Features archive

October 2025

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183 articles

October 31
- "I dug the record 'cause it was incorporating hip hop into rock. I was like, 'This is cool!'" How one rap legend joined the unlikeliest tour ever to help bring hip hop to the nu metal generation
- "These typical metalheads, long-haired with their jackets, they’re the ones standing there and singing Backstreet Boys and Cascada." Five minutes with Electric Callboy, the band "making metal accessible"
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "I've always hated it. I sound like a little kid!" From label interference to an acrimonious split, the story behind the classic Evanescence song that Amy Lee (eventually) learned to love
- Great new proggy sounds you must hear from Another Realm, Unprocessed, The Owl Service and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- When I was 14, I thought Limp Bizkit were the coolest band in the world. At 38, I often still do
- "It was my first time hearing heavy metal – and I was terrified of it." Here are 8 spooky metal classics you need on your Halloween playlist this year
- “Leonardo DiCaprio released a movie with the exact same storyline. It was as if he’d bugged the room! We scrapped the whole thing”: When fate intervened to destroy an art-rock record, its creators wrote an album about fate
- "I was in the hotel with Joni Mitchell, but then the helicopter pilots decided they wanted more money": The last interview with Terry Reid
- "John Lennon walked past me and said, 'Great record'": The story of the Alice Cooper song that began as a failed single on an album one critic called "a tragic waste of plastic" but finished as a worldwide smash hit
October 30
- “The pitch was: ‘Kid plays record backwards to unleash revengeful ghost rocker’”: How Ozzy Osbourne, Gene Simmons and Eddie Munson’s “long lost cousin” helped make the greatest Halloween-friendly heavy metal horror movie of the 80s
- What’s the greatest prog concept album of all time?
- "We thought, 'Maybe we've taken death metal as far as it can go.'" Bungled million-dollar deals, getting wasted with Zakk Wylde and a housewrecking music video: how former extreme metal musicians made one of nu metal's biggest anthems
- "We'd been going down well until that happened": How The Nice offended Leonard Bernstein and the US Embassy
- “Queen’s tech said, ‘The lads would love to see you.’ It was a set-up – when I got there they’d set up the studio for me”: Steve Howe’s favourite moments as a guitar for hire, and the one that got away
- "Probably the most unlikely rock star ever to grace the world's stages": Every Meat Loaf album ranked, from worst to best
October 29
- "It was about a feeling of being a terrible person and f***ing up everything." Rejected by MTV, lonely nights on the road and the start of a split: the story of Nightwish anthem Nemo
- "There's loads of Hives in South America": The Hives on making their Back In Black, royal waves, and how the official franchise programme is going
- “You can get to where you just want to keep your fanbase and make some money. We’re never going to compromise the art, and this is where it took us”: The former metalcore brats who astonished everyone with a prog concept album
- "While there's still a possibility of Thunder coming back, I will keep the door open": Luke Morley on his band, his other band, his solo career and wearing silver suits in the sun
- “What can we do to make people realise what a great soul we lost? We can turn that sad energy into this great album”: Tragedy lies behind most of Mastodon’s music. Hushed And Grim was no different
- "The lyrics weren't a celebration of excess or debauchery, but a detached description of what was going on": The story of Ian Dury's biggest hit, a song that was never actually a hit at all
October 28
- 2005 is calling, and it wants you back: Why the return of the MP3 player is a mini vinyl revival in the making
- "She was so ****ed off that she tried to get us chucked out of the hotel." The wild night Green Day trashed their hotel room, rang a Rolling Stone and did something unspeakable over an Oscar-winning actress' balcony
- "For months and months, I was the only one who ever heard the song. I kept it in my back pocket": The true story of the Aerosmith classic built from a riff its writer almost didn't share
October 27
- “We were being told that we were going to be the new Nine Inch Nails, the new Nirvana, even though we don’t sound remotely like them”: The story of Godflesh – the cult metal duo worshipped by Metallica, Korn and Type O Negative
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: October 27, 2025
- “I have a history of reacting badly to music initially and developing a love later!” The singer who didn’t want to sing, and the change of approach that gave his band a second lease of life
- “For the few brave souls who invested, it was no easy listen. It was the most extreme music the young rock epoch had yet produced”: This 1969 album was a prog leap too far – and it wasn’t even by a prog band
- "That song had a primal power, like it was about to come off the rails": The story of the speed-freak anthem that was the most important song Lemmy ever wrote
October 26
- "Even though he's dead, I believe that in a hundred years' time from now people will still be listening to him": Steve Vai on the wild genius of Frank Zappa – and the two words that made him want to join his band
- “There’s no other band that drew me in like them. It was the mood and atmosphere – and the aggression”: Alter Bridge’s Mark Tremonti on the visionary extreme metal band who changed his life as a teenager – and got him fanboying out as an adult
- “There were three hundred people there, and two hundred of those sang along to it, even though they’d never heard it before”: How a pre-fame Whitesnake made an overlooked R&B song their own – and finally got the blessing of the cult soul icon who wrote it
- “When the band played, we sold out to 14,000 people a night. If I play, I’m not sure 14 people will turn up”: He's fought off a crisis of confidence, but the frontman of one of prog’s greatest groups still doesn’t know who he is
October 25
- “It was an additional, surprise, out-of-nowhere track and it went to No.1”: Ghost’s Tobias Forge on the Ozzy Osbourne-inspired anthem that turned his band from occult sensations into bona fide stars
- “Completely spontaneously, I started yodelling. It came from nowhere”: How an eccentric Dutch progressive rock group made the strangest hit single of 1973
- “She had scratches on the side of her face. I said, ‘What happened?’ She said, ‘Oh nothing, Keith threw the cat at me’”: Bill Wyman on Jimi Hendrix’s brilliance, Keith Moon’s madness and Mick Jagger’s brutal reaction to him leaving the Rolling Stones
- “My wife brought the phone out and thought it was a prank call from Maynard from Tool! Nope – it was actually Lars!”: This is what it’s like to audition for Metallica – and not get the job
October 24
- “I feel like I got jerked at the Grammys. I don’t understand how they get best new artist." From 50 Cent invading the stage to Eminem still grumbling about it years later, the story behind Evanescence's chaotic first big awards win
- “I had no idea it would be such a catastrophic event in people’s lives!" How leaving Iron Maiden, A Nightmare On Elm Street and the acoustic album that never was led Bruce Dickinson to write Tears Of The Dragon
- Cool new proggy sounds you must hear from Charlotte Wessels, Leprous, Hällas and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- "I was in a cosy thing that went on too long... and I made a great escape": Robert Plant on musical freedom, unfinished business, and getting confused with Robert Palmer
October 23
- “We thought, ‘Wow, that’s really cool – this was the guy that did all those crazy, terrible things’”: How Slayer made Angel Of Death – the fastest, freakiest and most controversial song in thrash metal history
- "He just couldn’t do it. He had asthma, then he got a throat infection. The whole thing was downhill for him." The bizarre story of how two beloved extreme metal bands suddenly swapped singers...only to swap them straight back again
- “There was a real sense of excitement. We had a point to prove: this is the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world." How Iron Maiden went from East End outcasts to the world's most loved heavy metal band
- "It certainly rubbed some people up the wrong way": The story of the sexually ambiguous anthem that got Placebo a tour with David Bowie
October 22
- The story of the terrible 90s horror film with the trailblazing soundtrack that mixed Metallica and Korn with Orbital, Moby and The Prodigy
- "Part supernatural, part primal, part aggressive adolescent, he’s a super anti-hero." How Iron Maiden's Eddie went from a blood-spewing mask on a drumkit to metal's most iconic mascot
- “I was just getting my sound when David shouted: ‘OK, done!’ I was like: ‘But I haven’t actually started yet!’”: The future Motörhead guitarist who recorded a last-minute guitar solo for David Bowie
- "Hearing them was like hearing Bowie for the first time…" The 10 best songs by AFI, as chosen by Creeper's Will Gould
- “Some of the police were dealing dope! They’re knocking at the door and we stop rolling joints, but the promoter says, ‘They have marijuana for us!’” When America fell in love with an eccentric British prog band
- "Getting a pair of nunchucks. That was such a part of my childhood": After 10 years, American sleaze merchants Zig Zags still want to steal your motorbike
- “It’s a toxic environment. Somebody is going to tell us what we’re not doing right”: American prog metal giants blasted back at being trolled for sounding like themselves
- "I'd argue that it was the single most important thing that happened in the history of MTV": The story of the song that found 21 missing children
October 21
- System Of A Down, Korn, Deftones, Slayer, Evanescence and more to play insanely stacked Sick New World 2026 events in Las Vegas and Texas
- Best MP3 players 2026: Regain control of your music library with these high-powered portable players
- "I get a message from my sister: 'Hey, I’m getting chased down the street by the riot patrol. They have the K9 unit.'" From getting the police called on their rabid crowds to becoming Australia's best live band, the incredible rise of Parkway Drive
- With roots in the Peruvian jungle and influenced by an apocalyptic screenplay, Neil Young's most mysterious song became one of his most enduring
- "Are they gonna think I'm Beelzebub taking their precious baby away, breaking their hearts and defiling him?": What happened when Greta Van Fleet's guitarist got himself a new band
- "For a song about facing death it's remarkably joyous": Former world snooker champion and modular synth player Steve Davis picks 10 favourite experimental music songs
- “Gloriously original, its power to intrigue, disturb and seduce remains undiminished three decades on”: This 1995 album contains hip hop, dub, soul, industrial and ambient music. And it’s very, very prog
October 20
- "While we were playing, a vehicle drove into the middle of the venue. I think the guy was trying to kill his girlfriend." We asked Ice Nine Kills' Spencer Charnas to give us some life lessons and man does he have stories
- Farewell to music on MTV: it's the end of an era (even if that era really finished a long time ago)
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: October 20, 2025
- "It’s about an ex-girlfriend who'd moved to Ecuador. I tried to be level-headed about her leaving...I was completely ****ed off." How one cosy but spiteful ballad helped fast-track the rise of the world's biggest punk band
- "That means start jumping and singing. It doesn’t mean start burning the place down. That’s not what I meant." How a smash hit from some nu metal icons became intertwined with the most controversial music festival of the 90s
- "One guy brought his mom’s ashes in an envelope and asked me to help him spread them after the show." Mortuary science, late night chats with Lemmy and a Butcher Babies exit led Carla Harvey to realise her true calling with The Violent Hour
- "You can't dance or clap along to it. When we play it live, you can always see the audience getting caught out": How Genesis wrote the career-changing song that confused their fans - and Peter Gabriel
- "The realisation that life is not for ever made me very sad": Coheed and Cambria's Claudio Sanchez on why songs become more personal with the passing of time
- “I said, ‘If you want a great film, watch this.’ We watched it together on the tour bus, then our singer went out and bought the entire back catalogue!” Rush inspired a collective moment for an enduring Britrock band
October 19
- “It’s something I say in one of the songs – ‘The separation starts here’”: How ‘the Radiohead of metal’ broke free from nu metal to blaze their own unique trail
- “It’s almost cooler that we never did release it. It’s become this mythical thing now”: The lost Nine Inch Nails supergroup that could have united two of rock’s most iconic singers
- "Before she’s shot, she was eating an ice cream." From Scottish pride to writing songs for a Hollyoaks shootout, we spent five fun, chaotic minutes with Vukovi's Janine Shilstone
- “People have a hard time understanding how unsurprising Bohemian Rhapsody was to us”: These are the two early Queen songs that Brian May says paved the way for Bohemian Rhapsody
- “If it gets a bit tense we chill out with a joke. He’s good at that. Most of our messages are in a West Country dialect!” Thom Yorke isn’t the very serious character you may have thought, says one collaborator
- Intellectual, cynical, logical: The hit song about divorce and disillusionment that was Paul McCartney's favourite single of 1979
October 18
- "They were ripping the whole place down. The bar was used as a battering ram to storm the stage." How a long wait for a metal singer's dealer to deliver the goods almost caused disaster at an iconic UK music venue
- "He was doing something that was light years away from all of my other heroes": The five albums that changed Ace Frehley's life
- “I’m gonna play it with you and I’m gonna stay out of your way as much as I can”: The A-list comedy superstar who teamed up with two nu metal bands for the weirdest collaboration of the early 2000s
- “I was already a loony tune before I joined Kiss”: Ace Frehley on what went wrong with Kiss – plus his relationship with Gene and Paul… and the biggest mistakes he made
- “Every time we played it, a circle-pit would open up – hip hop kids spinning with punks and heavy metal guys”: The weed-fueled 90s rap song that became a huge hit after it was adopted by metal fans
- “He sounds like he just smoked a big fat doobie”: Comedy fan Geddy Lee on the stand-up comedians he loves
- "I was blown away!" The greatest prog albums, as chosen by prog legend Geoff Downes
- “Vanilla Fudge had covered a Supremes hit and turned it into something else. That’s what the band tried to do – put their own spin on it”: The iconic cover version that launched a legendary hard rock band – but nearly turned them into one-hit-wonders
- “He sent back a really beautiful letter, allowing us the usage of one of his most famous and brilliant songs ever”: the 90s alt-rock anthem that stuck a Beach Boys chorus in the middle of the track and got the seal of approval from Brian Wilson himself
- I'm bored to death of bands telling us they're "bringing rock back". Rock never left: it just evolved
October 17
- Great new prog you need to hear from Gazpacho, Airbag, Pure Reason Revolution, Alex Henry Foster and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “We played the song and then the earthquake alarms started ringing! They had to move the festival the next year because of that.” How a death metal band ended up writing a song so catchy and bouncy it rocked a 1,600-ton bridge
- “No one expected it to sell, but it did sell, didn’t it?”: the crazy story of an era-defining 80s classic that shifted millions but had such an expensive sleeve it sold at a loss
October 16
- “It was the most amazing thing. I couldn’t have written it better myself because it was just so perfectly me!" How Ozzy Osbourne produced his most emotional anthem with some inspiration from his wife Sharon - and a stunning assist from Lemmy
- "It's my 'I love you' to Joey." The story of Joey Jordison's post-Slipknot bands Vimic and Sinsaenum
- Black Friday MP3 player deals 2025: Be quick and can save money on a brand new MP3 player
- “Everyone was out of their minds. Alcoholic drug addicts. I just remember all the excess”: In a haze of substance use and record label conflicts, Korn made the defining anthem of nu metal’s heyday
- “We’re Indigenous people fighting for our culture”: Endorsed by Slipknot, collaborating with Gojira and battling colonialism – how Mawiza became the most important new metal band of 2025
- "We’ve decided not to count drummers anymore, it got depressing when we got to two figures." An audience with Spinal Tap legend David St. Hubbins
- "I've heard it's responsible for a whole generation being conceived": The epic story of rock's ultimate aphrodisiac anthem
- "We were by no means an overnight success. It took years of struggle and suffering": After 50 years, 38 Special have learned a thing or two about keeping a band together
- “The bassist’s kids were waiting with autograph books because we were pop stars. But some of the fans were pissed off. I would have been too!” This duo were never meant to be a real band, but their hit single had a massive impact on prog
October 15
- "We went on straight after Chappell Roan." From a platinum-selling Taylor Swift cover to hanging out with Post Malone, I Prevail have quietly become one of metal's hottest bands
- “People talk to me on the street about it and say, ‘That song was really there for me when I needed it’”: the stirring 90s anthem inspired by Nazareth and featuring strings arranged by a member of Led Zeppelin that made this band absolutely massive
- "Yorkshire lads shouldn’t marry American actresses": How MTV and David Coverdale's wife made Whitesnake into megastars
- "That experience in Vietnam changed him forever. It certainly had an effect on our family, so it was a defining moment in my life, too." How a devastating 90s war song brought its writer and his estranged father closer together
- "Sabbath will not do it, they won't take a chance": How Ozzy Osbourne predicted the future and saved Motörhead's Heavy Metal Holocaust
- "I turned a hockey stick into a scythe": Introducing Castle Rat, your new favourite medieval-themed doom-rocking New Yorkers
- “Robert Fripp is a really diddly-diddly man, all the riff stuff, and that works to an extent. But you need to put that in a context to make it accessible”: The secret to making King Crimson work by Peter Giles, the bassist who helped make it happen
October 14
- How big a Ghost fan are you? Take our devilishly hard Ghost quiz to find out!
- “It’s light-hearted, sexually ambiguous – I love it!” Justin Hawkins chooses the 10 best Queen songs you might have missed
- Debate: What’s the best live prog album of all time?
- “We had to pay the families of Charles Manson’s victims royalties from the song. And we’ve been doing that ever since”: With the inadvertent help of a notorious cult leader, one band became the kings of 90s goth metal
- "I split my forehead open. He said, 'Can you squeeze it and make it bleed some more? It looks great on the telly.'" Crazed fans, blood, burnout and mummies: the story of Iron Maiden's epic World Slavery tour
- "The guys from the record company were jumping up and down and screaming": The beer-soaked, chart-topping anthem that saved a career and became an all-time classic
- “It’s heraldic. It’s funny. It’s virtuoso and also really stupid! I wouldn’t change a note”: Simple ideas and happy accidents propelled a Dutch band’s second album to the pinnacle of prog. And yodelling.
- “There was a small fish that was aggressively following me and poking me… it freaked me out”: the high-school scuba trip that inspired an all-time alt-rock anthem
- “It was just a song that fitted the story. I didn’t choose the singer. Luck was on my side”: A science-fiction concept album has enjoyed nearly 50 years of popularity with help from a song written for a Lego advert
October 13
- "We asked him if he wanted to wear a zombie mask and sweat onstage and he was like, 'Sure, let’s do it!'" Don't panic, but it looks like zombie metal is a thing (luckily, Dominum are really good at it)
- "Lady Gaga passes this bottle of Jameson to me, and I just tip the whole bottle over my face. That was a formative moment." Wargasm's Milkie Way makes us a playlist and takes us inside her world of Sabbath, Gaga, Bowie and more
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: October 13, 2025
- “M***********, you stole my guitar sound!”: the classic Nirvana song that another major 90s artist says ripped him off
- “I’d been living in a dark room, drinking and taking drugs, and I was done with music. My heart was too broken to think about it”: This frontman overcame death and the loss of his band to make one of the 90s’ essential metal songs
- "When they heard it, everybody's eyebrows raised - and of course it changed everything": How divine inspiration and a last-minute song propelled a band to the brink of stardom
- “We thought it would be hard to replace her, so we didn’t. There had always been changes and this was a big one, but our attitude was to soldier on”: The prog pioneers who evaded disaster and reinvented themselves in 1970
October 11
- "A significant song of hope!" In 2010, with Yes forging on without him, Jon Anderson teamed up with old pal Rick Wakeman for The Living Tree album
- “I attended a Rush show and met this thing called merchandising! My work was everywhere – on jackets, T-shirts, tattoos, Neil’s drum heads…” Hugh Syme was shocked when his 2112 art exploded. But it’s not the piece that most resonates with him
- “One of my favourite things about Robert Smith is his ability to really convey the sadness”: the eight best Robert Smith guest spots
October 10
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “I left my car with all the instruments in but I’d left the handbrake off and it rolled onto the motorway”: the tearaway Britpop teenagers whose knack of getting into trouble had Steven Spielberg on the phone wanting to make a TV show with them
- “Before we had a chance to stop, four officers jumped me. One tried to break my arm, the other put a choke hold on my neck”: With one music video, this rap metal band almost brought the financial heart of America to its knees
- “If you see him live, it’s insane! He’s just ripping his heart out in front of you”: King Crimson’s Jakko Jakszyk on his favourite prog vocalist – also loved by David Bowie, Johnny Rotten and the guy who did The Sooty Show
- "He's with that meth lab that he designed, his baby - the lyrics back that up and he is at peace with himself": The story of the minor seventies hit that soundtracked the bloody finale of Breaking Bad
- "It showed me what music can do." Eight surprising artists you never knew were inspired by the brilliance of Talking Heads' Remain In Light
- Every Rush album ranked from worst to best
October 9
- Cool new proggy sounds from L.O.E., EF, Circu5 and more in Prog's brand new Tracks Of The Week
- "He said, ‘Kid, it’s a smash! You gotta trust me!’ I thought he was crazy." The Smashing Pumpkins classic Billy Corgan thought was "stupid" - and that his own label boss had to talk him round on
- “There was some mild terrorism going on. They were exploding cars and banks and real estate. There was an ongoing war”: From a climate of violence, this band made one of modern metal’s most conscious, powerful anthems
- Everyone thinks this is one of Iron Maiden's worst albums. Here's why you're all wrong
- "He didn’t ask for a receipt or nothing, just sent a cheque for ten grand and said, 'Sorry about that'". The grunge icons who ripped off an 80s classic - only to get busted when they hit the studio with the guy who wrote the original
- Glenn Hughes has played with Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Black Country Communion and more - but he should never have left his first band
- “I wish things had panned out differently. The lyrics were a message saying, ‘Meet us in the middle.’ It didn’t work out that way”: An armed robbery, a returning drummer and a new label brought this American band back from near oblivion
October 8
- “I spotted them and I thought they were a really terrific band.” How David Bowie took one of the 90s' big breakout rock bands under his wing - right before they blew up
- "We got on with Slipknot like a house on fire. We were like their naughty little brothers!" The story of the underground metal band helped by Charli XCX's future manager that almost became a household name
- The story of every metal album to hit number one in the UK
- “They jammed Cream and Jimi Hendrix at their earliest concerts, and critics compared the thunder of their debut album to Led Zeppelin”: Why Rush are secretly the coolest band on the planet
- Over a decade since their debut, Falling Leaves are back with a new album all fans of death-doom simply need to hear
- “People say Genesis ended when Peter Gabriel left, or when Steve Hackett left. But he was the anchor that everything else revolved around”: An appreciation of Tony Banks, by John Boegehold
- “A miracle that silenced their harshest critics, even within the band, and opened many minds”: The prog credentials of Talking Heads’ Remain In Light
- "People found out we weren't The Beatles and that came back to haunt us": The curious case of the band whose career was derailed by a rumour
October 7
- “We knocked out ten songs and that ended up being the bulk of the first record, so that first week was pretty good!”: it’s 35 years since Pearl Jam had their very first rehearsal and a generational rock band was born
- “Although I won’t be performing again, I’ve already got an idea for a new album”: 11 things we learned from Ozzy Osbourne’s new memoir, Last Rites
- "It's pretty amazing that rock lasted for seventy-five years": Todd Rundgren on the demise of rock, fighting hate and why listeners don't like albums
- "We’re fortunate that people now appreciate what we do. It hasn’t always been that way. Nothing polarises people quite like we do, for some reason”: The mindset behind Rush’s final album, Clockwork Angels
- The 10 best double albums in rock music history
- "I wish I wrote it - I would’ve made a lot more cash!" The story of the English song that was minor hit in Europe before becoming an all-American classic
October 6
- I've been a metal guitarist for almost two decades and not enough people talk about these incredible guitar-shredding albums
- "War On Drugs, suck my ****": Six classic indie diss tracks you never knew about
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: October 6, 2025
- “I strive to get away from the Genesis vibe. But it’s so deeply ingrained… I’ve been doing it longer than Peter Gabriel was in the band!” Nad Sylvan is more himself than ever on solo album Monumentata
- “There was one troll who slagged it off, but I think he was a fan from the Fish years!” Marillion’s Steve Rothery and Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning took six years to make Gentō, an album that sounds like neither of their bands
October 5
- “I don’t know too many people that could have handled that pressure coming at you at such speed. It can be a deadly thing”: How grunge’s ‘worst’ band wrote the hit song that silenced the critics
- “If you strip away the images you could put us beside King Crimson. The musicality and ambition would fit. But for us it’s 50 per cent about music, 50 per cent about hair”: Sparks’ commitment to silliness is very prog indeed
October 4
- “Let me just put this record on and clear the room! Or play it to a girlfriend and then wonder why she threw herself out the window”: Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson on the cult prog rock mavericks who inspired him – but were too out-there to be successful
- “He thought: ‘I’m just going to do an over-the-top pop song’ – a heavy metal pop song”: The flop single that became a power-pop classic thanks to one of the greatest live albums of the 70s
- “It was a moment to reassess everything we were trying to do as a band”: the song that saved U2 when it looked like they were on a downward spiral
- “There was a sense of humour. We were taken very seriously by the world at large, but there was always an edge of fun”: The grimness of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here may have been overstated
October 3
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “Me and Taylor sat down, and she says, ‘I can’t sing that line’, cos it was a bit too risqué”: Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott on duetting with the teenage Taylor Swift on an 80s rock classic - and the raunchy lyric they had to change
- "I'm not sure I could have been the flashy guitarist he wanted me to be": Y&T's Dave Meniketti on turning down Ozzy and improving your chances of survival
- "He was a guy who would chop the bedroom door down with an axe, like Jack Nicholson": A decade on from the disease that nearly killed him, Walter Trout is on a roll, looking at a world gone wrong
- From problem child to golden child: The story behind every song on Radiohead’s Kid A
October 2
- "The most unsubtle, one-dimensional noise": the chart-topping indie anthem that prompted an ex-member of Depeche Mode to write a letter of complaint
- 11 sublimely mellow Smashing Pumpkins cuts
- I'm an Iron Maiden fanatic and decided to rank every single one of their live albums from worst to best
- "He was like a blubbering baby. He was crying. He was devastated": The Who's Roger Daltrey on drugs, fights, death and the music that defined a generation
- I saw Black Sabbath play three days after their debut album was released - and tickets cost 30 pence
- "The place was full of chickens, pigs and goats. The whole thing was fascinating": How an acid-tinged account of a North African adventure became the sound of the counterculture
- “They’re portrayed as unhip, exploitative capitalist men of the rock world. But it’s entirely down to them that the movement can move. And they didn’t get anything out of it”: When Peter Gabriel received death threats, Genesis reunited to help him
October 1
- Debate: who are the greatest metalcore band of all time?
- "In Brazil, especially in the early 80s, it was all about Samba – nobody would talk about metal." Five minutes with Sepultura legend Iggor Cavalera
- 4 brilliant new metal bands you need to hear this month
- “You tour for so long. You’ve got a family, a mortgage, and you come home from America after eight weeks with £100. That’s unsustainable”: Dan Tompkins had to leave Tesseract – so what brought him back for third album Polaris?
- “The music needed to be paced differently and we needed a bit more going for us, thematically. We very much realised we needed a new identity to rise above the fray”: Wishbone Ash laid a plan for Argus, and surprised themselves when it worked
- The pride of New York City: A beginner's guide to White Lion in five essential albums