Spencer Kornhaber
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Reuters / Pool Kevin Spacey Is Not Vindicated
The criminal case alleging the actor assaulted a busboy in 2016 has been dropped. But #MeToo is more than a reckoning taking place in court.
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Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters The Puzzling Ubiquity of Ed Sheeran
The strummer’s No. 6 Collaborations Project reveals the blend of sentimentality, humblebragging, and hip-hop swiping that has powered his success.
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Keith Bedford / Reuters The Murky Ethics of Posthumous Music
With a new version of “Higher Love,” the EDM star Kygo reworks a 1990 Whitney Houston vocal into a pool-party jam both of its time and out of it.
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Kamil Krzaczynski / Reuters The R. Kelly Federal Indictments Describe a Conspiracy
Federal indictments in Chicago and New York allege racketeering, witness tampering, and the illegal transportation of minors for sex—and the singer’s supposed crimes were not committed alone.
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Jeenah Moon / Reuters The Paradox of Madonna’s Gun-Control Music Video
A graphic depiction of violence has served mostly to offend survivors of such violence.
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Steve Marcus / Reuters The Shocking Falling-Out Between Taylor Swift and a Longtime Ally
The artist’s open letter about the sale of her former record label portrays a business matter as a story of bullying and virtue—and others involved have used similarly moralizing rhetoric.
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Darius Khondji / Netflix Thom Yorke’s Beautiful New Nightmare
The subconscious is an overdone subject, but the Radiohead singer’s sleep-focused solo album, Anima, is packed with fresh, freaky ideas.
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Lucy Jones Tracing the Internal Queer Revolution
Riots and parades have made LGBTQ people visible. But a new anthology of writings from before, during, and after Stonewall shows the inward changes as more essential.
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Ronald Dick Hot Chip Hones the Meaning of ‘Ecstasy’
The great dance band’s seventh album, A Bath Full of Ecstasy, delivers pleasure while questioning it.
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Merge Records Political Punk Rock That Protests Its Own Singer
Titus Andronicus’s An Obelisk roars against society, but the front man Patrick Stickles explains that it also represents a journey of self-understanding.
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Arsh Raziuddin Cruising in the Age of Consent
Gay men once developed codes to ensure safety in the hunt for sex. Can they help #MeToo do the same?
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Universal Media Group The Queasy Double Message of Taylor Swift’s ‘You Need to Calm Down’
The singer’s pro-gay single strangely compares her struggles with fame to more dangerous kinds of persecution.
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Danny Clinch Bruce Springsteen Takes His Car to the Old Town Road
The Boss’s latest solo album, Western Stars, falls into the great tradition of using cowboy America less as a specific place and more as a cultural myth.
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Netflix Black Mirror’s Miley Cyrus Episode Isn’t That Far-Fetched
“Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” simplifies thorny questions about fandom and taste with a familiar story of rebellion.
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Joshua Sudock / Disney Parks The Star Wars Park Doesn’t Feel Far, Far Away
Galaxy’s Edge, the newly opened expansion at Disneyland, promises an immersion in George Lucas’s universe—but it’s most effective when it’s drawing from our own world.
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Alan Lear A Generation of Stars Working Out Queerness in Their Songs
Distinctive new albums from Steve Lacy and Tyler, the Creator, seem to build on the example set by Frank Ocean.
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Macall B. Polay / HBO The Complicated Cliché of ‘Bran the Broken’
Game of Thrones, which always commented on the social effects of disability, ended by selling its final twist as inspirational.
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HBO Did Viewers Win or Lose in Game of Thrones?
Three Atlantic writers discuss the HBO epic’s divisive series finale, which tries to break the wheel one last time.
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Markus&Koala Carly Rae Jepsen Is Getting Weirder—And It’s Brilliant
The singer gets campier and more creative on her fourth album.
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Graham MacIndoe The National Further Complicates Its Sadness
I Am Easy to Find sees the rock band involving new voices and a softer approach to evoke indescribable feelings.
