Features archive

February 2026

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98 articles

February 16
- “Pretentious, perhaps. But let’s call it pioneering instead”: Peter Gabriel called it “knock and knowall” – but five decades on, here’s why we still like Genesis’ The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway
- “He said, ‘It’s not going to happen.’ He gave me that tough-guy New York thing. I said, ‘How about something that is going to happen?’ It was career suicide, but it felt really good”: How Steve Morse took on a media mogul and got away with it
- "I wish that people’s lives weren’t political. I wish that our rights over our bodies weren’t political. I wish that feeding children wasn’t political. But it is." Texan doom punks Die Spitz are fighting for their rights
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: February 16, 2026
- "The very first thought that came into my head was, ‘This band are going to get ripped off’." Corrupt police, crumbling dictatorships and amateur translators: The 80s metal classic that smashed borders and helped launch one of metal's most iconic labels
- "This is going to be a long tour, and at the end of it, I want some time to live life.” Heavy metal legend and ever-controversial icon Dave Mustaine on the end of Megadeth, making peace with Metallica and what's next
- "From the light to the dark, the sacred to the profane, Cash's songbook is all-embracing." Nine Johnny Cash albums you should listen to and one to avoid
- "I get choked singing that one. I lose the rhythm, lose the riff, and I think to myself: 'Oh, don't do that.' It's stupid." The story of the pub rock classic that journeyed from paradise to paradise lost
February 15
- “We have an identity crisis. People say, ‘I knew every one of those songs, but I had no idea they were yours’”: Mike + The Mechanics’ history is a bit more rock’n’roll than Genesis’
- “The studio had a rancid swimming pool. We bet our drummer £50 that he wouldn’t jump in. He did”: Skin disease, an unhinged producer and weird bets around the swimming pool – the story of the one of British metal’s greatest albums
- “There was a sweet side to him when he came out of one of these weeks of debauchery. There were some good times. But not many”: Fleetwood Mac made an album that sold five million copies but no one talks about it – not even the band
- "When it ended, I asked, “Do you hate it?” How an old rap-rock demo, a Chris Farley skit and an all-star jam helped turn one Canadian pop-punk band into megastars
- “I was surprised that it was the one everybody knows about. Metallica must have thought it was a decent song. We got some street cred from that”: The cult 70s anthem that Metallica turned into one of metal’s most famous cover songs
February 14
- “Who else other than Mortiis can make sense of the lyrics? I still can’t, but there’s an energy behind them that just fits”: The enigmatic Norwegian anthem that became black metal’s first ‘hit’ – and even the band that made it don’t understand
- “Of all the entertainment businesses, the music business is the worst of all them. It attracts the lowest form of life”: The maverick ‘mad scientist’ who created an entire genre in his basement – and stuck it to the music industry
- “I would’ve loved to sing like Ozzy. But these horrible noises came out of my throat instead!”: The trailblazing German thrash queen who inspired a generation of female metal singers
- “Whenever someone’s said to me, ‘Oh, didn’t you write this about the superhero?’, I’d just say: ‘Sorry, never heard of him’”: The misunderstood metal classic that gave an iconic Marvel movie character his theme song
- "He would blow a fuse and get p**sed off at us and scream!" How an irate producer and 'Chris Rock' convinced Beastie Boys to finish what would be their biggest-ever song
- “I was talking to Kerry King, and that Slayer album – Jesus Christ, did you see that cover?! That stuff is pretty vivid”: The classic metal album wrestling legend Stone Cold Steve Austin wishes he’d made – and the band he thinks should have been huge
February 13
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “I’m not in any way afraid of death." The triumph and tragedy of Nirvana's final album
- Cool new proggy sounds you need to hear from Crown Lands, System 7, Major Parkinson in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- "The tribe explained to us that the only way they wrote music was if someone dreamed of it." How a cult band headed deep into the Brazilian jungle, got help from an indigenous tribe and emerged with one of the 90s' defining metal songs
- “It would be interesting to revisit some of the songs, but it’s never going to happen. I don’t know who isn’t talking to who these days”: Judy Dyble was always amazed at the quality of her collaborators
- "The pursuit of immortality? I'll chase that as hard and fast as the next guy": Why the world is seeing a lot of Bruce Springsteen
February 12
- “We’re selling out shows, we’re climbing the bills, but there’s so much pressure to reach more success”: As one of the UK’s leading bands stop touring, we need to talk about the toxic effect a ruined music industry is having on heavy metal
- "Fuelled by booze and pills, they cut their teeth delivering approximations of Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran." Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson on why the early Beatles were so dangerous
- "He locked himself in the studio and threatened to burn the tapes. It was a stand-off for almost a day." How Sammy Hagar helped Van Halen win the war against David Lee Roth
- "I was intubated, put in a coma for seventeen days. I had to relearn how to walk and talk – and my voice was completely different." Elles Bailey talks fame, vanity, mental health and the childhood trauma behind her smoke’n’honey battle cry
- “It was just weird. It wasn’t working, whatever we tried. I think it created a negative association”: Tom Sawyer started out as Rush’s least favourite track on Moving Pictures. It later made them big in Brazil
- "I looked over my shoulder, saw Ronnie Wood and thought: 'That's nice!' I didn't meet the Rolling Stones, but I waved at them from a golf cart." Samantha Fish on playing with the Stones and her complicated relationship with the blues
- "After all those days in the cotton fields, the dreams came true on a gold record." The story of the mongrel mix of blues, country and pop that sold a million and became the original rock’n’roll anthem
February 11
- "My brother died a year and a half ago...he got me into Iron Maiden when I was eight years old." How a tragedy, heavy metal and a cult 90s classic inspired one of 2026's best horror movies, Whistle
- “Everything’s changed. We’re going to be rich.” How a song about gang wars helped a Ph.D. student and a school janitor become the '90s most unlikely rock stars
- “I think we met with his approval. If I find him haunting me, I’ll know I did something wrong”: Tim Smith left an unfinished Cardiacs album when he died. Five years on, his bandmates released the finished version of LSD
- "I was sitting near Judas Priest, Sharon and Ozzy, Joey from Slipknot was there...three surreal days." The cult Italian band that broke boundaries and became household names in metal thanks to this classic 00s album
- Want a killer lineup, a celebration of tattoo culture and one of the coolest festival locations on planet Earth? You need to be at Inkcarceration 2026
- "He says, 'Everyone knows what ****er means there. You can't show that in England. They'll edit it out.'" A wrestling legend shares how Ozzy Osbourne was "the voice of reason" when he appeared on WWE RAW
- “I got three whacks with the cane for lying and skipping school. So I blame The Beatles for me being in the music business. I also blame them for getting a whacking!” Derek Shulman’s path to Gentle Giant
- "I didn't even realise. I was like: 'Why are you doing a big cock-rock move?' But he was getting electrocuted!" Prog-metallers Karnivool are back to reclaim their crown – if they don't die on stage first
- “It’s no good saying, ‘I’ll be dead by the time this becomes a crisis.’ We are the generation who created the problem. We owe it to the generations to come to clear it up. If it hasn’t gone too far”: Jethro Tull – a warning from history
- "How would anyone feel when one is the principal songwriter in the band and along comes this upstart and spoils everything?" What happens when your bass player accidentally writes your first big hit
- "He thinks so far ahead you can only marvel." Nine Jack White albums you should listen to and one to avoid
February 10
- "I don’t really know what I’m talking about, I’m just doing it. There’s no art to it." How a meaningless French silent movie inspired the surreal alt. rock anthem that helped launch a musical revolution
- “I felt like the John Lennon of Israel – like I could change the government. But this is a ‘failure’ album. We admit we won’t be massive. Not Steven Wilson, not me”: The story of Blackfield V
- “Every time it seems their direction is clear, the rug is swiftly pulled away”: Open your mind and embrace Biffy Clyro’s Infinity Land as a prog album
- "We were seen as a band that wouldn't last, so I think they wanted to milk us for everything we were worth." How an off-the-cuff cover of a 60s song became an era-defining hit and an albatross around the neck of the band that recorded it
- "They got signed on their talent, on their original material, but also on their looks. They looked like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page." The story of the album that rescued rock'n'roll from the darkness and built a brighter future
February 9
- "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
- “We honestly thought that it couldn’t harm us. How wrong we were.” One of the biggest albums of the 1970s would have carried a 'thank you' credit for the band's drug dealer if he hadn't been murdered before the record was released
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: February 9, 2026
- "It reminded me of the politics of fear, like we're doing today": How the LA club scene in the 1960s shaped American rock then sparked a revolution
- “The real 10 best albums in the world are lying on cassettes in someone’s drawer. They didn’t get released. It’s all luck”: How to beat fate by scrapping an album over a movie, relating to a suicidal joyriding pilot and feeling for flat Earthers
February 8
- “I heard that Dylan came to hear us in London. I went, ‘Oh, no. Not now – you’re seeing me at my absolute worst’”: The overlooked blues-boogie icon who hung out with Bonnie Raitt, played with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan and appeared at Live Aid
- “I originally picked the guitar because it was the most obnoxious instrument, but after a while I was like, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of power in this thing’”: Steve Vai gave Devin Townsend his big break in the early 1990s. Decades later they got back together
- “I didn’t realise just how prog Genesis were. I’m pleased I got to see them on their last tour”: When Rivers Meet’s Aaron Bond came late to the prog party
- “The idea came from The Beatles’ Tomorrow Never Knows. I just played it in a more violent way”: How Ringo Starr, Isaac Asimov and The Devil inspired one of rock’s greatest ever drum solos
February 7
- “It was amazing to hear keyboards with that kind of power. He really changed my life”: Jordan Rudess would have been a classical pianist if he hadn’t discovered this prog icon
- “Ronnie Van Zant ruled with an iron hand, but he and I never had a moment of confrontation. He let me take over the mic when a song suited my voice”: The Southern Rock legend who quit Lynyrd Skynyrd before they became famous – then rejoined 25 years later
- “Lars played me the whole song down the phone. He said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding?!’”: The inside story of the greatest Metallica album Metallica didn’t write
- “He told me, ‘I bet you don’t remember being escorted out last night in a bulletproof bus, do you?’ And no, I didn’t”: The drunken onstage outburst that nearly sparked a riot – and inspired a thrash metal classic
- "I was on my own, out in one of the gnarliest neighbourhoods. You’re scared, thinking, 'How do I get out of here?'" How a song about living in a rat-infested squat helped turn Green Day into one of the world's biggest bands
- “It’s really eerie and mellow and it has pagan poetry on it. There are a couple of songs on there that are so beautiful in a kinda sad way”: The cult album that Evanescence singer Amy Lee wishes she had made – and the one that broke her heart
February 6
- The 12 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- “The BBC showed one minute and 10 seconds of it!” Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter: How a banned, censored and divisive single became Iron Maiden’s only UK number one
- Great new prog you must hear from Green Carnation, Magenta, Exploring Birdsong, A.A. Williams and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- “I asked my mum to make me a costume, which I wore all around London. It tapped into the British sense of humour. There’s nothing more ridiculous”: If Death is a rabbit and you're on TV as a Womble, you’re probably Mike Batt
February 5
- "Queen's music doesn't belong to Freddie. It doesn't even belong to Queen any more." Writer/comedian Ben Elton reveals why Robert DeNiro's dream of making a musical about Freddie Mercury's life was vetoed by Brian May and Roger Taylor
- "I was being bombarded with Madonna's image on TV." How a beloved rock band took aim at a pop megastar, sampled Simon & Garfunkel and ushered in a genre-mashing masterpiece with a 90s classic
- "It was this dream song that just turned up as I was waking up one morning. It came to me fully formed." The story of the cinematic classic that kick-started Bob Mould's second life
- "I'm a grownass woman. I’m a female in the world taking care of myself. I can do whatever I want." Femme Fatale singer Lorraine Lewis on relaunching the band, skydiving in a bodysuit and joining OnlyFans
- "It's intense back there. Everybody is nervous. And everybody's really emotional because we know it's the last time." Halestorm's Lzzy Hale on Back To The Beginning: The build-up, the show and the aftershow... and the loss of Ozzy Osbourne
February 4
- "He looked at the lyrics and goes, ‘Rock ’n’ roll cocktail – I think I invented that!'" How Queens of the Stone Age got a metal legend to sing on a single US radio would not touch
- "I started meeting all these really warm, nurturing moms in school…and that wasn’t what I was experiencing at home." The heartbreaking tragedies behind the rise of metal's latest sensations
- “They all chimed in, ‘We want some crazy Spanish guitar. Improvise!’ I thought, ‘I’ve bitten off more than I can chew’”: When Queen pressganged Steve Howe into appearing on Innuendo
- “The email said, ‘John Cale is looking for you.’ It absolutely terrified me. I thought I was in trouble!” How the Velvet Underground icon voiced a powerful song on Cate Le Bon’s new album
- "When people hear my versions of pop songs, they're shocked. They never expect to hear Adele sound like that." Meet Solomon Hicks, the New York guitarist bringing the blues to a new audience
- “The lyrics were for people on the fringes”: He made a prog album to inspire positivity. Tragically, one song inspired the man who killed John Lennon
- "When Robert Plant introduced me I achieved closure. I had my song back for the first time since 1961." How Bonnie Dobson's post-apocalyptic first song finally found its way home via the Grateful Dead, Nazareth, Jeff Beck, the Allman Brothers and more
- "Not just a world-class guitar player but an all-around creative force." Nine Joe Bonamassa albums you should listen to, and one to avoid
February 3
- "Iʼm not doing it out of guilt. Even if I didnʼt do it, the poverty would still be there." How getting stuck in a "rut", some tempting by Bob Geldof and the most A-list bill in history helped Queen pull off the greatest rock set of all time
- "Having to resort to writing something like this is so embarrassing." The story behind the extremely controversial Nirvana song that almost got them banned and made a US President smash up his own daughter's CD
- "I miss Ukraine very much. I missed it even more when I realised that I cannot go back there." The Soviet-born heavy metal singer who had to flee war to make her rock star dreams come true
- "He was a big, burly dude who would go to the beach in a Speedo at 65 years old and hit on women with the most confidence you’ve ever seen." How the death of a loved one, pig squeals and TikTok helped crown a modern metal classic
- "We have no use for a standalone singer who doesn't play an instrument, preening themselves like a rock god": Atomic Rooster guitarist Steve Bolton on reviving the band, changing frontmen, and John Entwistle's phallic number plate
- “The school would kick everybody out with hair that touched their ears. Someone on the board found out we were wearing short-haired wigs!” Steve Morse endured educational woes, dodgy gear and jazz snobbery, but knew he could make it as a guitarist
- "The aspects of America that are really magical to us are the things it seems to reject, like black music or the Beat poets": The story of the multi-version David Bowie song that captured his revulsion of American corporate dominance
February 2
- "They're lining up six hours before the show. They just scream when you go out on stage as if it's Beatlemania." Nine Inch Nails and Korn love them and they might have invented metal's sleaziest subgenre. This is the story of Health
- Classic Rock's Tracks Of The Week: February 2, 2026
- What the 2026 Grammys got right about rock and metal this year - and what they got very wrong
- “We’re not flower children and we’re not yuppies. We’re somewhere in between – the Van Der Graaf Generation”: They had links to Jethro Tull, Voivod and The Cure. Did you really think Men Without Hats were all new wave and no prog?
- "There was no real sign that it was a big protest song, so most people listened to it and didn’t realise": The story of the anti-war commentary disguised as a four-minute pop song that set R.E.M. on the path to global success and stardom
- “We knew costumes wouldn’t be part of it. Phil wouldn’t have been good in a flower mask”: Peter Gabriel’s exit could have finished Genesis. Instead Phil Collins stepped up and they delivered prog classic A Trick Of The Tail
February 1
- “We ended up getting really, really hammered and commanding the stage. We were terrible, but we knew there was something magical about it”: The US band who stepped out of Bon Jovi’s shadow to become hair metal’s last superstars
- “I wrote it on a piece of paper somewhere on tour, and I thought, ‘That’s an album!’” A glimpse of how Ian Anderson creates Jethro Tull lyrics
- “We played at a punk club in Germany and this guy was pointing a gun at me the whole time. That was uncomfortable!”: The pioneering European metal queen loved by Dio, Lemmy and Gene Simmons
- “The two Johns very began to hate doing TV shows that wanted us to mime. For a band that worshipped Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy and UFO, it became a really big problem”: The huge 80s hard rock hit that drove a wedge between the band that made it
- “The economy of 80s synthpop made it so attractive. Within us were the seeds of something much more musicianly – whether you like it or not”: Tears For Fears sneaked prog into a run of hit singles in 1984 and 85. So why weren’t they at Live Aid?