It just kind of happened. At least, that's how Bill Swank remembers it. He had gotten a call from Dion Rich the night before, to meet him along the San Diego piers. Swank figured they were getting lunch. But Rich shows up and they start walking and talking and soon......

---

Ringo Starr will not go quietly into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. About a month before his induction, the ex-Beatle will release his 18th solo album, Postcards From Paradise, which will contain 11 original songs. Among them are "Island in the Sun," the first he has written with his......

---

"I'm a streamline lover; nobody touch my speed." That's a line from "Streamline," a bluesy track from the most recent album from Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning. Although in the context of the song, it extols the virtues of a "backwoods Romeo," it also works well to......

---

Brian Wilson has assembled an all-star supporting cast for his new album, No Pier Pressure, which is scheduled to arrive on April 7th via Capitol Records. Along with performances from a number of longtime musical peers, including several of his former Beach Boys bandmates, Wilson's new LP boasts Kacey Musgraves, fun.'s Nate Ruess and......

---

Campaigning...isn't that what politicians do?" Benedict Cumberbatch has been on the phone for less than a minute, and it's already obvious he's in a bit of a playful mood. The British actor — who you either know from his starmaking turn on the BBC import Sherlock, as a villain in......

---

Since 1981, Canadian Music Week has invaded Toronto, Ontario, packing the city's venues with both big-name artists and emerging acts. The 2015 incarnation of CMW is the festival's biggest yet, as over 1,000 artists will perform in 60 of Toronto's venues over the course of 10 days running from May......

---

Tim McGraw has some big shoes to fill on February 22nd. The country superstar has been tapped to perform Glen Campbell's Oscar-nominated "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" at the 87th annual Academy Awards. Campbell, a nominee for Best Original Song, is unable to attend the Oscars, as his Alzheimer's disease continues......

---

A little less than two years ago, Andrew Hozier-Byrne sat down at the piano in his parents' home near Dublin to work on a song called "Take Me to Church." Hozier-Byrne was a struggling musician, often seen at open mics around town. In front of him was a notebook full......

---

These days, every Super Bowl is a reflexive celebration of American overkill. There is no such thing as a Super Bowl that might somehow be underplayed, but there are certain Super Bowls that tend to stand above the others, often because they come to represent something larger about the zeitgeist. This......

---

Years ago — before their raw, rowdy reboot of old-timey folk music landed them tours with Americana heavyweights like Levon Helm and the Alabama Shakes — Spirit Family Reunion played their earliest gigs on street corners, subway platforms and farmer's market stands across New York City. The point was to avoid......

---

Less than a week after it was revealed that Sam Smith had agreed to give co-writing credit of his Grammy-nominated single "Stay With Me" to Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne (whose "I Won't Back Down" shared a similar chorus with the Smith track), Petty has released an amicable statement on his official site clarifying the situation. "About the......

---

"Are we in this together, Nashville?" Jack White asked the crowd at Nashville's Bridgestone Arena at the start of a sprawling, surprise-filled concert. The show, part of White's tour in support of new album Lazaretto, was a homecoming for the guitarist, who further reinforced his love of his adopted city by......

---

Justin Bieber came clean about the bad behavior that's marred his recent career in a video posted to Facebook following an appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. "I didn't want to come off arrogant or conceited, or basically how I've been acting the past year, year and a half," Bieber confessed in the clip.......

---

Kanye West visited Ellen Thursday to premiere the music video for "Only One," his first Paul McCartney collaboration and a song inspired by his daughter North West. The video, directed by Spike Jonze, opens up with West singing "Only One" in a soggy field obscured and silhouetted by fog, a frame that's visually......

---

Looking west from the scrub and boulders of the Sandia Mountains, the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, sprawls across the valley of the Rio Grande, surrounded by the vast openness of the high desert. On the city's eastern edge, the winding roads and cul-de-sacs of tony subdivisions in the Northeast......

---

Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler was arrested Tuesday night after getting into a fight in a bar in California's Death Valley National Park, according to a police statement. Officers from the Inyo County Sheriff's Office arrested the 65-year-old musician for misdemeanor assault, public intoxication and vandalism. The fight took place at the......

---

2015 HAS BEGUN — NEW ALBUMS ARE ACTUALLY COMING OUT!: Fall Out Boy's American Beauty/American Psycho makes its debut this week at Number One, selling 192,000 copies and moving 218,000 "units," a new chart formula based on album and track sales and streaming. That's a week after Meghan Trainor's 195,000-selling......

---

Lil Wayne is suing Cash Money with the hopes of ending his contract with the label, according to TMZ. The lawsuit alleges that CEO Bryan "Birdman" Williams and the company have withheld a substantial amount of money that it owes him with regard to the rapper's still-unreleased new album, Tha......

---

If you want to "Party Like It's 1989" to "This Sick Beat," you better ask Taylor Swift's permission first. The pop star has trademarked those phrases – along with "'Cause We Never Go Out of Style," "Could Show You Incredible Things" and "Nice to Meet You, Where You Been?" –......

---

Charli XCX has recorded versions of her hits "Boom Clap" and "Break the Rules" in Japanese for that country's version of Sucker (via Fuse). Warner Music Japan posted snippets of the new versions, which don't stray from the originals other than the language, to YouTube. J-Pop singer and model Yasuda Rei......

---

The Cadillac Three are wrapping up one thing — their second studio album — and starting another: the Aviators and Radiators Tour, which has the Nashville trio playing a slew of dates from Texas to Connecticut this winter before joining up with friend Eric Church's Outsiders World Tour. "We're pretty much......

---

Welcome back to another installment of the Rolling Stone "Everything Index," our midweek rankings of pop-culture power players, partially dead cats and pop-punk bands. Yes, one look at the chart should tell you that it's been a wild week for WTF, and it's only Wednesday. From the omnipresent Kim Kardashian and......

---

Last year, Aphex Twin ended a 13-year hiatus with his surprise comeback LP Syro, and now it appears like the electronic music pioneer is making up for lost time by posting hours of unreleased music on SoundCloud. Given the elusive nature of the producer (real name: Richard D. James), we'll probably never know for sure, but......

---

It's been 21 years since Clint Black, Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt and the Judds stormed the Georgia Dome midway through Super Bowl XXVIII, giving the NFL championship its first country music halftime show.  Related: Zac Brown Band Set for Pre-Super Bowl Party Don't expect to hear much twang during this weekend's matchup......

---

Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante is venturing into "experimental acid house" with a new self-titled LP under the moniker Trickfinger. The album, a continuation of his recent foray into electronica, will be released April 7th via Acid Test, Resident Advisor reports.  "I started being serious about following my dream......