The Harder They Come, the film that thrust both Jamaican cinema and reggae music into the global spotlight, arrives today on Blu-ray for the first time. To celebrate the rerelease, Rolling Stone spoke to the film’s star, reggae legend Jimmy Cliff, about shooting The Harder They Come, his future plans …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Joanna Sternberg, 'This Is Not Who I Want to Be'
“I’m stuck to the bed with brain zaps in my head,” singer-songwriter Joanna Sternberg intones on the opening track of their debut album, Then I Try Some More. Playing by themself on piano, “This Is Not Who I Want To Be” narrates a brutally difficult period in the 27 year-old …
Read More »Cage the Elephant and Beck's Big Adventure
When Cage the Elephant went into the studio to make their first album, singer Matt Shultz had one note for their producer: “‘I want to sound like Beck’s ‘Loser,’ ” he remembers saying. Now, Cage are touring with their hero on their Night Running tour, a double bill that recalls the …
Read More »The Triumph and Tragedy of Woodstock's Forgotten Album Producer
Listen to an audio version of this story below: Fifty years after the original Woodstock festival took place, mementos of the event are scattered across the country. Jimi Hendrix’s guitar is on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Wavy Gravy’s sleeping bag is housed at the …
Read More »Listen to Duff McKagan: The Rolling Stone Interview
“I’m in a band right now that’s playing the biggest rock songs in the biggest places, and I love it,” Duff McKagan says on a recent episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. “That’s what I meant to do. I was born to play in Guns N’ Roses.” But …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Marshmello and Kane Brown, 'One Thing Right'
Dabbling in pop music has long been a country tradition, but with the unforeseen mega success of “Old Town Road” there may be an increase in crossover experimentations. Kane Brown is the next logical Nashville hitmaker to take his shot at pop radio, having already had success with his remix …
Read More »King Crimson's Singer on Joining His Favorite Band, Working With Robert Fripp
At a lengthy press event held at London’s October Gallery in April, King Crimson leader Robert Fripp kept coming back to a few interrelated themes: how happy he was with the band’s current lineup and how — maybe for the first time in Crimson’s 50-year history — outsize egos are …
Read More »The O'Jays Give the People What They Want for the Last Time
On March 10, Betty Wright — a successful singer, background vocalist, composer and producer with five decades of experience — watched the long-running soul group the O’Jays take the stage in Miami for a set at Jazz in the Gardens Music Fest. “People come from all over the world for …
Read More »The Birth of Joy Division
The Joy Division story has been told many times, yet it never stops seeming too bizarre to be true. JonSavage, best known for his classic punk history, England’s Dreaming, was one of the band’s first chroniclers in the 1970s, but he tells the tale in a new way in his …
Read More »Song You Need to Know: Sky Ferreira, 'Downhill Lullaby'
Sky Ferreira has been taking her time— more than five years, to be exact. That’s how long it’s been since her 2013 debut,Night Time, My Time,a riotous alt-pop dream that raised major expectations for her long-promised follow-up. Her new single, “Downhill Lullaby,” is our first glimpse of the album she’s …
Read More »