Features archive
December 2023
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238 articles
- December 31
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- "It was a very magical time. The right people came together at the right moment": Ronnie James Dio's track-by-track guide to Dio's classic Holy Diver
- “It was reportedly a very taxing LP to make… but even today the beautiful mysteries remain intact”: Midlake’s The Trials of Van Occupanther is conceptual, esoteric and more prog than indie
- "Every successful band has someone who is really driven and I’m that man. It’s the first time since the early days that I’ve felt ambitious." Solstice and the making of Light Up
- Riots, breakups and a ghost in the attic: The track-by-track guide to Megadeth’s Rust In Peace
- “He went from piano ballads to freak-out prog in three years. Amazing… You want him to be difficult and hard to understand”: Justin Hawkins on Todd Rundgren
- "I don't want to be a clown any more. I don't want to be a rock'n'roll star": The radical rebirth of Jimi Hendrix and his Band Of Gypsys
- "A baptism of fire, fuelled by youthful naivety, stubbornness and folly:" What it was like to witness AC/DC in Australia in 1975... as a 10-year-old
- December 30
- December 29
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- Controversy, Colbert and a Grammy Award: How Ghost finally broke America with Cirice
- Every Cave In album ranked from worst to best
- “It’s not until I’ve finished a record that I think, ‘Oh my God, I have to go out onstage in front of all these relative strangers, singing my heart out about all these personal, private things”: Bruce Soord’s struggle to deliver Luminescence
- B-movie monsters, IQ tests and The Village People: 50 obscure Kiss facts only hardcore Kiss fans know
- "She has this way of writing honest songs that draw people in and connect people: her songs relate to everyone": Warren Haynes on working with Dolly Parton
- "Saucy enough to flavour a thousand barbecues": How a fabled Texan brothel inspired a ZZ Top classic
- "I have an addictive personality. I have five hundred guitars, five hundred amps. Things escalate": Joe Bonamassa comes clean
- December 28
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- Watch Robert Plant receive a foam pie to the face in 13 minutes of anarchic kids' TV with Cozy Powell
- Addiction, Jurassic Park and a one-sided Nirvana feud: The story of Tool’s Sober
- "I told my wife, 'When I die, bury me in those shoes.'": The Specials' Lynval Golding's emotional tribute to Terry Hall
- Every Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack ranked from worst to best
- “For all his showmanship, he was first and foremost a composer and musician, making music for the head and the heart”: Rick Wakeman, Ian Anderson, Geoff Downes and others pay homage to Keith Emerson
- In Memoriam: remembering the rock musicians we lost in 2023
- “When Motörhead leaves, there will be a hole there that just can't be filled”: Remembering Lemmy
- "He liked living on the edge, but over the line was even better": Dennis Wilson's wife shot his car with a 9mm pistol. He narrowly escaped the Manson Family. And he released a stunning solo album
- "Bands like Yes would spend six months doing an album, but in that time we'd do two albums and three tours": How Nazareth recorded Miss Misery
- The Procol Harum albums you should definitely own
- December 27
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- 20 metal bands with no bad albums
- I went, ‘Yeah, David Bowie, you’re a complete c*nt'... and that was the start of a 13-year relationship.” Film director Tim Pope on working with Bowie
- Every Halestorm album ranked from worst to best
- Metal Hammer's 50 best albums of 2023 (and the stories behind them)
- “I’m so fortunate not to have died. I’ve overdosed, been pistol-whipped, shot at, stabbed, run over in a car... and I’m still here”: Glenn Hughes, The Voice of Rock, has lived the lives of 10 men, and he's not finished yet
- “We didn’t grow up on Christian music, we didn’t grow up in the church, we grew up with metal and the Hollywood club scene”: Stryper, Petra and the story of Christian AOR
- In 1979, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow began making their fourth album, Down To Earth. Cue pranks, tantrums, line-up changes, bad vibes and really bad hair days
- Why I ❤️ Deep Purple's Burn, by Matt Sorum
- "Even now it can still get the tears running down my face": Paul Stanley - the soundtrack of my life
- December 26
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- "I don't think that song has any semblance of meaning - it's one of those rambling songs": Mick Jagger on the Exile On Main St classic that's the sound of a band at their peak
- "We did seven encores. We ran out of material and were forced to play Jimi Hendrix tunes. Imagine that, opening for Cream and finishing with Hendrix tunes?": The story of the legendary James Gang
- “This one has done better in the first three weeks than our debut did in a year!" The story of Panic Room's Satellite
- The ten best film scores of 2023
- “I can hear mistakes and imperfections, but spirit has transcended the years. When we play those songs live, they still work”: Dream Theater’s embryonic debut album
- “Genesis was the key to everything really, and also Yes." How Tin Spirits made second album Scorch
- The 10 best doom and stoner metal albums of 2023
- The guide to Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song Records in 10 essential songs
- The Tom Waits' albums you should definitely own
- The story behind Jackson Browne's favourite Jackson Browne album cover
- As teenagers Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck jammed and traded licks. As young men they changed the sound of rock'n'roll. In 1999 they sat down to talk about it
- The riff is a belter, the lyrics arrived out of thin air at Ringo Starr's house, and the promo video for it is pure pantomime – the story behind Beavis and Butthead’s favourite Judas Priest song
- December 25
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- "Kids came in their thousands, and the first two rows looked like Attila The Hun’s frontline troops – frothing at the mouth": four years on the road with America's ultimate party band, Van Halen
- “Forget the luxuriant moustaches and sawn-off mike-stands that would come to define them: if the prog ethos meant avoiding the expected, they were definitely a prog band”: You’ve always known the truth about Queen
- The 10 best goth albums of 2023
- "I read an article where you said it was awkward cos you were more famous than us": watch The Offspring's Dexter Holland interview the actor from the Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) video
- How Dolly Parton corralled a Who's Who of rock royalty to record her landmark Rockstar album: "There's more aggression in rock'n'roll – you've got to treat it with respect"
- “We hit play, and the opening chords of Yes’ Rhythm Of Love sounded exactly like the beginning of the first song on my album. I thought we’d stuck in the wrong tape!” Jason Becker loves Trevor Rabin’s work
- 14 peace anthems and the stories behind them
- “He wasn’t taken seriously on the London scene because he was into mime and he wasn’t a total hippy”: the turbulent story of David Bowie’s early years
- December 24
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- 10 Slade songs that prove they're not just for Christmas
- "Yes, we all want to bang our heads at Christmas, but we also want to sit down with a cup of tea and a mince pie and have a bit of a chillout": Rob Halford's 8 favourite Christmas songs
- "People were crowdsurfing in the lotus position." Dharma are a Taiwan-based Buddhist collective that play death metal and have a nun in their ranks. Chances are, you've never met another band like them
- "The label said ‘What do you want to do next, lads?’ and we laughingly said, ‘Christmas song!’": Justin Hawkins on the creation of The Darkness' festive classic
- "Some people said that seeing the band again made their lives complete": Remembering Status Quo's Rick Parfitt
- Metal Hammer writers' top metal albums of 2023
- ‘Jon Bon Jovi said, ‘I put your CD on and it blew away ours.’ I guess it should piss me off. Like, where’s my cheque?” the story of Black ’N Blue, the band Gene Simmons tried and failed to turn into superstars
- December 23
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- "Beavis and Butt-Head liked it, that was always a big thing!” How Prong got massive for a minute in the 90s with Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck
- That time Prog met Spinal Tap's Derek Smalls!
- “We played for practically 24 hours. When somebody got too tired, somebody else would take over. It was a functional, practical thing to enable the band to play for ever!” When the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind became a single band
- The 10 best thrash metal albums of 2023
- “I called Keith Richards about doing it. His manager said: ‘Keith has already got a band. They’re called the Rolling Stones’”: the epic story of Kings Of Chaos, rock’s billion dollar supergroup
- December 22
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- Every Metallica live film ranked from worst to best
- “Sometimes there’ll be a weird, splatty noise that comes flying through the sound spectrum… children seem to really enjoy that”: Ed Wynne doesn’t know or care why Ozric Tentacles are reaching new heights
- "It’s more than sales – it inspired an entire generation of young girls to know they had a place in heavy music." Inside Fallen: the album that turned Evanescence into instant 21st century metal superstars
- “It was when we knew Roger Waters wasn’t going to be part of anything we did, but before he’d officially left. He had us trapped in limbo. I was putting my toe in the water”: David Gilmour’s solo career
- The 50 best metal songs of 2023 (as voted by Metal Hammer readers)
- “I want it to be a celebration of instrumental guitar in all its forms”: Meet Maebe, the British guitarist mashing up prog genres to build his ultimate wall of sound
- “The audience threw lighters, bottles, ice cubes and coins. We managed four songs before being booed off”: the rollercoaster story of Loverboy, Canada’s greatest AOR band
- "I was always looking for something beautiful to grasp on to": Duff McKagan on love, God, and the truth of punk
- "If you stormed in here and said the new record was rubbish, I would probably quit": Joe Strummer's struggle after The Clash
- "As metal staggered to its feet and limped out of the 80s, it was on the cusp of becoming stronger than ever before": How heavy metal got its mojo back
- The 10 best Keith Moon performances, by Kenney Jones
- December 21
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- The best melodic rock albums of 2023
- “When I listen to Sheik Yerbouti and Joe’s Garage, it reminds me of what a giant he was." Frank Zappa's incredibly busy and industrious 1979
- “There’s a new era coming”: We interviewed the artist who made Sleep Token’s incredible new masks
- “He was incapable of saying anything fond about anyone or anything. Affection didn’t exist in his life, only weird sex”: how Frank Zappa survived the 70s
- Metal Hammer writers name their best gigs of 2023
- “The hallmarks of Pink Floyd during the Obscured By Clouds era, with some deftly disturbing guitar plunges… A uniquely gifted and unfathomable band”: Thee Hypnotics’ Come Down Heavy remains hard to define
- Richie Sambora on Dolly Parton: "If you're not a fan, then you don't understand music very much"
- "I'd like to establish a solo career before I start to live off past glories": Watch a subdued but hopeful Phil Lynott give his final ever TV interview
- "I saw one royalty cheque... and I never saw anything else from that point on": Edwyn Starr's raging classic War may have made his name, but it didn't make him rich
- "I've always been lucky because I don’t have to practice": guitarist Albert Lee has spent 60 years as a professional musician and he's still going strong
- "I was torn between Ozzy and Genesis - what the hell do I do?": A story of "the next Black Sabbath", missed opportunities and vanished dreams
- December 20
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- "If you see anyone throwing things, beat them up": Watch Axl Rose berate a crowd in Argentina via his translator in 1992
- “I had this huge chip on my shoulder… People were incredibly hostile. My confidence was a mess. I was an ‘80s icon’ for 15 years and that drove me mad”: Whatever you think of Gary Numan’s work, it’s progressive - and even he can live with it now
- The 10 best alt metal albums of 2023
- “Everybody thought they were gonna get blown to bits!” The track-by-track guide to Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
- “It should be illegal to be in a band, and only those willing to be arrested and locked up should try and pursue music”: Bill Nelson was only partly joking with his pre-punk manifesto
- Chris Shiflett interviewed Alex Lifeson on his podcast: the experience changed the way he thinks about his own playing
- "I want to be going on tour, recording albums and having millions of fans who adore me": Meet Michael Catton, the singer with Iron Maiden in his veins and the 80s in his music
- "They couldn't transport the snakes in the cattle trailer because it upset the Longhorn and the buffalo": How ZZ Top took Texas on the road in the most sanity-defying tour ever staged
- December 19
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- The best prog albums of 2023
- Watch an Iowa-era Slipknot play a crushing set during the 2001 Ozzfest tour
- The 10 best hip-hop albums of 2023
- The 10 least popular Metallica songs (according to Spotify)
- "Family always comes first for me." Ozzy on the Osbournes resurrecting their podcast, their legendary reality TV show and why he's not done with music by a long shot
- The 10 best metalcore albums of 2023
- "I used to shut the curtains, put on the headphones, drop the needle and not move a muscle till the final note": This is the soundtrack of K.K. Downing's life
- Jimi Hendrix's London: an interactive map
- December 18
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- “Eyeballs will go for anything – they’re the whores of our senses. Ears are a little more discriminating…” Keith Richards' Guide To Life
- The 10 best indie albums of 2023
- The 10 best black metal albums of 2023
- “We couldn’t get a deal for Jethro Tull. The one person interested would only sign them if they dropped the flute player”: How Chrysalis rose from a booking agency to a leading prog record label
- A brief history of the metal Christmas song – and why there’ll (probably) never be a heavy holiday classic
- "Honestly, I don't care if I lose my voice. It's just life, isn't it?": Justin Hawkins on The Darkness, life as a YouTube icon, and predicting the pandemic
- "Collaborate with Amy Lee? That would be incredible!" Guitar hero Sophie Lloyd on why Evanescence mean so much to her - and to rock music in general
- "It’s the biggest heavy metal party in the world." Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Guns N' Roses and Tool, plus insane ticket prices, 40° heat and, er, lobster dinners. Inside the brilliance and the absurdity of Power Trip festival 2023
- “It’s the big joke, bands doing their 15th farewell tour! And I get it… a year or two goes by and you think, ‘You know, I’d sure like to do that again. Why not?’” Neal Morse on the chances of a Transatlantic reunion
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Amon Amarth, The Record Company, Marillion and more
- 32 of the greatest onstage moments in the entire history of the rock guitar
- Relive the majestic moment Keith Richards clubbed a stage invader with his guitar
- "We actually took it to a musicologist because we didn’t want to get sued": the story behind George Thorogood & The Destroyers' Bad To The Bone
- December 17
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- The best debut albums of 2023
- "The festival spun out of control": when the Happy Mondays brought chaos to Glastonbury in 1990
- Louder's writers pick their 10 favourite albums of 2023
- “Flood said, ‘Finish the song or it’s off the record’”: the near-miss story of Smashing Pumpkins’ classic hit 1979
- The 10 best progressive metal albums of 2023
- Watch ten rock stars from the 90s in their earlier bands
- “You want to know some secrets about Leonard Cohen?”: the time that Adam Cohen wrote about his relationship with his famous dad
- “The true owners are not the creators; it’s the listeners. They hear everything that’s working. Who needs to know the detail about how difficult it was?” Wind & Wuthering got Genesis through the punk era - but not without a struggle
- “I never liked it. I never understood it. And it made no difference to the way we played, not for a second”: how Bad Company defied punk to make their classic third album Run With The Pack
- December 16
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- “When the Boogie Nights scene came on, I said, ‘Man, I think I’ve been in that guy’s house in the early 80s!’”: the rise, fall and porn-assisted resurrection of AOR heroes Night Ranger
- "Wouldn’t it be funny if we went down?": the night The Beatles almost reunited on Saturday Night Live
- "It's the biggest song we’ve ever had... and it wasn’t even for sale": the story of Pearl Jam's unexpected smash hit Last Kiss
- The 10 best death metal albums of 2023
- “I didn’t expect some of the backlash. But then you get the Neil fans, who were rabidly protective”: the story of America, the 70s soft rockers behind the greatest Neil Young song Neil Young never wrote
- December 15
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- “Drugs and alcohol and ego clashes got in the way, but we managed to keep them quiet”: the unbelievable story of Chicago, the soft rock kings with steel in their hearts
- "I will deny all knowledge if questioned about this": revisiting the day that a Sex Pistol urinated on Elvis Presley's grave
- “We were name-checked on American Dad!" We chat to Dave Hunt, frontman of beloved British extreme metallers Anaal Nathrakh, about filthy music, cartoons and "unapologetically juvenile" album covers
- “We were name-checked on American Dad!" We chat to Dave Hunt, frontman of beloved British extreme metallers Anaal Nathrakh, about filthy music, cartoons and "unapologetically juvenile" album covers
- Prog's ultimate Christmas Tracks Of The Week
- The 50 best rock albums of 2023
- December 14
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- How to gift Spotify, Apple Music and other music streaming services
- Here are the best new metal bands you need to hear this month
- "We did this because of the community: I was like, 'I need to bring these people together.'" From podcasters and sculptors to fanzine editors and tarot readers, we meet the super-fans helping Sleep Token become one of metal's biggest success stories
- “I’m not going to say it’s a masterpiece, but it is a beautiful and a totally worthwhile entry in the Pink Floyd canon”: The highs and lows of Richard Wright’s solo work
- The Otis Redding albums you should definitely own
- "My country might be in shambles right now, but I'm the king of these shambles": The Wanton Bishops' Nader Mansour on the beauty of Beirut
- “All I could do to accommodate requests for new sounds for them was just to abuse the equipment": How The Beatles' Revolver revolutionised music
- Vote for your favourite rock albums of 2023
- December 13
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- 10 pop stars who’ve championed heavy metal bands
- The 50 best metal albums of 2023 - as voted by the readers of Metal Hammer
- “I was seven months pregnant. The doctor said I couldn’t travel but I explained that I was going to be playing with John McLaughlin… she said, ‘Okay, well you have to go!’” Hedvig Mollestad started out feeling like a failure
- 10 alternative Christmas anthems to soundtrack your festive season and drown out Wham! and Mariah Carey
- “When I was about 14 a friend recommended Yes and ELP to me. To be completely honest I didn’t really like the music… I don’t think I’ve ever actually bought a prog album!” Derek Sherinian, keyboard warrior
- "It was an awkward situation, too, with me being kind of naked": Graveyard's Joakim Nilsson on darkness, recording in forests, and running into famous musicians in the sauna
- "Those were crazy times. I wouldn’t change it for the world": how Goodbye Yellow Brick Road reinforced Elton John's status as a global superstar
- "Have I got time to go to the bathroom?" 12 minutes with Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle will tell you everything you need to know about the tedium of touring
- December 12
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- Sweet have been going for more than 50 years: now they're thinking about AI to take them into the future
- "I finally understood that I was in the middle of a Nirvana reunion": revisiting the night that 'Sirvana' - Sir Paul McCartney and the surviving members of Nirvana - rocked Madison Square Garden for charity
- The 10 best electronic albums of 2023
- ”They called me about a week after Jeff Porcaro passed… they’d grown up together, they’d lost a blood brother, and suddenly the all-American West Coast band has a tea bag in it!” How Simon Phillips joined and left Toto
- 10 massive metal bands we want new albums from in 2024
- "I’ve got my own coach that I only share with a few people. Some might look at me like ‘Dang!’ but listen: I paid my dues.” Maria Brink on her rock 'n' mom, open mic nights and earning In This Moment's seat at the table
- "People thought we were begging for money": How Patreon saved Ne Obliviscaris from falling apart in the face of threats, wildfires and loss
- "I'm at this weird crossroads": Mike Shinoda faces the future, but exactly what that future holds, is not yet clear
- “People would say, ‘Oh, you don’t look like you should be doing metal.'" We went on tour with Scene Queen, the bimbocore leader who's turning metal stereotypes on their heads (and infuriating gatekeepers with "twerkle pits")
- “People would say, ‘Oh, you don’t look like you should be doing metal.'" We went on tour with Scene Queen, the bimbocore leader who's turning metal stereotypes on their heads (and infuriating gatekeepers with "twerkle pits")
- “A band can be one thing for so many years then change into something completely different”: Once a bit metal, Leprous now have more in common with Marillion than with ritualistic rebellion against ideology
- "I love that we do this thing that other musicians relate to": Page Hamilton on Helmet's rock royalty fans and advisors
- Driven by an obsession and a devotion to music, John Brennan amassed a huge collection of rock star signatures - and now he's selling them off
- December 11
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- “There’s usually a pile of songs, some to use now and some years from now… On this album the first chords are from something I wrote 30 years ago”: The patience of The Flower Kings’ Roine Stolt
- 10 rock and metal covers of Christmas classics that sound made up but actually happened
- Every The Jesus and Mary Chain album ranked from worst to best
- “I think they just want to know that I am feeling something”: How Sleep Token conquered America and became metal's hottest new band
- “My whole motive was to open the door for kids who look like me." UnityTX are fighting for metal to be a scene for everyone. As it happens, their blend of hardcore, rap, nu metal and industrial absolutely slaps, too
- “I was looking for a new cliff to dive off to stimulate my creativity…That’s what I’ve done my entire life”: Why Francis Dunnery quit It Bites three times, and where it's taken him
- The best new rock songs you need to hear right now, including Sebastian Bach, Big Big Train, Lucifer and more
- December 10
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- The 10 greatest compilation albums in heavy metal history
- “Not a simple or easy album… it’s almost as if they want you to run away screaming. Regardless, it’s a towering avant-garde work”: The prog power of The Pop Group’s Y
- “I don’t mean to be arrogant, but we had the goods. We knew what we were doing”: how Bad Company hit the bullseye with their classic second album Straight Shooter
- December 9
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- “Grace was three sheets to the wind, so Marty sang to her while holding her in an arm-lock so she couldn’t get away”: the epic, drunken and very crazy story of Jefferson Starship
- “We can effectively run ourselves and keep the band releasing material without compromising creative integrity.” Introducing The Gift
- "I’m not going for massive commercial success. I want to make the music I like." Dave Kerzner and New World
- “I’m going for blood. I want to bring guitar back in a joyful, exciting way”: Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt on the guitar solo that caused the internet to lose its mind in 2023
- Sepultura should go down as one of the bravest musical forces in metal – no matter which era of the band you look at
- “Black Sabbath are afraid of us blowing them offstage. I’d feel the same in their position”: Lemmy, Ozzy and the story of legendary 80s rock festival the Heavy Metal Holocaust
- "Opeth and Scissor Sisters are fans of mine": comedian Bill Bailey talks Mastodon, Ghost and why he'd love to have a nerdy conversation with Prince
- “The albums I love the most were the ones where I wasn’t sure what I was listening to… There’s something great about music that’s beyond easy description or categorisation”: Steven Wilson gets it if you don’t get The Harmony Codex at first
- December 8
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- “We begged Stallone to send us the whole movie. When he did, we were blown away”: Survivor were just another struggling AOR band. And then Rocky III and Eye Of The Tiger changed everything
- 10 incredible metal bands who sadly split in 2023
- Lzzy Hale: 10 records that changed my life
- "We haven’t had to take the devil's bargain just yet": meet Green Lung, the occult rockers who've stumbled on a formula for infernal success
- December 7
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- Best gifts for metalheads 2024: Raise your horns with these heavy-duty gift ideas
- Vote for the best metal song of 2023
- “When we started, it wasn’t necessarily going to be a trilogy… I like the fact that each one is a bit different. To this day that’s the best band I’ve ever been in”: Steve Hillage on Gong’s Radio Gnome Invisible era
- “I just wanted to scream”: Taiwanese duo Laang 冷 are channelling a near-death experience into ferocious black metal
- “As hard as it was, and it was hard, nobody wanted to bottle out. We just knew we had a big landscape we could explore”: How Tales From Topographic Oceans became the most arduous project in Yes’ history
- The albums on Stiff Records you should definitely own
- "Our intention was to go out on stage and destroy all living things": How Gene Simmons intimidated Geezer Butler when Kiss supported Black Sabbath
- All the way to nowhere: The story of The Raspberries
- December 6
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- "I felt a rage towards him that has taken decades to subside": The mysterious case of the fake Fleetwood Mac
- The 10 best horror movies of 2023
- Every Grand Theft Auto soundtrack ranked from worst to best
- "It was the most scary thing any of us had ever been through." Ronnie James Dio on the "evil spirit" that apparently sabotaged Rainbow and ended up pushing his wife down the stairs
- “The blueprint for the beginning of death metal.” How Slayer dragged metal to new depths of evil with Show No Mercy
- The ten best Nine Inch Nails deep cuts
- Does anyone else remember the time Metallica’s Kirk Hammett played Bleed onstage with Meshuggah?
- “He sees the big picture and gets that classic English sound… I’m still very awestruck by his history”: Christopher Cross on why Alan Parsons is his prog hero
- Why I ❤️ David Bowie's Hunky Dory, by My Morning Jacket's Jim James
- "So I open it up and it's ten thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, all stacked and taped together": The Cadillac Three's stories of Lemmy, Steven Tyler, Chrissie Hynde, Paris Hilton and more
- December 5
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- In 1995 Ozzy Osbourne revisited his old school in Birmingham: The kids didn't know who he was
- The 60 best Ozzy Osbourne songs of all time
- “A slice of terrace commentary from a band more associated with croquet than soccer”: Genesis’ largely forgotten Spot The Pigeon EP
- "I'm like... You sure that's what you want me to sing, honey?": How the Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter represented the death of the 1960s spirit
- "I'll be honest here – I think they blew us off stage every single night": what happened when AC/DC went on tour with Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow
- The King's X albums you should definitely own
- December 4
- December 3
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- 10 guitar heroes who should be much better known, by Joe Bonamassa
- "We had a meeting at his ranch... it was quite mad": the crazy tale of the time Steven Spielberg wanted to make a TV show with Supergrass
- "Lars vomited all down his front. I mopped him up and sent him back out": revisit an ace interview with Lemmy discussing his relationship with Metallica
- "If you didn’t want to be in the beef, you shouldn’t have opened your mouth": Eminem on writing a diss track about Limp Bizkit
- “At points it sounds more like Camel than Lynyrd Skynyrd”: The Marshall Tucker Band’s prog energy
- “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper is about hope, rather than the finality of death. It’s a song about wishful thinking”: how Blue Oyster Cult’s Agents Of Fortune album became their passport to immortality
- December 2
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- “Christine had been killed. The studio was somewhere I could go where I’d feel something other than lost”: how David Crosby turned grief into hazy magic on his solo masterpiece If I Could Only Remember My Name
- “I just can’t believe this is really happening”: watch Ronnie James Dio unleash his vocals on a Tenacious D song
- "Chris Squire was amazing, I was lucky enough to know him through the bass player world." Tal Wilkenfeld's world of music
- “If I ever run into him in a dream again, I hope I remember to apologize”: the time Chris Cornell revealed he’d been dreaming about Layne Staley
- “It’s glossy as hell, and it sounds very corporate. The 80s were driven by cocaine and arrogance and it fit that bill”: the epic story of the self-titled 1985 album that saved Heart’s career
- December 1
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- “I’m not interested in my own angst. I like a good story. Violence. A bit of sex, a bit of drinking, a bit of drugs, y’knoworramean?” A tribute to Shane MacGowan, the genius lyricist who thought the music was more important than the words
- "Dwarves with trays of cocaine on their heads? It never happened. Well, I never saw it. Actually, it could have been true...": What really happened at Queen's most outrageous party
- The 10 best new metal songs you need to hear right now
- Ace new prog music you must hear from Wilson/Wakeman, Moon Safari, Louise Patricia Crane and more in Prog's Tracks Of The Week
- “I was completely petrified by Kate Bush singing Wuthering Heights on TV. Anyone I was scared of I was interested by”: How Matt Berry discovered prog
- The least popular songs by 10 legendary rock bands
- 10 amazing metal songs under one minute long
- "It’s like an ocean of music, of experience and concept and feelings." Inside the musical mind of David Sancious
- Kid Rock: My stories about Metallica, Axl Rose, Pamela Anderson and more
- Jim Croce was about to break through in a major way, but cruel fate intervened and the almost-star all but forgotten: Then Quentin Tarantino came along
- "I've always regarded myself as a rock drummer. I mean, John Bonham is my number one hero": What happened when Roxy Music drummer Paul Thompson auditioned for AC/DC
- "The music and the band matters so much to us that it is do-or-die": Six things you need to know about Saint Agnes
- "I wanted to write something that would take over We Shall Overcome": How John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote the peace anthem that's still trying to change the world
