Category Archives: Classic Rock

Listen to Steely Dan’s Long-Lost Schlitz Beer Jingle

Another long-lost Steely Dan track has finally been brought to light — this time, an early-’70s jingle written for the Milwaukee-based Schlitz Beer. You can listen to the track below. The Schlitz Beer jingle comes from the archive of late, longtime Steely Dan engineer Roger Nichols. It arrives roughly one month after the 1979 song […]

Toto, Wham!, Seal and More

Move over, mash-ups. AI-generated cover versions are here for your crown. Mashups are typically created by isolating one artist’s original vocal track and pairing it with the original music from a completely different song. One popular example finds James Hetfield singing “Enter Sandman” over the music to Huey Lewis and the News’ “Hip to Be […]

Hear Dolly Parton’s Cover of Queen’s ‘We Are the Champions’

Dolly Parton has released a cover of Queen‘s “We Are the Champions,” the latest cut off her upcoming Rockstar album, due in November. You can hear the song below. “We Are the Champions” marks the fourth song released off Parton’s star-studded Rockstar, which she made in response to her 2022 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall […]

Mr. Big Kicks Off Farewell Tour: Video and Set List

Mr. Big played the opening concert of The Big Finish farewell world tour on Sunday at the Yongging Youth Sports Park in Yongqing, China. The band’s first performance since 2018 was also their first without founding drummer Pat Torpey, who died of complications related to Parkinson’s Disease that same year. Performing in his place was Nick […]

Watch Green Day Debut New, Unreleased Song ‘1981’

Green Day fans who caught the band’s headlining performance at Festival d’ete de Quebec on Sunday received a special surprise, as the pop-punk stalwarts debuted a new, unreleased song called “1981.” You can see footage of the performance below. The song is a rapid-fire, two-minute blitzkrieg that harks back to ’90s Green Day albums such as Dookie, Insomniac and […]

Here’s Why Dead and Company Are Done Touring

With Dead & Company having recently wrapped their final tour, the band’s manager, Irving Azoff, has revealed why the group decided to retire from the road. “Touring is physically hard and nobody wants anybody to get really sick out there,” Azoff explained to Pollstar. “Billy (Kreutzmann) got really sick last year, and I think that […]

The Long, Distinctive Journey of Tracy Chapman’s Hit

From its humble beginnings to its multigenerational success, Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” has endured a long and winding journey. Chapman was an anthropology student at Massachusetts’ Tufts University when she recorded her first demo. Fellow student Brian Koppelman heard Chapman’s work and was impressed by her talent. He took the demo to his father, music […]

How Sting and Rush Expressed Cold War Fears

Many of rock music’s biggest names weren’t even born in 1942, when the Manhattan Project, a top-secret government initiative approved by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was designed to develop nuclear research during World War II. At the helm of the project was J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American theoretical physicist who became known as the “father of the atomic bomb” after several years of working […]

Remembering Rage Against the Machine’s Ballsy 1993 Protest

On July 18, 1993, thousands of fans turned out to see rock’s hottest new act, the powerful Los Angeles quartet Rage Against the Machine. What they got instead was full-frontal nudity. At the time, Rage had been on mainstream music fans’ radar for about six months. The band released its self-titled debut album in November […]