Lizzo’s Tiny Desk Concert; Unheard Recordings From Woodstock
Plus, our favorite new songs and albums from July.
Claire Harbage/NPR
We can usually get a pretty good sense of how the Internet will respond to a Tiny Desk concert by looking around the room when the session is taped. Big crowd of eager interns? A sea of smartphone screens snapping pictures for social media bragging rights? Applause heard around the building when the artist is introduced?
We saw all that (and more, including plenty of smiles and dance moves) when Lizzo came to NPR HQ earlier this year. There were as many people as we've ever seen at the Tiny Desk as Lizzo treated us to a truly astounding set featuring a live band and the singer’s outrageous flute skills.
Word spread that Lizzo had visited the desk, and anticipation has been high: A particularly savvy Twitter user even made an account that counted the number of days it had been since the session was recorded. But it takes time to make Tiny Desk magic, and on the 70th day, the Lizzo Tiny Desk appeared, and all rejoiced. If you were already a fan, it was a welcome sight. If you weren’t, prepare to be.
Truth Hurts, Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna
Featuring
ICYMI: Turning the Tables is our series that aims to shift the narrative of music history and reshape the way we think about popular music. This week, we launched our third season, which celebrates eight women who invented American popular music and whose legacies still resonate today. And there’s more to come over the next two months!
Ahead of the release of a massive Woodstock box set, producer Andy Zax joined Bob Boilen on All Songs Considered to share previously unheard recordings from the festival and the remarkable stories behind them.
For our American Anthem series, NPR's Eric Deggans examined "We're a Winner” — written by Curtis Mayfield for The Impressions — which ditched the broadly inspirational tone of the group’s previous hits and addressed black listeners directly, urging them to be proud of themselves.
This week, Lil Nas X officially broke the record for the longest-running No. 1 single on Billboard's Hot 100 list with his breakout hit "Old Town Road," a feat he achieved by consistently dominating sales, streaming and airplay.
New Music
Welcome to the dog days of summer. It’s officially August, which means we’re pausing to recommend the best music of last month. On our July songs list, we highlight our new favorite supergroup The Highwomen, who offered a mission statement singalong, and Rosalía, who reminded us why she’s summer's MVP. As for albums, we couldn’t stop spinning Cuco's Para Mi, Burna Boy's African Giant and J. Cole's collaborative crew project Revenge of the Dreamers III.
Singer-songwriter Angel Olsen's new album All Mirrors, out Oct. 4, features a 14-piece orchestra. Hear the title track, a sweeping, far-reaching journey of a song, now.
L.A. sister trio HAIM's easygoing blend of pop-rock bohemia always pairs best with an oversized pair of designer sunglasses and a glass of rosé. On “Summer Girl,” the band turns to Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” for inspiration.
This week's Alt.Latino playlist is a continent-spanning trip, starting in the Great White North with rock en español from a Winnipeg band and stopping in the U.S. and the Caribbean for dreamy sounds from Cuco and insurgent reggaeton from Residente.
Tiny Desk
Shuran Huang/NPR
In 2005, Calexico and Iron & Wine teamed up for a collaborative album called In the Reins. Earlier this year, the Western band and Sam Beam reunited for a new album, Years to Burn. Though we’ve hosted Iron & Wine before, this collective appearance, including songs old and new, was Calexico’s Tiny Desk debut.
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