Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker reviews rock, country, hip-hop and pop music for Fresh Air. He is a cultural critic who has been the editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a film critic for New York Magazine. His work has won two National Magazine Awards and two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. He has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and other publications.
Tucker is the author of Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate About Television.
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Best known for her roles in films like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider, Black, who died in 2013, also recorded music in the 1970s. A new album highlights some of her strongest work.
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Critic Ken Tucker compiled his list of 2021 summer songs while traveling on vacation. His picks are "Brutal," by Olivia Rodrigo; "Transparent Soul," by Willow; and "Be Sweet," by Japanese Breakfast.
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Six years before his death in 2016, Prince recorded — but did not release — Welcome 2 America. Who knows why Prince opted to hide it away in 2010; this album's sound is very much of-the-moment.
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The Murlocs are a side project of sorts to King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, where Ambrose Kenny-Smith and guitarist Cook Craig join other musicians to amalgamate all different styles of pop.
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It's a quandary many musicians face: Create material that explores new territory or give variations of the same? Tom Jones, Jackson Browne and John Mayer each answer that question in new releases.
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Chrissie Hynde sings Bob Dylan and Shannon McNally performs songs associated with country singer Waylon Jennings. They both use the structures the men built to create their own rich emotional spaces.
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Russell cut her new album in a scant four days, pouring a lifetime of experiences into it. Outside Child is the confession of a woman who's faced hellish experiences and emerged with uncommon grace.
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For her second solo album, Kennedy's array of diverse songs — from thumping electronica to full-throated crooning — shows us she won't be pinned down
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Blanton describes many of the songs on her new album as "anti-fascist anthems." Critic Ken Tucker says Love & Rage doesn't sound like typical protest music — which makes it all the more effective.
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King made some recordings in the 1970s, but then quit the music business to raise her children. Now in her late 70s, she's released her first full-length solo album: Living in the Last Days.
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Baker supplies nearly all of the guitars, drums, synthesizers, banjo, and mandolin on her new album. It's a confessional and frequently beautiful record about mental distress and addiction.
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The country singer spent more than a decade in Nashville before her first record broke through in 2020. Now she's adding five new songs in an expanded version of that album called, Living The Dream.