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Olivia Bee / Shorefire Media The Very Human Return of Kesha
After a public legal and personal struggle, the pop star is back with “Rainbow,” an album that blends fantasy fun and bummer reality.
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XL Records The Urgent Message of M.I.A.'s Kala at 10
In sound and in message, the rapper’s brilliant second album attacked the concept of borders between peoples.
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HBO Game of Thrones: Queen of the Ashes
Three Atlantic staffers discuss “The Spoils of War,” the fourth episode of the seventh season.
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HBO Game of Thrones: All the Queens’ Men
Three Atlantic staffers discuss the third episode of the seventh season.
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Barry Brecheisen / AP What's Wrong With Arcade Fire's Everything Now?
The band’s fifth album hints at hearty social critique—but just provides weak songs.
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Amy Harris / AP The Exquisite Horror in Lana Del Rey's Nostalgia
Lust for Life, the singer's fourth album, greets Trump-era anxieties with an eerie flower-child grin.
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Warner Bros Harry Styles and Rihanna Nail the Pop Star as Actor
Dunkirk and Valerian had two highly contrasting kinds of crossovers—and Game of Thrones could have taken a lesson from either.
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HBO Game of Thrones: A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing
Three Atlantic staffers discuss “Stormborn,” the second episode of the seventh season.
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AP / Chris Pizzello The Classic Queer Paradox of Tyler, the Creator
On Flower Boy the rapper suggests he’s not straight—and struggles with a stigma he helped propagate.
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John Shearer / Invision / AP Remembering Chester Bennington
The Linkin Park singer, dead at 41, may have been the purest voice of angst on the radio this millennium.
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The Atlantic How Jon Batiste Made 'Battle Hymn' Bittersweet
The jazz musician talks about putting the “pain and struggle” of American history into the patriotic classic published by The Atlantic in 1862.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters R. Kelly's Alleged Sex 'Cult' and the Shield of Fame
A chilling BuzzFeed report says the R&B star has at least six women living under his near-total control.
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Helen Sloan / HBO Game of Thrones Gears Up for the Wars Still to Come
Three Atlantic staffers discuss “Dragonstone,” the first episode of the seventh season.
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Grant Pollard / AP The Familiar Novelty of Haim's New Album
Something to Tell You cheerfully broadens, but doesn’t deepen, the retro, bustling sound that made the California trio famous.
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Kemosabe Records Kesha's Comeback Message: Love Your Enemy
Her new ballad announces she’s moving on after alleging abuse by her producer—but it is also, inevitably, tied to that producer.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters The Summer of Cornball Superproducers
New albums from DJ Khaled and Calvin Harris represent the industrial consolidation of hitmaking—and suggest that kitsch is in.
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AP / Gerald Herbert Jay-Z's Pitch for Generational Wealth
His new album 4:44 has a confessional thread, but it pushes a deeper message about commerce and racial progress.
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Wilson Webb / TriStar Pictures Baby Driver Is a Tribute to the Magic of the Earbud
Edgar Wright’s car-chase caper explores the wonders—and the dangers—of everyone having their own soundtrack.
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Logo TV Sasha Velour and Drag's Permanent Revolution
The latest winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race is a politically engaged oddball—which is, in its way, pretty traditional.
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Amy Harris / AP What Jeff Tweedy Has Been Trying to Say
The acoustic album Together at Last spotlights the Wilco singer’s knack for communicating about communication.
