Music Features

“I was always hoping that these recordings were still around because of the feeling that’s in them,” Don Batts, Prince‘s personal recording engineer in the early Eighties, tells Rolling Stone. He’s reflecting on a demo cassette he made with the artist released Friday asPiano & a Microphone 1983, 34 minutes …

“I’m not one to contemplate on fate,” Anthony Simpkins says with a grin. It’s a cool night in April and Simpkins is sitting outside the American Legion Post 82 in East Nashville, Tennessee, and grinning at how folksy he sounds describing the unlikely path his life has taken. At 25, …

For the first few months after Gregg Allman died, his 45-year-old son Devon was unable to perform in public. “I called up my agent and canceled every date,” he says. “I said to him, ‘I’m not gonna be able to concentrate. The energy in the room is not gonna be …

Lindsey Jordan just graduated from high school last year, but the 18-year-old wunderkind is already turning heads with her band Snail Mail. She’s not one to waste time – she was just 16 when she dropped her acclaimed six-song cassette EP Habit. Her fantastic debut album Lush is full of …

“I’m still really young in terms of being a musician,” says Shawn Mendes, 19. How young is he? Mendes speaks of Justin Bieber as one of his earliest musical heroes and talks about Kings of Leon like they’re a classic-rock band. But the pop heartthrob – who broke through five …

For his first feature story in Rolling Stone, Nathaniel Rateliff did not just sit down for an interview. The singer, songwriter and leader of Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats sat for a few of them – over drinks, at dinner, between band rehearsals and even while waiting at traffic …

Last fall, Maren Morris was chilling on the beach in Tulum, Mexico, with her husband-to-be and fellow country singer Ryan Hurd (the couple were married last month), when she got an email from her manager. It was a demo for a pop song by the German EDM star Zedd and …

Long before her tearjerking performance in the Coco theme, “Remember Me,” Natalia Lafourcade has been the latest in a long line of Mexican singers for whom passion and cultural pride are irrevocably intertwined.Lafourcade’s music combines the hope and desire of the soulful Lola Beltrán, the classical melancholy of composer Agustín …

Rap has dominated the Hot 100 this year. Five hip-hop tracks have taken the Number One spot, tying a chart record, and in April, rap singles singlehandedly accounted for half of the Top 10. It’s also been a banner year for Latin pop – Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito” …

On the morning of July 29th, 2010, Rolling Stone‘s Twitter account sent out a message to Kanye West. “Hey Kanye!” it read. “Since you’re in NYC, come visit the Rolling Stone offices and rap for us!” West had been previewing songs from his upcoming album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, …