WNYC Culture

The New York-based rock group Living Colour rocketed to fame in 1988 after a CBGB audience member named Mick Jagger helped secure them a record deal. They're back with their first album in half a decade.

Jazz pianist Marcus Roberts hails from Florida and is an alumnus of the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, alma mater of another distinguished musician, Ray Charles.  New Orleans Meets Harlem, Vol.1 is his first album in over 8 years.

Soundcheck's Critics Week series continues today with a look at how rock music has evolved over the past decade. Ryan Schreiber, founder and president of Pitchfork Media, picked the best rock albums of 2009 and the '00s.

Anne Midgette, chief classical music critic of the Washington Post, joined Soundcheck to share her picks.

Julian Lennon says he wants his own Revolution. Along with digital pioneers Michael Birch and Todd Meagher, he just opened an artist-centric music company called theRevolution. One word. The group helps musicians take back control of their work from big timey labels and distribute directly to fans via the Internet.

Popmatters writer and frequent NPR guest Will Layman selected the three top jazz albums of 2009 and seven more greats from the rest of the decade.

Steve Reich seems more like a teen with his iPod up too loud than a Pulitzer-prize winning septuagenarian composer.

Like David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Judas Priest before her, Tori Amos now joins the ranks of unlikely musicians to take the leap into the holiday music market. These albums can walk a fine line between festive and cheesy. But her new release, Midwinter Graces, overhauls traditional carols in a way only Tori Amos knows how. [Note that we haven't come down on the festive v. cheesy debate. That's up to you!]

Book blogger and bibliophile Maud Newton told us her answers. What about you?

"At the end of the play, we left the theater knowing almost nothing about the characters internal lives or even their back stories." 

Okay, this is a little embarrassing,  but some people really, really love our pals at Radio Lab.  A group of the show's fans (who happen to be fabulous artists and designers) created a series of limited edition prints to show their support for the show.

Urban marching band Asphalt Orchestra plays a wide range of music, including Swedish metal.

What do Beck, Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond, Joe Strummer, and Tom Waits have in common (besides being some of the most influential and recognized musicians of the past century)?

Juana Molina went from a being a comic actress on Argentinean TV to one of the most innovative singer-songwriters from Latin America today.

Angel Deradoorian, known first and foremost as a member of Dirty Projectors, went solo recently.  Here's a video of Angel performing "Moon," from her solo album, Mind Raft.