Rob Sheffield | Rolling Stone

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511 items by Rob Sheffield

Smart Bar – Chicago 1985 | ALBUM REVIEW

These days, any sign of life from Sonic Youth is welcome news – even this self-released live album from the summer of 1985. It documents one of the first shows the Youth did with Steve Shelley...
November 13, 2012 12:00 AM ET
Music From Another Dimension! | ALBUM REVIEW

And just like that, Steven Tyler's solo career seems like a strange dream we all had. The Aerosmith reunion album is the first collection of new tunes the bad boys from Boston have managed since...
November 6, 2012 12:05 AM ET
Rob Sheffield: My 2012 Playlist | ARTICLE

Hear songs from Taylor Swift, Van Halen, Japandroids and more:
November 1, 2012 2:40 PM ET
'Nashville': The Real Dirty South | ARTICLE

Oh, Nashville: a town where "subtle" is just another word in the dictionary right next to "subplot about Powers Boothe." Nobody would argue that Nashville is groundbreaking drama, or that it earns its myth-mongering title. But it...
October 31, 2012 9:00 AM ET
'Homeland': Spy, Interrupted | ARTICLE

There's a great moment early in the new season of Homeland: Claire Danes as ex-CIA agent Carrie Mathison, back on the team for this one last mission, stalks the streets of Beirut, Lebanon. She spots a shady...
October 12, 2012 9:00 AM ET
Rob Sheffield: No Apology Needed for Morrissey at Radio City | BLOG ENTRY

"There's a mad moon at midnight. So don't . . . don't let how you feel go to waste." With these words, Morrissey took the stage last night at Radio City Music Hall, his first New...
October 11, 2012 1:55 PM ET
Pete Townshend's 'Who I Am': The Most Conflicted Rock Memoir of All Time? | ARTICLE

After all his years of musical confessions, Pete Townshend still has secrets to get off his chest. And in Who I Am, he...
October 11, 2012 12:00 PM ET
'Boardwalk Empire' Finally Shakes Off Ghost of 'The Sopranos' | ARTICLE

"Ordinary men avoid trouble," one of Nucky Thompson's criminal associates tells him. "Extraordinary men turn it to their advantage." That sums up the moral code of Boardwalk Empire. And as Nucky heads into 1923, he's got plenty...
October 5, 2012 12:10 PM ET
Book Review: Pete Townshend's 'Who I Am' Could Be the Most Conflicted Rock Memoir of All Time | ARTICLE

Pete TownshendWho I AmHarperCollins PublishersFour and a half Stars After all his years of musical confessions, Pete Townshend still has secrets to get off his chest. And in Who I Am, he finally lets loose....
September 28, 2012 1:55 PM ET
"Girl on Fire (Inferno Version)" | SONG REVIEW

The hardest-self-empowering woman in show business takes it all back to where she began, with a soulful pep talk about being your own best friend. "Girl on Fire," the first single and title track from Mrs. Swizz...
September 11, 2012 11:50 AM ET
How Al Bundy Became Gay | ARTICLE

The two baby-faced gay fathers of The New Normal exemplify the new breed of television's trying-too-hard superdad. From Modern Family to Parenthood to Up All Night to Guys With Kids, the sitcom staple has now become Dad...
September 11, 2012 8:00 AM ET
MTV to Music: We Are Never Ever Ever Ever Getting Back Together | BLOG ENTRY

Thank you, Katy Perry. You saved the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards. This was one of those award shows where all the entertainment comes from closeups of Katy Perry boredom faces. Damn, that girl has a...
September 7, 2012 9:05 AM ET
Sun | ALBUM REVIEW

"Real life is ordinary," Chan Marshall sings halfway through her ninth album – and she makes it sound like hard-won wisdom, because you can hear in Marshall's voice how fiercely she had to fight just to...
September 4, 2012 12:10 AM ET
"Walk Like a Giant" | SONG REVIEW

Neil Young hasn't dipped much into the old-time kiddie songs from this year's Americana in his latest Crazy Horse shows. Instead, he's using this tour to blow minds with intense new tunes that come on...
August 24, 2012 8:20 AM ET
"Twisted Road" | SONG REVIEW

Neil Young hasn't dipped much into the old-time kiddie songs from this year's Americana in his latest Crazy Horse shows. Instead, he's using this tour to blow minds with intense new tunes that come on...
August 24, 2012 8:15 AM ET
Jerry Seinfeld's Second Act | ARTICLE

You can think of Jerry Seinfeld and Breaking Bad as competing myths of American manhood. In the Walter White version, you get a death sentence – a terminal disease, with just a short time to live. What...
August 17, 2012 12:00 PM ET
The Highest Highlights of Outside Lands, From Stevie Wonder to Sigur Ros | BLOG ENTRY

Yes, San Francisco is cold. Very cold. The Outside Lands Festival celebrated its fifth year with a triumphantly ass-freezing weekend of mist, fog and music. California dreaming, on such a winter's day: This is August, right?...
August 14, 2012 6:35 PM ET
'Breaking Bad': As Gut-Wrenching as Ever | ARTICLE

This story is from the August 2nd, 2012 issue of Rolling Stone. "I am not in danger, Skyler," Walter White told his wife last year. "I am the danger." So here's what the danger looks like now, at...
July 20, 2012 3:40 PM ET
The 50 Coolest Summer Jams of All Time | ARTICLE

These are the songs that rocked their radio sumer, or just evoke the hazy thrill of beaches, sweaty house parties, roller-disco bar mitzvahs, dazed guitar-freak blowouts, backstreet boomboxes, that gin-and-juice barbecue that went horribly wrong when everyone...
July 19, 2012 3:00 PM ET
Overexposed | ALBUM REVIEW

It takes chutzpah for a band to call its fourth album Overexposed, especially when the singer has spent most of the past year zinger-slinging in a comfy red chair on The Voice. You can hear that chutzpah...
June 26, 2012 12:20 AM ET