World Cafe 30th Anniversary Playlist: 1999
The last year of the 1990s may have carried the semi-imposing threat of the Y2K millennium bug, but it also managed to deliver some excellent music.
Music
Vicente 'Chente' Fernández, 'El Rey' of ranchera music, has died at 81
The singer had been in critical condition recently after being hospitalized due to a fall at his Guadalajara ranch in August, and being diagnosed with Guillain–Barré syndrome afterwards.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert
14 years after their last collaboration, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss are back at Sound Emporium, where they recorded their new album Raise The Roof.
The Best Electronic Music of 2021
From Jersey club to the U.K. underground, 2021's best electronic music looks like a complex melting pot of genre and history.
Stonecoldboldness: A many-sided memorial to the writing of Greg Tate
A critic whose writing was nearly music itself, Greg Tate — who died this week at 64 — influenced generations of writers. His colleagues, peers and followers offer a guide to his essential works.
Fans are sour after scalpers snap up Olivia Rodrigo concert tickets
The pop star's SOUR tour sold out as fans faced long queues and site outages. A Ticketmaster feature meant to "level the playing field" failed to bar scalpers, who are reselling tickets for thousands.
Michael Nesmith — considerably more than a Monkee — dies at 78
Nesmith rose to fame as one of the Pre-Fab Four — but he had a long and influential career after the Monkees. He helped invent the format that became MTV, and produced the cult film Repo Man.
Stream 8 hours of yuletide music with the Viking's Choice Holiday Special
Join Lars Gotrich, NPR's resident Viking, for an eight-hour holiday music marathon on Dec. 23. Let's make the yuletide weird.
The 25 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2021
This year's best hip-hop — including Westside Gunn, Mach-Hommy and Moor Mother — comes from death and defiance, erotic power and provocation, Black joy and pain — and that's just the shortlist.
Wayne Shorter and esperanza spalding crack open the old world in new opera
The pair took a close look at the subtexts of Euripides' sad, epic tale of Iphigenia — agency, testosterone, violence, faith — and, through a suite of new music, hold them up to the light.