join Gov’t Mule onstage for an epic cover of Lynynrd Skynyrd classic Simple Man
- Rick Wakeman, Trevor Horn, Focus and Big Big Train announced for 45th annual Cropredy Festival
- “My whole motive was to open the door for kids who look like me." UnityTX are fighting for metal to be a scene for everyone. As it happens, their blend of hardcore, rap, nu metal and industrial absolutely slaps, too
- “I was looking for a new cliff to dive off to stimulate my creativity…That’s what I’ve done my entire life”: Why Francis Dunnery quit It Bites three times, and where it's taken him
- Slipknot announce UK and European 25th Anniversary shows
- "Full of memorable songs, hooks, vocals, instrumentation; a complete package": Harder... Faster by April Wine - Album Of The Week Club review
- In a big week for Sebastian Bach, he's unveiled his first new song in 10 years and been revealed as Tiki on The Masked Singer
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Sebastian Bach, Big Big Train, Lucifer and more
- December 10
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- "The overall effect is hypnotic, mesmeric – a musical montage that has no start or end point": Neil Young's Before And After
- "The grunge scene had a lot of that moody stuff going on, but when we had come about, it had been years since the grunge thing really popped.” Mark Tremonti explains what set Creed apart from the rest
- Metallica's Rob Trujillo: “Most people that I talk to have found a place in their heart for St. Anger"
- The 10 greatest compilation albums in heavy metal history
- “Not a simple or easy album… it’s almost as if they want you to run away screaming. Regardless, it’s a towering avant-garde work”: The prog power of The Pop Group’s Y
- “I don’t mean to be arrogant, but we had the goods. We knew what we were doing”: how Bad Company hit the bullseye with their classic second album Straight Shooter
- Watch Ed Sheeran join The Darkness onstage in London to sing Love Is Only A Feeling
- Blur's Damon Albarn takes swipe at Rolling Stones and their new album Hackney Diamonds
- ZZ Top icon Dusty Hill's famous Fender Precision bass guitar sells at auction for $393,700
- December 9
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- "The listener can hear distinct traces of what's to come in this dense magical melee": Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother (Special Edition)
- "They’re fearless. Their ability to just be themselves and their confidence, it’s mind-blowing." Synyster Gates reveals the young artist that reminds him the most of Avenged Sevenfold - and it might surprise you
- “Grace was three sheets to the wind, so Marty sang to her while holding her in an arm-lock so she couldn’t get away”: the epic, drunken and very crazy story of Jefferson Starship
- “We can effectively run ourselves and keep the band releasing material without compromising creative integrity.” Introducing The Gift
- Tobias Forge reveals he's started writing a new Ghost album, explains why he's happy to work with outside writers: “What they all have in common is that they all come from a rock background.”
- “For a band who previously relied on pretty riffs and delicate vocals, they’ve taken a huge risk, hurling the listener around like a malfunctioning fairground ride”: Unprocessed’s …And Everything In Between
- "I’m not going for massive commercial success. I want to make the music I like." Dave Kerzner and New World
- Einar Solberg reworks Leprous's The Congregation for voice and piano
- “I’m going for blood. I want to bring guitar back in a joyful, exciting way”: Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt on the guitar solo that caused the internet to lose its mind in 2023
- Sepultura should go down as one of the bravest musical forces in metal – no matter which era of the band you look at
- “Black Sabbath are afraid of us blowing them offstage. I’d feel the same in their position”: Lemmy, Ozzy and the story of legendary 80s rock festival the Heavy Metal Holocaust
- "Opeth and Scissor Sisters are fans of mine": comedian Bill Bailey talks Mastodon, Ghost and why he'd love to have a nerdy conversation with Prince
- “The albums I love the most were the ones where I wasn’t sure what I was listening to… There’s something great about music that’s beyond easy description or categorisation”: Steven Wilson gets it if you don’t get The Harmony Codex at first
- December 8
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- Evanescence’s Amy Lee is a big Sleep Token fan: “How do they go so many different directions and call it one song?”
- “We begged Stallone to send us the whole movie. When he did, we were blown away”: Survivor were just another struggling AOR band. And then Rocky III and Eye Of The Tiger changed everything
- "Rat Wars is the most personal, cathartic and brutal record of their career." With a little help from Lamb Of God and Godflesh, Health have made an album fit for goth clubs and mosh pits alike
- "How can anybody stand up and say ‘save the planet’? Artists are awful for hypocritical bandwagonery": Music exec hits out at musicians for continuing to make physical records during the climate crisis
- Sepultura announce farewell tour: “It will be a celebration of the past and the present for one final time.”
- Foo Fighters’ Everlong just reached one billion streams on Spotify
- Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst just collaborated with a German rapper and it sounds weirdly awesome
- System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian and Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi have teamed up for a brand new single, Deconstruction
- Francis Dunnery's It Bites will release new studio album Return To Natural early next year
- 10 incredible metal bands who sadly split in 2023
- Caligula's Horse stream ten-minute new single The World Breathes With Me
- Def Leppard and Journey announce 2024 co-headline US tour
- Creeper's Sanguivore is Metal Hammer's album of the year
- Slipknot, Disturbed, Misfits, Limp Bizkit, Evanescence and many more for Sonic Temple 2024, tickets on sale today
- Big Big Train announce brand new album The Likes Of Us
- "We haven’t had to take the devil's bargain just yet": meet Green Lung, the occult rockers who've stumbled on a formula for infernal success
- Classic Rock Magazine: our unmissable end-of-year issue is on sale now
- Guns N' Roses release anguished yet epic new recording of The General
- December 7
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- "Tracing the evolution of a bar-room behemoth": Bryan Adams' Live At The Royal Albert Hall
- "Two discs, 22 songs, one very worthy epitaph": Bernie Marsden's Working Man
- Bloodstock festival adds Carcass, Sylosis, Satyricon and more to 2024 lineup
- Skindred and Mr Big confirmed for Steelhouse Festival
- Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain reflects on ministroke: “I thought, ‘This is it, I’m not going to be able to play.’”
- First bands announced for 2024 Maid Of Stone Festival
- "I won't go on stage until I've slaughtered 15 puppy dogs": Ozzy Osbourne on the most ridiculous rumour he's heard about himself
- Best gifts for metalheads: Raise your horns with these heavy-duty gift ideas
- "We’ve seen so many of our peers struggle with addiction and mental illness." Listen to Green Day's deeply "personal" new single, Dilemma
- Vote for the best metal song of 2023
- The new issue of Metal Hammer is a massive celebration of 2023 starring Metallica, Iron Maiden, Ghost, Babymetal, Avenged Sevenfold and more – and it comes with five exclusive gifts!
- Watch Godsticks' brand new video for Throne
- "If I look back at all the records, I see a songwriter and a soundsmith working on his craft." Prog meets Peter Gabriel
- "People that mostly know Skynyrd from Free Bird or Sweet Home Alabama: there's this heavier, less mainstream side to them." Metallica's Lars Ulrich reveals the five Lynyrd Skynyrd deep cuts that everyone needs to hear
- “When we started, it wasn’t necessarily going to be a trilogy… I like the fact that each one is a bit different. To this day that’s the best band I’ve ever been in”: Steve Hillage on Gong’s Radio Gnome Invisible era
- Rick Wakeman announces Live At The London Palladium release
- “I just wanted to scream”: Taiwanese duo Laang 冷 are channelling a near-death experience into ferocious black metal
- The albums on Stiff Records you should definitely own
- "Our intention was to go out on stage and destroy all living things": How Gene Simmons intimidated Geezer Butler when Kiss supported Black Sabbath
- All the way to nowhere: The story of The Raspberries
- December 6
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- "I felt a rage towards him that has taken decades to subside": The mysterious case of the fake Fleetwood Mac
- The 10 best horror movies of 2023
- Sleep Token just played Take Me Back To Eden’s title track live for the first time
- "It was the most scary thing any of us had ever been through." Ronnie James Dio on the "evil spirit" that apparently sabotaged Rainbow and ended up pushing his wife down the stairs
- Bruce Dickinson on mortality and whether he'd pay to live for another 50 years: "Technology is advancing to the point for many things where we are all living longer, more effective lives. Which is great – as long as you do something with it"
- Ozzy Osbourne ponders making new music with A.I. Randy Rhoads riffs: “I’m open for anything, if it was good quality.”
- “The blueprint for the beginning of death metal.” How Slayer dragged metal to new depths of evil with Show No Mercy
- The ten best Nine Inch Nails deep cuts
- IQ announce vinyl reissues programme, starting with The Wake
- "This is a road that I can’t walk down." Funeral For A Friend frontman Matthew Davies-Kreye has left the band after 20 years
- Does anyone else remember the time Metallica’s Kirk Hammett played Bleed onstage with Meshuggah?
- Creeper announce surprise bonus UK tour - and this time it's featuring some seriously intimate venues
- "Go take a look at some real rock and roll fans - not a bunch of posers who wanna go down the front." Why Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson wasn't a fan of the crowd at Power Trip festival
- "It has been far too long." Jane's Addiction announce 2024 UK and Europe tour
- Classic Tales Of Yes European and UK tour dates announced for 2024
- “He sees the big picture and gets that classic English sound… I’m still very awestruck by his history”: Christopher Cross on why Alan Parsons is his prog hero
- Why I ❤️ David Bowie's Hunky Dory, by My Morning Jacket's Jim James
- "So I open it up and it's ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, all stacked and taped together": The Cadillac Three's stories of Lemmy, Steven Tyler, Chrissie Hynde, Paris Hilton and more
- Geddy Lee releases two previously unheard solo tracks
- December 5
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- In 1995 Ozzy Osbourne revisited his old school in Birmingham: The kids didn't know who he was
- Much-loved Bath venue Moles to close immediately after 45 years as cost of living crisis continues to bite
- Wings and Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine dead at 79
- Billie Eilish is a fan of American metalcore band Darkest Hour and shared one of their songs to over 110 million people
- Order your limited edition Sleep Token bundle – featuring a hand-stamped art print and exclusive cover variant
- Limp Bizkit just announced a huge North American tour with support from, amongst other people, Corey Feldman
- "There's the overwhelming sensation that we've all just witnessed something very, very special." Riffs, witches and a Dorset Ooser: Green Lung just showed Brighton why they could well be heavy metal's next Big Deal
- “The disc of unreleased live material truly captures the excitement of this line-up in full flight”: The Yes Album Super Deluxe Edition
- Watch Slash cover Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC hits at Las Vegas bar re-opening
- Neal Morse shares video for new single I Hate My Brothers
- "Loathe’s sound captures something timeless; it’s clear that The Warehouse was blessed tonight." Loathe put on an intimate, powerful and emotional show in Leeds - and for a vitally important cause
- Jean-Michel Jarre announces Xmas day Versailles 400 concert event
- “A slice of terrace commentary from a band more associated with croquet than soccer”: Genesis’ largely forgotten Spot The Pigeon EP
- "I'm like... You sure that's what you want me to sing, honey?": How the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter represented the death of the 1960s spirit
- The King's X albums you should definitely own
- The first GTA 6 trailer has launched - and Tom Petty is all over it
- In 1974 Aerosmith were struggling to break through: then they flew to LA to appear on The Midnight Special and it all changed
- December 4
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- 100 schoolkids in New Zealand go viral after prize day performance of Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven
- John Mellencamp had his head cut off when he was six weeks old
- Red Hot Chili Peppers announce 2024 Unlimited Love US tour
- "I like chatting up younger, handsome men": Watch the amusing moment a journalist tries to find out whether classical music fans are "naughtier" than metalheads
- "It was pretty miserable": Roger Waters fired his son from his touring band, so now he's joined a Pink Floyd tribute group
- “A vivid, three-dimensional update… they outstrip the originals’ impact by some distance”: Peter Hammill’s In A Foreign Town / Out Of Water 2023
- "It was put together, as distinct from someone literally sitting down and writing a song": Fleetwood Mac and The Chain, the song assembled from spare parts
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including David Lee Roth, Ace Frehley, the Pineapple Thief and more
- "Undeniably brilliant but unlistenable": Pawn Hearts by Van der Graaf Generator - Album Of The Week Club review
- April Wine frontman Myles Goodwyn dead at 75
- Limp Bizkit added to Download 2024 lineup
- December 3
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- 10 guitar heroes who should be much better known, by Joe Bonamassa
- "In a year in which both pop and rock found themselves in a sort of hiatus, Hounds Of Love represented a standout achievement:" Kate Bush's Hounds Of Love (Baskerville Edition)
- Geddy Lee says he and Alex Lifeson have talked about recruiting one of the world's great drummers to tour as Rush again
- "We had a meeting at his ranch... it was quite mad": the crazy tale of the time Steven Spielberg wanted to make a TV show with Supergrass
- "Lars vomited all down his front. I mopped him up and sent him back out": revisit an ace interview with Lemmy discussing his relationship with Metallica
- "If you didn’t want to be in the beef, you shouldn’t have opened your mouth": Eminem on writing a diss track about Limp Bizkit
- “At points it sounds more like Camel than Lynyrd Skynyrd”: The Marshall Tucker Band’s prog energy
- “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper is about hope, rather than the finality of death. It’s a song about wishful thinking”: how Blue Oyster Cult’s Agents Of Fortune album became their passport to immortality
- A new era begins: Kiss announce that they're continuing as avatars
- Kiss bring the curtain down on the End Of The Road tour - and their epic 50-year career - with a spectacular, and intriguing, final bow in New York City
- Surviving Power Trip members reunite for surprise show in Texas
- December 2
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- “Christine had been killed. The studio was somewhere I could go where I’d feel something other than lost”: how David Crosby turned grief into hazy magic on his solo masterpiece If I Could Only Remember My Name
- “I just can’t believe this is really happening”: watch Ronnie James Dio unleash his vocals on a Tenacious D song
- Kindred Spirit Band replace This Winter Machine at Prog The Forest
- “If I ever run into him in a dream again, I hope I remember to apologize”: the time Chris Cornell revealed he’d been dreaming about Layne Staley
- “It’s glossy as hell, and it sounds very corporate. The 80s were driven by cocaine and arrogance and it fit that bill”: the epic story of the self-titled 1985 album that saved Heart’s career
- December 1
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- “I’m not interested in my own angst. I like a good story. Violence. A bit of sex, a bit of drinking, a bit of drugs, y’knoworramean?” A tribute to Shane MacGowan, the genius lyricist who thought the music was more important than the words
- Peter Gabriel's i/o. "The world has changed since 2002, mostly for the worst, but it’s a better place with i/o in it."
- "Dwarves with trays of cocaine on their heads? It never happened. Well, I never saw it. Actually, it could have been true...": What really happened at Queen's most outrageous party
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Ace new prog music you must hear from Wilson/Wakeman, Moon Safari, Louise Patricia Crane and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- “I was completely petrified by Kate Bush singing Wuthering Heights on TV. Anyone I was scared of I was interested by”: How Matt Berry discovered prog
- Ghost just quietly released a greatest hits album with one very, very rare track
- The least popular songs by 10 legendary rock bands
- Prog meets Marillion on their Marillion Monthly show
- Bruce Dickinson reveals The Mandrake Project release date, track listing and album art
- 10 amazing metal songs under one minute long
- Babymetal's 2023 World Tour comes to the UK: seldom has metal seemed more joyous, triumphant and utterly groundbreaking
- Ozric Tentacles announced for Desertfest 2024
- "It’s like an ocean of music, of experience and concept and feelings." Inside the musical mind of David Sancious
- Steve Hackett shares first new music from The Circus And The Nightwhale
- “His advocacy for artificial intelligence is compelling… human, emotive and reassuring”: Mariusz Duda’s instrumental AFR AI D
- Kid Rock: My stories about Metallica, Axl Rose, Pamela Anderson and more
- Jim Croce was about to break through in a major way, but cruel fate intervened and the almost-star all but forgotten: Then Quentin Tarantino came along
- "I've always regarded myself as a rock drummer. I mean, John Bonham is my number one hero": What happened when Roxy Music drummer Paul Thompson auditioned for AC/DC
- "The music and the band matters so much to us that it is do-or-die": Six things you need to know about Saint Agnes
- "I wanted to write something that would take over We Shall Overcome": How John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote the peace anthem that's still trying to change the world
- "Gabriel's most consistent and cohesive post-80s record and the most philosophical of his life": Peter Gabriel's i/o
