Six decades of six-string greats gathered for the American Music Masters Tribute Concert honoring Les Paul at Cleveland’s State Theater on Saturday. The sold-out show was the climax of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s week-long tribute to one of the top guitar performers and innovators. Even Guitar Hero poster-boy Slash was wide-eyed and humble like a freshman glad to be at a seniors’ party.

(Click above to watch Slash open up about his four Les Pauls — including the one he used on “Sweet Child O’ Mine” — plus interviews with Billy Gibbons and Richie Sambora.)

Backstage before the show, Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye neatly summarized Paul’s contributions: “Before Les, guitars were only amplified. Les made them truly electric.” Born in 1915, Paul had a string of hit singles from the 1940s through the ’60s. As an engineer, player and technician, he pioneered solid-body guitar construction, the lead guitar position, multitrack recording and effects from delay to phasing. He designed a family of heavy guitars for Gibson, the most famous of which might be the 1988 Les Paul standard from Guns n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child” video. Said Paul during his acceptance speech, “Everybody thought I was a guitar until I played here tonight.” (more…)

The list of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Singers of All Time has already inspired some lively debate, but this list didn’t just come from names picked out of a hat. Rather, there was a large panel of experts expressing their opinions through a series of ballots. Click above for longtime Rolling Stone contributor Alan Light’s explanation of how this particular sausage was made, including the logic behind having other artists write about the top picks, and be sure to check out the list of voters and the ballot gallery below.

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• Cover Story: The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time

• The 100 Greatest Singers: The Voters

• Photo Gallery: Select Ballots From The Voting Panel, Including Keith Richards, Jim James, Courtney Love and Bruce Springsteen

• More From Issue 1066

As promised, Will.i.am debuted his new Barack Obama anthem “It’s A New Day” on Oprah. In the video above, Will sings “I woke up this morning, feeling brand new. The dreams that I’ve been dreaming, finally came true” over a montage of footage from last week’s victory speech. The video isn’t as celebrity-heavy as Will’s previous outings “Yes We Can” and “We Are The Ones,” but “It’s A New Day” still features cameos by Fergie, Quincy Jones, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick, the lead singer from That Thing You Do and the wheelchair guy from Oz. (more…)

In this week’s New Music Report, Rolling Stone’s Christian Hoard takes a look at new albums from Hinder and the Beatles video game and the AC/DC tour. Click above for the full take on the week’s biggest music news.

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Last week, in honor of Halloween, we asked our readers to tell us their favorite scary music videos. Nine Inch Nails‘ “Happiness in Slavery” video was the winner, however, that video is even too explicit for this website, so you’ll just have to get your torture gore kicks instead with the Trent Reznor’s slightly less-offensive (or at least more easily edited) “Closer” video. Check out the rest of the top ten, featuring terrifying clips by Tool, Metallica and Olivia Newton-John, below.

1. Nine Inch Nails – “Happiness in Slavery” (Click for extremely NSFW video)

2. Tool – “Sober”

3. Michael Jackson – “Thriller”

4. Metallica – “Enter Sandman”

5. Radiohead – “There There”

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Next Tuesday, Duran Duran’s 1982 LP Rio gets the “Classic Albums” treatment as the Eagle Rock DVD tracing the album’s creation and impact hits stores. Rock Daily’s got two exclusive clips: First, Nick Rhodes tells the story behind “Hungry Like the Wolf” and deconstructs the song down to its synths, guitars and drum sounds to demonstrate how it all came together in the studio. Then, click here to watch a a new live performance of the song.

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On this happiest of Halloweens, Rock Daily pays tribute to Rob Zombie. The rocker-turned-film-director has not only delivered some fantastically spooky metal as a solo artist and as frontman of White Zombie (with a box set coming out in November), but he’s also directed one of the greatest horror films in a generation in The Devil’s Rejects. Click above for his conversation with Peter Rosenberg on a New York hip-hop radio station, where he defends his flicks and talks over the track to Busta Rhymes‘ “New York Shit.”

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AC/DC are on top of the charts, on their way around the world and on the cover of the current Rolling Stone. Click above to go behind the scenes of the Australian band’s cover shoot and find out what Angus Young, Brian Johnson and Malcolm Young think about their first cover of Rolling Stone and why Black Ice is such a good title for an album and how they approached the studio this time out. Plus, click here for 40 years of photo: big riffs and schoolboy uniforms.

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In this week’s New Music Report, Rolling Stone’s Christian Hoard discusses the week’s biggest stories, including the impending release of Chinese Democracy and the launch of the Metallica tour. Click above for these stories as well as a look at the exclusive video performances currently on RollingStone.com and the latest reviews of records from Ryan Adams and Hank Williams III.

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Perhaps looking to actually make use of all those music videos that are just sitting in their vault, MTV has launched a new Website, dubbed MTV Music. Thankfully, MTV didn’t stop short after uploading the TRL fare, as iconic and vintage videos — some even predating MTV itself — are ready for streaming. It’s kind of like a higher quality YouTube, but without those annoying pop-up bubbles. The collection is pretty comprehensive: Of the 20-something fairly obscure videos we searched for, only two were absent (no love for Us3’s “Cantaloop [Flip Fantasia]”). (more…)

Rock Daily has made its love of 1990s era MTV well known, and nobody personifies that period of programming better than Kennedy, the mono-named VJ who hosted “Alternative Nation.” For those unaware, “Alternative Nation” was the network’s incredibly successful showcase for grunge and alt-rock videos and often featured Kennedy talking to stars awkwardly and cracking strange inside jokes. The clip above shows Kennedy at her finest: confusing the guest, stumbling over her intros and basically making everybody feel uncomfortable. In fact, it wouldn’t shock us if the above clip was the reason Rivers Cuomo decided to disassociate for a while. Sometimes Rock Daily wishes the old MTV would come back; other times, we’re fine with the ’90s staying right where they are. As a bonus, have fun playing “Spot The Background Song” (we spotted Buffalo Tom, Smashing Pumpkins and Bush in there).

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What are the chances that exciting news breaks about your ex-band’s 14-years-in-the-making album finally coming out the same week you make an embarrassing appearance on a VH1 show about celebrity drug treatment? Unfortunately, that improbable set of circumstances has befallen original Guns n’ Roses drummer Steven Adler, who was the most cringe-worthy addict on Celebrity Rehab last night: sobbing about how his friendship with Slash has deteriorated to the point where the guitarist didn’t ring him up to drum on his upcoming solo LP, sucking down bong hits while proclaiming his desire to die, declaring his admiration for Jeff Conaway (whose leather jacket and curled hair made him look like a zombie Kenickie). We’re not sure what the success rate for reality-TV interventions is, but we’re rooting for you, Steven.

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Rock Daily can’t get enough “Thriller” re-creations, so we had to share this new one via France, where the power of Michael Jackson and zombies brings together jocks, geeks, stoners and goths at a college big enough to nail down a single take of the song. The real question: how does it compare to the Filipino prisoners?

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A whole bunch of promos for Guns N’ Roses‘ Chinese Democracy hit the web today. There are 16 in total, each with a 15-second run time, which is just enough to give you a taste of what you can look forward to hearing on November 23rd. “This November. History Will Be Made,” the promos announce, “The World Is Watching. The Future Is Ours. This November, America Will Have Finally Have Chinese Democracy.” The clips then end with a reminder that the album will exclusively be sold at Best Buy stores. UPDATE: All 16 promos have been removed from YouTube, which suggests that they may not have been legit. Still, the march towards Chinese Democracy continues.

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Tomorrow All Together Now, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the 2006 Beatles/Cirque du Soleil show Love, hits stores. The project originated in the friendship between George Harrison and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, though other Beatles were apprehensive at first: Click above to watch Paul McCartney pop onto the set of the show and talk about his early concerns.

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