Rolling Stone Australia December 2016

“I’ve seen ‘Easy Rider’, and Peter Fonda is the last person I’d invite around to my house to take acid with me.” Barnesy Opens the Floodgates BETWEEN READING JIMMY Barnes’ biography Working Class Boy and your interview I have even more respect for the man and what he has had to go through in his life. I’m sure he doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him, and I’m sure a lot of his troubles were self-inflicted, but Jesus! How he survived that childhood is beyond me. Hope the next book is a bit more uplifting! Neve Harrington, Gosford, NSW Phoney Crowd WHILE KANYE’S ELEVATED stage [RS 780] was undeniably cool, it appears a large proportion of the crowd preferred to film it on their phones rather than enjoy it…

FEATURE SUMMER FESTIVALS THE RS GUIDE From the big, multi-stage events to the off-the-grid boutique parties, we profile the essential upcoming music and pop culture festivals. VIDEO WALTER SCHREIFELS LIVE Frontman of NY post-hardcore band Quicksand stops by our Sydney office for an exclusive solo acoustic performance. TV RETURN OF BLACK MIRROR INTERVIEW Showrunner Charlie Brooker on the Netflix series’ unsettling new season about the dark side of technology. POLITICS TRUMP VS. CLINTON U.S. ELECTION As America heads to the polls, we cover the up-to-the-minute action of the wildest presidential contest in history. LISTEN BEST NEW MUSIC EVERY DAY From exclusive video and album premieres to our ‘Five for Friday’ spotlight, we profile the best local emerging acts. MUSIC NEWS, AROUND THE CLOCK Get breaking music news from ROLLING STONE’s…

. . . And Metallica for All! “Caring comes in all kinds of volumes!” said James Hetfield when Metallica stormed New York’s Central Park for the Global Citizen Fest, an all-star charity show targeting extreme poverty. The fest – which also included sets by Chris Martin and Eddie Vedder, Rihanna, and Yusuf Islam – was Metallica’s first New York show in three years. One More in the Name of Trump U2 played one of their only sets of 2016 at Vegas’ iHeartRadio festival, and made it count: Bono called the U.S. “the best idea the world has ever had”, and showered the crowd with fake Trump trillion-dollar bills reading “Make America Hate Again”. Liam’s Supersonic Press Conference Liam Gallagher took a brief break from calling out his brother Noel to…

THIS YEAR, IF YOU WANTED TO keep up with new albums by Beyoncé, Drake, Frank Ocean and Kanye West, among many others, you would have had to subscribe to not one but two streaming services. In a strategy that could represent a fundamental shift for the record business, Apple Music and Tidal have sought to pull users from Spotify, the world’s biggest streaming service, with a series of competing exclusive releases. As part of the deals, Apple, in particular, funds superstar artists’ songs and videos, and showcases them on TV commercials and online radio stations. But over the past few months, a backlash has developed against this new reality. The tipping point may have come in August, when Frank Ocean delivered a video album, Endless, to fulfil the terms of…

Drake Views Service: Apple Music Terms: A reported multimillion-dollar deal, including “Hotline Bling” video production and Beats 1 interview First-week sales: 1.04 million Verdict: Apple’s campaign helped Views become the year’s biggest-selling LP so far. “I imagine Apple benefited mightily in new-subscriber trials,” says Larry Miller, a former music exec who directs the music-business program at NYU Steinhardt. Kanye West The Life of Pablo Service: Tidal Terms: West is a Tidal co-owner with a reported three percent equity in the company. First-week sales: 94,000 Verdict: Great album, messy release, disappointing sales – Kanye said it would be available only on Tidal, then reversed course within a few weeks. “Just massively confusing,” Miller says. Frank Ocean Blonde Service: Apple Music Terms: Unknown. But by leaving Def Jam, Ocean gets to keep…

“Lou took so much joy rediscovering these records,” says the box set’s co-producer, Hal Willner. IN JUNE 2013, JUST MONTHS BE- fore he died, Lou Reed sat down at Masterdisk studios in Manhattan with his friends and co-producers Hal Willner and Rob Santos to work on a project he’d longed to do: remastering his entire RCA and Arista solo catalogue. Reed was an audio obsessive, and despite failing health, he came in day after day, savouring and scrutinising his life’s work – marvelling at David Bowie’s vocal arrangement on Transformer’s “Satellite of Love”; pumping his fist to “Lady Day”, from his dark song cycle, Berlin; submerging himself in the binaural sound recording of the space-jazz title track of The Bells. “He took so much joy rediscovering these records,” Willner says.…