March 6, 2013 – It's more than 20 years since Stone Temple Pilots' debut, Core, yet, frontman Scott Weiland remains swept up in the winds of STP-related controversy. Hours before launching his solo Purple at the Core tour, Weiland's on-again/off-again bandmates in STP announced via press release that he'd been let go. The outspoken singer responded via his own statement, confused as to how he could "be 'terminated' from a band that I founded, fronted and co-wrote many of its biggest hits." He later suggested (seemingly tongue-in-cheek) that it was all a ruse to create buzz for ticket sales.At the moment, none of that matters. The only turbulence Weiland is concerned with is coming from the Canadian ice storms he and his current touring band, the Wildabouts, have been hurtling through en route to Niagara Falls in an RV that's lost heat and electric.

February 26, 2013 – Given that Adam Ant came to early '80s prominence daubed in wild face paint and dressed like a scourge of the seas, he may not have been a lot of people's first choice to still be making hungry new music more than 30 years later. But on the surprisingly rootsy and autobiographical new Adam Ant Is the Blueback Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter — his first all-new album in 17 years — the 58-year-old post-punk icon (both solo and with the Ants) and sometime actor (Tales from the Crypt, anyone?) proves he's more than just a man in a hat.  From his home in England, the resurgent songwriter spoke with us about being wary of major label contracts, why the U.S.A. matters, and taking inspiration from the Cure.Having been with three major labels, you just don't walk out of those contracts that easily.I spent most of my career with Sony, and then I did MCA for an album and EMI.

January 18, 2013 – You aren't always the music you make. Bad Religion co-founder Brett Gurewitz spends most of his time running Epitaph Records and as a family man whose musical tastes run more to soul and classic psych than aggressive hardcore. But when recording as Bad Religion, Gurewitz can't escape his lifelong inclination towards stinging melodies and roadrunner tempos.

January 9, 2013 – Fade, the forthcoming 13th album from Hoboken, New Jersey dream-fuzz trio Yo La Tengo, is somewhat curiously titled. Despite the album's mellow vibe, its 10 John McEntire-produced tracks illuminate a range of emotion that suggests singer-guitarist Ira Kaplan, his wife, drummer-vocalist Georgia Hubley, and bassist James McNew are still burning brightly. But perhaps the titular irony is intentional. YLT are, after all, known as much for their canny sense of humor as they are their sneakily consistent discography of swooning feedback-rock.Enjoying a much-deserved post-holiday break at a friend's home in Montauk, Long Island, Kaplan, 56, spoke on the phone about Yo La Tengo's nearly 30-year history and how his undying New York Mets fandom serves as both inspiration and cautionary tale.You never know if you're gonna feel inspired enough to make another record.

December 19, 2012 – James Brown's life was as deep and mythic as his celebrated groove. In the magisterial, rollicking biography The One: The Life and Music of James Brown, former SPIN staff writer RJ Smith goes further than anyone ever has in getting to the formidable, often contradictory essence of the Godfather of Soul. Rich with novelistic detail and revealing reporting, the book also serves as a history-text-in-disguise, using Brown's story as a prism through which to view race, politics, Southern identity, and the music business. Like the man himself, The One encompasses multitudes, and it is SPIN's pick for Best Music Book of 2012.Read on for our conversation with Smith, as well as the rest of our choices for the year's top music books.Did you set out to assert or correct any specific notions about James Brown with The One?

November 19, 2012 – Circa the late '80s, former college radio DJ and subterranean-music diehard Bruce Pavitt co-founded Sub Pop Records with his business partner, Jonathan Poneman. Seattle upstarts Nirvana were one of the label's earliest and most volatile acts. Their debut LP, Bleach, was merely a cult success at the time. Now, it's regarded as the opening salvo from a band destined to rewrite rock history, and Pavitt, having ceased day-to-day management of Sub Pop in 1996, lives with his family on Orcas Island, Washington, where he continues to be a passionate musicologist. But over an eight-day span throughout Europe in the fall of '89, Kurt and Co. were just three world-weary dudes cramming into an impossibly tiny Fiat van, opening for more established Sub Pop bands Tad and Mudhoney.

September 12, 2012 – Thinking about and discussing music's otherworldly aspects isn't just for academics. Nor are the trends of the music business solely fodder for economists. (It only seems that way sometimes.) With his new book, How Music Works (McSweeney's), out September 12, David Byrne has attempted to holistically answer the question implied by his title in a way that fans, musicians, and industry types can understand.As befitting its author, the book is wide-ranging, insightful, funny, and provocative.

September 11, 2012 – It's not a slight to Carly Rae Jepsen to say that she seems younger than she is. The 26-year-old "Call Me Maybe" phenom has thus far released songs that evoke the myriad ecstasies and dilemmas of youth, as well as blow the minds of Insane Clown Posse. Ever since Justin Bieber put a spotlight on her aforementioned year's-biggest-single (apologies to recent SPIN interviewee Gotye), Jepsen has been living out something of a teenage dream, despite hedging toward 30. The British Columbia-born singer's 2012 EP and second overall release, Curiosity, spawned "Call Me Maybe" and has merely whet appetites for her full-length debut, Kiss, which arrives via Bieber's School Boy imprint on September 18. The former Canadian Idol competitor's personal taste has been shaped in large part by Laurel Canyon folk and contemporary Euro-dance.

September 6, 2012 – Whether it was with skuzz-rockers Pussy Galore, rockabilly revivalists Heavy Trash, or his namesake blooze provocateurs, Jon Spencer has been detonating classic American rock'n'roll forms for four decades now. On the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's guttural, swaggering Meat and Bone (Mom + Pop/Boombox) out September 18, the singer-guitarist comes off as lascivious and cocksure as always — and sounds a skeevy world away from the settled place in which he now resides. At 47, Spencer is comfortably ensconced with his longtime bandmates, drummer Russell Simins and guitarist Judah Bauer, happily married, and a proud dad. This devotee of gut-punch guitar and leering rhythms shared his secrets to living well down in the sonic dumps. Because we are an older band, and we are older people, it's not like we have anything to prove.

July 19, 2012 – All due respect to Carly Rae Jepsen, but Gotye is the left-field success story of 2012. The smoky-voiced Aussie's inescapable breakout single, "Somebody That I Used to Know," from his Making Mirrors album, shot into ubiquity this past winter thanks to an exceptional synergy of hooky ingenuity and video virality. (Over a quarter billion views and counting.) The numbers are proof that the man born Wouter De Backer knows his way around an earworm. But what songs have wriggled inside Gotye's brain? The 32-year-old singer spoke with us about his favorite inescapable songs. You'll forgive him for including two of his own, which he's hoping to bring to audiences when he undertakes a U.S. tour in August. Major Lazer, "Get Free" "That gets stuck in my head a bunch. All the vocal aspects, ya know?