5 Summer Anthems from Around the World Summer is here, so it’s time to lock in with some kickass songs to get yourself to and from the beach. We put together a few songs from around the globe that may not be getting airplay on your home radio station but they are huge in other…
Here’s some grunge archaeology for you. This video is Nirvana playing at a Radio Shack store in Aberdeen on January 24th, 1988. HOLY MOLY.
George Harrison’s letter to Stu Sutcliffe Here’s one of those pieces of memorabilia that seems too good to be true – a December, 1960 letter from George Harrison to Stu Sutcliffe. George had recently been kicked out of Germany for being underage, while Stu stuck around Hamburg with his new fiancée Astrid Kircherr (the letter was…
Linkin Park is an outlier. The band’s risky creative choices—swinging wildly from song to song, album to album—are a hallmark of their career.
How do you replace the most exciting and innovative frontman in rock-n-roll history? You simply don’t.
It was 50 years ago that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play – and it was released roughly 18 years before I was born.
Opposing tides flowed into each other in Las Vegas on Friday evening as the candy-colored festival goers heading north to the Electric Daisy Carnival walked through a mass of faded Pink Floyd t-shirts in the queue outside T-Mobile Arena. One group was about to experience the ecstasy of bass drops and physical contact while the…
Perfect weather and late spring wanderlust means only one thing: it’s time for a road trip. For most people, this happens maybe once or twice a year at most. For touring musicians, this is a way of life – where all belongings, daily necessities and creative juices are crammed into a van and schlepped from…
The Hard Rock Rising global battle of the bands has concluded and we have an absolutely amazing grand prize winner – Alex Boyé of Park City, Utah.
Though it’s been nearly forty seven years since his tragic death at age 27, the power of Jimi Hendrix’s music resonates as strongly today as ever.
All roads have led us here. On their sleek new album Last Young Renegade, All Time Low establish themselves at the forefront of contemporary music by daring to shake off pop-punk expectations.
The 262-mile road trip from Las Vegas to Pasadena, CA includes a stretch along the hip of Mojave National Preserve. With all due respect to the impeccably attired Lumineers, the real opening act for U2’s return to the Rose Bowl was the miles upon miles of Joshua trees stretching around us as my wife and…
Teenage girls have always been pretty smart when it comes to sifting through their teen idols and spotting the real deal. The early Beatles concerts? All teenage girls.
We woke this morning to the shocking and sad news that Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell died in Detroit. He was only 52 years old.
Ladies and gents, summer’s here and it’s festival season. Time to saddle up, grab a comfy pair of shoes and go see some live music.
I have always had a passion for crafting playlists; starting back in the day with my two-cassette boombox.
Longtime Col. Bruce road manager Tony Hume shares his thoughts on the passing of his friend and Bruce’s indelible influence on the jam band scene.
The Twitterverse and teen/industrial complex is exploding today because Harry Styles did a failed stage dive. What no one seems to be mentioning is he appears to have a vintage Gibson ES-350 around his neck. Huh?
Blondie has nothing left to prove after four decades in the business.
Sheryl Crow just released her 10th studio album, Be Myself, and I’m kinda blown away. Is there another artist of her stature and longevity still able to make a truly compelling rock ‘n’ roll album?
I hate to seem like I’m piling on, but holy moly is this whole Fyre Festival debacle insane or what?
Let’s take a look at some of the coolest, most ostentatious pieces of wardrobe the universe has ever seen – NUDIE SUITS.
Robert Smith turns 58 today. Let’s rank every single Cure album from worst to first, shall we?
What can push a French bloke to go outside his comfort zone and book tickets for a concert in London when he knows he’s gonna see the same show in Paris a few days before? TWO WORDS: Blackberry Smoke.
So I went and saw Dinosaur Jr. a couple nights ago. Holy moly is J Mascis ever a badass.
If Gram Parsons ever sat drinking with Tom Petty at a roadside bar outside 29 Palms, Jerry Leger’s Nonsense and Heartache would be playing on the jukebox.
One universal truth is the fact that everyone looks hilarious in their high school yearbooks. Dated fashions, bad hair, goofy expressions – no one is immune. That’s why we love to look at the old yearbooks of rock legends. Let’s check out a few.
With the recent unveiling of this year’s Warped Tour line-up, old school punk is again in the air as California legends The Adolescents, The Dickies and T.S.O.L are heading out with bands that weren’t even born when they put California punk on the map in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s. Inspired by the music coming out…
Here’s one of those pieces of memorabilia that seems too good to be true – a letter from George Harrison to Stu Sutcliffe.
When an artist achieves fame while still in their teens, it usually spells doom for any hope of a long-lasting career in the fickle world of popular music. One big hit and then they disappear as soon as the cuteness factor wanes. Michelle Branch has been a very conspicuous exception to this rule; which is why…
Armed with a cupboard full of trophies, including two NME awards for Best British Band, Biffy Clyro kicked off their U.S. tour in the intimate confines of Vinyl at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas.
Blak Emoji is the latest project from singer-songwriter-musician Kelsey Warren and they’ve just released a new EP called Intro.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Anyone who has ever sketched the KISS letters in a school notebook or safety-pinned a Ramones patch onto the back of their jacket knows that a great band logo resonates with fans and reveals their love for those artists.
With over 20 studio albums under each band’s belt, UFO and Saxon represent the old-school rock and roll approach to life. Write some songs, record an album and then tour the hell out of it. At the end of the tour, hopefully you made a little money.
Seeing Kyle Eastwood’s band live is a very unique experience. Let’s start with the obvious – when you’re the son of one of the most iconic actor/directors in the history of cinema, it’s difficult to carve out a first name for yourself. Especially when you are the spitting image of your dad.
Elvis wasn’t even close. Chuck Berry wrote the libretto for the opera that is the life of the teenager and in the process changed the face of modern culture.
When Pure Heroine turned Lorde into a pop sensation in 2013, it gave voice to sheltered teens who paid attention in English class and saw beyond the hollowness of growing up on social media.
Our man in Vegas – Jason Lent – runs down his nominees for the ten greatest soundtrack albums of all time. RPM editor Jeff Nolan provides the rebuttal. Enjoy…
We’ve all been there… someone you trust enthuses about a contemporary album while you’re having beers in your local pub (“Dude, you’ve never heard of them?”), but you forget to check them out. That’s why RPM’s man in Paris – Guillaume LaFon – put together a list of five albums you probably missed for your…
With their Motown-influenced blend of pop and soul, Los Angeles-based duo Electric Guest are the perfect group to be featured in Hard Rock Cafes worldwide as our Artist of the Month for March 2017.
From time to time, some of our more passionate guests will get worked-up over certain pieces of memorabilia in our collection and try to take us to task over them. Usually, this stems from someone assuming that a joint called the Hard Rock should exclusively display memorabilia that fits into their personal definition of what…
Bon Jovi arrived in Las Vegas last night in support of their feisty new album, This House Is Not For Sale. After seeing them in September of 1989 at the Miami Arena (thanks mom!) and wearing out my New Jersey cassette, I’ve stayed faintly aware of them over the decades as they (d)evolved from one…
The Filth & the Fury – Punk Rock in Seventies England, Forty Years Later Attending an all-boys school in West London in the mid-seventies was an experience. You didn’t know how many fights you’d see in the school yard on a daily basis or if you were going to be in one of them. It…
Somewhere between 2012’s stellar Celebration Rock and 2017’s Near To the Wild Heart of Life, Vancouver duo Japandroids grew up. The band returns from the five year break with eight new songs that are more polished than anything they’ve ever done.
When you’re in a band, selecting the proper jam for an encore is critical to maximize your chances to crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women. Everybody knows that.
This is it. This is the one. Our greatest piece of Beatles wardrobe.
This guitar is an absolutely perfect piece of memorabilia. It’s rare, beautiful and it belonged to a legend.
The show must go on. After losing guitarist and band leader Tom Edwards a few weeks ago, Adam Ant and the rest of his band circled the wagons and found a way to push on with the magnificent Kings of the Wild Frontier tour.
Katy Perry served up “Chained to the Rhythm” today, but maybe she should have kept it baking in Max Martin’s Swedish disco kitchen a little longer.
With an album cover reminiscent of Queen II, there is little doubt where Hollywood-based mascara merchants Glam Skanks are headed on Glitter City. They’re currently on their first major tour opening for Adam Ant, so I thought I’d give their album a spin.
This completely over-the-top quinceanera dress was worn by Katy Perry during her appearance on MTV’s Los Premios awards show in 2008. She famously dove into a giant birthday cake while wearing it and performing her first smash single, “I Kissed a Girl”.
Though rock ‘n’ roll music is now over 60 years old, it remains predominantly a boy’s club. Why is that? Is the swagger necessary for good rock music inherently masculine? Are electric guitars too phallic? It can’t be that simple.
In some ways, Brooklyn-based pop phenom Bebe Rexha personifies the 21st century music biz ideal – she’s predominantly known as a guest singer, she ignores the old-school concept of an album release, her image is perfectly crafted for Instagram and her voice is manipulated into what is essentially a computer noise. In short, she’s a…
Paul Kossoff was one of the truly inspired guitarists to emerge from the late ’60s British blues scene and his group, Free, had a soulful, laid-back groove that made their hard rock punch all the more powerful.Think of the half-time swagger of “Fire and Water” or the amazing vibrato of the timeless “All Right Now”.…
Nostalgia for the most plastic of decades – the 1980s – simply refuses to wane. The Microsoft Theater in downtown Los Angeles played host to its third sold-out ‘80s Weekend concert on Saturday night and I got to witness the time warp firsthand.
Last week, I queued up in cyberspace to drop the better part of a week’s pay on tickets to see U2 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA. Much like they did 30 years ago, U2 are selling out stadiums and playing songs from The Joshua Tree. For a band so wary of using nostalgia…
New York, New York. It’s been said that New York City is so nice they named it twice. Our first look at iconic album cover locales of NYC was so well received, we decided to dig further into the album crate, hit the streets and present more sites that have become part of our rock…
Ed Sheeran’s success as a pop star has always been a bit of a head-scratcher to me. As a pop writer, I get it – he’s got an undeniable ability to tap into the current zeitgeist and crafts a 3-minute earworm as well as anyone this side of Sweden – but as a performer he…
A truly seismic shift in popular culture happened 26 years ago today – but no one involved had any idea that what they were doing would fundamentally change the world, spell the commercial death of an entire musical genre and usher in what was the last true rock ‘n’ roll youth movement. On this date…
Damn you 2016. We thought you had your fill. You couldn’t leave us alone on Christmas Day.
Let’s be honest – 2016 was a bona fide annus horribilis, but there were still some pretty kickass records released in the year that shall be forever forgotten. We had the RPM contributors compile a list of their favorite albums of the year.
December 8th has been cemented forever in the history of popular culture as a BAD DAY. On that date in 1980, John Lennon was senselessly murdered by some loser whose name I don’t remember. Twenty-four years later – to the day – another nameless loser climbed onstage at the Alrosa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio and…
It’s that time of year again, kids! Gather round while we celebrate the commercial achievements of the usual suspects (many of whom are genuinely talented) and give token nominations to “arty” projects in order to preserve a veneer of credibility. It’s the 2016 Grammy® Awards!
New York City has its fair share of landmarks – the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Yankee Stadium, the Brooklyn Bridge… it’s overwhelming at times. But the streets of New York have also been the backdrop for some of the most memorable and iconic album covers of all time. RPM’s Earl Douglas –…
Recorded on November 27, 1987, Cowboy Junkies’ groundbreaking sophomore album The Trinity Session has lost none of its mystery or beauty in the three decades that have passed since the band dropped around $250 on a day of recording at a downtown Toronto church.
In addition to wacky cat videos, pictures of food and annoying political posts, the internet is chock-full of amazing isolated tracks from some truly iconic music. The wealth of isolated Led Zeppelin material online is fairly staggering – especially since so much of it is focused on the genius of John Henry Bonham.
Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet (1986) and New Jersey (1988) were pivotal cassettes for those of us raised on MTV and their longevity isn’t surprising to anyone who was paying attention back then. Less dangerous than Mötley Crüe and unafraid of a pop hook (or three), Bon Jovi’s sound made for one of the easiest…
You found the vibrations that made a generation of women too smart for their own good want to raise their boys to be gentle souls. Like so many wayward fathers, when we found you years later on our own, you told us the dark truth hidden in the folds of those verses.
October 25th 2016 – Brooklyn Bowl Las Vegas Bringing together three distinctly different bands for one night, a small crowd in Las Vegas was treated to an eclectic blend of rock and roll that showcased three bands comfortable in their own skin.
Day 2 | Day 3 Adjusting to the California desert is a process for a swamp-dweller such as myself. It’s a bit like transforming into a vampire. You expel all life-giving moisture and replace it with the primordial dust from Gram Parsons’s funeral pyre that has blown over from Joshua Tree. So many Desert Trip…
When a pop star announces that their new album is the most “personal” of their career, I steel myself for what will probably be a pulverizingly self-important exercise in showing the fans what a deep and tortured artist they are. It’s usually a recipe for unlistenability. Lady Gaga’s newest album, Joanne, is the most personal…
Day 1 | Day 3 If you followed online reports from Desert Trip, you’ve almost certainly seen a million cell phone photos of the gigantic harvest moon rising over the mountains behind the stage during the second weekend. This was one of those singular moments that was so freakin’ perfect that it seemed surreal. And…
The biggest-selling live acts of 2016 are Adele and Coldplay. In 2016 we like torch ballads about getting dumped and we like stadium shows that literally have fireworks explosions and confetti cannons at the moments where we’re meant to clap – like flashing a light at a chimpanzee so he knows it’s feeding time. In 2016…
Four years have passed since Two Door Cinema Club released their sophomore album, Beacon. In today’s world of disposable pop music, waiting four years between albums can be risky. For Two Door Cinema Club, the timing wasn’t so much an artistic choice as a physical and mental necessity after the album cycle of recording, promotion…
Day 1 | Day 2 By day three, the Desert Trip crowd were seasoned veterans. Those who overindulged early on in the festival were now pacing themselves a bit better – or switching from alcohol to other inebriants in anticipation of the lysergic immersion of Roger Waters. But first up – The Who.
Remember that relationship you were in once? You know the one. It was good for a bit. Really good. Then it went tits-up. But you didn’t break up. You stayed together and tried to work it out. You tried to recapture when you were happiest even though you knew in your heart it was over.…
We’ve all seen it a million times – a dingy club, maybe twenty disinterested patrons and a band of dubious talent hacking through some forgettable, derivative material. Inevitably, they finish their set and then huddle up on the side of the stage before making their triumphant, 6-foot walk back to their instruments like the conquering…
PRINCE ROGER NELSON 1958 – 2016 While you’re sifting through all the “man, 2016 sucks” posts in your social media feeds, take a moment to put the shocking death of Prince in a larger context. We’re living in a transitional time. A time of real change. The old guard is gone. The template of rock…
SCOTT RICHARD WEILAND 10/27/67 – 12/3/15 I woke up today to 17 missed calls and 43 text messages. “Scott’s gone”
