On the 1866 murder of Laura Foster and the subsequent hanging of Tom Dula.

On the late singer Judee Sill, the virtual cemetery site Find a Grave, and memorials in the age of the Twitter RIP.

A profile of Richard and Karen Carpenter.

A profile of Lonny Breaux, post-fame.

Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show’s thrilling, scary, inept performance on German television.

After a divorce and in the midst of uncertainty, a woman impulsively buys an old piano.

"And now, X could not even appreciate the simple pleasure of background noise, for she could not play. She sat at the bench and looked at the keys, depressing one here and there, listening to the soft gasps of noise that vibrated from the strings inside the Steinway. She tumbled a few notes together; they sounded like little coughs, a disease she was uncertain of how to cure. She ran her hand over the smooth ebony finish; it reminded her of her pediatric patients, bubbled mounds of clay cherubs who had not yet been pulled like taffy into their angled adulthood."

After offending Richard Marx, the author meets him to hash things out.

From the latest winner of the National Book Award for Fiction: a former nun's infatuation with classical music leads to unexpected connections and actions.

" At any rate, she played Chopin. Played him in utter naturalness until the Mother Superior was forced to shut the cover to the keyboard and gently pull the stool away. Cecellia lifted the lid and played upon her knees. The poor scandalized dame dragged her from the keys. Cecellia crawled back. The Mother, at her wit's end, sank down and urged the young woman to pray. She herself spoke first in fear and then in certainty, saying that it was the very Devil who had managed to find a way to Cecellia's soul through the flashing doors of sixteenth notes. Her fears were confirmed when, not moments later, the gentle sister raised her arms and fists and struck the keys as though the instrument were stone and from the rock her thirst would be quenched. But only discord emerged."

A profile of Beck on the eve of his new album and nearly 20 years after the release of “Loser.”

Grammy-winning liner notes describing the rise, fall, and rebirth of Roky Erickson, who founded the psychedelic rock pioneers The Thirteenth Floor Elevators before a charge stemming from a single marijuana joint landed him in a Texas mental hospital.

The life and times of Willie Nelson’s guitar.

Inside North Dorcester’s RJam Productions studio, where Nate and Gary Smith churn out rap demos for $500/tape.

Reverse engineering the details of a murder that took place in St. Louis on Christmas Night in 1895 from over a century of popular song.

An oral history of the Dr. Dre album.

Trevell Coleman wasn’t sure whether he’d killed a man. But after 17 years, he needed to find out.

The Grateful Dead’s afterlife.

A field report from Electric Daisy Carnival, a three-night bacchanal in the Las Vegas desert attended by “100,000 wasted hedonists scantily dressed in furry underwear.”

How a loathsome band makes gobs of money.

The rise of One Direction fanfiction that imagines the band members in relationships – with each other.

A profile of RZA, hip-hop artist and kung fu film director.

Forty years after its release, the story of “Free to Be… You and Me.”

On Bruce Springsteen’s song, and growing up in a factory town.

Grizzly Bear and the surprisingly crappy economics of indie rock stardom.

On the rise of K-pop.