Music

Aaliyah's Catalog Has Started To Arrive On Streaming. What Took So Long?

5:20pm August 26, 2021

by Sidney Madden

The late R&B star Aaliyah's catalog has started to arrive on streaming, starting with the 1996 record One In A Million — made in an era now being re-examined for how it treated famous women.

An American Music Teacher's Struggle to Save His Afghan Students

4:38pm August 26, 2021

Lanny Cordola is a guitarist who ran a school in Kabul designed to teach music to children in war-torn areas. He's now trying to get his students out of Afghanistan.

Music & Culture

Lady Blackbird, 'It's Not That Easy'

3:41pm August 26, 2021

by Brian Burns

Equal parts torch song and funeral dirge, it's a raw and pining anthem whose heartbreak slowly seeps in as the organ crawls beneath Lady Blackbird's sorrowful vocals.

Injury Reserve in the video for "Knees."

Music & Culture

Injury Reserve, 'Knees'

2:23pm August 26, 2021

by Reanna Cruz

Moved both by the loss of a founding member and a desire to return to the rap group's experimental roots, Injury Reserve's "Knees" feels like a musical left turn.

Music & Culture

On 'Home Video,' Lucy Dacus Translates Her Life Into Song

1:11pm August 26, 2021

Home Video is a collection of personal moments from Lucy Dacus' life, translated into song by way of her vulnerable, honest lyricism.

John Coltrane, photographed performing at The Penthouse during a run of performances in Seattle, Wash. in 1965. A recording of one, long lost, is now being released as A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle.

John Coltrane's Masterpiece Breathes New Life With 'A Love Supreme: Live In Seattle'

12:16pm August 26, 2021

by Nate Chinen

John Coltrane rarely performed the music from A Love Supreme after its release at the end of 1964 – meaning even the most ardent Coltrane-ologists have been unaware of the existence of these tapes.

Musician Lilith Ai entered the 2021 Tiny Desk Contest.

Music & Culture

Lilith Ai, 'Bloodlines'

11:41am August 26, 2021

by Elle Mannion

This #NowPlaying discovery of Lilith Ai comes to us from this year's Tiny Desk Contest.

"I never made judgments in my songs," Tom T. Hall said. "I had a lot of good characters, a lot of bad characters. But I never bragged on the good guys and I never condemned the losers."

Music & Culture

Tom T. Hall, Country Music's Storyteller, Captured Life's Humble Moments

10:17am August 26, 2021

by Jewly Hight

Tom T. Hall developed the singer-songwriter as a trustworthy observer, a persona who could supply all the detail we needed to get the sense of the situation in three minutes flat.

Occasionally, a woman artist will make it her mission to speak as the monster others fear her to be, turning shame into strength. That's the power of Kate Bush's The Dreaming.

Music & Culture

How Kate Bush's 'The Dreaming' Made My Monsters My Own

8:35am August 26, 2021

by Ann Powers

There are so many ways that women are made into monsters. On The Dreaming, Bush expresses the pain and explores the potential of monstrous transformation — and teaches us how to do the same.

Esperanza Spalding, Songwrights Apothecary Lab

Music & Culture

Esperanza Spalding, 'Formwela 10'

6:27am August 26, 2021

by Nate Chinen

"Formwela 10" is one of Spalding's more enchanting spells: a shape-shifting chamber invention that ponders the question of what we ask of one another in the course of romantic exchange.