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Calle Hesslefors / ullstein bild via Getty Images The Writer Who Makes Perfect Sense of Classical Music
Alfred Brendel’s essays about Beethoven, Schubert, and many others are deeply relevant to performers and amateur listeners alike.
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Anne Marie Fox / HBO ‘The Music Is All About Surviving’: Inside the Sonic World of Sharp Objects
Susan Jacobs, the music supervisor of the HBO series, explains why Led Zeppelin became the protagonist’s voice of escape.
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Andrew Stuart What Seven Dave Grohls Have to Say
The Foo Fighters frontman positions himself as the inspirer of a new generation of rockers by playing all the instruments on his new project “Play.”
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Danny Moloshok / Reuters When the Reality of Addiction Meets the Fantasies of Pop Stardom
Demi Lovato’s long struggle with sobriety—and her transparency about it—complicates the expected celebrity narrative of “overcoming.”
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Rob Baker Ashton The Unlikely Harmony Between Iggy Pop and Underworld
Two musical giants collide in Teatime Dub Encounters to produce a fascinating dialogue between old-school rock and New Age electronic.
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Paul R. Giunta / Reuters David Byrne’s Joyful and Uncomfortable Reinvention of the Rock Concert
The Talking Heads singer’s “American Utopia” tour creates a new world—and forces audiences to reckon with a tragic reality.
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Mark Peckmezian The Heaviness of Robyn’s ‘Missing U’
The beloved singer’s first single in eight years reckons with loss—powerfully, and danceably.
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Ivar Wigan Popcaan Keeps Dancehall Moving Forward—With Its Roots Intact
The Jamaican singer talks about his new album, Forever, dedicating his work to women, and collaborating with artists across the African diaspora.
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Ethan Miller / Reuters Whitney Houston and the Persistent Perils of the Mainstream
Two films about the late music icon shine a light on the risks of expecting black artists to embody a palatable pop persona.
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Courtesy of The Armed Some Screaming Albums for Summertime
Savoring the sweetness amid the heavy noise of Birds in Row, Deafheaven, and The Armed
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Frank Franklin II / AP R. Kelly Is the Hero of His Own Disingenuous Epic
In the R&B singer’s new song, the 19-minute confessional “I Admit,” he devotes ample time to describing his own demons but precious little energy atoning for the harm he has wrought.
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Lionsgate Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal on Blindspotting and the Power of Poetry
The Hamilton actor and the Def Poetry alum, who co-wrote and star in a new film about two friends in Oakland, talk about hip hop, social injustice, and what it takes to heal collective wounds.
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Mario Anzuoni Chance the Rapper’s Rejection of Sanctimony
The Chicago star’s four new songs complicate and extend the savior narrative around him.
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Republic Records What Is Ariana Grande Doing?
In her first songs since the Manchester bombing, the singer has triumphed with a rare pop commodity: inscrutability.
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RT Design Studio / Shutterstock / Jamie McCarthy … The Gospel According to Pusha T
The artist raps about cocaine with effortless dexterity. But in lionizing the antics of the dealer, he fails to fully comprehend the life of an addict.
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Danny Moloshok / Reuters The Cathartic Symphony of Future’s Beast Mode 2
The long-awaited sequel to the rapper’s 2015 project with the superproducer Zaytoven finds the duo mining familiar territory—self-loathing, wealth, drug use—to nearly ecstatic effect.
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Mark Blinch / Reuters Why Drake Can’t Pull Off Being the ‘Good Guy’
Scorpion subtly invokes spirituality as the rapper moves into fatherhood, but he’s missing the bigger message.
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REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo Drake’s Scorpion, as Explained by an Astrologer and an Entomologist
Who better to analyze the beleaguered rapper’s 25-track double album?
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REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz Ty Dolla $ign Isn’t Just a Feature Artist, He’s a Star
The energy the singer brings to his collaborations is the same he carries into his own work: studied, versatile, contagious.
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Lucas Jackson What Classical Music Can Learn From Kanye West
Whether or not Ye was forward-thinking, the musicians behind the Yeethoven project want to bring two very different genres together.
