Rolling Stone February 25, 2016

MUSIC RICK RUBIN: MY LIFE IN 20 SONGS The Def Jam co-founder reflects on more than 30 years of producing classic records, from the Beastie Boys’Licensed to Ill and LL Cool J’s Radio to the Red Hot Chili Peppers’Blood Sugar Sex Magik to the Dixie Chicks’Take the Long Way to Kanye West’s Yeezus. “There’s a time to strip back an artist’s sound,” Rubin says, “but sometimes it makes sense to do the exact opposite.” EXCLUSIVE STORY OF THE REPLACEMENTS Read an exclusive excerpt from Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements, about the group’s notoriously drunken appearance on Saturday Night Live in 1986. FILM INDIE HORROR: ‘THE WITCH’ How a Brooklyn theater director took a story about 17th-century Puritans and turned it into the scariest movie of the year, despite a tiny budget and a cast of…

1. Elliott Smith “True Love” Twelve-plus years after Smith’s death, there are still some serious gems in his catalog that most fans have never heard. This ballad about the tragic allure of addiction – recorded in 2001 with producer Jon Brion but unreleased until now, on the soundtrack of the new documentary Heaven Adores You – is one of the best. 2. Rostam “Wood” We were sorry to see Vampire Weekend co-founder Rostam Batmanglij leave the group in late January – but this lush, dreamy love song, which he reposted immediately after the announcement, has us excited for the music he’ll make from here. 3. Drake “Summer Sixteen” Drake side-eyes Kanye’s pool (“Mine is just bigger”) and snaps back at President Obama for saying he prefers Kendrick’s music. Please, Drizzy, don’t hurt ’em! 4. White Denim…

“Dwelling in the world of sad songs is my antidote for loneliness,” says Wolf, whose new solo album, A Cure for Loneliness, will be released on April 8th. Nolan Strong and the Diablos “The Wind” This song has a great cult following, especially with doo-wop fans. Even just the intro has the power to bring you back to the sadness of a lost love. Dorothy Moore “Misty Blue” This started out as a country song but became an R&B tour de force. Every time I hear it, it transports me into a state of misty blue. The Platters “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” This came from the 1933 production of Roberta, starring Bob Hope. When the Platters recorded it, they ended up owning it. Little Walter “Blue and Lonesome” Little Walter did for the harmonica what Jimi Hendrix did for the guitar.…

Leo’s Big Year Leonardo DiCaprio [“Leo’s Crusade,” RS 1253]. It appears that many of Hollywood’s biggest stars feel that acting isn’t interesting enough to fully sustain them. But this year, it’s clearly Oscar-contender DiCaprio’s time to shine. John Pierce, via the Internet superstars of DiCaprio’s caliber have a genuinely global vision. The more that high-profile artists commit to issues like climate change, the less likely it is that Americans will view their crucial work as a sort of vanity project. Good for DiCaprio. And good on Stephen Rodrick for writing a very engaging profile. Bethany Armstrong, via the Internet has the best of intentions, until he stops riding on yachts and flying around in private jets, he has no right to put himself forth as an environmentalist, no matter which electric car he drives. Do…

‘ELCOME TO THE END,” OZZY OSbourne says to 20,000 fans at Chicago’s United Center. He’s dressed head-to-toe in black, and his band has just wrung every ounce of Gothic gloom from its opening dirge, “Black Sabbath, ” but now Ozzy sounds more wistful than scary. “Can you believe it, man? From 1968 till now.” Nearly half a century after they first scared the bejesus out of rock fans, Black Sabbath have begun their victory lap. The End, a big, fiery farewell tour for some of rock’s most primal visionaries, includes two North American legs – the current one runs through late February, and another kicks off in August – and could stretch at least into next year, band members say. Osbourne says the idea to call it quits “just kind of happened”…

ASan Francisco’s mid-Sixties psychedelic renaissance, Jefferson Airplane, the scene’s reigning band, often played free shows for the faithful – on flatbed trucks in the Panhandle and at be-ins in Golden Gate Park. That is where bassist Jack Casady saw his bandmate, singer-guitarist Paul Kantner, “at his best. He’d take his 12-string Rickenbacker,” Casady says, “and raise it above his head in a great, revolutionary stance. He loved that phenomenon of a huge number of people coming together with music as the foundation and the catalyst.” Kantner – who died at 74 on January 28th in San Francisco of multiple organ failure following a heart attack earlier in the week – pursued that ideal for more than 50 years: first with the Airplane, which he co-founded with singer Marty Balin in 1965;…