I like this:

Since its inception, hip-hop has endured endless attacks – typically, but not always, wrongheaded – mostly because of references to violence and for celebrating a culture that devalues women. When a wealthy, white radio host used a derogatory term to describe members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team, other wealthy, [...]

Universal just may have assembled the most beautiful movie cast this side of Twilight. The studio has signed three of-the-moment stars -- Friday Night Lights' Taylor Kitsch, True Blood's Alexander Skarsgård, and, most recently, pop idol Rihanna -- for Battleship, an action film based on the Hasbro board game that's set for release on May [...]

We're still three months away from the October 25 release of Taylor Swift's third album, Speak Now, and already the pressure is on. Although her label, Big Machine Records, is forecasting first-week sales of 750,000, which would put it just ahead of 2010's biggest debut so far, Eminem's Recovery, which [...]

For today’s insanity break, Gareth Pearson plays bass line, accompanying chords, and melody all at once, on a tune you may recognize. This is on his album Urban Echoes Vol. 1.

It has been a year and a half since Chris Brown was arrested for assaulting Rihanna, his girlfriend at the time, the night before the 2009 Grammy Awards. Both of them have released albums since then, acknowledging the incident in their own ways – Brown with songs like the over-the-top [...]

This is a great live one:

The National has a way of getting a song stuck deeper and deeper into my head. I had this one in my head as my wife went into labor two weeks ago. These words rattling about in my head: I won’t fuck us over, I’m Mr. November. I’m Mr. [...]

I've always thought of Justin Timberlake as the second coming of Michael Jackson. Like the late, great King of Pop, Timberlake started out as the lead singer and youngest member of a hugely successful boy group, and emerged as the breakout star with a solo career that transcended his boy-band [...]

Germany's Love Parade, an annual dance music festival, was the scene of a terrible tragedy this weekend :

At least 19 people reportedly died at the Love Parade, a well-known dance event in the German city of Duisburg, and more than 340 were said to be injured as the [...]