Innehållsförteckning för December 2022 från Rolling Stone

THESE DAYS, when Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano wants to reminisce, he doesn’t call up a friend to shoot the shit. He goes to his YouTube channel. There, the onetime underboss of New York’s Gambino crime family, who turned state’s evidence against John Gotti in 1991, regales an audience of 520,000 subscribers with tales of kidnappings, gangland killings, and more. “It’s talking and reflecting on what I am and what I did,” Gravano says simply. At 77, Gravano is one of the most prominent figures on what could be called “Mafia YouTube,” a network of ex-wiseguys talking about their exploits. The roster includes Michael Franzese, a caporegime with the Colombos (near 1 million subscribers); “Boston” Bobby Luisi, who live-streams Q&As; and former Gambino “made man” Michael DiLeonardo, who started…

TWO YEARS AGO, while tripping on mushrooms, Margo Price decided to quit drinking. This wasn’t her first attempt, but something about her psychedelic journey led her to an epiphany. “I know it sounds a little woo-woo, but I was touched by something,” says Price, 39. “I thought about fucking everything that had happened in my life up until that point, and I didn’t know what was holding me back from quitting.” With this newfound perspective, Price finished her excellent memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It. It focuses on her early struggles to break through in Nashville, at a time when she was grappling with drugs, alcohol, and trauma. On its heels, she’s releasing her new album, Strays, on Jan. 13. With scorching riffs, heartfelt folk, and appearances by the Heartbreakers’…

Selena Gomez has a lot of baggage. She says this is true both “literally and figuratively,” and she says it while I am rolling my own literal baggage across the threshold of her Los Angeles home, having first rolled it past the security gate, then up the verdant hill, then along the glimmering pool, before depositing it in a sort of glam room with a flowery rug and a view of the patio through open glass doors. By this point, I may be perspiring a bit. Gomez hugs me anyway, then scurries off down a hallway to confer with a young woman about the air conditioning. When she returns, she plops into a white leather salon-style chair and launches into a tale of how, just prior to my arrival,…

DIVE OFF OF THE LOLLAPALOOZA MAIN STAGE □ Stage diving is a time-honored ritual that celebrates our passion for the sound, and our need — if just for a chorus — to be the star of the show. And there’s no better place than a festival, whether Lolla, Coachella, Bonnaroo, wherever. When you’re taking the big plunge, might as well go all the way. Already been there, done that? Check the box! □ Go volcano boarding Skydiving? Bungee jumping? Zzzz. For a one-of-a-kind adrenaline rush, hit the lava surf of a volcano. There’s Cerro Negro in Nicaragua, which hasn’t erupted since 1999. Or Mount Yasur in the South Pacific, which erupts every day. It’s a modern version of the ancient Hawaiian ritual of lava sledding. Don your crash suit,…

WHAT’S NEW, WHAT’S NEXT, WHAT’S NUTS STANDING IN THE KITCHEN at a house party in Rome not long ago, Caroline Polachek heard a song that struck her deeply. “Ti Sento” (“I Hear You”), the 1985 single by Italian pop group Matia Bazar, is peak Eighties Europop kitsch: sparkling synth-pop paired with big, operatic vocals. Polachek thinks a lot about divas (she loves Celine Dion for “how she exists as an icon, and how pure and comforting and solid that is”), and the performance by Matia Bazar’s singer, Antonella Ruggiero, became a major touchstone for her. “She’s just giving everything, and the song climbs up higher into these other keys,” Polachek says. “There is this feeling in her vocal performance that her eyes are gonna fucking pop out of her…

THE ARGENTINE rapper Paulo Londra has always known how to build momentum for himself. As a precocious teenager, he’d take his steady, melodic flow to the plazas of Córdoba, where he grew up, and knock out challengers during the kind of freestyle battles that were known as a breeding ground for talent across the country. “I always said, ‘There’s such an impressive level of improvisation and artistry here,’” Londra, 24, says over a Zoom call. He’s boyish and easygoing, with tousled hair, and he champions the music scene in Argentina every chance he gets. He quickly became one of that scene’s biggest stars: He recorded his breakthrough track “Relax” on the fly in 2017, and soon, he was regularly dropping smash hits. In 2018, he released “Adan y Eva,”…

GROWING UP IN Brooklyn in the 2010s, Helena Straight and Mikaela Oppenheimer bonded over their shared love of indie-rock favorites like Courtney Barnett and Car Seat Headrest, along with a few older picks. “I remember when Neutral Milk Hotel came on and I was like, ‘This is crazy,’” says Oppenheimer, 19. “And I was like, ‘Oh, my God, my dad plays this all the time,’” says Straight, 18. Soon they’d formed a duo called Hello Mary — Straight on guitar and vocals, Oppenheimer on bass — which became a trio with the arrival of Stella Wave, 22, on drums and backing vocals. Their self-titled full-length debut, out March 3, is an instant contender for 2023’s most bracing new entrance onto the stage: a blast of distorted chords, sunny harmonies,…

AS THE EIGHTIES began winding down, Bootsy Collins was in his element during nights on the town in Washington, D.C. Flashing his signature star-shaped shades, according to one report, he was chilling with fellow musicians — including some who’d played with Miles Davis — and sharing stories about his former boss and colleague George Clinton from their Parliament-Funkadelic days. Every so often he’d slip into one of the giddy, over-the-top voices heard on Bootsy stompers like “Bootzilla.” And he was living as large as one would expect: “We’re gonna have fun with this plastic here!” he told a crowd in a restaurant, waving around a credit card. But as the hours and days went on, the musicians he was spending time with began to think something was amiss. For…

RAUW TAKES US INTO OUTER SPACE The Puerto Rican pop star’s latest swerve finds a spot in the cosmos that’s all his own By JULYSSA LOPEZ RAUW ALEJANDRO has always been at home spinning off in unexpected directions. The Puerto Rican star, known for his quick-footed, anti-gravity choreography, has danced his way through a dizzying mix of genres: risqué, racy raps on his two-part EP Trap Cake, thudding old-school reggaeton on Afrodisíaco. Last year’s Vice Versa was his biggest triumph yet, a sharp sophomore effort that somersaulted between pop, drum-and-bass, and Brazilian funk while delivering the mammoth hit “Todo De Ti,” which was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Latin Grammy Awards. Such success left his rabid base of fans wondering one…

ESSAY Genre TV Is Taking Over — and Falling Short From superhero shows to sci-fi and fantasy, today’s hit series are built on IP. But do creators really know how to handle it? By ALAN SEPINWALL IN THE SEASON FINALE of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, the show’s fourth-wall-breaking title character, played by Tatiana Maslany, objects to where the story has gone. So she climbs through the Disney+ interface onto a Hollywood backlot to confront Marvel Cinematic Universe boss Kevin Feige. Instead, she finds a sentient computer called K.E.V.I.N., who explains, “I possess the most advanced entertainment algorithm in the world, and it produces near-perfect products.” She-Hulk points out that her show is about to have the same kind of largely nonsensical action climax that every other MCU movie and…

ALAN FOSTER can still remember the first time he was passed over for a promotion at the Recording Academy. Foster had been working in the organization’s ticketing department for about four years when, in 2003, his boss told him to interview for a new role. But as soon as Foster sat down for the 20-minute interview, something felt off: The decision, he sensed, had already been made by the time he walked into the room. “I felt like it was a sham interview,” he says. A few days later, Foster was told the role would be going to another employee with less experience. “That was the first time I started noting, in my evaluations, my issues with the hiring practices,” says Foster, 59. “I said, ‘I notice that you…

Michael awoke staring down the muzzle of a short-barreled, pump-action shotgun. It was well past midnight on a warm, clear October night on the Southern California coast. The 28-year-old medical-marijuana dispensary owner — half asleep on a couch in the Newport Beach bungalow where he rented rooms — reached out to push the weapon away. The intruder, wearing a ski mask, wrestled with him over the gun. Another man entered the room. That’s when the beating began. The first man clocked Michael in the head with the rifle butt, then began pummeling him. His nose bleeding, Michael struggled. The second man yanked Michael into a headlock. He blacked out, shitting his pants. The men blindfolded and gagged Michael, zip-tying his ankles and wrists, and dragged him downstairs, his head…

The White Lotus became such a sensation. At what point did you realize the show was taking off? There was no sign of it until it hit. There were moments where the acting that was going on made me think “This might be good.” But I didn’t feel like it was something a lot of people would watch, because even though it was a brilliant story, I just didn’t know if people would get all that [showrunner] Mike [White] is saying. I truly underestimated the viewing public. It’s so funny, my neighbors in New Orleans were dressing up and having these White Lotus viewing parties. They all showed up in Hawaiian shirts and leis. That was a really good sign. You won an Emmy for your work as Tanya…