For bands on tour, one positive COVID test can spell disaster. With audiences increasingly unmasked and institutional support drying up, safety is left mostly to the artists themselves.
The pop singer has superstar ambition and a knack for clever genre collisions. But while her new album sometimes matches intensity with innovation, it more often grinds her nuanced story to a paste.
The L.A.-based artist will embark on a big tour of Europe. She'll be doing 28 shows in six weeks, covering 11 countries, including Germany, The Netherlands, Spain and Ireland.
The Pulitzer-winning, MacArthur "genius" co-founder of Bang on a Can looks for the grit in music, whether she's writing a string quartet or one of her history-based oratorios.
Since the 1970s, the UK's punk, alternative and hip-hop artists have used music to share their feelings about the late monarch and what she represents.
Puerto Rican rapper Residente is ready for his biggest fight yet – challenging the meaning of America. "Everyone is American on this continent," he says.
For the better part of a decade, Nicki simply existing as Nicki felt like a radical act. Along the way, things changed: rap, the internet, fandom, feminism. Maybe Minaj did, too.
From unreleased music to promotional flyers, photos, a mirrored dressing room sign, and even a stray Andy Warhol print, Blondie's out with a new box set, Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982.
The rapper's second studio album reaches for a confessional mode, making space for ruminations and grief — while reaffirming her skills as one of rap's bar-for-bar heavyweights.
She was never just that prim prude from the start of Grease, nor the strutting vamp from its finale. Her superpower, for over 50 years, was embodying both at once.
