Rolling Stone is one of Australia’s longest-running magazines. Since 1971 it has been the premier music & entertainment magazine in Australia. It reflects both global and Australian popular culture with passion, honesty and attitude.
“Why are we excited about virtual reality again? Since when did IRL become a dirty term?” Urban Vice KEITH URBAN NEEDS TO talk about his druggy days more often. [RS 777] Talking about his vices and his relationship problems makes him sound like an Aussie, and separates him from his God-bothering Nashville country chart counterparts. He can now count me as a fan. Chrissie Dibendra Yarraville, Vic. Virtually Over WHY ARE WE EXCITED about virtual reality again? [RS 777] 3D glasses at the cinema give me a headache and I can only imagine the social problems that will come from people finding yet another bloody way to escape from reality. Since when did IRL become a dirty term? Darren Blake Adelaide, S.A. Garrett the Polly Goneski? APPEARING ON THE COVER…
LIST BEST MOVIES OF 2016 SO FAR From an instant Coen brothers’ classic to ‘Captain America’, the first-half cream of this year’s cinematic crop. EXCLUSIVE MICHAEL KIWANUKA: MY SOUNDTRACK While in Sydney recently the British soul musician talked us through the songs that changed his life. MUSIC SUBLIME LOOK BACK Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson discuss the making of their self-titled album, released just weeks after the death of lead singer Bradley Nowell in 1996. INTERVIEW INTRODUCING: MAALA We chat to the rising New Zealand electro-pop singer about shaking the stigma of talent shows and his debut album, Composure. WATCH MONTAIGNE PERFORMS LIVE Sydney avant-pop star stops by our office to play a stripped-back rendition of new single “Because I Love You” MUSIC NEWS, AROUND THE CLOCK Get breaking music…
Who’s The Boss? Bruce Springsteen showed off some timely fan signage before tearing into “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” in Munich. Three’s Company Alison Mosshart, Pam Hogg and Siouxsie Sioux joined up to celebrate fashion designer Hogg’s honorary doctorate from Glasgow University. Gucci Mane: Free at Last! “It’s great to be home, and I’m having a ball out here tonight,” said Gucci Mane, who was all smiles at Atlanta’s Mansion Elan during his first public appearance since being released from prison. He performed several songs at the event and announced an upcoming tour, Gucci Mane and Friends, to start in September.…
JOSH WAKELY REMEMBERS PITCH meetings where he’d go and meet with TV executives and say, “I have the best idea for a kids’ show, I know how to deliver it, I know how to write it, it’s going to feature great melodies, ’cause children love melodies, and parents will love watching it with their kids. It’s going to be really high end animation.” He sits back in his chair, a large, leather-bound affair in a boardroom of Sydney’s Channel 7 offi ces, and smiles. “And then I’d be like, ‘All I have to do is get the Beatles’ rights.’ And then the room would go quiet. And they were sure they were talking to a crazy person.” There were times over the past seven years where Wakely must have wondered…
BECK WAS AS SURPRISED AS anyone by the success of 2014’s Morning Phase, which won a Grammy for Album of the Year and became his best-selling album in a decade. “I had no expectations,” he says, describing a lot of his albums as “ships in the night”. Morning Phase was intended to be a quick project – “just so we would have something out, because we were going on tour” – as he took a break from a more ambitious album he had been struggling with. More than three years later, he has finally finished that album. Due in October, the still-untitled record is a left turn from its predecessor, taking the harmony-heavy beauty of Morning Phase and charging it with big hooks, hip-hop loops and the poppy energy of…
GROUPLOVE KEEP IT IN THE FAMILY Indie rockers Grouplove found platinum success with their synth-y single “Tongue Tied” in 2011. Following a lot of touring, the band took a break while its two singers, Christian Zucconi and Hannah Hooper, welcomed a baby daughter. The group aimed for rebirth on its third album, Big Mess (due in September), which combines sunny hooks with personal lyrics about the couple’s new chapter. “Traumatized” centres on their living-room talks regarding parenthood, and “Welcome to Your Life” even samples their daughter’s voice. “We tapped into a lot of levels of life you don’t really tap into until you become a parent,” says Hooper. ANNIE LICATA RINGO FINDS A LITTLE HELP FROM FRIENDS This year, Ringo Starr planned to record a country album in Nashville. But…
