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Beach Boys co-founder and pop genius Brian Wilson has died at the age of 82. The news of his passing has inspired fellow musicians to flood social media with their gratitude for his artistry and memories of his music. Update: Along with the below tributes, Wilson’s Beach Boys bandmates Mike Love and Al Jardine have written individual eulogies, and Paul McCartney has shared his own emotional tribute.

“Heard the sad news about Brian today and thought about all the years I’ve been listening to him and admiring his genius,” wrote Bob Dylan. “Rest in peace dear Brian.

“Anyone with a musical bone in their body must be grateful for Brian Wilson’s genius magical touch !!” Mick Fleetwood wrote. “Greatly saddened of this major worldly loss!! My thoughts go out to his family and friends.”

Ronnie Wood added, “Oh no Brian Wilson and Sly Stone in one week. My world is in mourning.

Just over 40 years ago, Ronald Reagan became the first American president to name-drop Bruce Springsteen. “America’s future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts,” he told a crowd at a New Jersey campaign stop in September 1984. “It rests in the message of hope in the songs of a man so many young Americans admire — New Jersey’s own, Bruce Springsteen.”

Springsteen was, of course, at a pop-cultural peak in that moment, fresh from the release of the world-conquering blockbuster Born in the U.S.A., with a flag...

There have been many one-of-a-kind historic events over the last two weeks or so, but arguably — arguably! — the most significant is the release of Katy Perry’s “Woman’s World,” her hilariously catastrophic attempt at a comeback single. Thanks to its brain-dead lyrics (“sexy, confident/ so intelligent”), AI-like chorus, and Perry’s startlingly tone-deaf choice to record a “feminist” song with the likes of Dr. Luke, the song prompted near-universal mockery, and instantly flopped.

“Woman’s World” raises many difficult-to-answer questions. Perry has said its video is meant to be satirical — but...

This article was featured in Den of Geek magazine, which was published before artists pulled out of SXSW 2024 in protest of US military and defense company sponsorships at this year’s event.

It would be easy to assume Good Looks has bad luck. But singer-guitarist Tyler Jordan doesn’t see it that way.

In 2022, the Austin band released Bummer Year, a seven-song LP of incisive social commentary that cuts through the chaos of our times—and through Jacob Ames’ busy, echoing guitar lines. The songwriter-meets-guitar-rock album would be well-received–but it was amidst difficult circumstances.

Jordan wrote most of the songs on that debut LP while in a haze of depression and political fear between 2015 and 2018. Now a devout socialist, the songwriter grew up in a coastal South Texas community gripped by a cult-like brand of Christianity. Estranged from his parents, the 19-year-old moved to Austin in 2007 and found an...

So, is Counting Crows’ melancholy, much-beloved 1996 classic “A Long December” a Christmas song? The band’s frontman, Adam Duritz, has some thoughts.

“There’s this big discussion that runs around,” he says on the new episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast. (To hear the whole episode, press play above or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.) “Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? It takes place during Christmas. And if it’s a Christmas movie to you, then it’s a Christmas movie. A friend of mine insists that...

“I was just like, how can I describe a desperate man that wants to eat it all the time? And I was just like, munch. He’s a munch.” That’s what Bronx rapper Ice Spice tells Rolling Stone‘s Jeff Ihaza about the making of her inescapable hit “Munch (Feelin’ U),” as heard in the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now.

To hear the entire episode, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or press play above.

Ihaza explains how “Munch” ties into the current state of New York...

Two of the key albums of the classic-rock era, The Who’s Who’s Next and Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV, came out within months of each other back in 1971, and their legacy is the subject of the latest episode of our weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now.

The episode grapples with the fact that this aesthetic peak for a certain brand of rock is now half a century ago, the gaps and flaws of the classic-rock canon, the enduring greatness of those albums, and much more. Steven Hyden,...

Bill Simmons, co-creator of ESPN’s documentary strand 30 for 30, is turning his attention to music documentaries for his latest project.

Music Box is a 30 for 30-style strand for HBO that encompasses a number of movies about bands and artists. It kicks off tonight with Woodstock 99: Peace, Love & Rage, a film about the chaotic festival.

The film, directed by Love, Antosha helmer Garret Price, looks at what went wrong with the 1999 event that took place 30 years on from the classic hippie fest, including the destruction of the festival’s airbase site and the deaths and sexual assaults that occurred during the weekend. It also looks at the angst of a generation encapsulated by bands such as Limp Bizkit, with its hit “Break Stuff,” and Red Hot Chili Peppers, who played a cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Fire” as the site burned.

Featuring interviews with artists such as The Roots, Korn,...

From a moving memoir written by one of pop’s greatest voices to a timely account of the life and times of a hip-hop genius, our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast went deep on many of the year’s best music books. Press play on the episodes below to listen now, or hear any episode and subscribe iTunes or Spotify.

Author Marcus J. Moore joins us to talk about his powerful book The Butterfly Effect: How Kendrick Lamar Ignited the Soul of Black America, which intertwines two deeply related stories:...

The paranoia and icy alienation of Radiohead’s masterpiece Kid A may have seemed like a bit much back to some listeners when it was released in 2000. But in 2020, Kid A (which just landed at Number 20 on Rolling Stone’s revamped list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time) feels exactly like our day-to-day lives.

In the new episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, Steven Hyden — author of the new book This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ and the Beginning of the 21st Century — joins host...

Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes — A Memoir, by Steve Gorman, the band’s former drummer and co-founder (who co-wrote the book with Steven Hyden), is one of the most jaw-droppingly entertaining rock books in years, painting the recently reunited Chris and Rich Robinson as constantly at war, and tragically intent on destroying their own band’s potential. In a new episode of our Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, Gorman (who currently plays in Trigger Hippy) shares some of the most outrageous, tragic and drugged-out...

“At the very least,” Steve Gorman writes in his new tell-all about the Black Crowes, “I can tell you what happened from my point of view.” As the band’s drummer since its nascent days as Mr. Crowe’s Garden up until the Black Crowes’ implosion in 2014, Gorman has seen his share of rock & roll drama from behind the kit. In Hard to Handle: The Life and Death of the Black Crowes — A Memoir, written with Steven Hyden, he distills his 27 years with the group into a satisfying and unexpectedly emotional read.

When actor Olivia Munn tweeted a “short essay on…ugly behaviors” late Wednesday night, she insisted that a blog had been unfairly maligning her for years. She wrote that she wanted to confront the idea that baseless critiques, particularly those aimed at women, are never okay no matter how famous the target may be. On the face of it, this is an eminently reasonable statement and the kind of “you go girl!” clapback the internet loves — or at least it would be, if she hadn’t picked entirely the wrong targets.

In trying to call out “blogs…with their snarkiness and hypocrisy on full display,” Munn highlighted a site — “Go Fug Yourself, founded by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan” — that has consistently proved itself to be anything but. Despite its cheeky title, “Go Fug Yourself” is not, and has never been, akin to Perez Hilton annotating unflattering paparazzi photos with obscene squiggles.

Don’t mess with Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update team. That was the takeaway after segment co-star Michael Che posted a series of vulgar rebuttals to an article attacking his fellow host, Colin Jost.

In an Uproxx article titled Why Does Everyone (Still) Hate ‘SNL”s Colin Jost?, writer Steven Hyden took issue with the host’s demeanor on the segment.

“Nobody has been quite as disliked, while also being as central to the show, as Jost. Among the people I know who like ‘SNL,’ Jost (at best) is a benign presence whose essential blandness precludes feeling one way or the other about his tenure on ‘Weekend Update,’ or (at worst) a smug hack who relies far too often on easy, frat-dude punchlines about porno movies and penis sizes,” Hyden wrote.

Hyden also mentioned that most of his Twitter feed seems to hate SNL. “Jost is nothing less than the epitome of white-male mediocrity,...

Michael Che lashed out at a writer for the entertainment website Uproxx who criticized his “Saturday Night Live” co-star Colin Jost as the “epitome of white-male mediocrity.”

In a series of since-deleted story posts on Instagram that have been screencapped and have spread on social media, Che ripped into Uproxx columnist Steven Hyden whom he bizarrely suggesed has sex with dogs.

Che riffs about reading several fake news stories involving a “regular mediocre ass white dude, probably like a writer or something.”

“I don’t think it’s Steven Hyden, but that name is stuck in my head for some reason,” Che wrote. “But this guy sucks off stray dogs and rescue dogs. And like, nobody knows why.”

Also Read: WrestleMania: 'SNL' Stars Colin Jost, Michael Che *Almost* Win Andre the Giant Battle Royal (Video)

Hyden didn’t seem fazed by Che’s oddball outburst. “Dear Michael Che, I don’t feel harassed,...

In response to Uproxx writer Steven Hyden penning an article titled “Why Does Everyone (Still) Hate ‘SNL’s Colin Jost?,” Michael Che defended his “Saturday Night Live” co-star the only way he knows how: by accusing Hyden of bestiality. In a series of Instagram stories embedded below, the “Weekend Update” anchor and “SNL” co-head writer (both duties he shares with Jost) pretended to have heard news stories about a “regular mediocre ass white dude, probably like a writer or something” who “had a secret life” involving rescuing dogs in order to perform lewd acts with them.

Che repeatedly brought up Hyden by name while pretending he wasn’t sure who the culprit was: “i dont [sic] think its [sic] stephen hyden, but that name is stuck in my head for some reason,” reads one example.

Che joined Jost on the “Weekend Update” desk in September 2014 and was named co-head writer of “SNL...