Sasha Frere-Jones listens to Justin Timberlake’s latest album, “The 20/20 Experience,” and asks, “Can we be content with good nature and hard work when something more intense seems to lie beneath the surface? He never promised us a great transformation, and yet we’re still waiting for it.” Continue reading.

Photograph by Martin Schoeller.  

Notes on (another) suppressed Chinese scandal: http://nyr.kr/XGI0sR

Photograph: ChinaFotoPress/Getty.

In this week’s issue, John Colapinto writes about Dr. Zeitels, who’s performed vocal chord surgery on Adele, Roger Daltrey, and other notable singers. Here, Colapinto considers the claim by many that Adele has “seemed a little restrained” in her recent performances at the Oscars and the Grammys, and writes, 

I wonder whether Daltrey and others who have detected tentativeness are not projecting their own anxieties onto Adele, knowing that those extraordinary vocal cords were once laid open by the surgeon’s scalpel, and knowing that Adele knows it… That we see, or think we see, restraint or fear makes me understand why singers keep vocal problems a secret. 

Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/Y16RVj 

Richard Brody on  Eddie Cantor, “a street-smart New York comedian and singer, a big hit on the Broadway stage, and a strange, exuberant, yet hauntingly circumspect and reflective character, whose contribution is one part hard-nosed practicality and one part surprisingly symbolic.” Continue reading: http://nyr.kr/WFq4Qv

(Source: newyorker.com)

Can Lana Del Rey actually sing? Sasha Frere-Jones attends her show at The Wooly: http://nyr.kr/OJg9r4

Photograph by Benjamin Lozovsky/BFAnyc.

The original Dylanological sin is to focus too much on the words, and too little on the sound: to treat Dylan like he’s a poet, a writer of verse, when of course he’s a musician—a songwriter and, supremely, a singer. “Tempest” reminds us what a thrilling and eccentric vocalist he is.

Jody Rosen on Bob Dylan’s unreliable narration, and a review of his new album, “Tempest”: http://nyr.kr/P8GGKS

“Justin Bieber was born with the Superman powers,” Braun said. “He could sing, he could dance, he could play instruments. I wasn’t born with those gifts, so I had to become a different kind of superhero.” Braun studied the careers of influential behind-the-scenes guys, especially David Geffen, who moved from the William Morris mailroom to the music business and eventually co-founded DreamWorks. “David Geffen was a Bruce Wayne to me,” Braun said. “He was extraordinary, but at the same time his talents were something that I could dream of and could fathom. I’m a normal Joe. But, with a lot of effort, I’ve got a shot at being Bruce Wayne.”

In this week’s issue, Lizzie Widdicombe profiles Scooter Braun, the manager of such pop mega-stars as Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen, the Canadian singer behind this summer’s chart-topper “Call Me Maybe”: http://nyr.kr/OcTMVf

Last year, it was limericks. The year before, haikus. You sent us your prettiest poetry, and some of you won New Yorker Festival tickets. But this year, we are upping our game—and yours.

We are looking for three up-and-coming acoustic bands or singer-songwriters to play at the Heineken Bandgarten, a hang-out at Joe’s Pub, in the East Village, where Festival-goers will be able to relax between events over food and drinks. Who supplies the music? You do!

To throw your hat into the ring, send a video of up to three minutes of you or your band (current members only) playing an original song to festivalbands@newyorker.com by Wednesday, August 22nd. 

For more information and the complete contest rules: http://nyr.kr/NLetJB

How, without calcifying, do you remain the performer who initially enticed your audience? Peril bookends the choices: at one end, the artist risks being so consistent that she is irreversibly tied to an era (like Alanis Morissette); at the other, she can make the daredevil choice of changing her persona, with the attendant risk of mangling the work (like Bob Dylan). … In different ways, both artists use their thumbnail bios as material to push against, finding new roles inside their reputations.

Sasha Frere-Jones on the new sounds of Fiona Apple and Norah Jones: http://nyr.kr/MYsPH2