Table of contents for January 2026 in Rolling Stone

TATE! GRAMMYS! TWIGS! RANDOM NOTES Jessica Williams talks about bringing her comedy background and personal loss to Shrinking (p.9), and Madison Beer shares the secrets behind her newfound creative freedom (p.11). Weighing the effects of AI on the radio industry (p.11). Author Rob Kenner remembers reggae giant Jimmy Cliff (p.13). We offer a roll call of the women rappers pushing Atlanta’s scene forward (p.14) and catch up with Young Miko after her momentous year of firsts (p.15). “I get hate on the internet, but that’s irrelevant when you see a sold-out crowd.”MADISON BEER GRAMMY PREVIEW Go in-depth on the 2026 Grammy Awards with expert predictions in major categories, a Q&A with top Best New Artist contender Leon Thomas, and a look at the making of a rap masterpiece (p.17). FEATURES…

Jessica Williams knows when to ask for help. It’s an early November day in Glendale, California, but no sunlight is reaching the indoor basketball court where I’ve just lodged our only ball firmly between the hoop and backboard. “Oh, cool, dude,” Williams says with a cackle as we stare at the predicament. “That’s awesome.” Before I can pretend to think of a solution, she’s running over to a pair of teenage girls sitting crisscross applesauce over their phones nearby. “Can I use your basketball just to knock out this ball that’s stuck?” Williams asks. “Thank you!” she sings over her shoulder, skipping back toward the scene of our crime. “Be right baaaackkkkkk!” This is a taste of the delightful energy that has made the former Daily Show correspondent, 36, a…

Remembering a reggae giant who influenced generations One thing about Jimmy Cliff, he understood the assignment. “My role was and is inspiring people,” he told me in 1999, backstage in Oracabessa, Jamaica, during the filming of a television special honoring Bob Marley. “To inspire people to want to live.” Surrounded by TV cameras, several generations of the Marley family, and international stars like Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu, Tracy Chapman, and Busta Rhymes, Jimmy Cliff did not waver, maintaining laser-like focus on his message and his mission. “After a concert or after you listen to some of my music,” he explained, “I want to know that you feel empowered to get up and do something about your life and make your life better.… That’s the role that I’ve been playing, and…

THE NOMINEES BAD BUNNY DEBÍ TIRAR MÁS FOTOS JUSTIN BIEBER SWAG SABRINA CARPENTER MAN’S BEST FRIEND CLIPSE LET GOD SORT EM OUT LADY GAGA MAYHEM KENDRICK LAMAR GNX LEON THOMAS MUTT TYLER, THE CREATOR CHROMAKOPIA THE LOWDOWN This year’s Album of the Year field isn’t lacking for front-runners: Any one of these eight LPs would be a worthy victor. But Lady Gaga’s Mayhem is poised to overshadow the rest. The ever-evolving singer, songwriter, and performer has been nominated for the top-album prize before but never took home the gold. That should change in February. While Lady Gaga has the mojo, Bad Bunny is one to watch as a spoiler, says John Stein, head of North America Editorial at Spotify. “He’s never won outside a Latin category before, and it’s overdue,”…

‘Fix your fuckin’ self!” Tate McRae demands, her hips circling, dark-blond hair flipping. The Canadian pop star is onstage at Madison Square Garden in New York, performing her new breakup anthem “Tit for Tat” to a sold-out crowd of roughly 15,000 fans. She’s wearing cherry-red micro shorts, a matching bra — the same shade that Britney Spears wore in the “Oops! … I Did It Again” video — and black knee socks. She joyfully skips down the catwalk and smiles before resuming her fierce, kinetic choreography, throwing her head back, tossing each leg out to the side in a lunge, her abs glistening with sweat. Toward the peak of the song, pyro explosions go off, timed to the exact second that McRae and her backup dancers all toss their hands…

Last spring, a month and a half into American Idol’s 23rd season, the reality singing competition did something it had never done before. It aired a three-hour special on Easter Sunday, themed around “Songs of Faith” and featuring worship songs performed by not just the 20 remaining contestants, but all three judges as well: Carrie Underwood, Luke Bryan, and Lionel Richie. If you had a hankering for seeing Underwood, the fourth-season winner, belt out the Christian hymn “How Great Thou Art” in wailing communion with a gospel choir, this episode was calling for you. “It was a discussion that started at a dinner with the judges, some people from ABC, and myself,” says American Idol’s showrunner and executive producer, Megan Michaels Wolflick. “We watch myriad Christmas specials. We don’t ever…

CARIN BACKOFF Photographer Every January, New York-based photographer Carin Backoff makes a list of goals to accomplish in the next 12 months. So she was thrilled to cross one off just before the year closed: photographing Tate McRae. “I just thought she was so cool and inspiring,” Backoff says, adding, “I have her songs on pretty much every playlist that I make for photo shoots.” Backoff’s appreciation of McRae’s work and vivacious energy yielded fun, bold images for the January cover shoot. “It was just one of those magical days where everything flowed and came together,” she says. JASON MOTLAGH Reporter and Photographer Jason Motlagh has been covering Haiti over nearly two decades of political instability there. Though traveling through the volatile country has become increasingly difficult, Motlagh continues to…

THE NOMINEES BAD BUNNY “DEBÍ TIRAR MÁS FOTOS” SABRINA CARPENTER “MANCHILD” DOECHII “ANXIETY” BILLIE EILISH “WILDFLOWER” LADY GAGA “ABRACADABRA” KENDRICK LAMAR WITH SZA “LUTHER” CHAPPELL ROAN “THE SUBWAY” ROSÉ AND BRUNO MARS “APT.” THE LOWDOWN “There were so many incredible records,” J.J. Italiano, Spotify’s head of global music curation and discovery, says of this year’s crop of nominees. That makes predicting the Record of the Year category — which honors a song’s recorded version, and which is given to all of the people involved in its crafting — a wide-open game, and one that close listeners can have a lot of fun prognosticating. Italiano says the split between Song of the Year and Record of the Year remains important to the way pop music is thought about. “It’s really cool…

This past summer, when FKA Twigs stepped offstage after playing a giant festival in the Netherlands, the first thing on her mind was heading to a techno haven she’d heard had the best electronic music in the area. The British artist — known for her genre-bending sounds and gravity-defying dance moves — made her way there straight from her set, dressed in the same bright-red leather jacket and leather pants she’d worn while performing. ● “Onstage, it looked incredible, but when you leave the stage, I kind of look like a Power Ranger,” she remembers, laughing lightly. When she got to the club, the woman at the door was far from impressed. “She was like, ‘Have you been here before?’ And I was like, ‘No,’ in my Power Rangers outfit.”…

The Desperation and Genius of Timmy Chalamet It was the nakedly aspirational quote heard ’round the world. Accepting the Screen Actors Guild best actor award last February for his performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, Timothée Chalamet took the stage and joked about the microphone being too short, expressed shock at winning, thanked his mom. Typical awards-ceremony banter. Then the artist formerly known as Lil’ Timmy Tim took on a serious tone. “I know the classiest thing would be to downplay the effort that went into this role,” he began. “But the truth is … I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that. But I wanna be one of the greats.” He name-checked Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, Viola Davis, Michael Phelps (!),…

Paper Pusher Secured my copy of the Lady Gaga Rolling Stone magazine this evening and finally read the article [“Mother Mayhem,” December 2025] on the train. The photos are even more beautiful in print! Journalist Nia K. Phillips, via the internet Still Got Beef? I’m a lifetime subscriber [to] and defender of RS magazine so I really hate to send this, but … I opened the latest issue with Lady Gaga on the cover and was pleasantly surprised to see a tribute to Ace Frehley on the opening page. Rolling Stone has not been historically kind to Kiss. But I was expecting a write-up of some sort. I paged through the issue three times thinking I must have missed it. No shade to her, but I would have gladly traded…

One of the first people Young Miko played her music to was her best friend, Mariana López Crespo. The two had been at a small bar in Puerto Rico years ago when Miko — a tattoo artist back then — shared how badly she wanted to be a singer-rapper. Right then and there, they decided that López Crespo would be her manager. As they left the bar, they drove past El Choli, the famed arena that’s hosted everyone from Marc Anthony to Bad Bunny. “I remember being like, ‘Could you imagine if we do that one day?’ She said, ‘You will.’” Miko headlined El Choli in December, capping off a year that included opening for Billie Eilish’s tour and dropping her second album, Do Not Disturb. She’s one of Latin…

THE NOMINEES LADY GAGA “ABRACADABRA” DOECHII “ANXIETY” ROSÉ AND BRUNO MARS “APT.” BAD BUNNY “DTMF” HUNTR/X “GOLDEN” KENDRICK LAMAR WITH SZA “LUTHER” SABRINA CARPENTER “MANCHILD” BILLIE EILISH “WILDFLOWER” THE LOWDOWN Forecasting the Song of the Year is often a precarious and, some may say, foolhardy task, because if there’s one thing we know about Grammy voters, it’s that they like to keep us on our toes. “The talent on display is next-level,” says Alex Tear, SiriusXM’s vice president of music programming, of this year’s Song of the Year contenders. “World-class songwriting, powerful storytelling, and real energy that’s connecting with their respective audiences. They have all put in the grind — and have delivered. Everybody, including myself, can sit on the side and say certain things and judge, but every single…

Around this time last year, Leon Thomas was feeling grateful just to attend the Grammy Awards, even if they seated him “in the bleachers.” This year, he’s one of the top nominees, up for Album of the Year, for Mutt, and Best New Artist. Thomas, a New York native, has written songs with Drake and Ariana Grande (his old co-star on the teen sitcom Victorious), but it’s his own work, like the Grammy-nominated “Vibes Don’t Lie,” and a thrilling live show that are turning heads. At a pivotal time in his career, Thomas, 32, says he’s staying laser-focused on showmanship and live instrumentation. “I really want to be that for R&B,” he says, “bringing back some of those organic elements to the table.” Back in 2022, you were freshly signed…

At his regular spot — the stool with “BG” on the back, way at one end of the bar — the owner of Buddy Guy’s Legends scans the hundreds of people packing his club. Tugging off the pandemic-era mask he still wears during public gatherings, he leans forward and looks toward the stage a few hundred feet away. “In an hour,” he says, “I might have a drink and go up there.” On some level, this midsummer evening is just another night at the Chicago blues club and restaurant Buddy Guy opened more than 35 years ago. The tables atop the yellow-and-blue checkerboard floor are once more filling up with tourists, tattooed dudes, youngish couples, and blues fans of all stripes. The walls remain lined with photos of Guy onstage…

10 BEST REISSUES OF 2025 In the age of streaming, reissues are literally a volume business. Of 2025’s 10 best archival collections and anniversary editions, five box sets, in their super-deluxe iterations, have 37 CDs among them. But they also come in slimmed-down, cost-conscious variations, and everything here has a story worth going into in deep detail. Full disclosure: I contributed essays — with new research and interviews — for Buckingham Nicks and the Jimi Hendrix release. But liner notes, like everything else I write, are journalism. And I have covered most of the artists and original records here over the years. What follows are the 10 best reissues of 2025, selected because of the music — and stories — inside. Read the expanded list on RollingStone.com. 1 HORSES (50TH…

“I feel like I’d be dead without singing.” What advice would you give a young Kate Hudson? Invest in more art! I should have bought that Basquiat in the Nineties [laughs]. No, honestly, I live a very unconventional life and yet somehow managed to have a family unit I’m really proud of. If I went back, I would tell myself it’s OK to do some things for yourself, because I always felt I had to be there for everybody else. Every sacrifice I made was because I wanted to be home with my kids, and their dads were out on the road. I am so grateful that it was hard for me to leave my family, but there were definitely creative things that would’ve been different if I felt it…