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Sony Ricki and the Flash Is a Soft Rock Surprise
Meryl Streep stars as a troubled musician in a strangely gentle family-reconciliation dramedy.
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OVO Drake, Taylor Swift, and the Triumph of the Fake
The least relevant criticism someone can make of a superstar is that they’re not self-made.
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Matthew Greeley The Joy of Angst
Titus Andronicus’s The Most Lamentable Tragedy makes a wrenching personal struggle sound triumphant.
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Joel Ryan / AP Why Drake Replied
On “Back to Back Freestyle” and “Charged Up,” the rapper forgoes the high road in his beef with Meek Mill.
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Warner Bros. Nashville Ashley Monroe’s The Blade: Sharp and Sweet
The country singer’s follow-up to 2013’s Like a Rose is a confident layering of whiskey-soaked angst and lyrical contentment.
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Matt Sayles / AP Taylor Swift and the Silencing of Nicki Minaj
One star uses the pretext of female solidarity to try and shut down another’s frustration with the music industry.
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dBpm Records Wilco's Star Wars Is a Random Act of Love
A strange, small gift of an album for a strange, vast universe
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Interscope Time Traveling With Tame Impala
The new album Currents raids psychedelic music history to make a strangely powerful philosophical point.
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Carlo Allegri / Reuters Demi Lovato’s ‘Cool for the Summer’: The Next Great Gay Anthem?
It’s the anti-‘I Kissed a Girl,’ which is a good thing.
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Stephen Chernin / AP The Legacy of Live Aid, 30 Years Later
The 1985 all-star benefit concert gave rise to the trend of high-profile, celebrity-endorsed charitable efforts, and changed the nature of fundraising in the process.
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JoJo Whilden / Netflix Runaways and Creeps: The Week in Pop-Culture Writing
Highlights from seven days of reading about entertainment
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Bob Daugherty / AP Did Rock and Roll Pacify America?
In 1964, an Atlantic writer argued that the new youth sound was anything but revolutionary.
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Joel Ryan / AP The Elemental Power of Songs About the Weather
Pop music might overuse sunny skies and rainy days. But it’s also the artform most suited for making the natural world seem alive.
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Alex Gallardo / AP Lil Wayne in Love
Free Weezy Album at first seems like pure swagger. But then you realize what’s really on the rapper’s mind.
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Roc Nation ‘BBHMM’: Rihanna's New Video Does Exactly What It's Supposed To
The singer’s violent revenge fantasy was intended to provoke outrage, and to get people to talk about her. It succeeds on both counts.
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Reuters The High Stakes of Singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’
Twenty-five years ago, Roseanne Barr sparked national fury when she delivered an off-key rendition in San Diego. But the reasons behind outrage and praise for various interpretations have as much to do with politics as musical talent.
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Denis Balibouse / Reuters In Praise of the Unhinged Protest Song
New albums from Neil Young and Desaparecidos show the difference between music that takes apathy for granted and music that doesn’t.
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Blake Sell / Reuters How James Horner Moved Filmgoers
The Titanic soundtrack defined a movie-scoring career filled with distinctive sounds and universal emotions.
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L.E. Baskow / Reuters Taylor Swift Almighty
She just got Apple to change course on streaming royalties. Is she the most powerful person in music?
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The Atlantic When Words Sold Music
The strange, conversational language of early Rolling Stone ads
