All content archive

June 2026

Filter

Year
Month

461 articles

June 30
- “I got shot down many times: ‘Oh, it’s pop. Oh, it’s bubblegum… the logo is ugly and we don’t hear a single!’” How John Wetton and Asia dialled up their debut album
- "If another c**t calls me The Firestarter I'll stab him in the f***ing throat." How The Prodigy's incendiary electronic punk album The Fat Of The Land put a bomb under heavy music and freaked out British politicians
- "For me, metal is a way of living." Oscar-winning Hollywood star Javier Bardem reveals how Linkin Park, Slipknot and Bad Omens inspired his terrifying performance in new remake of Cape Fear
- “I think James is still fuming”: an interview with the artist who created Metallica’s Load and Reload album covers
- “I’ve never wanted to join in. My entire career has been about trying to do something and getting it slightly, wonkily wrong”: Peter Hammill’s maverick life in prog
- "He would just stroll into my kitchen wearing Speedos." As a kid, superstar DJ Fatboy Slim believed that The Beatles rehearsed in his grandmother's house. Then Paul McCartney moved in next door
- Members of local nu metal band Van Der Dijs among the 1,700 confirmed dead in Venezuelan earthquakes
- “Using our history, our genocide, our pain to their political advantage”: System Of A Down’s Serj Tankian lambasts Israel for recognising Armenian genocide amidst Palestinian conflict
- "I'm not too struck on Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, I never saw what was in Clapton at all". In 1975, Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore was asked for his thoughts on his peers: he did not hold back
- Evanescence’s mammoth nu metal hit Bring Me To Life has been certified Diamond in the United States
- Peter Gabriel shares latest single, the groove-laden I Belong To The Sky
- “They say it all went wrong when I started singing. But really, we all changed. It was a metamorphosis. I think we got better”: Genesis’ evolutionary A Trick Of The Tail, track by track
- "It was a craving for something new." Meet The Scratch, the metal misfits who might just be the missing link between The Dubliners and Metallica
- "Though he could be hell to be around, he had a pure heart." Nine Steve Marriott albums you should listen to and one to avoid
- "He grabbed me and said, I like you. You've got a lot of nerve": ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons on the night his teenage band supported Jimi Hendrix, and closed their set with Foxy Lady and Purple Haze
- "That riff is probably the very first heavy metal riff ever": The story of the Hendrix-inspired Cream classic their label boss thought was "psychedelic hogwash"
June 29
- "The record company was terrified of You Oughta Know. But every woman I knew was pissed." Alanis Morissette on the "patriarchal" criticism of her 33-million-selling album Jagged Little Pill, and harsh words from female artists she admired
- “I remember them telling me, ‘You don’t play angry’”: Bassist in Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian’s pre-System Of A Down band was fired for not being “angry enough”
- The Who's Pete Townshend believes that Keith Moon once bought dinner in Seattle for a nine-year-old Kurt Cobain
- "The floor descends into an orgiastic frenzy of moshers, dancers and crowdsurfers while cups fly overhead offering relief from the clammy press." Cult heroes Acid Bath put on the hottest gig in metal as they make their UK debut
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 29, 2026
- “I’d look at this mysterious fog in the ceiling. It looked like God was up there in Heaven. The ‘fog’ was tobacco smoke”: Roy Harper’s son Nick on growing up around folk rock icons Pentangle
- “Oh God, it’s hard to listen to.” The story behind Nirvana’s final song, You Know You’re Right
- Peter Hammill returns with Tears In Time, his first new album for five years
- “It feels like the start of something heavier and more direct”: Nightwish’s Floor Jansen returns with metallic new single Run and announces 2027 tour dates
- “It’s an incredible amount of money which will replenish our empty shelves”: Metallica donated £20,000 to local foodbank ahead of Cardiff concert last weekend
- 15 of the best Prime Day deals still going strong – grab them now while you still can
- “I formed this band, for God’s sake! And I helped Roger a hell of a lot because he wasn’t a musician when we started”: The lost Richard Wright interview
- “I get into arguments with fans all the time about this. Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, it’s just a leftover Stone Sour song.’ No, I wrote that for Slipknot!” How Slipknot made the greatest metal ballad of the 21st century
- "It was darker than other bands but it really got me to let go of the old and embrace the new." The late 80s alt-metal album that Korn guitarist Head says accidentally invented nu metal
- "A nurse came in and said, 'You should stay another night or two because you almost died yesterday.'" How a near-death experience inspired the making of Failure's Location Lost
- "Ma, I'm real sick. I need help. I got to come home": The trauma and triumph of Stevie Ray Vaughan
- “Having ADHD isn’t a superpower. But we can turn pain into poetry, and this album does that’’: TesseracT and Chimp Spanner friends team up for Prince Of Failure debut
- "Give The People What They Want proves that The Kinks were still alive and kicking as the 80s began." Ray Davies successfully trades music-hall whimsy for slabs of radio-ready arena rock
June 28
- “I imagined playing in San Francisco. I didn’t even know where it was! But within a few months, there we were”: In a world of smiling 60s beat bands, Procol Harum were serious – and it paid off
- "He only became a heavy metal guy after he’d spent time touring with Deep Purple and started in Rainbow." What happened when Ronnie James Dio met Ritchie Blackmore
- "The lyrics are like this crazy, mystical bum that lives in a cave and says, ‘Oh, I wanna reach the whales!’ Why do people want to hear this?" 13 rock and metal musicians hating on their own songs
- "It was a gift. It came from that mysterious place that lyrics sometimes come from": The Tom Petty reject that gave Don Henley the ultimate song of lost innocence
- "If a grudge is going to escalate, you might as well sock each other out and get it over with." How Deftones dealt with fame, the road and each other on the White Pony tour
- "Let’s not be grunge. Let’s be more like the Beach Boys. But loud." How Weezer's Rivers Cuomo wrote the perfect power-pop song but almost shelved it
June 27
- Former Guns N’ Roses manager Doug Goldstein dead at 65
- "Side effects include elevated heart rates, annoyed neighbours and speeding tickets." Here are Metallica's ten fastest songs, ranked by BPM
- “They’d been to university, they had bank accounts; two of them were teachers. They had a car; they’d got a bank loan to buy a PA!”: Phil Manzanera always knew Roxy Music were going to make it
- "We're trying to build a spaceship – as you do." Muse frontman Matt Bellamy promises blockbuster stage production for upcoming arena shows
- "He wrote stories so painfully real that rock’n’roll still bears their scars." From Velvet Underground to his often divisive solo work, here's why Lou Reed is rock’s greatest storyteller
- "So there I was, sitting in the driver's seat of a Lincoln Continental, underwater": The night The Who’s Keith Moon drove his car into a swimming pool
- “With two 12-strings and harmonies we’ve got Yes and Genesis, really. But that wasn’t the intention”: Was Chris Squire and Steve Hackett’s only Squackett album worth the wait?
- “You heathens. If this is the shape of punk to come, then I'm quitting punk.” The story behind New Noise, the Refused song baked into the DNA of chaotic kitchen drama The Bear
- "If you have a perception of him as an out-of-control rock'n'roller, that's not the guy I worked with." Jeff Wayne needed someone to play an apocalyptic preacher in The War Of The Worlds. In Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott, he found the perfect voice
June 26
- "Would all the men in the audience stand up?" It's now 25 years since The Hives teamed up with Kylie Minogue for a 96 second commercial voted the greatest cinema advert of all time
- “Afraid Of Sunlight escaped more than it was released." How Marillion's eighth album brought the curtain down on their time at EMI and set the band up for the rest of their career...
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Heart's Ann Wilson and Tripsitter announce second album Consecrated Ground, share powerful psych-rock single I Will Not Be Coming Back
- "I just couldn’t relate to him at all. I could see that he was thinking, Who is this weird guy?" When David Bowie and Bruce Springsteen first met in 1974, it did not go well at all
- Every Grand Theft Auto soundtrack ranked from worst to best
- Hot proggy sounds from The Pineapple Thief, Prince Of Failure, Maya Ongaku, Raphael Weinroth-Browne and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- The unlikely birth of Velvet Revolver, the supergroup who triumphed against the odds
- “I was so difficult to deal with, but I wasn’t the only one in the band doing something that they shouldn’t have been doing”: how Deftones rose above turmoil and tragedy with Diamond Eyes
- Iron Maiden fans! You can pre-order the official Eddfest programme and museum guide only through the Metal Hammer and Classic Rock online store
- "Right now, songwriting and pop music is crap." Metallica's Kirk Hammett hammers the current state of pop and reveals the "fantastic" first gig he ever went to
- The clock’s ticking to save up to 30% on Metallica, Motörhead and Ozzy tees before Prime Day ends tonight
- "We have a very special chemistry.” Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery share first new music from their upcoming album with video for The Black Sea
- "One of our videos hit 123 million views in Brazil, so we're flying out to play Monsters Of Rock." Meet Jayler, the West Midlands quartet with big dreams and even bigger plans
- "We owed the label half a million dollars. There was no way we're gonna pay that back." Crown Lands talk music biz, 19-minute songs, and why they'd rather be killed by robots than zombies
- "We dug our teeth into that song. It was all about passion and hauling ass." The story of the last song The Doors ever recorded
- "We were playing to capacity crowds, six or seven nights a week, everywhere we went. So we figured something was about to happen." The story of 1966, the year that built rock
- "Super-focussed, densely layered and stacked with killer tunes." Unashamedly grandiose space-rockers Muse hit new disco-metal heights on Spielberg-sized sci-fi epic The Wow! Signal
June 25
- A must-have for Bring Me The Horizon fans: get the new issue of Metal Hammer in a Count Your Blessings mega-bundle with a t-shirt, poster and vinyl copy of the Repented re-recording
- Prime Day has got me in a chokehold with these insane Sleep Token merch discounts – save 15% on tees, tanks, hoodies, vinyl and more
- AC/DC, Ghost, Eddie, Freddie, Bon Jovi & more: welcome rock royalty into your home with these epic Prime Day Funko deals
- “When I walk onstage, the rest of the world can go to hell!” Iron Maiden are on the cover of the latest Metal Hammer, which comes with an exclusive Eddfest water bottle
- 10 cruelly over-looked alt. rock albums from 1996 that should have been massive in a fair and just world
- Machine Head “extremely honoured” to have been awarded keys to the city of Albuquerque by the most metal mayor in America
- “The only band ever once again prove why no one else matters”: Alexisonfire dominate London co-headliner with Billy Talent as they celebrate 20 years of post-hardcore classics
- Celebrate Global Beatles Day this weekend with these 5 essential Fab Four documentaries you can stream right now
- "He has devoted his entire life to killing Morrissey." Morrissey launches yet another attack on former Smiths bandmate Johnny Marr, and the BBC
- “Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” How anarchy, acrimony and apathy killed the Sex Pistols just 78 days after the release of Never Mind The Bollocks
- "We have nothing to do with this." That new Fugazi x Vans trainers collection that's all over social media has no connection whatsoever with the legendary Washington DC hardcore band
- Watch full, pro-shot footage of Linkin Park’s headline set at Rock In Rio Lisbon last week
- “I was obsessed with him at school – it didn’t help with the girls! Because of him I got my first guitar, so he’s got a lot to answer for”: The prog hero who links The Pineapple Thief’s Bruce Soord to Pink Floyd and The Beatles
- Hayley Williams, Deftones' Chino Moreno, Turnstile's Brendan Yates to appear on new Beabadoobee album Pylon
- "If I hear a white-boy blues band now where it's a squeaky clean mix, I just want to vomit." All Them Witches' new album House Of Mirrors is steeped in the blues – but it rages
- “As hard as it was, and it was hard, nobody wanted to bottle out. We just knew we had a big landscape we could explore”: How Tales From Topographic Oceans became the most arduous project in Yes’ history
- Watch "Weird Al" Yankovic's guitarist singing Rush's Cygnus X-1 Book II in a bathroom in Missouri
- "We kept writing songs, trying to ignore the fact they'd be a bit boring without a singer." From trauma to triumph: The story of Genesis's A Trick Of The Tale
June 24
- Rival Sons announce Domestic Bliss US tour
- Jimmy Page on Presence: "You don't make music like that falling about in the street drunk"
- “We’re giving people candy with razor blades in it!” When caring about the world is the most radical thing we can do, dark proggers Crippled Black Phoenix lead the way
- Hey! Listen! It's your last chance to save a bag of rupees on these Legend Of Zelda goodies for Prime Day – including the Lego Great Deku Tree
- "Part III saves the best for last!" Green Carnation announce third part of their A Dark Poem trilogy, The Messiah Complex, will be released in September
- “The spark that made heavy music interesting wasn’t there for me anymore”: How British metal didn’t quite rule the 90s
- "As soon as you got into the lift there were naked women painted green." Inside the wild 1986 party where Queen teamed up with Samantha Fox and Gary Glitter to entertain 500 celebrity friends
- “This guy can cover everything. He’s just a phenomenon”: Former Slipknot member Chris Fehn remembers late bandmate Joey Jordison
- All You Need Is Love – and up to 68% off Beatles vinyl, tees, books & more this Prime Day
- "Roger immediately said, 'What's that?' Some riffs have a little bit of magic to them, and it's obvious." Watch David Gilmour play Pink Floyd classic Wish You Were Here in his home studio, and talk about the song's creation at Abbey Road
- Parkway Drive to play first two albums in full on Killing Horizons tour later this summer
- “There was an ugly atmosphere. None of us wanted to be there. Then someone discovered magic mushrooms growing in the field outside”: When Marillion went pop with Holidays In Eden
- “We’re still making records because we think we’re the best band in the world”: The Jesus and Mary Chain may not have destroyed the music industry as they had hoped, but they gave it a damn good shot
- "What's Number One at the moment? I couldn't tell you. It's meaningless. All I care about is what Iron Maiden are doing next week." Steve Harris, Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith look back on Iron Maiden's 50-year ride
- "We share your disappointment. No one is more frustrated than the band and crew." Iron Maiden issue statement after plans to film Paris show are derailed by power outage in the City Of Light
- Genesis: The early years - a surprisingly difficult quiz
- Remembering that time Rush's Alex Lifeson trolled the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame with the most ridiculous awards speech ever
- "Music is a personal journey. Once you make it, it belongs to the world." Geoff Tate on the third instalment of what's now an Operation Mindcrime trilogy
- "I vowed I'd stop screaming by the time I was 60. Now I'm looking back and thinking, 'Whatever happened to that?'" Deep Purple launch trippy video for supercharged new single Guilt Trippin'
June 23
- "I am quivering with anticipation." Deep Purple's Ian Gillan announces Talking Gib'rish spoken word tour
- “The band didn’t break up. It’s just that there won’t be any more new music. And I need an outlet; music has been my life for over 30 years”: Fates Warning’s Ray Alder looks ahead
- "In the studio the baby I picked couldn’t put two gurgles together. I kicked it, I did everything to make it scream, and it really buttoned its lip." The stories behind David Bowie's Labyrinth soundtrack album, now celebrating its 40 anniversary
- “I’m inspired by his control over his animalistic vocal range, and his poetry, but also how honestly he sings”: Hear Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale pay tribute to Chris Cornell on powerful new cover of Soundgarden’s Loud Love
- Sony's LX Series turntables are known for their smooth action, smart looks and amazing value vs spec – now with up to $150 off, your search for a new deck is over
- 70s prog legends Quiet Sun share newly remixed and remastered version of Bargain Classics
- Playing mediaeval folk, taking pensioners hostage and blowing up a house: the ridiculous ad campaign for Guitar Hero Metallica
- “We carried the mantle of The Beatles, but we didn’t have a George Martin to keep us in check. Our amazingly different ideas sadly tore us apart”: Why 10cc’s original line-up couldn’t last
- Ozzy! Geddy Lee! Hair metal! Grab this Paramount+ deal from only $0.99 per month to load up on music docs, alongside South Park, Yellowstone and more
- From underground punk clubs to the world's biggest stadiums, celebrate the rise and rebirth of emo superstars My Chemical Romance in new gift-laden MCR fan pack, on sale now
- 10 nu metal bands who should have been massive
- “It’s obviously not Maiden’s fault but, oh, is the frustration high!”: Iron Maiden concert cut short due to local power outage
- “That brief time is the bane of my life. They were everything I was against”: Prog veteran David Paton loved working with Alan Parsons, Kate Bush, Rick Wakeman and Jimmy Page. But there’s one band he hated
- "Wonderwall belongs to the people." Noel Gallagher endorses Oasis classic being adopted as England’s official FIFA World Cup 2026 anthem, even though he's not an England fan
- "Music is always interesting when no one knows where the hell it came from." Steve Coogan on the game-changing impact of Nirvana and The Smiths, and why he loves both bands
- When Aerosmith's Steven Tyler offered to help Kurt Cobain kick heroin, the response from Nirvana's frontman was savage
- "It's a national anthem of rock." The story of the Kiss classic inspired by the tragic death of a fan
- A record collection that belonged to the man who promoted The Beatles and managed the Rolling Stones is going under the hammer
- "It's a gift that there are so many recordings of him, so his legacy will live on and inspire guitarists for an eternity." Remembering Mott The Hoople and Bad Company guitarist Mick Ralphs
- Rock's 20 greatest one-album wonders: The bands that made one album then vanished
- They've seen a million faces, and they've rocked them all: Every Bon Jovi album ranked, from worst to best
June 22
- Revisiting the seven weeks in 1991 that changed music history forever
- "The lineup is truly insane." Olivia Rodrigo launches Daisy Chain Fields festival featuring Stevie Nicks, Bikini Kill, Die Spitz, Doechii, Garbage, Chappell Roan and more, to "uplift women and girls"
- "Clive recognised the light in people. He encouraged artists to trust their own voice and step into their destiny." Legendary music executive Clive Davis dead at 94
- "When Mike was apprehended back stage and pulled the dildo from his pants, the tension was relieved." The night a pissed-off Mike Patton pissed on concert security staff, and avoided arrest by pretending it was all a hilarious prank
- 'Lost' Deftones album Eros has reportedly leaked online after 18 years, and fans are conflicted
- Syd Barrett’s iconic Madcap floorboards to go on show on South Coast this July
- From surprise Foo Fighters and The Prodigy chaos to hip hop, metal and punk rock takeovers, these are the 15 greatest Glastonbury festival performances ever
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 22, 2026
- "This extraordinary object is recognisable to fans around the world and represents a powerful final chapter in Ozzy’s career." Ozzy Osbourne's iconic throne from his final ever performance is going on display in Birmingham
- "We thought we were on the brink of breaking technology. It seemed like we did something futuristic at the time." Slipknot, zombies and a three year old girl's approval: how horror punk prince Wednesday 13 built a career beyond Murderdolls
- "It’s fertility, resistance, sensitivity. Something that belongs to men, too." Rising Italian black metallers Bianca are bringing a new vision to the genre
- “Our drummer left for a sandwich and never came back. We heard he was found wandering in no man’s land by Canadian Mounties”: An epic guide to every Swervedriver album in the band’s own words
- “We weren’t arrogant enough to think we were suddenly the most important band in the world. We just knew we were”: A metal fan’s guide to Rush
- "This sure ain't no summer of love, baby." The Stooges mark the post-Altamont death throes of the hippy zeitgeist on Fun House
- “You want him to be difficult. Nothing important was ever achieved by being nice. You want optimum ego power": The Darkness star Justin Hawkins on his prog hero
- “It’s about keeping rich people rich and poor people poor… that’s the reason we’re in perpetual war”: When Roger Waters was asked to take on the mantle of Pink Floyd, it rejuvenated him
- "Our crew was being bombed in real time while filming." Roger Waters releases charity version of Pink Floyd's classic Comfortably Numb with new lyrics in English and Arabic
June 21
- Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante to miss multiple European tour dates on doctor's orders
- Fan falls to death during Goose show at Madison Square Garden
- "It’s saying, ‘If I could smell you, if I could interact with you, I’d eat you alive.'" How a bizarre and controversial stalker video featuring two Hollywood heavyweights brought an end to Limp Bizkit's golden era
- "Slip & Destroy." Metallica's Kirk Hammett sees the funny side after falling offstage during Dublin show
- “There’s healthy humility, but this felt crippling. You come out of that and go, ‘I don’t care what people think about me’”: What Radiohead means to Ed O’Brien after his complete transformation
- "Everybody was leaning over the banisters to listen to this guy sitting in the corner of the club playing. They were enthralled.” This is what happened when Jimi Hendrix landed in London for the first time
- "I had to learn to let go of the bitterness and stop being so one-track minded." They were in one of hardcore's most boundary-pushing modern bands with Code Orange: now Jami Morgan and Eric Balderose reunite to topple the music industry with Nowhere2Run
- “We came up very fast and we went down fast. We were carried away on that wave of euphoria”: how Motörhead made their two most controversial early 80s albums
- "People acted as if Gwar had changed, but Gwar didn't change. The world fricking changed." Blothar the Berserker on the right wing reaction to their gutting of Donald Trump
- Flag-waving nostalgia, sibling tragedy and a cartoon kangaroo: this Kinks album was snubbed for five decades. Then the world realised it was a prog masterpiece
- "It's about a beautiful moment between a man and a woman. It’s about peace." How Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's vision of domestic bliss emerged when the USA was imploding under the stress of the Vietnam War
June 20
- “No promoter would book us; they just didn’t know where we fitted in… we were victims of being ahead of our time”: With a future Uriah Heep singer and rapidly changing style, were Lucifer’s Friend prog?
- "You can’t fight against reality, you’ve got to live in it or you never move forward." Vampires, Shoot 'em ups and fantasy worlds: How As Everything Unfolds rebuilt after tragedy
- “The audience threw lighters, bottles, ice cubes and coins. We managed four songs before being booed off”: the rollercoaster story of Loverboy, Canada’s greatest AOR band
- "I was in Ireland in my little house when I got the call saying, ‘This is Lars from Metallica.'" How metal's biggest band and a confused folk singer wrote a controversial hit that has soundtracked everything from WWE to The Sopranos
- “The rock business has become so established, and so much like a society, that I have revolted against it." After killing off Ziggy and breaking up the band, David Bowie recorded a covers album in a French castle. This is the story of Pin Ups’ creation
- "The line in the sand is whether or not you think for yourself." They dress like cowboys, make insane post-hardcore and might be the best new band you hear this year. Meet Ireland's Uncultivates
June 19
- Jethro Tull's M.U. The Best Of... to be reissued as a limited edition half-speed vinyl remaster in July
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "If this were a brand new album, it'd be the best alt. rock record of 2026." Thirty years after its original release, Placebo reimagine 1996 debut album to stunning effect with RE:CREATED
- Cool new proggy sounds from Arthur Brown, North Sea Echoes, Alex Henry Foster and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- “They were full of angst and venom”: Iron Maiden reveal the toughest support acts they’ve ever had to follow
- "I was having a peek at his guitar and I was just about to stroke it, and he went: 'Nobody touches it!' And bam!" The night that Rolling Stones legend Keith Richards got punched in the face by his hero Chuck Berry
- "She leaned over and kissed me on me lips. My knees went." The day that black metal legend Cronos from Venom met Kate Bush
- Watch Bring Me The Horizon play Sempiternal cut Antivist with Lorna Shore singer Will Ramos at Hellfest
- Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson is on the cover of the new, gift-packed issue of Prog, on sale now!
- “Band members complained of a loss of feeling in their hands after only one song”: When Tesseract set a world record by playing on a stage built from ice
- "The time is right for a revolution in rock'n'roll. It's yours for the taking. I believe it’s coming." Def Leppard and Extreme are currently on tour together, so we put their guitarists in a room
- "The magic of what these guys do. It's just so identifiable. It speaks. It's musical, powerful!" Deep Purple return to work – only in the new issue of Classic Rock
- "It has never ceased to amaze me how much use that one tune gets." The story of Sirius, the dramatic prog anthem played at every World Cup game
- “Band dynamics are always good when times are hard. When you achieve things the landscape shifts. There was an issue we couldn’t get past”: Richard Barbieri on why art rockers Japan split, and why their reunion imploded
- "Bon Scott chose to hang out with us more than AC/DC. He thought they were boring": The rollercoaster story of Y&T, the greatest hard rock band never to become huge
- "Music of vaulting ambition, cinematic in scope, literate, endlessly witty and intelligent." Nine 10cc albums you should listen to and one to avoid
June 18
- “Sales is not a mark of success": 10 brilliant rock bands from the '90s who should have been absolutely massive
- “I was jolted back to life to watch America go to hell!”: What this Norwegian prog band did after their singer’s near-fatal onstage heart attack
- The 6 bands who won Rock For People festival 2026
- How to watch The Cure's headline set from the 2026 Isle Of Wight Festival
- Brian Fallon and The Painkillers announce US, UK and European tour dates
- "It feels like a Camel band effort." Andrew Latimer releases new suite of music, From The Vault
- "America is not the same place as it was." Mick Jagger reveals why The Rolling Stones' new album Foreign Tongues features a political message about modern-day America
- "They were like, ‘Are you going to choose heavy metal? Or are you going to join the police?’" Black market bootlegs, tours with Iron Maiden and rock'n'roll monks: The Hu's Enkush Batjargal on how he became a folk metal icon
- "People bringing my father into this saying, 'Oh, Ozzy would not approve. He's rolling over in his grave.' Shut the f**k up. You did not know my father." Jack Osbourne responds to backlash for attending Donald Trump's White House UFC Event
- "While Damon Albarn is mainly known as a charismatic Britpop darling, we’d argue that he's actually music's ultimate wingman." Gorillaz charm and delight Rock For People during a varied and entertaining headline set
- “I could walk out of here, go get a drink and within a week I could be dead. But I’m not interested in doing that”: how Trent Reznor pulled back from the abyss to make Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero
- "I’ve been whipped, stabbed and had to have surgery. Most recently, I got licked on the tongue by Alice Cooper's snake." Nita Strauss shares the battle scars that shaped her into a modern guitar hero
- “It isn’t my fault. The band was going nowhere. I haven’t spoken to him for years – there’s nothing new to say”: How Styx finally got happy and achieved closure with their past
- "I don't think there is any musician that I've worked with that has ever come close to that." How Jimi Hendrix recorded Purple Haze – on a guitar he'd never played before
- "They're not gonna get anybody heavier than me, are they?" In 1971 Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant was asked how he dealt with bootleggers
- "I loved the idea of playing noisy, heavy rock, but calling ourselves after something diametrically opposed to that." Nine Budgie albums you should listen to and one to avoid
- "He used to do stupid things that smashed the reputation of the band. That's all over now." The frosty relationship between Saxon's Biff Byford and former guitarist Graham Oliver has thawed after more than 30 years
- "It was just magical. You're part of a magical event where this incredible band is getting back together." Aimee Mann reacts to performing with Rush in Los Angeles
June 17
- "We're definitely going to be in Europe. We're definitely going to be in South America, and Australia, and the US." Faith No More bassist Bill Gould confirms that the band will return in 2027
- "NME said we were the best thing since the Sex Pistols. Sounds said we were the worst group they'd ever seen." Why William and Jim Reid feared that The Jesus And Mary Chain's classic debut album Psychocandy might never get released
- "Foreign Tongues had been rock's worst-kept secret for some time before album opener Rough And Twisted dropped in April to acclaim and relief. Media duly frenzied. Mission accomplished." The Rolling Stones roll on with album number 25
- Syd Barrett 80th birthday celebrations include tribute concert in Cambridge and tribute album featuring Pink Floyd, David Gilmour and more...
- 8 totally wildcard artists that we'd love to see play Download 2027
- “Steve Harris will tour and tour and tour and tour until he probably dies onstage”: Bruce Dickinson would rather Iron Maiden “do another album” than head back on the road right away
- “I just hope they cleaned the cabin after they got out of it”: Police investigating couple allegedly caught in ‘intimate act’ on Download festival Ferris wheel
- “It might seem odd for a death metal band to love him, but he gave us a sense of ourselves”: Joe Duplantier on the prog rock icon who became Gojira’s guiding light
- New charity launches in honour of former Big Big Train frontman David Longdon on what would have been his 61st birthday
- “If it wasn’t us, it would’ve just been someone else, because there are so many great female-fronted bands”: Linkin Park react to becoming first band with female singer to headline Download festival
- "A vibrant tribute to a band of brilliant misfits, whose unique blend of irony, rebellion, and razor-sharp social commentary helped define an era of British culture." New Pulp documentary What Do You Do For An Encore? to stream this autumn
- The 10 greatest final albums in heavy metal history
- "John orders 12 bottles of champagne. I thought he was going to treat everybody in the club, but he turned to me and said, 'Go on, drink it – that's yours.'" What happened when John Bonham was best man at Tony Iommi's wedding
- "I'd listen to Great Balls Of Fire on repeat for hours at a time." For Jim Jones, rock'n'roll is way more than just music, it's something other-worldly, something sacred
- “I didn't tell the band, but I went to the gig and sat at the back. It was strange to see this other guy singing my lines… I really felt for him”: Michael Sadler was always going to rejoin Saga, and they knew it
- Jimi Hendrix was here: An interactive London map
- "I thought it was the lamest song I ever wrote in my life. It took me six months before I worked up the nerve to show the guys." The story of the Van Halen classic written to mock punk and embraced by the punk rockers
- "It was construed as being about a sex worker." The story behind Blondie's misunderstood debut single, released on this day 50 years ago
June 16
- "We did seven encores. We ran out of material and were forced to play Jimi Hendrix tunes. Imagine that, opening for Cream and finishing with Hendrix tunes?" The story of the legendary James Gang
- "We're splitting up. We're washed up, finished." Why making In Rainbows almost destroyed Radiohead, with even their management suggesting they should break up
- "By the time you get to the end, it's like, Okay, that's a classic." Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan recalls the first time he heard Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit
- Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell records new songs with Metallica-endorsed NWOBHM veterans Sweet Savage, the band he co-founded in 1979
- The 10 bands who won Download festival 2026
- “2027”: Faith No More set social media abuzz as they release teaser image featuring live audience
- Pixie boots, dad dancing, mistaken identity and falling off stage: Everyone’s got to start somewhere, and prog metal giants Dream Theater started here
- "She might have been crowned Miss World Chile, but we could be seeing a future death metal queen." Chilean extreme metallers Decessus made a hell of a first impression at Download festival
- “Man, I hate those guys, but she’s awesome!” Sebastian Bach was apparently a fan of Lzzy Hale’s performances with Skid Row
- “If you'd have told the 15-year-old me, just discovering Genesis, that one day Steve would be a friend of mine, I’d have fallen over!" Steve Rothery and Steve Hackett announce their long-awaited collaborative album, The Roaring Waves
- “I got fed up with writing about crap monsters. What’s horrific about that? The real evil in this world goes on in society”: The stellar rise and tragic demise of Death, the band who pushed metal to new extremes
- “The manager said, ‘Ian Anderson and the boys don’t want you in the band so you’ve been fired.’ I replied, ‘How can you fire me when I quit three weeks ago?’” Mick Abrahams’ life after Jethro Tull
- "I have never had more people come up to me than at a Slipknot concert." Why Margot Robbie refuses to be embarrassed about being a lifelong metalhead
- "At the Troubadour club in LA, they made a grand entrance by rolling down the avenue in a tank." The wild story of Ann Boleyn and Hellion, the long-lost band loved by Ronnie James Dio
- "We got mad at a promoter and threw donuts at the wall backstage. Then we cleaned it up, because we felt guilty." The unlikely triumph of rock'n'roll's greatest nerds, the B-52s
- “The area was being evacuated. The police knocked our door and the letting agency told us to leave. We decided to stick it out”: Marillion’s Pete Trewavas on the storms, earthquakes and blizzard that birthed the third Edison’s Children album
- "I was transfixed. I thought it was someone else. I said: 'Is that us? That's us!'" The fractious story of the Kinks classic they're still arguing about
June 15
- "Drugs and alcohol and ego clashes got in the way, but we managed to keep them quiet": The unbelievable story of Chicago, the soft rock kings with steel in their hearts
- "She is aware of, and very grateful for, your good wishes." Bonnie Tyler awakes after month-long coma
- “I rode him so hard he threatened to take me apart piece by piece if I didn’t back off”: How an ex-punk band delivered one of the greatest albums of the 70s
- "It didn't matter we'd got a gold record - we still came off tour and had to go back to our day jobs." How Type O Negative created goth metal's greatest album: October Rust
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 15, 2026
- “Kraftwerk barricaded themselves in the dressing room. Our reviews were great and theirs weren’t, so we were asked to leave the tour”: Prog paradigm-changers Greenslade were warned two keyboardists and no guitarist would fail. They didn’t listen
- Marillion bassist Pete Trewavas unveils new Edison's Children album
- "I asked Ozzy if he was having vocal lessons back then, and he said, ‘No, just lots of alcohol and drugs.’" Zakk Wylde talks tributes, hot sauces and trying to turn Mark Wahlberg onto metal
- Dave Greenslade, founder of UK prog rockers Greenslade, has died, aged 83
- "If anyone was in any doubt over their standing as one of the best things in modern death metal, such concerns are blown away." Arizona extreme metal ragers Gatecreeper play one of Download 2026's most ferociously fun sets
- "I'm ashamed of the way I treated them. They didn't deserve that." Steve Albini had regrets about how he spoke about Pixies
- "Almost nobody seemed to realise it was him." Watch Rolling Stones legend Mick Jagger sing a 100-year-old folk song in an English pub
- Indian nu metallers Bloodywood just showed Download why they're officially one of the best live bands in modern metal
- "I remember looking at him and thinking: 'This guy's gonna die.'" Robben Ford's wild tales of Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Kiss, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison and more
- “He was like an alien. He could talk about anything. That’s when we said, ‘Let’s make him do lyrics!’”: Rush’s Neil Peart, an exploding golf ball and two career-changing conversations
- "Pure sonic velvet. Electric Warrior is the perfect mix of heavy crunch and acoustic swagger." T.Rex's collection of sun-dappled narco-rockers is more than the two hits
- Emily Armstrong just made history with Linkin Park at Download - and they made it one hell of a celebration
June 14
- All the songs Rush have never played live… yet
- “I’d only written one song before it. I expected it to be a big hit and it was. Then other things didn’t happen like that”: Admired by half the Beatles, Rick Wakeman and Pat Metheny, Rod Argent still didn’t have it all easy
- “I’d put the headphones on and listen to heavy metal, and then I'd want to break down the door to get out on the pitch and go kill someone”: Former England legend Terry Butcher is a huge Iron Maiden fan and the original heavy metal footballer
- Former Jethro Tull arranger and keyboardist Dee Palmer has died, aged 88
- Architects' chaotic Download set suggests that the festival's second biggest stage might need a rethink
- "This is a performance quite unlike anything this storied festival has ever seen." British-Iranian metallers Lowen produce one of the most powerful and unique sets of Download 2026
- We've waited over two decades for a Trivium Download set that could match their legendary 2005 show. We might have just got it
- Guns N' Roses' bloated Download headline set is a slog, but when they lock in, they still remind everyone why they're one of the greats
- "This is the experience Babymetal have wanted to give fans for a decade." Download's most cursed band finally bring the show we've all been waiting for
- "Dave was really nervous about talking to these guys": Why Dave Grohl ditched the Foo Fighters to make extreme metal supergroup Probot, featuring members of Venom, Sepultura, Motorhead and more
- Rush just played a classic song for the first time in 47 years in Los Angeles
- “The fans understood I was the price they had to pay to hear the band they loved, so they put up with me. It’s not like you’re joining the Sex Pistols”: Trevor Horn on fronting Yes – and how it later made 90125 possible
- “There was me and my girlfriend, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, and Quentin Crisp all going up the in elevator, just chatting about where to go to eat”: The cult US singer who connects Bruce Springsteen, Ian Hunter and the Sex Pistols
June 13
- Beartooth's Caleb Shomo was brought up in devout Christian faith that viewed being gay as "a sickness you can cure with prayer"
- “I suspect they’ve had a lesser impact on the music world due to the complexity of their music”: No-Man’s Tim Bowness on his prog hero, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson
- Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi named MBE in King's Birthday Honours
- “We did two days recording… he fired the whole band on the first day”: Tony Levin recalls the “really evil” bandleader who was more challenging than Peter Gabriel and Robert Fripp
- “Ozzy asked whether I had night-sight goggles. I didn’t. He told me you could pick up an ex-military pair for $10,000!”: Legendary songwriter Russ Ballard tried to write a song with Ozzy Osbourne – and failed
- Eric Burdon: the hellraiser who had it all and then lost it
- “If I’d started having hits early on, I may never have wound up playing so much with Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen”: Most people are lucky if they play with one iconic artist. Nils Lofgren has played with two
- "It seems pretty evident that he's going to be a major player very soon. We might have a star on our hands." Merging grime, metal and buckets of charisma, Native James showed Download he just might be the future of alternative music
- "With such sheer star quality, it feels like they're lining themselves up for headliner status." Flames, confetti, screams and Lady Gaga: Halestorm's Download set is a rock 'n' roll masterclass
- "Motorhead played as raucously and as fast as they could. They were head and shoulders above everybody.” Napalm Death vocalist Barney Greenway on Lemmy, free speech and lessons learned on the frontline of grindcore
- "This band's potential for absurdity, partying and fame appears uncapped." Electric Callboy show Download why they're the modern metal scene's ultimate party band
- “I reckon Ritchie Blackmore might have thought we’d made a mistake having them open for Rainbow, as we just couldn’t match them”: When AC/DC blew Rainbow off stage
- Bullets, bikers and burnout: the story of Jimi Hendrix's last gig
- Download might be the home of rock, but Pendulum and Cypress Hill just showed why the festival is wise to mix it up a little
- 23 years after they pulled out of the first ever Download, Limp Bizkit finally headline the UK's biggest rock festival - and they absolutely smash it
June 12
- "If you want to believe we're a boyband, there's nothing I can say or do to make you change your mind." In early 2001, Linkin Park went stratospheric. Here's a snapshot of a band during blastoff
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "Celebrate this iconic album on the grandest scale possible." Billy Corgan adds additional shows to his orchestral Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness opera tour
- How the band David Bowie called “a psychotic Beatles” made the '80s weirdest and most influential alternative rock album
- Muse announce The Wow! Signal Europa Tour in support of their forthcoming tenth album
- Top new proggy sounds from Haken, Polyphia, A-Tota-So and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- "If one were to cut the crap from The Clash's final album, it could be released as a seven inch single, with no B-side." Ten forgettable punk albums with one killer song
- DC hardcore legends Scream announce UK and European tour dates
- "This album reflects everything we've experienced, the lessons we've learned, and the challenges we've overcome." The Warning announce new album Everything’s Falling, release Ritual single
- "My mom skipped my show to go see Korn." Olivia Rodrigo tells Jimmy Kimmel that her mother had her priorities in order when attending last year's Lollapalooza in Chicago
- Jethro Tull announce newly expanded and remixed reissue of their 1999 album J-Tull Dot Com
- "I met God when I was high on opioids! It was a spectacular moment of realisation." Garbage's Shirley Manson on love, grief, and that beachball incident
- “We’d arranged to do an album of new material together. He called me… ‘I’ve got cancer; do you mind if we put things on hold?’ Sadly it never happened”: Rick Wakeman’s tribute to Jon Lord
- "God knows what I'm on about on that song. It's such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go." The story of the controversial Rolling Stones classic they won't play live any more
- “Five minutes is a great length for a song. You can really get a lot in, while leaving people wondering. But then, when you’ve got a 13-minute song…” Prog icons Yes keep things tight on new album Aurora
- "It's this melodic, wonderful thing, with two guitars interweaving in a way that's not just shredding." The Black Keys' Patrick Carney picks the songs that have soundtracked his life
- Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! Someone's made a multi-cam video of Rush's first full performance of 2112 in nearly 30 years
June 11
- Techno vikings, Ozzy tributes and post-apocalyptic landscapes: Mystic Festival's final year at Gdansk Shipyard is another triumph
- "It's an exploration of the dark underbelly of the American dream." The story behind the Eagles "spooky" classic Hotel California
- How to watch Alanis Morissette perform at the men's 2026 FIFA World Cup opening ceremony in Toronto... from anywhere
- 15 Father’s Day gift ideas for your music-loving, pop culture-obsessed dad: From classic vinyl and band t-shirts, to World Cup Lego, iconic Converse & more
- "I traumatised the Celebrity Traitors." Banshee wails, fashion shows and disabled rights: Mallavora are fighting for a healthier music world
- "My sister gave me Powerslave and it genuinely changed my life. My mom legitimately thought Iron Maiden were channelling Satan!" The Bronx and Mariachi El Bronx vocalist Matt Caughthran picks the soundtrack to his life
- "We’re timeless superheroes, Batman with a guitar and Superman with a Marshall amplifier." Paul Stanley on the "timeless" appeal of Kiss, and why Alive! made them superstars
- “We exhausted ourselves trying to help Scott and be a friend. He wanted no part of that.” The story behind Stone Temple Pilots’ ill-fated sixth album, as told by the band themselves
- "He moved mountains. He changed the language." A tribute to Brian Wilson: June 20, 1942 - June 11, 2025
- "You don't get to the top without playing the game, and Des Rocs is playing it to gold medal-winning standards." Ambition and big-time dreams shine through on Des Roc's To Hell And Back
- Def Leppard's Greatest Hits: Built with Queen's Greatest Hits in mind?
- "As soon as we heard it, we looked at each other and gasped, 'This is gonna be a monster.'" How an out-of-body experience helped Alice Cooper create a song about the greatest three minutes of everyone's life
- "People used to say to me, 'Oh, you're better than Eric Clapton.' I didn’t know where to put myself." The triumph and tragedy of Peter Green, the man who founded Fleetwood Mac
- "Some of us were getting sober and cleaning up, others were not. It's a recipe for disaster": The chaotic story of Jane's Addiction's Ritual De Lo Habitual, the debauched masterpiece that changed music
- “I had this massive revelation – I knew what I’d do for the rest of my life. I didn’t doubt it was gonna happen”: The prog band who made A-ha’s Morten Harket into a musician
- "An album that in the late 60s was the gold standard for broad-based and improvisational rock." Cream's classic studio/live double album Wheels Of Fire has been pumped full of hot air
- "Aurora is an album that sounds as if it's relying on muscle memory rather than on real inspiration." Yes fail to gel as Yes can on cautious album Aurora
June 10
- "If you're searching for the missing link between Hayley Williams, Billie Eilish, and The Runaways, look no further." Spanish 'queer rock' star Tere! serves up rage, rapture and revenge on killer debut album No More Manners
- “Of any song that I've ever written, it's most blatantly about my time in Nirvana.” The story behind the Foo Fighters song Dave Grohl wrote about his Nirvana bandmates while crashing on Kurt Cobain's couch
- “My stroke was caused by stress." Tarja Turunen on Nightwish, buried hatchets and fighting back to good health
- From Metallica surprise shows to Slipknot triumphs, these are the 13 greatest Download festival sets ever
- 10 brilliant bands that broke up far too soon
- "Getting off the bus, you could be attacked by a gang of skinheads, bikers or straights. It was hairy." Riots, teargas and slamdancing – The 80s scene that helped inspire Metallica, Slayer, Napalm Death and beyond
- “I go onstage ready to fight”: What Dragonforce’s Alissa White-Gluz has learned during her time on metal’s frontlines
- "My wife says she's leaving the country if Nigel Farage gets in, and I don't blame her." Horrified by the state of the planet, Queen's Roger Taylor is pulling no punches on new solo album Violence Insane In A Beautiful World
- The memory remains! Rare UK TV footage of Metallica playing Reload hit officially unearthed after almost 30 years
- "I have to get people to slap me across the face in case it’s all just been a dream." For the first nine years of their career, No Doubt were seen as a joke. But when they released Tragic Kingdom, no-one was laughing at them anymore
- "If you watch the video, you can see Jimmy dribbling onstage, Robert not hitting the notes, and me miming, playing the air." Phil Collins' memories of Led Zeppelin's "dark, sulphurous" Live Aid reunion are brutal, and spare no-one
- “The kid lost his mind: ‘You’re the guy from Guitar Hero! Do you play real guitar too?’”: How a 2000s videogame phenomenon made Slash famous all over again
- “How many times have I listened to this song? How many times have I blubbed with joy?”: Before Cardiacs’ Mike Vennart was in Cardiacs, he loved Cardiacs – who he discovered by accident
- The Karma Effect: big ideas, big ambition, big shows and the road to big success
- "Few bands have taken such risks, survived such fractures or left such a deep mark on heavy music." Nine Sepultura albums to listen to and one to avoid
- Rush mix it up on night two of the Fifty Something tour - and play the whole of 2112
- He hung out with Hendrix, got shock treatment with Ronnie Wood, shared girlfriends with Keith Moon, and was friends and rivals with Clapton and Page: Jeff Beck’s wild times
- "We were increasingly attracted to the beats, yet the Allman Brothers remain some of our biggest heroes." How ZZ Top mixed Depeche Mode and southern rock to deliver one of the biggest songs of 1983
June 9
- Jack White confirms "raucous, raw, and frenetic" new album Frozen Charlotte, releases Dollar Bill single
- “I’m happy we’ve had hits. But I do wish the record label had put out some of our challenging songs as singles”: Some only know them as ‘That Africa band,’ but how prog are Toto?
- “We all looked at each other and said, 'We gotta get out of here!’”: the story of the night a synth-pop sensation caused an LA riot featuring 200 police officers, helicopters, barricades, smashed windows and a queue that stretched on for 15 blocks
- "This record focuses on my grievances with the modern world, AI, genocide, climate change, the power elite, $$$$ hoarding pigs." Chat Pile announce third album Who Loves The Sun
- "You can’t save everything you love." Soundgarden's Kim Thayil on the loss of his friend and bandmate Chris Cornell
- “I heard Lars Ulrich jumped out of a helicopter as it was landing and disappeared”: What happened the night Metallica’s drummer went missing – and Slipknot and Slayer saved the day
- "We were young men, living hard and out of control, and we lost our heart and soul." The story behind the John Frusciante song which saved the Red Hot Chili Peppers in their darkest hour
- "The horror-obsessed metalcore mob stand out like a sore thumb." Bloody cadavers, dancing deadites and some of the catchiest tunes you'll hear all summer: Ice Nine Kills triumph in their first audition for future festival headliners
- “Screens and fake news and artificial intelligence… we don’t need that in the way of our connections”: How Sepultura made their technophobic final statement, The Cloud Of Unknowing
- King Crimson announce listening sessions in conjunction with London's Polygon Portal
- "It's gotta have some kind of sexuality and alcohol abuse and some kind of looseness to it": The story of Queens Of The Stone Age's signature tune, a still-mysterious banger powered by Dave Grohl and a truly whacked-out video
- “I was in my boxers and my mother caught me in this heightened creative moment. It was pretty embarrassing”: Inspired by Tool, Led Zeppelin and classic sci-fi, Coheed And Cambria turned a tumultuous break-up into Welcome Home
- “Between girls, drugs and an entourage he’d bring everywhere, Pete was out of his mind more than at any other point”: How I Don’t Wanna Be Me gave gothic metal icons Type O Negative their last big anthem, but spelled the start of the end
- “We did 57 festivals. They assumed I trashed my guitar at every one, and at every other gig. But Pete Townshend would have the edge over me”: Did Muse’s Matt Bellamy really earn his Guinness world record?
- “You don’t know my husband, OK? I know my husband”: Sharon and Jack Osbourne defend AI Ozzy avatar amidst “cash grab” allegations
- “It was strange to have all these boys adoring me, gazing at me almost in worship. It wasn’t me trying to be sexy – but just being myself”: Sonja Kristina’s highs and lows with prog groundbreakers Curved Air
- "He thought that the band should be a democracy, and it was more like a brutal dictatorship": The tangled story of Dire Straits, the million-selling band who quit at the height of their fame
- "This old lady really freaked out and said: 'Turn the backing track down!'" How Jimi Hendrix recorded the song that established his otherworldly abilities
- "A lot of modern rock has lost the fun factor – like, whatever happened to grandiosity?" Meet Brass Camel, your new favourite chaotic Canadian prog-funk melting pot rockers
- "Everyone has the right to be furious right now. And if that comes out in your music, I celebrate that." Why Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi are dancing and playing through the fury
- The fumble and the fill: Two moments of genius from Anika Nilles' emotional first show with Rush
June 8
- "I told our producer, If Slash calls back, tell him I'm not there." Why Detroit rappers Insane Clown Posse blew off superfan Slash after getting him to play on their break-through album
- “I tried it for a while, and I was like, ‘This is boring! This is exhausting!’”: OG black metal mask-wearer Mortiis never wanted to be anonymous like Ghost and Sleep Token
- “This is a redefining evolution of rhythm games”: Songs by Ghost, Babymetal, Red Hot Chili Peppers and more to appear in new title from company behind Guitar Hero
- "I'm releasing this music into a very strange and dark and power-fixated world that really devalues art and feelings and compassion and empathy and equality." Beastie Boys legend Mike D announces debut solo album Thank You
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 8, 2026
- “We miss him and we love him, also”: Watch Mastodon give new single Your Ghost Again its live debut and dedicate it to late guitarist Brent Hinds
- "Anthony Kiedis and Flea showed up wearing dildos." The night Jane's Addiction played a freaky private Halloween party for a debauched Hollywood legend
- “Another band said they were going to shave all our hair off and beat us up”: Bring Me The Horizon cancelled a 2006 festival appearance for fear of being attacked
- "It must be hard for him when people write, 'How could you leave Gwen, she’s so great'." Gwen Stefani wrote a whole album about her bandmate dumping her, and it made No Doubt huge
- "Some of my first TV interviews were explaining that the band was more to do with the heart than burning down a church." The rise, fall and demise of HIM - Finland's goth metal princes
- "I could feel his heart through his chest and he passed away right there." Childhood tragedy, unlikely success and emotional reunions: Max Cavalera on how he reshaped metal with Sepultura and Soulfly
- "It was a beautiful scar on the metal world." How Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, Korn and the rest took nu metal from hated subgenre to the biggest thing on Planet Earth
- “Fans say, ‘You were part of the band.’ I was never part of the band… I was an employee. And all things come to an end”: Chester Thompson’s career in and out of Genesis
- Watch 90 minutes of previously unreleased, high-quality, pro-shot footage from Marillion's Clutching At Straws tour
- "We think we played for eight hours. I can't say for sure, because everyone was tripping." The acid-fried story of Man, the Welsh jam band with its heart in San Francisco
- We have liftoff! Watch Rush return to the stage in Los Angeles - includes full setlist
- “He asked, ‘Will you guys ever tour again?’ We said, ‘We’re going out in 2026.’ The crowd laughed – then realised we weren’t kidding”: How Rush transformed from political pariahs to comeback kings
- "Avalon sits easily alongside ABC's Lexicon Of Love or Duran Duran's Rio." The album that consolidated Roxy Music's shift from weirdo art-rockers to gossamer smooth purveyors of sultry adult pop
June 7
- "I've got some ideas." Glen Matlock open to writing new Sex Pistols material with Frank Carter
- “We said we’d only do it if it only came out in Japan. Then when we listened back, we thought, ‘Hang on, we’ve got something here’”: In 1972, Deep Purple were falling apart. And then they made the album that accidentally changed rock music
- “Certain people I knew from the scene wouldn’t speak to me after I got a hit. But it’s all music… I just had a great time”: Brian Auger warned Jimi Hendrix off drugs and learned what prog was from Keith Emerson
- “The guitar tone ripped my face off!” When Machine Head's Robb Flynn met Meshuggah
- “They said a four-minute single containing lyrics about Jesus would never get played on pop radio”: The US singer loved by John Lennon and hated by right-wing Christian groups who wrote the last great hippie anthem – and then vanished into obscurity
- “It was the first time I smoked pot and saw a naked girl. The next day I bought a guitar and swore to do this for a living”: How cult AOR hotshot Paul Laine made the greatest Bon Jovi album Bon Jovi never made
- “A few others were singing about the underside of life, but we had the heaviness to hammer the subjects home.” The inside story of Black Sabbath’s stoned masterpiece Master Of Reality
- “I was still sending him music. He was saying, ‘That sounds great, but you should use it for your solo album.’ I thought, ‘OK, I’m getting the message’”: Richard Barbieri on the much-needed Porcupine Tree hiatus
- "The tours were getting longer and crazier, and the expectations around us were astronomical." How Powerslave cemented Iron Maiden as the biggest metal band on the planet in 1984
June 6
- “Are you trying to get us killed?” The explosive story behind System Of A Down’s Toxicity album
- "I don’t think I have to forgive them. They replaced me when I was sick and said I ruined the band": Styx fired Dennis DeYoung in 1999, but he still wants a reunion for the fans
- “Bowie’s a hell of a fast guy. I had to be quicker than him. The band and David would leave the studio to go to sleep, but not me”: How David Bowie came back from the abyss and made four albums in one year that changed music forever
- “Derek Shulman took me to a Bon Jovi show. The whole audience was freaking out, and Derek said to me: ‘Are you ready for this? It’s going to happen to you.’ And I fully believed in it.”: The unlikely rebirth of Dan Reed Network, funk rock’s nearly men
- “They had become genuine rock stars, with all the excess and trappings that go with it”: Why Korn’s most divisive album is way better than everybody thinks
- “I lost my virginity to a member of Legs & Co…” From the Bar-L to the Barrowlands, a day out with the Skids
- “I’m not a Satanist, I’m an atheist, but I write the best Satanic lyrics on the planet” How Slayer went from thrash provocateurs to metal’s unlikeliest elder statesmen
- “I loved what Hendrix did with it. Jimi took the song one step further with this really amazing, sweaty strum”: How The Troggs and Hendrix turned a flop ’60s single into one of the most famous songs in history
June 5
- “The word goth is stupid. I hate that word”: Evanescence’s Amy Lee has strong feelings about being called ‘goth’ – and they’re not positive
- The 25 best goth metal albums
- Linkin Park tease details of a new Unshatter movie inside European tour t-shirts
- "Football unites us." Blur's Alex James to host Britpop party nights in London's Trafalgar Square ahead of England's World Cup group stage games
- “They were defensive about keyboards. Everything I played, they had to have a band meeting about. Then they suddenly wanted wall-to-wall keys. It was quite silly”: Deep Purple’s Don Airey recalls the one album he regrets
- "In many ways that entire album feels like we were rebelling against ourselves." How Mastodon overcame moments of self-doubt and rebuilt themselves from the ground up on The Hunter
- "Freddie said, ‘Write me stuff, I know I don’t have very long. I will sing it. And then you do what you like with it afterwards." The tragedy and triumph of Queen’s final album and Freddie Mercury’s last goodbye
- Phoebe Bridgers announces UK and European dates for The Lost Tour, with every ticket sold benefitting organisations supporting those impacted by sexual assault and violence
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "People went, 'That's woke.' Well, go f*** yourself." Elvis Costello explains why he's rewritten the most controversial lyric in his provocative 1979 single Oliver's Army and is playing it live again
- "Steve Harris was a road sweeper when I met him." What it was like following metal icons Iron Maiden from their very first gig
- "We smoked so much weed that we set off the fire alarms and almost killed everybody with the gas that was going to be released." The story of Machine Head’s Burn My Eyes, the debut album that revitalised 90s metal
- "He glared out into the audience like he wanted to kill each and every one of us, one at a time." The story behind the gig which inspired the birth of Joy Division
- Cool new proggy sounds from Gentle Giant, Voyage 35, Mastodon and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- "Are you a guitarist too?" The day that rock legends Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Brian May and Jeff Beck met Queen Elizabeth II
- “Metal needs a good f**king kick up the ass”: the story of Metallica’s Load
- Goat announce 2027 UK tour including biggest-ever headline show at London's Royal Albert Hall
- "I was introverted and just wanted to hide in my bedroom." Laura Cox learned everything by copying others on YouTube - but now she's writing her own script
- “If I’d been sacked, or left over musical differences, I’d have felt a right flunker”: Genesis ex Anthony Phillips on why he really quit – and why he’s not their version of The Beatles’ Pete Best
- Watch the video for Deep Purple's frisky new single Diablo
- "This man said, ‘I’ve brought my wife for a night out and you’re the worst band I’ve seen in my life. You’re crap.’” How the Moody Blues finally came good with Days Of Future Passed
- Bob Dylan introduced him to The Beatles, he married the girlfriend of a Rolling Stone, and he played with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page and meditated with David Lynch. Donovan looks back...
- "I finished the melody in five minutes, but I was so jacked I couldn’t stop playing." The story of the Neil Young classic written on a piece of newspaper in the back of a car
June 4
- "I would rather cut my hands off than be that miserable again." Ginger Wildheart responds to CJ Wildheart's reunion olive branch
- "Everyone agreed it was the perfect song." The story behind the Bruce Springsteen classic that's set to go viral thanks to the new Netflix show that Stranger Things fans will love
- "I knew something was wrong. I went to the bar and my girlfriend was there with another guy." The dagger-through-the-heart memory which inspired the biggest rock song of its generation
- "They commenced to destroy, slaughter and wipe the stage with our blood." How a hip hop powerhouse and a heavy metal institution united to create a whole new genre - and spark one of the rowdiest tours in history
- "I and everybody else were old farts in her opinion." Roger Waters on the night Sinéad O'Connor sang her spellbinding version of Pink Floyd's Mother
- "I don't always feel good at confronting people, especially people that I love. Sometimes, it takes songs to get the point across." This is the story of the vitriolic single that saved Paramore from splitting up
- "She’d be talking about a song with a really good guitar solo and demand we change it, make it heavier." The trailblazing metal singer who saved an influential band's career and inspired a generation of women in the process
- "The people that turned up to my concerts were psychos. But I've never experienced anything like Kylie Minogue's audience. They were terrifying." Nick Cave on the joy of working with Kylie, and the horrified reaction of her "monstrous" fans
- Peter Hammill and Carl Palmer return to the Royal Albert Hall for the prog prom - Prog Rock: A Fanfare for the Common Man
- "A 42-piece orchestra, mellotron, and a string thing all playing this half-Turkish scale." The story of Ritchie Blackmore's most epic Rainbow song
- "I sent him an honest and open message." After three years of silence, CJ Wildheart is building bridges with Ginger Wildheart
- "Drinking too much, too many drugs... and then a car accident!": Watch the trailer for the new Peter Frampton documentary, featuring Ringo Starr, Alice Cooper, Nancy Wilson and more
- Hold up your phone, hang on to your tissues, we're going in: The 40 greatest power ballads of all time
June 3
- "A kick in the arse and a smack in the face, this album does what politicians don't - tell the truth." Irish punk Meryl Streek announces new album Stories They Don’t Teach You At School, shares single Rotten Fruit featuring Steve Ignorant from Crass
- "I have this memory of killing myself, blasting my head off, and then throwing the guitar at the amp over and over." The story behind the most intense song on the most ambitious rock album of the '90s
- “We wanted this record to sound like it was from outer space.” How LA’s freakiest band Jane's Addiction kickstarted a rock revolution with the game-changing Nothing's Shocking
- “I laid that song down in four takes, but I was hammered when I recorded it”: How a deteriorating DevilDriver made immortal New Wave Of American Heavy Metal hit Clouds Over California
- “They expect you to fly about like a lunatic because they’re paying what they think is good money. What they get is heart and soul, and total dedication”: Why Kate Bush, David Sylvian, Tim Buckley and John Martyn all loved Danny Thompson
- Voyage 35 share new reworking of Porcupine Tree classic Even Less
- “I was enthralled by the way they swapped instruments, and also the music they played. I was hooked”: The British thrash metal icon who adores prog eccentrics Gentle Giant (and he’s not the only one)
- "We were just tired, so we were like, 'Let's go live together in a cabin and take psychedelics', because that'll help." How The Beatles inspired one of emo's breakout bands to completely reinvent themselves
- 10 amazing covers by massive metal bands that you’ve (probably) never heard
- “I’m out here owning my weird because of Alice Cooper. He gave me the permission”: Halestorm’s Lzzy Hale reveals the 10 albums that shaped her career
- Two kids made their own Metallica video in 1989 and thinking about it, we're grateful we didn't have a camcorder then
- "You have to go and live in London for seven years. You'll be rejected 99 times out of a hundred." Watch Robert Fripp give a hopeful young musician some unflinching truth in 1985
- 10 bands who peaked with the first song on their first album
- "It reminds me of monkeys wanking in full view of the people standing around their enclosure." Chrissie Hynde slams fans who film concerts on their phones
- "I don't know what you have to be so proud of right now!" Chris Robinson scolds crowd after "U.S.A.! U.S.A!" chant breaks out at Black Crowes concert
June 2
- "Together, we expand and defend The Realm!" Fantasy-themed rising stars Castle Rat announce biggest headline tour to date
- “Expect their already-soaring career to rocket even further after this”: Rising space rockers Slift aren’t just one of the scene’s best live bands – they’ve also made an immediate, dizzying master-stroke with new album Fantasia
- Bulgarian president touts Iron Maiden as “remarkably down-to-earth people” after meeting metal veterans at Sofia stadium show
- "We were pushing ourselves musically and creatively in every direction..." Gentle Giant announce remixed and remastered reissue of In A Glass House
- “It was like a crazy film about what happens to serious musicians if they take a step to the left”: Fame and fortune called when prog stalwarts Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin released a pop cover. Did they sell out?
- “I was struck by the way he told the audience he wanted to die”: Al Stewart on a suicidal comedian, ignoring Robert Fripp, and the resulting hit single
- Watch Metallica tear through Creeping Death and King Nothing during first concert of 2026 in Athens, Greece
- "People heard it and found it deeply offensive because they didn’t have the brain capacity to realise what it’s about." The story behind Ghost's most famous song - and what it really means
- 10 terrible metal albums with one classic song
- “My portion of the song is all about Brent, and for Brent”: Mastodon return with trippy single Your Ghost Again, a tribute to late founding guitarist Brent Hinds
- "Pat's Dogs! The cook is never tired! Pat's Dogs! The steam is always fired!" Celebrating that time Cinderella filmed a chili dog commercial before they were famous
- "It's the silliest, most oddball song in our entire catalogue, but it truly hit a nerve." How Toto used a synthesised flute riff and a drum loop to concoct a classic and a cultural phenomenon
June 1
- Roman legionaries! Lederhosen-clad dancers! Axl interviewed! Mythical Guns N' Roses documentary Perfect Crime leaked online
- "He thinks he's so tough, but afraid of a girl? Let's see." After 14 years of protest, Pussy Riot announce debut album, launch single with Avenged Sevenfold and challenge Vladimir Putin to a cage fight
- "When I see him in my dreams, he hasn't changed a bit. He is still my best friend." How Dave Grohl channelled his heartbreak over a devastating personal loss into one of Foo Fighters' most raw, emotional songs
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: June 1, 2026
- Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love spent New Year's Eve 1992 trying to save the life of an unconscious rock star who was turning blue on their hotel room floor
- "The day we played, there were bears seen right across the river from the festival." Inside the fascinating new documentary that lifts the lid on enigmatic Nordic folk leaders Wardruna
- “My wife is gonna die of it one day. They don’t know when. What do we want to do with our time here? Who do we want to throw out of our lives?”: Norwegian proggers Green Carnation’s second Dark Poem explores loved ones in crisis
- "We leaned into it when we realised it p***ed people off, because I was a little s***head." Black Veil Brides frontman Andi Biersack on being hated by metal fans, getting beaten up as Batman and chasing his dreams
- “It’s a veritable smorgasbord of musicality for the curious and a buffet of favourites for the fans.” Career-spanning Frank Zappa collection to be released on vinyl for the very first time
- New Evanescence album Sanctuary is the most vital thing Amy Lee has made in decades - and it's arrived at the perfect time
- "She was looking at her pill bottles. I knew she was going to die so I was like, 'Put it down. Live right now.'" Mastodon’s Bill Kelliher wrote songs for Emperor Of Sand at his mum’s deathbed
- "We often felt like the strange duck on the festival bill because there was a woman in the band." How two modern metal icons united for a collaboration over a decade in the making
- "I walked through it all and felt like spitting on the lot of them". How Pete Townshend's disgust with the hippies inspired The Who's most epic song
- "Half brooding romantic, half back-of-the-class smart-ass." Type O Negative do both doom and gloom on October Rust
- The nation rejoices as a corpse-painted Robert Fripp sings in the latest edition of Robert and Toyah's Sunday Lunch
- “People no longer wanted to see a band all dressed up with a big show. They wanted four blokes onstage with one light bulb”: When eccentric proggers Gryphon acquired Sex Pistols connections, they knew their time was up
- Billy Gibbons and Keith Urban join forces on fuzz-friendly new single Brown Paper Bag