Extra! Extra! Rock & Roll Is Here to Stay

Rock is dead. Long live rock! In the 75 years since the first rock & roll song was cut to tape in a Memphis studio, this genre’s grave has been danced on more times than the floor at Berghain. Guys like Gene Simmons never get tired of saying rock is a thing of the past, but a funny thing keeps happening: Every time you count it out, rock finds a way to come right back in. In fact, we’d argue that we’re living through a particularly exciting time for rock music right now — so we put together this list to celebrate all of the reasons why that is. You’ll find the incredible live acts we booked for this year’s Rolling Stone Rock Tour, presented by Miller High Life, plus even more sounds, scenes, and trends from around the world. Read on (or get to a gig near you), and you just might find your favorite new band.

• Because Geese Are the Real Deal

  

  Sold-out shows, psyop rumors, and secret sessions: New York’s most talked-about band has a lot on its mind. READ THE COVER STORY.

• Because Die Spitz Will Melt Your Face

  

  Die Spitz love crowd-­surfing, and they want to see more of it at their concerts. The Austin metalheads have drawn a zealous fanbase by way of their electrifying shows, where they swap instruments and vocals and always find a way to ride the sea of concertgoers (even if they fall onto their faces). The quartet of Ava Schrobilgen, Eleanor Livingston, Kate Halter, and Chloe De St. Aubin ripped through a memorable set at San Diego’s House of Blues on July 17 for the Rolling Stone Rock Tour, presented by Miller High Life. “I always say, ‘Where are my girls at? Where are my gays at?’ ” guitarist-singer Schrobilgen says. “And it was definitely louder in San Diego.” 

  After a fiery showing at last year’s SXSW, Die Spitz caught the attention of Jack White’s Third Man Records and got signed to the label, which released their debut LP, Something to Consume, a few months later. Aside from a few breaks, Die Spitz will stay on the road with dates booked through May 2027, including more high-profile opening slots for Turnstile and Olivia Rodrigo. Their intense bond has kept them sane, as do competitive rounds of the dice game Farkle. “The four of us merged into one person,” Schrobilgen says. “We’re on the same wavelength. So if we do have a day where we’re all crashing out, it’s on the same day, and it’s just funny.”

  Die Spitz say their ultimate mission is to create an oasis for queer and female fans at their shows. They’ve had issues with men ogling them (and other concertgoers), so they offer their fans clearance to wallop any creepy dudes who bother them. “We’ll support you all the way,” drummer De St. Aubin says. “I think that women need to start punching men more, personally.” —Jaeden Pinder

• Because Classic Rock Lives on TikTok

  

  Teens are still practicing guitar in their bedrooms, or spamming pentatonic scales, as they might put it. But these days, they’re turning the camera on and playing to as much of the world as the algorithm allows them to reach. More often than not, the kids on #guitartok are reaching back across decades to revive ancient rites of passage, nailing the endless dual solos to “Hotel California” (over and over and over) or the way-trickier finger­picked showcase of “Sultans of Swing.” Then there are the kids from around the world who can somehow play exactly like Stevie Ray Vaughan, and the ones boldly taking on a final boss: Eddie Van Halen’s daunting, dive-bombing “Beat It” solo. The carpal-tunnel-inducing riff to a slightly more recent track, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Snow (Hey Oh),” is another perennial pick.  But that’s just the start of classic-rock TikTok, where kids with poster-plastered walls rank ­Beatles albums, drum along to Neil Peart, and dress up like Penny Lane while dancing to Fleetwood Mac. Does anyone remember laughter? Gen Z, and even Gen Alpha, totally do. —Brian Hiatt

• Because Olivia Rodrigo Is the Best Arena Rock Act in Years

  

  Olivia Rodrigo will never settle for being just another main pop girl. She demands to be your perfect all-American rock star. O-Rod has claimed her crown as the truest, realest, most shameless rock & roller of our moment. “There’s something so special about rock music made by women,” she said in December, in her conversation with Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame podcast. “There’s a different emotional quality to it. The pain and rage and vulnerability that a woman can express through a rock song is an entirely different category. Growing up, I was so inspired by that.” 

  This former Disney princess has always reveled in her rock moves, ever since her first tour in 2022, when she was covering Veruca Salt and Avril Lavigne. She takes special pride in celebrating the Nineties feminist-­punk explosion — and claiming her place in it. This is the girl who told Rolling Stone her mom used to wake her up every morning by playing the 1990s grunge queens Babes in Toyland. (“Vomit Heart” walked so “Drivers License” could run?)

  In June, when she made her surprise appearance at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona, she shocked the crowd by bringing out Robert Smith himself, who joined her to debut their then-­unreleased duet “What’s Wrong With Me.” She sang her Number One hit “Drop Dead,” with the line “You know all the words to ‘Just Like Heaven,’ and I know why he wrote them” — then she sang a duet with the man who wrote them. She obviously wasn’t ­kidding when she kept saying how her new tunes were inspired by goth bands like the Cure and Joy Division. Her  unfiltered rockness is an achievement to celebrate. May she stay this unrelentlessly upset forever. —Rob Sheffield

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• Because Shoegaze Has Never Been Bigger

  

  Shoegaze was once dismissed as a Nineties fad — but it’s exploding these days. Pioneers like My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, and Ride are far more beloved and influential now than they were in their original lifetimes. The shoegaze sound keeps evolving, as young artists keep hearing themselves in those mega-distorted waves of guitar fuzz. The Gen Z fans and bands have entered the mix, creating a boom of new zoomergaze styles. Something about this bone-shaking noise keeps hitting us right in the darkest places of the soul. —R.S.

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• Because Beyoncé’s Rock Era Is Coming

  

  The wait for Act III — the third installment in Beyoncé’s ongoing, genre-spanning album series — has only become more excruciating with time. Fans have long suspected that the last part of the trilogy will explore rock, just as she leaned into house music on 2022’s Renaissance and country on 2024’s Cowboy Carter. The most exciting part of this prospect is that whatever Beyoncé’s version of rock ends up sounding like, it probably won’t be close to what anyone suspected. 

  Beyoncé doesn’t bend to trend cycles or online discourse. She’s too busy digging through history to find the most overlooked details to weave into her projects. And while it’s been said that she’s reclaiming something with each of these projects, on tour she has projected a necessary reminder onto the stage each night: “Never ask permission for something that already belongs to you.” 

  We’ve gotten a few tastes of Beyoncé’s flavor of rock over the years. There’s the Jack White-assisted, Zeppelin-­fueled “Don’t Hurt Yourself” from 2016’s Lemonade, but also the raging “Ring the Alarm” from 2006’s B’Day. She’s pulled pages from the books of Bette Davis, Prince, and Tina Turner. Beyoncé’s preoccupation with passion will surely turn up the heat with the right band in the room. Whichever musicians she finds for Act III better be ready to rock. —Larisha Paul

• Because Noise Will Bring Us Together

  

  There’s nothing like a noise-rock show. Walk into a bar or club where a band like Lip Critic, Model/Actriz, or Mandy, Indiana is playing and you’ll find a confrontational vocalist going berserk while their bandmates unleash wave after wave of cathartic sound — and a tight-knit fanbase urging them to get even wilder. Who wouldn’t want to join the party?

  Many of these shows can be found in DIY venues in Brooklyn, like the cramped laundromat where Lip Critic recently played as fans watched from atop washing machines or got lost in the madness themselves. Elsewhere in the borough, Model/Actriz’s performances are notable for frontman Cole Haden’s audience interactions, where he’s known for stalking through the chaos and locking eyes with attendees. Over in Europe, the band Mandy, Indiana (who are based in Berlin and ­Manchester, England) construct catastrophic wastelands, and you can practically feel the stings of acid flicking off singer Valentine Caulfield’s tongue as she attacks predatory pickup artists, Big Pharma, and more.

  These bands often draw on surprising influences as a way of turning up the intensity. Lip Critic’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink sound is rooted in Skrillex’s mutant dubstep revolution; Haden has talked about how much he cherishes pop divas like Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue; and the soundtrack to the 1997 Japanese animated thriller Perfect Blue was an important inspiration for Mandy, Indiana guitarist Scott Fair. Experiencing this patchwork of unlikely influences in an uncompromising stage show mimics the feeling of staring into a fun-house mirror: It’s warped, a bit nightmarish, and might leave you unable to see straight for a few hours. These noise rockers require you to check your inhibitions at the door, but anyone brave enough to step onto their dance floors will never forget the exhilarating mayhem that follows. —J.P.

• Because Metallica Can Still Thrill ’Em All

  

  It’s been 45 years since they formed and three since they released their most recent album, 72 Seasons, and Metallica are still breaking records around the world. In the past year or so, they’ve set new highs for attendance at concerts by any artist, in ­Bologna, Italy; Athens; Frankfurt; and Berlin. And when they announced they would be playing a residency dubbed Life Burns Faster at the Sphere in Las Vegas starting on Oct. 1, becoming the first heavy band to do so, the response was so intense they expanded the initial eight-gig run to 24 shows, adding dates quicker than U2 and Phish before them. Demand was so high one fan reported being placed 421,961st in line to buy tickets. Obey your Ticketmaster. —Kory Grow

• Because Independent Clubs Support Thriving Local Scenes

  

  These days, it can feel like music exists only online or at arenas with a $500 entry fee. But there are still plenty of small, independent clubs building IRL scenes and fostering community. Permanent Records Roadhouse in Los Angeles, a record store and a 100-cap venue, hosts an early show and a late show, packing in six bands or more. In just one week in August, Osees’ John Dwyer premiered a new psych-noise project, post-hardcore outfit Sparta came through on their summer tour, and Conan O’Brien premiered his new band, the Vigodas. A couple of miles away, Zebulon — which opened here after a decade in Williamsburg, Brooklyn — has made sure there’s room for people to socialize even if they’re not attending a show. “We like the idea of people meeting in a cafe and talking about what’s going on,” says Zebulon co-owner Jef Soubiran. Similar spaces can be found from New York (TV Eye) to Chicago (the Hideout) to Austin (the 13th Floor) and beyond. Adds Permanent Records owner Lance Barresi: “Without spaces like this, there is no breeding ground for local musicians to try new things.” —Elisabeth Garber-Paul

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• Because Lifeguard Might Be the Best Guitar Torturers Since Sonic Youth

  

  Word to the wise if you’re going to a Lifeguard show: Bring earplugs. These three friends from Chicago’s thriving underground scene kick up an unholy feedback racket whenever they plug in. As long as you don’t mind a little ringing in your ears, it’s incredibly fun, both on an art-punk provocation level and on a simple “Hell yeah” one. Better yet, their 2025 debut, Ripped and Torn, is full of tight, catchy tunes influenced by bands like the Jam, Buzzcocks, and the Rapture. “Especially in the post-punk realm, it can get kind of nihilistically unmelodic, and we really don’t connect with that,” singer-guitarist Kai Slater told RS. “We connect more with melody.” —Simon Vozick-Levinson

• Because Caribbean Punk is Heating Up

  

  Punk rock has always been tied to the idea that both artists and listeners are angry — frustrated with the system, furious at injustice. Plenty of music coming from the Caribbean in the past few years has mirrored those feelings, but to the surprise of some, it’s been channeled most prominently via reggaeton, dembow, and other sounds typically associated with partying. In Puerto Rico, though, there are lots of bands that are ready, willing, and able to scream it out.

  Tapaboka, a hardcore quartet that debuted in 2023, are one of the archipelago’s most promising acts. Lead singer Analaura Morales spread flyers around town in search of a band before meeting guitarist Sofía Capllonch and bassist Victoria “Vic” Nieves. (Tapaboka’s drummer, Daniel Maymí, joined later.) “I was just, like, ‘I’m gonna die, so I might as well do something fun,’ ” Morales says. 

  Tapaboka’s loud, frenzied songs tackle topics like navigating controlling relationships and exposing rapists. “The scene, it’s male-dominated. It can also be very hostile towards women,” Capllonch says. “Our shows tend to be safer spaces.” They’ve heard their fair share of crude outbursts from male audience members, but they use that as fuel. “Usually it enrages me so much that by the time we get to play, I’m screaming really well,” says Nieves. “Every once in a while, I black out onstage. When I hear it back, I’m like, ‘That was a lot.’ ”

  Misconceptions can be a problem even at home, Maymí notes: “Puerto Rico is a colony of the United States, and we’ve been brainwashed about American ‘ownership.’ ” Even local audiences sometimes assume that if you want punk or metal or thrash, you need to look to the States. Tapaboka are just one more example of how wrong that is. —Juan J. Arroyo

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• Because Bleachers Are Making Analog Music for a Digital World

  

  We used to dream more, Jack Antonoff muses one sunny ­morning on the top floor of ­New York’s Electric Lady Studios. He means it literally. “You used to dream at night, and you’d be filled with these weird feelings,” the hitmaker and Bleachers bandleader says, “and you’d wake up humming on those dreams. Now, the second you look at your phone, all that disappears.” 

  The phone, and all it represents, was front of mind for Antonoff as he made Bleachers’ fifth album, Everyone for Ten Minutes. He gets stuck on the eternal conundrum of having a device that ostensibly offers access to the history of human knowledge, yet all anyone wants to do is “look at your own damn face and read about other people’s problems.” Occasionally, he’s opened his Notes app and just started clicking the suggested words. “For me, it’s always ‘Blah blah, on my way …’ ‘Love you, love you, miss you, miss you.’ My life is about running, missing, and loving.” —Jon Blistein

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• Because Mosh Pits Are Fun as Hell

  

  Picture this: You’re in the middle of a crowded room (or maybe just a big, open field). There’s a band playing onstage, loudly. And you? You’re absolutely losing yourself in the moment, thrashing in the pit until you’ve banged your knees up so much on the lip of the stage that you realize you’re going to have to wear pants to your day job for a week after. If this sounds fun to you, congratulations — you’ve discovered the joys of the mosh pit. Moshing has been around since the earliest days of punk and hardcore, and the term is rooted in something Bad Brains frontman H.R. was known to say at their concerts. Nearly 50 years later, moshing is still the cathartic antidote to the crossed-arms crowds found at many a rock show. It’s particularly refreshing to participate in an activity that (unlike, say, a TikTok dance trend) requires no coordination or complicated moves, just a complete release — a chance to feel the music from fingers to toes. “I think it’s a beautiful thing that people lacking rhythm and people who have rhythm can move in unison, yet not in unison, if they just mosh,” says Militarie Gun’s Ian Shelton. “Music has always been meant to elicit dancing. It’s an eternal form of communication.” —Brenna Ehrlich

• Because Goth Fashion is Back

  

  What’s black and white and dead all over? The Gen Z resurgence of Victorian mourning garb, shiny boots of leather, and black-metal corpse-paint makeup. Over the past 400 years, since Shakespeare immortalized the look with Prince Hamlet, goth couture has never fully faded. What separates today’s fashionistas (like the fans pictured here, at a My Chemical Romance show and a Gothicumbia party in NYC) from those raised on Bauhaus is a newfound sense of irony. Think that black Stetson might clash with your Crow makeup? Think again. And it’s OK to smile in photos now, even if you’re wearing black lipstick. —K.G.

  

  

• Because Rock Shows at Small Clubs Are Worth Archiving

  

  Ask any indie-rock band that spent time on the road in the Nineties about its favorite bygone Chicago music venue and Lounge Ax will likely be at the top of the list. Launched in 1987, and co-owned for most of its existence by Julia Adams and Sue Miller, the intimate club on Lincoln Avenue hosted countless memorable shows before closing its doors for good in 2000. The week leading up to its shuttering included performances by Lounge Ax regulars such as Wilco, Eleventh Dream Day, and Shellac. 

  Though it’s been gone for a quarter century, Lounge Ax has never been forgotten. And soon, many of the shows that took place there will be available for anyone to listen to for free, thanks to local taper Aadam Jacobs and the Internet Archive. “I felt very much at home there,” says Jacobs, who recorded around 2,200 sets at Lounge Ax starting in the late Eighties. His archive also includes shows at other Chicago venues by acts like Pixies (Aug. 10, 1989, at the Metro), Nirvana (July 8, 1989, at Dreamerz), and the Smiths (June 7, 1985, at Aragon Ballroom). It adds up to a priceless document of an era in rock. “It’s amazing how well he recorded these shows so long ago,” says Brian Emerick, who digitized Jacobs’ collection. —Althea Legaspi

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• Because Nate Amos Is Seeing How Far He Can Take This

  

  The first time Nate Amos refers to himself as a songwriter in conversation, he uses air quotes. “Now that I’m a songwriter, quote unquote…” Amos says offhand. Why does one of the most widely hailed songwriters of recent years — the guy whose originals have been covered by Waxahatchee, Cameron Winter, Hayley Williams, Jeff Tweedy, and MJ Lenderman in the last 18 months alone — feel that those quote marks are needed?

  “I always thought of myself much more in terms of composition, production, and conceptual art,” says Amos, who records as This is Lorelei. “Leaning into the songwriter thing was almost like a conceptual exercise.”

  For years before breaking through with 2024’s Box For Buddy, Box for Star, Amos, who is also in the art-rock band Water From Your Eyes with vocalist Rachel Brown, treated This is Lorelei as a side hobby, his “safe, secret world,” as he puts it. Now, he’s trying to figure out what it means to turn that passion project into a fast-rising, for-real career. The Singer In My Band, out this month, is the first example of what that might look like. “It’s a little bit of a freaky thing to both witness and participate in the commodification of something that’s so intensely personal,” he says. “The nightmare scenario would be no longer caring about it.”

  Mostly, Amos just sounds bemused by the seriousness with which his music is now taken by the outside world. Somehow, the chill guitarist who likes to take the stage in camo Crocs and whatever Slipknot T-shirt he happens to be wearing that day has become something like the Carole King of 2020s indie rock. “Like, god, who would’ve fucking thought?” he asks with a smile. “Certainly not me.” —Jonathan Bernstein

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• Because 80 is the New 60 on the Road

  

  Some of the greatest shows on Earth these days are coming from the road warriors who’ve been out there the longest. The toughest are in their eighties: Bob Dylan, Neil Young, George Clinton, Paul McCartney. These are the relentless lifers who have it in their blood — the ones who can’t not do it. They’re thriving on the road in the 2020s because that’s where they feel at home, and they’re not saving a drop for next year. These legends are way past hiding the cracks in their voices or the lines on their faces. That’s for kids. Instead, they flaunt their eightysomething voices like they’re showing off battle scars. —R.S.

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• Because More Women Than Ever Are Buying Guitars

  

  There is one thing that the guitarists who have inspired the L.A. punk quartet the Linda Lindas have in common: They’re women. Bela Salazar, 22, cites the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde as one of her favorite players, while Lucia de la Garza, 19, admires St. Vincent, Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein, and the Breeders’ Kelley Deal. “I was lucky to be surrounded by cool music when I was younger that happened to have a lot of female guitarists in them,” says the latter.

  Looking at the stats, there will likely be even more female guitarists to inspire younger generations in the future. “We are seeing steady growth in the number of women entering the guitar category,” Guitar Center CEO Gabe Dalporto tells Rolling Stone. “In 2026, women represented 31 percent of new Guitar Center customers purchasing guitar instruments, up from 25 percent during the same period in 2023. Separately, the total number of new women customers purchasing guitar instruments grew 12 percent year over year, compared with seven percent growth among men. Together, these trends indicate that women are becoming a larger part of the guitar market.”

  The Linda Lindas, who broke through a few years ago while still in their teens and preteens, feel like they’re still learning about everything they can do on guitar. Salazar drew inspiration from the Brothers Johnson for some funkier guitar parts on the band’s most recent album, Gotta Get Out, while de la Garza was excited about the presence of acoustic guitar on the album’s “High Horse.”

  “There’s definitely a high when you play guitar,” says Salazar. “It makes me feel really happy, and it’s a feeling that I can’t really find in other things.” —K.G.

• Because Emos and Punks Came Together at Warped Tour Mexico City

  

  Warped Tour has taken its hugely influential rock festival overseas more than once over the years, first in Australia and then the U.K. But this fall, Warped finally came to Mexico — and  it’s been a long time coming. Emo and punk music has always been prevalent in the country, especially in the cultural hotbed that is Mexico City, even if the scenes haven’t always gotten along. Back in 2008, the beef between the two Warped-adjacent music scenes reached a fever pitch when emo fans and anti-emo punks physically confronted each other in the capital. Tensions between these passionate fanbases have cooled since then, thankfully (last year even saw a peaceful march by members of both camps). And the inaugural Vans Warped Tour Mexico City was the perfect way to show how far everyone has come. What better way to collectively celebrate both emo and punk than catching sets from Agnostic Front and Don Tetto at the sacred place that is Warped Tour? —Maya Georgi

• Because Wednesday Hit So Hard

  

  Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman is the kind of writer who can whisk you right into a stranger’s life with just a few words. Every aspect of her sound feels like a detail in her homespun narratives about ­ordinary folks in desperate times — that’s why her Asheville, North Carolina, band has become such a phenomenon in recent years, on albums like last year’s Bleeds, 2021’s Twin Plagues, and 2023’s Rat Saw God. Her songs add up to a rootsy portrait of small-town heartache, as she evokes her cast of losers and ­dreamers, exploring the loneliest ­cor­­ners of American life. It’s like ­encountering Eudora Welty if she learned her licks playing in Southern hardcore bands. 

  Lord knows Hartzman can tell a tale in prose, as in the rightly celebrated Vulture journal she wrote about making an album while in the middle of a drawn-out breakup with her band’s longtime guitarist. It’s just some kind of O. Henry-level irony that the guitarist happens to be MJ Lenderman, another expert story slanger with an ear for ordinary details. You almost hate to notice how great both of them are at this. Hartzman also writes in her addictive blog, Prison Divorce Bombshell, where she gave it up to her ­literary idol Carson McCullers as she read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. (“McCullers is SO obviously the goat….. I don’t know how she was writing like this on her very first novel….. jesus christtttt.”) 

  Wednesday stand tall on the shoulders of the great indie-rock storytellers of the past — from the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood to the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, from Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield to the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle. But Hartzman’s got her own unmistakable voice, and following her from here will be quite the adventure. —R.S.

• Because Mannequin Pussy Are Getting Even Louder

  

  Mannequin Pussy used to be a mainstay of DIY venues like ­Brooklyn’s much-missed Shea Stadium. They spent this summer playing actual stadiums, opening for the Foo Fighters on their Take Cover Tour.

  “It’s an incredibly exciting tour to get to be asked to be a part of,” says frontwoman Marisa “Missy” Dabice. “We’ve been a band for over a decade now. It’s a fun new thing to check off the list of things we got to experience. Although, we were joking the other day that we’re more like ushers to people’s seats than we are performers.”

  Jokes aside, the bandmates were particularly stoked to play their hometown football field, Lincoln Financial. “There’s an immense amount of Philly pride,” Dabice says. “If you live in Philly, you’re gonna become an Eagles fan.” 

  And while they’ve been busy lately recording a new album, that’s just given them more material for their opening set. “Twelve years ago, we barely had enough songs that would fit 30 minutes, but now we have a lot more to choose from,” Dabice says.

  In November, they’ll play another kind of special show — a co-headline date with Wednesday in Nashville for the Rolling Stone Rock Tour. And if all of those shows introduce them to some new fans, all the better. “We would love to invite more people into our world,” Dabice adds. “That’s certainly something that we’re gonna work for.” —B.E.

• Because New Scenes Are Buzzing Around the World

  

  Somewhere, in someone’s basement or garage, your next favorite band is probably working out their very first song right now. Here are a few of the best local scenes in 2026, full of acts that are poised to make waves beyond the cities they call home.

  Mexico City

  KEY ARTISTS: Diles Que No Me Maten (above), Los Blenders, Unperro Andaluz

  THE SOUND: Rawk! Psych-rock, garage rock, post-punk — these bands can do it all.

  THE BACKSTORY: Following in the footsteps of rock en español forefathers like Café Tacvba and Caifanes, these bands represent a new generation.

  PROMISING SIGNS: When Vans Warped Mexico City launched in fall 2026, Los Blenders made the lineup. 

  

  Chicago

  KEY ARTISTS: Horsegirl (above), Lifeguard, TV Buddha, Friko

  THE SOUND: All over the place, from noise to pop and beyond. The common thread is a supportive DIY ethos.

  THE BACKSTORY: Many of the bands are associated with the Hallogallo scene, which shares its name with a zine made by Lifeguard’s Kai Slater.

  PROMISING SIGNS: While many of these bands started in their teens, they’re getting even better as they hit their twenties.

  

  Tokyo

  KEY ARTISTS: Wanbed, DOGO, Butter Sugar Toast (above)

  THE SOUND: Jazzy post-punk, dreamy Nineties fuzz, and more out-there vibes can be found in Japan’s capital.

  THE BACKSTORY: Katoman, a local radio DJ, bar owner, and artist manager in Tokyo, says these up-and-coming acts are the ones to watch.

  PROMISING SIGNS: While East Asia is known for producing pop superstars, these bands show rock lives there too.

  

  Nashville

  KEY ARTISTS: Lombardy, Flight Attendant (above), New Translations

  THE SOUND: Eclectic. Some bands make synth-driven rock, while others have more of a punk edge.

  THE BACKSTORY: Rocknite, a popular concert series held each month at the bar Skinny Dennis, has been a launching pad for many of these acts.

  PROMISING SIGNS: Rocknite is only getting bigger from here — in June, it took over Jon Bon Jovi’s bar. —A.L.

• Because Alice Bag is Fighting for Immigrant Rights

  

  Punk pioneer Alice Bag’s introduction to activism started when she was just 11. Her parents, who were both Mexican, took her to the Chicano Moratorium, a 1970 anti-war rally in L.A. Though it started peacefully, the day ended with three civilians killed at the hands of the police. “It was a protest but also a celebration of culture — and it was met with violence,” she recalls.

  Decades later, she’s never stopped fighting for justice through music and education. As co-founder of the influential Seventies punk outfit the Bags, she has raged against racism, misogyny, and homophobia, calling for change and dialogue. “As a Chicana, as a woman, as a queer, I had all kinds of things to say,” she says. 

  Bag recently reposted her 2015 song “Inesperado Adios” on Instagram, inspired by a family separation she saw when she was teaching in Arizona. “I do feel that song is relevant now because it’s happening all the time: Families are being torn apart, people are being kidnapped,” she says. She’s continued calling out the current administration’s policies and raising awareness of the human toll they’ve taken. “It makes me angry and makes me want to fight back — and it makes me want to remind people that it’s immigrants who built this land.”

  Lately, she’s been working with fellow punk lifer Kid Congo Powers on new songs that confront the administration’s attacks head-on. “We’re like Chicano queer elders,” she says with a laugh. “It’s a responsibility that we take seriously, but also try to address with some humor, and try and make sure that people see that we are here for them.” —Julyssa Lopez

• Because All These Bands Keep Trading Drummers

  

  The writers of This Is Spinal Tap almost ­perfectly portrayed the transience of rock drummers when they dispatched a series of fictional percussionists via spontaneous combustion, “a bizarre gardening accident,” and more. Recent history has proven, however, that far more often, real-life, nonfictional drummers merely tend to hop over to other bands. Occasionally, they even trade places. Here’s our best attempt at mapping out some of rock’s most prominent drummer switch ups — including the time when Nine Inch Nails and Foo Fighters straight-up swapped stickmen, the sequence of events when Slipknot, Sepultura, and Suicidal Tendencies rotated their three drummers like tires, and more. Will the drum circle be unbroken? —K.G.

  

  CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: AARON J. THORNTON/GETTY IMAGES; JEREMYCHANPHOTOGRAPHY/GETTY IMAGES; PEDRO GOMES/GETTY IMAGES; LLOYD BISHOP/NBC/NBCU PHOTO BANK/GETTY IMAGES; SERGIONE INFUSO/CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES; JIM BENNETT/GETTY IMAGES; GRIFFIN LOTZ; OLE HAGEN/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES; CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

• Because Rainbow Kitten Surprise Are Having a Blast

  

  The members of Rainbow Kitten Surprise liken their experience as a band to a road trip. “We’ve been driving for a really long time,” says guitarist Darrick “Bozzy” Keller. 

  The North Carolina alt-rock band has been going since 2013, releasing trippy yet catchy guitar-driven songs. Rainbow Kitten Surprise used to tour out of a van, but now they’re bringing their electrifying live shows to bigger stages with more vivacious crowds than ever before. “Our show right now is the exit we’re off of — it’s a snapshot of where we are as a band,” says Keller. “People connect with the music, and then they come and see us live and they’re blown away by the lights.” One of their most memorable shows was their nighttime set at Bonnaroo, which drew a massive audience.

  Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s arresting live show got that way by design. For their latest album, Bones, the band asked itself “What is fun to play?” as lead singer Ela Melo explains. “We know if we don’t connect to it onstage, the fans won’t connect to it out there either,” she adds.

  So where will Rainbow Kitten Surprise’s journey lead them next? The band isn’t quite sure, but the present is a good indicator. “We’re in the best place I think we’ve ever been,” Melo says.  —M.G.

• Because Hayley Williams Wants to Be in 100 Bands — and She Just Might

  

  “I want to be in 100 bands before I die,” Hayley Williams told Jack Antonoff for Rolling Stone’s Musicians on Musicians cover story last year. “I like that feeling of being in a room with people and something that didn’t exist becomes a thing that you’re all holding.”

  For the past couple of years, Williams has been doing her best to keep that feeling going, powered by her excellent third LP, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party. The album, which she released with an unconventional rollout in 2025, features a fearless new sound that she explored further this year on her first ever solo tours.

  And while Paramore remain on a “huge break” following 2023’s This Is Why, Williams is having fun collaborating with other musicians on new projects. This year, she and producer Daniel James — a close collaborator on Ego Death — teamed back up for a set of songs they released under the name Power Snatch. “We did it a month after we finished the album,” James said, adding, “Something happened in that month that put it in a different world for us, so we took it to a different place.”

  Since February, the duo have released two EPs for free on artist-forward platform Bandcamp, rather than a major streaming platform. Both are filled with grungy rock songs that are equally raw and hilarious. “I think about Wayne’s World the way some folks think about The Godfather,” Williams deadpans on “DUH.” 

  For a rock star like Williams to quite literally strip her ego and put out experimental rock projects is exciting and thrilling. We can’t wait to see what else she has in store and who she taps next. —M.G.

• Because Backline Care Is Providing Mental-Health Support to Musicians

  In the summer of 2019, after watching her music community grieve and mourn the deaths of a few artists she knew as friends, Hilary Gleason decided to take action. Before that, she had spent time working for nonprofits — and also dated a touring musician, which gave her “a real front-row seat to what it looked like for their band to try and access care, what the struggles of touring were.” So, that September, she set up a Zoom call and invited about 35 people she knew across the industry, and told them to forward the invite to anyone else who was interested. In the end, almost 150 people joined that first Zoom call to discuss how to help artists access the care they need. The result was Backline, a nonprofit organization that helps guide music-industry professionals through mental health and wellness resources with the help of a dedicated case manager. Since Backline launched, many major musicians have donated to the organization, starting with Chappell Roan and followed by Noah Kahan, Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter, and Ariana Grande.

  Gleason says she’s “most proud of the partnerships and support we were able to garner for the hotline” — meaning B-Line, a 24-hour mental health support line that Backline created with funding from Spotify, Live Nation, AEG, Red Light Management, and more. B-Line connects callers right away to crisis counselors who understand the music industry (irregular hours, touring pressures, financial uncertainty) and can guide them to the best resources available. “We’ve been able to serve more people already this year than we did in all of 2025 because of [the ability to] call and text,” Gleason says. —Alison Weinflash

  Because You Can’t Air Guitar
  With a Glow Stick

  ---

• Because the Beatles are Still the Beatles, and the Stones Are Still the Stones

  

  When Paul McCartney wrote “When I’m Sixty-Four” as a teenager, that age felt comically fictional to him. Now 84, the former Beatle found himself reminiscing about his younger years and fab former bandmates on The Boys of Dungeon Lane, his 20th solo album. We know we mentioned the larger trend of old-rockers-rocking-on a few items up, but let’s take another moment to appreciate what we’re currently seeing: It’s 2026, nearly 64 years since the Beatles released their first album, and McCartney still sounds like McCartney. Even better, his album included the pretty great “Home to Us,” a duet with the only other surviving Beatle, Ringo Starr, who also put out a new album, Long Long Road, this year. Beatlemaniacs proved they still needed and would feed the Beatles well past 64, since McCartney’s album debuted at Number One in the U.K. and Number Five in the U.S.

  And how about the Rolling Stones? They’re not touring this year, but they scored their own Number One in the U.K. (Number Seven in the States) with a little help from…. that’s right, Paul McCartney, who made a guest appearance on their Foreign Tongues album. That album, a beggars’ banquet of riches, found Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sounding as Stones-y as ever on songs like “Mr. Charm” and “Divine Intervention.” Say it again, once more with feeling: All of these guys are still guaranteeing satisfaction more than six decades into their careers. Who’d have predicted it? —K.G.

• Because Emily Lazar Is Making Your Favorite Artists Sound Even Better

  

  When an album does well, plenty of names get dropped in conversations around the music industry — ­producers, collaborators, managers, agents, and more. But the mastering engineer isn’t often one of them, unless that mastering engineer is Emily Lazar.

  Over decades in the business, she’s helped elevate mastering, a final step in the record-making process that involves adjusting audio levels and making sure everything sounds exactly right. At her state-of-the-art ­mastering and mixing ­facility, the Lodge, her clients have included Paul McCartney, Harry Styles, the Foo ­Fighters, and the Rolling Stones. “My approach to everything that comes across my console is different,” Lazar says. “I started as a musicmaker, so my approach is more of an artist’s approach. Sometimes it’s to get out of the way, sometimes it’s to get in the way.”

  When she’s mastering a track, Lazar sees herself as bringing an artist’s narrative across the finish line. “In light of the whole AI conundrum right now, it’s really important that we are focusing on human beings telling their stories,” she adds. “I want to know how someone is reacting to something happening in their life and telling us about it. How they see the world and how they experience things is so impactful and meaningful.” —Lily Moayeri

• Because Alex G Is Still Doing His Thing

  

  Alex G is a quintessential rock star for the 2020s, precisely because nothing about his story makes a lick of sense. The 33-year-old songwriter from suburban Philly has kept his crazy career thriving by ignoring absolutely every rule in the book about how to reach an audience, except for one: write songs that actually mean something to people. In Alex G’s case, they’re songs that can mean everything to you.

  When Alex Giannascoli started up in the early 2010s, he was a teen troubadour, playing punk-house shows, recording demos in his bedroom, and posting them direct to Bandcamp. His tunes were enigmatic tales of loners and addicts and losers, with his own style of empathetic wit. His 2014 album DSU was a homemade masterpiece, full of heartbreak vignettes like “After Ur Gone” and “Sorry.” If you were an Alex G fan back then, you probably figured DSU was as far as he had to go — and it was plenty far enough.

  But no, he was just getting started. He’s blown up into a full-on Gen Z rock icon without compromising any detail of what he does. Last year he released his tenth album, Headlights, his first for a major label, yet he’s stuck to his lane as a poet and a one-man band, with nearly every note on the album written, played, and sung by Alex himself. Early tunes from his DIY days are still his biggest-streaming hits, like “Harvey,” “Sarah,” and “Treehouse.” This fall, he’s on the road opening for Phoebe Bridgers. He’s managed to expand musically, getting bigger all the time, without learning to promote himself, without bothering with social media, without letting himself get turned into any kind of celebrity. —R.S.

• Because Rock Veterans Are Going Back to Indies

  

  “It feels like it’s just not necessary to be on a major label,” Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard told Rolling Stone earlier this year.  “I don’t think Geese is on a major label. It doesn’t matter.”

  Gibbard has a point. Death Cab just released I Built You a Tower via ANTI- Records, returning to the indie system that launched them before they signed to a major in the early 2000s. And they’re not the only ones: Hayley Williams released her 2025 solo breakthrough under her own indie imprint, which she pointedly named Post Atlantic. The All-American Rejects just released their first LP in 14 years completely independently, only partnering with a distributor. 

  While major-label budgets helped all of these acts reach wider audiences at one time, it seems that none of them feel like that’s what they need most these days. “I can really count on one hand in the 20 years at Atlantic the number of people that we felt we had some true similar musical vocabulary,” Gibbard said. Indie labels, on the other hand, can offer the same things they always have, including more of a personal touch. Gibbard vividly recalled Death Cab’s first meeting with Allison Crutchfield, an experienced indie musician who spent several years leading ANTI-’s A&R department:  “It felt so refreshing to be back in a room with people that were culturally of our world,” he said. —M.G.

• Because Vinyl Lives On in the Hearts of Music Lovers

  Howard Stern Show executive producer Gary Dell’Abate’s love of vinyl has been the cause of some consternation on the air — rankling the show’s namesake — and also the source of many laughs for the listening audience. But ask Dell’Abate about his collection, which he’s paired down from 4,000 to a precious 400, and it’s clear, he takes his passion very seriously. “I keep records for sentiment, not because of their value,” he insists.

  Sentimentality, Dell’Abate has learned, is a unifying concept. After attending a vinyl party at a friend’s house in Los Angeles, he adapted the concept — each guest brings a record from their collection related to a theme (songs about cities, for instance; or about power, the assignment for his next gathering) and talks about the song they chose, then a DJ gives it a spin — and brought it to New York.

  “It’s intimate, confessional, and cathartic,” says Dell’Abate, who organizes vinyl parties several times a year, at friends’ homes or a dedicated space like a hotel, restaurant, or recording studio. “For some reason, if you stick a record in somebody’s hand and ask them why they picked that record, they tell you things they generally wouldn’t [reveal].”

  The gathering works best with a collection of “like-minded people,” adds Dell’Abate. “The only price of admission is you have to be a vinyl lover. So it could be Fred Armisen, or my hand therapist.” What’s most satisfying? “The social aspect,” he says. “The connections and friendships that have been made. There is something to bringing the geeks together.” —Shirley Halperin