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Stephen Thompson Stephen Thompson is an editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he writes the advice column The Good Listener and fusses over comma placement. He is also a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered, and appears every week on Pop Culture Happy Hour.
Washington, DC - May 03, 2016: Stephen Thompson CREDIT: Matt Roth
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Stephen Thompson
Daughter: Tiny Desk Concert

Daughter performs a Tiny Desk Concert in August 2013. Chloe Coleman/NPR hide caption

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Chloe Coleman/NPR

Tiny Desk

Daughter: Tiny Desk Concert

In all three of these sad, searing songs, singer Elena Tonra showcases a remarkable gift for coolly but approachably dishing out weary words that resonate and devastate. Achingly pretty and melancholy, the London band's music conjures a pitch-perfect mix of gloom, desire and hostility.

Daughter: Tiny Desk Concert

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First Listen: Death Cab For Cutie, 'Transatlanticism (10th Anniversary Edition)'

Death Cab for Cutie's Transatlanticism (10th Anniversary Edition) comes out Oct. 29. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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First Listen

First Listen: Death Cab For Cutie, 'Transatlanticism (10th Anniversary Edition)'

For all its ubiquity and imitators, 2003's Transatlanticism holds up as an exquisitely produced, largely flawless record in which every song is bound to be someone's favorite. In this reissue, the album is packaged alongside an identically sequenced yet revelatory set of demo versions.

Transatlanticism Demos

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First Listen: The Avett Brothers, 'Magpie And The Dandelion'

The Avett Brothers' new album, Magpie and the Dandelion, comes out Oct. 15. Danny Clinch/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Danny Clinch/Courtesy of the artist

First Listen

First Listen: The Avett Brothers, 'Magpie And The Dandelion'

The band's body of work forms the outlines of a makeshift guide to life, and to being fundamentally decent in the pursuit of something even better. On Magpie and the Dandelion, Seth and Scott Avett examine the push and pull between day-to-day pressures and a need for connection, contentedness and openness to wonder.

Magpie and the Dandelion

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First Listen: The Dismemberment Plan, 'Uncanney Valley'

The Dismemberment Plan's new album, Uncanney Valley, comes out Oct. 15. Shervin Lainez/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Shervin Lainez/Courtesy of the artist

First Listen

First Listen: The Dismemberment Plan, 'Uncanney Valley'

On Uncanney Valley, its first album since 2001, The Dismemberment Plan sounds loose and liberated — like a band with its legacy secured, happy just to be there. It's a fitting way for the hard-to-define, intermittently funky D.C. rock group to make a comeback.

Uncanney Valley

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First Listen: Moby, 'Innocents'

Moby's new album, Innocents, comes out Oct. 1. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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First Listen

First Listen: Moby, 'Innocents'

More than 30 years into a try-it-all career that began in punk and has since worked its way through countless iterations of dance music — Innocents feels like the work of an artist who's been liberated to pursue beauty and emotion in as many forms as he can muster.

First Listen: Moby, 'Innocents'

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Shovels & Rope: Tiny Desk Concert

Shovels and Rope plays a Tiny Desk Concert in June 2013. Chloe Coleman/NPR hide caption

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Tiny Desk

Shovels & Rope: Tiny Desk Concert

The husband-and-wife duo mixes rowdy folk-rock and rootsy ballads, with the help of a canine friend. Watch Shovels & Rope perform a pair of songs from 2012's O' Be Joyful, as well as the older "Bad Luck," live in the NPR Music offices.

Shovels & Rope: Tiny Desk Concert

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First Listen: Chvrches, 'The Bones Of What You Believe'

Chvrches' new album, The Bones of What You Believe, comes out Sept. 24. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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First Listen

First Listen: Chvrches, 'The Bones Of What You Believe'

The Glaswegians' debut showcases a band that bridges styles and eras on the strength of its own charisma. Though it can be ominous, even aggressive, Chvrches' electro-pop songs maintain a disarming fizziness.

Chvrches, 'The Bones Of What You Believe'

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