Music Features

Kacey Musgraves, whose follow-up to her Album of the Year-winning Golden Hour, titled Star-Crossed, was released Sep. 10, 2021.

Kacey Musgraves: 'Star-Crossed' And Thriving

8:44am September 10, 2021

"We're all taught that the success of a relationship has to somehow correlate with the length of it... I just don't think that that's fully accurate." The singer-songwriter's new album is out today.

Perry leaves a massive legacy in the form of a seemingly bottomless archive and a resounding influence spanning reggae, rock, hip-hop, dubstep and remix culture writ large.

Music & Culture

The Magic Of Lee 'Scratch' Perry

6:00am September 10, 2021

by Wayne Marshall

From the '60s on Lee "Scratch" Perry, who died on Aug. 29, brought reggae into rootsy shape and developed his own collaborative production techniques, all of which reverberate (heavily) to this day.

The strength with which Salt-N-Pepa delivered messages on Blacks' Magic "gave a lonely Wyoming girl a blueprint for a confidence I didn't inherently possess," writes Julianne Escobedo Shepherd.

Music & Culture

How Salt-N-Pepa's 'Blacks' Magic' Gave Me A Blueprint For Feminism

6:01am September 09, 2021

by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

As a kid, Julianne Escobedo Shepherd adored Salt-N-Pepa's music and moves. In revisiting the trio's third album, she realized it also taught her what confidence and collectivity look like in action.

A scene from Francisco Negrin's production of Verdi's Il Trovatore, shown in a performance from the Opera de Monte Carlo.

Faced With Deadline Drama, LA Opera Stages A Construction Sprint

9:32am September 03, 2021

by Mandalit del Barco

With sets shipped from Europe stuck on a boat that can't dock because of coronavirus disruption, LA Opera went to work building new sets, cramming months of work into ten days.

Kanye West is seen at a Donda listening event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Music & Culture

From A Small House In a Big Stadium, Kanye Comes Up Empty-Handed

7:47pm September 02, 2021

by Mano Sundaresan

After a personally eventful year, the artist undertook another – and perhaps his most – ambitious, sprawling introduction of a new album. The results seem to be inversely proportional.

Quiana Lynell entered the song "Tweedlee Dee" into the 2021 Tiny Desk Contest.

Music & Culture

Jazz Night In America's Favorite 2021 Tiny Desk Contest Entries

9:05am September 02, 2021

by Mitra I. Arthur

The Jazz Night in America team highlights a selection of the 2021 Tiny Desk Contest entries that caught their ears and display the expanse of what jazz has to offer.

Charlie Watts onstage with Tim Ries' jazz tribute act, The Rolling Stones Project, at a London venue in 2013.

Music & Culture

I Played Jazz With Charlie Watts For 20 Years. Here's What I Learned

8:00am September 02, 2021

by Tim Ries

A longtime touring member of The Rolling Stones, Tim Ries says his favorite nights were the ones without a show — when he and Watts would sneak into town to play the music they loved most.

Composer and sound artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, photographed during a screening of Candyman on Aug. 17, 2021 in New York.

'Candyman' Composer Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe Sings, Scares The Body Electric

12:49pm August 31, 2021

by Tim Greiving

The sound artist and composer took a deeply unique, and wonderfully successful, approach to the composing of his score for the new Jordan Peele-written horror reboot.

Queue Listen Now

In the 1950s, when they were barely adults themselves, Phil (left) and Don Everly took pieces of musical traditions and created songs that gave voice to a new youth culture that balanced, with all the awkwardness of teenage life, on an edge between anxiet

Music & Culture

Being A Teenager In The 1950s Was Hard. The Everly Brothers Understood

10:00am August 28, 2021

by Ann Powers

From the opening of their first hit, "Bye Bye Love," the Everly Brothers spoke directly to the deepest longings and anxieties of the generation that would come to define the rock and soul era.

Marian Anderson recording at Webster Hall with her accompanist Franz Rupp in August 1961.

Music & Culture

A Life Of Irresistible Creation: Marian Anderson In Songs And Pictures

2:28pm August 27, 2021

The trailblazing singer, who broke the color barrier at the Metropolitan Opera in 1955, is remembered in a deluxe new release of albums and images.