The 5 hardest questions in pop music
It's a cruel world. Here's why being a virtuous music listener feels harder than ever. Whenever a teacher or professor invites me to their class to speak about my work...
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You can love ‘mumble rap’ and Eminem
The year of mumble rap was rough on pedantic grumps who use the term "mumble rap" -- a pejorative hurled at young artists who smudge their rhymes with melody. But...
Country artists have the ear of American gun culture. They need to speak up.
Country music aspires to tell the story of real life in America, but American life continues to feel unreal. On Monday morning, our nation awoke to news that more than...
Can a pop song prepare us for the end of the world?
When we were still innocent babes, pop songs prepared us for the things that couldn't be prepared for. Sex. Heartbreak. Nuclear annihilation. Prince's "1999" urged us to get ready for...
Still think today’s country music sounds fake? Get real
The year's best country album comes from Maren Morris, and if the trophy gods deliver justice at the 50th annual CMA Awards on Wednesday, she'll win a prize for it....
Kanye West is still the strongest force in pop music
"I just wanna feel liberated!" That's what Kanye West was singing as he floated over the crowd at Washington's Verizon Center on Thursday night. Perhaps your jaw was too slack...
Drake started from the bottom, now he’s insufferable
When did so much Drake become too much Drake? If we need to pinpoint the exact moment when the biggest rapper civilization has ever known finally tipped over into the...
Kurt Cobain’s demos and the ethics of posthumous pop music
It's an unexpected feeling when a Beatles song ties a knot in your stomach, but listen to Kurt Cobain covering "And I Love Her" and you'll start to feel one...
After ‘Can’t Feel My Face,’ can the Weeknd get any higher?
The feel-good song of the summer is a song about feeling so good, it becomes difficult to feel anything at all. Or, from a less imaginative perspective, it's about negotiating...
Is Prince the best person who has ever done this whole music thing?
With the digital universe continuously crying out for our exponentially divided attention, we are living in hyperbolic times. So it's good to be reminded what The Best Thing Ever truly...