Thirty-five years ago, today, classic albums by Nirvana, A Tribe Called Quest, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the Pixies all dropped

Red Hot Chili Peppers and A Tribe Called Quest in 1991

This week in 1991, 35 years ago, was one of those moments that changed music history. On Sept. 24, four classic albums dropped on the same day: Nirvana’s Nevermind, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik, A Tribe Called Quest’s The Low End Theory, and the Pixies’ Trompe Le Monde. All four were instant sensations, to the shock of the industry, transforming how everything would sound for the next decade. The revolution happened fast — August of 1991 was one era, but then by October, it was a whole new ballgame.

If you’re looking for symbolic reasons why music was overdue for a revolution, look no further than the year’s biggest pop group, C&C Music Factory. Just a few weeks earlier, on Aug. 23, the Factory (as nobody ever called them) were doing a live show in Tucson, Arizona, as part of the Club MTV Tour. Other acts on the bill: Color Me Badd, Gerardo, of “Rico Suave” fame, and Bell Biv DeVoe. But the C&C rapper Freedom Williams passed out cold onstage, falling flat on his face, with the whole crowd watching. The official explanation was the usual “dehydration” and “exhaustion.” (Maybe he also made the mistake of trusting a big butt and a smile?)

Funny thing, though — while Williams lay there unconscious, his voice kept booming over the speakers. Whoops! It was every lipsyncing hustler’s worst nightmare. But it was also a tombstone for a whole era of pop glitz. The music factory that made Eighties radio such a kick — with all its hype, tinsel, hairspray, and shameless artifice — was finally out of gas. It was official: Not even the dude from C&C Music Factory could stay awake through his own hits. As Williams himself would say, it was just one of those Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm.

Suddenly, for fans, this was all no longer good enough. The audience response was loud and clear: Here we are now. Entertain us.

Change was in the air. And that’s why the world was so ready for these albums as soon as they dropped, wrapping yellow tape around everything safe and predictable and boring. None of these rebels were supposed to hit big — if you were betting on albums that came out on Sept. 24, the smart money was on Bryan Adams, who released Waking Up the Neighbors, featuring the summer’s biggest hit, “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.” A perfectly nice little Bryan A record, if you’re keeping score. But not exactly the kind of thing that fires up the pheromones 35 years (or even weeks) down the line.

The fall of 1991 was a fantastic moment for music, because change was happening so fast, week to week. The SoundScan era was just starting, forcing the charts to reflect what people were actually buying, so you had country and rap and metal albums debuting in the Top Ten for the first time. (Hell, even Rush debuted at Number Three that September, with Roll the Bones.) Perry Farrell began the Lollapalooza Tour that summer, proving there was a hungry young audience of alternateen kids fiending for upstarts like Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine, and Perry’s band Jane’s Addiction.

September 1991 also had one of the best MTV Video Music Awards in history, the year R.E.M. won everything for “Losing My Religion,” a passing of the generational torch. Prince rocked his assless chaps in his live “Gett Off.” But the show got stolen by the surprise opener: Pee-wee Herman, just a few weeks after getting busted in a porn theater. Pee-wee kicked off the show by asking, “Heard any good jokes lately?” After a thunderously affectionate standing ovation, he replied, “So funny I forgot to laugh!”

Nirvana hit this moment like manna falling in the desert — these three Seattle brats were everything the new Nineties kids were craving. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blew up on the radio and MTV, with Kurt Cobain’s passionate yowls and that stupid-and-contagious air-guitar riff. And because of SoundScan, nobody could ignore how many mall rats were out there buying it. (Like, in stores. For actual money.) Suddenly 1991 was the grunge era, led by three hits that came out within a few weeks of each other: Pearl Jam’s Ten on Aug. 27, Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger on Oct. 8, Nirvana in between. As Sonic Youth famously proclaimed, it was The Year Punk Broke.

Nevermind made a modest debut on the chart that week, at Number 144, just four notches behind Warrant’s year-old Cherry Pie — proof that the gods of rock & roll irony have a sick sense of humor. It was the last week in history that more customers went for Warrant than Nirvana. All those hair-metal clones got wiped out overnight. Damn, it was a pleasure to mosh on the graves of dog-vomit bands like Tesla, who made Warrant sound like Motörhead, or Firehouse, who made Mr. Big sound like Voivoid.

That first week, Nevermind was surrounded by quintessential 1991 chart fodder by the Judds, Phil Collins, Ziggy Marley, Sting, and the Pretty Woman soundtrack. But a few weeks later, Nevermind was at Number One. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Somehow, as a great philosopher named Vanilla Ice was about to say, in his October film classic Cool As Ice, the audience decided to drop that zero and get with the hero.

Sept. 24 came just a week after Guns N’ Roses released two albums the same night, Use Your Illusion I and II. Those albums came out at midnight on Sept. 17 — like so many of my friends, I waited in line outside Plan 9 Records to buy it at midnight, on vinyl. (Hey, what else could you do in Charlottesville, Virginia, on a Monday night?) The full-page ad in Billboard proclaimed “Guns N’ Roses Will Release No Album Before Its Time. It’s Time.” Both Illusions were a trip, especially Side Two of Disc One of Illusion II, with “Get in the Ring,” “Shotgun Blues,” and the underrated “Breakdown” — now that’s a flawless vinyl side.

The Chili Peppers were widely seen as just a local L.A. thing until Blood Sugar Sex Magik, with “Give It Away” and “Under the Bridge” proving they were just learning how to write songs, with help from new guitar whiz John Frusciante. The Pixies’ Trompe Le Monde was a different kind of rock statement, since the band was a known quantity (plus Cobain faves who helped inspire Nevermind). But after the polish of Doolittle and Bossanova, it was abrasive, fresh, and pop at the same time, with the surge of “U-Mass” and “Subbacultcha,” just for kicks and giggles.

The Low End Theory was a wildly innovative romp through the paths of rhythm between jazz and hip-hop, with A Tribe Called Quest updating the Native Tongues aesthetic in jams like “Check the Rhime.” It proved hip-hop’s creative diversity, after a year when some thought gangsta was the only game in town. (Especially with the disastrous legal anti-sampling crackdowns against De La Soul and Biz Markie.) A week later, Public Enemy went hard on Apocalypse ’91 … The Enemy Strikes Black, joining Michael Jordan and Spike Lee on one of the best SNL episodes ever. On the West Coast, Cypress Hill were blowing minds with the “Latin Lingo” of their super-stoned August debut. KMD made the underground experimental gem Mr. Hood — the first time many heads heard the genius of MF Doom.

The spirit of innovation was all over the map, in the U.K. dance sounds of Primal Scream’s Screamadelica, Orbital’s self-titled debut, and Massive Attack’s Blue Lines (an April release just hitting stateside). The fall of 1991 also had the legendary rave episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 on Nov. 14 — yes, the one where the gang hits an illegal warehouse party where you need an egg to get in. Stay away from the U4EA, Brandon!

The Top 40 was insane that fall — a glorious blast of one-hit wonders, flukes, scams, dance crazes, novelty goofs that came out of nowhere to crash the radio. Rap bangers like Naughty By Nature’s “O.P.P.” or Salt N Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex” were blowing up. Freestyle was booming, with classics by Lisette Melendez (“A Day in My Life Without You”) and Corina (“Temptation”). Metallica had a bona fide hit with “Enter Sandman,” so great that not even Metallica purists could find a way to hate it. Siouxsie had a bona fide hit with “Kiss Them for Me,” sampling Schoolly D. So many smooth R&B New Jack Swing boy bands rose up — light a candle for Hi-Five, with their magnificent slow jam “I Can’t Wait Another Minute,” or Mint Condition with “Breakin’ My Heart (Pretty Young Eyes).”

The Number One hit that week was a real puddle of pastel kitten puke: Color Me Badd’s “I Adore Mi Amor.” But there were goodies bubbling in the Top 10, like Boyz II Men (“Motownphilly”), or Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch (“Good Vibrations,” which I will defend as an Actual Good Song). Martika’s “Love … Thy Will Be Done” was the autumn’s finest Prince hit (he actually wrote it), until the Purple One himself came back to hit Number One with “Cream.” But nobody could outsleaze Natural Selection, a one-shot duo who scored the most shamelessly ridiculous faux-Prince rip-off of all time, “Do Anything.” The Divinyls kept lingering on the radio with their sticky-fingered autoerotic sex jam “I Touch Myself.” (“I honestly doooo!”) The Geto Boys’ “Mind Playing Tricks On Me” was just starting to give people nightmares — just in time for Halloween.

Everybody’s favorite new pop stars that fall were the New Jersey duo P.M. Dawn, who mixed up Native Tongues-style rap, New Romantic synth-pop, and goth melodrama into their own weird sound, sampling Spandau Ballet in their Number One smash “Set Adrift on Memory Bliss.” They’re strangely forgotten now, which is a shame — when Prince Be died 10 years ago, he didn’t even make the Grammy “In Memoriam” montage. The Midwest rap duo K.M.C. KRU scored a hit with “The Devil Came Up to Michigan,” updating the country classic with a guest shot from Charlie Daniels. It was that kind of year.

In the wake of Nevermind, punk rock went from a niche thing to a mass youth language — Nirvana were merely the gateway. “Indie rock,” a two-word idiom just a couple of years old, was now a trope you could mock and celebrate at the same time, as Sebadoh did in their hilarious summer single “Gimme Indie Rock!” (Sample verse: “Milk that sound, blow your load/Soon it’s further than you ever said it’d go/Four stars in the Rolling Stone!”)

Bikini Kill set off the riot grrrl alarm with their hugely influential 1991 cassette Revolution Girl Style Now!, with anthems like “Feels Blind.” The summer was packed with genius DIY indie broadsides: Superchunk’s “Cool,” Unrest’s “Cherry Cherry” and “Yes She Is My Skinhead Girl,” Pavement’s “Summer Babe” and the Perfect Sound Forever EP, the Silver Jews’ “Canada,” Lois’ Highlights, Slint’s Spiderland, L7’s Smell the Magic, Fugazi’s Steady Diet of Nothing. In the Pacific Northwest, K Records’ International Pop Underground convention in August inspired countless cardigan-clad bands. Hot on the heels of Nevermind came left-field hits from Matthew Sweet’s Girlfriend to Swervedriver’s Raise to Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque. And just in time for December, My Bloody Valentine dropped Loveless, an industrial ear-bleeder romance that has kept the world reeling ever since.

The rest of the year was stuffed with blockbusters aimed at Christmas shoppers: U2’s Achtung Baby (an artistic breakthrough initially reviled as a commercial flop), Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, Richard Marx’s Rush Street (his edgy album — as the TV ads proclaimed, “the dark side of Richard Marx!”), Ice Cube’s Death Certificate. But everything was different now. Poor Genesis waited just a little too long to release We Can’t Dance, which came out in November — it would have sounded a lot less craven a couple of months earlier. After these albums dropped on Sept. 24, the stakes were suddenly higher, and the possibilities were suddenly wide open. That’s why all of these years later, these albums are still challenging everybody else to try harder.

Rush has helped ensure that a permanent memorial to Neil Peart will become a reality in the drummer’s hometown of St. Catharines, Ontario.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson presented a $785,000 cheque to the Neil Peart Commemorative Task Force and City of St. Catharines staff, bringing the fundraising campaign for the planned memorial at Lakeside Park to its $1-million goal. The donation came from a portion of the proceeds generated by VIP experiences and packages sold during Rush’s current Fifty Something tour.

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The contribution also caps a fundraising effort that began following Peart’s death in January 2020. Lee previously pledged $1 from every ticket sold during his 2023 My Effin’ Life book tour, while fans and other supporters helped push the campaign toward its target.

The memorial will be built beside the existing Neil Peart Pavilion at Lakeside Park. Peart spent much of his youth in nearby Port Dalhousie, and those summers later inspired Rush’s 1975 song Lakeside Park, from the album Caress of Steel.

Designed by sculptor Morgan MacDonald of The Newfoundland Bronze Foundry, the installation will feature two bronze sculptures depicting Peart at different points in his life, connected by a pathway with interpretive and experiential elements exploring his personal and musical legacy.

The fundraising campaign officially closes October 15, while the city currently expects the memorial to open in late 2027.

Dolly Parton's longtime manager requested a restraining order against her nephew, Bryan Seaver.

Dolly Parton’s estate has been thrown into legal turmoil less than a month after the legendary singer’s death.

On Tuesday, She’s Alive — a corporation tasked with managing Parton’s sprawling business ventures — filed a restraining order in Nashville’s Davidson County Chancery Court against the singer’s nephew Bryan Seaver, who served as Parton’s head of security and announced her death in a video. According to The New York Times, Seaver is accused of launching “an obscene, deliberate and escalating campaign of threats” to extract money from the Parton estate.

The filing states that Seaver’s operation “was not a conventional office-security operation; it was a heavily armed, paramilitary-style force,” adding that it possessed military-grade weaponry and had dozens of employees.

In text messages attached to the court papers, The Times reported that someone identified as Seaver issued a threat against a Dollywood business partner and said that he would become “the hand of retribution for my entire family.” According to the complaint, Seaver allegedly described himself as a “killer” in a Sept. 3 message to one of Parton’s attorneys.

Seaver also reportedly told She’s Alive’s manager, Danny Nozell, via text message that he would create a podcast “dedicated to ruining Dolly’s brand partnerships and telling the violations these people have done on us.”

Nozell, fired Seaver, who runs Squadron Augmented Protection Services, LLC (SAPS), on Sept. 15, according to Variety.

According to the lawsuit, “it was important to [Dolly Parton] to employ her family members when they had skill sets compatible with her business needs.” The complaint claims that a lawyer for Parton’s estate and trust resigned after Seaver made “harassing and ominous threats” during a phone call and that some staff members have quit, while others have hired private security.

In the filing by She’s Alive, Seaver allegedly threatened the corporation’s “personnel, counsel, and business partners” and in writing, “vowed to ‘destroy the entire brand,’ threatened to ‘ratfuck every [business party] entity’ that helps operate Dollywood,” per Variety.

In a statement to TMZ on Tuesday, Seaver defended his position. “I am a career soldier and military contractor and do conduct arms deals for foreign governments. I am a security professional and I am a killer,” he said. “However, nothing in this lawsuit were threats and most of the comments I stand by,” he added, claiming the allegations were taken out of context.

“I was talking frankly in a private way with Danny who I thought was my friend and he fancies himself a gangster,” he continued. “A lot of these messages are two guys having rage talk and crying on the phone together while we were grieving.”

Seaver and a representative for Squadron Augmented Protection Services, LLC, did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment. A lawyer for She’s Alive did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Taylor Swift in New York in June

The encore is here…Taylor Swift has announced the deluxe version of The Life of a Showgirl. The extended edition of arrives Sept. 25, with four tracks, including the freshly announced “Patient Zero.”

“About a year ago, you guys did a truly unfathomable thing. Something that completely blew my mind… You gave The Life of a Showgirl the biggest first week for an album in history,” Swift wrote on social media. “I took a trip to Sweden to celebrate with [producers] Max and Shellback, my two collaborators on this album. Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in, but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs,” she added.

“I hope you love them, because they were born out of pure gratitude for your exuberance for and celebration of the album we made,” Swift ended her note.

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It’s been nearly a year since Swift released her 12th studio album on Oct 3. At the time, the singer insisted that there were only 12 tracks on The Life of a Showgirl. “There’s not a 13th, there’s not other ones coming,” Swift said during an appearance on New Heights, her husband Travis Kelce’s podcast. “Every single song is on this album for hundreds of reasons, you know, and you couldn’t take one out and it’d be the same album. You couldn’t add one. It’s just right,” she said. Swift doubled down: “I wanted to do an album that was so focused on quality and on the theme and everything fitting together like a perfect puzzle, that these 12 songs for my 12th album, I feel like we achieved that, and I’m really happy about that.”

On Tuesday, the superstar shared the news about new single “Patient Zero.” While Swift didn’t initially declare the song a lead single for The Life of a Showgirl deluxe version, fans noticed that the album’s logo appeared under CD single versions on her official website.

The singer’s website also updated from a sparkly orange to a dark gray and featured three CD versions of “Patient Zero.” Each version features a different cover of the singer wearing black. Similarly, in an Instagram post announcing the track, the superstar was also wearing a black high-neck tank top. She also changed her profile picture across social media, which has signified a new era for the singer in the past. By Wednesday, Swift had updated her profile picture with The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore cover.

Tracklist“The Fate of Ophelia”“Elizabeth Taylor”“Opalite”“Father Figure”“Eldest Daughter”“Ruin the Friendship”“Actually Romantic”“Wi$h Li$t”“Wood”“Cancelled!”“Honey”“The Life of a Showgirl”“Patient Zero”“Cleveland!”“Pink Clouding”“Babylon”

The 2026 Polaris Music Prize ceremony, held last night at Massey Hall, saw Angine de Poitrine taking home both of the night’s major awards.

The elusive Saguenay duo won the Polaris Album Prize for Vol. II, the $30,000 prize awarded to Canada’s album of the year based on artistic merit. Soon thereafter, they followed that win by taking the $10,000 SOCAN Polaris Song Prize for “Fabienk,” making Angine de Poitrine the first ever act to win both awards since the song prize was introduced.

The pair accepted the awards at Massey Hall in Toronto on Tuesday night in their now-familiar black-and-white polka-dot costumes and masks. The microtonal math-rock band, whose members perform under the names Khn and Klek, have built much of their public identity around their extraterrestrial mythology and refusal to reveal their faces.

The SOCAN Song Prize came with a $10,000 award to be divided among the song’s Canadian performers and credited Canadian songwriters. “Fabienk” was selected over songs by Charlotte Cornfield, PUP, Patrick Watson and Martha Wainwright, and Charlotte Day Wilson.

The evening also revealed the two winners of the Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize, which recognizes significant Canadian albums released before the Polaris Music Prize was established. The Watchmen were honoured for their 1992 debut McLaren Furnace Room, while the late Willie Dunn received the designation for his self-titled 1971 album.

The ceremony featured performances from most of this year's album short list, including Angine de Poitrine themselves, Aquakultre, Begonia, Bibi Club, Charlotte Cornfield, Beverly Glenn-Copeland with Elizabeth Copeland, Les Louanges and Tanya Tagaq. Slash Need also performed an interpretation of Peaches' No Lube So Rude.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor are adding another Toronto date to their 2027 Canadian run, with the Montréal post-rock institution announcing a second show at the Danforth Music Hall after the first one sold out.

The band will now play the Toronto venue on February 26 and 27, 2027. The newly added February 26 performance goes on sale immediately, according to the announcement, while the original February 27 date is already sold out.

The two Toronto concerts follow a February 21 appearance at Québec City's Théâtre Capitole, being presented as part of Phoque OFF.

The band, which rose to prominence at the turn of the millenium and helped solidify Montréal's indie music ecosystem, do not tour extensively very much these days, so these shows are highly anticipated. Their sprawling instrumental compositions, extended crescendos and notoriously immersive live presentation have made the group one of Montréal's most influential experimental exports.

The Canadian dates follow a handful of international performances, including shows in Buenos Aires and São Paulo in November, before the band heads to Santiago, Chile, for the Fauna Primavera festival. A July 2027 appearance at Montana's Fire in the Mountains festival is also currently listed.

Godspeed's most recent album is 2024's NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD, a record whose title references the reported Palestinian death toll in Gaza as of the date specified. Since their very beginning, Godsped You! Black Emperor have had a longstanding practice of folding political concerns into its music, artwork and live presentation.