He might look like something found in the dumpster at a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. He might shamelessly plunder the sonics of decades of deep-fried and gravy-smothered hits. But despite everything about his presentation and performance, Kid Rock is not actually southern. 

If he were, he might have done the friendly thing and warned Eminem off of collaborating on “Heal My Faith,” a song on his recent Christian album “Halfway 2 Jesus.” He might have stopped his longtime friend and fellow Michigander from irreparable reputational damage. Instead, he let Slim Shady learn a hard lesson that true southerners know: You lay down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. 

“Heal My Faith” is genial to the point of being unmemorable, a bit of cringy Christian pablum that encourages loving someone even when you’re outside of the pit. It’s student-athlete core, a mish-mash of choirs, electric guitar noises over pounding drums that all sound like keyboard presets. Kid Rock’s contributions are entirely lifted from inspirational T-shirts, table scraps from rejected Jelly Roll songs. The result is that “Heal My Faith” offers very little to chew on — until Eminem shows up.

The boilerplate praise chug of the song has one upside: It forces the “Rap God” to slow down. Left to his own devices, middle-aged Eminem has been the hip-hop equivalent to masturbatory guitarists, his late-stage work full of technically impressive displays of chops that nonetheless lack the fun and melody of his radio hits. Hearing him enter the song with a flow that’s not indebted to a J.J. Fad outro offered a glimmer of hope. But it was short-lived.

On “Heal My Faith,” the rapper who first gained mainstream attention by lighting the pop chart’s sacred cows afire wonders why we can’t all just get along. It’s shocking stuff from the rapper who famously mused about dropping an “awfully hot coffee pot” on Donald Trump in a freestyle at the BET Hip Hop Awards in 2017. Now, Slim Shady seems to be saying, “We might believe in fundamentally opposed directions for this country. We might differ on the idea of extending dignity to all people, but can’t we put that aside for the sake of a new single you can buy?” 

You don’t need to hear it. You’ve already heard it. It’s the realm of purple state campaign ads and Earthbound Trading Co. bumper stickers. It’s junk, and Eminem seems to know it.

How else can you explain a verse that is 90% throat-clearing and preemptive dodges of the backlash he knows is coming? Eminem spends bar after bar defending his decision to even appear on the song, touting his decades-long friendship with Kid Rock and their intertwined history in the music industry.

He talks about their shared roots in Detroit’s music scene, and how their paths crossed again and again. He details an early CD release party at length, where the more established Kid Rock showed up to lend support to the emerging rapper. It isn’t until the closing lines of his verse that Eminem turns to God and the brotherhood of man.

“Liberal and evangelical can agree,” he raps. “It’s God first, home of the free.”

Reputation-wise, the collaboration does far more for Kid Rock than it does for Eminem. The former has long been fully consumed by Trump World, becoming more of a standby entertainer for MAGA events than a rock star. Eminem, on the other hand, once told fans who supported Trump to stop streaming his music. 

Rock told Billboard that he hadn’t planned to “drag [Eminem] into my political world,” but he had to have known  that was impossible. The nod from a supposed Trump critic removes a small bit of the stain on Kid Rock, but it also transfers directly to his collaborator.

Eminem might have been hoping to build a bridge with this collaboration, but at least according to his Instagram comments, his fans aren’t ready to get over it. One commenter assured him that it’s okay to cut off a friendship “over moral differences.” Another said Eminem’s line in the sand against Trump must have been “brushed back into the beach.” The rapper’s newfound neutrality, one wrote, still amounted to “choosing a side.”

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You can’t feel too bad for Eminem, who’s had plenty of opportunities to see that who you rap with is who you are. After all, more than a year after her breakout single “What I Want,” which she recorded with the controversial country music star Morgan Wallen, the pop singer Tate McRae is still being confronted by fans and interviewers with questions about the pair’s collaboration. 

Wallen, who’s been given about as many second chances as gold records, has never explicitly identified himself as a supporter of the MAGA movement. But his history of using slurs on camera, the general nastiness of his dejected young man music and a massive social media tiff with “Saturday Night Live” have solidified him as an anti-woke warrior in the popular conception. 

“It’s crazy to think that one song could define a whole person,” McRae told W Magazine earlier this month.“There are many aspects of my personality that three-quarters of my audience has no idea about. You hope one day you figure out a way to show all aspects of it.”

There’s little chance that Eminem will face such questions in the future, if only because his career as a hitmaker is basically over. He was something exciting and fresh when he pantsed the pop culture landscape in the late 1990s, but joking about how much everything sucks is a young man’s game. Coming from an older man, it just sounds bitter and out-of-touch. 

Different listeners draw the start of his decline and the end of his relevancy at different points. Most agree that the zeitgeist of rap started to shift away from the stubbornly anachronistic rapper sometime around the end of the aughts. In 2013, he released a well-received album seemingly purpose-built to cap on his career, and then he just kept going. The 23-year-old McRae, on the other hand, will have her past decisions dug up by what remains of the music press after each new chart smash. Eminem may well be staring down a future where his regrettable decision to record contemporary worship dreck with Kid Rock generated his last real headlines. 

It’s something the culturally savvy clown of Eminem’s early career would have been smart enough to avoid. 

The post Eminem’s Kid Rock collab shows the risk of cozying up to MAGA appeared first on Salon.com.

Before alternative music invaded the mainstream in the 1990s, it dominated college radio. Indie bands emerged in the 1980s, appearing on college rock radio shows. As alternative remained in the underground, these bands inspired some of the biggest names in 90s alternative rock, such as Nirvana, Weezer, Green Day, and more. Here are three college rock bands from the 1980s that basically invented the holy grail of 90s bands.

Hüsker Dü

Hailing from St. Paul, Minnesota, Husker Du formed in 1979. Aside from their mark on the Twin Cities underground scene, the band influenced 90s artists such as Nirvana, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Uncle Tupelo, and many others. Specifically, their sophomore album, Zen’s Arcade, blended elements of hardcore punk and indie rock. This became highly influential and crucial to the 90s alternative rock sound. Sadly, Hüsker Dü broke up in 1988, just before alternative rock broke into the mainstream. Still, their massive influence on the decade was duly noted throughout the 90s.

Violent Femmes

Violent Femmes are among the pioneers of folk punk, fusing together traditional folk with punk rock of the late 70s. The group formed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1981. Their self-titled debut album became a college rock radio hit in 1983, generating the band’s signature hit “Blister In The Sun.” Notably, the song was quite different compared to other emerging indie rock bands of the decade. It became the template for Nirvana’s acoustic side of Kurt Cobain’s songwriting. As Nirvana’s Nevermind was rising to the top of the Billboard 200 in January 1992, the band was opening for Violent Femmes on tour.

R.E.M.

Almost no other band dominated college rock radio quite like R.E.M. They were the epitome of college rock radio throughout the decade. The band famously targeted college rock radio stations, offering exclusive interviews and hand-delivering their albums. This led to their early breakout single “Radio Free Europe” becoming a staple on college radio. In the late 80s, the band started to break into the mainstream after their hit “The Only I Love” peaked at No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100.

When alternative music broke into the mainstream in late 1991, R.E.M. became closely associated with this movement. Due to this, their 1991 album Out Of Time became their best-selling release. Additionally, lead singer Michael Stipe’s close friendship with Kurt Cobain was publicly noted during this time as well. The two became so close that Stipe was named the godfather of Cobain’s daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images

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We’ve all been there; you discover a band for the first time and they become your entire personality for a few months. Telling everyone about them, listening to their albums on repeat, essentially becoming a walking, talking press release for your new favorite band. For many Millennials in the 2000s, the following indie bands were just some of the artists that became our entire personalities.

The Strokes

Depending on who you ask, The Strokes were either the indie rock band of the early 2000s or annoying nepo baby posers. For those who loved them, though, The Strokes became something of a personality trait. Their 2001 debut EP The Modern Age had several labels fighting over them, with RCA releasing their debut LP It This It that same summer. This record sparked a wildfire of Strokes mania, with “Last Nite” effectively becoming their most well-known song.

The Strokes are often considered a mainstream indie rock band, an oxymoron that most likely frustrates quite a few fans. Still, for many Millennials, they’ve come to symbolize a unique moment during the 2000s. The Strokes were one of the bands at the forefront of indie rock, which gave way to the indie sleaze aesthetic through the 2010s. Whatever your opinion of them, there’s no denying their relevance.

Vampire Weekend

Vampire Weekend debuted their self-titled album in 2008, combining academic style with indie pop sound to create a literate yet laid back album. Albums like Vampire Weekend and Contra from 2010 buzzed with nervy energy in the vocals and instrumentation, but seemed to possess an effortless cool as well. Especially the debut, which featured elements of African pop styles and various string textures. This creates an interesting mix of preppy east coast sentiment and worldly musical interests.

This attitude came from tracks like “A-Punk”, “Oxford Comma”, “The Kids Don’t Stand a Chance”, and “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”. At the time, Vampire Weekend represented a specific aesthetic of urban college campuses and indie pop academia. And it’s possible that those who latched onto that energy probably ended up getting some sort of liberal arts degree.

Death Cab For Cutie

Death Cab For Cutie is technically a late-90s indie rock band, but they gained more widespread attention in the 2000s with albums like Transatlanticism, Plans, and Narrow Stairs. Additionally, frontman Ben Gibbard’s side project The Postal Service helped give Death Cab a boost. Their sensitive, introspective, often bittersweet and sad indie rock built them a fanbase of devoted Millennials at that time.

Many of those fans remain Death Cab devotees years later. They defined the early 2000s experience for many high schoolers just trying to survive and young adults finding their way in the world. Death Cab For Cutie made a great companion for all kinds of emotional experiences, and their discography still holds up to today’s standards.

Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc

The post 3 Indie Bands From the 2000s That Millennials Made Their Entire Personality appeared first on VICE.

Rappers love to be rockstars. The aesthetic around being this untouchable, larger-than-life figure is extremely alluring. But rarely do you hear of rockstars wanting to be rappers. Unless you’re Kid Rock, it’s not often you get your average rocker busting out rhymes or taking inspiration from the grandiose rap personality.

But Fall Out Boy was never the average band either. Considering they featured 2 Chainz in a music video for “My Songs Know What You Did in The Dark“, they’re clearly not averse to hip-hop. It wasn’t just general aesthetic, though. Pete Wentz found massive inspiration in his songwriting by listening to the best rappers of the moment.

In 2006, that was all Lil Wayne. He was going around touting himself as the ‘best rapper alive.’ Frankly, he wasn’t wrong to think so either. He rapped in an absolutely dizzying amount of punchlines that even put Jay-Z to shame.

Naturally, at the time, Pete Wentz was trying to apply that apex form of lyricism to Fall Out Boy. In a 2006 interview with MTV, he talked about some interests that their fans might not have immediately expected from them. He declared Weezy the best lyricist working and highlighted a line that left him especially impressed.

How Pete Wentz and Fall Out Boy Learned From Lil Wayne in the Songwriting Department

“And as far as lyrics go, I’ve been taking a lot of influence from the best lyricist of the past year: Lil Wayne. He’s insane. There’s this one song [‘Hit ‘Em Up’] where he goes, ‘I eat up catastrophe/ Swallow the truth/ And belch reality,’ and I’m like ‘Wow,'” Pete Wentz recalled.

Additionally, the Fall Out Boy bassist marveled that Patrick Stump was just as into R&B and Motown vocally as he was in rock and roll.

“There’s a song we’re calling ‘Me and You,’ and in it, Patrick is doing things that are straight-up Motown,” Wentz added. “If there wasn’t a rock band playing, it’d be straight R&B, and he’d go on tour with just an upright bass and a drum and open up for R. Kelly.”

As far as Lil Wayne is concerned, he believed his own hype just as much as Fall Out Boy did. In 2007, he told XXL that anyone hating on him needs to treat him the way you would civil rights activists.

“Darling, I don’t care what nobody think. Talk to me like you talking to Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. You’re not about to ask him about what he think about what somebody said about him. You ’bout to ask him about his greatness, and his greatness only. I don’t care what nobody think,” Lil Wayne scoffed.

Photo by James Looker/Avalon/Getty Images

The post The Unexpected Rapper That Inspired Pete Wentz to Write Songs for Fall Out Boy in 2006 appeared first on VICE.

Happy New Music Friday, friends! I am glad you made it through another week. You deserve some fresh tunes for all your trouble.

First off, I want to encourage you to check out our exclusive with Eva Elfie, featuring the premiere of her debut single along with a short interview conversation. If you dig dark, otherworldly electronic jams, this one is for you.

Next, I hope you’ll scroll through our weekly list and hear the new music from some really memorable and profound artists. Starting with some heavy metal legends.

“Splatter-Fu” by Gwar

The Scumdogs of the Universe are back, baby!

Gwar has announced a brand new project: GWAR and the Last Drive-In-Stein. It’s a split/collaborative album with horror master Joe Bob Briggs and his Shudder series The Last Drive-In. Side A of the album will be some new Gwar tunes, and Side B will feature John Brennan and the Bigfeet, the official Last Drive-In house band.

As part of the project, Brenne penned “Splatter-Fu” for the unholy leaders of the Bohabs, and the hard rockin’ tune is our first taste of the record. If you expected anything less than Gwar doing what they do best, well, I’m happy to disappoint you.

“KISS ME LIKE YOU MISS HER” by ADULT LEISURE

If you’re looking for some fresh new alt-rock in your life, look no further than Bristol, England’s Adult Leisure.

The band has announced that they signed with American label Big Loud Rock, a partnership they sealed with the new single “Kiss Me Like You Miss Her”. It’s a ditty that’s catchy as hell. There’s some early 90s shoegaze guitar tone and a dirty disco rhythm that just forces you to groove with it.

You’ll get addicted to this one.

“VAGABOND” by KING BUFFALO

I love the riff on this song so. f**king. much. It’s got this clear stoner metal energy, but there’s also a little post-grunge element to it that feels really good.

King Buffalo ARE those dudes. They jam so hard and leave nothing on the table. The new tune is called “Vagabond”. It’ll be featured on their new independent record, Doomsayer, which is out on Dec. 4.

“Trick Of The Night” by Reiyo The Giant

Reiyo The Giant is a beautiful anomaly who doesn’t fit into any box you try to build for her.

The genre-defying singer has announced her debut album, Trick Of The Night, heralded by a haunting, atmospheric title track. Her smooth, smoky voice glazes through a trip-hop-esque soundtrack. As it intensifies, her jazzy vocals take center stage with vulnerability and soul, leaving you haunted.

The ‘Temilotzin’ EP by TZOMPANTLI

Hailing from Southern California, Tzompantli is one of the most important bands in heavy music these days. The indigenous metal band writes and performs as a channeling of their ancestors, and their songs exude that spiritual maturity.

This week, the band steps outside their typical sound and brings forth an organic, acoustic offering. Dubbed the Temilotzin EP, these three naturalistic and tribal melodies find Tzompantli paying homage to their deep roots and rich heritage. Find the complete project wherever you stream music, but please consider supporting it through Bandcamp.

Feature image courtesy of Pit Records

The post New Music Friday: 5 Songs You Need to Hear This Week (10/16) appeared first on VICE.

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Josh Brolin is making a documentary about the punk band he started as a teenager with his “best friend” Jason Sears. While he admitted that the band name, Cito Vice Squad, was “super dumb,” Brolin expressed his love for the L.A. punk scene growing up.

Speaking with NME in October 2026, Brolin reminisced about his teenage punk band and the L.A. scene. He used to sneak out his bedroom window at night to drive to Godzilla’s, the L.A. equivalent to New York’s CBGB.

“We’d watch amazing bands like Beer Guts, Circle Jerks, and Black Flag,” he said. Dead Kennedys and Wasted Youth frequently played there as well. Godzilla’s was unique in that it was a venue for young punks, run by young punks; for example, the club’s manager was only 20 years old. L.A.’s 80s punk scene suffered from lack of venues, in contrast to New York City. Godzilla’s became one of the last strongholds for young punks in Los Angeles.

For Brolin’s punk band, Cito Vice Squad, the inspiration actually came from across the pond. “We were really motivated by Sex Pistols,” he said. “That was probably the band that initiated it all.”

As for the film, Brolin didn’t have many specific details, other than there’s going to be a film. “We’re doing a documentary on those guys [in Cito Vice Squad and Rich Kids on LSD] right now,” he said. “And talking to [filmmaker] Amy Berg about the L.A. punk scene.”

Josh Brolin Admits That Most of His Friends Who Stayed in the L.A. Punk Scene Are Dead Now

Josh Brolin played drums in the band, and they were fairly well known in the local scene. But he eventually left the band to focus on acting. However, a lot of his friends stayed in the punk scene, for better or worse. The better outcome had fellow Cito Vice Squad members Jason Sears and Richard “Bomer” Manzullo forming Rich Kids on LSD. The worse outcome, he said in 2008, was that “Eighty percent of the guys I grew up with are dead.” By then, that included Sears.

“I was drums, but I wasn’t a good drummer,” Brolin continued. “And then Bomer came in. He was an amazing, amazing musician. All self-taught, and he could play the bass, the guitar, the drums, and the piano. He composed later. It was amazing.”

He added, “The idea of being in a band is always great. You see a lot of actors that try to have that side gig. And I get it. It’s not great for everybody, but I get it.”

In 2008, Brolin said he was grateful he got out of the scene when he did. The issue, he said, was drugs, and he very easily could have met the same fate as many of his friends. “I got out of it early on,” he said at the time. “I was very lucky.”

Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for Disney

The post Hollywood Actor Making Documentary About His Experiences in 80s LA Punk Scene, Including Teenage Band appeared first on VICE.

Chat Pile definitely isn't easy listening. The Oklahoma City sludge and noise rock band tackles lyrical topics as heavy as they get: families falling apart, homelessness, and, on their latest album, the climate crisis. This year Chat Pile released their third full-length album, Who Loves the Sun, to wide acclaim from fans (myself included) and critics like Anthony Fantano, who gave it a rare 9/10. — Read the rest

The post Chat Pile's songs are bleak, but their live show is a blast appeared first on Boing Boing.