City Scenes: How Boston's LGBTQ+ Musicians Are Making Space For Each Other
Billy Dean Thomas, Optic Bloom and Anjimile are among the various acts paving the way for inclusivity in Boston.
Music Features
Toshinori Kondo, Trailblazing Modern Trumpeter, Dies At 71
From the '80s on, Kondo stood with a new generation of free-form players, collaborating with a long list of fellow iconoclasts.
Requiem For A Theme: Film Composer Clint Mansell On The Sound Of Sadness
Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film Requiem for a Dream spawned a musical motif that's rippled through media — and jumpstarted a new career for Clint Mansell, the composer of its haunted score.
Backxwash, The Metal-Sampling Rapper, Turns Fury Into Forgiveness
Though her music, the queer rapper explores horror and wonder, especially as horror mirrors real racial strife. Backxwash's album has been shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize.
Understanding Eddie Van Halen's Teen-Idol Appeal
The eponymous guitarist will forever be remembered as a legend of hard rock, but his band emerged at a time when purveyors of the genre were increasingly being presented with slightly softer contours.
City Scenes: How Boston's DIY Hip-Hop Community Is Fending For Itself
Many Boston venues are reluctant to book local talent, which has forced the city's best rappers to find alternate spaces.
The Astonishing Techniques That Made Eddie Van Halen A Guitar God
A killer Eddie Van Halen solo has an air of rawness and immediacy, but what made the late pyrotechnic guitarist iconic was his ability to balance spontaneity with carefully-honed precision.
Power, Protest And Paranoia
The links between hip-hop and the prison system are on display in laws and lyrics stretching back decades. If you're caught between these two American institutions, it might look like a trap.
City Scenes: Remembering Boston's Great Scott
Great Scott, the gritty little club in Boston's Allston neighborhood, will not reopen after the pandemic. This oral history dives into the club's 44-year-long legacy.
For Bartees Strange, Everything Is Everything
"I need to build a new world around this music." Bartees Strange speaks to NPR Music about the people and places that made Live Forever, his debut album.