Rolling Stone UK - December 2022/January 2023

In this issue

The Rolling Stone UK Awards issue! Featuring Little Simz, Yungblud, Bree Runway, Groove Armada, Eliza Rose. Plus: Arctic Monkeys, Sam Ryder, Doechii, Ozzy Osbourne & more.

The only way is up

Sam Ryder truly changed the record when he snatched second place for the UK in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Space Man’. With a new album on the way, his feet have barely touched the ground since, as he tells Rolling Stone UK.

6 mins

Alex Turner

The Arctic Monkeys frontman on big rock guitars, evolving as a band, and revving up for their latest album, The Car

4 mins

Ones to watch

As 2022 comes to an end, Rolling Stone UK looks at the acts likely to worm their way into your headphones next year.

7 mins

Heavy Is the Hand That Holds the Mic

Doechii has a big spotlight on her as record label TDE's first female rapper. She couldn't be more ready

3 mins

The Podcast Hollywood's Queen of Golden Age

Chasing silver-screen ghosts and Los Angeles' forgotten secrets with Karina Longworth, the brilliant mind behind You Must Remember This BY ALEX MORRIS

9 mins

Maya Hawke

The Stranger Things star on her new album, wanting to die (onscreen), and which of her parents' movies she hasn't seen

4 mins

Time to put our house in order

Housing campaigner Kwajo Tweneboa on why disrepair and poor living conditions in the UK's rental and social housing sectors is an issue that can no longer be ignored

6 mins

TOP GIRL

Known predominantly for her Mercury Prize-winning and commercially successful music, Little Simz is a force of nature. In a world of content and noise, the semi-mysterious Simbiatu Ajikawo lets her talent speak for her. In this interview, our TV Award-winner talks about how she came to act in British cultural export Top Boy and her experience filming the show

10 mins

Artist of the year - Yungblud - How to win fans and influence people

Love him or hate him, Yungblud exemplifies what it means to be a Gen Z rock star. Dominic Harrison harnessed an influencer model to rise to fame but in 2022 proved he's well on the way to becoming a British pop culture icon. Rolling Stone UK goes on the road with our Artist of the Year to find out how he intends to use more than his highenergy persona to be taken seriously.

10+ mins

Breakthrough Award – Bree Runway – She's that girl

This was Bree Runway's year. She collaborated with Stormzy, added more A-listers to her growing fan base and is now regularly recognised in the streets of London, her hometown. Rolling Stone UK met Bree for her most intimate interview yet

10+ mins

Groove Armada – The boys are back

The electronic duo quit touring in 2010, with Andy Cato moving into sustainable farming and Tom Findlay becoming a therapist. Now, 12 years later, they've nearly completed one final live tour, and have recorded new material for their 25-track greatest hits box set. Rolling Stone UK checked in to chat outdated technology, nipple tassels and playing Groove Armada to cows

7 mins

Eliza Rose – "I'm a raver before anything else"

Eliza Rose is a DJ, singer, producer and avid record collector who just took a UK rave tune to number one

4 mins

THE YEAR OF 2022

Everyone who lived through it will remember the year 2020 for the rest of their lives, I should imagine.

2 mins

TRANS WRITING BLOSSOMED ON THE BOOK SCENE

In many ways, 2022 felt like the year of the underdog in the book world. Although it lacked blockbusters, fringe fiction flourished and works in translation soared. But which trends will we look back on from our lofty armchairs and think, 'That was so 2022'?

2 mins

THE YEAR THAT: SEX PARTIES WENT MAINSTREAM

As someone who talks endlessly and openly about sex for a living, I had long wanted to attend a sex party. And this year there was something in the air that made it feel like the perfect time to experience one.

3 mins

CATHOLICISM MADE A MINI COMEBACK

Catholicism has always lent itself to transgression. Its flamboyant aesthetics and patriarchal power structure have inspired everything from Renaissance art to Nunsploitation films, and the Met Gala to the relationship between Fleabag and her Hot Priest.

2 mins

TV HAD REMAKES ON REPEAT

In 2022, the era of revamping, and rebooting that has gradually wrapped its fingers around mainstream cinema's throat for the past five years - via sprawling superhero epics, origin stories, remakes and whatever is going on with the Halloween franchise - felt like it finally arrived in the world of TV.

1 min

The year that TikTok went weird

Trends, once created and T enforced by the culture press and celebrities, have grown into an ever-evolving, unpredictable beast with the rise of TikTok.

3 mins

THE YEAR THAT MUSIC BOOKS GOT NOSTALGIC FOR THE 'GOOD OLD DAYS'

The 2010s felt like my lucky years. I read the now-defunct Rookie Magazine run by Tavi Gevinson, a website and annual that used a diverse roster of girls to cover music and pop culture.

4 mins

THE YEAR THAT MISOGYNY WAS BACK IN FASHION

This time last year, very few people thought about Andrew Tate with any regularity if at all. Now, he's inescapable.

3 mins

FOOTBALL FINALLY CAME HOME

If you tuned into BBC One on the morning of 1 August, you'd have seen a team of young female footballers sporting all the signs of a heroic hangover for the ages.

2 mins

THE YEAR THAT NOTHING IN THE UK WORKED

This year, I realised I needed to learn T how to drive. I'd been made redundant during the pandemic, and a few months later was forced to leave my rental accommodation when my landlord decided to sell the house.

4 mins

THE YEAR THAT WE WENT ON STRIKE

While the French strike at the drop of a chapeau and love to kick W aristocratic heads up and down the Champs-Élysées, the English drink cups of tea and get on with things, or so the stereotypes go.

2 mins

WOMEN AGED INTO POP PUNK

We’re now nearly three years into the pop punk revival. During the pandemic, young people discovered the genre’s 90s and 00s hits on TikTok as they engaged in nostalgia for something they never lived through: the unselfconscious early internet world of the generation above them.

2 mins

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Rolling Stone UK Magazine Description:

For decades, Rolling Stone magazine has shaped the way generations of readers in the United States and beyond engage with music, entertainment and current affairs. The cultural phenomenon, founded by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph Gleason in San Francisco in 1967, has – without fear or favour – included “all the news that fits” and in so doing, built a reputation unparalleled within its sphere.

Now, the iconic, multi-platform media brand is published in the UK, by the team behind the much-loved, high-profile Attitude magazine, the UK and Europe’s best-selling LGBTQ title.