Latest articles by Rob Hughes
How Humble Pie made the ultimate whiplash boogie white boy blues
With its monolithic riff and yelping lead vocal, the live version of Stone Cold Fever typifies Humble Pie, one of the best live blues-rock bands of their era
73,000 sales before lunch: The incredible story of Mungo Jerry's In The Summertime
How a song that wasn't considered to have potential as a single soundtracked the summer of 1970
Brinsley Schwarz: Shouting At The Moon and the state of the world
A key figure in 70s pub rock is back with more songs "about politics or idiots with fingers on buttons"
How The Byrds, aided by a pair of South African legends, slammed manufactured pop music in song
A light-hearted pop at the superficial workings of the pop industry in the 60s, it remains a minor classic. And if you saw the band live in Bournemouth in 1965, you might actually be on it!
The blues-rock epic that turned Ten Years After into US superstars – with a little help from a legendary Woodstock set
Ten Years After’s I’m Going Home was 11 minutes of blues-rock euphoria
The story of the social justice anthem inspired by a police raid on a Stonehenge beanfield
Fired by social injustice, The Battle Of The Beanfield remains an enduring classic and more relevant than ever
The story of the mongrel mix that sold a million and became the original rock’n’roll anthem
Sell a million, get a free Cadillac
How a 1929 silent movie inspired the surreal alt. rock anthem that helped launch a musical revolution
The making of the alt.rock classic that inspired Kurt Cobain and took 10 minutes to write
The story of the Orange Crush, R.E.M.'s anti-war commentary disguised as a four-minute pop song
R.E.M. countered accusations of selling out to a major by using their commercial clout to promote their political activism
“He wrote, ‘Eat more shit – 100,000 flies can’t be wrong”: German prog icon ignored haters to scale the charts
Accused of being a European “knob-turner,” he faced the music establishment’s rejection attitude with a lesson learned from Salvador Dali, and defied expectations by scaling the charts
Radiohead, Primal Scream influencers found new singer on the street, after the last one went mad on stage
The late Holger Czukay discusses the importance of Can's groundbreaking second album Tago Mago
Born in a dream, the solos in Sweet Home Alabama were out of key, but superstition kept them in
Lynyrd Skynyrd's down-home anthem was a retort to Neil Young's Southern Man, but decades on it's soundtracked everything from KFC to video games
“Somebody threw a toilet roll at Peter Gabriel. He threw it back and it landed just below me. I had that bog roll on my windowsill for years!” Marc Riley’s prog world
Turned on by Genesis, Beefheart, Zappa and Can, the former member of The Fall and The Creepers continues to smuggle prog into his radio shows
Fifty years in, Cheap Trick might not be friends, but musical glue binds them together
Cheap Trick's Robin Zander on Anglophilia, AC/DC, and the song no one else wanted on the album
How a 40-year-old Glaswegian out-weirded David Bowie to become the most unlikely pop star of 1973
The story of an ironically titled epic that acted as a condensed history of rock'n'roll
The debauched story of the Faces, the ultimate party band who gave the world Rod Stewart
They were the greatest party band of the 70s
Out of step with Britpop, one of the Levellers' biggest hits was inspired by Led Zeppelin
During the post-grunge era, the Levellers were derided as obsolete crusties, but one of their biggest hits was influenced by classic 70s rock
The story of the Dinosaur Jr. classic recorded on the verge of implosion
Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow recall the tribulations of third album Bug and the classic Freak Scene
The 50 Best Rock Albums of 2025
Twelve months of life-enriching, extraordinary new music
In 1962 a band decided to play as badly as possible until someone noticed. It worked.
They blended prog, art-rock, visual theatre, Dadaism and music hall – and never pretended to do any of it well
The Norwegians who abandoned black metal and re-enacted the psychedelic rock era
They were always known for genre-hopping. But their exploration the Age of Aquarius’ disintegration via obscure tracks from the era was something else again
Devon Allman picks the soundtrack of his life
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Devon Allman picks his records, artists and gigs of lasting significance
The Byrds’ Roger McGuinn on Lennon, Dylan and the forgotten guitarist who was as good as Hendrix
Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, The Beatles – Roger McGuinn has crossed paths with the them all
“David Gilmour openly accused Roger Waters of copying me”: The folk artist who missed stardom but won respect
Acclaimed by Pink Floyd, Kate Bush, Led Zeppelin and Peter Gabriel, he recalls feeling insulted by the way his best-known album was treated, his short stint in a US prison, and his decision to stop writing long notes to fans on their record sleeves
