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MONTUSE / Dick Iacovello / Penguin Press Behind the Masterpiece: Van Morrison's Astral Weeks at 50
The album was conceived in the milieu of Timothy Leary, recorded with session musicians fresh off commercial-jingle gigs, and only gradually recognized as something like magic.
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Jeramy Gritter / RCA The Zanily Aging Rock Stars of the Aughts
Jack White and Julian Casablancas once championed stripped-down sounds, but their new albums are shaggy and strange.
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Courtesy 'Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.' Listening to M.I.A., Finally
The excellent documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. clarifies what the controversial pop star was fighting for all along.
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Jack McKain The Unsettling Familiarity of XXXTentacion
The rapper’s No. 1 album suggests that being accused of terrible things, even now, is no obstacle to fame.
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Guy D'Alema / FX Atlanta's Perfect Satire of the Music Industry in 2018
While aging rock stars attack the standard corporate villains, Donald Glover’s FX show sketches an ecosystem of exploitation.
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Holly Andres / Capitol Records The Decemberists' Shiny, Happy Protest Album
“There’s something therapeutic in looking at the apocalypse and laughing,” Colin Meloy says of the band’s I’ll Be Your Girl.
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Ingeborg Aarsand The Pointlessness and Promise of Art After Death
Mount Eerie's second grief-stricken album in a year is about “the transition from a living person into a memory,” its creator says.
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Eric Liebowitz / ABC The Zombie Cheer of the Revived American Idol
ABC has brought back the recently canceled Fox franchise, with Katy Perry rather than Simon Cowell anchoring the eerily upbeat affair.
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Drew Gurian / AP David Byrne Is Back With a Surreal Wakeup Call
American Utopia from the Talking Heads mastermind tunefully renders the familiar as strange and new.
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Allison Michael Orenstein The Musician Who Insists That Optimism Isn't Naïve
Joan As Police Woman’s new record embodies a message that runs through all of her work: Embracing joy can be transgressive.
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Aftermath Records How a Black Panther Music Video Taps Into an Old Trend
The short film for the song “All the Stars” embraces African imagery in a way not widely seen in hip hop or R&B since the ’80s and ’90s.
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Earwolf Why a Podcast About R.E.M. Is a Must-Listen
Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott’s newly launched R U Talkin’ R.E.M. Re: Me? is as hilarious, passionate, and tangent-filled as their other work in the medium.
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Pool / Reuters A Rock Star Is Born at the Closing Ceremony
A 13-year-old guitar shredder and a South Korean metal band were the highlights of a thrilling Olympic finale.
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Young Money Entertainment/Cash Money Records Drake and the Strange Spectacle of Charity
The rapper’s charming “God’s Plan” video shows him donating a million dollars around Miami—and earning something for himself.
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Herb Snitzer / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty The Prowess of Nina Simone’s Early Records
What the artist's early singles—made before she was famous, and newly released—reveal about the legend she'd become
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Disney The Song of Killmonger
The ideological conflict in Black Panther animates not only Kendrick Lamar’s soundtrack for the movie, but also the artist’s whole ethos.
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Theo Wargo / Getty Is Dashboard Confessional Still Emo?
Two Atlantic writers discuss the new album, Crooked Shadows, and how the band’s sound has evolved since its eight-year hiatus.
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Andrew Lipovsky / NBC Jimmy Fallon Tells Trump the Times Are a-Changin'
The Tonight Show host followed the Super Bowl with a Bob Dylan rewrite touching on #MeToo, fake news, and Colin Kaepernick.
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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters Justin Timberlake's Anti-Spectacular Super Bowl
The pop star’s underachievement came off all the weaker with a tribute to the perfectionist Prince.
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Lucas Jackson / Reuters Exploring Rihanna's Weird Disco Sculpture Garden
The best Grammys moment fused “Soul Train + Cuban + New African dance styles + ’70s disco + Bob Fosse,” director Philippa Price says.
