Hazel Cills : NPR

Hazel Cills Hazel Cills is an editor at NPR Music and a regular contributor to All Songs Considered.

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Hazel Cills

Saturday January 29, 2022

Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young in protest against Spotify

Singer Joni Mitchell announced on Friday that she will pull her music from Spotify in solidarity with Neil Young. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images hide caption

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Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

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Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young in protest against Spotify

January 29, 2022 • The singer-songwriter is the first high-profile musician to join Young's protest against the streaming service over its hosting of Joe Rogan's podcast.

Monday January 24, 2022

Courtesy of the artist

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Two Shell, 'home'

January 24, 2022 • The track has received co-signs from Four Tet and Ross From Friends.

Tuesday January 18, 2022

Jenny Hval. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Courtesy of the artist

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Jenny Hval, 'Year of Love'

January 18, 2022 • The Norwegian pop experimentalist trains her encompassing talent for shibboleth deconstruction towards a new "normcore institution" — her own marriage.

Thursday January 13, 2022

Boy Harsher (feat. Mariana Saldaña), 'Machina'

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Boy Harsher (feat. Mariana Saldaña), 'Machina'

January 13, 2022 • Boy Harsher teams up with fellow darkwaver Mariana Saldaña of BOAN for a pulsing, '80s-inspired synth-pop track that single-handedly demands a fog machine for your listening pleasure.

Sunday January 9, 2022

Michael Lang, a co-creator of the Woodstock festival, has died at 77

Michael Lang, co-creator of the Woodstock Music & Art Festival Charles Norfleet/Getty Images hide caption

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Charles Norfleet/Getty Images

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Michael Lang, a co-creator of the Woodstock festival, has died at 77

January 9, 2022 • Lang helped make Woodstock a defining moment of the 1960s. He once called it "a test of whether people of our generation really believed in one another and the world we were struggling to create."

Sunday December 19, 2021

Drakeo the Ruler, a rising force in West Coast rap, has died at age 28

Drakeo the Ruler performs during Rolling Loud on Dec. 12, 2021 in San Bernardino, Calif. Timothy Norris/Timothy Norris, Getty Images hide caption

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Timothy Norris/Timothy Norris, Getty Images

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Drakeo the Ruler, a rising force in West Coast rap, has died at age 28

December 19, 2021 • The rapper was hailed as "the most original West Coast stylist in decades." He was reportedly stabbed at the Once Upon a Time in LA music festival.

Saturday December 18, 2021

Kangol Kid, hip-hop pioneer, has died at 55

Kangol Kid Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BET hide caption

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Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for BET

Music News

Kangol Kid, hip-hop pioneer, has died at 55

December 18, 2021 • As a member of the hip-hop group UTFO, he was part of a pioneering era of New York City rap in the early 1980s. The Brooklyn group was best known for their 1984 hit song "Roxanne, Roxanne."

Thursday December 16, 2021

PinkPantheress Brent McKeever/Courtesy of Elektra Records hide caption

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Brent McKeever/Courtesy of Elektra Records

The Best Music Of 2021: NPR Staff Picks

NPR Music 2021 Staff Picks: Hazel Cills

December 16, 2021 • The NPR Music editor shares her favorite albums and songs of 2021.

Saturday December 11, 2021

Fatima Al Qadiri, Danny Harle, and UNIIQU3 all land on NPR Music's best electronic music of 2021 list. Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr/NPR; Getty Images hide caption

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Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr/NPR; Getty Images

Best Music Of 2021

The Best Electronic Music of 2021

December 11, 2021 • From Jersey club to the U.K. underground, 2021's best electronic music looks like a complex melting pot of genre and history.

Sunday November 21, 2021

Adele asked Spotify to remove the default shuffle button for albums, and they obliged

"We don't create albums with so much care and thought into our track listing for no reason," Adele tweeted on Saturday. CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images hide caption

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CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images

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Adele asked Spotify to remove the default shuffle button for albums, and they obliged

November 21, 2021 • The singer believes "our stories should be listened to as we intended." She requested the change for the release of her new album, 30, and Spotify replied with a tweet reading, "Anything for you."

Friday November 12, 2021

New Music Friday: The top 6 albums out on Nov. 12

Anderson .Paak and Bruno Mars, together as Silk Sonic. Their debut, An Evening with Silk Sonic, tops our shortlist of the week's best new albums. John Esparza/Silk Sonic hide caption

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John Esparza/Silk Sonic

All Songs Considered

New Music Friday: The top 6 albums out on Nov. 12

November 12, 2021 • The Bruno Mars-Anderson .Paak collab as Silk Sonic tops NPR Music's shortlist of the best albums out this week, along with new ones from Courtney Barnett, Aesop Rock, Jon Hopkins and more.

New Music Friday: The top 6 albums out on Nov. 12

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Sunday November 7, 2021

Astro, a founding member of the reggae group UB40, has died at age 64

Astro, founding member of UB40, in 1987. Independent News and Media/Getty Images hide caption

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Independent News and Media/Getty Images

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Astro, a founding member of the reggae group UB40, has died at age 64

November 7, 2021 • The artist, born Terence Wilson, sang about issues of racism and poverty in the music of the pioneering reggae band.

Thursday November 4, 2021

Charli XCX (feat. Caroline Polachek & Christine and the Queens), 'New Shapes'

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Charli XCX (feat. Caroline Polachek & Christine and the Queens), 'New Shapes'

November 4, 2021 • The new song with Caroline Polachek & Christine and the Queens twists its bubbly, side-pony pastiche into something more mournful.

Wednesday November 3, 2021

Ronnie Wilson, co-founder of R&B group The Gap Band, has died at 73

The Gap Band's Ronnie Wilson (center) with brothers Charlie and Robert Wilson, circa 1980. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption

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Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

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Ronnie Wilson, co-founder of R&B group The Gap Band, has died at 73

November 3, 2021 • With his brothers Charlie and Robert, the multi-instrumentalist helped define R&B's sound in the 1970s and '80s, bringing a distinct flavor of synth-heavy electro-funk.

Monday November 1, 2021

The Best Music of October: NPR Staff Picks

From top left, clockwise: Buffalo Nichols, Jordan Peters, illuminati hotties, Emily D'Angelo, Helado Negro, Cerce. Courtesy of the artists hide caption

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Courtesy of the artists

All Songs Considered

The Best Music of October: NPR Staff Picks

November 1, 2021 • Every month, we ask the NPR Music staff: What's the one song you couldn't escape? What's the one album to which you'll return all year? In October, we fell far into the music of Helado Negro and Jordan Peters, screamed along to Illuminati Hotties and Cerce, and meditated on the voices of Buffalo Nichols and Emily D'Angelo.

The Best Music of October: NPR Staff Picks

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