The new game Sable features a soundtrack from Michelle Zauner, best known as the indie-rock star behind the band Japanese Breakfast. Courtesy of Shedworks hide caption
Music Features In-depth storytelling from the NPR Music team.
Music Features
Detail view of Wendy Smith's cover art for Distant Plastic Trees, The Magnetic Fields' debut album, on which the song "100,000 Fireflies" was released in 1991. Wendy Smith/Courtesy of Merge Records hide caption
Claudia and Dan Zanes Xavier Plater/Mayers Consulting hide caption
Dan And Claudia Zanes Sing About Justice And Joy On Their New Album For Children
Olivia Rodrigo performs "good 4 u" during the MTV Video Music Awards on Sept. 12, 2021. John Shearer/MTV VMAs 2021/Getty Images for MTV/ViacomCBS hide caption
Sister Rosetta Tharpe — the inspiration behind singer-songwriter Erin Dillard's Black Music City project — poses for a portrait holding a guitar in circa 1940 New York City. Michael Ochs /Getty Images hide caption
Neffy is the winner of the 2021 Tiny Desk Contest. Courtesy of the artist hide caption
And the Tiny Desk Contest winner is... NPR hide caption
St. Vincent (by Zackery Michael), Jason Isbell (by Alysse Gafkjen) Courtesy of the artists hide caption
The Metallica Blacklist on World Cafe
Reggae artist Lee "Scratch" Perry, who died on Aug. 29, had an immeasurable impact on Jamaican music and its worldwide profile. PYMCA/Universal Images Group via Getty hide caption
Kacey Musgraves, whose follow-up to her Album of the Year-winning Golden Hour, titled Star-Crossed, was released Sep. 10, 2021. Courtesy of the artist hide caption
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. Photo Illustration by Renee Klahr/NPR; Getty Images; Courtesy of Next Plateau Records hide caption
A scene from Francisco Negrin's production of Verdi's Il Trovatore, shown in a performance from the Opera de Monte Carlo. Alain Hanel/courtesy of LA Opera hide caption
Kanye West is seen at a Donda listening event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on July 22, 2021 in Atlanta, Georgia. Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Universal Music hide caption
Charlie Watts onstage with Tim Ries' jazz tribute act, The Rolling Stones Project, at a London venue in 2013. Richard Kerris hide caption
Quiana Lynell entered the song "Tweedlee Dee" into the 2021 Tiny Desk Contest. YouTube/NPR hide caption
Composer and sound artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, photographed during a screening of Candyman on Aug. 17, 2021 in New York. Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Universal Pictu hide caption
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 anxiety about and hope for the future. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption
Veteran sound artist and composer Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe composed the score for the recent remake of Candyman. Desdemona Dallas/Courtesy of the artist hide caption
Marian Anderson recording at Webster Hall with her accompanist Franz Rupp in August 1961. John G. Ross/Sony Music hide caption
"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." Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images hide caption
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. Renee Klahr/NPR; Getty Images; Courtesy of EMI Records hide caption