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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters Justin Timberlake's Manly Prance Through the Woods
Here’s hoping the singer’s Super Bowl show blends rootsiness and rhythm more effectively than his new album does.
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Matt Sayles / AP The Obstacles for Women Who 'Step Up' in Music
The Recording Academy’s president suggested a lack of female ambition explains the gender gap at the Grammys. The stories of #MeToo provide a different explanation.
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Matt Sayles / AP The Grammys Paid Lip Service to the Now
Bruno Mars’s retro pop swept the big categories after a night of blazing performances and of-the-moment causes.
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Matt Sayles / AP The Pain in Kesha's #MeToo Grammys Song
The singer’s performance of “Praying” made a powerful comment on the current moment. But as a rallying tune, it’s a surprising one.
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Matt Sayles / AP Kendrick Lamar Opens the Grammys With Rage
In a medley featuring U2 and Dave Chappelle, the rapper gave a stark, spellbinding airing of anger and pride.
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Andy Kropa / Getty Images How They Might Be Giants Changes While Staying the Same
The alt-rock band—which just released its newest album, I Like Fun—has endured for 36 years by appealing across generations and musical tastes.
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Charles Sykes / AP Grammys Preview: In With the New, Finally?
With rap and R&B vaulting to the U.S.’s most popular genre and online voting allowed, Sunday’s ceremony will honor an unusually diverse slate.
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Annette Lee / Beggars Group A 'White Woman's Voice' Interrogates Itself
The experimental pop singer Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards intensifies her politics and dance grooves for i can feel you creep into my private life.
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Tim Mosenfelder / Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty … When Pop Culture Sells Dangerous Myths About Romance
Entertainment glorifying or excusing predatory male behavior is everywhere—from songs about “blurred lines” to TV shows where rapists marry their victims.
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Fred Thornhill / Reuters Camila Cabello, Pop's Understated New Star
The Fifth Harmony ex-member’s solo debut reconciles singalong fun with the hazy, reserved mood that has ruled the charts lately.
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Jose Luis Magana / AP The Trump Protest-Song Boom, in the Eye of History
Pop is now as political as it was in the ’60s, the author Dorian Lynskey says.
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LGI Stock / Getty Images The Pop Innovations of a 50-Year-Old Soundtrack
The Graduate’s use of folk-rock songs by Simon and Garfunkel stood in for a generation’s reaction to the status quo.
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Jimmy King / HBO Remembering the Normcore David Bowie
HBO’s The Last Five Years examines how the star unraveled—and recemented—his own legend in his final phase.
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RCA Justin Timberlake Is Bringing Sexy Robots Back
“Filthy” is a sci-fi curveball of a comeback single for the Super Bowl performer—but also a weirdly familiar one.
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Carlos Osorio / AP Eminem and 2017's Many-Splendored Protest Songs
The rapper’s attempts to troll Donald Trump come at the end of a year of political pop, some of it as clunky as his.
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Katie Martin / Emily Jane / The Atlantic 33 Great Songs of 2017
Cuts from LCD Soundsystem, Jay-Z, and more
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Reuters Bon Jovi and Nina Simone, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers at Last
The Cars, Dire Straits, the Moody Blues, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe also made it in a less-than-forward-looking induction class.
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Dylan Martinez / Reuters 2017 in Pop: Revenge of the Strummer Boy
Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber’s followers, and the One Direction diaspora succeeded with PG, easy-listening pop.
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The 10 Best Albums of 2017
Top picks from a year of personal stories, protest songs, and escapism
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Bruce Fleming / Getty Hearing Otis Redding’s 'Try a Little Tenderness' as a Song of Resistance
The quiet, revolutionary power of one of the soul-music legend’s biggest hits, 50 years after his death
