Ken Tucker

A key to the ongoing allure of Dylan's music lies in its ability to stand apart from its time. A new collection of alternate takes and demos re-evaluates the critical flop that was 1970's Self Portrait.

The long-running rock band's latest album is driven by themes of loss and grief, set against ferocious guitars and soaring vocals. Fresh Air critic Ken Tucker says the provocatively titled I Hate Music is full of typically superlative moments.

Listen and look past his roué image, and the chart-topper is revealed as an earnest nostalgist.

June can sing a duel with the Devil, even as her voice tells you she knows she's already triumphed.

Country-music star Vince Gill and steel guitarist Paul Franklin have teamed up to record a new concept album called Bakersfield.

The rapper's new album is his first collection since becoming a father with singer Beyonce. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the album is an uneven but intriguing collection of songs that tries to navigate a path between parenthood and an obsession with commercial success.

The bulk of Friedberger's work thus far has been recorded with her brother, Matthew, under the name The Fiery Furnaces. For this new solo album, her second, she's written with a new collaborator in singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding.

West has been busy in both the music and gossip worlds: He's just released a new album, titled Yeezus, and fathered a child. Rock critic Ken Tucker says West's constant blending of his public life and his music makes his new record all the more striking -- and a t times problematic.

The singer-songwriter has said, as he was writing his new album Still Fighting the War, that "a theme of perseverance through hard times revealed itself." Rock critic Ken Tucker says the record is no downer and that Cleaves finds complex sentiments and wittily phrased ideas in many of his new songs.

Isbell is a singer-songwriter who came to prominence as a member of the Southern rock group Derive-By Truckers. He left that band in 2007, in part because of the substance-abuse problems he describes on his new solo album, Southeastern.