The Beatles in 1967 (AP Photo)
Music
Should a lost Beatles song resurface?
Why Paul McCartney should—and shouldn't—release "Carnival of Light"
Kanye West’s legacy
Can the hip hop star rightfully call himself "the voice of this generation"?
Ane Brun
When Ane Brun sings, she evokes a “haunted Dolly Parton minus the drawl,” said Barry Walters in Spin. The Norwegian's U.S. debut, Changing of the Seasons, is a quiet collection of songs about love and its contradictions.
Little Joy
Named after a bar in Echo Park, a bohemian neighborhood of Los Angeles, Little Joy plays a “laid-back brand of indie pop,” said Mikael Wood in Billboard.
Chanticleer
San Francisco’s all-male vocal ensemble reaches new heights with Mission Road. In its new recording, the group evokes sounds of the 18th and 19th centuries from Northern California all the way down to Latin America.
Q-Tip
The Renaissance took Q-Tip nearly a decade to make, but it’s worth the wait, said Simon Vozick-Levinson in Entertainment Weekly.
The Taylor Swift phenomenon
Why the country-pop star continues to buck music industry trends
Was America wrong about David Archuleta?
What the American Idol runner-up's debut album has, and doesn't have
Bloc Party
Bloc Party takes some chances on its “brave but forgettable” third album, Intimacy, but it still can’t recapture the energy of its debut, Silent Alarm, said Alex Denney in the London Observer.
Ryan Adams and the Cardinals
Adams has conjured the spirits of classic rock before, but never so well as on Cardinology, said Will Hermes in Rolling Stone.
John Adams
John Adams' 2006 opera, A Flowering Tree, is based on an ancient Indian folk tale about a girl who magically transforms herself into a tree. While the sense of drama is lost on the disc, the composer's music sounds “just as fluid and enchanting” as ever, said Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Deerhunter
Deerhunter keeps its restlessness under control on Microcastle, so that “even at its least structured it’s always more accessible” than its predecessor, Cryptograms, said Marc Hogan in Pitchforkmedia.com.
MTV and MySpace: Profiting from piracy?
Why more ads might start appearing next to the videos you upload
AC/DC
Black Ice is AC/DC's first album in eight years. “No one this side of Chuck Berry has written so many great rock ’n’ roll songs about rock ’n’ roll,” said Brian Hiatt in Rolling Stone.
