NPR Music

This week's essential new music mix includes the remarkable story of Kendrick Lamar's rise, supremely fuzzy garage rock from Weed, the dream pop duo Gems and more. 1. Kendrick Lamar: "DUCKWORTH.," 2. Adam Torres: "I Came To Sing," 3. Cigarettes After Sex: "K.," 4. Weed: "Are We Cool?," 5. Terror Pigeon: "Chamber Of Secrets For 1," 6. Ratboys: "Control," 7. GEMS: "Poison"

Today on All Songs Considered, a conversation with Todd Rundgren — who has been recording music for almost 50 years! His first recordings came in 1968 with his band Nazz, before he began making his own groundbreaking pop albums. Those early solo albums — especially Something/Anything, A Wizard, A True Star — always stretched the boundaries of what a solo artist can do with the technology of the day. He was also — and primarily, in terms of employment, he told us — a lucrative and creative producer for Badfinger, Grand Funk Railroad, The Band, The New York Dolls, Hall & Oates, Sparks, Meatloaf, XTC... the list is quite long.

Timmhotep Aku is an NPR Music contributor and occasional guest host for our +1 podcasts. This week he talks with Matt Martians and Syd of the soul band The Internet.

We've often joked on the show about the virtual circus that's endlessly unfolding in Bob Boilen's brain, where his childlike imagination dances to the sound of a whistling calliope. So, for Bob's birthday this week, it felt appropriate to begin our show with nearly seven-foot tall clown named Puddles who sings a surreal mashup of Johnny Cash's "Folsom City Blues" and The Who's "Pinball Wizard." We're not making this up. It turns out that, apart from singing, Puddles never speaks, so we gave his assistant and interpreter Mike Geier a call to learn more about how this crazy mashup came to be. We've also got a blistering country rock cut from singer Andrew Combs, who gets political on a song called "Bourgeois King." The baroque pop of San Fermin gets bigger than ever on the band's new full-length, Belong; the Paris-based singer known as ALA.NI croons like it's the 1940s; and NPR Music's Lars Gotrich stops by to blow our minds (and ear drums) with the scorching punk of a band called Exit Order, tempered by the hypnotic jazz of Joshua Abrams and Natural Information Society. 1. Puddles Pity Party: "Folsom Prison Blues/Pinball Wizard," 2. Andrew Combs: "Bourgeois King," 3. Joshua Abrams And Natural Information Society: "Sideways Fall," 4. Exit Order: "Mass Panic," 5. Ala.Ni: "Cherry Blossoms," 6. San Fermin: "Oceanica"

Hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton share their favorite songs of the week, including premieres from Elf Power and Big Thief, plus new music from The Walkmen's Walter Martin, Son Lux and more: 1. Elf Power: "Watery Shreds," 2. Big Thief: "Mythological Beauty," 3. Walter Martin: "Hey Matt," 4. Scout Pare-Phillips: "Door Left Open," 5. Lydia Ainsworth: "WLCM," 6. Public Service Broadcasting, "Progress," 7. "Ryan Lott/Son Lux: "The Drowning Trough," 8. Diet Cig: "Sixteen"

Timmhotep Aku is an occasional NPR Music contributor and guest host for our +1 podcasts. This week he talks with writer, comedian and hip-hop lover Neal Brennan. Comedy and hip-hop have a lot in common: Both are balms for the sting of the everyday struggle and both hold up a mirror to society's excesses, absurdities, and injustices. These two worlds come together in the work of writer and comedian Neal Brennan.As the co-creator of Chappelle's Show, he and his writing partner, Dave Chappelle created skits that were funny and provocative with a hip-hop sensibility. They lampooned rap stars like Lil' Jon and Sean "Puffy" Combs, while featuring artists like Kanye West, Common and The Roots as musical guests. In fact, when Jimmy Fallon was handed the reins of the Tonight Show Brennan was the one who recommended The Roots for the show's house band.In the decade after Chappelle's sudden departure and the end of the the show, Brennan's continued to work as a stand-up comic, writer, and director. On this week's +1 podcast, I talk with Brennan about his Netflix special and one-man show 3 Mics and some of the songs that have inspired what he calls the "stand up, one-liners and emotional stuff" seen on the show. Along the way, Brennan dispels some myths and gives insight on just who the man behind the mic is.

On this week's show co-host Robin Hilton manages to heave himself off of the floor (after his beloved Kansas Jayhawks lost in the NCAA tournament AGAIN) long enough to hit the play button on some phenomenal new music. Host Bob Boilen and World Cafe host Talia Schlanger try to cheer him up with their own favorite songs of the week: 1. Perfume Genius: "Slip Away," 2. Sufjan Stevens, Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner and James McAlister: "Saturn," 3. Gorillaz: "We Got The Power," 4. The Family Crest: "Mirror Love," 5. Hippo Campus: "Monsoon," 6. Kevin Morby: "Come To Me Now," 7. Teen Daze: "Dream City," 8. Alexander F: "You're Such A Kill"

Lenny Kaye is an elemental force in music and a spiritually attuned diviner of sounds. On this episode, he walks us through his process and his inspirations including producing the new album by Jessi Colter

SXSW isn't a rock festival, a hip-hop festival or a global music festival — it's a big bundle of everything rolled into five spring-warm Texas days. For artists, the choice to attend can be an expensive risk, traveling from Taiwan, Mebourne, Brixton, Brazil, or Italy hoping to be seen and heard. But sometimes it pays off. We go there to find music we're unlikely to see in our own backyard, find something thrilling, then shout out our fervent support. 1. Fragile Rock: "Stay Felt (Live)," 2. Hard Proof: "Stinger," 3. Lizzo: "Worship (Live)," 4. Anna Meredith: "The Vapours," 5. Let's Eat Grandma: "Deep Six Textbook (Live)," 6. Grandaddy: "The Boat Is In The Barn," 7. Frances Cone: "Arizona," 8. Calliope Musicals: "1604," 9. Aldous Harding: "Imagining My Man," 10. Tribu Baharú: "Made In Tribu Baharú," 11. Allison Crutchfield: "Chopsticks On Pots And Pans," 12. Phoebe Brigers: "Smoke Signals," 13. Shame: "The Lick"

SXSW Late-Night Dispatch: Saturday Our final day at this great music festival leaves on me (Bob Boilen) and Stephen Thompson standing to talk about our discoveries for SXSW 2017