WASHINGTON —The communications guru Anat Shenker-Osorio likes to say that if liberals were writing a story about the mythical giant-slayer David, they’d end up making the story all about Goliath. Democrats and those on the left love to promise their supporters a fight and can’t talk enough about the opposition. …

“Reason doesn’t walk in,” Van Morrison sang eight years ago. “Passion’s everything, when you were born to sing.” That line is from the title track of Morrison’s Born to Sing: No Plan B, an album whose name, in light of the singer’s recent tirades against government restrictions on live music …

Kurt Vile was sitting in the Butcher Shoppe studio in Nashville last December when he floated a pipe-dream idea to producer Dave Ferguson. Vile was slated to perform at the Grand Ole Opry with his hero John Prine two nights later and asked if Ferguson would call the songwriting legend …

The Beach Boys are the latest band to announce drive-in concerts, with three consecutive shows set for the fall. They’ll start in Southern California, performing at the Ventura County Fairgrounds on October 23rd and the Del Mar County Fairgrounds on October 24th. They’ll wrap up in Phoenix, Arizona, on October …

The filmed version of David Byrne’s acclaimed Broadway show,American Utopia, has a new trailer ahead of its arrival on HBO. Directed by Spike Lee, the film debuts Saturday, October 17th at 8:00-9:45 p.m. ET/PT on HBO, and will subsequently be available to stream on HBO Max. The short teaser gives …

Gabrielle Union is hosting an all-black cast reading of Friends. The virtual event will take place on Tuesday, September 22nd from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. ET at Zoom Where It Happens. Salli Richardson-Whitfield will direct the table read, and although Union has yet to announce which actors will play …

B ruce Springsteen is standing on a gravel driveway outside his house, squinting up at the sky. This morning, an early-August thunderstorm straight out of one of his own metaphors rumbled through New Jersey’s Monmouth County, soaking Asbury Park, buffeting Freehold, leaving muddy ground here in the horsey acres of …

North Carolina rapper Rapsody has shared a scathing new song, “12 Problems,” which will appear on the upcoming Roc Nation social justice charity compilation, Reprise, out October 9th. “12 Problems” boasts production from Don Cannon and Cubeatz, who pair concrete drums and rumbling bass with a loop of disconcertingly heavenly …

No one had a better front-row seat to the historic presidency of Barack Obama than Pete Souza. The chief official White House photographer, Souza traveled everywhere Obama went to document both terms of America’s first black president. Given extensive access to the public and private lives of the Obamas, he …

Melissa Etheridge, who’s currently seeing pandemic-era success with her Etheridge TV live-streaming subscription platform, discusses her whole life and career on the new episode of Rolling Stone Music Now. Among many other topics — including her time with Bruce Springsteen, navigating interviews in the days before she came out as …