Milwaukee rapper/producer Klassik recorded his debut full length, In the Making, over several trying years marked by self-doubt, depression, relationship struggles and a crushing quarter-life crisis. You’d never guess...

Kanye West's sold-out Summerfest concert opened grandly, with a flock of 20 interpretive dancers flailing in front of a massive Apollonian relief sculpture as the operatic beat from West's Jay-Z collaboration "H.A.M." rumbled through the Marcus Amphi...

Provo, Utah, is usually known for Brigham Young football and Mormons, but with the debut album Habits of alt-rock band Neon Trees in 2010, you can add alternative rock to the list. Led by mohawked frontman Tyler Glenn and named after the illuminated shrubbery on the signs for fast-food joint...

Nobody has a higher opinion of Kanye West than Kanye West. For a guy with such a big ego, though, West also has very thin skin. On 2010's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, the rapper internalized the blowback from his Taylor Swift “Video Music...

It's an indignity I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy: Sitting on prime time television, head hung, while Jay Leno, so drunk off his good fortune that he can barely contain his smirk, shames you by evoking your recently deceased mother and asking, �What do you think she would have said about this?" Kanye West appeared shell shocked, on the brink of tears. Enough is enough. Kanye West is not Mic...

I'm not sure how this slid below my radar, but one of my favorite contemporary R&B singers, Syleena Johnson, is in town tonight for a 9 p.m. concert at Club 618 (618. N. Water St.) Tickets are $20, or $50 for the VIP treatment. Johnson's first taste of fame came entirely by accident. Kanye West recruited her to sing the hook on his second single, "All Falls Down," when he failed to secure the r...

One of last year's best songs has given way to one of this year's most gorgeous music videos. Kid Cudi's inescapable "Day 'N' Nite," which debuted last February on the rapper's introductory mixtape A Kid Named Cudi and has since been endlessly repackaged and remixed (and served arguably as the biggest inspiration for Kanye West's similarly minimalistic-electronic 808s and Heartbreak album), has no...

Kanye West's rush-released 808s & Heartbreak arrives the same week as another event album, Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy, and though the two discs have little in common, their appeal is largely the same�both have curious fans wondering, "how could this possibly be any good?" This week's charts will be driven by schadenfreude. West has handicapped himself considerably on Heartbreak. D...

While retailers prepare for the possibility of the worst holiday shopping season in a decade, the music industry has at least some cause to be optimistic entering Black Friday. Early next week will see the release of four huge albums: Guns N� Roses � Chinese Democracy: Axl�s album arrives after four presidential terms of hype and speculation, and with strong-than-expected reviews. It�s ...