Ken Tucker

The Plimsouls, an L.A.-based band led by singer-songwriter Peter Case, performed extensively during the early '80s. The new release of a Plimsouls performance from Oct. 31, 1981 (called Live! Beg Borrow and Steal) leaves critic Ken Tucker feeling freshly enthusiastic about the continued vitality of The Plimsouls' music.

Formed in the late '90s by guitarists and singer-songwriters Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, the Drive-By Truckers hit a peak of critical success with its 2001 release Southern Rock Opera. Critic Ken Tucker says their latest album, The Big To-Do, is "head-clearingly refreshing."

On her new three-disc album, the singer-songwriter accompanies herself on harp and piano, with occasionally elaborate arrangements incorporating strings and horns. Rock critic Ken Tucker calls Have One on Me an anti-concept album, an extended piece that rewards the work of the listener.

Seven years after the death of Johnny Cash, producer Rick Rubin has selected 10 more songs among the many he produced for Cash late in the singer's life. Rock critic Ken Tucker examines the end result, the album American VI: Ain't No Grave.

The singer-songwriter has released his first album, Way Out Here, and rock critic Ken Tucker says it's one of the best country music debuts in a long while.

Music critic Ken Tucker reviews a refreshingly earnest and seductive new album from British dance act Hot Chip. In it, the group embraces its taste for techno, soul and gospel while also paying homage to the great American songwriters of the '60s and '70s.

Blending funk, hip-hop, and jazz sounds, the New Orleans-based band Galactic combines musical genres to create a new sound that they make their own. Critic Ken Tucker says heir newest album Ya-Ka-May is a true rhythmic pleasure.

Critically acclaimed Austin rock band Spoon has just released its seventh album, Transference. Rock critic Ken Tucker says the new album should help make this band, together now for fifteen years, an even bigger success.

Mary J. Blige has a classic R&B instrument: Her voice has that mixture of gospel assurance, soulful rawness and dynamic range that enables her to make her best performances into short stories with a beginning, a middle and an often cataclysmic end. Her ninth studio album, Stronger With Each Tear, is an uneven effort that finds Blige shifting her tactics between commercial calculation, gut-instinct music she just wants to sing the heck out of, and some ineffable combination of the two.

Norah Jones became an immediate star after the release of her 2002 album Come Away With Me. Having sold more than 36 million records, Jones decided to move in a different direction with her new fourth album, titled The Fall. Rock critic Ken Tucker says it's an improvement over her last two.