The Ultimate Mother's Day Playlist

May 6, 10:40 AM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

The annals of rock & roll folklore are full of tough mothers, evil mothers, motorcycle mamas, mothers of invention. Although stars love to get sentimental over their mamas, there’s something special about the fearsome, badass maternal figures of rock & roll – whether it’s LL Cool J’s mama telling him to knock you out, or Rosalita’s mama chasing Bruce Springsteen off the porch with a broom. So here’s a few of our favorite mom songs.

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Goodbye, Michael Scott: Steve Carell Has Left the Building

April 29, 2:35 PM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

Farewell Michael Scott, and thanks for the already-traumatic memories. It was a historic episode last night for The Office, as Steve Carell's bumbling boss left Dunder Mifflin for the last time, offending everyone in the office one last time on his way out. As Dwight put it, "I've given up expecting Michael to do the right thing, or the decent thing, or even the comprehensible thing." But seeing Michael throw out his World's Best Boss mug — the one he had to buy himself — it was like Prospero breaking his wand at the end of The Tempest.

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'Game of Thrones' Is a Genius Fantasy Saga — and Not Just for Geeks

April 28, 1:20 PM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

Admit it: You were counting on Game of Thrones for at least one centaur orgy. Maybe involving a fair maiden or two from the darkest depths of Mordor. But that's the brilliant twist of HBO's smash fantasy saga: It's designed to appeal to those of us who hate fantasy sagas. No centaurs, no wizards, no unicorns. Instead, it sticks to the timeless combo of breasts and beheadings. The ratio is approximately six severed heads per nipple — in fact, we get a heap of dismembered corpses in the first scene. The way Game of Thrones spins human history, people were sick bastards back then — which is why this world looks so familiar. Read the full story here.

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Aerosmith's Best Deep Cuts

April 27, 9:00 AM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

How have Aerosmith managed to stay together this long? "It's very easy," Steven Tyler told me in 2001, with Joe Perry sitting right next to him. "The worst part of Joe is that he's a fucking asshole. It ends there. And by the way, no more of one than I've ever doubled him on. So what's the big deal?" Well put, sir! So don't worry too much about American Idol ripping the Aerosmith guys apart. It's been tried. Whether it's drugs, groupies, diseases, detox or motorcycles, nothing has ever been able to kill the strange chemistry between these five famously combative personalities.

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Don't Blame Katie Couric

April 11, 3:00 PM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

Katie's gone, but as the late, great Richard Manuel used to sing with the Band, Katie's been gone for such a long time now. Ever since she took over the CBS Evening News almost five years ago, everybody has been predicting her imminent departure. She was hired to do the completely impossible: breathe new life into the chain-smoking dinosaur that is the network evening news, which coughs up a little blood in your living room every night at 6:30. It was obvious right away that Couric couldn't save the format, but she didn't do anything wrong. It was the job that was screwed up. Read the full story here.

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Charlie Sheen Rallies on Second Night in NYC

April 11, 12:39 PM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

The best part of Charlie Sheen's show last night? If not his whole life? When a fan wandered up to the stage and handed him a backstage laminate for the Rush concert. Charlie was psyched. "I fucking love Rush! Not Rush Limbaugh! Not the sex drug! Rush the band!" It made one wonder: what would Rush make of Charlie Sheen? Does he choose Free Will? Is he an oak or a maple? Is he a wild man standing tall against the CBS Priests of the Temple of Syrinx? Or does he really just want to return to the sitcom limelight, with all its glittering prizes and endless compromises?

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How Radiohead Keep Everybody Guessing

April 8, 6:14 PM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

Radiohead released a CD last week, and nobody really cared. You have to admit, that doesn't happen often. They already released The King of Limbs last month as a digital dump, and got the most baffled reactions of their baffling career. The songs were pretty good — they're Radiohead songs, you know? — but fans were puzzled by how the whole thing felt like a deliberate non-event. After mastering the art of packaging every new album as a major breakthrough, Radiohead made sure nobody would hear this one as any kind of big deal. It's like Abed told Jeff on Community: "Everyone else is growing and changing all the time, and that's not really my jam."

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LCD Soundsystem Pull Out the Stops for Epic Farewell Show

April 4, 9:03 AM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

"This is a very weird experience for us," James Murphy told the crowd. "We hope it will be a very weird experience for everybody." It was. LCD Soundsystem blew out the... | More »

The 15 Baseball Songs Better than 'Centerfield'

April 1, 8:15 AM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

It's a brand new baseball season, and you know what that means: the roar of the crowd, the smell of popcorn and the sound of yet another stadium DJ cranking up Jo... | More »

Steven Tyler, the Savior of 'American Idol'

March 28, 4:35 PM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

Oh, Steven Tyler, how could we all have doubted you? As soon as the news broke that the notoriously motormouthed Aerosmith stud was taking over the judges' panel ... | More »

Why Rebecca Black is a Demon-Wizard Child Piper

March 18, 9:09 AM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

1. It’s only been a week since Rebecca Black became a YouTube sensation with “Friday,” but the song remains full of mysteries. Who is Rebecca Black... | More »

Pub-Crawl Playlist

March 17, 11:50 AM ET

| By Rob Sheffield

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, let us raise a dirty glass to the spirit of Irish music, wherever in the world it shows up. And like the Irish people themselves, I... | More »