Music critics are part of the world, and I am part of the world.

No band on 21st-century radio has mined pre-grunge hair-metal's sleaze like L.A.'s Buckcherry. So it makes poetic sense that they'd spend their sixth album tallying all seven deadly sins.

Critics should stick to their convictions.

Ever wonder why people are so determined to reach for white picket fences, supposed normalcy, a nuclear family? Well, try growing up without one.

Gary Allan has long been one of country's most reliably velvet-voiced beautiful losers.

Mayer Hawthorne's old school pop-R&B homages are so meticulous that it's tempting to overrate his pipes.

By the late '80s, I was already giving up on rap music.