Click here to watch Adam Duritz talk about Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings

Counting Crows’ fall album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings is clearly a two-part record — the band recorded in two locations (New York and Berkeley, California) with two producers (Gil Norton and Brian Deck). Frontman Adam Duritz explains that the Saturday Nights portion is about “sin, dissolution, madness” and the somewhat redemptive Sunday Mornings explores “vacillating between numbness and grief and sorrow” as well as attempting to “figure out how to be a human being again.” “I got everything out I needed to get out,” Duritz says of writing the album. “There’s all this stuff I felt I really needed to say.” Watch Duritz discuss the making of the album, plus catch live footage of the Crows in action playing new track “Cowboy,” which Duritz says “may be the best song we’ve ever done.”

Click here to watch James Blunt talk about his fall album All the Lost Souls

Two years after his blockbuster Back to Bedlam came out, James Blunt hit the same Los Angeles studio with the same producer he worked with on his debut. “I guess the difference is I’ve got a few miles under my feet at this stage, and I’m more comfortable in a way with songwriting, and I understand the recording process. The first time around it was new and strange to me.” Watch Blunt talk about working with Tom Rothrock, who helped out with the songwriting process, and the making of his sophomore studio album All the Lost Souls right here.

Click here to watch Will.i.am talk about his fall album Songs About Girls

Step into the studio with Black Eyed Pea and blockbuster producer Will.i.am and watch him explain how his upcoming album Songs About Girls was born. “Everybody has different sides of them,” he says. “Writing about my past situation, me being who I am now, and the journey I went through becoming this person made me say, ‘Wow, dude. I sacrificed a lot of my personal life.’” Find out more about the album (which features Snoop Dogg, among other guests) and get a listen to “I Got It From My Mama” right here.

Photo:Getty

Click here to watch Kevin Drew’s Fall Music Preview video.

Dinosaur Jr. guitar god J Mascis guests on Broken Social Scene co-founder Kevin Drew’s solo album Spirit If…, and Drew has stories galore about working with his high school hero. Watch our exclusive fall preview interview with the singer-guitarist to find out how he got Tom Cochrane and Pavement’s Scott Kannenberg to play on the record, how he concocts his “one-take rants” and much more, plus see footage of Mascis and a host of Canadian indie rock stars rocking out to Drew’s “Backed Out On The …”

Check out our preview of Neil Young’s forthcoming album Chrome Dreams II, which is featured in our Fall Preview 2007 special report. In addition to giving you the scoop on the Canadian rock icon’s sequel to a record that never saw release, the piece now includes an MP3 of the tune “Ordinary People,” the gorgeous eighteen-minute epic Young originally recorded in 1988 and played frequently during that year’s This Note’s For You tour. “Ordinary People” will be released for the first time on Chrome Dreams II. Listen to the song and read the rest of our Young preview here.

Click here to watch Serj Tankian’s Fall Music Preview video.

Get a tour of Serj Tankian’s home studio as he discusses the differences between recording solo and with System of a Down, the joys of writing whenever the mood struck him and his new LP Elect the Dead. To read about Tankian’s fall release, click here, and check out all of Rolling Stone’s Fall Music Preview here.

You’ve seen Rolling Stone’s preview of the hottest albums hitting stores this fall, now we’ve got the lowdown on even more noteworthy records coming out between now and the end of the year. Click here to check out album details and sample tracks from Joni Mitchell, Coheed and Cambria, Chamillionaire and more, and stay tuned for in-the-studio videos throughout the rest of the week.

Photo: Mora/Getty

Rolling Stone’s guide to the biggest albums of fall 2007 has arrived: Click here for the complete rundown on dozens of albums, listed by release date, and including audio streams of key tracks, or click on artist’s name below to go directly to their entries. Also, check back next week for our guide to the best of the rest, and exclusive video clips from Will.i.am, Serj Tankian and more.

James Blunt
Foo Fighters
Alicia Keys
Bruce Springsteen
Neil Young
Kid Rock
Lil Wayne
(more…)

Last night Kanye West officially previewed his new album, the excellent Graduation, to a lively, packed house at a midtown Manhattan movie theater across the street from his record label’s offices. As usual, Kanye came close to overshadowing his own music: He talked to the crowd at length after the album played, asserting that Graduation is one of the “top ten” hip-hop albums ever and that he’s one of the “top five MCs” of all time. When asked what it felt like to be onstage with Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Diddy and T.I. at New York’s Screamfest concert last week, Kanye said “it would have felt better to hit the stage with me and Jay like we planned.” He also fed the fire for his September 11th record-sales showdown with 50 Cent — 50’s Curtis comes out the same day as Graduation — claiming that his presales were higher than 50’s and that he “had to build it up for Rolling Stone.” (Thanks, chief!) West also talked about how one of the new album’s songs, the lovely “I Wonder,” was inspired by the U2 track “City of Blinding Lights”: After seeing Bono and crew perform “Lights” to rapturous crowds when he was opening for them, Kanye told himself, “I want one of those.”