Rick Rubin

Ad-Rock Hated "Faggots" and Other Beastie Boys Revelations Gleaned From Our Archives

Since October of 1955, when Norman Mailer and co. founded The Village Voice as a weekly paper for bros of the leftist pinko persuasion, we've done our dutiful best to preserve every word ever printed in our pages, tucking them away in our vast archival editorial library (pictured above). This summer ... More >>

The Cult

The Graying of Hip-Hop

What happens to the youth-obsessed genre when its greats reach retirement?

A Track-By-Track Analysis of Black Sabbath's New Album 13

Last week, Black Sabbath released 13, their 19th studio album. In case you haven't heard, it's kind of a big deal. This is the first album since 1978 to feature original lead singer Ozzy Osbourne and the first since 1994 with bassist Geezer Butler. Conspicuously missing from the classic Sabbath line ... More >>

The Top 20 NYC Rap Albums of All Time: The Complete List

Any list of the Greatest New York Rap Albums of All Time is, essentially, a list of simply the Greatest Rap Albums of All Time. The genre was invented here, after all, and over the years -- from early days to Golden Age and onward-- the city's hip-hop history has been an embarrassment of riches. Fas ... More >>

The Top 20 NYC Rap Albums of All Time: 20 - 11

Any list of the Greatest New York Rap Albums of All Time is, essentially, a list of simply the Greatest Rap Albums of All Time. The genre was invented here, after all, and over the years -- from early days to Golden Age and onward-- the city's hip-hop history has been an embarrassment of riches. Fas ... More >>

Dave Grohl and Other Rockers Toast L.A.'s Sound City

Kings of the Stone Age

Jay-Z Coldplay = Play-Z: A Rundown of Other Oddball Mashups

On New Year's Eve Brooklyn's Barclays Center will be alive with the monster double-bill of Coldplay and Jay-Z. Two titanic musical entities that have spent the past decade being the epicenter of their genres, their alignment for one night is sure to be a colossal way to bring in the new year. But de ... More >>

Merle Haggard Is Searching for His "Hurt" and Considering Doing Stand-Up Comedy

Outlaw country club

Q&A: Blockhead On Public Access, The Baby Show, And Learning About Sex From Channel J

"Public access was a platform for the weirdest New Yorkers who had any sort of gumption to create," says Blockhead, a hip-hop producer whose new album on the Ninja Tune label, Interludes After Midnight, is named in homage to a late-night show on channel 35 that just so happened to be hooked around t ... More >>

Blondie (12) Faces Off Against Run-DMC (5) In SOTC's March Madness Tournament

​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—finishes up this week, with the Round of 32 scheduled to kick off Monday. (The schedule and results so far are he ... More >>

JUSTICE LEAGUE

Terminal 5 lowers the disco 
ball for two nights

Paul McCartney Opens The Book Of Love Songs With Kisses On The Bottom

What do you do when you are the Cute Beatle approaching 70? Age—and those decades of inhaling herb—is finally catching up to those pipes, yet vanity or stubbornness prevents you from simply clipping on that capo to sing your classics in a lower key. Oh, and your name is Sir Paul and you' ... More >>

Live: Howlin Rain Roll Through Brooklyn Bowl

Howlin Rain Brooklyn Bowl Wednesday, February 8 Better than: Any California jamband since Garcia died. A great rock guitarist needs a signature affectation. Ethan Miller's happens to be an abrupt upstrum that, combined with a backward stagger, probably makes him something of an onstage hazard to ... More >>

KINGS OF ROCK

Yo! Bum rush the public library.

Betty Ford, R.I.P.

​In recent years, people holding the vice-presidential seat have had complicated, if not vaguely hostile, relationships with pop music. Before Al Gore became Bill Clinton's veep in 1992, his wife Tipper founded the PMRC. In 2002, six years before taking his seat to the back-left of Barack Obam ... More >>

Five Questions To Ask At Ben Westhoff's Dirty South Reading

​Tonight, Voice contributor and hip-hop sommelier Ben Westhoff will read from Dirty South, his look at the populist rise of rap music from the southern states, at Williamsburg's Book Thug Nation. The book focuses on the bigger names to have emerged from the south, with chapters based around Bi ... More >>

Q&A: Chavez's Matt Sweeney On How He Ended Up Working With Josh Groban

"What's up, Billy Corgan?" Photo by Annabel Mehran.​Back in the stellar, angular riffage-filled '90s indie-rock days of yore, guitar-rawk behemoths Chavez scorched downtown spots like CBGB while unleashing two now-classic mathy slabs in Gone Glimmering and Ride The Fader. Front and center in t ... More >>

Gogol Bordello

Linkin Park Made Their OK Computer

All hail A Thousands Suns, the finest dystopian fusion a major label can buy

The Story Behind the California Mansion In That LCD Soundsystem Video That James Murphy Just Posted

First Vampire Weekend make an ostensibly California-themed record, and now it seems clear that the primary mythology of the new and upcoming LCD Soundsystem record will focus heavily on the awesome California mansion in which it was recorded. New York, rep for your own! Anyway, for the record, the ... More >>

Interview: The Clipse on Till the Casket Drops, Their Official Position on "Girl Songs," and Whether Kanye Got Them on Their Own Song

"If they say anybody got us on anything, who better than Kanye?" ​ Right around this time three years ago, the Clipse were on the verge of releasing Hell Hath No Fury, their terminally delayed follow-up to 2002's Lord Willin'. Anger--at their label, Jive, for failing to promote them, and at t ... More >>

Suggestions For A Beastie Boys Tribute On Friday at All Points West

So the Beasties aren't playing All Points West, and in their place Jay-Z is playing All Points West, and if that's not an even trade, musically speaking, then who knows what an even trade is, really. But parotid cancer is a grim diagnosis, and the Beastie Boys are the home team, and so it seems li ... More >>

Yes In My Backyard: Download the Beets' "Don't Fit In My Head"

Yes In My Backyard is a semiweekly column showcasing new and emerging MP3s from local talent. Last time, we gave you the exclusive video of Motel Motel's "Coffee." The Beets and some wrestler guy The Beets are one of the most underappreciated bands in New York, especially since they should be rid ... More >>

Also Stream the Gossip's Music for Men

That sound you hear -- Beth Ditto dismissing Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" as a "boner dyke anthem" -- would seem to indicate that a new Gossip record is imminent. Verily, Music for Men (produced by Rick Rubin!) is out Tuesday, and streaming at Spinner.com at this very moment: At first blush it's a ... More >>

The Avett Brothers Mix Maudlin Sentiment with Punk Ferocity

Rick Rubin approves.

Live: The Clipse Go Web 2.0 At Webster Hall

For those that care maybe a little too much about the Clipse, last night's free, RSVP-by-text show in the basement of Webster Hall was less than encouraging: the same set, plus or minus a song or two, from increasingly undifferentiated past shows at the Knitting Factory and CMJ; the same smatterin ... More >>

EW Has the Clipse Coverage Beat On Lock, Apparently

Somewhere Russell Simmons is wondering just what the hell happened First came the not-quite news that the Clipse were in the studio with Rick Rubin (he was the one who signed them to Columbia, after all). Now that same Entertainment Weekly reporter, Simon Vozick-Levinson, has managed to actually he ... More >>

Clipse in the Studio with Rick Rubin; Nation Prays for "99 Problems," Not That Slipknot Garbage

Pharrell is dead to us Nice: Entertainment Weekly reports the Clipse are in a Malibu studio with Rick Rubin. While Pharrell will forever probably be the murky, coruscating ideal for the Clipse's brand of savage, merciless precision (here's hoping they borrow "Yes" at some point), it was also time t ... More >>

Age, Beauty Before Youth at Grammys

Despite myriad concessions to modishness and a Twitter feed, it was a Steely Dan sort of year at the Grammys as Robert Plant and Alison Krause's Raising Sand won five awards including Album Of The Year, Record Of The Year ("Please Read the Letter"), and awards in the Country and Contemporary Folk ... More >>

Interview: Rivers Cuomo of Weezer

Remembering ZZ Top's Inconceivable 1980s Makeover

Game Rebellion Party for Their Right to Fight

Brooklyn crew's furious rap-rock taps a new, fresh vein of gangsta militancy

Remixes From the Masses

Trent Reznor embraces populism, and another great NIN remix album is born

More tough talk from America's catchiest badasses

Linkin Park's Minutes to Midnight

Pop Music of the Future

Turn off your Boris or whatever and let's get retarded

The Killers: Not Enough Like Def Leppard

Hip-Hop's New No Wave

Downtown's odd relationship with rap bravado continues this fall—now with Muppet costumes

Metallica Finally Gives In to the iTunes Empire

The New Johnny Cash Album Will Tear Your Soul Apart

Super-Prolific Song Kings From Previous Century Emerge From Rocking Thrones

Who Needs Boxes 2005

That's not counting Johnny Cash, of course, but New Orleans finds are worth seeking out

Another Good Kick

Thrift-shop-dapper Scottish new wave revival standard bearers approach the perfect beat

Soundtrack a K-Tel Comp of Metal Wimpier Than the Cure

Niggapalooza

De clones of Dr. Crunkenstein diversify beats and skeets

Rapper-Mogul Fulfills Prophecies, Enjoys Early Retirement

Post-Rappers' Delight

This Year’s Remodel

Back to the Funkture

Diddily-Dee