NPR Music's picks for the best albums out this week include James Blake's Friends That Break Your Heart, new ones from Cimafunk, the underground hip-hop duo Atmosphere, Reba McEntire, and more. 

Featured Albums:
1. James Blake — Friends That Break Your Heart
Featured Songs: "Foot Forward" and "Frozen"
2. BadBadNotGood — Talk Memory
Featured Song: "Beside April"
3. Susana Baca — Palabras Urgentes
Featured Song: "Cambalache"
4. Natalie Hemby — Pins and Needles
Featured Song: "Banshee"
5. Various — Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows Vol. 2 (John Prine tribute album)
Featured Song: "Summer's End" (Performed by Valerie June)
6. Cimafunk — El Alimento
Featured Song: "Sal De Lo Malo"
7. Various — It's A Good, Good Feeling: The Latin Soul of Fania Records
Featured Song: "Soul Drummers" (Performed by Ray Baretto)
8. Joshua Crumbly — ForEver
Featured Song: "KOLKATA"
9. Atmosphere — WORD?
Featured Song: "Fleetwood"
10. Reba McEntire — Revived, Remixed, Revisited
Featured Song: "Fancy"

New Music Friday: The top 10 albums out on Oct. 8

Since launching in 2000, All Songs Considered has been NPR's flagship program for music discovery, artist interviews and conversations with friends and fellow music lovers about the really big questions, like what was the best decade for music, are there albums everyone can agree on, and what do you put on when you need a good cry? Weekly, with host Robin Hilton and the NPR Music family.

Music

This week's episode of New Music Friday from All Songs Considered showcases artists stretching limits across a wide spectrum of genres. NPR Music editor Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Alt.Latino host Anamaria Sayre dig into the most exciting albums out May 10, 2024, from a juggernaut of the Mexican regional scene experimenting with song forms and sounds from across Latin America to an R&B; singer getting loose after portraying a jazz icon to a blockbuster collection of contemporary indie artists pulled together for the soundtrack of a discombobulating movie rooted in the 1990s. 

Featured Albums:
• Grupo Frontera, Jugando a Que No Pasa Nada
• Andra Day, Cassandra (cherith)
• Various Artists, I Saw the TV Glow Original Soundtrack

Other notable albums out May 10:
• Yaya Bey, Ten Fold
• Les Savy Fav, OUI LSF
• I. Jordan, I Am Jordan
• Ryan Castro, El Cantante del Ghetto
• Amen Dunes, Death Jokes
• Arab Strap, I'm totally fine with it don't give a f*** anymore
• Brad Mehldau, After Bach II
• Brad Mehldau, Après Fauré
• Chick Corea & Béla Fleck, Remembrance
• Chief Keef, Almighty So 2
• Conway the Machine, Slant Face Killah
• Dehd, Poetry
• Gunna, One of Wun
• How To Dress Well, I Am Toward You
• Jim White and Marisa Anderson, Swallowtail
• Kelsey Waldon, There's Always a Song
• Kings of Leon, Can We Please Have Fun
• Mick Harvey, Five Ways to Say Goodbye
• Morgan Guerin, Tales of the Facade
• Myriam Gendron, Mayday
• Orville Peck, Stampede, Vol. 1
• Pokey LaFarge, Rhumba Country
• Shannon & the Clams, The Moon Is In The Wrong Place
• Villagers, That Golden Time

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New Music Friday: The best albums out May 10

Get your hanky out. With Mother's Day nearing, listeners share the songs that remind them of their moms and the deeply moving stories behind them.

Featured songs and artists:
1. Hoagy Carmichael: "Stardust"
2. Christina Aguilera: "Beautiful"
3. Jeannie C. Riley: "Harper Valley PTA"
4. Stevie Wonder: "Isn't She Lovely"
5. Kermit the Frog: "Rainbow Connection"
6. Phyllis Hyman: "You Know How to Love Me"
7. MILCK: "Oh, Mother"
8. Christina Perri: "You Are My Sunshine"
9. The Tokens: "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
10. Four Tops: "Reach Out I'll Be There"
11. Sweet Honey in the Rock: "Wanting Memories"

Enjoy the show? Tell your friends and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts!

Feedback?  Drop us an email: allsongs@npr.org

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Mother's Day Special: Celebrating moms and the music they loved

On the May 3 episode of New Music Friday, NPR Music's Hazel Cills and WRTI's Nate Chinen discuss the week's essential new albums, including Radical Optimism, from the dance-pop superstar Dua Lipa. 

The songs on Radical Optimism are mostly in the vein of Dua Lipa's earlier work, but that itself might be reason to keep a militantly sunny attitude: A parade of hits from her last album, Future Nostalgia, proved to have incredible staying power — "Levitating" hung around in the top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100 chart for nearly a year — and she contributed to last year's cultural juggernaut Barbie with "Dance the Night." Still, Hazel and Nate say the new album offers hints of a few surprising artistic developments in her sound.

Radical Optimism isn't the only album out this week that demands attention. New records by the inimitable folk songwriter Jessica Pratt and the always ambitious jazz maestro and saxophonist Kamasi Washington focus their own sounds in new and highly rewarding ways. 

Featured Albums:
• Dua Lipa, 'Radical Optimism'
• Jessica Pratt, 'Here in the Pitch'
• Kamasi Washington, 'Fearless Movement'

Other notable albums out May 3:
• Willow, 'empathogen'
• Mdou Moctar, 'Funeral for Justice'
• Steph Richards, 'Power Vibe'
• Charlotte Day Wilson, 'Cyan Blue'
• Luke Stewart's Silt Trio, 'Unknown Rivers'
• 4batz, 'u made me a st4r'

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New Music Friday: The best albums out May 3

It's the 10th annual Tiny Desk contest and there's been a strong showing of Latin artists behind desks across the United States and Puerto Rico.

Felix and Ana sifted through all the entries and pulled their favorites from artists with roots all across the Americas. And if one of them ends up winning, you can thank us for the introduction.

Songs featured in this episode:

•Cathia, "Taza de Café"
•Manu Manzo, "Celos"
•Mireya Ramos and the Poor Choices, "Quiero Volver"
•Flaco el Jandro, "Lluvia Pesada"
•Los Quinceañeros, "Guero"
•La Doña, "Loser Girl"
•Alejandro Aranda, "Pieces"

Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Joaquin Cotler, with editorial support from Hazel Cills. Our project manager is Grace Chung. NPR Music's executive producer is Suraya Mohamed. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.

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Alt.Latino's favorite Tiny Desk Contest entries

Brittany Luse, host of NPR's It's Been A Minute, joins All Songs Considered's Robin Hilton to update our running list of the year's best songs.  

Featured artists and songs:
1. Ekko Astral: "Baethoven," from 'pink balloons'
2. Nubiyan Twist: "Carry Me (feat. Seun Kuti)," from 'Find Your Flame'
3. T-Bone Burnett: "He Came Down," from 'The Other Side'
4. Bien et Toi: "So Long (feat. Paris Texas)," from 'London Safari II'
5. Bnny: "Missing," from 'One Million Love Songs'
6. Chanel Beads: "Unifying Thought," from 'Your Day Will Come'


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New Music Friday: The top 10 albums out on Oct. 8

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