Music & Culture

Radiohead circa 2000. Singer Thom Yorke (second from right) says that as much as the albums Kid A and Amnesiac channel the dread that loomed over their moment, they are also full of hope that another world is possible.

Music & Culture

20 Years After The End Of The World

12:57pm December 09, 2021

At the turn of the millennium, Radiohead turned creeping melancholy and desolation into two albums that changed the band's career. Two decades later, maybe we've caught up to their prophetic vision.

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American composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Cummings is featured in this week's episode.

Music & Culture

The Thistle & Shamrock: In Flight

12:46pm December 09, 2021

by Fiona Ritchie

This week's episode of The Thistle & Shamrock explores how songs travel to new places and back again, just like the migration of birds.

Music & Culture

Angèle, 'On s'habitue'

12:39pm December 09, 2021

by Emma Grazado

The track from the Belgian singer-songwriter is a coming-of-age narrative about heartbreak that never goes away.

Music therapist Monica Levin teaches via video conference at Frances Fuchs Early Childhood Center in Prince George's County, Maryland.

For kids grappling with the pandemic's traumas, art classes can be an oasis

9:53am December 09, 2021

by Elizabeth Blair

As health officials sound the alarm about the pandemic's impact on children's mental health, music, drama and other art classes are helping kids adjust to being in-person again.

Music & Culture

The death metal band Omicron was named well before the coronavirus variant

5:12am December 09, 2021

When the World Health Organization named the new coronavirus variant Omicron, it put a little known Belgian metal band on the map.

Encore: Paul McCartney on the life and death of John Lennon, 41 years after his death

4:41pm December 08, 2021

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Paul McCartney about the life and death of the Beatles' John Lennon, who was killed 41 years ago this week.

Revered cultural critic Greg Tate has died at age 64

4:41pm December 08, 2021

The revered critic Greg Tate, an early and influential hip hop writer, has died. Tate grew up around intellectuals and developed a rabid curiosity about music, film, literature, theory and politics.

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Music & Culture

Pianist Craig Taborn practices the art of instant composing on 'Shadow Plays'

2:55pm December 08, 2021

by Kevin Whitehead

Taborn is one the most inventive and resourceful pianists in improvised music today. He has a new solo album — his first in a decade — and, like the previous one, it's a stunner.

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Music & Culture

Neil Young breaks down 'Barn,' track-by-track

1:30pm December 08, 2021

Surrounded by an intimate group of trusted friends and musicians in a Colorado barn, Neil Young was able to make a new album just the way he wanted.

Jazz musician Barry Harris performing at the Henry Fonda Theatre in 2006.

Music & Culture

Barry Harris, beloved jazz pianist devoted to bebop, dies at 91

12:21pm December 08, 2021

by Mark Stryker

Barry Harris, one of the leading musicians to emerge from Detroit's modern jazz explosion in the 1940s and '50s, died Wednesday.