Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker reviews rock, country, hip-hop and pop music for Fresh Air. He is a cultural critic who has been the editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a film critic for New York Magazine. His work has won two National Magazine Awards and two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. He has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and other publications.
Tucker is the author of Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate About Television.
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Campbell co-wrote a number of hits for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. His new band is The Dirty Knobs, and their album is Mission of Mercy. Low Cut Connie's new album is Livin in the USA.
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Musgraves' album Middle of Nowhere has the dramatic detail of good fiction. The same is true of Gary Stewart: I Am From the Honky-Tonks, Jimmy McDonough's portrait of a gifted but tragic performer.
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Country singer Ella Langley, the Swedish dance-music star Robyn, and singer-songwriter Allison Russell each have a take on sorrow and discontent that yields vivid, even inspiring music.
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Much of our image of Dylan derives from his early protest music, but Robert Polito's book makes the argument that the most recent 30 years of Dylan's career have been just as creative as the first 30. -
Moroney's album arrives as a new kind of music from Big Pink: The Georgia-born singer/songwriter spins out tales of romantic revenge with a smooth fluency that's a stark contrasts to her raspy drawl.
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Five albums into their career, the band exudes a cocky confidence in its ability to use rock songs as vehicles for both social commentary and personal angst.
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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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Young has long been a nature writer, composing pastorals about the environment. Barn finds him composing lyrical hymns to the earth and sky, or raging against destruction on the horizon.
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From 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo to 83-year-old Peter Stampfel, critic Ken Tucker says the music he most enjoyed in 2021 was recorded by artists who were either very young or quite old. -
Adele is a rare thing right now: an artist whose appeal cuts across genres and generations. Her new album about divorce features thrilling, exhilarating songs about being absolutely miserable.
