Music Features

Teddy Pendergrass’ voice was astounding, muscular enough to lift cars and crack granite. When paired with the elite writers, arrangers and instrumentalists at Philadelphia International Records in the Seventies, the resulting music was often magnificent. Popular, too: Pendergrass released a platinum-certified LP every year between 1977 and 1980. But thanks …

The music business doesn’t do certainties. This capriciousness, of course, is one of the things that makes it so beguiling. Three minutes of songwriting inspiration; an influential new fan; an out-of-the-blue pop-culture hook-up — they can all instantly rocket a song, or a star, into the consciousness of millions. Yet …

Michael Rubin, a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers, used to have a recurring argument with the rapper and hardcore 76ers fan Meek Mill. “Meek would say, ‘Michael, there are two Americas,’” Rubin recalled during a press conference at John Jay College in Manhattan on Wednesday. “I’d be like, ‘Bro, what …

The Nigerian style of music known as Afrobeats has quietly entranced a large swathe of the world’s population. “Pretty much every song on pop radio [in the U.K. now] is sort of a Mr. Eazi-style, chill, afrobeats [track],” the producer Riton told Rolling Stone last year. But Nigerian singers have …

“No men, just sugar.” Clementine Creevy is reading the ingredients of a candy bar she keeps on a shelf in her living room. “Crush men, eat candy,” she continues with a grin as she turns it over to read the other side. The treat is a merch item for the …

Keith Richards seems genuinely moved that, after 57 years as a band, the Rolling Stones will be playing to stadium crowds this spring in the U.S. – the country he calls the band’s “original hunting ground.” “I really can’t put words on it,” he tells Rolling Stone, when asked what …

William “Will.i.am” Adams scrambles to hide a prototype box made for the Black Eyed Peas‘ seventh album, Masters of the Sun Vol. 1. An early version of the ambitious, boombox-shaped, augmented-reality-compliant object, he moves it away from the prying eyes of Rolling Stone, stashing it behind the desk of Eddie …

“Real Life Rock Top Ten” is a monthly column by cultural critic and RS contributing editorGreil Marcus. 1. “Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan plays River Spirit Casino Resort,” Tulsa World (October 13th). Though it does carry an echo of the Cheek to Cheek Lounge of Winter Park, Florida, where in …

“Welcome to the city of El Dorado, Arkansas, U.S.A.” reads the banner on a collapsible stage where a local band is plugging in their instruments. It’s a clear September weekend in a quaint patch of southwest Arkansas. The town’s name became allegorical in the 1920s when a prodigious oil well …

The O’My’s have been a band for more than a decade, shuffling through many members and releasing a fair amount of music in the process. But the experimental Chicago soul duo would prefer you view Tomorrow, their spacey and sensual new album, as their true starting point. “I finally feel …