New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles rounds out our week-long look back at the best of the year in music.

Three of the Billboard top ten songs in the country have titles containing the F-word. On this year’s Grammys telecast, Cee Lo Green played a rollicking version of the smash hit everyone knows isn’t really called “Forget You.” Has one of the most powerful curse words in the English arsenal become toothless? We get some straight talk on profanity from linguist  John McWhorter and New York Times pop critic Jon Pareles. 

At last night's Academy Award ceremony, Trent Reznor, along with Atticus Ross, took home the prize for Best Original Score. We talk with New York Times pop critic Jon Pareles about what the win means for the Nine Inch Nails frontman.

In the media coverage that followed the death of J.D. Salinger, the writer's infamous desire for privacy and his refusal to publish was discussed as much as Catcher in the Rye. Today: the tricky relationship between fame and artistic productivity, with Anne Paris, author of Standing at Water's Edge: Moving ...

In the past ten years, pop stardom met reality TV, the mobile phone met the MP3 player, and music stores and record labels met their doom. Some say that as a result, music has never been so democratic and accessible. Others claim it has never sounded worse. We find out ...

Seeing more hip young people than usual on the subway this week? It's that time of year: the CMJ Music Marathon. According to CMJ's web site, more than 120,000 musicians, filmmakers, panelists and others are participating in the event, which runs through Sunday. New York Times pop music critic Jon ...

New York Times pop critic Jon Pareles shares his year-end list of the best in world music.

View Jon Pareles' list of the best world music albums of 2008

Soundcheck blog: John Schaefer on the year's best world music

Now that Americans have chosen Barack Obama as their next president, questions of leadership priorities and style are front and center. Arts organizations face their own set of challenges in a changing cultural landscape. Today we ask a trio of experts about what makes a qualified arts leader in the ...

The Czech rock band Plastic People of the Universe formed in 1968 as Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. For the next two decades, the band would be a symbol of resistance and artistic freedom. New York Times pop music critic Jon Pareles talks about the Plastics, which are featured in ...