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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Desire, I Want to Turn Into You was recorded during a time when many were emerging from pandemic isolation, and, intentionally or not, it taps into the upheaval and disorientation we've lived through.
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Columbia Records' new release provides an extensive look at Dylan's 1997's Grammy-winning album. This package of five CDs offer a wealth of new ways to experience some of Dylan's most moving music.
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Virginia-based musician James Goodson — aka Dazy — sings most often in a voice that's high and urgent. His version of power pop is noisy, ragged, full of feedback and clatter — and irresistible.
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SZA sings and raps fluidly on her latest album, which features frequent medium tempos and romantic imagery that harken back to Luther Vandross, Minnie Riperton and the "Quiet Storm" era of 1980s R&B.
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Beyoncé's album Renaissance celebrates disco rhythms and club culture, while the self-titled album by the Isle of Wight duo Wet Leg features intense, punk-influenced pop.
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After a decade, Caitlin Rose is "Getting It Right." Weyes Blood's "It's Not Just Me, It's Everybody" is an ethereal ballad. And Carly Rae Jepsen and Rufus Wainwright duet in "The Loneliest Time."
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Lewis came up in rock, but proved his country chops on the 1968 album Another Place, Another Time. The music suited his piano style, and the lyrics fit the emotions he brought to every performance.
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Swift's new album, which chronicles 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout her life, includes a bracing amount of clear-headed thoughts about love and life as a pop star.
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McBryde mixes passionate music with novelistic details on a concept album about the inhabitants of a small rural town, named after the songwriter Dennis Linde.
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Reed died in 2013. A new collection, recorded in 1965, captures the earliest-known versions of some of the Velvet Underground's best known songs, including "Heroin" and "Pale Blue Eyes."
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Best known for novelty songs like "King of the Road," Miller was also a serious songwriter who wrote ballads for artists such as Ray Price. Miller's '70 album A Trip in the Country is newly available.
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The singer-songwriter is known for his intensely autobiographical writing. When Wainwright turned 75 recently, he decided to make an album about trying — and mostly failing — to age gracefully.