NPR Music

Sheryl Crow had a lot to say in this Tiny Desk Fest interview with NPR pop critic Ann Powers.

Every day, Sheryl Crow said at NPR's Tiny Desk Fest, she thinks about compassion. "In 2005, I got to hear the Dalai Lama speak — I was his opening act — and it was cool. It was the year he was talking about compassion, and he said if every person in every business in every walk of life made every decision based on compassion, the world would look like a completely different place." Crow and her band then led a rousing singalong of her 2008 song "Out of Our Heads," whose chorus sends an urgent plea to the online news junkies and social media warriors of today: "If we could only get out of our heads, out of our heads, and into our hearts...."

The longtime leader of ELO talks with All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen about his creative process, working with his heroes, like Roy Orbison, and his latest album, From Out of Nowhere.

Jeff Lynne has been crafting classic rock songs for more than 50 years. Many first heard him as part of The Move, a Beatle-esque British band in the late '60s. That creative outfit morphed into Electric Light Orchestra, taking their guitar, piano, and drum-based pop music and adding strings and synthesizers. ELO became a big band with a giant sound.

The first ELO record was released precisely 48 years ago, on December 3, 1971. Nowadays, Jeff Lynne is ELO. Except for a few helping hands, Jeff Lynne writes, records, sings, plays and arranges everything on his new album, From Out of Nowhere, on his own. And he loves doing it.

All Songs Considered hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton countdown NPR listeners' favorite songs of the 2010s.

The Top 25 Listener Picks:
1. Bon Iver: "Holocene" from Bon Iver
2. Robyn: "Dancing On My Own" from Body Talk Pt. 1
3. Sufjan Stevens: "Fourth of July" from Carrie & Lowell
4. Lorde: "Royals" from Pure Heroine
5. Kanye West: "Runaway" from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
6. Beyoncé: "Formation" from Lemonade
7. M83: "Midnight City" from Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
8. LCD Soundsystem: "Dance Yrself Clean" from This is Happening
9. Kendrick Lamar: "Alright" from To Pimp a Butterfly
10. Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars: "Uptown Funk" from Uptown Special
11. Childish Gambino: "This is America" (Single)
12. Adele: "Rolling in the Deep" from 21
13. Taylor Swift: "All Too Well" from Red
14. Lucy Dacus: "Night Shift" from Historian
15. Carly Rae Jepsen: "Run Away with Me" from E.MO.TION
16. Mitski: "Your Best American Girl" from Puberty 2
17. Frank Ocean: "Self Control" from Blonde
18. Hozier: "Take Me to Church" from Hozier
19. Alabama Shakes: "Hold On" from Boys & Girls
20. Janelle Monáe: "Make Me Feel" from Dirty Computer
21. Lana Del Rey: "Video Games" from Born to Die
22. Brandi Carlile: "The Joke" from By the Way, I Forgive You
23. Radiohead: "Daydreaming" from A Moon Shaped Pool
24. Courtney Barnett: "Depreston" from Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
25. Fleet Foxes: "Helplessness Blues" from Helplessness Blues

Our review of the past decade in music continues with a look at the ways music production has changed and how technology has revolutionized sound both onstage and in the studio.

We begin with the role of computers in live performance. Laptops are often used to playback sounds that can't easily be created in a live setting. So, host Bob Boilen went to the 9:30 club before soundcheck to meet the artist known as King Princess. She grew up around recording gear. Her father, Oliver Strauss is a recording engineer at Mission Sound in Brooklyn, so technology and music-making are second nature to the 21-year old. King Princess sheds light on how musicians take complex sounds from the studio and make them possible in a live setting.

Later, we look at the role of computers in the creative process, both as an effects processor and a compositional tool. One artist who is already making music and stretching the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence is Holly Herndon, who has an AI voice assistant she calls Spawn.

Our final New Music Friday of 2019 ends with some heavy hitters, from Beck's moody-groovy Hyperspace and Coldplay's most ambitious album yet, to a batch of all-new songs from the late Leonard Cohen.

Featured Albums And Songs:
1. Beck — Hyperspace
Featured Song: "Dark Places"
2. Anne Müller — Heliopause
Featured Songs: "Solo? Repeat!" and "Drifting Circles"
3. 03 Greedo & Kenny Beats — Netflix and Deal
Featured Song: "Aye Twin"
4. Coldplay — Everyday Life
Featured Songs: "Orphans," "Trouble in Town," "BrokEn," "When I Need A Friend" and "WOTW/POTP"
5. Hannah Diamond — Reflections
Featured Song: "Make Believe"
6. Leonard Cohen — Thanks for the Dance
Featured Song: "Happens to the Heart"

Other Notable Releases For Nov. 22: Animal Collective — Ballet Slippers; Harry Nilsson — Losst and Founnd; Jason Aldean — 9; Luke Lalonde — The Perpetual Optimist; Pernice Brothers — Spread the Feelings; Omar Souleyman — Shlon; Twain — Adventure; William Patrick Corgan — Cotillions.

This week's essential mix of new songs includes a Brian Eno remix of a Lee "Scratch" Perry tune, Red Baraat percussionist Sunny Jain, singer Jesca Hoop and more.

Featured Artists And Songs:
1. Lee "Scratch" Perry: "Here Come the Warm Dreads" from 'Heavy Rain'
2. Sunny Jain: "Immigrant Warrior" from 'Wild Wild East'
3. Ethan Gruska: "Event Horizon" from 'EN GARDE'
4. Tadzio: "Defiance" from 'The Sick Room'
5. Madison Cunningham: "Something to Believe in" from 'Who Are You Now'
6. Wished Bone: "Hold Me" (Single)
7. Jesca Hoop: "Song for a Bygone Era" from 'Afterbirth'
8. Esmé Patterson: "Light in Your Window" (Single)

Our sprint through the best new albums out this week includes a posthumous release from rapper Lil Peep, gorgeous reflections from Bonnie "Prince" Billy, singer Mary Lambert and more.

Featured Albums And Songs:

1. Milky Chance - Mind the Moon
Featured Songs: "Oh Mama" and "Eden's House"
2. Brainstory - Buck
Featured Song: "Sorry"
3. Lady Antebellum - Ocean
Featured Song: "The Thing That Wrecks You"
4. Arthur Russell - Iowa Dream
Featured Song: "Everybody Everybody"
5. Lil Peep - Everybody's Everything
Featured Song: "Princess"
6. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I Made A Place
Featured Song: "Dream A While"
7. Odessa - All Things
Featured Song: "All Things"
8. Mary Lambert - Grief Creature
Featured Songs: "Write You A Song" and "Me Museum"
9. Joe Henry - The Gospel According to Water
Featured Song: "Famine Walk"
10. Benoît Pioulard - Sylva
Featured Songs: "Raze II" and "Keep"

Other Notable Releases Out Nov. 15: Celine Dion — Courage; DJ Shadow — Our Pathetic Age; Fran — A Private Picture; Hammock — Silencia; Ice Cream — Fed Up; Jenny Owen Youngs — Night Shift; Juliana Hatfield — Juliana Hatfield Sings the Police; Maria Taylor — Maria Taylor; Molly Burch — The Molly Burch Christmas Album; Sam Amidon — Fatal Flower Garden; Tindersticks — No Treasure But Hope.

"Despacito" was more than a popular song. It was the culmination of a decade-long rise of sociological and musical forces that eventually birthed and cemented a style now called "Latin Urban."

The song went on to practically break the Internet, with a record number of YouTube views from around the globe (currently hovering around six billion streams).

But, as we discuss in this week's All Songs Considered/Alt.Latino collaboration, "Despacito" was more than a very popular it song. It was the culmination of a decade-long rise of sociological and musical forces that eventually birthed and cemented a style now called "Latin Urban." Spanish-language artists from just about every corner of Latin America and Spain took reggaeton and ran with it, adding elements of hip-hop, R&B and soul.

Alt.Latino host Felix Contreras joins Bob Boilen to look back at the decade and play some music samples from a period of profound transition in Latinx music.

In this All Songs Considered guest DJ session, Joan Shelley talks about her latest album, Like the River Loves the Sea and shares songs by some of the other artists who've inspired her over the years.

This week's best new albums include a solo release from Leslie Odom Jr., aka Aaron Burr from Hamilton, the woozy world of FKA Twigs, country singer Luke Combs and more.

Featured Albums:
1. Leslie Odom Jr. — Mr.
2. Bishop Briggs — Champion
3. FKA Twigs — Magdalene
4. Dessa & The Minnesota Orchestra — Sound the Bells: Recorded Live at Orchestra Hall
5. The Good Ones — Rwanda, You Should be Loved
6. Kate Davis — Trophy
7. Luke Combs — What You See Is What You Get
8. Mount Eerie & Julie Doiron — Lost Wisdom Pt. 2
9. SebastiAn — Thirst
10. Terri Lyne Carrington & Social Scene — Waiting Game

Other Notable Albums Out Nov. 8: Allen Stone — Building Balance; Josienne Clarke — In All Weather; Kele Okereke — 2042; Lucy Dacus — EP; Moor Mother — Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes; Philip B Price — Bone Almanac; Simply Red — Blue Eyed Soul; Sin Fang — Sad Party; Suss — High Line; Xylouris White — The Sisypheans;