Rock's Backpages

For people who love the back story almost as much as the music, Rock's Backpages is an all too tempting place to idle. Set up by well known music writer Barney Hoskyns, it's an ever- expanding archive of 50 years' worth of writing about rock 'n roll. There are 12,000+ interviews, reviews and feature stories from hundreds of journalists, taken from magazines including Rolling Stone, Creem, NME and Mojo.

The site is subscription-based; to get full access you need to subscribe ($US60 / Â£30 for a year). But each week there is a selection of free material.

Often there's often a focus on a single act. Even if you never liked a particular band, the perspective is fascinating. Recently the slo-mo train crash of Guns N' Roses' career unfolded through five stories from a 15 year period. Cocky ambition, bitter enmity, self-destruction, $11 million+ on a still unreleased album, reclusive paranoia? All present - and accounted for. It's rock archeology.

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