50 American Anthems; Pete Townshend On World Cafe

Plus, what's your favorite song of the decade?

by Elle Mannion, Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna Chris Hackett/Getty Images/Tetra Images RF At its outset, the creators of NPR’s American Anthem series had a few guiding thoughts in mind. We wanted to cover 50 songs, if only because it seemed like a very American number. Each song would be selected based on the same working definition: a rousing or uplifting song identified with a particular group, body, or cause. Allowances would be made for songs that originated outside of the United States, provided that over time they had worked their way into the American story. Perhaps most importantly, our interest was not in how this music was made, but who had embraced it and why. Regardless of where these songs originated -- be it folk traditions or major-label boardrooms -- we wanted to know what had they come to represent to the people shouting along to them today. If we could find that throughline in every story, we thought, we might be onto something. Of course, we found far more than that: In the course of these 50 stories, we learned more ways to think about the anthemic than we could count. We saw odes to rebellious youth repurposed on the picket line, the U.S. civil rights movement intertwined with second-wave feminism. We found a fluid exchange of ideas between protests and dancehalls, funerals and EDM festivals, war and church. In the two songs that bookend the series, we glimpsed the extremes of what an anthem can celebrate: Our opening anthem, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic ,” is a patriotic march built to rally masses. The series-closing “My Way” is Frank Sinatra’s ballad of unabashed individualism. The American Anthem series comes to a close this week; we hope you’ve learned as much as we have. Explore all 50 stories at NPR Music. Hold onto that feeling, Daoud Tyler-Ameen Newsletter continues after sponsor message New Music The year’s not over quite yet, but the release date calendar is slowing, so on our final All Songs Considered New Music Friday of 2019, we dissect new releases from some heavy hitters, including a batch of all-new songs from the late Leonard Cohen and Coldplay’s ambitious double album, Everyday Life.  Iowa Dream, out this week, is the newest addition to auteur Arthur Russell's ever-lengthening list of afterlife releases. The wide-ranging collection has a particular focus on an oft-overlooked aspect of Russell’s career: the aspiring '70s pop star. Over the course of his quarter-century career, Beck has remained a musical chameleon of remarkable range and elasticity. His new album Hyperspace is a breakup LP that’s heavy on low-key funk and bright synthesizer tones. Featuring Surrounded by death and dreading the idea of promoting an album, Mike Posner – a pop singer and rapper with a few Top 40 hits and a Grammy nomination to his name – decided to walk across the United States. The experience ended up changing the way he sees his country and himself. The Grammy nominations are ripe for attempts to predict the future of popular music. But this year, we need to examine just one category – Best New Artist – to see how much everything is changing, and already has. Earlier this month, The Who's Pete Townshend published his first novel; next month, The Who returns with WHO. Hear new music from that album, plus how Townshend’s book, The Age of Anxiety, connects to Tommy, on a World Cafe session. This week saw the release of posthumous albums from Harry Nilsson and Leonard Cohen. With artists of a certain stature, the assumption is that every scrap is worth sharing. But what effect do these patchworked releases have on their legacies? Tiny Desk Mhari Shaw/NPR A pioneer of Afro-fusion, which draws from many genres over an Afrobeat foundation, Burna Boy’s music is in heavy rotation in nightclubs across the globe. Departing from his rowdy stage shows, the Nigerian singer and songwriter’s reflective and restrained Tiny Desk performance highlighted his songwriting abilities. Also this week: Russian-born pianist Igor Levit shed his jet lag for a stunning performance of Beethoven at the Desk. Levit, who recently released a box set of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas, will be performing complete cycles of the sonatas in various cities to mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth in 2020.  Ann Powers' Historical Corner This week, we asked critic Ann Powers to put some historical context around a new song she’s loving. She chose “Hallelujah ,” the new single from Los Angeles sister-trio Haim, which she describes as “a tender ballad about sisterhood, loyalty and loss” that signals its allegiances to mid-‘60s folk-pop from its very first chord change. Here’s how she explained it:   The first song that entered my mind upon hearing Haim’s “Hallelujah” was Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run the Game,” which I consider the most poignant song of all time. That intimate account of depression shares a similar chord progression and ebb-and-flow structure; but the key’s wrong, and so’s the tempo. Next, I turned to Judee Sill, like Frank a lost genius who helped define the moment when folk became a form of personal pop expression. “There’s a Rugged Road,” from Sill’s 1973 masterpiece Heart Food , has a similar beginning, but it’s more country than Haim’s song. So is John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High,” though the echo around the country-rock pioneer’s vocals is so Haim.   Where to turn next? I often turn to the gentle philosophy of Cat Stevens in times of crisis. Maybe “The Wind,” the Cypriot Muslim’s quiet account of enlightenment, is the key to Haim’s “Hallelujah”? Not quite, but I’m always glad I listened to that song. Hmm, how about Simon and Garfunkel? They really pioneered this sound, even before Joni Mitchell became the living embodiment of the introspective singer-songwriter. And in fact, Paul Simon’s “Kathy’s Song” – arguably the first song to fit this mold, in 1965 – does have a very similar opening.   You can see where this is going – into infinity. I’m curious what others hear in this new classic, which builds on so many from the past. As I continue to let the earworms mingle, I know one day the real (or at least most likely) source of “Hallelujah” will turn up on a playlist or wafting through a café, and I’ll think, wow, that reminds me of something, what is it? In the meantime, it’s fun to use Haim’s music to dream into the past. 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