Music Reviews : NPR

Rock 'N' Roll Goes To West Africa

June 30, 2009 • Rock 'n' roll owes its existence to its African roots, and the genre has in turn influenced contemporary African music. But the continent has not produced many bona fide rockers of its own — until now. Banning Eyre reviews two recent releases by Vieux Farka Toure and Justin Adams with Juldeh Camara.

Fulani Coochie Man

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Patterson Hood: Drive-By Boss Does 'Murder'

Fresh Air

June 30, 2009 • Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Patterson Hood's new album Murdering Oscar and Other Love Songs. It's Hood's second solo album featuring songs from the early 90's as well as some more recent ones, all of them have been freshly recorded over the past few years.

Patterson Hood: Drive-By Boss Does 'Murder'

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Song Of The Day

Matt And Kim: Wrong Notes Ring True

June 30, 2009 • Matt Johnson plays keyboards and sings about longing for home in the wistful "Daylight," in which his everyman voice doesn't mesh so much as glide lazily atop a reverb-soaked string section. Meanwhile, Kim Schifino plays her drum kit sloppily but lovingly.

Daylight

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Song Of The Day

The Builders And The Butchers: Musical Sermon

June 29, 2009 • "Devil Town," from Salvation Is a Deep Dark Well, finds the band dreaming of the South in song, with a swampy vision of the region unique to the songwriters' imaginations. It's music to dance, sweat, weep and rejoice to.

Devil Town

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'Bad': Jackson's New Album is Overproduced

June 26, 2009 • This review originally aired on Weekend Edition on September 6, 1987. In the ephemeral world of pop music, the five years between Thriller and it's follow-up, add up to light years. The musical question is whether Michael Jackson's star still shines. Is Bad the new album, bad or good? Milwaukee, Wisc. high school student and music reviewer Geylin Polivka says the album suffers from overproduction and an overuse of synthesizers.

'Bad': Jackson's New Album is Overproduced

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'Bad': Michael Jackson's New LP Isn't

June 26, 2009 • In this Fresh Air review that originally aired on September 3, 1987, Ken Tucker says Michael Jackson's follow-up to Thriller is an attempt to overcome the curse of being a superstar in an era that eats up superstars, and then spits them out. The album is called Bad, and it's good.

'Bad': Michael Jackson's New LP Isn't

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On Set With Michael Jackson

June 26, 2009 • Peter Sagal once worked as an extra in a Michael Jackson music video. The video was "Remember the Time." The set was a version of ancient Egypt. The King of Pop entered in a gold costume. Then he started to dance.

Song Of The Day

Kath Bloom Meets Her Match: Bill Callahan

June 26, 2009 • Callahan's version of Bloom's "The Breeze/My Baby Cries" builds around an arrangement that gathers power, even when it barely registers on the surface. But what really guides the song is Callahan's deadpan delivery, which finds the stoic resignation in Bloom's words.

The Breeze/My Baby Cries

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Music

Oumou Sangare: Star-Studded Sounds Of Mali

Fresh Air

June 25, 2009 • With the release of her sixth album Seya, Oumou Sangare has gone from an outsider who sang about taboo subjects like polygamy and forced marriage to a major national celebrity.

Oumou Sangare: Star-Studded Sounds Of Mali

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Song Of The Day

Oumou Sangare: Singing Her Praises

June 25, 2009 • Sangare is that rare traditional musician capable of transforming into a modern artist without sacrificing an ounce of authenticity. Seya is the Malian singer's first album of new songs in more than five years, and it features "Iyo Djeli": a praise song to Djekani Djeli, "an old and wise griot woman of the 1960s."

Iyo Djeli

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Song Of The Day

Finale: Celebrating J Dilla In Song

June 24, 2009 • Having died in 2006 at age 32, J Dilla is arguably more highly regarded now than he was in life, and his beats continue to find their way onto some of today's most compelling hip-hop. A great example is "Heat," from the debut album of Detroit newcomer Finale.

Heat

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First Listen

Exclusive First Listen: Bjork, 'Voltaic'

June 23, 2009 • Bjork's music is complex, mysterious and full of unpredictable sonic textures. Recorded live to tape at Olympic Studios in London, Voltaic spans a wide spectrum of Bjork's discography, recorded with the touring band behind Volta. Hear a version of Voltaic in its entirety.

June 23, 2009 • Critic Tom Manoff reviews a new recording of Rachmaninov's preludes by pianist Steven Osborne, who opts for innocence over opulence, giving each of the 24 preludes its own distinct and compelling character.

Rachmaninov Reawakened In Preludes

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Moby Returns With A Thoughtful Vengeance

June 23, 2009 • A full decade after his landmark album Play, techno musician Moby has released an album called Wait for Me. Music critic Robert Christgau thinks it's almost worthy of its great predecessor.

Moby Returns With A Thoughtful Vengeance

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Song Of The Day

The Gaslight Anthem: A Morbid Summer Jam

June 23, 2009 • There's no shortage of life, death or profundity in "The '59 Sound," a mile-wide, top-down, hook-laden beast of a summer anthem. But as swollen and adrenaline-infused as it is, it's really a song about the last music each of us gets to hear in our lives.

'59 Sound

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