Kenneth Tucker is an American arts, music and television critic, magazine editor, and non-fiction book writer.

Early life and education

Tucker was born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, New York, and raised in Stamford,

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

Career

While attending NYU, he began writing freelance reviews for ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'', '' SoHo Weekly News'', and ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

''.Ken Tucker
at Rock Critic Archives From 1979 to 1983, Tucker was the rock critic for the '' Los Angeles Herald-Examiner''. From 1983 to 1990, he worked at ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pen ...

'', first as the newspaper’s rock critic, and then its television critic. In 1990, he joined ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular ...

'' (a Time Inc. publication) as a founding staffer. He was the magazine's television critic, DVD critic and an editor-at-large until 2013, except for one year (2005–06) as film critic at ''

New York Magazine ''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker' ...

''. Since 1982, Tucker has been a rock and pop music critic for the

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

(NPR) talk show '' Fresh Air with Terry Gross''.Ken Tucker
at NPR Tucker has appeared many times on television, including multiple appearances on '' The Today Show'', ''

Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. ...

'', '' The Charlie Rose Show'', and ''

The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Scottish actor and comedian Craig Ferguson. This was the third iteration of the The Late Late Show (American talk show), ''Late Late Show'' franchise, airing ...

''. He appears in the 1984 documentary ''The Gospel According to

Al Green Albert Leornes Greene (born April 13, 1946), better known as Al Green, is an American singer, songwriter, pastor and record producer best known for recording a series of soul hit singles in the early 1970s, including " Take Me to the River", ...

''. He is interviewed on-camera in '' Cartoon College'', a documentary about the history of comics.

Reception

Tucker’s reviews have provoked some notable responses from his subjects. In August 1980,

Billy Joel William Martin Joel (born May 9, 1949) is an American singer, pianist and songwriter. Commonly nicknamed the "Piano Man" after his album and signature song of the same name, he has led a commercially successful career as a solo artist since th ...

, enraged by a negative review of his music Tucker had written in the ''L.A. Herald Examiner'', tore up the review on stage during one of his concerts. Tucker’s negative reviews of

Seth MacFarlane Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (; born October 26, 1973) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, comedian, and singer. He is the creator and star of the television series '' Family Guy'' (since 1999) and '' The Orville'' (since 2017), and co-creat ...

’s animated series '' Family Guy'' resulted in a number of MacFarlane counter-criticisms, including a scene in which

Stewie Griffin Stewart "Stewie" Gilligan Griffin is a fictional character from the animated television series ''Family Guy''. He was born in 1998 and is voiced by the series creator Seth MacFarlane and first appeared on television, along with the rest of the Gr ...

breaks the neck of an ''Entertainment Weekly'' writer widely assumed to be Tucker.

Awards

For his critical writings, Tucker was a finalist for the

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

in Criticism in 1984,Pulitzer Prize finalists for 1984
at Pulitzer.org the first rock critic to become a Pulitzer finalist. He won a

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

in 1995 and has twice won a

Deems Taylor Award Joseph Deems Taylor (December 22, 1885 – July 3, 1966) was an American music critic, composer, and promoter of classical music. Nat Benchley, co-editor of ''The Lost Algonquin Roundtable'', referred to him as "the dean of American music." Ear ...

by the

American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...

(ASCAP).

Writings

Articles and essays

Tucker has written frequently about

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meani ...

and

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

s, most notably for ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' and ''The Best American Poetry'' blog. His 1985 ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' review of the serialized portions of Art Spiegelman’s then-work-in-progress ''

Maus ''Maus'' is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father about his experiences as a History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jew and The Holocaust, Holocaust su ...

'' is considered a factor in the mainstream acceptance of graphic novels and the publication of ''Maus'' by

Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...

. He has contributed essays to the following anthologies: * Miller, Jim, ed. ''The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll'', 1st Ed., New York: Rolling Stone Press, 1976. * ''Country: The Music and the Musicians'', New York: Abbeville Press, 1988. * ''Cooking and Stealing: The TIN HOUSE Non-Fiction Reader'', New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2004.

Books

* '' Scarface Nation – The Ultimate Gangster Movie and How It Changed America'', New York City, New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2008. * Tucker, Ken; Stokes, Geoffrey; Ward, Ed. ''Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll'', New York: Summit, 1986. * ''Kissing Bill O'Reilly, Roasting Miss Piggy – 100 Things To Love and Hate About TV'', New York City, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005.

References

External links

Official website

''Ken Tucker's TV''
Tucker's blog at ''

'' * Staff (undated)
"Ken TuckerEditor-at-Large, Entertainment Weekly and EW.com"
''Entertainment Weekly''. Retrieved January 9, 2012. * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tucker, Ken Place of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American film critics American magazine editors American music critics American television critics American magazine writers NPR personalities 1953 births Living people