Stacia L. Brown –

Nick Cave has been singing about mortality for decades, and he's really good at it. Whether the narratives are biblical or pulpy, the victims innocents or death row convicts, the circumstances comprehensible or cruelly random, Cave's songs are on intimate terms with the infinite ways a life can be extinguished. And yet, "Skeleton Tree", his latest album with his estimable band, the Bad Seeds, is a relatively concise song cycle shadowed by death that feels different than all the rest. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/music/kot/sc-music-nick-cave-skeleton-tree-ent-0916-20160916-column.html" target="_blank">Read the full review.</a>

It’s long past time for ‘Jane the Virgin’ to let its titular character have sex

June 10, 2018 at 4:24 p.m.

In the second season finale of "Jane the Virgin," there's a scene that calls back to the show's pilot, in which Jane Villanueva (Gina Rodriguez) and her fiancé Michael Cordero...

What ‘Ghostbusters’ critics don’t get about Leslie Jones’ comedy

June 9, 2018 at 12:20 a.m.

If you search YouTube for footage of Leslie Jones, you'll find clips of a lanky slender young woman with long straight hair curled to frame her face. She's telling semi-polite...

Michael Buble performs during the 83rd Annual Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony on Dec. 2, 2015, in New York.

The waning popularity of the Christmas pop music special

June 16, 2018 at 9:03 a.m.

It's late December, which means the season for televised holiday specials is drawing to a close. This year, amid annual staples such as "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's a...

Fans line up outside Royal Farms Arena before Prince's Baltimore concert on May 10.

In Baltimore, Prince sets an agenda for change

June 15, 2018 at 6:00 p.m.

Baltimore can be a greedy city. I remembered that Sunday night at the Royal Farms Arena, after Prince had given the third encore of his Rally 4 Peace concert. Admittedly,...

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