A slew of Prince releases, dating from 1995 to 2010, have been released on streaming platforms for the first time ever, thanks to Sony Legacy Recordings. As part of a deal with the Prince estate, 23 new albums from his independent NPG Records era have been posted to streaming services, along with a new three-hour-plus Anthology of select tracks from this time period in Prince's career. Sony and...

In the beginning was the Voice, and the Voice was with God, and the Voice was God. My edition of the Book of John says this. At the start of her career, Aretha Franklin had a talent for singing and playing piano that was nurtured in New Bethel Church in Detroit, where she cut her teeth performing “Jesus, Be a Fence Around Me” under her father’s shrewd eye. The problem—what a problem!—of her...

Part of the experiment in considering Queen, Nicki Minaj's latest album and the follow-up to 2014's The Pinkprint, is ignoring the five-month promotional cycle that preceded it. In announcing the album nearly half a year in advance, Minaj eschewed the music industry's general contemporary preference for lead times of less than about two months. In an era where anything can be recorded, misconstrued,...