Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker reviews rock, country, hip-hop and pop music for Fresh Air. He is a cultural critic who has been the editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a film critic for New York Magazine. His work has won two National Magazine Awards and two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. He has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and other publications.
Tucker is the author of Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate About Television.
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Texas Sheiks offers new versions of old blues, Western swing and ragtime music. The Sheiks are led by singer-songwriter Geoff Muldaur and the album features the guitar work of the late Steve Bruton.
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La Roux is a British pop duo — 21-year-old singer Elly Jackson and synth player-producer Ben Langmaid — with a style that blends passionate vocals with strict mechanical beats. The pair's self-titled debut album went No. 1 in England and Europe this year, and now it's out stateside. Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews.
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The news that Bob Dylan was making a Christmas album came as a surprise. Now that Christmas In The Heart has been released, with the announcement that all profits will go to charity, it's caused even more consternation, with commentators divided as to whether it's an earnest effort or one big put-down. Rock critic Ken Tucker offers his opinion. -
Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Dennis Diken's new album Late Music. Diken, the drummer for the Smithereens, has recorded this project with a group called Bell Sound.
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Whitney Houston's new album I Look To You is her first new release since 2002. Rock critic Ken Tucker says that while the pop-music landscape is not as she left it, Houston's new work fits right in. -
Country singer George Strait is surpassed only by Elvis Presley and The Beatles in the number of platinum-selling albums he's had. Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews his new album, Twang. -
The Fiery Furnaces' new album, I'm Going Away, features pared-down songs to reflect the darker national mood, the brother-sister duo says. For the listener, it's a transporting experience.
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Ken Tucker reviews the seventh studio album from Wilco. It's a mature and confident work, but it also has a playfully affectionate side. -
Hombre Lobo is the first studio album in five years by the act known as Eels. Frontman Mark Oliver Everett — better known to his fans as "E" — turns in what he calls "12 songs of desire."
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Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Patterson Hood's new album Murdering Oscar and Other Love Songs. It's Hood's second solo album featuring songs from the early 90's as well as some more recent ones, all of them have been freshly recorded over the past few years.
