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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From 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo to 83-year-old Peter Stampfel, critic Ken Tucker says the music he most enjoyed in 2021 was recorded by artists who were either very young or quite old. -
Find everything our critics loved this year, all in one place: Maureen Corrigan's book list, movie pairings from Justin Chang, music recommended by Ken Tucker and David Bianculli's must-see TV list. -
The achievement of Supernova is that, five albums in, LaMontagne hasn't settled into a formula or a fall-back recurring mood. Here, the singer-songwriter explores a sunny, psychedelic side. -
On Nikki Nack, Merrill Garbus worries over the notion that she's just an accumulation of her influences, and she fights back wonderfully. -
Make My Head Sing... is an album of contradictions. It's full of unreliable narrators who sometimes revel in jealousy, willful insanity and drugs, even as her voice and the music suggest otherwise. -
The Mekons and Waco Brothers veteran often places his left-wing politics front and center in his music and his art. Here Be Monsters has a way of mixing pretty melodies with harsh criticisms. -
Daughter of Everything is a superb pop album with one foot in the past and another in the future. -
His 18th album is a mixed-bag assortment of covers and originals brimming with undimmed eagerness. -
Jason Isbell's Southeastern, Kanye West's Yeezus and an assortment of remarkable women dominated the Fresh Air critic's year in listening. -
With new songs and covers, La La Brooks' All or Nothing isn't just an attempted career comeback.
