Innehållsförteckning för June 2020 från Rolling Stone

“The failed coronavirus response is not a story of mistakes that were made and have now been fixed. It’s the story of mistakes that continue to cost lives.”—RON KLAIN, former Ebola response coordinator At Home With Bad Bunny WHEN ASSISTANT EDITOR Suzy Exposito left New York on March 11th to begin reporting this issue’s cover story about Bad Bunny, it was hard to know how fast the world was changing. The Puerto Rican reggaeton star, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, had just filmed the outrageous cross-dressing video for his single “Yo Perreo Sola,” and headed home from Florida with his girlfriend, Gabriela Berlingeri. Suzy spent the weekend in Miami interviewing Bad Bunny’s producer, and visiting her grandmother, then planned to meet Benito in San Juan on…

BEING PHOEBE BRIDGERS is a pretty sweet gig. “I fucking love my life,” says the 25-year-old Californian. “My mom occasionally gets, ‘Are you related to Phoebe Bridgers?’ She fucking eats it up. And then she’ll be like, ‘I promised this couple that you would play their prom,’ and I’m like, ‘Mom! No!’” Bridgers has become one of the most acclaimed singer-songwriters of recent years by writing bleak, introspective songs grounded in twentysomething realness — she’s the folk rocker most likely to make you cry a little on your morning commute. Outside of her music, though, she’s irreverently funny, especially on social media. (“If eating ass is wrong I don’t want to be right” and “Every Wednesday is ass Wednesday where I’m from” are among her greatest hits on Twitter.)…

Charting Music’s Newest Stars REMEMBER WHEN you couldn’t have a hit without radio support, nor a Number One album without a major-label deal? Those days are long over. In the era of Spotify, TikTok, and Fortnite, there are more routes than ever to the charts — which is why ROLLING STONE’s relaunched Breakthrough 25 chart spotlights artists who are headed for the top, no matter which path they take to get there. Using data from Alpha Data, the analytics provider that powers all ROLLING STONE charts, this monthly ranking shows musicians’ growth in on-demand audio streams — read: no radio — and it’s limited to those who are approaching the upper ranks of the charts for the first time in their careers. (Eligible acts must have released their debut…

IN LATE APRIL, Marko Kolanovic, a financial analyst for JPMorgan Chase, wrote to clients with good news. Pandemic aside, investors should expect stock prices in S&P 500 companies to return to record numbers some time early next year! “The S&P 500 should attain previous all-time highs,” Kolanovic wrote, “if the monetary measures are sustained.” The key part of this phrase was the last bit, “if the monetary measures are sustained.” In countries that did not have a Federal Reserve Bank shooting a bazooka of cash daily at Wall Street, Kolanovic suggested the coronavirus would result in a 30 percent decline in the present value of earnings. In other words, without intervention by the Federal Reserve, the United States in the coronavirus era would be looking at a Depression-level contraction.…

DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, the director of the Centers for Disease Control, flanked Donald Trump at the podium in the White House briefing room. It was February 29th, the day of the first reported U.S. death from the coronavirus, and the president fielded an urgent question: “How should Americans prepare for this virus?” a reporter asked. “Should they go on with their daily lives? Change their routine? What should they do?” ✖ In that moment, America was flying blind into a pandemic; the virus was on the loose, and nobody quite knew where. The lives of tens of thousands hinged on the advice about to be delivered by the president and his top public-health advisers. Trump began: “Well, I hope they don’t change their routine,” before he trailed off, and,…

What’s your advice for staying sane during social distancing? Like everybody else, I’ve been listening to a lot of music, bingeing on Netflix and Amazon Prime and anything else to keep my sanity. It’s important that we try to retain some. One of the best ways to deal with it is to talk your problems out with others, whether it’s on a phone call, video chat, or a text. We need to keep that line of communication open. How do you define success? It’s realizing your dreams and your ambitions. I’ve never equated success with the number of records sold or plaques on the wall. When those rewards, if you want to call them that, come to you, it’s a beautiful reaffirmation of the way success displays itself. I…

“Governor Cuomo for president! He’s realistic and has a really charismatic way with words. He’s the first politician that I look forward to listening to every morning.”—Jen Kennedy, via Facebook Taking Charge During COVID-19 New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo appears on our May cover — the first issue of ROLLING STONE produced remotely, due to the global pandemic. With erratic leadership from the president, Cuomo’s briefings have given Americans a daily, truthful report on the crisis, and often a moral gut-check as well. Contributing editor Mark Binelli spoke with the governor [“Andrew Cuomo Takes Charge,” RS 1339] about how he navigates these uncharted times, and Cuomo’s personable communication style inspired thoughtful responses from readers. “I don’t agree with all he does, but he has been remarkable in his handling…

Independent artists survive on touring. What happens when it disappears? LINGUA IGNOTA Singer-composer 2020 was supposed to be a big year for Kristin Hayter. The singer, who performs as Lingua Ignota, had recently released “Caligula,” her acclaimed debut that skillfully blends metal, noise, and classical. She had headlining shows and big-festival slots lined up. Then, COVID-19 snuffed them all out, along with her income. Even worse, it all happened just as the uninsured musician was dealing with substantial medical issues. Here’s her story in her own words. ONCE TRUMP shut down international travel, my manager was like, “Everything’s gonna get canceled.” Counting just festivals and larger shows I had lined up, I lost maybe 20 gigs and tens of thousands of dollars. I really like to play. It helps…

NOT LONG AGO, Rudy Giuliani was traveling in a car across New York City with Jon Sale, his longtime friend, when some construction workers saw the former mayor and approached the vehicle. Giuliani lowered the window. “One of them,” Sale recalls, “said, ‘Mr. Mayor, I would like to shake your hand and thank you for what you did for New York. I wish you were still mayor.’” ▶ This happens a lot to Rudy Giuliani, and it reflects what he once represented to most Americans: a man whose steady response to the attacks of September 11th, 2001, transcended partisan politics and transformed him into a national hero. Christened “America’s Mayor,” Giuliani for years was an immensely popular figure who appeared destined for a lucrative, decorated career at the spires…

I’m a 47-year-old man with a felony conviction for making bongs. I was very successful, but prison fucked me up. I’ve finally gotten sober, but I still find it difficult to be as confident as I was in my twenties. What advice can you give for someone heading into their second act in life? —Chris Hill, CO Nobody is as confident in later life as they were in their twenties. But if you’ve managed to get sober, be confident and give yourself some credit for managing to do that. Now find things in your life that give you forward motion and a reason for being. Also, prison for making bongs? Where was that? Russia? My neighbors constantly play salsa music at an extremely loud volume. When I go over…

NOAH “40” SHEBIB grabs a yellow Post-it note in his Toronto studio and sketches out two ovals. He leaves the first one empty, to represent what his brain looked like in 2007. Then he drags a harsh charcoal line through the center of the second one; that, he explains, is the same organ in 2019. “All that black area is dead brain tissue,” he says, a joint dangling from his mouth. “It’s where the inflammation has gotten so bad, the tissue is just dead.” At age 22 — not long before he began working as Drake’s most trusted producer and engineer — 40 was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system, interrupting information on its way from the brain to the rest of…

ROGER WATERS once wrote an entire rock opera about the dangers of isolation, but life in self-quarantine seemed to be suiting him as he hung out in his home studio in mid-April. He was spending time continuing to prep for his postponed-until-2021 This Is Not a Drill Tour, recording music (including a tribute to his late friend John Prine), and pursuing his fervent interest in leftist politics and world affairs (the night before, he’d watched “a series of webinars about the whole story of Syria”). “If you’re looking for the silver lining,” Waters says of being stuck at home, “it can help you to focus on things.” You work incredibly hard on your tours. How do you feel about having to postpone this one? Yeah, well, we haven’t stopped…

WHEN THE WORLD SHUT DOWN this spring, musicians’ livelihoods were among the hardest hit. But artists are good at finding solutions to unexpected problems, and many have found ways to turn the lockdown to their advantage. Some are making creative breakthroughs, like Phish’s Trey Anastasio, who has been recording a batch of new songs using household objects as percussion; other top acts, from the Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen, have given must-see performances from home to raise funds for those in need. And almost everyone’s glad to have a chance for more quality time with their family or pets. “It’s been a bummer, apart from any career concerns,” says Car Seat Headrest’s Will Toledo, who’s been working on new music for his band. “It’s a drag to not be…

THE 1975’S JILTED GEN-Y ANTHEMS U.K. rock’s ‘voice of a generation’ goes on a meandering search for answers The 1975 Notes on a Conditional Form INTERSCOPE LEARNING TO LIKE the 1975 has always required a suspension of disbelief. If you can buy the idea that a pretty-boy U.K. synth-pop band with a poodle-haired lead singer can make voice-of-a-generation anthems, then you might be in the market for what they’re selling. Matty Healy, the group’s frontman and primary lyricist, may be Gen Y’s premier rock star: a 31-year-old who is as disgusted by fame as he is enthralled by it, a former drug addict who still writes love songs to heroin, a performer who’s as likely to show up onstage in a parka and tulle skirt as he is shirtless…