Guides
Rock supergroups arrive with a built-in mythology. Put several celebrated musicians in one room, add the history of their previous bands, and expectations…
A great rock venue is more than a room with loud speakers and a crowded floor. The best ones carry physical evidence of the past: carved wood, aging brick,…
Woodstock was never simply a concert staged in a field. Its power came from the collision of music, idealism, youthful rebellion, and shared uncertainty. The…
Few rock records became as famous for their production history as for the music on the finished disc. Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy spent years trapped…
The Gun Club’s Fire of Love has always sounded like a record discovered in a basement after midnight: cracked, feverish, and too alive to sit quietly on a…
Long before playlists became digital and endlessly personalized, music was tied to place. A song could carry the smell of pine, the echo of a canyon, or the…
A motorcycle crossing open desert needs a soundtrack with distance in it. The right song should carry the steady pulse of the engine, match the changing light,…
Some records arrive with perfect timing and become permanent landmarks. Others appear during an overcrowded musical year, receive little promotion, and…
The 1990s alternative rock boom changed the center of gravity in popular music. Grunge, post-punk revival, indie rock, shoegaze, pop-punk, and experimental…
Before punk had a uniform, a scene, or a record-store category, three brothers in Detroit were making music that sounded confrontational, impatient, and…