It was hard enough for me to grasp the fact that there are incoming Washington University students who were actually born in the 1990s, and now here I am, facing runner-up on “American Idol” David Archuleta, who is part of that crowd. But, even harder to come to terms with than his birth date, Archuleta [...]

Going to W.I.L.D. without knowing what sort of treat awaits can be irritating; you want to be psyched, geeked, amped, stoked, keyed up—whatever your phrase may be—but it’s hard if you aren’t familiar with the headliner. Allow me to introduce you to Talib Kweli.

After the wild success of his first four albums and a very mediocre-at-best review of his fifth, T.I. is at it again with his sixth album in 10 years: “Paper Trail.”

You can say what you want about the bands that Bloc Party mimics—Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, The Pixies or what have you—but the musical style most at play in their new album is that of no musical style at all: unpleasant sonic experimentation. “Intimacy” is hurried and impersonal; each of the 12 tracks takes on an unorganized style of wailing on about lonely recluses in a tough and unsympathetic world.