Music Reviews

Music & Culture

Update: Ken Tucker Review Of Springsteen's 'Western Stars' Will Be Available Friday

5:15pm June 12, 2019

by Ken Tucker

Update at 4:30 p.m. ET: Ken Tucker's review of Bruce Springsteen's new album has been temporarily removed because it was published prematurely. We expect to repost it on Friday (June 14).

Queue Listen Now

Flying Lotus' fifth studio album, Flamagra, is out now.

Music & Culture

Flying Lotus Comes Back From The Afterlife 'Flamagra'

5:25pm June 11, 2019

by Tom Moon

Flamagra, the latest album from Flying Lotus, plays like a high-speed chase through a carnival fun house — a sideshow attraction of the mind.

Queue Listen Now

Baroness' Gold & Grey comes out June 14.

Music & Culture

First Listen: Baroness, 'Gold & Grey'

5:00am June 10, 2019

by Joseph Schafer

The hard rock outfit, after years of lineup changes, delivers an expansive, eclectic album to remind us of how limitless electric guitar music can be.

Professor Longhair plays at the 1971 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

Music & Culture

Smithsonian Folkways Celebrates 50 Years Of Jazz Fest's Serendipity

5:08pm June 07, 2019

by Tom Moon

The 50th anniversary Jazz Fest: The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival box set, out now, focuses on jazz legends and rising stars from the region.

Queue Listen Now

Tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who died in 2007, is the subject of a new documentary film, directed by Ron Howard.

Music & Culture

Pavarotti Documentary Misses All The Right Notes

8:28am June 07, 2019

by Tom Huizenga

Ron Howard's new Pavarotti film fails to make us feel much for its subject, and does little to bolster the magical, complicated art called opera.

Bill Callahan's Shepherd in a Sheepskin Vest comes out June 14.

Music & Culture

First Listen: Bill Callahan, 'Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest'

11:30am June 06, 2019

by Nate Chinen

On his first album in six years, Bill Callahan ruminates on domesticity, devotion and mortality in his conversational baritone.

Iron & Wine's Sam Beam teams up with Calexico for Years to Burn, their first album-length collaboration since 2005.

Music & Culture

First Listen: Calexico And Iron & Wine, 'Years To Burn'

10:13am June 06, 2019

by Stephen Thompson

Sam Beam and Calexico's first album-length collaboration since 2005 feels most of all like the work of a complete, cohesive band — a group of old friends who've gathered to sing in a single voice.

One of the many landscapes that inspired John Luther Adams' Become Desert.

Music & Culture

First Listen: John Luther Adams, 'Become Desert'

5:00am June 06, 2019

by Tom Huizenga

The composer's musical evocation of the desert is an expansive journey in symphonic stillness, and a sequel to his Pulitzer-winning Become Ocean.

Kate Tempest's The Book of Traps and Lessons comes out June 14.

Music & Culture

First Listen: Kate Tempest, 'The Book Of Traps And Lessons'

5:00am June 06, 2019

by Lior Phillips

The London rapper, poet and spoken word artist rips your heart out, offers an assessment, and then returns it with the tools to determine what needs to be done with it.

Music & Culture

New Recording Of Busoni's 'Piano Concerto' Is An Extraordinary Experience

1:26pm June 03, 2019

by Lloyd Schwartz

The Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2017 performance of Ferruccio Busoni's monumental concerto met all the composer's impossible demands. A new live recording of the event is both serious and fabulous.

Queue Listen Now