This year, two arena-filling artists returned to the older civic function of song. Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Minneapolis” and U2’s elegiac “American Obituary,” written in response to immigration ...

There was little room on stage for wallflowers at Carnegie Hall on a Wednesday night in March last year. The occasion was a celebration of American singer-songwriter Patti Smith, and packed inside ...

Why, in an era when music's biggest stars are more outspoken than ever, does it feel like we're still waiting for the contemporary political anthem?