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Byline: Edna Gundersen, USA TODAY Elvis Presley, arguably the dominant cultural force in 20th-century music, popularized rock 'n' roll internationally and became the genre's first superstar. His first step was [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY 'He left on a high note.' That's producer Paul Nelson's assessment of Johnny Winter's Step Back, the blues giant's posthumous swan song. The 13-track [...]

USA TODAY music critic Edna Gundersen highlights 10 intriguing tracks found during the week's listening. American Dream Plan B, Tom Petty On a gritty guitar-fueled rocker from Hypnotic Eye, Petty [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY When Ariana Grande heard the final version of Bang Bang, her diva showdown with Jessie J and Nicki Minaj, she remembers falling to the [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY The monochromatic music shopper is going the way of the mono LP. Multicultural consumers -- blacks, Hispanics and Asian Americans -- make up the [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen Weezy and Drizzy, who introduced this slo-jam single Friday at the launch of their co-headlining Drake vs. Lil Wayne tour, ruminate on the daily grind over a [...]

ALBUM OF THE WEEK Al Jarreau *** out of four My Old Friend: Celebrating George Duke jazz download Every Reason to Smile; No Rhyme, No Reason; Backyard Ritual This affectionate [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, Elysa Gardner, Brian Mansfield Eric Clapton & Friends The Breeze: An Appreciation of JJ CaleBlues-rock download The Old Man and Me, Someday, Crying Eyes The guitar legend [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Mick Jagger copped plenty of moves from James Brown, and the similarities don't end there. 'James was definitely one of those guys with super [...]

Byline: Edna, Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen Four years after the bluesy Mojo, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are roaring back with swagger and spleen on their 13th studio album, Hypnotic Eye, pugnacious [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Tune into Tom Petty's Buried Treasure show on SiriusXM and you might hear Kings of Leon or Jack White crop up alongside such old-school [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Aerosmith's recent European tour began and ended with cancellations prompted by strife and tumult. And for once, it wasn't internal. Wednesday's closer in Kiev [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY 'The world is living on the edge,' Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler says. 'Every now and then, people need a big fat bonfire to dance [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY A Hard Day's Night, The Beatles' canny madcap romp, did more than revolutionize rock movies. It furthered the evolution of rock with a brilliant [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Halfway through 2014, album and digital sales are down. But it's animated at the top. With 2.7 million copies sold, Disney's Frozen soundtrack is [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Dr. Feelgood's prognosis for M÷tley Cre? Terminal. The notoriously hedonistic glam-metal pioneers are calling it quits with a Final Tour that launches tonight in [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY M÷tley Cre's Final Tour has a subtitle: 'All Bad Things Must Come to an End.' It's the band's acknowledgment that its road to rock [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY In early 1982, Japanese dignitaries sat in the front row at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville when Loretta Lynn sauntered to the edge [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY The Queen of Soul abdicate? Never. At 72, Aretha Franklin is wrapping up an album and launching a tour that opens Saturday and Sunday [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Five years after his death, there's no escaping Michael Jackson. The latest evidence, Xscape, arrives May 13 with eight 'contemporized' castoffs the superstar recorded [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, Brian Mansfield, Elysa Gardner, Martn Caballero Blame the cruelties of time, a kinder companion to the stateliness of blues than to the unruly impulses of alt-rock. The [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY 'It's like she never left,' Lindsey Buckingham says of Christine McVie's return to Fleetwood Mac, the band that sold 45 million copies of 1977's [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Looking back on her exit from Fleetwood Mac in 1998, Christine McVie recalls how considerate and obliging her bandmates were, particularly Stevie Nicks. A [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Say hello again to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the album that put Elton John on a fast track to superstardom. The expanded reissue, available [...]

Byline: Elysa Gardner; Brian Mansfield; Edna Gundersen Kylie Minogue Kiss Me Once Dance-pop *** out of four download I Was Gonna Cancel, Into the Blue Though now in her 40s, [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen Long overdue for the spotlight, Aloe Blacc may finally get his turn with this third album, a smooth R&B/pop collection that cribs from the playbooks of Sam [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY The Frozen soundtrack tops Billboard's album chart this week. Pharrell's Happy is No. 1 on the singles chart. Both were released in November. If [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen Greed, grandiosity and the glorification of gangsta life live large on the long-delayed sixth studio album by XXL rap hero Rick Ross. Ross raps with cocky abandon [...]

Byline: Brian Mansfield; Edna Gundersen Dierks Bentley **** out of four Riser Country download I Hold On, Here on Earth, Riser Grief over his dad's death infuses Riser so deeply [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen Billed as a companion to 2002's Sea Change, Beck's 12th studio album conjures the cosmic folk and poetic beauty of that breakup breakthrough with even better results. [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY For seven months, Pharrell has been goading pop fans to 'clap along if you feel like a room without a roof.' Happy finally has [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Pharrell refuses to write songs about himself, not because he's particularly private. 'I'm a regular guy,' he explains. 'I don't find myself that interesting. [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen; Elysa Gardner; Brian Mansfield Benmont Tench *** out of four You Should Be So Lucky Roots rock download Wobbles, Duquesne Whistle, Veronica Said, Blue Dress The keyboardist, [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Without John Lennon and George Harrison, there can be no Beatles reunion to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary. The recourse? Paul McCartney and Ringo [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY A Grammy win doesn't end with a shiny trophy and bragging rights. A week and a half after the Jan. 26 awards show, the [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Oh, what joy, for every girl and boy. The Beatles' whimsical Octopus's Garden, written by Ringo Starr 46 years ago, has sprouted into a [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY When Carole King took the stage to sing Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, the question was purely rhetorical. At Friday night's MusiCares gala, [...]

Behind the scenes at the main event in L.A., musicians had even more to say on Grammy night. USA TODAY's Marco R. della Cava, Edna Gundersen and Andrea Mandell were [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY The Grammy nominations list, loaded with critical and popular favorites, makes picking winners tough. USA TODAY solicits forecasts from experts in key categories. Here, [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY The Grammy nominations list, loaded with critical and popular favorites, makes picking winners tough this year. USA TODAY enlists help from three experts in [...]

Byline: Edna Gundersen, @EdnaGundersen, USA TODAY Greeted by mixed reviews and a lukewarm sales forecast, Bruce Springsteen's High Hopes hasn't quite lived up to its name. That may owe in [...]