Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2019 i Rolling Stone

“I think it’s important not to be dissuaded by the difficulty of the task. I mean, yeah, it’s a tall mountain we’ve got to climb. But you do it one step at a time.”—GOV. JAY INSLEE, on the climate crisis OVER THE COURSE of 52 years and thousands of interviews with musicians, actors, politicians, and celebrities in these pages, at least one thing has remained consistent: We’ve always asked the questions. Aside from a memorable encounter between Carrie Fisher and Madonna for a 1991 cover story, our staff has rarely given up the role of interlocutors. Until now. For our first annual Musicians on Musicians issue (or, the “Icons on Icons” issue, as Diddy and DJ Khaled renamed it in their conversation), we invited some of our favorite artists…

SINCE LAST YEAR, DaBaby has released two hit albums, two mixtapes, 15 music videos, and more than 20 high-profile features, while coining one highly distinctive catchphrase (“Goin’ baby,” an amorphous term that means to do something well). If you ask him, it’s all part of his more-is-more (but never enough) strategy. “When you’ve got a sound that don’t sound like nobody else, and it’s brand-new, you’ve got to feed it to ’em,” DaBaby stresses. “You’ve got to force it on ’em.” The sound in question is a precise, staccato, syllable-crushing flow that has cut through a rap landscape dominated for years by singsong melodies and Auto-Tune, making DaBaby one of 2019’s biggest new stars. The week following the release of DaBaby’s latest album, KIRK, 12 of the top 25…

I REMEMBER THE DAY my young son asked, “Who is Hunter?” Hunter was reclusive and anti-social. So many people wanted a piece of him, but he didn’t want publicity and didn’t want to be part of the machine. But I said to my son, “Look around you — he’s everywhere. He helped build this house you live in. He spun the greatest stories and songs and images that could ever be. He turned the Grateful Dead from a blues band into mythic status.” In the beginning, Jerry [Garcia] called him and asked him to come up and write some words for us. Jerry couldn’t write words, nor did he try. But he and Hunter were the voice of each other. In the studio, I would sit off to the…

KESHA’S FOLLOW-UP to 2017’s emotionally weighty, rock-leaning Rainbow started off as what she describes as a “psychedelic country record.” But a phone call from her brother sent her in another direction. “He was like, ‘Why don’t you write some pop songs?’” she says. “‘You’re good at it, you like it.’” She ended up writing 54 songs for the album, which is due in December — and some tracks feature a return to her original style, complete with rapping à la “Tik Tok” (the 2009 Kesha hit, to be clear, not the app). “What you call rapping,” she says, “I call talking shit.” What was your response to that conversation with your brother? I kind of felt like I didn’t have the right to be happy and write happy songs,…

‘MY EARLY MEMORIES are waking up to the smell of breakfast and hearing concert DVDs of you,” H.E.R. tells Lenny Kravitz. The 22-year-old singer (real name Gabi Wilson) is talking about growing up the daughter of a dad in a funk-rock cover band. Kravitz, 55, says he was raised in an artistic household too, though he had a slightly different experience; his dad, a TV producer, and his mom, Roxie Roker, who starred on The Jeffersons for 11 years, took him to Lincoln Center and introduced him to friends like Nina Simone. “I was always the kid in the place full of adults,” he says. Kravitz loves H.E.R.’s “healing, soulful voice,” which can be heard on her debut album, winner of two Grammys this year. “The songs are really…

Miranda Lambert Wildcard RCA NASHVILLE DESPITE YEARS of admirable effort, Nashville’s attempts to rock out can still tend to come off pretty hammy. Then you get something like “Mess With My Head,” a searing standout from Miranda Lambert’s seventh LP, Wildcard. Over sleek drums and noir guitars, the country queen unspools steamy psychodrama, singing about her mind as a luxury hotel suite open for 2 a.m. room service: “I know why I gave the keys to you,” she intones, before a chorus that sounds like Sheryl Crow under the influence of Hole’s Celebrity Skin. It’s the sound of a freewheeling star at the top of her game, reimagining rock history in her own platinum image. Wildcard is full of moments like that. It sharpens the atmospherically gritty feel of…

IT’S BEEN nearly half a century since her tragic death at 27 from an accidental heroin overdose, but Janis Joplin’s life and music are still hugely resonant. In her landmark new biography, Janis, writer Holly George-Warren cites Pink, Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, and Lucinda Williams among the many artists who have been influenced by the first female rock star’s courageous passion, earthy, genre-defying sound, and self-emptying vocal power. Joplin was a white kid from a small town in Texas who fell in love with the blues and went on to define the liberating spirit of San Francisco’s psychedelic scene in the late Sixties, growing in leaps as an artist during her brief career, even as she fought the era’s chauvinism and her own demons. “She embraced life with a…

“People are going to focus on the Kanye revelations, but we cannot overlook what Taylor Swift says about politics today. She’s spot-on.”—Kimberly, via Twitter Taylor Breaks Her Silence In the years since Taylor Swift last appeared on our cover [RS 1218, in 2014], she withdrew from the public eye, stepping back to reclaim privacy. In conversation with senior writer Brian Hiatt [“Taylor Swift: The ROLLING STONE Interview,” RS 1332], Swift gives the most revealing interview of her career, and in four days it surpassed half a million unique views online. She delved into her contentious relationship with Kanye West, why she’s focusing on the 2020 election, and the surprise betrayal of her former label boss. “Reading this feels like we personally caught up,” said reader “Doj.” “What a brutally…

Next year the veteran rock singer will release Weather, his first new album fronting Huey Lewis and the News since 2001. RAY CHARLES “Hallelujah, I Just Love Her So” This is flat-out gospel. It was “Hallelujah, I Love Him So.” Ray changed “him” to “her,” and boom! The beginning of R&B. WILSON PICKETT “634-5789” This song is captured, not created. It has those little rough edges we miss today. It has all the grit in the world. SOLOMON BURKE “Cry to Me” He could sing high and sing low, and his screams were just fantastic. The song has a Latin influence, which was all over early rock. JACKIE WILSON “Lonely Teardrops” Jackie may have been the most dynamic performer of all time. Even James Brown couldn’t follow him. THE…

Gaga’s Haus of Glam Lady Gaga launched her new cosmetics line, Haus Laboratories, in L.A. “I want people to love themselves,” she said. “And I want them to see how beautiful they are.” Gaga is also working on new music. “I’m calling my next album ADELE,” she tweeted. Mick and Bruce’s Big Adventure Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen were both in Italy for a little time off. Springsteen hung with Steven Spielberg in Portofino (left). Jagger joined actor Elizabeth Debicki (above) at the Venice Film Festival to screen his new movie, Burnt Orange Heresy. Jagger used the event to discuss the climate crisis: “The U.S. should be the leader … now it has decided to go the other way.” RANDOM QUOTE “He is the ranting madman in Dunkin’ Donuts…

JAY INSLEE IS no Greta Thunberg. The 68-year-old governor of Washington state is a founding father of the climate movement, a man who speaks with the wonky wisdom of experience, not the moral outrage of a 16-year-old girl who sees her future stolen by greedy and corrupt politicians. And whereas Thunberg has inspired millions of activists to take to the streets, Inslee never rose above two percent in the polls during his short-lived campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. But in the long run, Inslee’s contribution to fighting the climate crisis may turn out to be as important as Thunberg’s. He was the first serious presidential candidate in history to make it the central theme of his campaign. His six-part climate plan is by far the most ambitious and…

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG seems shocked when Billie Eilish tells him her favorite Green Day song. It’s not a hit; it’s “All by Myself,” the acoustic hidden track on 1994’s Dookie. “Oh, that’s Tré Cool!” says Armstrong, clarifying that the band’s drummer sings the song. “I know it is!” says Eilish. Adds Armstrong, “That’s a dirty little song.” Though Dookie came out seven years before Eilish was born, you can see why she would love it. Its themes — boredom, anxiety, self-doubt — are ones she takes to twisted extremes on her own breakthrough, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Eilish, 17, has been listening to Green Day since she was nine. Her older brother and musical collaborator, Finneas O’Connell, was such a huge fan that as…

DAVID BYRNE IS busy preparing for one of his most ambitious undertakings ever — a Broadway show in which he’ll perform songs from his entire career. But today he ended rehearsals early to ride his bicycle into Brooklyn and catch Tierra Whack at the Afropunk fest. The former Talking Head had suggested a conversation with Whack, who, at 24, has already established herself as one of hip-hop’s most innovative new voices. Her debut, Whack World, collects 15 tracks, each just one minute long, hopscotching between moods and showing off Whack’s complex and daring rhymes. In an accompanying mini-film, Whack (yes, her real name) plays a different character for each song, making it clear that, like Byrne, she has a nose for theatrics. After sending the Afropunk crowd into a…

Who are your heroes? On the political side, I’m very left, if you wanted to put a tag on it. I’m a humanitarian, and I like Bernie Sanders for what he’s talking about. I love Cornel West and Noam Chomsky. There are people trying to figure out how we can save our dying planet and make room for everybody in it and take care of everybody. They show me the way. What advice would you give to the 20-year-old you? Imagine that you’re a rubber ball going down a river. Every once in a while, you get stuck behind a rock and you have to wait it out until that river flows a little stronger, or a little less, and move away from that rock. Don’t fret when you…

ASK CROZ Real-life advice from a guy who’s seen, done, and survived just about everything Please explain this whole monogamy thing. After I date a woman for a few months, I grow restless and I can’t wait to move on. Am I being unreasonable, or have I just not met the right woman? —Fred, Santa Cruz, CA When you’re young, you’re trying to rub the velvet off your antlers. I did write “Triad,” and I do think there are other ways people can live. But it takes years to build that kind of relationship that’s worth it. To me, that “monogamy thing” is where I found the best part of my life. I can’t tell you it’s going to do it for you, but it’s definitely done it for…

IN 1993, THE MEMBERS of Weezer traveled to New York to meet Ric Ocasek, who was slated to produce their debut album. “He was one of the most significant icons of our childhood,” says bassist Matt Sharp, who had grown up seeing Ocasek’s hits in rotation on MTV. “I can’t think of videos without thinking of him.” Arriving at Ocasek’s Manhattan address, the bandmates found themselves entering a stately 1850s townhouse with 20-foot-high ceilings, an elevator, a pink pool table, and portraits of Ocasek done by Andy Warhol hanging on the walls. But that was nothing compared to the disorienting feeling of meeting the New Wave icon, who greeted them wearing one of his many elegant suit jackets — like he’d walked out of the video for “Magic” or…

WITH A SINGLE TELEphone call, Donald Trump betrayed the presidency in ways almost unimaginable until that moment. During the call, he attempted to pressure a foreign leader to help him smear and destroy both a chief political opponent and that opponent’s political party to benefit himself in a presidential election. This offense differs from all his other transgressions, venal corruptions, and daily degradations of the office. It is an attack on the foundations of our republic, turning diplomacy into a weapon of personal and partisan political power. The nation’s founders understood, having fought a revolution against monarchy, that no government of the people was invulnerable to such egregious abuses of power. They were particularly concerned, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers, that a president, through “cabal, intrigue,…

LANA DEL REY is sitting across from Elton John in the kitchen of his Beverly Hills home, where she’s about to talk with her musical hero. But there’s a problem. “Wait a minute, my notes!” she says. “I have 13 pages! Where is my purse?” Elton calls for his staff to help, but Del Rey jumps out of her chair and heads outside to her pickup truck, a black Chevy Colorado with a broken headlight. A couple of minutes later, she returns with a stapled stack of pages. Del Rey is one of music’s most enigmatic stars, someone whose presence can intimidate even other artists. (“I love Lana,” Billie Eilish recently told Howard Stern. “Around her I just turn into a little, floppy, baby child.”) But there’s no evidence…

‘I’M SITTING HERE trying not to choke up,” Justin Vernon says, “listening to Jenny Lewis say such nice things about me.” It’s a laid-back Friday afternoon in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, which has been Bon Iver’s home base since Vernon founded the avant-pop band back in 2006. He has been a fan of Lewis’ since Give Up, her 2003 album with the Postal Service, which “took over my little town,” he remembers. That led him to see her band Rilo Kiley play in 2005, and he wore out her country-influenced 2006 solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat, recorded with L.A. duo the Watson Twins. Lewis has been following Bon Iver since their 2007 breakthrough, For Emma, Forever Ago. She was especially impressed by Vernon’s decision to break out of folk by…

ALTHOUGH IT MAY not be obvious from her intricate art-rock albums, Annie Clark, a.k.a. St. Vincent, is a huge Metallica fan. In fact, they inspired her to pick up a guitar in the first place. Clark was a 10-year-old violin player in Dallas when she first heard Metallica, and she immediately tried to play their heavy melodies on her instrument. “I was like, ‘The violin fucking stinks,’” she says. Clark switched instruments and even played bass in a Metallica cover band as a teen. So she was psyched to sit down with the band’s lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett, who, it turns out, is a huge fan of Clark’s. When they meet up at Hammett’s favorite Sonoma, California, restaurant the afternoon following Metallica’s massive S&M2 orchestral show, he is full…

REISSUES WHEN BOB MET JOHNNY A new ‘Bootleg Series’ edition goes deep into Dylan’s Nashville sessions IN 1967, at the height of psychedelia, Bob Dylan decamped to Nashville and stripped down for the roots-rock landmark John Wesley Harding and 1969’s full-on-country Nashville Skyline. Outtakes from those albums comprise disc one of the 15th Bootleg Series set, including a somber “All Along the Watchtower” and a Spartan “Lay, Lady, Lay.” The rest is two discs of sessions from that period with Johnny Cash, as well as appearances together on Cash’s TV variety show. Dylan and Cash laugh and trade verses, eventually falling in together, especially on a warm run-through of “I Walk the Line.” The most curious offerings are a couple of Cash covers from around Dylan’s gloppy 1970 LP,…

Me Elton John HENRY HOLT & CO. EARLIER THIS year, the Elton John biopic, Rocketman, hit multiplexes. The movie took huge liberties telling Elton’s story: showing him performing songs years or even decades before they were written; taking his stage name from John Lennon instead of his mentor, little-known English rocker Long John Baldry; levitating high above the piano while belting out “Crocodile Rock”; and even singing “Rocket Man” at the bottom of a swimming pool while his childhood self played the piano dressed as an astronaut. It was a fantasy musical that went for the emotional truth, making this the perfect time to get the actual story in his long-awaited autobiography, Me. This is the warts-and-all reality, starting with a painful childhood marked by his mother’s extreme emotional…