Actually, Lemonade is Beyoncé’s weakest album since I Am...Sasha Fierce.

Prince Rogers Nelson spent years changing the world. Today, he left it. Even casual music listeners should mourn the void he leaves.

In an episode of the final season of The Golden Girls called “Journey to the Center of Attention,” Sophia attends a friend’s wake and decides to host her own so that her loved ones can pay tribute to her while she’s still alive. “I want to hear how people feel about me. I want to be there to listen as they salute my…

Very Specific Playlists is a weekly feature in which Jezebel staffers make very specific Spotify playlists based on their weird proclivities.

Today sees the release of the fourth proper Justin Bieber studio album, Purpose, an album that contains a fair amount of listenable material from Bieber (at least three songs!). Preceding this album has been a string of derpily titled singles—“Where Are Ü Now,” “What Do You Mean,” “Sorry”—that work on their own as…

How should a pop diva grow older in public? When your career is based not so much on virtuosic vocal ability but charisma, X factor, taste, and performance, where do you end up? What is the “age appropriate” equivalent to singing standards for the artists whose output is rooted in the dance pop of the ‘80s? How does…

Patti LaBelle is up to her old tricks: screaming at people. Last night at a concert in Vancouver, an audience member the diva had presumably invited to come dance onstage began unbuttoning his shirt. That wasn’t part of the deal Miss Patti had in her head, so she interrupted him and the music (“Lady Marmalade,” of…

Thirty years ago today, one of the finest (and wildest) pop albums of all time was released. Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love is almost perfect (for true perfection, see the Kate Bush album that preceded it, 1982’s The Dreaming) and sounds as forward-thinking as it did on September 16, 1985 (granted, it could use a…

Well, at least it isn’t “Bad Blood.”

Sometime a few weeks ago, in the middle of this supposedly Song-of-the-Summer-less summer, I realized that I was swimming in music that I adored. It happens regularly that I feel like I’ll go months without being excited about anything musically and then bam!, I’m overwhelmed with good stuff.

The Weeknd sings about sex a lot, and it almost always sounds like a miserable experience. Who wants that? Do you? If yes, please ask yourself why. Actually, I’m going to stop you right there and assume that it’s because you are lost. Luckily, I found you—and I’m here to tell you something: Do not do that. Do not fuck…

Last night’s season finale of Unsung, TV One’s Behind the Music-esque docuseries spotlighting R&B and hip-hop artists, told the story of Kid ‘n Play, the PG-rated hip-hop duo that was popular in the late-‘80s/early-‘90s. As you may remember, Christopher “Kid” Reid rocked an iconic high-top fade early in his career…

My friend, producer/DJ Morgan Geist, recently released a single under his Galleria moniker called “Calling Card”/”Mezzanine,” which is heavily influenced by Latin freestyle. Since there is nothing more that I like to do than get paid to talk about freestyle, I invited him to the Gawker office for a podcast about the…

This is the time of year when we turn our thoughts to the important matter of what will be this year’s song of the summer, an officialish distinction based on chart success and ubiquity (not to be confused with the more subjective concept of summer jams). No one knows for sure yet what song will claim the title, as…

The video for the ill-fated Britney Spears/Iggy Azalea duet “Pretty Girls” dropped today and oh my god it includes an interlude with dialogue that is almost certainly the best worst thing you will see this year. I can’t imagine anything being better or worse than this going forward until the world ends, in fact.

Experiencing Mariah Carey live nowadays is like listening to someone start to make a Forrest Gump reference: You pretty much know what you’re going to get, but you can’t be certain what kinds of twists, turns, and yes, surprises are in store. Mariah’s voice ain’t what it used to be, on account of her being in her…

Spring sprang about a month ago, but it finally feels like it. My iPhone tells me that it’s going to be 75 and sunny tomorrow in New York. That’s crazy! People are going to be walking around butt-ass naked in response, and won’t that be fun to see? There’s nothing like a solid spring day to undo four bullshit months…

At this stage in her career, it seems needless to distinguish between Madonna's musical output and her stunts. Both are products of a savant-like aptitude in attention-grabbing. Both have defined her image. Both have worked in tandem from the earliest days of her superstardom. "Like a Virgin" was a great slice of…