Ken Tucker

Baker supplies nearly all of the guitars, drums, synthesizers, banjo, and mandolin on her new album. It's a confessional and frequently beautiful record about mental distress and addiction.

The country singer spent more than a decade in Nashville before her first record broke through in 2020. Now she's adding five new songs in an expanded version of that album called, Living The Dream.

Jazmine Sullivan's "Pick Up Your Feelings"; Matthew Sweet's "At a Loss"; and Olivia Rodrigo's "Drivers License" prove that people experience heartbreak in as many ways as a heart can be broken.

A new five-CD set features Stampfel's recording of a favorite song for each year of the last century. The resulting collection is a wonderful survey of popular music — as well as lots of great fun.

Of the three Bee Gees, only Barry Gibb is still alive. His new album is Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook Volume 1. The HBO documentary, The Bee Gees, tells the story of the group's rise.

The holidays have never felt more ambivalent — a feeling captured by Phoebe Bridgers' "Christmas Song"; The Bird and the Bee's "You and I at Christmas Time"; and Nick Lowe's "Winter Wonderland."

The pandemic, along with unprecedented political and social upheaval, created a year in which listeners sought to be transported. Enter these 10 albums. At the top of the list: X's Alphabetland.

Three new songs from established acts speak to the times: "Ghosts," by Bruce Springsteen; "Can't Put It in the Hands of Fate," by Stevie Wonder; and "Didn't Want to Be This Lonely," by The Pretenders.

Once known as a loud bar band, Low Cut Connie bends classic rock to meet ever-more complex emotionalism. The resulting album is filled with songs about lovers, losers and beautiful dreamers.

Prince's creativity is more impressive than ever on a new version of his highly praised 1987 album — now with three discs of previously unreleased material.

Guyton's hit song, off her EP Bridges, is about feeling like a stranger in one's own land. The issues Guyton raises pose new challenges — not just to country music, but to our country itself.

The musical trio met in college and are now making some of the catchiest tunes around. Their sound features a guitarist, a drummer and one lead singer — who's also a classically trained cellist.

Looking for music that's soothing without being sentimental? Listen to "Guilty," by Courtney Marie Andrews; "Sleeping Without You Is a Dragg," by Swamp Dogg; and "End of My Rope," by Pokey LaFarge.

Swift's eighth studio album came as a surprise. In the isolation of the past months, she's cooked up a yeasty kind of sugar-free pop that rises above much recent music-making.

The new album by three Los Angeles sisters feels like it was meant to be blasted loud in your car as you try to time all the green lights along Sunset Boulevard.

The good songs on Dylan's latest record inflate with interest; the mediocre songs start to shrink and slink away. And there's a striking amount of upbeat rhythm & blues on the album.

The electric instrumentation of Lady Gaga's flashy disco record Chromatica and Carly Rae Jepsen's Dedicated Side B provide a much-needed jolt for the COVID era.

X's first album 35 years takes its place alongside the best work they've ever done. The music on Alphabetland is the sound of X snatching back its past in order to fuel the music of its future.

The pop singer's smart and snappy second album is a '70s and '80s disco throwback. The record immediately stands out from nearly all current popular music for its sheer, bursting joyfulness.

The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, who died April 7, took a journeyman's pride in unifying metaphor and metrical precision. Prine's eccentric music served him — and us — well for five decades.