NPR Music

NPR Music has turned 10. We have a series of 10 podcasts looking back at some of the musical memories and moments. On this 2012 episode, NPR Music's Anastasia Tsioulcas and Stephen Thompson join co-host Robin Hilton to look back at the Pussy Riot revolution, Frank ocean's Channel Orange, Amanda Palmer's crowd-funded album Theater Is Evil, and one of the biggest hits of all time, "Gangnam Style."

NPR Music has turned 10. We have a series of 10 podcasts looking back at some musical memories and moments. On this 2011 episode we listen to the music of James Blake, Adele's '21,' revisit Amy Winehouse the year of her death and the U.S. launch of Spotify.

NPR Music has turned 10. We have a series of 10 podcasts looking back at some musical memories and moments. On this 2010 episode we listen to the music of Kanye West's 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,' the return of EMO with The World Is A Beautiful Place and I'm No Longer Afraid To Die and the band American Football's return. We also discuss The Beatles coming to iTunes.

NPR Music has turned 10. We have a series of 10 podcasts looking back at some musical memories and moments. On this 2009 episode we listen to the debut music of The xx, the brilliant album from Vijay Iyer, 'Historicity,' and we honor the lives of guitarist Jack Rose, Michael Jackson and more.

NPR Music has turned 10. We have a series of 10 podcasts looking back at some musical memories and moments. On this 2008 episode we listen to the music of Bon Iver, hear a brief interview with him from 2008. We also talk about the birth of BandCamp and the birth of the very first Tiny Desk Concert.

NPR Music has turned 10. And for the occasion we have a series of 10 short podcasts looking back at some musical memories and highlights. For 2007 we look at the impact of the iPhone, the release of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows,' the music of M.I.A. and more.

The season of list-making, specifically (for us) lists about the year's best music, is rapidly descending. But before the craziness begins over who had the best album or song in 2017, we thought we'd look back at some of our previous top-ten lists to see if they even hold up. As you can imagine, some albums we once thought were great have since lost their luster, while others haven't aged a day. This got us wondering: Why? And what, exactly, makes a great album last? When an album doesn't stand the test of time does it mean we missed something the first time we heard it, years earlier? Or could it only exist in a specific time and place? On this edition of the program, hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are joined by NPR Music's Stephen Thompson and Marissa Lorusso to look back at some of the albums we've loved over the decades, to relive what was great about them... and to wince at the ones that haven't held up as well.

By now you may have heard of the intercontinental, surprise collaboration between Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile, for an album called Lotta Sea Lice. The two singers have been mutual admirers for a while and kept bumping into one another at various festivals. Their guitar-based rock songs are laced with a shared sense of humor, and that was part of what got them creating music together. On this edition of All Songs Considered, Kurt and Courtney join host Bob Boilen in our Washington D.C. studios to talk about their mutual love for singers with guitars and a knack for writing songs that touch the heart, including cuts by The Sadies, John Prine, Gillian Welch, Tom Petty and Elliott Smith.

In a career spanning three decades, Beck has remained one of music's most intriguing shapeshifters. From the warped folk of his earliest recordings to the chopped-up samples, hip-hop beats and lush orchestral arrangements of albums that followed, Beck has never lingered in one sonic world for long. For his latest album, Colors, the singer takes his music in what some longtime fans may think is an odd, or overly simple, direction: The 11 songs, co-produced with Greg Kurstin, are pure, highly refined pop. But as Beck explains in this special Guest DJ session with All Songs Considered co-host Robin Hilton, Colors was still one of the most complicated and challenging records he's ever made. He also explains how pop music can be a finely crafted art form, why the guitar has become the stepchild of popular music and the healing power of songs that just make you feel good.

Cathartic rock from both the New Jersey band Pinegrove and the Canadian duo known as Partner; Glasgow singer-songwriter Siobhan Wilson's dark and brooding "There Are No Saints"; and NPR Music's Anastasia Tsioulcas joins us to talk about some of her favorite artists from this year's Womex, the World Music Expo, held in Katowice, Poland.We've got two songs that directly address both the seeming epidemic of harassment and the violence in Texas. The first comes from singer Mary Gauthier, who wrote her upcoming album, Rifles And Rosary Beads, as part of the SongwritingWith:Soldiers project, The second song is from Stella Donnelly, an Australian songwriter who confronts victim-blaming with the plaintive and deeply upsetting, "Boys Will Be Boys."Also on this week's show: