Noah Berlatsky

As a white woman, Swift can afford to celebrate carelessness. Beyoncé, though, knows that even her casualness has to be perfect.

With the prospect of another Bush/Clinton presidential contest looming as ominously as Donald Trump's hairpiece, the word "dynasty" seems to be frothing off of many a pundit's keyboard. "Clinton, Bush struggle to shed dynasty labels," a Washington Post headline declared.

Did the classic Adam West Batman show strike a blow (Kerwhap!) for feminism?

Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf: they're all still practically household names.

Is it insulting to ask about the greatest female comics creator?

Conservative fetishization of the past is myopic, simplistic, and mean-spirited—but progressives can be too quick to cede tradition.

Irritation is the way of all flesh. The question is, if you're going to be annoyed for all of eternity, who do you want to be doing the annoying?

Genre boundaries are conscious of race—and, in the case of rock, conscious of gender too.

The acclaimed solo album of former Danity Kane member Dawn Richard raises questions about the very nature of "cred." Is pop antitethical to artistry?

The loss of gospel history has meant forgetting how important black women have been to American performance styles.