Table of contents for March 8, 2018 in Rolling Stone

Bono Looks Back IT MAKES ME SAD AS AN American that there are rock & roll stars who are far more articulate, brilliant and qualified for the office of the president than Donald Trump [“Bono: The ROLLING STONE Interview,” RS 1304/1305]. I say Bono for president! Anita Morris Culpeper, VA IT’S RARE THAT SOMEONE AS famous as Bono understands the impact that their celebrity can have on the world. His humility comes through when he speaks, and his actions prove it’s genuine. I’ve never bought a U2 album, but after reading the article, I actually may go see them in concert. Tom Galan, via the Internet I CAN’T QUIT LOOKING AT Bono’s picture on the cover. He’s still that 14-year-old kid who left home. Rich Davis Citrus Heights, CA I FIND IT…

OASIS LIAM VS. NOEL GALLAGHER In Oasis, Noel Gallagher wrote the songs and his brother Liam (left) sang them. But they’ve barely spoken since a vicious backstage brawl in 2009. “He’s a fuckin’ twat,” says Liam, who launched his first solo tour last year. “The songs don’t belong to him.” THE KINKS RAY VS. DAVE DAVIES After 30 years of tension – and an endless debate over who is responsible for the sound of “You Really Got Me” – Ray (left) and Dave Davies split in 1996 and have been touring separately ever since. A reunion seems unlikely. “It’d be lovely to do something,” says Dave. “But he’s a bit of a control freak.” UB40 ALI VS. DUNCAN CAMPBELL In 2008, UB40 frontman Ali Campbell (left) quit the group over…

Apple HomePod $349 apple.com Apple completely upended standard speaker design, filing around 200 patents for its Siri-powered speaker, which creates rich, room-filling sound with zero fuss – it just works. But its downside is also classically Apple: Its smart functions are only compatible with Apple Music. If you care more about sound than virtual-assistant capability, HomePod is hard to beat. Sonos One $199 sonos.com This little speaker has surprisingly robust sound. Want to talk to it? That part works well, too. It’s powered by Amazon’s Alexa, so you can play Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora and more. That openness sets it apart – plus, you can buy two for the price of one HomePod to create stereo sound. The Coolest, Smallest and Smartest Make your existing speakers talk to you, dial…

In 1968, Van Morrison was a rock & roll refugee, an Irish blues poet on the run after a bitter fling with pop stardom. Down and out in Boston, he wrote one of rock’s most beloved masterworks, Astral Weeks – and then blew town. In this fantastic chronicle, Ryan Walsh unearths the time and place behind the music. Morrison fell into a scene full of characters like Lou Reed and Peter Wolf, who was spinning the blues as an after-hours DJ. Walsh even catches up with Morrison’s long-lost flower-child bride, Janet Planet, now selling her love beads on Etsy, who tells him, “Being a muse is a thankless job, and the pay is lousy.”…

MGMT  Little Dark Age  Columbia HHH½ You can never go home again, especially when home is your college dorm room. On hits like “Kids” and “Electric Feel,” from their 2008 debut, Oracular Spectacular, the studio scientists of MGMT mixed pokerfaced irony, lightly exotic sonics and neohippie whimsy to help make indie pop a brighter place – pretty good for stuff they dreamed up while still students at Wesleyan University. But their next two albums – 2010’s Congratulations and 2013’s MGMT – were space-rock detours that eluded their fans. MGMT are back to their roots on their fourth album, with concise tunes built from cushy keyboard beats and kiting melodies. Little Dark Age does a great job evoking the fizzy, dizzy New Wave psychedelia that made them surprise stars. “Me and…

Who are the funkiest people who ever lived? When I’m just tryna funk, it’s gonna be the Staple Singers, man – Pop Staples. And Ray Charles. Ray could take “Eleanor Rigby” and make that funky. He ends up doing that to anything – to me, that’s raw funk. And then [Motown session bassist] James Jamerson – that is a musician. And who is the least funky person alive? Oh, my God! [Laughs] Probably Trump. Can’t be no funk in the Trump! [Pauses] He ain’t gonna like that. Where did the idea of “free your mind and your ass will follow” come from? And do you stand by the advice? I think I was just saying it as a stream of consciousness, you know? But as I get older, I see…

MAVIS STAPLES IS SITTING in the lounge of her tour bus outside the Tower Theater in Philadelphia, telling a story about her current tourmate, Bob Dylan. The other day, Dylan asked Staples to rehearse a duet of “Gonna Change My Way of Thinking,” a funky gospel rocker from Slow Train Coming that the pair rerecorded in 2002, earning a Grammy nomination in the process. But the rehearsal hit some roadblocks. First, they couldn’t settle on who has to sing the line “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.” “He said, ‘You’re going to sing it this time. I did it for you last time,’ ” Staples recalls. “I said, ‘You didn’t do it for me. It’s your song!’ ” And with the song’s seven verses, Staples, 78, had trouble getting the…

Drake Views 1 hour and 21 minutes Including the nine-month-old “Hotline Bling” on Views helped drive up traffic for this album – at 2.45 billion streams, it was the most- listened-to album on Spotify in 2016. Chris Brown Heartbreak on a Full Moon 2 hours and 38 minutes Though none of its singles cracked the Top 40, Brown’s eighth album still went gold faster than any he’d ever released, juiced by the volume of its 45 songs (57 in the deluxe edition). Future Future and Hndrxx  2 hours and 10 minutes “If I miss a day, I’m afraid I’ll miss out on a smash record,” Future told ROLLING STONE in 2016 of his work ethic, which powered two back- to-back albums in February 2017. Lil Yachty Teenage Emotions 1 hour…

IN HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS, DONALD TRUMP VOWED TO champion America’s “forgotten men and women.” But in Washington – and at Mar-a-Lago, Bedminster and Davos – he has governed for the rich. He opened his presidency badgering companies for shipping jobs overseas. But outsourcing accelerated in his first year in office. He touts the GOP’s corporate tax cuts, but this PR campaign obscures the billions that will be spent on stock buybacks to enrich investors. Indeed, the president has put Wall Street execs in charge of the economy – and pursued policies that lower pay, raise taxes and strip protections for the struggling American worker. Here’s a breakdown of how Trump’s undermining the middle class. HIGHER TAXES Hikes for workers The $1.5 trillion GOP tax bill gives permanent cuts to corporations…

HURRICANE HARVEY, WHICH HIT TEXAS AND LOUISIANA LAST AUGUST, CAUSING $125 billion in damage, dumped more water out of the sky than any storm in U.S. history. By one calculation, roughly a million gallons fell for every person in Texas. The water rained down on a flat former bayou that had become a concrete and asphalt empire of more than 2.3 million people. Highways turned into rivers and shopping malls into lakes. As the water rose, people scrambled for safe refuge – into attics, onto rooftops and overpasses. A Texas game warden captured a nine-foot-long alligator in the dining room of a home near Lake Houston. Snakes swam into kitchens. A hawk flew into a taxicab and wouldn’t leave. ¶ As the deluge continued, tens of thousands of people fled…

Dashboard Confessional Crooked Shadows Fueled by Ramen HHH The prince of emo proves he can cut it in today’s pop world A lot has happened in the 15 years since Dashboard Confessional propelled strummy, perpetually wounded boyhood drama to gold-record status. But Chris Carrabba is still true to the scene – “I’m always gonna be/About us,” he sings on the first Dashboard LP since 2009. These songs dress up his triumphant builds and throttled breakdowns in contemporizing pop touches. “About Us” can sidle next to Imagine Dragons in any playlist, and “Belong” is the sort of song you write when you see Shawn Mendes eating the lunch you packed back when he was larval. JESSICA HOPPER The Breeders All Nerve 4AD HHHH Alt-rock greats bring the drama on a sublime…

Def Leppard just made their catalog available to stream, and they’ll tour with Journey this summer. Mott the Hoople “All the Young Dudes” I was enamored with Ian Hunter’s persona and voice. Every time I hear the song, even now, hair on my arm stands up. T. Rex “Metal Guru” This is the perfect pop song. It wasn’t necessarily the best song Marc Bolan ever wrote, but it’s stunning as a stand-alone three-minute tune. David Bowie “Starman” What a strange creature he was. When he did this on Top of the Pops, it connected with so many people, from Boy George to Morrissey to me. Wizzard “See My Baby Jive” John Lennon once said, “Glam rock is just rock & roll with lipstick,” and that’s what Wizzard was. This song…

In the late 1970s, there wasn’t a name for the smooth, AM-friendly music made by the likes of Hall and Oates, Orleans, Kenny Loggins and the Doobie Brothers. But a series of viral videos retroactively dubbed it “yacht rock,” as it appealed to a very white, upscale audience and an odd number of songs had nautical themes. Greg Prato’s oral history tells of the rise, fall and semi-ironic resurgence of the genre, including new interviews with John Oates, Jim Messina and more. “It’s amazing this style came to be,” Fred Armisen writes in the foreword. “It must take an incredible amount of restraint to play that gently.”…

“Steely Dan was just me and Walter, really,” says Donald Fagen. “It was like a concept we had together.” But Walter Becker died in September, leaving Fagen to carry on, fronting Steely Dan – which he might call Donald Fagen and the Steely Dan Band if not for commercial concerns from “suits” – on the road with the Doobie Brothers this summer. (He’s also suing Becker’s estate, which is claiming that an old agreement transferring band rights to Fagen is invalid: “We’re just trying to defend the contract,” he says.) LAST VISIT WITH BECKER “When I put a chair next to the bed, he grabbed my hand. It was something he had never done before. We had a great talk. He was very weak, but still very funny. I’m really…

IT’S BEEN MORE THAN A WEEK since Logic performed his hit “1-800-273-8255” at the Grammys, and he’s still taking the evening in. “Kendrick Lamar gave me a little head nod of respect,” he says. “Damn, he’s one of my biggest inspirations.” The performance was the culmination of a breakthrough year for Logic (born Sir Robert Bryson Hall II), who just five years ago was a broke rapper living on friends’ couches. But last September, his hit climbed to Number Three on the Hot 100, and it has been streamed more than a half billion times on Spotify. (The song also tripled calls to the suicide prevention hotline, which it’s named after.) The next step? Opening an office. He’s calling from a Los Angeles comic-book store, where he’s shopping for decorations.…

Hello, Dolly! Some artists show respect for their elders with a loving cover song. But Adele wanted to do something extra-special to honor Dolly Parton, whom she called “the effortless queen of song.” The singer posted a photo of herself on Instagram dressed as Parton circa her “Jolene” days. “We wish we could possess an ounce of your ability,” Adele said. Parton, who name-checked Adele on a recent album, was overjoyed by the flattery. “I thought that was me back in the day,” she said. <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> <div class="thick-border"></div> Cardi’s Couture “I couldn’t contain myself,” said a star-struck Cardi B after hanging out with Vogue editor and style icon Anna Wintour at the Alexander Wang fall-winter show during New York Fashion Week. Cardi, who was out…

TWO YEARS AGO, CHADWICK BOSEman was in a movie called Gods of Egypt. It was not a very good movie. But in addition to its not-goodness, it also became infamous for whitewashing – casting, as ancient African deities, a white guy from Scotland, a white guy from Denmark and at least seven white people from Australia. Boseman, the sole black lead, played Thoth, the Egyptian god of wisdom and inventor of mathematics. Before the movie came out, an interviewer asked him about the criticism, and Boseman said that not only did he agree with it, it was why he took the part – so audiences would see at least one god of African descent. “But, yeah,” he added dryly. “People don’t make $140 million movies starring black and brown people.”…

“I fight the world, I fight you, I fight myself, I fight God. Just tell me How many burdens left.”—KENDRICK LAMAR, “Pray for Me” Various Artists Black Panther: Original Soundtrack Top Dawg/Aftermath/Interscope HHHH It’s not every day that the marketing machinations of a multibillion-dollar Walt Disney subsidiary align with the utopian imagination of the black artistic vanguard. But we live in strange times. Thus does Black Panther, the latest entry in the Marvel superhero movie franchise, arrive amid Star Wars-level hype. The Black Panther soundtrack album has been nearly as feverishly anticipated as the film, and no wonder: It is helmed by another improbable straddler of cultural categories, Kendrick Lamar, A-list pop star and Black Lives Matter-era protest poet nonpareil. It’s tempting to compare Black Panther to Curtis Mayfield’s Superfly…