David Johnson’s unrequited correspondence with Jay-Z.

Meeting Nick Drake, London, 1970.

On jazz and the hipster psychopath.

The spiritual union of Johnny Cash and Rick Rubin.

The director on Obama, the state of black cinema, the Knicks, the Nets, the tragedy of public education in America, gentrified New York and why he lives on the Upper East Side.

A veteran critic reviews 32 shows in 30 days.

On trying out for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

On the surprising radicalism of library music – “music that has been composed and recorded for commercial purposes.”

An interview with Pavement’s Bob Nastanovich on his career afterlife as a “a clocker and chart-caller” and occasional breeder at an Iowa race horse track.

Listening to the Big Star songwriter, who left the group before dying in a solo car crash at 27.

His voice, on the recordings, is too sensitive. That's meant not as an aesthetic judgment. It wasn't too sensitive for the material, in other words. It was too sensitive for life. You listen to him sing, closely, and if you don't know another thing about what happened to him, you know that the guy with that voice is not going to last.

On the road with three high school show choirs and a dream.

The story of an opportunity missed.

One night in Newark with Chris Christie and Bruce Springsteen.

“No one is beyond the reach of Bruce!” he screams over the noise of the crowd, and then screams it again, to make sure I understand: “No one is beyond the reach of Bruce!”

The bizarre story of the disappearance of “downtown legend” John Lurie after a former friend resolved to take his life.

A profile of Fiona Apple.

The people behind San Francisco’s Summer of Love.

A profile of fashion designer Nudie Cohn, who made clothing for Elvis, Glen Campbell, Johnny Cash, and others.

A profile of the Against Me! frontman.

On tour with America’s first 50-year-old rock band.

A profile of singer-songwriter Will Oldham.

He has settled into character as an uncanny troubadour, singing a sort of transfigured country music, and he has become, in his own subterranean way, a canonical figure. Johnny Cash covered him, Björk has championed him (she invited him to appear on the soundtrack of “Drawing Restraint 9”), and Madonna, he suspects, has quoted him (her song “Let It Will Be” seems to borrow from his “O Let It Be,” though he says, “I’m fully prepared to accept that it’s a coincidence”).

A posthumous profile of Whitney Houston.

“Being Justin Bieber means having an endless number of T-shirts to destroy.” A profile of the pop star just after his 18th birthday.

With flash, hip-hop echoes rock’s golden age.

When rock was at its peak in 1972, Americans earning the equivalent of $1m a year took just over 1 per cent of national income. In 2010, this group’s share of national income had grown to almost 10 per cent. At the same time, the average tax paid by these top earners almost halved. The rise of Jay-Z’s “new black elite” reflects the growth in numbers of the super-wealthy. But the opulence that he and West flaunt also reflects the growing estrangement of those at the top from the rest.

“There was no Delta blues before there were cheap, readily available steel-string guitars. And those guitars, which transformed American culture, were brought to the boondocks by Sears, Roebuck & Co.”

The Beastie Boys on tour in Los Angeles shortly after the release of their debut album, Licensed to Ill.