sunday review

Nas follows “Destroy & Rebuild” with “The Flyest,” a charmingly overproduced AZ duet that functions as a victory lap but is, frustratingly, betrayed by the filler that comes next. Stillmatic’s original pressing included “Braveheart Party,” a song so clumsy and cloying that it makes “Oochie Wally” sound like “Verbal Intercourse.” It was removed, at Mary J. […]

Kylie Minogue asks what if. In her radiant pop world, every feeling tingles with possibility: the longed-for romance that you barely dare whisper, the intoxication after just one drop, the liberation under the strobe light. She is love’s defiant crusader who, in her 1987 single “I Should Be So Lucky,” made being ignored by a crush […]

Kurtis Blow had a Sprite commercial, but Hammer had Pepsi sponsor a monster arena tour. Run-D.M.C. went platinum, but Hammer moved Whitney Houston numbers. Beastie Boys conquered rock radio, Hammer conquered radio itself. People derided the way Hammer jacked entire chunks of Rick James and Prince, but Puffy would build an empire off of “Take […]