Music & Culture

Omar Souleyman's new album, Wenu Wenu, is out now.

Music & Culture

Omar Souleyman: America's Favorite Syrian Wedding Singer

6:53am November 14, 2013

by NPR Staff

Souleyman discusses the importance of musical experimentation in an unlikely setting. In conversation with NPR's Renee Montagne, the Syrian electronic musician also expresses his desire to perform in his homeland again.

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Music & Culture

Heavy Rotation: Download 10 Songs Public Radio Can't Stop Playing

5:11am November 13, 2013

Download two handfuls of our favorite new songs, including music by British producer Tourist., German pop act Claire, New York City dance duo Holy Ghost!, rapper Jean Grae, punk-pop trio Upset, fiddle prodigy Sarah Jarosz and more.

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What Today's Online Sharing Companies Can Learn From Napster

9:02pm November 11, 2013

by Laura Sydell

Perhaps no company showed how the Internet could turn sharing into a global phenomenon more than Napster. The music-sharing site upended the record industry. But the industry ultimately survived and free-music Napster did not. What are new businesses doing to avoid the same fate?

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Lady Gaga's new album, ARTPOP, is out now.

Music & Culture

Pop's Resident Provocateur Fizzles On 'ARTPOP'

7:54pm November 11, 2013

by Tom Moon

Lady Gaga has been building anticipation for her third studio album in ways that only she can manage. But perhaps the forte of ARTPOP lies in its marketing — not the actual music.

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Booker Ervin on the cover of The Book Cooks, his debut album.

Music & Culture

No Need To Cook The Books: Booker Ervin's Debut LP Reissued

1:42pm November 11, 2013

by Kevin Whitehead

Down-home and majestic, the tenor saxophonist's sound was like a cane stalk shooting up out of rich earth. His 1960 album The Book Cooks features fellow sax-man Zoot Sims in a friendly square-off.

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Broken Social Scene On World Cafe

1:00pm November 11, 2013

The Canadian collective, now on hiatus, released a self-titled album to wide critical acclaim eight years ago. Hear the group perform songs from that record on this archived session of World Cafe from 2006.

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Country Star George Jones Dies

12:13pm November 11, 2013

by Mark Memmott

Starting in 1959 and for decades after, he recorded some of country's greatest songs, including "He Stopped Loving Her Today." Jones was 81.

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Lucius' new album, Wildewoman, is out now.

Music & Culture

In Lucius, Two Singers Find An Arresting Harmony

6:58pm November 10, 2013

by NPR Staff

The New York band's sound veers from girl-group pop to sunbaked psychedelia. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with singers Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe, whose entwined vocals are what make the group stand out.

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Dr. Lonnie Smith's In the Beginning, a new album that reimagines the artist's older, out-of-print work, is out now.

Music & Culture

Can I Kick It? Organ Master Lonnie Smith Can

5:00pm November 09, 2013

by NPR Staff

As a bandleader in the 1960s and '70s, Smith wrote timeless music — and secured that label during the '80s and '90s, when hip-hop producers sampled his work left and right. NPR's Arun Rath speaks with Smith on the occasion of a new album that revives the out-of-print gems of a six-decade career.

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Steve Young learned about industrial musicals when he started coming across compilations, like this one, in used record stores. (You definitely want to click to enlarge this.)

Sales Take Center Stage: To Boost Morale, Companies Burst Into Song

9:47am November 08, 2013

Industrial musicals were like Broadway shows, only written and performed for corporate sales meetings or conventions. And as ridiculous as the songs were — "My bathroom, my bathroom is a private kind of place" — they were often delivered by very talented people.

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