Like a lot of peers weaned on ’90s hip-hop, Missouri rapper Mac Lethal doesn’t much care for the direction commercial rap has headed over the last decade. On his Rhymesayers debut album, 2007’s 11:11, Mac Lethal spits extended...

Count me in the "Joaquin Phoenix was faking it" camp. Though Phoenix convincingly displayed the eerily detached, flat affect of a patient in the early stages of schizophrenia, he hid behind the same thick, black sunglasses as so many bluffing poker players. Phoenix's instantly infamous "Late Night" interview probably struck a chord with entertainment writers all over, though, conjuring ...

Mac Lethal is a prick. Of course, that's kind of his appeal. A curmudgeonly white rapper with a waning hairline and a sad, protruding belly, Mac Lethal riffs like an incensed insult comedian about the many things that piss him off-Christians, vegans, scenesters, Ben Harper-filling the funny, irate rapper void left when Eminem lost his sense of humor. On 11:11, his debut record for the prestigious Rhymesayers label, Mac Lethal deems himself "a rapper who doesn't like rap," and though that isn't quite true, he voices the frustrations of everyone...

Balding and curmudgeonly, Missouri rapper and recent Rhymesayers signee Mac Lethal speaks for everyone who came of age on ’90s hip-hop but can’t muster the same excitement for current pop music. He raps extended, insult-comedian tirades against modern R&B singers like T-Pain and Ciara and pop starlets . . .

Blending a mix of narrative lyrics, lush instrumentation and synth-pop flourishes, the Toronto-based indie-pop collective Stars has distinguished itself from fellow bands treading this well-worn terrain. Led by vocalists Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan, both sometimes members of Broken Social Scene...