As frequently as music fans tend to point to the early 2000s as the dawn of our digital enlightenment, consider the ways those first few years online now feel like the dark ages. Bound by terrestrial radio formats, genres still mostly dared not mix on air — and when they did, a song that perfectly blended hip-hop and R&B might …
How The 1975’s Matty Healy Became the Bad Boy you Love to Roll your Eyes at
This piece contains language that some readers may find offensive. When Matty Healy told an interviewer recently that he’s obsessed with the duality of having a dick, was he joking? It’s hard to tell. A little context: In that conversation, as throughout The 1975’s new album, the singer was commenting on the curses and blessings of his gendered existence. The …
Low’s Mimi Parker had a Voice that Let the Light In
Mimi Parker died Saturday, but her voice rings out in the present tense. It’s eternal, radiant. It’s a warm, fragile thing, that voice. It shimmers warmly but cuts through the din like a spotlight. It wavers but holds focus. For just one example across nearly three decades of music, listen to “The Plan,” from Low‘s 1996 album The Curtain Hits …
NoSo | Tiny Desk Concert
Baek Hwong, the artist who performs as NoSo, arrived at NPR’s headquarters on a sunny Friday afternoon that followed a week of relentless rain in Washington, D.C. The change in weather was apt for the Los Angeles-based artist whose music often sheds light on dark times. I first discovered NoSo when they entered the Tiny Desk Contest back in 2019. …
Mexico’s Son Rompe Pera Bang the Marimba at the Crossroads of Cumbia and Punk
In celebration of Latinx Heritage Month, NPR Music is spotlighting a series of artists across Latin America who are engaging with their musical heritage in unique ways. From reworking conservative genres for new eras, to teasing out modern sounds from old-school instruments, these artists represent the wide range of experimentation that makes up contemporary Latin music. Earlier this year, in …
Pharoah Sanders, Giant of Spirit-Driven Jazz, Dies at 81
Pharoah Sanders, the revered and influential tenor saxophonist who explored and extended the boundaries of his instrument, notably alongside John Coltrane in the 1960s, died on Saturday morning in Los Angeles. His death was announced in a post on social media by the record label Luaka Bop, which had released his celebrated 2021 album Promises and confirmed by a publicist …
Allison Russell | Tiny Desk Concert
“I am grateful and I am proud for this circle of goddesses,” said Allison Russell during her joyful, rousing Tiny Desk set, reaching toward the six women surrounding her. Russell has cultivated this band’s harmoniousness in the year she’s been touring in support of her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child, which tells the singer’s life story, from her childhood escaping …
Watch | Sailor Goon live at Blue Jay Listening Room
Jax singer-songwriter Sailor Goon spins and sings in Jax Beach
With the release of several singles that blend jazz, neo-soul, psychedelia and pop under her alter ego Sailor Goon, Jacksonville vocalist Kayla Le has had our attention for some time now. Indeed, at the beginning of the year we named her one of the 10 Jacksonville artists to watch in 2022. Just a few months after the release of her …
On ‘No Rules Sandy,’ Sylvan Esso finds freedom outside the formula
Sylvan Esso‘s fourth album ends in a manner almost antithetical to the duo’s original musical impulses, putting the band’s early-days and present versions on opposite shores. As they’ve recounted, it all started when folk singer Amelia Meath — then best known as a member of the choral-forward group Mountain Man — conscripted electronic music producer Nick Sanborn to remix her …
Like The Linda Lindas, this teen girl band in Benin makes you dance — and think
The first time that Star Feminine Band – a group of 7 girl musicians from the ages of 12 to 19 – played a show in their West African nation of Benin, many in the crowd broke out in both applause and tears. While the country has seen its share of successful female musicians – singer Angélique Kidjo, for example, …
For Angel Olsen, the Shortest Distance Between Loss and Love is a Country Song
Angel Olsen picks musical genres for her records the way other artists pick instruments. “I want that vaulted-ceiling feeling,” another musician might say. “I want classic, I want sweeping. Piano it is.” Olsen’s previous releases have leaned on folk, rock, pop and psychedelia. For her sixth album, Big Time, the selection process could have sounded something like this: I want …
Alisa Amador, 2022 Tiny Desk Contest Winner | Tiny Desk Concert
It surely was a day of joyful tears. And those joyful tears for Alisa Amador, the winner of the 2022 Tiny Desk Contest, came at a time when she had been considering putting her music career on hold. For the staff of NPR and the Tiny Desk crew, it was our first Tiny Desk concert with an audience in over …
Ada Lea | Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. Ada Lea‘s Tiny Desk (home) concert opens just as her 2021 album, one hand on the steering …
Depeche Mode founding keyboardist Andy Fletcher dies at 60
LOS ANGELES — Andy “Fletch” Fletcher, the unassuming, bespectacled, red-headed keyboardist who for more than 40 years added his synth sounds to Depeche Mode hits like “Just Can’t Get Enough” and “Personal Jesus,” has died at age 60. Depeche Mode announced the death of founding member Fletcher on its official social media pages. A person close to the band said …
Fontaines D.C. | Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. Filmed in Chicago’s beautiful brick Irish American Heritage Center during a recent tour, this four-song set begins …
Announcing the winner of the 2022 Tiny Desk Contest
Choosing one Tiny Desk Contest winner from all the incredible entries NPR Music receives each year never gets any easier — though the process, where a panel of judges and I get to hear so many amazing unsigned artists from across the country who hope to play a Tiny Desk concert, is always pretty exciting. Now, after sifting through thousands …
On ‘Dance Fever,’ Florence + the Machine explores her fractured desires
The pandemic and its subsequent lockdown has forced many people into a self-reflective space. For Florence Welch, the frontwoman of the Grammy-nominated band Florence + the Machine, this moment of solitude came with an intense period of personal deliberation over her seemingly fractured desires. Questions about how to balance motherhood with the bodily experience of being a performer left her …
When it feels like the world’s ending, Sharon Van Etten still cares
“It’s too much,” Sharon Van Etten sings on We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, “but I’ll try.” Well, yes. You don’t really need to know the specifics of Van Etten’s recent experiences to relate, to understand the coexistence of overwhelming fatigue and resigned commitment she expresses. On her sixth album, much of which was written in the sustained trauma …
Watch Jacksonville Artists’ Tiny Desk Contest Entries
Jax's got talent
The Tiny Desk Contest is back for 2022, with a new (and stacked) panel of judges and another opportunity for unsigned artists to earn an invite to perform on the revered, improvised stage in front of Bob Boilen’s desk at NPR Music HQ. Listen to our interview with Tiny Desk creator Bob Boilen from First Coast Connect. Over the past …
Buffalo Nichols Pushes the Blues into its 21st-Century Phase
The buzzed-about musician believes the blues is, generally, not cool
When it comes to performing his music to an unfamiliar, new audience, Carl “Buffalo” Nichols has no expectations. While his music might be framed within the blues expression, Nichols is being rightfully lauded for his inventive personal approach to taking the music out of any rigid confines. After 12 years of performing as solo artist or with his early Americana-style …
Tiny Desk Meets SXSW | Maxo Kream
Every year, NPR Music participates in the SXSW music festival, whether it’s curating a stage or simply attending hundreds of shows at the annual event in Austin, Texas. In 2020, the festival was canceled due to the pandemic, but it returned last March as an online festival. We programmed a virtual “stage” of Tiny Desk (home) concerts in 2021 in …
Black Voices in American Music: The Playlist
Black voices created some of the first truly American music – the sorrow songs and spirituals of people in bondage, singing of freedom and hope. Along the winding road of American history, Black artists have leaned into the power of music as an expression of progress and protest, joy and pain, courage and conviction. This playlist, and the stories behind …
Mitski’s ‘Laurel Hell’ confronts the wild complexity of feeling
All over the world, every day, people are losing it. It happened to me just last Tuesday, driving onto I-40 on my way back from Trader Joe’s. Phoebe Snow’s 1974 seduction “Poetry Man” turned up on my playlist and suddenly I was sobbing so aggressively I nearly had to pull over on the freeway on-ramp. That song’s a masterpiece of …
Want to play your own Tiny Desk concert? Enter the 2022 Tiny Desk Contest
The Tiny Desk Contest – NPR Music’s annual nationwide search for the next great undiscovered artist to play a Tiny Desk concert – is back for its eighth year. We’ll begin accepting entries next Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. ET. We’re thrilled to announce our panel of judges – the folks who will be selecting the 2022 Contest winner. …
On ‘Pompeii,’ Cate Le Bon makes meaning from the opulent and absurd
The literary term anti-mimesis describes when life imitates art, instead of the other way around. When critics use the term anti-mimesis these days, they are usually talking about work — be it literature, fine art or music — that gives off a nonsensical vibe — you know, it’s free associative, too weird to actually happen. Donald Barthleme, patron saint of …
On ‘Dawn FM,’ The Weeknd is both suffering and saved
“Now that all future plans have been postponed, and it’s time to look back on the things you thought you owned, do you remember them well?“ actor Jim Carrey, serving as narrator, asks listeners on the final track of The Weeknd’s new album. The dawn climbs out of the darkness where we’ve roamed for the erratic past two years to …
On ‘CAPRISONGS,’ FKA twigs vibrates at her highest frequency
Pluto scoffs at superficiality. The planet’s transit, the way that the planet’s movement activates and interacts with a person’s natal chart, demands for connection with core purpose. It is a chance to break through illusions and probe deep in search of inner truth: to evolve and be reborn without perfunctory airs. Born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, singer-songwriter FKA twigs celebrated her …
Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes has died at age 78
Updated January 12, 2022 at 7:16 PM ET Singer Ronnie Spector, who founded the girl group The Ronettes in 1961, has died after a brief battle with cancer. She was 78. “Our beloved earth angel, Ronnie, peacefully left this world today,” her family wrote on the singer’s website Wednesday. “She was with family and in the arms of her husband, …
Olivia Rodrigo | Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. Stepping into a DMV when you’re about to take your first driver’s test, while nerve wracking, is …
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. What a remarkable sight to see the reunion of Robert Plant and Alison Krauss gathered around a …
How Black women reclaimed country and Americana music in 2021
If 2020 was the kickstart of a reckoning—of country/Americana music (and, really, all of America) being forced to come to terms with its history of racism and exclusion—2021 was the year of reclamation. Even as sustainable, systemic change remains elusive, Black women, in particular, have leveraged the power of streaming platforms and social media to bridge the chasms previously carved …
Barry Harris, beloved jazz pianist devoted to bebop, dies at 91
Barry Harris, a pianist who carefully preserved the language of bebop throughout a seven-decade career as a brilliant performer and influential teacher, died Wednesday at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, N.J. He was 91 and lived in Weehawken, N.J. Harris had been hospitalized for the last two weeks and died of complications due to Covid, said Kira von Ostenfeld-Suske, …
Wet Leg: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. No other band has brought me more joy in 2021 than Wet Leg, and I truly needed …
Astro, a founding member of the reggae group UB40, has died at age 64
Terence Wilson, a founding member of UB40 who was known by fans of the pioneering reggae band as Astro, has died following a short illness. He was 64. Wilson’s death was confirmed Saturday on the official Twitter page for his group, UB40 featuring Ali Campbell & Astro. “We are absolutely devastated and completely heartbroken to have to tell you that …
Watch | The War On Drugs play Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The Tiny Desk is working from home for the foreseeable future. Introducing NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts, bringing you performances from across the country and the world. It’s the same spirit — stripped-down sets, an intimate setting — just a different space. In their Tiny Desk (home) concert, The War On Drugs gather in their packed studio in Burbank, …
Join NPR Music’s film screening of ‘Karen Dalton: In My Own Time’
Join us for an online screening of Karen Dalton: In My Own Time. Bob Boilen from All Songs Considered will be joined by director Robert Yapkowitz and singer-songwriter Margo Price in a live conversation about the film. The event will take place on Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. ET – you can RSVP via NPR Presents and watch via NPR …