Tue, Nov 10, 2020
In the first episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, we tackle one of hip-hop's most important albums: Public Enemy's 1988 political-rap masterpiece "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back", which landed at Number 15 on the magazine's all-new 500 Greatest Albums list. In this episode, Public Enemy frontman Chuck D and producer Hank Shocklee tell the story behind the album and break down the sample-layering tricks behind its furious, groundbreaking sound. Rolling Stone's writers and editors take a fresh look at the political and sonic radicalism of rap's first and greatest concept album and why it still matters so much.
Tue, Nov 17, 2020
In the the second episode of our new podcast, Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, we tackle one of the best and most important albums of the past decade: Taylor Swift's 2012 pop masterpiece "Red". Swift joins host Brittany Spanos to discuss why this is her "one true break-up album" and how she was becoming aware of her own mortality just as she was about to release her fourth album. At 22, Swift was already America's favorite country singer. With "Red", she grew up with a bona fide classic that touched on pop, dubstep, arena-rock and more, and set up the rest of her career (very much including this year's "Folklore"). Later in the episode, Rolling Stone staffers Claire Shaffer, Rob Sheffield and Brian Hiatt join Spanos to discuss the album's legacy.
Tue, Nov 24, 2020
In the third episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest albums, we go inside the emotional story of Tom Petty's "Wildflowers", a 1994 solo album that the singer, along with many fans, felt was the best work of his entire career. For a variety of reasons, Petty never could stop thinking about "Wildflowers"; in fact, it was on his mind right before he died. Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, and Steve Ferrone of the Heartbreakers along with Petty's daughter Adria, wife Dana, and "Wildflowers" Executive Producer George Drakoulias discuss how the album was born over a fraught two year period marked by the breakdown of Petty's first marriage, and a time of depression and uncertainty that followed. This mental state produced songs like "It's Good To Be King" and "You Don't Know How It Feels" that seem light and cheerful on the surface, but are actually expressing deep pain. We also share unheard audio from the Rolling Stone archives of Petty speaking about "Wildflowers" and his hopes for a deluxe edition that didn't want up coming out until three years after his death. Later in the episode, Rolling Stone staffers David Browne, Angie Martoccio and Andy Greene join Spanos to discuss the album's legacy.
Tue, Dec 1, 2020
In the newest episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, we dive into Lucinda Williams' 1998 masterpiece "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," an album that helped define modern roots music and got Williams' long-overdue recognition as one of America's greatest songwriters. The album took six years, three producers, and some label drama to make, but Williams' perfectionism resulted in an arguably perfect album. Williams joins Rolling Stone Country's Joseph Hudak to tell the stories behind songs like "Drunken Angel", and title track "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" that affected Williams' father so much he apologized to Williams when he first heard it. Producers Steve Earle and Ray Kennedy in addition to Waxahatchee help flesh out the story. Later in the episode, Rolling Stone staffers Claire Shaffer and Jon Freeman join host Brittany Spanos to discuss the album's legacy.
Tue, Dec 8, 2020
In this special holiday episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, our new podcast on Amazon Music, we delve into 1963's "A Christmas Gift for You From Phil Spector", an album that changed the way we look at holiday music. In 2019, Rolling Stone named it the best Christmas album of all time. A labor of love that pulled together all the top girl groups, including the Crystals and the Ronettes, the album was initially an ill-fated flop, dropping the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated (or so the legend goes). After being reissued in 1972 the record found its place in both the holiday and rock and roll canons, and inspired everyone from the Beach Boys to Bruce Springsteen to take a crack at Christmas standards. There was darkness under that festive tree, however, as the infamous perfectionist Spector directed artists on the record with an iron fist and later took his obsession with guns to a far darker place when he killed actress Lana Clarkson in 2003. Spector was unable to talk with Rolling Stone's News Editor Brenna Ehrlich for this episode (as he is serving time for second-degree murder), but she did chat with Darlene Love of the Blossoms about the fame of "Christmas Baby Please Come Home," La La Brooks of the Crystals about conditions in the studio, and Brian Wilson about how Spector inspired the Beach Boys. She also checked in with Spector fan, journalist Greil Marcus, to talk about the album's enduring fame. Later in the episode, host Brittany Spanos discusses the history, allure, and occasional ridiculousness of holiday music with Rolling Stone staffers Rob Sheffield and Jon Dolan, as well as comedian, Desus and Mero writer-producer, and podcast host Josh Gondelman.
Tue, Dec 15, 2020
In the mid-2000s, Daddy Yankee was a married father of three living in the Villa Kennedy public housing projects in San Juan, Puerto Rico. But he was about to change the world with an album that did perhaps more than any other to turn reggaeton - an underground urban movement out of Puerto Rico, drawing on influences like Jamaican dancehall, Panamanian reggae en español and hip hop - into a global force that produces hit after hit and fuels the careers of superstars like Bad Bunny and Ozuna. In the latest episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, Daddy Yankee talks with Nuria Net, journalist and co-founder of podcast studio La Coctelera Music, about that game-changing album, 2004's "Barrio Fino". He breaks down his vision for the album (and for reggaeton itself), going in-depth about the struggles to get the establishment to take reggaeton seriously. Along the way we hear from producers like Echo and Luny Tunes (the massively important hit "Gasolina" was birthed in Luny's mom's house, where she would cook Dominican food for the artists) and from artists like De La Ghetto and Bad Bunny, who talks about first hearing "Barrio Fino" as a 10-year-old kid in Puerto Rico and testifies to the album's influence. Later in the episode, Nuria Net, Los Angeles Times music reporter Suzy Exposito, and De La Ghetto join host Brittany Spanos to discuss the album's impact and legacy.
Tue, Dec 22, 2020
For this episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, we're taking a break to bring you an episode of our sister podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now. Host Brian Hiatt is joined by Rob Sheffield, Jon Dolan and 500 Greatest Albums host Brittany Spanos to dive into Rolling Stone's list of the Best Songs of 2020. We break down the tunes that got us through this strange and depressing year, from TikTok hits and truth-telling country to gritty rap realism and disco revivals. We'll be back on January 5th with a new episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums.
Tue, Dec 29, 2020
This week, Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums will be bringing you another episode of our sister podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now. Rolling Stone staffers Brian Hiatt, Rob Sheffield, Jon Dolan and Brittany Spanos discuss the old list, the new list and the key differences between the two, including the abundance of 21st century additions and a brand-new Number One. The roundtable of writers and editors detail the voting process, changing tide in critical taste and the online reaction to the list. We will be back next week with a new episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums.
Tue, Jan 5, 2021
After rocketing to worldwide fame in the early Nineties as an actress and a member of the Fugees, Lauryn Hill took a big risk with her solo debut, 1998's "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill". It made her an even bigger star at age 23, sold millions of copies, and won her five Grammy Awards, which is the most any woman before her had taken home in a single night. But in the years following Miseducation's blockbuster success, Hill all but exited public life. Though she has since returned to touring and has released one-off singles, she has yet to release a proper follow-up to her one solo album. In the latest episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, Hill's collaborators and confidants detail the ambitious, personal recording process along with the complicated decades that have followed, including legal disputes with some of those same collaborators. While Hill rarely grants interviews, she also responded to e-mail questions from Rolling Stone for this episode, providing detailed new insights on an album that has become so influential and beloved that it landed at Number 10 on our brand-new poll of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, making it the highest-ranking hip-hop album on the new list.
Tue, Jan 12, 2021
In the Nineties, much of the conversation about hip-hop was dominated by the feud between the East and West Coasts. The South was putting out tons of incredible rap records too, but almost nobody was paying any attention to Portsmouth, Virginia. With 1997's "Supa Dupa Fly", Missy Elliott and Tim "Timbaland" Mosley changed that, and gave the world a taste of the future. Missy and Timbaland met as teenagers in Virginia and soon found they were musical soulmates. As they explain to Rolling Stone's Rob Sheffield in the episode, that friendship translated into some of the most lasting and adventurous music to come out of the Nineties. Both were content working as behind-the-scenes players, but once Missy was coaxed into making a solo album, the pair created "Supa Dupa Fly" in an incredible two weeks. Missy's voice and delivery were one of a kind, whether she was singing, rapping, or just yelling, "Beep beep!" In this week's episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, both explain the stories behind the songs, including how Tim created the incredible Southern soul space-funk beat for "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)".
Tue, Jan 19, 2021
In early 1966, the Beach Boys arrived at Los Angeles' Western Studios to hear what Brian Wilson had been up to. The touring version of the band - Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, Al Jardine and Dennis Wilson - had been on the road in Japan, singing surf hits like "Fun, Fun Fun" and "I Get Around." Wilson, after suffering a mental breakdown on a plane the year before, stayed home, opting to work on instrumental tracks with studio musicians. What the band heard stunned them. Using instruments like harpsichord, harmonica, strings, and even sleigh bells, Wilson had written a spiritual album that captured heartbreak, insecurity, pain and sadness of entering adulthood. According to legend, the Beach Boys did not like "Pet Sounds", and its commercial failure led Brian Wilson to lose confidence in himself and descend further into mental illness. As the band explained to Rolling Stone in this week's episode of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time podcast, the truth is more a little more complicated. While "Pet Sounds" didn't sell, it inspired generations of musicians, beginning with the Beatles, who, according to George Martin, said 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' "never would have happened" without "Pet Sounds". The album was voted number two on Rolling Stone's rebooted 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, the spot it held in 2003. Rolling Stone's Jason Fine narrates the episode, which includes archival interviews with Brian Wilson, members of Wrecking Crew and more, as well as new interviews with several Beach Boys, plus members of Brian Wilson's touring band, who brought the music of Pet Sounds to life on stage for the first time in 2000.
Tue, Jan 26, 2021
In the latest episode of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums, Yusuf reflects on his masterpiece "Tea for the Tillerman," and discusses his decision to re-record it last year. His guitarist Alun Davies and longtime producer Paul Samwell-Smith also appear on the podcast. Later in the episode, Rolling Stone staff writer Angie Martoccio and deputy music editor Simon Vozick-Levinson join host Brittany Spanos to discuss the legacy of Tillerman, which ranked as the 205th best album ever made in the all-new version of the 500 Greatest Albums poll.
Tue, Feb 2, 2021
What's Going On was R&B's first concept album, a suite of seamlessly connected songs tackling everything from police brutality to heroin addiction, inner-city poverty, and the dire state of the environment. When Marvin Gaye first proposed the project, inspired by a song brought to him by Four Tops member Obie Benson, Gordy told him it was career suicide. But when the title track came out, it was an instant smash, and Gordy immediately asked for more. Gaye channeled everything that was weighing on his mind, Terrell's tragic death from a brain tumor, his brother Frankie's harrowing experiences in Vietnam, the struggles of the civil-rights movement, all into a sobering yet healing treatise on troubled times. In the season finale of our Amazon Music podcast, "Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums", we take an in-depth look at What's Going On, which took the top spot on Rolling Stone's newly updated 500 Greatest Albums list. In the episode you'll hear archival interviews with Marvin Gaye, where he delves into his evolving mindset at the time. You'll also hear reflections on the record from Marvin's collaborator and confidant Smokey Robinson; esteemed singer Aaron Neville, Gaye's contemporary and longtime admirer; his biographer David Ritz; and even his beloved sister Zeola Gaye. Later in the episode, host Brittany Spanos leads a roundtable discussion on the history and still-vital legacy of What's Going On featuring legendary music journalist Nelson George, who interviewed Gaye during his lifetime; singer Devon Gilfillian, who recently covered What's Going On in full on his own new album; and director Spike Lee, who wove the songs of What's Going On throughout Da Five Bloods, his acclaimed 2020 film about a group of black veterans returning to Vietnam in the present day.