Layoffs and the business' decline have scattered thousands of employees ? so where are they now?

The major record labels have laid off more than 5,000 employees since CD sales began plunging in 2000 — and that's not counting all the people who ran screaming from the music business on their own. All asked themselves the same question: Now what? "When you've spent 20 years in the music business, you don't have that many real-life skills," says Debbie Southwood-Smith, a laid-off Interscope Records A&R executive. The answer: teacher, nurse, financial consultant, door captain,...

John McCain can't stand sucking up to the Christian right. Is this the end of the GOP's unholy alliance?

Phoenix, July 13th, Sunday morning. Thank God John McCain has declared that he wants to wallpaper the continent with new nuke plants, because now the chances are better that this wretched slab of hot, birdshit-covered asphalt they call a state will be blown to hell in an accident someday. I hate this place. Once the sun comes up on an Arizona weekend, nothing moves except the occasional elderly-piloted Buick floating boatlike in the direction of some hideous megachurch.

This morning...

Guitar Hero, Rock Band sign Hendrix, Aerosmith, G n' R and the Who

Aerosmith don't have a new album out, but the band still scored the biggest sales week of its 38-year career in early July, thanks to the fastest-growing new business in rock: video games. The new Guitar Hero: Aerosmith — which lets fans use the franchise's familiar plastic guitar controller to play 25 songs from "Sweet Emotion" to "Love in an Elevator" — sold over 567,000 copies in its first week, grossing more than $25 million, at $50 a game. In contrast, the band's last studio alb...

With a wildly popular tour and a new record expected to sell millions, the Jonas Brothers have gone from Disney novelty to phenomenon. All they want is for you to see them as a real band

• Gallery: A Short History of the Jonas Brothers

• Video: Behind the Scenes at the Jonas Brothers' Cover Shoot

It's nearing 8:00 on a sweltering night in Phoenix, and as the temperature mercifully dips below 100 degrees, a trillion swelling hormones have collected at the Cricket Wireless Pavilion to experience the Jonas Brothers. Among the undersize pilgrims in attendance are Jordan and Jackie, a pair of blond preteens from nearby Scottsdale. Moments ago, they met the...

A new reissue of the Beach Boys drummer's late-'70s album serves as a reminder of Wilson's talent and torment

Hours before an early 1970s Beach Boys concert, the band?s musical director Jim Guercio remembers drummer Dennis Wilson fooling around on the piano during soundcheck. "I heard these amazing changes and I said, 'Dennis, is that one of Brian's songs?' " Guercio says. "He said, 'No, It's one of mine.' "

By 1977 — just six years before he died — the Beach Boys' drummer had released Pacific Ocean Blue, a stunning, painful solo album that's widely considered the best Beach Boys project...

Host, "Nashville Star" (NBC)

So is Miley still grounded?

[Laughs] In which way? There's two definitions of grounded. One is that your head's on straight. And the other is that you're in trouble.

I mean the second one.

No, she's not grounded. She never ceases to amaze me. She's made a great album. People are gonna look at Miley Cyrus and go, "Wow, I didn't know she could do that."

Going back a few months to that hurricane over the Vanity Fair photo — how did you get through it?

I had to just kind...

Linkin Park's Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell talk about prepping for their Projekt Revolution tour and great Lollapalooza moments

On the eve of the launch of the fifth Projekt Revolution — the multi-genre tour founded by Linkin Park in 2002 — Rolling Stone checked in with two of its acts, LP's Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell. The pair of famous frontmen chatted about the greatest rock singers and classic Lollapalooza fests.

How does being around all these different artists on the Projekt Revolution tour inspire you?
Chris Cornell: Being on tour can sometimes be less complicated than being at home...

Video: Behind the Scenes With Mötley Crüe

About an hour before showtime, here's how the four members of Mötley Crüe spend their time: Singer Vince Neil lifts weights. Bassist Nikki Sixx plays loud music. Drummer Tommy Lee plays unbelievably loud music. "The music is on 'stun,' " Lee brags. And guitarist Mick Mars meditates as far away from Lee as possible. "When we all shared dressing rooms, I was a wreck," Mars says. " 'Dude, do you have to beat on the trash can? Let's...

The best tracks inspired by Barack Obama

Song: "Yes We Can"
Artist: Will.i.Am, plus everybody in his Rolodex
Platform: As Will.i.Am explains on the song's official site, the Black Eyed Pea was so inspired by Obama's New Hampshire primary speech that he penned a simple acoustic melody, used the words from the speech and got a ton of guests (including John Legend, Scarlett Johansson and Common) to join him on the video, which has picked up over eight million views.
Awkward Rhyming? None.
Electoral Votes:...

Popcorn movies, cool beach reads and a scooter that delivers beer: what more do you need for summer?

1. Summer Movie Showdown: What Can Top Iron Man?
Angelina Jolie, Will Smith and Batman face off

"It's 'no one knows anything' time," Variety editor Peter Bart says of this year's summer movies, citing screenwriter William Goldman's famous line about how fruitless it is to predict a Hollywood smash. Indeed, when you consider that an unconventional superhero film starring a once-incarcerated ex-drug addict is the number-one movie of the season (Iron Man, at $300 million)...

• A Conversation With Barack Obama

• Barack Obama: The Stevie Wonder Geek Returns to the Cover of Rolling Stone

• Photo Gallery: Barack Obama, a History in Pictures

The Candidate Talks About The Youth Vote, What's On His iPod and His Top Three Priorities As President

• Barack Obama: Audio From the Rolling Stone Cover Story

• Barack Obama: The Stevie Wonder Geek Returns to the Cover of Rolling Stone

• Photo Gallery: Barack Obama, a History in Pictures

Shortly after Barack Obama claimed victory in the fight for the Democratic nomination, I joined him aboard his chartered 757 campaign plane as a member of the press corps. He was flying from Chicago to Appleton, Wisconsin, for a town-hall meeting, one of a...

The Democratic nominee inspires acts from Dylan to Lil Wayne

• Cover Story: A Conversation With Barack Obama
• Barack and Roll: The Best Obama-Inspired Tracks
• Barack Obama: A History in Photos

The night Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination for president, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong found himself experiencing an unfamiliar emotion: hope. "After his acceptance speech, I have to admit, it took me an hour to get the lump out of my throat," says Armstrong, whose band's American Idiot was the defining protest...

My Morning Jacket on ruling Bonnaroo and going R&B with their killer hit disc "Evil Urges"

For their 35th and final song at Bonnaroo, as a steady rain soaked Tennessee, My Morning Jacket eased into a cover of Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home." It wasn't the only special moment during the four-hour, career-defining set — which included most of the band's new Evil Urges, killer covers of James Brown's "Cold Sweat" and Erykah Badu's "Tyrone," and a guest spot from Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett ("an up-and-comer," said MMJ frontman Jim James), who shredded on the 2003 jam...

For years, Jimmy Buffett has extolled the virtues of getting drunk and screwing. With his latest business venture, an Atlantic City casino-hotel called Margaritaville, he's created a venue to do those things — and gamble too. In May, the beach-loving rocker's Margaritaville Holdings partnered with New York gambling company Coastal Marina to buy the Trump Marina Hotel Casino for $316 million. It's just the latest venture for Buffett, who's about to kick off his 31st summer tour. The...

"Yellow" (From Parachutes)

Plot: Martin walks on a beach in a single take and insists that the stars are, in fact, yellow.

Is The Band In a Remote Location? The remainder of the group is absent and there's not another soul around Martin, setting up a pattern for future Coldplay videos that established the band as loners who were constantly fleeing from other people.

Radiohead Reference? Martin's dead-eyed stare into the camera recalls Thom Yorke's gaze in just about every video...

In the past two years, Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo has gotten married and had a baby girl. While living with his wife and in-laws in Japan, Cuomo wrote many of the tracks that ended up on the band's new disc, Weezer — nicknamed the Red Album for its plain red cover. "I bought this bicycle," says Cuomo, "and I'd ride to a studio every day, which was inside this surreal, futuristic mall." With his acoustic guitar, Cuomo would sequester himself, writing tracks like "Heart Songs," which...

Band returns to speed metal on new disc with Rick Rubin

This is the advice producer Rick Rubin gave Metallica over two years ago, as the band knuckled down to write its next album: "I said, 'Imagine you're not Metallica,' " Rubin recalls. " 'You don't have any hits to play, and you have to come up with material to play in a battle of the bands. What do you sound like?' "

"It was the obvious thing — that we didn't see," says singer-guitarist James Hetfield. Rubin, a longtime friend and fan who was producing a Metallica album for the first tim...

Chris Martin: The Rolling Stone Interview

• Video: Behind the Scenes With Chris Martin

• Coldplay Live: Concert Photos From Throughout the Band's Career

When Chris Martin emerges from a town car on a quiet West Village street one afternoon in May, he's dressed like a stagehand — black khakis, black hooded top. You'd never notice him, which is probably the idea. But then he starts singing Talking Heads' "Girlfriend Is Better" loud enough to be heard from across the street. The guy can't help it: He's a ham. The...

How a rock legend and a bluegrass queen became the unlikeliest match in rock & roll. On the road with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss

They are an odd couple as they walk up to their microphones on the opening night of their 2008 tour, at the Palace Theatre in Louisville, Kentucky. Robert Plant, in his first concert since his live reunion with Led Zeppelin in London last year, has seasoned his rock-lord aura with a purple riverboat-dandy vest and white ruffled shirt. Alison Krauss, the most successful singer and fiddler in modern bluegrass, looks like she is on her way to a church social, in a long summer dress, her sharp cheek...