Music

From Dijon and Figmore to Mereba and Cleo Sol, the best R&B albums of the year were born out of reshaped perspectives in the face of the post-pandemic facade we're now calling reality.

Adele is a rare thing right now: an artist whose appeal cuts across genres and generations. Her new album about divorce features thrilling, exhilarating songs about being absolutely miserable.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Discover a broad range of the year's best classical albums, from groundbreaking teenage percussionists and innovative opera singers to fierce orchestral composers and brainy pianists.