Music & Culture

The 63rd edition of the world's largest, most bombastic and unabashedly campy pop music competition is taking place in Portugal this week. Here are some early favorites to win.

With a list of debut albums from Kate Bush, The Cars, Devo, Dire Straits, The B-52's, The Police, Buzzcocks, Van Halen and more, '78 has huge ground to stand on.

"Plastic Skeletons" takes the singer's gift for evocative, concisely crafted, seemingly free-associated wordcraft and sets it against a swirling and forceful psych-rock arrangement.

Tenille Townes has been focused on country music stardom since her childhood in Alberta, Canada. Now the 24-year-old singer-songwriter is balancing Nashville's many resources with her own instincts.

The L.A. psych-rock band channels the fanciful baroque-pop of The Left Banke on its new EP.

Nobody is more fluent in country-funk than Brent Cobb.

In three songs from Reservoir, Gordi keeps her voice both unadorned and centered within warm, cool arrangements that include piano, guitar, pedal steel, a harmonium named Barbara, and more.