Guides

Rock has always carried a charge beyond guitars, drums and volume. From protest anthems to records that quietly document working lives, the genre gives public…

Before streaming turned every back catalogue into background noise, a rock musician could disappear in stages. First came the cancelled tours, then the quiet…

Some guitar parts need a full verse to make an impression. Others arrive in a handful of seconds, using a few blunt notes, a dark tone and enough space to make…

The harmonica rarely arrives in rock as a polite decoration. It wheezes, snarls, trembles and occasionally sounds like a train disappearing into the night. In…

The Long Way Home is a concept album about a cross-country road trip on a motorcycle, but its real subject is the emotional distance between leaving and…

Some wedding songs arrive with a built-in emotional charge. The opening piano, the carefully delayed guitar solo and the singer reaching for an impossible high…

Feedback is usually treated as a mistake: a shriek from an overloaded amplifier, a microphone pointed the wrong way, or a rehearsal-room blast that sends…

A rock band, a volcanic crater and a night sky make the sort of image that feels designed for a music documentary. Amplifiers glow against black stone, the…

The American Southwest is where rock history often feels physical: a faded club sign, a desert road, a rehearsal room preserved behind glass, or a canyon that…

Grunge is often reduced to a costume: checked shirts, battered Converse, greasy hair and a permanent scowl. That shorthand misses the deeper force of the…