The first thing LANA DEL REY sings on her masterful new album, NORMAN F***ING ROCKWELL!, is an opening salvo for all time: "Goddamn man-child / You f***ed me so good that I almost said, 'I love you.'" Backhanded compliment of the year, at the very least, and a perfect overture for a complex, layered, confessional collection that's already being discussed, deservedly, as one of the great LA singer-songwriter albums. At some point on Wednesday, Del Rey became aware that NPR MUSIC's ANN POWERS had f***ed her even better with a 3,600-word critical essay that, with nuance, caveats and its own layered histories of music, lyrics, Surrealism, film noir and Southern California culture, heralds Del Rey's arrival as a major artist and cultural figure, as someone worth reading and hearing as part of the LA literary canon. Del Rey, who seems to have absorbed only the caveats, did not almost say "I love you" this time. Instead, she tore into Powers—one of the most insightful, empathetic and knowledgeable pop critics working today—with a pair of tweets that said the critic had missed the point of her music and has no right to call herself a fan. It's not the first time an artist has complained loudly about a critic, but maybe the first time an artist has done so in response to that much praise. Pop critic Twitter immediately went on the attack, not just because Del Rey's reaction seemed both rude and strange, but because it seemed to be a rejection of the very idea of criticism. And in a culture in which serious, thoughtful criticism is becoming increasingly rare, that rejection, coming from a major artist, carries an especially potent sting. We should be fighting to protect the sites and writers, like Powers, who do it well. Who elevate the discussion of music and other arts. Who educate, enlighten and help us see deeper into works of art we love, works of art we don't and works of art we otherwise might never have heard. Who help us hear. Who help us connect Lana Del Rey's Southern California to JONI MITCHELL's and KIM GORDON's and WARREN G's. Who help us see the threads on which our culture is built. Who challenge and provoke that culture. None of that, by the way, is Lana Del Rey's job. Her job is to make great music. She's under no obligation to suffer foolish men gladly, nor is she under any obligation to suffer wise women gladly. We can hate her tweets and love her art. But we can also wish that she might understand that critics, even the ones with nuance and caveats, are on her side, and on music's side. And music needs them... On a lighter note, here's an index of every proper noun on Del Rey's album, from the EAGLES to JESUS to the 405 and beyond... Chart swallows data: BILLBOARD's parent company, VALENCE MEDIA, is buying NIELSEN, according to BLOOMBERG... MAX HARRIS, the creative director of Oakland's GHOST SHIP warehouse space, was acquitted Thursday of 36 counts in connection with the horrific 2016 fire that killed 36 people there. The jury deadlocked on charges against DERICK ALMENA, the warehouse's primary leaseholder; prosecutors now have to decide whether to re-try him... You can get off your phone: A web version of APPLE MUSIC is now in public beta... The BAND documentary ONCE WERE BROTHERS premiered Thursday night in Toronto, and the LINDA RONSTADT documentary THE SOUND OF MY VOICE is in theaters today... If MAREN MORRIS, BRANDI CARLILE, AMANDA SHIRES and NATALIE HEMBY drop an (awesome) album in a Nashville forest and country radio doesn't play it, does it make a sound? Their debut as the HIGHWOMEN—one of the most anticipated country records of the year—is out today, and it arrives as a direct, and intentional, challenge to country radio's philosophy of who has access to its airwaves. (To quote KELLY CLARKSON: "Y'all don't play people with boobs.") Outlaw country, welcome to 2019... It's FRIDAY and that means there's also new music from EARTHGANG, POST MALONE, TINARIWEN, BAT FOR LASHES, MAHALIA, ALESSIA CARA, the MESSTHETICS, ASHLEY HENRY, SHORELINE MAFIA, DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE, IGGY POP, MIZMOR, OCTO OCTA, KLEIN, LOWER DENS, GHOSTFACE KILLAH, DAYMÉ AROCENA, CRYSTAL GAYLE, CHRISSIE HYNDE, KINDNESS, ROBYN HITCHCOCK & ANDY PARTRIDGE, FRANKIE COSMOS, MUNA, TENNIS SYSTEM, the BRAND NEW HEAVIES, SANDRO PERRI, BARKER, ENRICO RAVA & JOE LOVANO, RAS KASS, JOHNNY GILL, MELANIE MARTINEZ, LINDSEY STIRLING, AMY SPEACE, PAUL CAUTHEN and a previously unreleased MILES DAVIS album... RIP KYLIE RAE HARRIS, JIMMY JOHNSON, DAN WARNER and IVO MALEC.