Redman at the 2019 MTV Video Music Awards at Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey on Aug. 26, 2019. Getty Images. I’d like to be optimistic about 2024. I really would. Since the bad stuff started accelerating and spreading in 2015, and even since the plague hit in 2020,…

Mick Jagger performs during the Rolling Stones’ Forty Licks Tour at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2003. Photo by KMazur/WireImage. Photo by James Keivom/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images. In 2018 I completed a quest to list my top five (or so) songs for every…

We’ve used this image a lot to end every year since 2016. Design: Roman Gokhman. There’s a tradition at RIFF, as well as most other sites, to spend the last week of the year doing Best-Of stories. Best of the site’s work, best of the year, best all sorts…

Metallica performs at BottleRock Napa Valley at the Napa Valley Expo on May 27, 2022. Sean Liming/STAFF. In 2019, 2020, and 2021, I used my birthday as an excuse to write a completely self-indulgent column that’s just five songs I like with no theme other than that I like…

Billie Holiday performs at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island on July 6, 1957. Photo by Bill Spilka/Getty Images). This column is called REWIND because, for its first year, I listed my top five songs from every year since 1967. It was a good project and I…

“This Is Spin̈al Tap,” courtesy. Director Rob Reiner has confirmed he’s making a sequel to classic parody film “This Is Spin̈al Tap.” Lots of people are apprehensive, but I think this is great, and not just because I’m close personal friends with bassist Derek Smalls and can confirm he…

Hall & Oates (Daryl Hall and John Oates) perform at the OMNI Coliseum in Atlanta on Dec. 14, 1980. Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images. In case you missed it due to travel or Thanksgiving preparations, Hall got a restraining order against Oates. Per the AP, John Oates wanted to…

Thanksgiving dinner. Courtesy Karolina Grabowska/Pexels. It’s hard to believe but in the years I’ve been doing this I don’t think I’ve done just a straight Thanksgiving column. I did one for people who aren’t thrilled about the prospect, one about Black Friday, and one about not traveling in 2020,…

Taylor Swift performs at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. on July 28, 2023. Tomorrow is my birthday, which means I get to be even lazier than usual writing my column. For the first few years, I would celebrate by just listing five songs I like with no obvious…

Nirvana in 1989. When driving to work Thursday I heard a Ned’s Atomic Dustbin song on the radio. Odds are, unless you’re David Gill or Tony Hicks, you’ve either never heard of or can’t remember ever hearing of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, and even those two aren’t a sure thing.…