Music Archives

Courageous artists remind us that earthly beauty is always damaged.

With lush arrangements featuring everything from piano to saxophone to perfectly paced percussion, the sonic experience of Child of My Sorrow is, well, fun.

In the #MeToo era, an ending like that in My Fair Lady could give us all hope that people can change—something we desperately need to remember.

But it’s not just talk and rapping; Lecrae uses his talents to aim at the hearts of men, even when people don’t understand his message.

Pink’s “What about Us” at its heart is a call for action; specifically, it’s a call for honesty.

So as we nod our heads, bounce our shoulders, and rap with Childish Gambino in “This is America,” we need not disregard the America he and many others perceive, nor dilute it down to sensationalized art.

Keeping with the political tenor of the times, A Perfect Circle fearlessly brings religion into the fray once again.

Scott Hutchison didn’t believe in anything beyond this life, but when I talk about light that emanates from his songs, I call it spiritual. He saw a daunting, cold world and set about doing what he could to breathe warmth into it, to strive against his pride to love unselfishly, to rage against the idea that we must accept the earth in its broken state.

With DAMN. and its accompanying Pulitzer, Kendrick Lamar has crossed a milestone, has set a precedent—has established a fresh tradition; hip-hop has entered a new phase.

Surfer Rosa, the Pixies’ debut studio album, turned 30 this year, and it still doesn’t sound a day over 18.

It takes artists like McMillan to push us off our comfortable thrones.

Drake found it more necessary to flex how much he could give away rather than show off how much he can possess.

The National’s latest, Sleep Well Beast, affirms that if heartbreak is particular to our times and places, to our own networks of relationships, then grace must be as well.

Sufjan Stevens invites us to raise the mirror this Christmas and laugh to ourselves in all our absurdity: “I’m the Christmas unicorn . . . you’re the Christmas unicorn.”

Though Sigrid’s version of “Everybody Knows” is incredibly morbid, it is only so because it is truthful.

Bazan is one of the few songwriters who reminds us that religion, as experienced in daily life, is a journey of faith.