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.
-
To hear G I R L, you'd think Pharrell's world consisted of grooving on catchy beats and flirting with women. It's a lightweight image that draws gravitas from his prolific work ethic.
-
Mead hooks the listener, eager to show us the bleak side of what seemed like a bright scenario. That's the way he operates during much of Free State Serenade.
-
Daughter of Everything is a superb pop album with one foot in the past and another in the future.
-
The band prides itself on technique over originality, but is nonetheless passionate about its craft.
-
Church uses the power he's accrued from hit records to make exactly the kind of album he wants.
-
Jon Pardi and Jason Eady confront the pop current that keeps country music commercially viable while connecting to a past that fewer and fewer listeners are aware of.
-
Todd Snider, Widespread Panic's Dave Schools and Duane Trucks perform in a new band that specializes in covering working-class songs.
-
His 18th album is a mixed-bag assortment of covers and originals brimming with undimmed eagerness.
-
Ken Tucker says The River & The Thread is a travelogue; a timeless work of comfort and quiet joy.
-
Jason Isbell's Southeastern, Kanye West's Yeezus and an assortment of remarkable women dominated the Fresh Air critic's year in listening.