Music Features

Last summer, when Beauty Pill frontman Chad Clark was in the hospital recovering from open-heart surgery, his friend, author Bill Beverly, visited him. “I asked him, ‘How are you doing?’” Clark recalls. “And he said, ‘Well, you know, first heart.’” Clark erupts in laughter. “That’s exactly his style of humor. …

Charlotte Cornfield still remembers the first time her music made someone cry. The Canadian singer-songwriter was sitting in a backyard trampoline with her high school friends when she was encouraged to sing a song she’d recently written. Cornfield obliged, treating her friends to a song about a boy she’d met …

When Nigerian musician Fireboy DML thinks of his earliest influences, a few names come to mind. There was Passenger, the English folk/indie band turned solo artist, that led him to fall in love with American artist Jon Bellion. Then there was the legendary Afrobeats star Wande Coal whose intentional lyricism …

Tony Kanal first heard the names Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare when he was growing up in Southern California in the Eighties. “In my teens, when No Doubt started, we listened to a lot of reggae and ska music,” the bass player says. “And it was hard to have a …

Somewhere between the election, the pandemic, and the looming environmental catastrophe, a reshuffling of attitudes took hold. In the past year, icons like Britney Spears have been reconsidered in a new, more empathic, context. Similarly, the open secrets of alleged bad actors like Marilyn Manson are finally sticking in the …

When I arrived at Rolling Loud Festival at Citi Field in Queens, I was skeptical. Music festivals are almost never what they advertise. It’s always too crowded, too expensive, and too overstimulating. Even so, the lineup for this year’s event wasn’t half-bad. 42 Dugg, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Durk, and …

Kamasi Washington, the jazz saxophonist who has collaborated with Herbie Hancock and Kendrick Lamar, was in his early teens when he first heard Metallica. “Just being where I was from, their music wasn’t on our radar,” theLos Angeles native, now 40, says. “A friend of mine turned me on to …

This story was originally published in Issue 627 on April 2, 1992 IT’S A FOGGY AFTERNOON IN NASHVILLE, andNanciGriffith is sitting in a near-empty restaurant by a cold fireplace. Her face, waif-like except for her animated brown eyes, is tired.Griffithmay be one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved veterans …

Wednesday’s announcement that Charlie Watts would be sitting out the upcoming Rolling Stones tour was jarring; for the first time since 1963, Watts (who is recovering from an unspecified surgical procedure) won’t be behind the drum kit. But the least surprising news was the person who’ll be filling in for …

Last year, Alex “Yung Skayda” Calderon, a member of the duo WhoKilledXIX, casually wrote a TikTok hit while holding down a day-job as a warehouse worker for Amazon. His groupmate, Kareem “Karm the Tool” Patterson, fleshed out the demo into a wriggling, buzz-saw single titled “Kismet”; TikTokers started using one …