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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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.
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Thomas' April 23 death at age 71 brings to a close one of the most significant avant-garde experiments ever conducted within the confines of pop music. Rock critic Ken Tucker reflects on his legacy.
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Lamar's duet with SZA samples Luther Vandross' 1982 hit "If This World Were Mine." The song was written by Marvin Gaye, who himself recorded it in 1967 as a duet with Tammi Terrell.
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Dacus mixes confession and intimacy on Forever is a Feeling. The EVEN MORE Freewheelin' Jeffrey Lewis nods to Dylan's early New York City folkie days, with a great song about the pain of existence.
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Rock critic Ken Tucker recommends three songs that are recent additions to his playlist: "Are You Even Real," by Swims; "Same Kind of Lonely," by Booker; and "big change," by Young.
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The rhythmic sense that made Ringo a great rock drummer guides his vocals here. The result is relaxed authority that usually only a genius like Willie Nelson or Ray Charles can make sound so easy.
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The year in pop pivoted around a trio of artists — Charli XCX, Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan — whose music hinged upon assertions of creative ambition and admissions of romantic weakness.
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Rock critic Ken Tucker picks his favorite new Christmas songs, including "Christmas Time Rhyme," by Ben Folds; "Glow," by Little Big Town; and "Maybe this Christmas," by Jason Kelce and Stevie Nicks.
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Yoakam has recorded a harmonious new duet with Post Malone. Morris is stretching beyond country's borders. And Thompson — half of the duo Thompson Square — looks back to the roots of honky-tonk.
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Ken Tucker reviews Robert Hilburn's biography of Newman, A Few Words in Defense of Our Country. Plus, we listen back to a 1998 archival interview with the Grammy Award-winning artist.