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Craig Jenkins

Music Critic
See all their articles from across New York Magazine
@CraigSJ
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Craig Jenkins is a critic who writes about music and television and comedy and video games. He was a 2021 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.

  1. album review
    DaBaby Is Having One of the Most Exciting Years in RapHe’s quickly developed a sound that’s identifiable but not yet limiting.
  2. country music
    The Story of Country Music Is Too Vast for Even Ken Burns’s 16-Hour Doc to TellThe greatest compliment you could pay an undertaking like this is to wish there were more of it.
  3. song review
    Ari, Miley, and Lana’s Charlie’s Angels Song Can’t Make Its Pop Stars Align“Angel” blends styles that sound fine alone but struggle to jell together, such is the vastness of the space between the singers present.
  4. album review
    Charli XCX Is Making Pop for Our Doomed FutureThe weird kids are crashing the party, and making great music about how the party sucks.
  5. album review
    Post Malone Brings on Sad-Boy Fall on Hollywood’s BleedingThe first half-dozen songs are a gauntlet of parties, worries, and venting sessions about toxic relationships.
  6. fall preview 2019
    The Best and Biggest Albums to Listen to This FallFrom Tame Impala, Charli XCX, FKA Twigs, and more. Plus, four not-to-miss concerts.
  7. album review
    There’s Never Been a Country Supergroup Quite Like the HighwomenIt’s a dream team-up by turns uplifting enough to elicit good-spirited chuckles and gutting enough to bring you to tears.
  8. album review
    Lana Del Rey Is Fully in the Driver’s Seat on Norman Fucking RockwellThe album is a series of gratifying pop-album inversions that succeed on the depth of imagination of Del Rey and producer Jack Antonoff.
  9. album review
    The Old Taylor Is Back on Lover and the Best She’s Been in YearsLover finds Swift getting back to the business of writing aching, universal love songs, and business is good.
  10. song review
    ‘I Forgot That You Existed’ Is Taylor Swift in All Her Passive-Aggressive GloryIt’s self-care as snark.
  11. album review
    Sleater-Kinney’s New Album Was Worth the GambleThe Center Won’t Hold is a pop makeover for a band that didn’t especially need it, one that also cost it a drummer.
  12. song review
    Taylor and Miley Tell Two Tales of Love and Loss on ‘Lover’ and ‘Slide Away’If there’s anything to be gleaned from these singers’ divergent walks, it’s that there’s no stress-proof way to live in the public eye.
  13. music
    The Enduring Legacy of Sublime“You can’t f*ck Sublime up.”
  14. album review
    Bon Iver Tackles Bigger Worries on i,iTogether, the band is creating a musical language that’s left of center but shy of inscrutability.
  15. a long talk
    Corey Taylor on 20 Years of Slipknot, the New Album, and Rihanna Being a FanThe frontman on the divisive political climate that informed their new album and the 20th anniversary of the record that put his band on the map.
  16. concert review
    The Rolling Stones Live: So Much More Than the Greatest HitsInside the stadium, concerns about Jagger’s health quickly evaporated. The 76-year-old never missed a step, a hop, or a shake.
  17. radio vulture
    How ‘Old Town Road’ Put Kids in ControlIs all-ages pop music back?
  18. album review
    Chance the Rapper’s The Big Day Is the Sound of SettlingBig Day is wedding and graduation music, E for Everyone rap, hip-hop’s answer to dad rock or posicore.
  19. don’t call it a comeback
    Iggy Azalea’s Back, Like It or NotHer return, like her initial ascent, has been nothing but messy from the get-go.
  20. song review
    Taylor Swift Returns to Her Signature Devastating Songwriting on ‘The Archer’It’s the most relatable of her new singles.
  21. star market
    Who Won Game of Thrones (the Pop Culture Phenomenon)?The fantasy series was gold for nearly every person, place, and broadcaster involved. But who came out on top?
  22. album review
    Ed Sheeran (Barely) Gets by With a Lot of Help From His Friends on No. 6 CollabsNo. 6 Collaborations Project spotlights Sheeran’s versatility but also his limits.
  23. a long talk
    Dev Hynes on His New Blood Orange Mixtape and Mariah Carey’s Otherworldly Genius“Mariah’s on another planet of music knowledge.”
  24. album review
    J. Cole’s Dreamville Records Is Having Its Best Year YetDreamville’s year and a half long push — particularly behind the label’s artists Ari Lennox, J.I.D, and EarthGang — is paying off.
  25. album review
    Bad Bunny and J Balvin Form a New Superhero Duo on OasisIt benefits from the skills each half of this big brother/little brother tandem brings to the table.
  26. shady business
    In Taylor Swift vs. Scooter Braun, Who’s Lying?Someone is fudging their details rather dramatically.
  27. album review
    2019 Is Ripe for Some Thom Yorke Perspective and He DeliversOn ANIMA, his third solo album, Yorke tries to make sense of the maelstrom.
  28. album review
    Lil Nas X’s Post-‘Old Town Road’ EP Is a MessThe project feels if not rushed, then fascinatingly flubbed.
  29. album review
    Madonna Remains Our Most Unpredictable Pop StarArt moves quickly; Madonna works hard to keep pace.
  30. song review
    Where Is Taylor Swift Going With This?Advocacy requires poise; Taylor Swift campaigns are freight trains.
  31. album review
    Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars Is His Best Album in YearsIt contains some of his most poignant songwriting since his mid-aughts resurgence.
  32. movie review
    Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue Brilliantly Spins a Bob Dylan Tall TaleBob Dylan is clearly here to mess with us, as is our director.
  33. album review
    Future Needs to Slow Down, for OnceConsistency is Future’s superpower, but he needs to be challenged and edited.
  34. song review
    Was This Really the Best Drake and Chris Brown Could Do?They fly on autopilot on “No Guidance,” their first-ever one-on-one collab after all these years of drama.
  35. album review
    The Jonas Brothers Pull Off One of the Greatest Comebacks in Recent MemoryThe last group to enjoy this much success after parting ways was One Direction.
  36. album review
    Skepta Doesn’t Need American ValidationHe could call in all the big guns and make the star-studded crossover album, but he won’t.
  37. jai paul
    Let Jai Paul’s Brilliant Return Be a Lesson to Leave Creators the Hell AloneBut the internet has only burrowed further into the kind of conspiracy thinking that beleaguered the artist in 2013.
  38. album review
    Miley Cyrus Is Still (Clumsily) Figuring Out How to Genre Flip-flopBut even when she misses on new EP She Is Coming, it feels like Cyrus is trying.
  39. song review
    Katy Perry’s ‘Never Really Over’ Is the Comeback Single She Desperately NeededHer new Zedd-produced single is a slight return to the motivational fare Katy Perry’s best at.
  40. summer preview
    Summer Music Preview: Madonna, Ed Sheeran, and More Albums We Can’t Wait to HearWill we finally get Rihanna? The light release calendar is likely bracing us for a summer of nonstop surprises.
  41. a long talk
    There’s Nothing Flying Lotus Can’t DoThe polymath on his new album, unreleased Mac Miller collabs, working with David Lynch, and what critics got wrong about Kuso.
  42. concert review
    Björk’s Cornucopia Concert Is the Wildest Visual Display That I’ve Ever SeenIt’s fitting for a catalogue that doesn’t much sound like anything else to generate a live show that doesn’t look like anything else.
  43. album review
    Tyler, the Creator Fully Owns His Voice on IGORIt looks like the artist has been priming us for this moment for years.
  44. album review
    Carly Rae Jepsen’s New Album Dedicated Proves the Emotion Hype Wasn’t a FlukeCarly Rae Jepsen isn’t a flash in the pan or a hip music nerd talking point or a knight or what have you.
  45. album review
    Mac DeMarco’s Here Comes the Cowboy Feels Like a Moody HangoverListening to this gorgeous but uneven batch of sad songs and slow songs, you hope DeMarco is using them to work through whatever’s bugging him.
  46. song review
    Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber’s ‘I Don’t Care’ Is an Anxious Summer JamThe duo’s first proper duet gives them a vehicle to pout about bad parties and good girlfriends.
  47. album reviews
    Vampire Weekend Are at Their Best on Father of the BrideThe band’s long-awaited fourth album also just became the frontrunner for best album of 2019.
  48. album review
    The Games of Thrones Soundtrack Acts Like It’s Too Cool for the ShowAs subtle as the show’s use of celebrities has been on camera, the collections of music inspired by the series are pretty batshit.
  49. concert review
    Jay-Z Continues to Lay Out the Blueprint for How to Age in Rap With B-Sides 2As Jay told the crowd, he can’t help it if his B sides are A sides.
  50. a long talk
    Schoolboy Q on New Album, Deaths of Mac Miller and NipseyThe rapper on ‘internet dweebs,’ Mac Miller and Nipsey Hussle’s deaths, and why you’re gonna like his new album even if you don’t like him.
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