It’s brutal out there, and that’s why, more than ever, we needed the consoling and prodding pleasures of popular music to help everything make sense in here. [Stage direction: taps chest, knowingly.] ...

However culture-shifting history proves Beyoncé’s new album, Cowboy Carter, to be, it’s not unprecedented. For generations, artists have blurred the supposed lines between country music, R&B, soul, ...

Sugar-rush pop, legit country soul, profound poetic storytelling, over-the-top rock & roll jams: Has any artist from the Sixties-Seventies golden era of singer-songwriters ever mastered all of these ...