music

So two months ago, I was the guy who dared to say the unspeakable: Taylor Swift’s overwhelming popularity was in some grand sense a sign of societal decline. While the blunt headline on my column got people’s attention — getting denounced…

Last week, Ryan Adams released five new albums — four albums of all new material and one of the best-produced live albums you’re likely to hear. The records cover a wide stylistic territory from Americana to ’80s-inspired punk rock, they’re…

How many movies have you watched that have a New Year’s Eve scene with a group of people singing “Auld Lang Syne”? Usually badly with a drink in hand? The song has become a mainstay of cinema. But how many people actually know the words to…

Christmas shopping is hard. It’s even harder when you’re trying to find the right gift for the person who speaks almost exclusively in quotes from “The Simpsons” and is embroiled in a personal crusade against the Marvel Cinematic Universe.…

The problem with Christmas music is that it’s inextricably linked with singers like Michael Buble, at worst, and Mariah Carey, the best. (Don’t get me started on those schmaltzy, nauseating Nat King Cole classics.) December is a big, great…

There’s no time like the present to take your Christmas gifts from commercialized and mass-produced junk to classy and memorable treasures. If you’ve only got $20 in your pocket, like the majority of Americans who are living paycheck to…

It’s not often in popular culture that mainstream feminism bares its fangs and owns up to its true nature without hiding behind the “all we want is equality” mantra. But that’s exactly what happened last week, when ex-Disney star turned…

Nicki Minaj slammed the mindset of pro-obesity activists like Lizzo who glorify unhealthy lifestyles under the banner of “body positivity,” in a new interview with Vogue. In the magazine’s cover story for the December issue, Minaj, 40,…

Taylor Swift prints money at will. Combined revenue for the almost immediately sold-out “Eras Tour” and the film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” released to theaters on Oct. 13, has already grossed over $123.5 million. There’s even…

My dad is dying. This is a fact many American families will be sharing over the next few years as the last of the Greatest Generation and the first of the Baby Boomers ride off into the sunset. My father, Carl Westcott, is an 83-year-old…