Contributor: Adam R. Holz

Leering lust or lasting love? We don’t have to listen long to One Direction alum Zayn’s solo debut to know what’s really on his mind.

If it feels so right, it can’t be wrong, Gwen Stefani gushes.

It’s just too bad Hello, My Name Is Doris didn’t say good-bye to more of the genre’s other standard trappings—the profanity and sexual stuff.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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