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Kemosabe Records Kesha's Comeback Message: Love Your Enemy
Her new ballad announces she’s moving on after alleging abuse by her producer—but it is also, inevitably, tied to that producer.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters The Summer of Cornball Superproducers
New albums from DJ Khaled and Calvin Harris represent the industrial consolidation of hitmaking—and suggest that kitsch is in.
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AP / Gerald Herbert Jay-Z's Pitch for Generational Wealth
His new album 4:44 has a confessional thread, but it pushes a deeper message about commerce and racial progress.
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Wilson Webb / TriStar Pictures Baby Driver Is a Tribute to the Magic of the Earbud
Edgar Wright’s car-chase caper explores the wonders—and the dangers—of everyone having their own soundtrack.
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Amy Harris / AP What Jeff Tweedy Has Been Trying to Say
The acoustic album Together at Last spotlights the Wilco singer’s knack for communicating about communication.
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4AD A Musical Voyage Through the Solar System, Darkly
Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, and James McAlister’s bombastic Planetarium uses outer space to consider human folly.
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Vince Bucci/Invision/AP Bob Dylan’s Nobel Lecture Says the Unsayable
He describes great literature at length both to explain his songs and to show why they’re beyond explanation.
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Reuters / Handout photo Ariana Grande Returns to Manchester, With Allies
The pop star’s benefit concert came with a message of unity—but also a display of resilience and formidable security.
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Chris Deverell / Moogfest Talib Kweli: Getting By in the Age of Donald Trump
The sharp-edged rapper explains why the new president is old hat for him, talks about life as an indie artist, and offers a prediction about his sometime partner Mos Def’s “retirement.”
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Chris Pizzello / AP The Ideology of an Ariana Grande Concert
Her career of female self-determination demonstrates the rights of religion, sexuality, and expression that much terrorism seeks to undo.
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Andrew Yates / Reuters The Horror of an Attack Targeting Young Women
The reported suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester was aimed at preteen and teenage girls enjoying one of the best nights of their lives.
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DJ Spooky / The John F. Kennedy Center … Why Remix The Birth of a Nation?
A live multimedia performance by the musician DJ Spooky considers the 1915 silent film’s legacy as a pioneering document in alternative facts.
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Chris Pizzello / AP Celine Dion Saved the Billboard Music Awards
Singing “My Heart Will Go On” for its 20th anniversary, Dion interrupted the show’s mediocrity and cemented her status as a symbol of perseverance.
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Lynne Sladky / AP ‘Despacito’ and the Revenge of Reggaeton
The first Spanish-language U.S. No. 1 hit since “Macarena” sees Justin Bieber jumping on a music style of fraught racial lineage in Latin America.
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Shinko Music / Getty How the Beatles Wrote ‘A Day in the Life’
Fifty years after its release, the sprawling closing track on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band remains a testament to the group’s ambitious songwriting.
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Dennis Van Tine / STAR MAX / AP Harry Styles Dons the Costume of Classic Rock
The One Direction singer’s solo debut is earning him new respect for a dutiful nostalgia trip.
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Ebru Yildiz / PolyVinyl Records The Depressingly Familiar Allegations Against PWR BTTM
The duo were building a career by subverting rock and roll tropes—and then were accused of fulfilling one of the darkest ones.
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Matt Sayles / AP What Protest Songs Sound Like in the Trump Era
The first 100 days of the new administration have seen a boom in political music—though not all of it has invoked the president's name.
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Marc Mueller / AP Nick Cave Is Still Looking for Redemption
The musician's new compilation album Lovely Creatures reveals a longstanding fascination with fables of doom and salvation.
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Columbia Records Haim Returns With Old Charms—and New Gloss
“Want You Back” sees the rock trio as complex and tuneful as before, but there’s a new, not entirely welcome, layer of production.
