Table of contents for Jan-15-15 in Rolling Stone

ENCOUNTER Nobody was expecting much from Yusuf Islam at the 2014 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The press had fixated on Nirvana’s reunion and the endless soap opera that is Kiss, mostly overlooking the fact that the former Cat Stevens was about to play his most prominent American gig since quitting music in 1978. After a cheerful acceptance speech that avoided any mention of religion or politics, Yusuf took the stage with an acoustic guitar and delivered a stunning rendition of 1970’s “Father and Son” that silenced the rowdy crowd at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. By the time a gospel choir joined Yusuf for a euphoric “Peace Train,” it seemed like the entire arena audience was on its feet, singing along to every word. “It was glorious,” says…

ACTIVISM Anna Jane Joyner is evangelical royalty: Her father, Rick Joyner, founded a South Carolina-based megachurch with 1,000 congregations in 59 countries. But Anna Jane had a political come-to-Jesus moment while at UNC, where she embraced progressive politics. Today, at 29, she’s the millennial face of a growing national movement that seeks to convince America’s 80 million evangelicals that biblical tenets are compatible with environmentalism. “There’s a huge host of faith communities who get it theologically, who even get the science piece of it,” Joyner says. “But they’re not mobilized in taking action.” Last year, Joyner was featured in Showtime’s documentary series Years of Living Dangerously, where she debated climate change with her father in a gripping segment. “What I found was that his resistance had very little to do…

Saxophonist Bobby Keys died of liver failure on December 2nd at his home in Tennessee. He was 70. Keys grew up near Lubbock, Texas, where he discovered rock & roll by listening to neighbor Buddy Holly practice in his garage. Keys went on to record with John Lennon and Eric Clapton, among others. After seeing Mick Jagger at a Delaney and Bonnie session in the late Sixties, Keys went on to play on five Stones albums, adding iconic solos on songs like “Brown Sugar,” and toured with the band off and on for 45 years. When we were cutting “Brown Sugar,” there was a gap and we didn’t know whether to put a guitar solo in. Bob said, “Let me have a bash.” It was the most perfect rock &…

MEMOIR Most of us enjoy checking out a movie on a lazy Sunday afternoon; for Patton Oswalt, seeing films wasn’t so much a pastime as a pathology. The comedian’s new memoir, Silver Screen Fiend, details his compulsion to chainview double and triple features after moving to Los Angeles in 1995 and trying to kick-start his stand-up career. Part addiction memoir and part first-person history of the mid-Nineties alt-comedy boom, it’s a funny, cringecomic look at using cinema as a crutch. “You know you’ve hit rock-bottom when you’ve been bitching about The Phantom Menace for two weeks straight,” Oswalt jokes, and though the book includes anecdotes about doing bit-player work on his first movie (Down Periscope) and hanging with Louis C.K. in Amsterdam, it’s primarily a chronicle of four years lost…

BREAKING SLIM JIMMY OF THE HIP-HOP duo Rae Sremmurd is backstage at The Tonight Show, raving about the bright-orange faux-fur overcoat he’s about to debut on national television: “Man, Obama’s gonna make me the first son when he see this!” says the 21-year-old. Not to be outdone, his 19-year-old brother, Swae Lee, decides he wants to hit the stage like a rock star. To illustrate what he has in mind, he drops to his knees, riff s on air guitar and executes a graceful slide across the dressing room’s hardwood floor. This kind of energy is what attracted Mike Will, who has produced hits for Miley Cyrus and Lil Wayne, among others. When the brothers – then a pair of Tupelo, Mississippi, teens calling themselves Dem Outta St8 Boyz –…

Q&A I’M IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ocean,” Pitbull says when he picks up the phone. The Cuban-American MC explains that he’s partying on a boat off the coast of his hometown, Miami: “I don’t even know what kind of boat it is,” he adds. “I just know it floats and you have fun on it.” Pitbull, 33, has been having lots of fun recently, from scoring a Top 20 debut for his eighth album, Globalization, to hosting Fox’s New Year’s Eve broadcast. “I’ve been able to travel around the whole globe, educating myself,” he says. “Now I’m feeding that to you.” Did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year? Yeah, I put out a goal every year: ’09 was freedom, ’10 was invasion, ’11 build empire, ’12 build…

After nine years away, the punk innovators come back on a mission of righteous fury Sleater-Kinney No Cities to Love Sub Pop BY ROB SHEFFIELD “I’ve grown afraid of everything that I love,” Carrie Brownstein yelps in “No Cities to Love,” from Sleater-Kinney’s excellent new album of the same name. She’s not the first punk rocker to get the jitters when it comes to adulthood. But Sleater-Kinney steamroll over all possible doubts on No Cities. They called it quits in 2006, after a 12-year run as America’s fiercest punk band. Judging by the urgent passion and bloodlust all over this album, they’re ready to reclaim the title. Sleater-Kinney recorded No Cities last year on the sly, springing it on the world as a surprise. Once you get over your…

D’Angelo and the Vanguard Black Messiah RCA Here’s to messiahs worth waiting for. D’Angelo has kept the world fiending 15 years for the follow-up to his Crisco-thick R&B classic, Voodoo, but as the man himself purrs in “Sugah Daddy,” “Can’t snatch the meat out of the lioness’ mouth/Sometimes you gotta just ease it out.” Black Messiah shows how deep easy can go. D’Angelo and his band have built an avant-soul dream palace to get lost in, for 56 minutes of heaven. All over Black Messiah, D’Angelo is a trouble man exorcising his trouble. In “Back to the Future (Part I),” he even jokes about his long layoff : “If you’re wondering about the shape I’m in/I hope it ain’t my abdomen.” There’s a hint of political rage in “The…

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1. D’Angelo “Really Love” Hallelujah! A decade and a half after his last album, D’Angelo finally released a follow-up – and it’s a next-level masterpiece. Black Messiah is full of incredible peaks, but this stunner of a love song, with D’s caramel falsetto gliding over honey-sweet strings and a buttery bass groove, is our favorite moment. 2. Laura Marling “Short Movie” The 24-year-old folkie already has four great albums under her belt. This sharply witty shot from her next LP, due in March, has us thinking she’s about to make it five. 3. Rae Sremmurd “Up Like Trump” video goofy-fun hit “No Flex Zone” party through New York, swinging nunchucks and chilling with a guy in a Donald Trump mask. What more do you want? In their new clip, the…

Fall out boy’s caravan of SUVs has been barreling down Interstate 95 in Florida for about two hours when Pete Wentz realizes he doesn’t know where the band is headed. “Are we going to Tampa or Orlando?” Wentz asks his road manager. “Because if we’re going to Orlando, I want to go to Harry Potter Land.” The manager tells Wentz that Fall Out Boy are playing Tampa tonight and Orlando tomorrow, but with an acoustic radio show in the morning and an electric one at night, they have no time for an amusement park. This is news to Patrick Stump. “What acoustic show?” says the singer, from the back seat. “We didn’t even practice that shit! We literally don’t know how to play ‘Centuries’ acoustic.” Things are going really fast…

SPORTS Nick Young, of the L.A. Lakers, isn’t LeBron-level famous yet, but he leads the NBA in charisma. The rising star, who’s averaging 15 points a game, has a killer nickname (“Swaggy P,” which he says God gave him), a brilliantly weird fashion sense and a rap-star girlfriend, Iggy Azalea. We talked with Young about Kobe, Kazaam and Kendrick (as in Lamar, his cousin). You grew up idolizing Kobe Bryant. What’s it like playing with him? Kobe’s the tough cop. I’m like Eddie Murphy in 48 Hrs. Kobe goes around with three security guards – one holds his clothes and one holds his bag. Everyone in the world knows Kobe. When you get to that level, you gotta be a little off ! Whose NBA career would you like to…

OLD Lou Reed “Satellite of Love” This song is so euphoric to me – especially the outro, which always makes me want to cry. To me, it’s the perfect lyrical balance of whimsical and blunt. 10cc “I’m Not in Love” The most incredible synths I’ve ever heard in a song. It’s so emotional. It sounds like falling in love to me. Britney Spears “Piece of Me” This is my favorite Britney song of all time, and it still sounds like the future to me. The tuning of the vocals always blows my mind. NEW Becky G “Shower” This song makes me feel like dancing in a glass box filled with cotton candy and a wind machine. Every melody is impeccable. Gwen Stefani “Spark the Fire” Gwen still sounds sassy, and…

HONORS The Paul Butterfield Blues Band Featuring late guitar hero Mike Bloomfield, among others, this blues group inspired countless players. Butterfield died in 1987, but “Paul would be happy,” says guitarist Elvin Bishop. Bill Withers “I guess I’ll have to buy a suit,” says the man behind “Lean on Me” and “Ain’t No Sunshine.” The question is whether Withers, who hasn’t performed in more than a decade, will sing: “We’ll see. I don’t want to be one of those old guys who sounds like a gerbil trying to give birth to a hippopotamus.” Ringo Starr Starr is already in the Hall as a Beatle, but, unlike his three ex-bandmates, he hadn’t been inducted as a solo act until now. Ringo hinted that Paul McCartney might show at the ceremony: “He…

DOCUMENTARY NATHAN EAST IS ONE OF THE MOST PROLIFIC BASS players in history – with thousands of credits to his name, from Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky” to Eric Clapton’s “Change the World.” But during his 35-year career, he’s been relatively obscure – “the guy behind the guys,” he says. Now, For the Record, a new documentary that just debuted on Hulu, celebrates the 59-year-old’s huge, quiet contribution to music, with testimonials from Clapton, Phil Collins, Herbie Hancock and others. It’s a look at life as a behind-the-scenes genius and, for East, a rare kind of tribute. “Usually,” he says, “you get memorialized when you’re on the other side of the ground.”…

TRIBUTES The boisterous british band the Faces had just walked onstage in Melbourne, Australia, in 1974 when keyboard player Ian McLagan discovered his piano was out of tune. “The promoter hadn’t bothered to tune it up,” singer Rod Stewart remembers. “So Mac smashed the fuck out of it with a fireman’s ax. For a tiny little fella” – McLagan was only five feet five – “he wouldn’t take nonsense from anybody.” McLagan, who died of a stroke at 69 on December 3rd in Austin, was an exuberant giant in all but inches for nearly 50 years of rec ords and gigs, first with British mods the Small Faces in the Sixties, then their rootsy, boozing descendants the Faces. After they split, in 1975, he was a sideman for the Rolling…

“Deep Feeling,” 1957 After his initial run of Chess hits, Berry cut several experimental instrumentals in 1957; here, he puts down his Gibson to play pedal steel on this spooky, ethereal B side to “School Days.” “Dear Dad,” 1965 After a prison stint in 1962-63, Berry made a comeback with hits like “You Never Can Tell.” Lost in the shuffle was this revvedup boogie about auto trouble, and it rocks just as hard. “Concerto in B Goode,” 1969 In the heyday of the Grateful Dead, Berry tried his hand at free-form instrumental jam with this 18-minute reverb-heavy track that producer Billy Peek later called “simply a terrible record.” “Festival,” 1971 Written after playing 1969’s big Toronto Rock and Roll Revival, Berry imagines a megafest of his own design with “Ray…

Maddie Marlow and Tae Dye didn’t think they were writing a hit single when they came up with “Girl in a Country Song,” a satiric tune about how women are portrayed in bro-country. But it became the most played song on country radio anyway – the first time a female artist hit that mark in more than two years. “We weren’t going to tell a story that didn’t make sense for a young woman to tell,” says Maddie, 19. The two met in Dallas when they were both 15 years old, and have since written 200 songs together. They’re culling the best ones for their debut album, including, hopefully, a song about a botched attempt at taking two city boys fishing. “They were trying to make this a romantic date,…

PROFILE ON NOVEMBER 6TH, AZEALIA Banks hit “send” on a tweet to her 500,000 followers: “Voila!!!!” Nearly three years after her sharp-tongued single “212” made her an overnight star, the 23-year-old Harlem rapper-singer was finally releasing her long-delayed debut album, Broke With Expensive Taste. “My heart was pounding,” she says now. “I was sitting at my dining table in my panties and a T-shirt. It was just happiness and relief and yes, yes.” One week later, Banks is having a drink in the luxurious New York apartment of her new manager, Jeff Kwatinetz, who released the album on his boutique label Prospect Park Records. “I made all these party songs,” she says, smiling. “Now we get to party.” Banks has been working on Broke With Expensive Taste since 2012, when…

SHORT TAKE Togetherness Sundays, 9:30 p.m., HBO The Duplass brothers have built their legend as mumblecore godfathers with low-budget indie comedies like The Puff y Chair. With Togetherness, they bring their low-key style to the family sitcom: Can a bunch of pushing-40 twits live together in one house without driving each other crazier than they already are? Mark, the Duplass brother from The League, plays an uptight vegan L.A. dad who’s all about that “so much gluten in this taco!” life. But his family gets a couple of rowdy houseguests who don’t leave – his washed-up actor pal and his wife’s wild sister. It’s full of awkwardly touching moments, like when bored mom Melanie Lynskey sings a Cure song to her baby. But Amanda Peet steals the show – she…

“THIS ROOM IS nicer than mine,” Nicki Minaj says. At a luxury hotel on the southwestern corner of Long Island, she strides into Suite 402 atop crystal-studded Miu Miu boots, escorted by her bodyguard Billy, a stocky guy wearing a tailored tan suit and a Newark police lapel pin. Minaj scans the living room, glances at the bedroom, takes in the oceanfront view appraisingly. Her hair falls far below her shoulders in long black waves, and black eyeliner licks upward, flamelike, toward her temples. Her T-shirt, featuring a cartoon owl, announces owl you need is love. “I prefer this setup,” she declares. “I want this room instead.” Minaj’s dutiful day-to-day handler, Ryan, who booked her a diff erent room and intended 402 as a temporary workspace, says the switch is…

THE TEMPERATURE WAS NEARING triple digits when Jonathan Treviño strapped on his bulletproof vest, slipped his .40-caliber Glock into his ankle holster and got ready to go to work. It was Thursday, July 26th, 2012, one of those summer days in South Texas when the hot air settles on the Rio Grande Valley like a blanket. The Gulf breeze was already sticky as Treviño climbed into his unmarked Chevy Tahoe and started it up. Treviño was a police officer in Mission, a bustling city of 80,000 on the Texas-Mexico border. Part of a flourishing bilingual metropolitan region with five international bridges, Mission also sits firmly in one of the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s 28 HIDTAs, or High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas – smuggling hot spots where the federal…

Nicki Minaj The Pinkprint Young Money/Cash Money/Republic The Pinkprint is Nicki Minaj’s busting-outall-over magnum opus, a love letter to her supernova star power and hip-hop radicalism, her teeming brain and her body electric. Minaj’s previous album, 2012’s Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, was dominated by psycho-glam roleplaying. Now, as the Blueprint-referencing title implies, she’s more Hov than Gaga. She talks about taking off her mask on “Feeling Myself,” a wild ego-trip throwdown with Beyoncé. The realness she reveals is genuinely dazzling. There are ridiculously dirty tracks like “Anaconda” – but there’s also raw-boned introspection on songs like “All Things Go,” a slow, searing confessional addressed to an ex (“Ten years ago, that’s when you proposed/I looked down: ‘Yes, I suppose.’ ”). Minaj puts on incinerating lyric displays (check her Biggie-tinged…

iTUNES TOP 10 SONGS 1 Taylor Swift “Blank Space” Big Machine 2 Hozier “Take Me to Church” Columbia 3 Mark Ronson “Uptown Funk” Sony 4 Ed Sheeran “Thinking Out Loud” Atlantic 5 Meghan Trainor “Lips Are Movin” Epic 6 James Newton Howard “The Hanging Tree” Republic 7 Taylor Swift “Shake It Off ” Big Machine 8 Sam Smith “I’m Not the Only One” Capitol 9 Selena Gomez “The Heart Wants What It Wants” Hollywood 10 Meghan Trainor “All About That Bass” Epic COPYRIGHT © 2014 iTUNES iTUNES TOP 10 ALBUMS 1 J. Cole 2014 Forest Hills Drive Roc Nation/Columbia 2 Taylor Swift 1989 Big Machine 3 Pentatonix That’s Christmas to Me RCA 4 K. Michelle Anybody Wanna Buy a Heart? Atlantic 5 Nicki Minaj The Pinkprint Young Money/Cash Money/Republic 6…