NPR Music

Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist behind The Doors, died Monday from...

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:29:00 -0400

Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist behind The Doors, died Monday from bile duct cancer. He was 74. In a story about the band’s breakout “Light My Fire” on NPR’s All Things Considered, Manzarek says, “Western civilization ends here in California at Venice Beach, so we stood there inventing a new world on psychedelics.”

So this is great: Twin sisters Katie (Waxahatchee) and Allison...

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:14:33 -0400

So this is great: Twin sisters Katie (Waxahatchee) and Allison (Swearin’) Crutchfield cover Grimes’ “Oblivion” for Rookie Mag.

Joined by three excellent collaborators, Mohammad Reza Shajarian...

Mon, 20 May 2013 15:00:32 -0400

Joined by three excellent collaborators, Mohammad Reza Shajarian gives what amounts to a brief master class in the art of singing. Watch the Iranian icon — and one of NPR’s 50 Great Voices — unleash torrents of swooping, soaring, goosebump-inducing sound that’s still perfectly controlled at age 73.

Photo: Marie McGrory/NPR

With so many distractions and different ways to hear songs,...

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:32:32 -0400

With so many distractions and different ways to hear songs, it’s getting to be pretty impossible to give full albums the attention they deserve. When was the last time you actually listened to one all the way through, without any interruptions?

Photo: Corbis

The producer’s best album since the mid-’90s, False...

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:00:21 -0400

The producer’s best album since the mid-’90s, False Idols is one of 2013’s biggest surprises so far. His signature mix of menace and seduction still sounds contemporary after Tricky’s more than 20 years in (and out of) the spotlight.

Stream False Idols now.

Laura Marling’s songs dig well beyond the everyday, with...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:54:00 -0400

Laura Marling’s songs dig well beyond the everyday, with each sung in a wise, dusky, brooding voice that always seems in control of its surroundings. The U.K. folksinger’s fourth album, Once I Was an Eagle, takes a remarkable journey over the course of 16 hypnotic, subtly inventive songs.

Stream Once I Was An Eagle now.

The British beat-makers shed their electronics in pursuit of a...

Mon, 20 May 2013 10:00:40 -0400

The British beat-makers shed their electronics in pursuit of a sound designed to translate live. For their second album, Mount Kimbie’s Dominic Maker and Kai Campos even trot out languid vocal performances and a real live drum kit, while still sounding like themselves in the process.

Stream Cold Spring Fault Less Youth now.

There’s a way we talk and it includes profanity. We never...

Mon, 20 May 2013 09:03:54 -0400

There’s a way we talk and it includes profanity. We never figured we’d be arrested for it.

— Beastie Boys’ Mike D in a 1985 interview animated for PBS’ Blank on Blank series.

"The whole fantasy that we had, and whole dream that we had, was could we still do, or can we still..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:58:15 -0400

“The whole fantasy that we had, and whole dream that we had, was could we still do, or can we still make, today, dance music without a drum machine?”

- The robots speak! Hear the elusive Daft Punk in an interview with NPR’s Audie Cornish

Carnal implications abound on “Sex Mission,” a new...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:24:41 -0400

Carnal implications abound on “Sex Mission,” a new techno track from the Brooklyn-based musician Laurel Halo. There’s the not-exactly-subtle title, and the EP from whence it comes is called Behind the Green Door (out May 21).

Hear “Sex Mission” now.

Woody Herman was a soulful reedman, an amazing talent scout for...

Thu, 16 May 2013 16:38:00 -0400

Woody Herman was a soulful reedman, an amazing talent scout for decades and a bandleader of one of the country’s most popular acts. Born in 1913, Herman led “Thundering Herds” that were both big draws and well-respected by the likes of Igor Stravinsky. For his 100th birthday, here are five recordings which still sound fresh today.

Photo: William Gottlieb/Library of Congress

Watch the British post-punk band Savages make its debut on...

Thu, 16 May 2013 15:00:45 -0400

Watch the British post-punk band Savages make its debut on American radio in a blistering set from KEXP.

"Good cover songs are about necessity — something about the source material that needed to be..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:11:00 -0400

“Good cover songs are about necessity — something about the source material that needed to be revisited, revised, redone or otherwise rescued from the original production. You don’t have to improve on it, exactly, but if the original is perfect the way it is, then there’s not a whole lot of sense in either reinventing it or re-creating it note for note.”

- NPR’s Stephen Thompson on how to build the perfect cover song and why he desperately wants The New Pornographers to cover Enrique Iglesias’ “Escape”

wbezmusic: chirpradio: neil-gaiman: butcherbilly: The...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:43:08 -0400

wbezmusic:

chirpradio:

neil-gaiman:

butcherbilly:

The Post-Punk / New Wave Super Friends by Butcher Billy

Who are your heroes?

Reblogged purely to make Amanda smile.

!!!!!!!!!

LOVE

The Best.

Ian Curtis as Batman, of course. —Lars

Watch Vampire Weekend play new songs from Modern Vampires of the...

Thu, 16 May 2013 10:00:15 -0400

Watch Vampire Weekend play new songs from Modern Vampires of the City and more in a 12-song set for KCRW at Apogee’s Berkeley Street Studio.

Do you have a favorite record label?

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:20:29 -0400

Do you have a favorite record label?

Happy 65th birthday, Brian Eno! Hear the innovative artist and...

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:09:00 -0400

Happy 65th birthday, Brian Eno! Hear the innovative artist and producer join All Songs Considered to spin some of the music he’s most passionate about — from the hallowed doo-wop records that caught his fancy as a child to newcomers such as Anna Calvi.

Garifuna music was originally specific to the geographic area...

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:00:26 -0400

Garifuna music was originally specific to the geographic area surrounding coastal Belize and Honduras in Central America; the Garifuna people are descendants of slaves who settled on islands off the coast after a shipwreck in the 17th century. Isolated, they developed their own music called Punta. Punta spread, as they and their language did, throughout the region. Now, the Garifuna have migrated so far that some of the best places to hear their music is in the clubs of New York City and Los Angeles.

Get a 10-song Spotify playlist here and a history of Garifuna music on World Cafe.

Most of the lyrics are images, like a mental flood of...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:15:00 -0400

Most of the lyrics are images, like a mental flood of disjointed experiences that you are trying to stay afloat in long enough to spot land.

— Exitmusic on the gorgeously shot video for “White Noise”

The dance music scene that has risen in the past decade owes a...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:27:11 -0400

The dance music scene that has risen in the past decade owes a debt to the heavy beats of Daft Punk’s music. But Ann Powers says that Random Access Memories, the long-awaited album from the Parisian duo, turns its back on EDM to bask in the smooth sounds — and liberation — of the 1970s.