Table of contents for August 24, 2017 in Rolling Stone

The Game Master THE ARTICLE ON EMILIA Clarke offered insight even the most ardent Game of Thrones fans were probably unaware of [“The Queen of Dragons Tells All,” RS 1291/1292]. Jack Hathaway, San Antonio NOTING THE SADNESS OF losing her father at a young age, Clarke says there is “no guide” for the actual experience of grief. Having lost my dad when I was 12 years old, I recall being pleasantly surprised that there actually exist stages beyond plain despair. Richard A. Levine, M.D., Boca Raton, FL CLARKE INTIMATES THAT being treated differently than men on set is akin to racism. That’s an insult to any minority that has had to deal with a whole hell of a lot more adversity than having to arrive early for hair and makeup.…

On the afternoon of may 26th, Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington gave a performance unlike any in his career. His close friend, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, was being laid to rest at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles. “My name is Chester,” Bennington told the mourners gathered there. “I had the great privilege of being a friend of Chris and invited to be a member of his family.” Then, accompanied by Linkin Park bandmate Brad Delson on guitar, he sang “Hallelujah.” Bennington had become famous in the early 2000s as the powerhouse voice of one of rock’s biggest bands, expressing himself through an angst-ridden scream, but that day his singing was different: plaintive, somber, fragile. He also paid tribute to Cornell on Twitter: “Your voice was joy and pain,…

Neil Young Hitchhiker HHHH½ Hitchhiker marks a pivotal moment in Neil Young’s ongoing series of archival releases: Instead of a live classic-songs set, this is a buried-treasure mother lode – 10 newly unearthed studio recordings, cut in one acoustic session, on August 11th, 1976. Young wasn’t exactly swept up in the country’s bicentennial spirit at the time; now grouped together rather than spread out over later records, the violence-drenched “Powderfinger,” “Captain Kennedy” and “Pocahontas” feel like pointed rejoinders to the whitewashed history offered up during America’s 200th birthday. He’s in peak lonesome-guy mode on the never-released failed-relationship chronicle “Give Me Strength.” Another previously unheard song, “Hawaii,” is a spooky mysterious-stranger ballad. The take of the Nixon-sympathizing “Campaigner” here includes a newly relevant verse deleted from the version that appeared on…

On a los angeles morning, as the temperature climbs toward the triple digits, Julia Michaels rolls up for breakfast at a spot on Ventura Boulevard not far from her home, wearing a black turtleneck, floral-printed pants and one of the 16 pairs of Doc Martens she owns. “I never know how to dress for the right temperature,” she explains. At the curb sits her gray Ford Escape. “My mom car. I love it.” It’s not exactly the cruising vessel you’d imagine for a 23-year-old who has co-written a string of nine Hot 100 hits, including Justin Bieber’s “Sorry,” Selena Gomez’s “Hands to Myself,” Nick Jonas and Tove Lo’s “Close,” and “Issues,” the song that marked Michaels’ transition from songwriter to singer, and which has been comfortably lodged in the Top…

The last time the mass public got a glimpse of Beck, it was at the end of the 2015 Grammys and Prince was handing him an Album of the Year award for his LP Morning Phase. Before Beck could even open his mouth to register his shock, Kanye West walked onstage briefly to protest Beyoncé’s loss. “I’ve had some trippy things happen in my life,” Beck says today. “But that was up there, for sure.” Few people knew, but at the time Beck was already two years into work on his follow-up album, Colors, a euphoric blast of experimental pop he crafted with producer Greg Kurstin, best known for his work with Adele, Kelly Clarkson and Sia. Colors is finally coming out in October, after one of the longest gestation…

INSECURE SUNDAYS, 10:30 P.M., HBO Still awkward; still expressing the depths of her neurotic soul by doing freestyle raps into the bathroom mirror. Issa Rae blew up last year with one of 2016’s most impressive rookie comedies, Insecure, but the new season is even sharper, and she’s taking bigger risks. What makes Rae so special is her rare combination of relatable warmth and lethal salt. When she learns her ex has a new girl, she raps, “So I’m supposed to move on? Go high, Michelle Obama? Well, call me Lifetime, bitch, because I’m bringing the drama.” But when she ends up back in his bed, her BFF wants to know: “Was it like a ‘we back together’ fuck or a ‘fuck you’ fuck?” Rae shrugs. “It was a nebulous fuck.”…

RUSH HOUR STARTS early on Heroin Highway, generally by 6 a.m. Hockey dads in sport-utes; high school teens in car pools; commodities brokers and pensioners making their early-morning runs into Chicago on I-290. The Eisenhower Expressway – the Ike, as locals call it – is a straight shot in from the western suburbs to the mob-deep blocks of West Chicago. So Gangster Disciples and Vice Lords are up with the sun to pitch their work to the early birds, hugging the corners under the Ike’s offramps to do much of their day’s business by 8 a.m. Since cheap, potent heroin flooded Chicago 10 years ago and addicted a bell-cow demographic – middle-class whites – those corners off the Ike have become bull markets for gangs strong enough to hold them…

Who are your heroes and why? My journalistic heroes are Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel and Tim Russert and Edward R. Murrow, among others, because they were tough. My dad’s a hero in a lot of ways. He was a 1960s and 1970s hippie and a member of the protest crowd. He’s a pediatrician, and he spent his life providing medical care in low-income sections of Philadelphia, so he lives his values. My mom is a hero in a lot of ways because she’s the most empathetic and kind person I’ve ever met. What’s the most indulgent purchase you ever made? I’m a collector of presidential historical material, and I bought an autographed copy of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage. My wife doesn’t know about it. She might learn…

Rundgren just released White Knight, his 27th solo album, and is touring this fall with Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band. The Fixx “Stand or Fall” This is about what’s happening to the planet and how doing nothing is to lose. It has a bleak sound, which adds urgency. Red Rider “Lunatic Fringe” The undercurrent of indigence and violence and hate, as evidenced by the election of Trump, makes this an evergreen song. But now the lunatic fringe is no longer the fringe. The Call “The Walls Came Down” This became an anthem about having a party and fighting the powers that be. It’s got this great celebratory hoot at the end. Elvis Costello and the Attractions “(What’s So Funny ’Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” He’s angry that people aren’t taking this…

For his 19th solo album, Ringo Starr planned to record his first country album since 1970’s Beaucoups of Blues. But when his touring schedule made an extended trip to Nashville impossible, Ringo decided to simply work in his living room, inviting old friends like Peter Frampton, Dave Stewart, his brother-in-law Joe Walsh and Paul McCartney to collaborate. “It ended up like a regular Ringo album with a ballad, a country song, a rock song,” says the drummer, whose new album, Give More Love, is out September 15th. “It’s always very casual. With Pro Tools, you don’t need all that space like we had in Abbey Road. Sometimes the dog will bark, and it ends up on the track.” Ringo, 77, is approaching his 30th year leading his All-Starr Band, whose…

The breitbart news headline, back in November 2014, rang like a five-alarm fire bell: muslim brotherhood overruns national cathedral in dc. Its author, Breitbart’s national-security editor, was Dr. Sebastian L. v. Gorka, who currently occupies a top White House post as “deputy assistant” to President Donald Trump. And like just about anything Gorka has said or written, the Breitbart headline was wrong in every way. It wasn’t the Muslim Brotherhood at all, and no one overran anything. Despite his characteristic hyperventilation, the event in question was a dignified, interfaith prayer service organized jointly by the leaders of Washington National Cathedral and five mainstream Muslim organizations seeking to unite “voices of moderation.” But critics charge that Gorka’s hyperbole and his hands-off relationship with the truth have lately sent his stock skyrocketing…

“Well, you almost had me fooled. Told me . . . I was nothing without you.Oh, after everything you’ve done, I can thank you for how strong I have become.” —Kesha, “Praying” Kesha Rainbow Kemosabe/RCA HHHH BY BRITTANY SPANOS In 2012, wild-child pop diva Kesha hit a high point with her dirty, glitter-soaked rock album, Warrior. But she’s spent the past five years in silence, embroiled in a grueling legal battle with her most frequent collaborator, superproducer Dr. Luke, whom the singer accused of physical and emotional abuse. On her excellent comeback record, Rainbow, Kesha channels that drama into the best music of her career – finding common ground between the honky-tonks she loves (her mom is Nashville songwriter Pebe Sebert) and the dance clubs she ruled with hits like “Tik Tok” and “Die…