In their final season on F/X, which starts Tuesday, Detective Vic Mackey and his squad of corrupt LAPD cops will put the lid on what may be the greatest and most entertaining cop show on TV (and I love "Law & Order").

Joseph Nagyvary says he’s found a way to make contemporary violins sound like a Stradivarius.

A conversation with the man behind "A Prarie Home Companion." Keillor’s "A Prairie Home Companion: The Rhubarb Tour'' – a live variety show adapted from his broadcast program – pulls into the Cape Cod Melody Tent in Hyannis on Sunday and South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset on Monday.a

Outkast and the Goodie MOb got me into Southern rap music in the mid-‘90s. I’ll even admit that there are a few guilty pleasures on Master P’s gloriously-awful "Ghetto Dope." But I just can’t get into the whole Southern-bounce thing, and its biggest star, Young Jeezy, embodies everything that makes the genre forgettable and indistinct on "The Recession."

Leave it to Kid Rock to sum up the summer of 2008. His massive hit, “All Summer Long,” about summertime in Michigan has listeners singing along, including folks around the world. The song recently topped the U.K. charts for one week.

Everyone has a friend he can’t reach until it’s too late — one in a relationship built on false promises, at whom you shake your head over countless wasted hours of emotional investment. That’s right. There is no crueler mistress than network TV.

Another September, another month that’s increasingly hard to disregard at the multiplex. This year, there are new titles from filmmakers like the Coen Brothers, Spike Lee and Fernando Meirelles, as well as stars such as George Clooney, Kate Hudson, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino.

Fast doesn’t do it justice. For those familiar with DragonForce’s previous releases, you know what you’re in for and the boys from London don’t disappoint on "Ultra Beatdown." (Think Journey meets speed metal.)

If there was ever time I needed to learn to stop getting excited about side projects from bands I love, that time is now. Scars on Broadway, which features two members of System of a Down, is scattered, unnecessarily vulgar, and incredibly uninspired for something being marketed as “progressive” metal.

The new movie 'Traitor' goes behind the lines of the war on terror and yields a surprising amount of intelligence.

How can I pass up the chance to review an album by someone who calls herself Divine Brown, a name she unfortunately shares with the hooker caught in actor Hugh Grant’s car in 1995 on the Sunset Strip in L.A.? But OK, she’s from Canada, so maybe she missed that issue of Entertainment Weekly. 

During his precious little time as one of hip-hop’s most creative producers, the late J. Dilla crafted future-soul beats with their roots firmly planted in the Motown sound of his Detroit hometown. His "Champion Sound" collaboration with West Coast beatsmith Madlib is an overlooked gem in both of their catalogs, so it’s fitting that the fifth installment in Madlib’s Beat Konducta instrumental series would be a soul-infused tribute to a fellow creative spirit.

This week, the Wrestling Genius tackles women in pro wrestling.

Detractors who dislike frontman John Popper’s virtuosic harmonica skills will be glad to hear that there isn’t really that a lot of it on "North Hollywood Shootout." For much of the record, the band's jammy tendencies are curbed in favor of quirky instrumentation and a sunny, summertime pop-rock vibe.

I’m an idiot because, though I’ve had HBO since the mid-1990s, I’ve never watched an episode of “The Wire.” And that’s only part of it. Not only did I ignore the show’s entire five-season run on HBO (which, remember, I was paying for), but I also got each season on DVD from the cable channel’s publicity department. And guess what? I didn’t watch those either. One of the most acclaimed shows ever, just sitting on my shelf.