When singer Carsie Blanton released Not Old, Not New in 2014, the album seemed like a step sideways. Her calling card before it was semi-acoustic pop rooted in the singer/songwriter tradition, but her songs are physical enough and spare enough in their arrangements that there’s not a hint of the coffee shop left in them.

New Orleans rappers can't catch a break in Mississippi. In February, Big Freedia had a show in Hattiesburg cancelled when the owner of The Dollar Box was concerned that the state's Alcohol Beverage Control board would find Freedia and her dancers' "gyrating" to be too much. On April 9, Boyfriend faced a similar issue when she was scheduled to play Proud Larry's in Oxford.

[Updated] When I suggested yesterday that many critics and journalists felt David Bowie’s death too strongly to jump in with their strongest stuff right away, it looks like there was something to that. Later Monday and on Tuesday, stronger pieces started to show up, and speaking personally, my own game got a little better.

I”m late to the Lamenting Bowie party because my mind isn’t percolating with insights I want to share. I sleepwalked through much of yesterday, returning again and again to nothing wiser than He died. I haven’t cared a lot about Bowie in the last decade, but he was still in the world and still full of possibility.

When Big Freedia opened for The Postal Service in Seattle last week, by all accounts the pairing didn't work. The Seattle Times' Andrew Matson wrote: