Annie Lennox
by Rob Thomas

Anybody my age turning on MTV and seeing Annie Lennox sing "Sweet Dreams," that was enough right there. And then when she started doing songs like "Walking on Broken Glass" or "Missionary Man," there's just something that's so soulful in those — and it's not like a put-on, blue-eyed soul kind of thing: It's just pure power, this gigantic voice. The Eurythmics was her fantastic voice mixed in with Dave Stewart and his otherworldly, ahead of its time...

James Taylor
by David Crosby

James Taylor has a tremendously rich and beautiful voice, and he controls it so well. It's easy to get fooled by his understatement: As beautiful as James' voice is, there's nothing mellow about a performance like "Fire & Rain" — it's a song of great depth sung by a man who's experienced the highs and lows of life, and has the ability to convey them directly and honestly. It also doesn't hurt that he's up there as a songwriter alongside Lennon & McCartney,...

Janis Joplin
by Stevie Nicks

You could say that being yelled at by Janis Joplin was one of the great honors of my life. Early in my career, Lindsay Buckingham and I were in a band called Fritz. There were two gigs we played in San Francisco that changed everything for me: One was opening up for Jimi Hendrix, who was completely magical. The other was the time that we opened up for Janis at the San Jose Fairgrounds, around 1970.

It was a hot summer day, and things didn't start off well...

Remaining three plan possible album and tour without Robert Plant

Last year's Led Zeppelin reunion concert wasn't the end for Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham — but it looks like it was for Robert Plant. The three musicians have been holding rehearsals with singers including Aerosmith's Steven Tyler (it didn't go well, one source has heard) and possibly Myles Kennedy, lead singer of Alter Bridge (who has covered Zep songs onstage and has a formidable vocal range). But Page wants to make one thing clear about the new project. "Whatever this...

By Jonathan Lethem

There's something about a voice that's personal, not unlike the particular odor or shape of a given human body. Summoned through belly, hammered into form by the throat, given propulsion by bellows of lungs, teased into final form by tongue and lips, a vocal is a kind of audible kiss, a blurted confession, a soul-burp you really can't keep from issuing as you make your way through the material world. How helplessly candid! How appalling!

Contrary to anything you've heard, the ability to...

Our blue-ribbon panel of 179 experts ranks music's finest vocalists

1 | Aretha Franklin
by Mary J. Blige

Photo: Goodwin/Redferns/Retna Born
March 25th, 1942
Key Tracks
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Respect," "I...

Our blue-ribbon panel of 179 experts ranks music's finest vocalists

1 | Aretha Franklin
by Mary J. Blige

Photo: Goodwin/Redferns/Retna Born
March 25th, 1942
Key Tracks
"(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "Respect," "I...

From their humble beginnings through the blockbuster "Black Ice"


• AC/DC and the Gospel of Rock and Roll

HIGH VOLTAGE (1976)
Key Tracks: "T.N.T.," "She's Got Balls"
Quick Take: Perhaps AC/DC's most crucial innovation is the way their lyrics make plain the boys' locker room conception of sexuality that had previously bubbled just under the surface of most heavy-duty rock. Shamelessly sexist panderers or refreshingly frank entertainers? AC/DC fits both descriptions, but none of it would matter if guitarist Angus Young wasn't such a gargantuan...

G n' R to sell through Best Buy; are big-box stores the future?

At 12:01 A.M. on October 20th, Wal-Mart opened a temporary 3,000-square-foot store on Hollywood Boulevard devoted entirely to AC/DC's new album, Black Ice. Like the Eagles successfully did a year ago, AC/DC are selling their record exclusively through Wal-Mart's 3,500 stores, tapping into the chain's marketing might and 200 million annual customers at a time when CD sales dropped 36 percent between 2000 and 2007, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan.

The deal is paying off for AC/DC in...

As drug cartels battle the government, Mexico descends into chaos

• VIDEO: Guy Lawson on the bloody war next door, plus a guide to Mexico's drug lords

The dead policeman is found propped against a tree off a dirt road on the outskirts of the city. He is dressed like a cartoon version of a Mexican cowboy, wearing a sombrero and wrapped in a heavy woolen blanket. The murder and symbolic mutilation of policía has become almost routine in Culiacán, capital of the Mexican state of Sinaloa: Pablo Aispuro Ramírez is one of 90 cops to be killed...

Just a few years out of high school geekdom, the Seattle indie buzz band is still awesomely weird

When Fleet Foxes singer Robin Pecknold was in high school in Seattle, he was overweight, bad at sports and way too into The Lord of the Rings. "It was a pretty isolating time," he says. "I was never invited to anyone's party. I felt invisible." If that wasn't bad enough, he suffered allergies so debilitating he was often unable to go to school. "Once, I sneezed 23 times in a row," he says. "I could barely leave my house. My face would turn red and I'd, like, die."

But he did have a...

Inside the reunited band's new album and massive stadium tour

Thirteen years after their last album, and 17 years after the death of incomparable frontman Freddie Mercury, Queen are looking, once again, like champions of the world. With a new singer — Paul Rodgers, formerly of Bad Company and Free — a new album and a monumental tour covering 20 countries in 11 weeks, the band with the bestselling album in the history of the U.K. is making a dramatic return to the spotlight.

Guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and Rodgers kicked off the...

"Why would you want everyone to like you?"

With their new album Dig Out Your Soul out and an international tour underway, Rolling Stone caught up with Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher to chat about the first record that blew his mind, how he measures success and God's musical prowess.

I was listening to Dig Out Your Soul on My Space and reading through the comments. Did you check out any of those?
No, I don't do any of that nonsense, MySpace rubbish. I don't listen to comments. I just make the record and hope people like it; if they...

Their tensions behind them, the Dead play their first show in four years

The first call came into Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center in mid- summer: A concert promoter asked venue officials to hold some dates at the school's indoor arena in the fall. The promoter wouldn't identify the band — and didn't until he called back to ask if October 13th would be available for a Barack Obama benefit with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. "We went, 'Wow,' " says Bernie Punt, director of sales at the venue. "We knew right then this was going to be...

Hardcore hitmakers storm the East Coast with scooters, new album

Three hours before hitting the stage at New York's Roseland Ballroom, Tim McIlrath and Joe Principe of the Chicago punk crew Rise Against get some good news: Their fifth record, Appeal to Reason, will debut the next day at Number Three, selling 65,000 copies — their biggest week ever. Bassist Principe is stoked: "That's amazing!" he says. But McIlrath, the group's quiet frontman, seems less surprised. "That a band like us can crack the Top 10 speaks volumes about how frustrated people are...

Metallica's frontman on headbanging injuries, his favorite album and field-dressing a moose

How did Metallica celebrate when their ninth studio album, Death Magnetic, debuted at Number One? "We bought a bunch of drugs and cars," jokes frontman James Hetfield. "No, we just looked at each other, our jaws dropped and we said, 'Man!'" The moment was especially sweet for Hetfield: "A couple of years ago, we were yelling at each other, breaking up the band — and now look!" he says. "It's surreal. And for me, being here very clean [and sober], it seems extra meaningful." Hetfield, 45,...

For the first time, the rock legend performs his most acclaimed album

When Van Morrison's second solo album, Astral Weeks, hit shelves in 1968, it was a commercial failure. But in the following decades, the mystical-themed album has become one of Morrison's most beloved, influencing everyone from Bruce Springsteen to U2. ("Astral Weeks was like a religion to us," E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt has said.) "The songs are timeless," says Morrison. "They remain unchanged and are as fresh today as they ever were." On November 7th and 8th, Morrison will...

Backstage with the Brooklyn band on its biggest tour yet

On a recent Monday, Tunde Adebimpe and Kyp Malone — the dual frontmen of TV on the Radio — are lounging backstage at Boston's Wilbur Theatre, chowing down on crab cakes and clam chowder for lunch. Topics of conversation include the election, Jay-Z and a phenomenon both guys find a little strange: getting approached on the street by random fans. "Whenever a stranger calls me by name," Malone says, "I wonder, 'Did I meet this person when I was drunk?'"

Malone and Adebimpe better...

Back in the post-grunge era in the '90s, nobody — not Scott Weiland, not the dudes from Candlebox — was more maligned than Bush frontman Gavin Rossdale. Labeled as a wannabe from the start, his band still made four albums and sold millions of records on the back of huge singles like "Machinehead" and "Swallowed." When Bush broke up, Rossdale formed a Helmet-channeling band called Institute and was known more as Gwen Stefani's husband than as a musician. Now, he's back with is first o...

Osbourne discovers Guitar Hero: World Tour

Sitting underneath a chandelier with its light bulbs screwed into metal bats, Ozzy Osbourne — the self-proclaimed "Prince of Fuckin' Darkness" — explains how he became a character in Guitar Hero: World Tour. "They wanted somebody people could relate to," says the man who once snorted a line of ants just to see what would happen.

To say that Osbourne is an unlikely video-game star would be an understatement. He admits he doesn't play at all, although he fondly remembers Pong,...