Rolling Stone’s 2008 Hot Issue spotlights acts like Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend (more on that here). For the next week, we’ll be taking a look at Hot Issue hits and misses from the past twenty-one years (because nobody’s cultural thermometer is accurate all the time).

Hit: We know we’ve been a little Radiohead crazy for the last week, but for good reason: In 1997, a mere two months after its release, we named the band’s OK Computer the Hot Album, a distinction that probably just about nails its eventual cultural impact. Think about what music would be like now without OK. There’d be no Coldplay, no Muse. No Coldplay jokes. The list goes on and on.

Miss: In 1995, we named Jennifer Trynin’s Cockamamie Hot Debut Album. If there were an award for Cold Sophomore Album, she’d probably win that too. Trynin never quite lived up to the “next Liz Phair” hype, but it wasn’t all her fault: In her well-received memoir Everything I’m Cracked Up To Be, Trynin places the blame on the music industry for her “two albums and out” career.

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• Hot Issue Hits and Misses: The Replacements and Wilson Phillips
• Hot Issue Hits and Misses: Coldplay and Enuff Z’Nuff
• Hot Issue Hits and Misses: The Killers and the Cooper Temple Clause

Kanye West wasn’t the only special guest at the Maroon 5 concert at Madison Square Garden last night. Sure they were on the bill, but an apperance by color-coordinated Swedish punk rockers the Hives is always cause for celebration. Tuesday night the five-piece debuted new matching suits and new songs from their forthcoming The Black and White Album at a smaller club, where charming (and limber) frontman Howlin’ Pele Almquvist dazzled the high-energy crowd with a never-ending series of leaps and rapid-fire witticisms. Backstage at MSG, though they were exhausted from recruiting 100,000 new fans in the last week — “Winston Churchill said it best … never before have the Hives done so much for so many,” Almqvist mused — the Hives took a break to tell Rock Daily about their experiences wowing the Adam Levine crowd with their blistering stage show and offer some instructions for aspiring rockers. Pele’s advice? “Don’t learn to sing.”

Peter Travers says Control, the Ian Curtis biopic (and first feature film by Anton Corbijn) gets everything right and star Sam Riley (who portrays the Joy Division frontman) nails his role. We Own the Night, a cop-family action drama that features Joaquin Phoenix and Mark Wahlberg was booed at Cannes, but Travers maintains it works as an action movie with an emotional core. Click above to watch his full review, plus clips from both films.

Read Travers’ review for Control here and We Own the Night here.

Rock Daily recently showed off some paintings by Bob Dylan that are on their way to a German exhibit. Curious about other rockers who produce visual art? Check out this photo gallery that features work by Rolling Stone Ron Wood (he’s the artist behind the painting featured above), Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, Captain Beefheart, David Bowie, Dee Dee Ramone, Pete Doherty (whose creations feature his own blood), and more.

Nothing prepared us mentally for the To Catch a Predator-like accusations made against former boy band bigwig Lou Pearlman in a recent article of Vanity Fair. Allegations from his former proteges of deviant massages and other inappropriate favors made it seem like the $300 million he embezzled from investors was the least of his crimes. But Pearlman has leapt to the defense of Pearlman in a recent jailhouse interview by Radar magazine. Pearlman paints all the former and wannabe boy banders that spoke in the VF piece — Phoenix Stone, Steve Mooney, Tim Christofore, and the mother of Aaron and Nick Carter — as a bunch of spiteful nobodies who had all unsuccessfully sued to sue the pop Svengali. In reponse to eerie tales of Pearlman wrestling with young boys while wearing only a towel, Pearlman says “T.J. [Christofore] is making up this story. He sued me in child labor court and lost.” And “insinuations” that potential singers give him sexual favors? “This situation never happened. It’s a shame [Mooney] is resorting to slander and can’t get on with his life.” We’ll try to keep our opinions to ourselves; that is, at least until Chris Hansen surprises Pearlman in some random kitchen on Dateline NBC.

Perhaps on a break from working with Michael Jackson, Kanye West stopped by Maroon 5’s gig at New York’s Madison Square Garden last night to duet with the quintet on his “Heard ‘Em Say” (the Late Registration track that featured backing vocals from M5 frontman Adam Levine). After telling the crowd to get on their feet for a “special friend,” Levine introduced West, who quickly owned the stage with a mix of the song’s original lyrics and some freestyling (if we heard correctly, he made another reference to his ongoing feud with MTV).

The rest of Maroon 5’s set was a solid mix of material from 2002’s Songs About Jane — including a tease of the White Stripes‘ “Icky Thump” at the end of “Shiver” — and high-energy versions of tracks from their spring release, It Won’t Be Soon Before Long. And even though he made an appearance at Justin Timberlake’s MSG show in February for some “Dick in a Box,” Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg sadly didn’t stop by for a rendition of “Iran So Far Away.”

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• Exclusive Video: The Boys of Maroon 5 Share the Love

Snoop Dogg is about to discover whether the acting experience he gained by starring in DJ Pooh’s cinematic classic The Wash can translate into real-life situations. Snoop was sentenced to 160 hours of community service, which somehow includes washing cars, after attempting to board an airplane with a “dangerous weapon” (a baton) in 2006. But it won’t be only six-plus days of “wax-on, wax-off” for the D-O-double-G. Snoop will also perform menial tasks like picking up litter, scrubbing toilets and raking leaves (which doesn’t sound that bad, considering L.A.’s lack of autumn). “He will be making the park a better place for Orange County,” Snoop lawyer Dennis Etra said of the unnamed O.C. park where the rapper will spend his judicial servitude. No word yet whether Wash co-star Dr. Dre will stop by to help polish off the army of 22” rims.

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You asked Pop Life columnist and Love is a Mix Tape author Rob Sheffield about his favorite dance songs, which TV sitcoms he’d love to re-air (Welcome Back, Kotter!)and who the most overrated and underrated bands are (watch out, Metallica fans). Click here to find out the Rolling Stone writer’s preferences (Paula Abdul or Britney Spears? Fave Bowie tracks? Artist who saved his life? Why does he love LCD Soundsystem?) and much more.

Get your typing fingers ready: Rock Daily is giving away one pair of GA tickets for next Wednesday, October 17th’s big Woody Guthrie tribute show at New York’s Webster Hall, with performances by Steve Earle, Billy Bragg and Brad (featuring Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard). Tim Robbins will be the evening’s host, and a bunch of surprise guests are expected. The show is a benefit for the Huntington’s Disease Society of America, which is dedicated to finding a cure for the disease that claimed Guthrie’s life. Check out our Stone Gossard interview about the concert here, and for more information on the show and the cause (and to buy tickets) check out hdsa.org.
If you want to get your hands on a pair of tickets, e-mail the answer to the following trivia question to guthriebenefit@rollingstone.com. (We will do a random drawing from all entries with the correct answer.) Include the e-mail address and phone number at which you prefer to be reached and we will contact you if you’ve won. Deadline for submissions is tomorrow (Friday) at 3 PM, and we will notify winners no later than noon on Monday the 15th.

The question:

Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land is Your Land” as a response to another song. What song was it?

Busta Rhymes tells Rock Daily he’s got something special cooking for his December 4th album Back on My BS: a song with Linkin Park called “It Looks Like We Made It” that’s produced by Cool and Dre. “It feels like Rocky won the fight or something,” he says of the triumphant track. “It reminds the people who are successful to go and help those that haven’t been so successful, and represent the unity between people. This song speaks volumes to the globe — it ain’t just about the ‘hood, it ain’t just about the suburbs, it’s about everybody. This is one of those songs that can’t be described better than touching the souls of the common people.”

Rhymes says Back on My BS will hearken back to the golden age of hip-hop, and that he picked out the title “because people haven’t seen the Busta Rhymes that they have grown to know and love.” “Not that they haven’t been getting the traditional party records, ’cause I always do that better than anything,” he clarified, “but the whole thing when I come out with the outfits, the hat, the coat.” So what does that mean for the LP? “I’m promising the same track record I always set for myself, which is the phenomenal collaborations that people don’t usually do before I do ‘em, to continue as a legacy,” he says, momentarily forgetting the Jay-Z/Linkin Park album Collision Course. (more…)