We Need To Be Able To Feel
The cost of 2020 — in lives, livelihoods, legacies and communities — is high and still being tallied. For jazz critic Nate Chinen, all that loss demands change to old ideas of critical objectivity.
Music & Culture
mxmtoon: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
The YouTube star performs five songs in her Tiny Desk quarantine concert.
Multiple Men With The Same Name Form Paul O'Sullivan Band
Paul O'Sullivan of Baltimore was perusing social media, and friending people who shared his name. Some were musicians like him. They've formed The Paul O'Sullivan Band and released their first single.
Tiny Desk Meets globalFEST: Edwin Perez, Elisapie, Nora Brown, Rokia Traoré
Our final night of globalFEST 2021 features salsa, First Nations music, Appalachian folk and a West African superstar.
The 2020 NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll
The best new and rediscovered jazz recordings that lit up the dark and unsettling year that just ended, as voted on by 148 jazz critics.
The 2020 Jazz Critics Poll: It's After The End Of The World
2020 was an annus horribilis if there ever was one, writes Francis Davis, the founder of NPR Music's Jazz Critics poll, and much of the year's best jazz carried post-apocalyptic feelings within it.
Bee Gees Documentary Traces The Gibb Brothers' Pathway To Stardom
Of the three Bee Gees, only Barry Gibb is still alive. His new album is Greenfields: The Gibb Brothers Songbook Volume 1. The HBO documentary, The Bee Gees, tells the story of the group's rise.
Lady Gaga, J-Lo To Headline Biden Inauguration
The entertainers will be joined by a Georgia firefighter and a Jesuit priest at the Capitol ceremony.
'Artists, Weirdos, Hellriders And Homies:' Thrasher Magazine Turns 40
Thrasher magazine was founded 40 years ago in San Francisco to cover skateboarding. Over the next four decades, the black-and-white newsprint magazine grew into a full color cultural arbiter.
Thistle & Shamrock: New Year Sounds
Hear Fiona Ritchie's collection of new sounds for the new year. This week's episode includes The Chair, John Doyle and cellist Ofra Harnoy.