Ken Tucker
Stories
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Country musician Stephen Wilson Jr. delivers rough and intricate artistry
A former microbiologist and Golden Gloves boxer, Wilson is also one of the more distinctive new sounds in country. He's broken through not with huge record sales but via viral clips on social media.
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A roundup of holiday music includes offerings from Brad Paisley and others
Whether you're anxiously awaiting Christmas or already wishing the holidays would be over, here's a selection of music that lets you know you're not alone.
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3 new songs sound nothing like the pop music currently dominating the charts
These love songs — Neko Case's "Oh, Neglect...," Valerie June's "Runnin' and Searchin'" and Olivia Dean's "Man I Need" — each express a refreshingly realistic ambivalence toward romance.
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'Fresh Air' marks the 50th anniversary of Patti Smith's landmark album, 'Horses'
Smith's debut album ushered in a new era of rock and roll. Critic Ken Tucker reviews the new anniversary edition of Horses, plus we listen back to Terry Gross' 1996 and 2010 interviews with Smith.
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'The Life of a Showgirl' spotlights Taylor Swift as she moves away from heartache
Swift's previous albums focused on the love she yearned for. The dozen songs on her latest release combine to form a picture of true love found, tested and proven strong.
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Fall's music highlights include new releases from Big Thief, Zach Top and Laufey
Big Thief has a new album, as does Zach Top, a young country singer with roots in old country. And the Icelandic-Chinese singer Laufey brings a classical-music and jazz influence to her pop songs.
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50 years after 'Mothership Connection,' George Clinton remains an artistic force
Clinton is the leader of two important funk bands, Parliament and Funkadelic. In 1975, Parliament released Mothership Connection, a loose concept album about funk musicians as galactic invaders.
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The sound of summer is women who've had it with problematic men
The three-sister band HAIM and pop singer and TikTok star Addison Rae are practicing "emotional passive resistance" this summer — and it sounds great.
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On 'Tracks II,' Springsteen shares a host of lost albums -- and a new part of himself
At its best, this capacious grab-bag of 83 songs, some dating back to the 1980s, yields not just good music, but songs that seem unlike anything else Springsteen has ever done.
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Willie Nelson and Ken Pomeroy make beautiful music for tumultuous times
On Cruel Joke, Pomeroy, age 22, sings with an acoustic twang about farms and cowboys. The 92-year-old Nelson's Oh What a Beautiful World is an album of covers of songs by Rodney Crowell.