Contributor: Adam R. Holz

After serving as an associate editor at NavPress’ Discipleship Journal and consulting editor for Current Thoughts and Trends, Adam now oversees the editing and publishing of Plugged In’s reviews as the site’s director. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children. In their free time, the Holzes enjoy playing games, a variety of musical instruments, swimming and … watching movies.

Dangerous Woman

There’s not even the pretense of narrative here. It’s just Ariana putting herself on display.

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The Brothers Grimsby

Shock-schlock provocateur Sacha Baron Cohen seems incapable of creating anything less than incomprehensible foulness.

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The Young Messiah

The dramatic license taken by Rice comes across as wholly different from the likes of recent biblical epics Noah and Exodus.

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Incarnate

Killswitch Engage still shouts out some encouragement. But more than a few tracks suggest a repudiation, or at least dilution, of Christian convictions.

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untitled unmastered.

Dizzying mixture of cultural, racial and spiritual insights jarringly juxtaposed against prurient portraits of unexpurgated rage, violence and sexuality.

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Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Kim’s vulgar, hedonistic tale that never quite meanders all the way to the meaning she’s so desperately looking for but can’t quite seem to find.

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No

Meghan Trainor’s latest song delivers a blunt rebuff to men who would objectify her … even as its video invites them to leer.

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I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It

The sophomore album from this rising British alt-pop band is as brutally honest as it is brutally hopeless.

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Work From Home

Fifth Harmony had to change the name of its latest hit to avoid confusion with a recent Rihanna track. And the title’s hardly the only similarity.

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Triple 9

Triple 9 is a brutally profane, wincingly violent thriller that pretends to plumb the depths of moral ambiguity.

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This Unruly Mess I’ve Made

The second effort from Seattle rapper Macklemore is, indeed, provocatively messy—in both good and grating ways.

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Risen

Risen accomplishes something quite remarkable: It tells the familiar, timeless story of Jesus’ death and resurrection from a fresh vantage point.

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The Witch

The devil truly is in the details in this dreary, demented rumination on wickedness … that has no godly counter and certainly no happy ending.

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The Life of Pablo

The profound and the profane pound away at each other on The Life of Pablo.

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Formation

Beyoncé’s “Formation,” for all of its controversy, for all of its potential benefit and harm, for all of its political posturing, is also …

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