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Michael Putland / Getty The Moon Landing Inspired Pink Floyd’s Most Overlooked Song
A bluesy, atmospheric piece that the band improvised live on the air during the Apollo 11 mission deserves to be more than a footnote of musical history.
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Disney The Blind Spot of Beyoncé’s Lion King Soundtrack
The singer’s musical accompaniment for the new CGI remake neglects to include any artists from the region that inspired the film—a curious lapse in narrative fidelity.
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Ethan Miller / Getty / Thanh Do / ... I Wasn’t a Fan of BTS. And Then I Was.
The Korean supergroup’s devoted following and chart-topping success have won them comparisons to the Beatles. Why was I surprised to get swept up in their magic?
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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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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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Universal Pictures If the Beatles Had Been One Man
In the fantastical Yesterday, the only person in the world who remembers the Fab Four takes the band’s music as his own. How the film reimagines an iconic oeuvre through a single voice.
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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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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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Jonathan Bachman / Reuters Dr. John’s Reverent Subversion of New Orleans Cliché
The pianist, singer, and songwriter—who died Thursday, at 77—straddled camp and tradition, authenticity and commercialism.
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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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Fadi Kheir How Art Can Double as Historical Corrective
Two recent projects, a jazz concert about the Great Migration and a book about “wayward” young women, ambitiously recontextualize black life and art in early-20th-century America.
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Diana Stoyanova I Ran a Backstreet Boys Website for Superfans
Twenty years ago, as the group’s Millennium album topped music charts, one writer found belonging in an online community she unwittingly helped create.
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Brian Stukes / Getty The Houston Rapper Taking the Industry by Storm
Megan Thee Stallion’s much-anticipated debut album, Fever, is a remarkable mix of braggadocio, lyrical acuity, and self-awareness.
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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.
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AP / KGC-182 / STAR MAX / IPx The Anti-party Anthem Contending for Song of the Summer
Justin Bieber and Ed Sheeran’s “I Don’t Care” joins a growing body of sing-alongs about social anxiety.
