Ken Tucker
Ken Tucker reviews rock, country, hip-hop and pop music for Fresh Air. He is a cultural critic who has been the editor-at-large at Entertainment Weekly, and a film critic for New York Magazine. His work has won two National Magazine Awards and two ASCAP-Deems Taylor Awards. He has written book reviews for The New York Times Book Review and other publications.
Tucker is the author of Scarface Nation: The Ultimate Gangster Movie and Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy: 100 Things to Love and Hate About Television.
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From 18-year-old Olivia Rodrigo to 83-year-old Peter Stampfel, critic Ken Tucker says the music he most enjoyed in 2021 was recorded by artists who were either very young or quite old. -
Find everything our critics loved this year, all in one place: Maureen Corrigan's book list, movie pairings from Justin Chang, music recommended by Ken Tucker and David Bianculli's must-see TV list.
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Surrounded on the charts by younger men and their big hits about drinking and partying, Sara Evans' hit-single success of Slow Me Down's title song all the more heartening.
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Daughter of Everything is a superb pop album with one foot in the past and another in the future.
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Jon Pardi and Jason Eady confront the pop current that keeps country music commercially viable while connecting to a past that fewer and fewer listeners are aware of.
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His 18th album is a mixed-bag assortment of covers and originals brimming with undimmed eagerness.
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Jason Isbell's Southeastern, Kanye West's Yeezus and an assortment of remarkable women dominated the Fresh Air critic's year in listening.
