Lady Gaga – Die With A Smile
On 16 August 2024, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars released Die With A Smile, a song they finished in one night at Mars's studio in Los Angeles.
The Beach Boys – Five voices that outgrew the beach
The Beach Boys started as a surf-and-cars group in a Hawthorne garage and arrived, within five years, at Pet Sounds, a record that used the studio as a compositional instrument before most pop bands knew that was possible.
Afterlife Interview with Jim Morrison
In Père Lachaise mist, Riffs and Beats finds Jim Morrison leather-backed, poetry book open.
Sting – The bass line that outgrew the badge
Gordon Sumner grew up on Tyneside, taught primary school, and played Newcastle jazz clubs before his bass and voice got him out. With The Police he wrote taut reggae-rock singles; alone he built a second career on melody, jazz players, and careful craft.
Nirvana – Come as You Are
Come as You Are, from Nirvana's Nevermind (1991), is the chorus-pedal riff single that invites and warns in the same breath.
Purple Rain – Soundtrack that swallowed the summer
On 25 June 1984 Warner Bros. released Purple Rain, the soundtrack to Prince's film of the same name and the breakthrough album credited to Prince and the Revolution.
Top 10 rock band drummers of all time
From Bonham to Peart: ten kit players who shaped rock bands, from Grohl’s Reading fury to Watts’s quiet pulse.
David Bowie – Lazarus
Lazarus is the third track on David Bowie's Blackstar and the album's second single, issued as a digital download on 17 December 2015 (ISO/Columbia). The album version runs about 6:22; the video edit is shorter. Same.
Pretenders – Akron grit in a London new-wave coat
Chrissie Hynde left Ohio for London in the seventies, wrote songs with a hard stare and a melodic ear, and built the Pretenders around guitarist James Honeyman-Scott, bassist Pete Farndon, and drummer Martin Chambers.