Middle ground doesn't exist when it comes to Bob Dylan shows. The response is either, "I can't believe I walked six blocks in the rain for this," or "I have printed set lists from every show he's played in the past five years! Do you want to see them?" I overheard both of those snippets within seconds of standing among the rain-besotted crowd in the Peabody's lobby.

Fed up with being viewed as "the voice of a generation," Bob Dylan once derided "finger-pointing songs" -- and yet, sometimes, those protest songs result in the most enduring, life-changing art.

We've often said that a great music scene needs a great radio station to thrive. The same could be said for brick and mortar record stores. Our friends at Vintage Vinyl and Euclid Records prove that every day.

I thought 2012 was a really strong year for new music releases and I found the same to be true for reissues and compilations.

When asked what music I've liked, usually I can only think of the last thing I happened to have heard that day. But for this list, I did exhaustive research, running down the 200 plus albums which gave me some amount of pleasure in the last 12 months, and deciding which ones were my very favorite releases.

Fall has always been my favorite time of year, and I've tried to explain it in a lot of ways. No one explanation nails it though.

Randy Newman is dreaming of a white Christmas president.

The Mercury Prize 2012 nominees are out. Fact Magazine runs the numbers.

Half a century after Bob Dylan's self-titled debut comes the bard's 35th studio album, "Tempest." I've got my tools nearby -- a scotch-taped copy of "Chronicles" for reference, a warm bottle of Empire Sarsaparilla for relief and a tourniquet for no reason at all. We can't stop the blood, so let’s hash this thing out.

The versatile Joe South, one of the greatest of the American music greats, has died at the age of 72.