Rolling Stone May 4, 2017

Trump Up Front shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but Matt Taibbi’s Trump story is as brilliant as the issue’s cover art [“Trump the Destroyer,” RS 1284]. I was hooked from the get-go, especially with the line “He looks pleased and satisfied, like a Roman emperor who has just moved his bowels.” Ashley Paskill, Hatfield, PA Taibbi first. “Trump the Destroyer” is a new level even for him. Between research and observation, this article shows the bar has been set at a new high. Insightful, interesting and provocative. Frank Salvaggio, Lenox, MA chronicle of butt-hurt. Donald Trump was elected president because it’s time for some fundamental change in our country. Taibbi can bitch and complain all he wants, but things are going to change here. Enjoy the ride. Otis R. Needleman, via the Internet see this…

THall of Fame ceremony was full of moments fans thought they’d never see, from the classic lineup of Yes putting aside years of bad blood to play one last time, to the first performance since 1991 from Pearl Jam’s original lineup. But nothing was more surprising than the reunion of Journey. In the days before the show, the band resorted to Twitter to lobby its estranged former singer, Steve Perry, to appear with his old band onstage for the first time in 26 years. The group got its wish, with Perry showing up and embracing his bandmates as they collected their statues. Backstage, Perry made plans with guitarist Neal Schon to meet for a “way-overdue coffee.” “The night was surreal,” says Schon. “I got very emotional.” The April 7th show –…

W was finishing the 2014 sci-fi film Guardians of the Galaxy, he kept hearing one bit of feedback from some Marvel Studios employees. “Nobody,” he recalls them saying, “is going to want to hear this music.” Gunn had laced the movie with eight-track-era gems – Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love,” Blue Swede’s “Hooked on a Feeling” – but the skeptics insisted that using, say, Nineties Britney jams would be a smarter move. From the moment he got the job, though, Gunn was intent on lending some grounded humanity to his oddball space opera – where an acerbic space raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper, is among the leads – by setting key scenes against dusty, incongruous pop songs. The conceit is that the tunes come from an ancient Walkman toted around…

T notoriously cautious about digging through their vaults – 1995’s Anthology documentary project took more than 25 years for the group to approve and release, while films like Let It Be remain under wraps, even though they would be guaranteed moneymakers. Which is why it’s so surprising that, 50 years after the release of the band’s most famous album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Beatles are issuing a new box set featuring 34 never-heard tracks from the sessions – the first time they have released unheard studio material since Anthology. Today, Giles Martin, the producer and son of the late George Martin, sits at the control board at Abbey Road’s Studio Two in London, playing back some of the lost treasures. The studio looks the same as it did…

J an awful lot of time alone, painting. Not long ago, he went 35 days without leaving his Indiana compound, a stretch so lengthy that his 85-year-old dad told him he was worried. But whether he wants them or not, songs still come to him, as his strong, country-inflected new album, Sad Clowns and Hillbillies (made in collaboration with Carlene Carter), makes clear. “A voice in my head will go, ‘OK, put your brush down and write these words down,’ ” he says. “And I’ll be like, ‘No, I don’t want to fucking write a song.’ Then the voice will go, ‘You better write this down, you idiot.’ Then I forget about it, and I find it and go, ‘When did I write this?’ It’s a wonderful way of writing…

J. There’s a bench at the top of Primrose Hill, in London, that looks out over the skyline of the city. If you’d passed by it one winter night, you might have seen him sitting there. A lanky guy in a wool hat, overcoat and jogging pants, hands thrust deep into his pockets. Harry Styles had a lot on his mind. He had spent five years as the buoyant fan favorite in One Direction; now, an uncertain future stretched out in front of him. The band had announced an indefinite hiatus. The white noise of adulation was gone, replaced by the hushed sound of the city below. The fame visited upon Harry Styles in his years with One D was a special kind of mania. With a self-effacing smile, a hint…