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.
-
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. -
For her second solo album, Kennedy's array of diverse songs — from thumping electronica to full-throated crooning — shows us she won't be pinned down
-
Blanton describes many of the songs on her new album as "anti-fascist anthems." Critic Ken Tucker says Love & Rage doesn't sound like typical protest music — which makes it all the more effective.
-
King made some recordings in the 1970s, but then quit the music business to raise her children. Now in her late 70s, she's released her first full-length solo album: Living in the Last Days.
-
Baker supplies nearly all of the guitars, drums, synthesizers, banjo, and mandolin on her new album. It's a confessional and frequently beautiful record about mental distress and addiction.
-
The country singer spent more than a decade in Nashville before her first record broke through in 2020. Now she's adding five new songs in an expanded version of that album called, Living The Dream.
-
Jazmine Sullivan's "Pick Up Your Feelings"; Matthew Sweet's "At a Loss"; and Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" prove that people experience heartbreak in as many ways as a heart can be broken.
-
A new five-CD set features Stampfel's recording of a favorite song for each year of the last century. The resulting collection is a wonderful survey of popular music — as well as lots of great fun.
-
Of the three Bee Gees, only Barry Gibb is still alive. His new album is Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook Volume 1. The HBO documentary, The Bee Gees, tells the story of the group's rise.
-
The holidays have never felt more ambivalent — a feeling captured by Phoebe Bridgers' "Christmas Song"; The Bird and the Bee's "You and I at Christmas Time"; and Nick Lowe's "Winter Wonderland."
