Blog Posts by Brian Hiatt

Steve Jobs came out of a Sixties rock and roll ethos, which is
fascinating.That's the big story. If you asked in the Eighties,
"Who is going to invent the 21st century," you'd probably have thought the
Japanese or maybe the British or the Germans. No, it was sandal-wearing,
anarchic music-lovers from California. And that is f**king great.

In the Sixties, bands from the Bay Area felt they were going to change the
world, but they didn't. They changed my world, they changed your world, but they
didn't change the world. Before that happened, they disappeared, like
so many of us do, up their own rectum - drugs and the vicissitudes took their
toll.

However, the next generation really did change the world. The people who
invented the 21st century had their consciousness shaped by music and by
powerful rock and roll music, and it's not just Steve Jobs, it was Paul Allen,
it was lots of people. I once put this to Bill Gates, I said, "I know you
probably didn't listen to Jimi Hendrix," and Bill

As Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison dug through their archives to assemble the Beatles Anthology documentary in the mid-Nineties, Harrison made a private vow to his wife, Olivia: "One day, I'll do my own anthology." The ex-Beatle, who died in 2001, never got the chance, but his wife made sure his wish came true in grand fashion. In October, HBO will debut Martin Scorsese's two-part documentary, George Harrison: Living in a Material World - and Olivia has compiled a lavish companion book packed with unseen photos and diary entries. "I'm fairly awed by what Marty has put together," says Olivia. "It's a story that truly captures the essence of George."

The project had its start in 2005, when Olivia attended the London premiere of Scorsese's Bob Dylan documentary, No Direction Home. She shared her hope for a similar movie about her husband with the film's producer, Nigel Sinclair. After discussing possible directors for months, the pair "delicately approached" Scorsese. "To

After U2 clattered through a sped-up, revamped version of "Magnificent" at the kickoff of the final leg of their 360° Tour, Bono smiled and offered an apology to the Denver crowd: "It's in development, that one," he said of a song they've played more than 100 times over the past two years. With 7 million fans in attendance, the 360° Tour is the most successful of all time, beating the Rolling Stones' record with a $700 million gross. But with fewer than 20 dates to go, the band still considers it a work in progress. "We'd like to get it to the place that we want it to be," says the Edge. "The final one or two shows, I'm sure, is where we'll fully realize the 360° Tour. This show is still being born, even if it's two years in."

After the band flies to Vegas following the Denver show, Bono dashes over to an elliptical machine set up in his hotel room and gives it a little hug: "Hi, honey, I'm home," he says, cackling. He feels lucky to be able to work out-and to walk without a limp, for

At the turn of the century, Jack White was thinking hard about the blues. "A hundred years had passed since the beginning of it," White says, "and it was an illusion in my head at that moment that on a very small level, there was a new blues emerging in the scene we were from. That was enough to compel me to keep going - but I had no illusions about the mainstream ever thinking it was interesting."

Jack White on Jack White: Rolling Stone's 2005 Cover Story

As it turned out, White's vision was exactly what rock & roll needed. With the homespun, stripped-to-its-skeleton minimalism of the White Stripes, he found a way to plug the music back into the folk and blues roots that fed the Stones, Zeppelin and Bob Dylan - and make it sound cool again in the process. "Anything I do is 1,000 percent the blues - that word is synonymous with the truth to me," says White. "I could play outdoor blues festivals and do that note-pushing Stratocaster white-blues bullshit for the next 30 years. But that's