Contributor: Adam R. Holz

The Choice dutifully checks every expected box—both the poignant elements and the problematic ones.

“7 Years” of whiplash, you might say of this Lukas Graham song. Liberal, conservative. Immoral, moral. High and sober.

The latest effort from Australia’s most famous wig-wearer zigzags maddeningly between self-respect and self-objectification.

Zayn Malik has shed his association with One Direction. And his first solo hit sheds—and shreds—what few inhibitions his former boy band might have had.

A whole lot of bullets find their final resting places in bad guys’ skulls before that riding-off-into-sunset scene finally comes to the rescue.

A small handful of suggestive lyrics curl down the edges of this Smile a bit. But Tori Kelly’s effervescent winsomeness is amazingly Unbreakable.

Rihanna may be living life completely on her own terms, but beneath all the carnal bravado, it’s pretty clear she’s hardly happy.

When Rihanna sings about having too much “work,” she’s really talking about something else entirely.

Dirty Grandpa lives down to its name, then plunges so much deeper into verbal and visual refuse that the word dirty starts sounding clean in comparison.

Panic! at the Disco’s sole remaining band member says marriage has made him a changed man. It’s a claim this album doesn’t support.

Lecrae’s third “mixtape” delivers another hard-hitting dose of faith-filled yet pull-no-punches commentary on contemporary culture.

The idea of a professional wrestler becoming a pastor might seem, well, preposterous. But that’s the part that’s actually “inspired by true events.”

David Bowie’s final album, released just three days before his death from cancer, strives to turn even that final event in his life into performance art.

Rachel Platten’s 2015 hit “Fight Song” was one of Plugged In’s favorite tunes last year—which raises the stakes for the rest of her major-label debut.

This is a message movie, certainly, wearing its cautionary point of view on its toe tag.