This exclusive podcast from Rolling Stone tells the stories behind the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time." Hosts Brittany Spanos and Rob Sheffield dissect Rolling Stone's iconic list and explore the magic and mythology behind the songs on this in-depth new series. From classics like Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” to The Ronettes' “Be My Baby,” and modern-era hits like The Killers' “Mr. Brightside,” and Britney Spears' “...Baby One More Time," we talk to artists and insiders about what makes these the...

Music icon Paul Anka and business visionary Skip Bronson are dear friends, and together they boast two of the greatest Rolodexes in Hollywood. Now they're inviting their famous friends to sit down for intimate chats about their lives and work. You'll get to know icons of film, music, television, sports and technology in a whole new way. Listen to Our way with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Listen here and subscribe to Our Way with Paul...

After a wild two-month tear through North America, the Stones play the last gig of the STP tour at NYC's Madison Square Garden. Their entourage work overtime to ensure that it's the craziest rock show to ever hit the Big Apple. After their final bows, the band is exhausted. What's more, they're disheartened by the overly glitzy showbiz crowd that turns up at their tour wrap party, which doubles as Jagger's 29th birthday. As they come to grips with aging, they also grapple with their gradual...

The Stones organization is rocked to its core when terrorists bomb one of the band's equipment vans in Montreal. The STP squad are relieved to make it out of Canada alive, but they soon discover that their problems are just beginning. The flight to Boston for that night's concert is diverted to Rhode Island due to bad weather. Already late, Mick and Keith get arrested at the airport after a scuffle with a photographer. With 18,000 rowdy fans ready and waiting at the Boston Garden, a riot...

The STP tour has hit the midway point, and the Stones & Co struggle to stave off boredom and madness as a result of the destabilizing daily grind. Some blow off steam by deconstructing their hotel rooms, while others get lost in gratuitous sex. Drugs are a frequent refuge, which wreaks havoc on the physical and mental health of many. The tour starts to seem like a cult, with members feeling increasingly isolated from the world outside and everyday reality in general. With tempers...

So far over the course of this series, we've examined the madness and socio-political movements that made the Rolling Stones' 1972 North American tour a singular moment in pop culture. But very little attention has been paid to the music — especially the album that the Stones were on the road to promote: their moody double disc epic 'Exile on Main St.' To remedy this, host Jordan Runtagh and executive producer/co-composer Noel Brown sit down with legendary Georgia-based record maker David...

The Rolling Stones' gigs in Texas are hampered by the arrival of Truman Capote, who makes it clear that covering a rock 'n' roll road tour as a mere journalist is beneath him. The intrusion of the snobbish author and his entourage of Upper East Side Manhattan socialites (including Jackie Kennedy Onassis' sister) cramps the band's style, but they put up with it in hopes of crossing over into a different strata of social acceptance — until Keith finally snaps. Moving through the Deep South, the...

The Stones accept Hugh Hefner's offer to stay at his palatial pleasure dome, delighting some members of the STP squad and offending others. It's a counter-culture clash between two generations of social rebels, as the two camps try to find common ground amid differing views of drug use and misogyny. The invitation forces the band to confront the fact that they aren't young punks anymore, but drifting ever closer to the middle-of-the-road — and middle age. Naturally the Stones take full...

The Stones return to LA, the rockbiz capital where illusion is an industry and nothing is quite what it seems. Immediately prior to the Stones' gig at the Palladium, an unhinged Satanist appears at the stage door, claiming to be the band's dead guitarist Brian Jones. The unsettling apparition reminds the band of the high cost of their profession, and all that they left behind to make it atop the rock mountain. Later, a long night in a Hollywood Hills haunted house reminds one key member of...

Chris O'Dell has been called the Zelig of rock 'n' roll. After getting her start working at the Beatles' London offices in 1968, she became a trusted confidant of practically every major artist of the '70s. George Harrison, her one time boss, immortalized her in the song "Miss O’Dell.” Leon Russell wooed her by writing “Pisces Apple Lady” in her honor. She's the "woman down the hall" in Joni Mitchell's "Coyote" and was pictured on the back cover of the Stones' Exile on Main Street. More than...

The Stones enjoy a night on the town to distract themselves from fears that the Hell's Angels are plotting to assassinate Mick Jagger as revenge for the disaster at Altamont. While the band blows off steam and revels in the royal treatment, the STP support squad struggle to navigate the peculiar politics of being perpetually fame-adjacent. As they scramble to maintain their place in the tour pecking order, they simultaneously strive to take every precaution against nefarious plots. The Stones...

The Rolling Stones touch down in San Francisco to play their first gig in the Bay Area since their disastrous concert at the Altamont Speedway three years earlier — when they'd inadvertently provided the soundtrack to a murder. Their arrival forces them to revisit that awful day when members of the Hells Angels, supposedly acting as security, stab 18-year-old Meredith Hunter to death in the middle of the band's set. The Stones hope these new gigs will serve as an apology to the hippest music...

After millions of dollars and months of preparation, the biggest production in rock is now off and running — sort of. In truth, they’ve already hit some snags. A logistical snafu means they have no way to fly to their first tour stop in Canada, where they’re expected to perform in a matter of hours. Keith Richards has relapsed following his recent detox, and his personal pharmacy makes traveling through border control a stressful nightmare. An international incident of one kind of another...

After fleeing France to avoid jail time resulting from Keith Richards' gargantuan drug purchases, the Rolling Stones settle in Los Angeles in the fall of 1971. There they race the clock to finish their new album before their summer tour is due to kick off. The progress is delayed by their perfectionist streak, a blizzard of cocaine, and Keith's ever-worsening heroin addiction. As the band struggles, preparations are made for the biggest rock 'n' roll roadshow the world has ever seen — and...

At the dawn of the ‘70s, The Rolling Stones discover they’re broke. After resettling in Southern France as a tax dodge, the band begin sessions for what would become their gritty masterpiece, Exile on Main Street, in the sweltering basement of Keith Richards’ seaside mansion, Villa Nellcote. The notorious (possibly) Nazi-haunted home played host to the most debauched parties of all time, multi-day binges that drew a who’s-who of rock royalty. But Keith’s heroin relapse derails the sessions...

The Rolling Stones’ 1972 US tour wasn’t merely the biggest musical event of the year; it redefined the modern rock tour as we know it, both in spectacle and debauchery… and risk. This was the band’s first trip to the States since the deadly disaster at Altamont in ’69. The bruise left by that show put a target on the bands’ back—particularly Mick Jagger—who became the pariah not only for conservative America, but the Hell’s Angels as well. As the World’s Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band swept...

Featuring unheard Rolling Stones interviews from 1972, Stones Touring Party is an all-access pass to the wildest tour in rock history — fraught with drug busts, bombs, death threats and debauchery. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.