Features archive

June 2023

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163 articles

June 30
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear this week
- "The prospect of rockers descending on Earls Court is too awful to contemplate.” How angry locals, a Tory councillor and a jailed Scott Weiland killed Ozzfest UK '99
- Every Sigur Rós album ranked from worst to best
- Prog's Tracks Of The Week: new music from TF&TD, Susanna and more
- "It was like falling off a log" - how Pendragon took on the pandemic. And won!
- "I told my wife to bury me in the back seat of my ’78 Cadillac": Devildriver's Dez Fafara on nu metal, Coal Chamber and how he almost died from COVID
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring Blur, Fall Out Boy, Olivia Rodrigo and more
- Could you open the UK’s first School of Rock franchise, manage your own music business and inspire the next generation?
- Les Claypool on Pink Floyd, working with superstar offspring, and "one of the stupidest things I ever decided to do"
- "Success certainly beats obscurity. I have an incredible life, and I know it" - the epic journey of Bonnie Raitt
June 29
- “Led Zeppelin write weak, unimaginative songs”: 10 original reviews of classic albums that got it completely wrong
- The psychedelic tale of when Ministry's Al Jourgensen helped William Burroughs with an issue in his garden
- "It ended up being a Frankenstein creation": how Bob Odenkirk, sketch shows and songs about lady bits finally brought Maynard James Keenan's Puscifer to life
- A beginner’s guide to Dischord Records in five essential albums
- The 10 best rock songs in The Bear, season two
- 10 times nu metal got surprisingly emotional
- Lemmy's golden rules of songwriting, and the three songs he loved the most
- "A vision with the light shining through her dress" - the woman who inspired Free's All Right Now
- "Ultimately, they weren’t Rick Wakeman" - Clem Burke and Glen Matlock on the outsider appeal of the original punk bands
June 28
- “Led Zeppelin’s fee went from £500 to £20,000 in a year!” Collapsing stages and no toilets: The 1969 Bath Blues Festival that inspired Glastonbury
- ...To Be Loved: Why Papa Roach ditched nu metal and went glam to save their career
- Your essential guide to every The Pretty Reckless album
- Every single Avenged Sevenfold album ranked from worst to best
- 10 surprising Elton John covers by rock and metal bands
- "Like Starcastle fronted by Bruce Dickinson!" - how Metal Church man went prog with Presto Ballet
- The six best Extreme songs that aren’t More Than Words
- Six classic rock bands who "went grunge" and lived to tell the tale
- Ayron Jones: "Our generation doesn't have a guitar player - I want to be that guy"
June 27
- The 10 best performances of Glastonbury 2023
- Remembering the time a young Damon Albarn fired shots at Morrissey
- Every Alexisonfire album ranked from worst to best
- “He’s making different chords underneath all this music… and singing a middle harmony at the same time!” Joe Bonamassa’s love for Chris Squire
- 10 unexpectedly brilliant metal covers of 2010s pop songs
- 18 times a classic rock song was almost ruined by TV advertising
- How The Mars Volta's De-Loused In The Comatorium brilliantly rewired prog rock for a new generation of punk rock kids
- Billy Gibbons has an unfinished song he wrote with Jeff Beck called Chocolate Meatballs
- "I'm not hiding behind wizards, mountains, goblins and fire" - meet vintage rockers Sweat
- "The song virtually played itself" - the Steely Dan classic starring Jimmy Page’s favourite guitar solo
June 26
- Lovebites' Miyako: 10 songs that changed my life
- A beginner's guide to Touch and Go Records
- "It’s basically this story of rags to riches" - Behind the scenes at the Black Sabbath ballet
- Classic Rock tracks of the week: eight new songs you need to hear right now
June 25
- The 10 funniest rock and metal songs according to Tenacious D
- "If it had failed, we would have slid into ignominy": How Tommy was the last throw of the dice for The Who
- "I wrote it on a bit of paper on the train": How Led Zeppelin turned a repetitive riff into one of their most killer tracks
June 24
- "Sit down, Lars!" Beavis and Butt-Head reviewing Metallica in the 90s still makes for hilarious viewing
- A beginner’s guide to country rock in five essential albums
- How Tom DeLonge nearly broke up Blink-182… three times
- The golden rule that Jimmy Page was determined to break on Stairway To Heaven
June 23
- Prog's Tracks Of The Week: new music from Neal Morse, Haken and more
- A beginner’s guide to 4AD Records in five essential albums
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "I meet people and I can tell in two seconds whether they’re a rocker or not": Across 40 years playing music, here are 10 life lessons Dave Grohl has learned
- Six times huge bands have secretly performed under fake names
- "We'd spend all day farting about and end up with nothing usable": the aggravating story of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
June 22
- Black Sabbath almost junked Paranoid because they thought it sounded too much like Led Zeppelin
- Corey Taylor: "I want to be a mash-up of Bruce Springsteen and Ozzy Osbourne"
- "We had to die" - A history of The Grunge Wars, told by those who were there
- How The Damned made Darkadelic, their surprise contender for Album Of The Year
June 21
- A beginner’s guide to Southern Rock in 5 albums
- By the time you read this, King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard will probably have released another album
- Beastie Boys fan? Here's five new bands you need to hear
- The 10 Greatest Festival Bands Ever, as chosen by The Darkness' Dan Hawkins
- JAAW: "It has to be loud... everything has to be raging and full-on"
- Island Of Love: the Third Man signings hitting the sweet spot between spit and polish
- Steve Harley: The soundtrack of my life
June 20
- "If an arrow has been shot at me, I shoot it back..." The life and career of Ronnie James Dio, in his own words
- David Bowie didn't just write Mott The Hoople's biggest hit, he single-handedly saved their career
- Have your say on Avenged Sevenfold's new album Life Is But A Dream...
- Zeal & Ardor's Manuel Gagneux: "We offered to brand fans with an iron at shows...but then people actually did it"
- "For a while, it was the worst song on the album…" The story behind Rush's Tom Sawyer
- A beginner's guide to Roadrunner Records in five essential albums
- The Peter Frampton albums you should definitely own
- The trailblazing story of Sparks: "What we’re doing is making music that we can’t hear anywhere else"
June 19
- A beginner's guide to Sub Pop Records in five essential albums
- Why I ❤️ Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left, by Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt
- Classic Rock tracks of the week: eight new songs you need to hear right now
- "I wanted to be so out of line that when I fired myself the next day nobody would object": The night Grace Slick left Jefferson Starship
June 18
- 10 essential artists to see at BST Hyde Park this summer, from Bruce Springsteen to Blackpink
- “David was furious: 'I won’t have that kind of disloyalty!’" The real reason David Bowie ended Ziggy Stardust and sacked the Spiders From Mars
- “We were so loud. You could see blood coming out of people’s ears”: the true story of Attila, Billy Joel's pre-fame metal band, and 'the worst album ever made'
June 17
- “I thought: 'There’s got to be other people that are into this style of stuff. Not everybody has got a spiky haircut!’” Marillion and the making of Script For A Jester's Tear
- "We don’t cheese out with a bunch of noodling." Symphony X and Iconoclast
- A beginners' guide to UK 80s indie in five essential albums
- "I sounded like Clint Eastwood clutching a condom!" The story behind Judas Priest's Living After Midnight
- How a glass of spilt milk almost spelled the end of Aerosmith
- Bowie on film: the stories behind 10 classic David Bowie movies
June 16
- The 20 best new metal songs you need to hear right now (yes, including Dolly Parton)
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring The Hives, Osees, Dream Nails and more
- 11 brilliant albums that aren’t on Spotify
- Prog's Tracks Of The Week: new music from Voivod, Southern Empire and more
- A beginner's guide to progressive rock in five essential albums
June 15
- 10 alternative artists you need to watch at Glastonbury 2023
- Watch David Bowie's electrifying performance of Fashion at the 1996 Fashion Awards for a reminder of how he was truly far cooler than us all
- 20 bands whose second album is the best thing they ever did
- “We don't want people to know what we think”: Why Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures may be the most important record to emerge from the UK punk scene
- “He overdosed and was saved by an adrenalin shot”: How Urge Overkill went from being Steve Albini’s pet project to year-long parties and accidentally re-enacting that famous scene from Pulp Fiction
- The song Filter wrote to impress Trent Reznor that ended up angering thousands of Nirvana fans
- How Blur boldly reinvented themselves, and saved their souls, with 1997’s self-titled album
- Rodrigo y Gabriela and the long journey towards the transcendent bliss of nondualism
June 14
- A beginner's guide to US indie in five essential records
- Nina Simone, Bob Marley and powerviolence: why Zulu are the most vital hardcore band of 2023
- Watch Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan casually link NFL superstar/broadcaster O.J. Simpson to murder in this 'disarming' 1994 TV interview
- A beginner's guide to SST Records in five essential albums
- The 10 best metal songs about football to sing during the World Cup
- Crown Lands: the duo ushering prog’s illustrious past into a magisterial future
- Andy Summers on The Police: "We could have gone on and played for years"
- Watch Brian May enthuse about Star Fleet Project on kids' TV in 1983
June 13
- Melvins' Buzz Osbourne: My Life in 10 Songs
- Guns N' Roses needed weird British dessert names explaining to them when they visited the UK for the first time
- "The Nice and ELP are, for me, where things went too far. Very good musicians don’t interest me. Proficiency blocks you off from real adventure": John Foxx on prog, punk and the problems of being a pioneer
- The mind-boggling story of how former Thin Lizzy guitarist Brian Robertson ended up in Motorhead
- 10 classic metal songs that prove keyboards can be cool
- Every Pulp album ranked from worst to best
- Goo Goo Dolls: "As soon as any song comes out and becomes available to the public, that’s when I wave goodbye"
- Fleetwood Mac's Jeremy Spencer: the true story of the man who went missing
June 12
- "Sooner or later, I'm going to offend you": At 79, The Who's Roger Daltrey is still pulling no punches
- How Alice Cooper ended up singing on a forgotten Guns N’ Roses classic: “Axl called me at two in the morning!”
- The Hu: "There's no doubt we'll work with Babymetal again"
- Chris Holmes: "I don't know any other guitarist on this planet that plays the way I do"
- Classic Rock tracks of the week: eight new songs you need to hear right now
June 10
- Five new bands you need to hear if you love The Fall
June 9
- Prog's Tracks Of The Week: new music from King Gizzard, IO Earth and more
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring PJ Harvey, Dream Wife, Sprints and more
- How Midge Ure ended up playing guitar in Thin Lizzy
- Nirvana fan? Here are five new bands you need to hear
- How Tenacious D's satanic stoner comedy The Pick Of Destiny went from box office bomb to cult classic
- Lorna Shore's Will Ramos: "I'd love to collaborate with Sleep Token"
- Rock City Angels: the self-destructive story of Johnny Depp's old band
- Five brilliant but obscure NWOBHM albums that could have been huge in a parallel universe
- George Harrison's My Sweet Lord: the love song to a higher power that spurred a $1.6m lawsuit
June 8
- 12 cheap upgrades you can make to improve your vinyl setup
- Rob Halford: "I've never been afraid of death"
- Introducing Nashville glam rocker Gyasi: "People tell me I’ve made them feel less alone"
- Procol Harum: The epic story of A Whiter Shade Of Pale
- The story behind Metallica's 72 Seasons: "We love what we do, and we love each other"
June 7
- On what would have been Prince's 65th birthday, here's Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, David Gilmour, Chris Cornell and more covering his most iconic songs
- 10 hilarious metal covers of classic cartoon theme tunes
- A beginner’s guide to Krautrock in five essential albums
- How a psychotic reaction inspired The Groundhogs' revolutionary classic Split
June 6
- Five new bands you need to hear if you love Pulp
- A beginners guide to grindcore in five essential albums
- Adore might be The Smashing Pumpkins' best album, even if it was met with ridicule and - worse - apathy, 25 years ago
- Watch Fleetwood Mac's Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks shut down a sexist journalist in this 1977 interview
- A blow-by-blow analysis of Guns N' Roses' most epic video, November Rain
- "If they liked you, they’d smack you. And if they didn’t like you, you were dead!" Ian Hunter on hanging out with Bowie, working with Taylor Hawkins and playing for the London Mafia
June 5
- Amy Lee: "It took a long time to get respect for being a creator and not just the 'pretty face'"
- St Anger at 20: how Metallica's most maligned album saved their career
- Classic Rock tracks of the week: eight new songs you need to hear right now
June 3
- Vote for the best metal album of the 2000s
- Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick: the 40 minute song Ian Anderson wrote as a joke
- The Suzi Quatro albums you should definitely own
- Five new bands you need to hear if you love Joy Division
June 2
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Here are the best alt. rock songs you'll hear this week, featuring Noel Gallagher, Foo Fighters, Fever 333 and more
- Loving the new Avenged Sevenfold album? Here are the 10 records you need to listen to next
- Prog's Tracks Of The Week: new music from Soen, Spell, L.O.E. and more
- A beginners guide to 90s hardcore in five essential albums
- Here are Metallica's ten fastest songs, ranked by BPM
June 1
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- There Goes My Hero: The Gallows Pole writer Ben Myers on Joey Ramone, the ultimate punk
- Best record players for beginners 2026: spin your first discs with these great-value turntables
- A beginner’s guide to pub rock in five essential albums