Sure, it probably hasn't hurt Blake Shelton's rise to fame that he's a hunky, 6' 5" heart-stealer. (You think just any old crooner could've snagged Miranda Lambert?) But at the end of the day, it's the …

Blake Shelton may have a habit of cropping up on the pop charts, but don't think for a second he's not a real-deal country boy. On "Kiss My Country Ass" he raises a tall cold one to the staples of coun …

Which Trace Adkins are you partial to? Is it the swaggering man's man of "Songs About Me" or the wistful dad of "Then They Do," drawling out a time-flies tearjerker? Is it the heart-baring lover of "Th …

Compare the romantic roughnecks of Trace Adkins' boy-meets-girl showdown "Ala-Freakin-Bama" to the dressed-up dope of the Western swinger "All Hat, No Cattle," and the deep-piped star's position on wha …

Generally associated with Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name" from the Sergio Leone westerns of the '60s, the expertly themed work of Ennio Morricone has confirmed the importance and influence of the m …

The more you dig around in Morricone's archives, the more you appreciate his range, and realize his thematic links with 20th-century classical composers, most notably John Cage and countryman Luciano B …

Taking Back Sunday entered the 2000s as a bunch of young indie-rock upstarts with everything to prove, and they ended it as major-label men with a stack of Gold records and a huge following hungry for  …

Over the last decade, Taking Back Sunday has earned a lofty reputation among lovers of emo and post-hardcore, but their sound digs deeper than those definitions might suggest. Those who know them solel …

The rap game's been T.I.'s domain for barely five years, yet the Atlanta native remains one of the scene's most consistent superstars. That's been the case ever since he dropped the bumping, trunk-test …