The Best Movies And TV Shows For Music Fans

Plus, a Tiny Desk (home) concert from Sylvan Esso.

by Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna Graham Tolbert/Courtesy of the artist Like many of you, we’ve spent an awful lot of time on the couch as of late. Fortunately for us, there’s no shortage of programming sure to please music fans.  Reporter Sidney Madden says she’s “been spending some free time revisiting and nerding out over my favorite music documentaries” and recommends What Happened, Miss Simone? and John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky, both on Netflix.  Assistant editor Cyrena Touros recommends Babylon Berlin — “ostensibly a noir, cop drama, but also a period piece with its characters running through jazz age bars and nightclubs in interwar Berlin,” she says. “The show also occasionally pauses for a performance, including a cabaret cameo from Bryan Ferry and ‘Zu Asche, zu Staub,’ a thrilling drag number that landed at No. 22 on the German singles chart.” “To generalize, briefly: Biopics are trash, and music biopics doubly so,” says our always-optimistic news editor, Andrew Flanagan. “A life played at feature length is two-dimensional in more ways than one — inaccurate, unwhole. That is, unless the person making the film acknowledges the medium’s limitations and embraces its opportunities, like Miloš Forman did with Amadeus in 1984, the year I was born. It is historically fuzzy, biographically spurious, cinematically lush and 1,000% enjoyable — a baroque, close-quartered, technicolor farce.” Bob Boilen loved WITH, the recent live concert film from Sylvan Esso. The duo “gathered their talented friends to reimagine their songs,” he says, and “took the whole thing on tour in 2019, filmed it along with some background on how it all came together and voila: Joy!” Marissa Lorusso recently watched the classic concert film from the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense — and now understands why the high-energy and totally creative tour-de-force is considered a classic. And as NPR Music’s resident Taylor Swift aficionado, it’s Lyndsey McKenna’s duty to note that Swift’s City of Lover special, filmed last September in Paris, is now streaming. Fast-forward through “ME!” and the three tracks that follow – “The Archer,” “Death by a Thousand Cuts” and her personal favorite, “Cornelia Street” – are worth the price of admission, or in this case, your monthly Disney+ fee.  Lights, camera, action! Marissa Lorusso and Lyndsey McKenna Newsletter continues after sponsor message New Music Feeling a little adrift these days? On this week’s All Songs Considered mix, take a break from the monotony with music from new-to-us artists, including Nashville-based singer Liza Anne, New York artist Katie Von Schleicher and Muzz, a new trio featuring Iterpol's Paul Banks, the Walkmen's Matt Barrick and Bonny Light Horseman's Josh Kaufman. Carly Rae Jepsen has come to salvage your socially distanced days! Longtime fans know the pop singer has a trove of unreleased tracks – see her previous compilation of B-sides, E•MO•TION: Side B. Now, one year after Dedicated, she’s delivered Dedicated Side B for your solo dance party delight.  Jason Molina, the Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. singer-songwriter, died in 2013. This week, we got our first preview of a new album, Eight Gates, compiling nine gorgeous, previously unheard tracks from the beloved artist.  Though nothing can replace the magic of live music, these days, a live album can’t hurt. In that spirit, Margo Price has released Perfectly Imperfect at the Ryman, a live recording of her sold-out 2018 residency at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.  Featuring The latest in our Turning the Tables series: Scholar Karen Tongson dives deep into the legacy of the Indigo Girls, and how the band’s music and activism demonstrate what female friendship — and lesbian friendship in particular — can teach us about connecting across difference. Moses Sumney’s double album grae was one of our most anticipated records of the year — and the experimental genre-bending artist delivered. This week, he spoke to NPR’s All Things Considered about grappling with industry pressure, his move from Los Angeles to North Carolina and the vision that holds his sprawling new record together.  If you've watched any livestreamed concerts during the past few months (or been stuck in long video conference meetings for work) you know there are bound to be technical challenges. But not so for The War On Drugs, when the band performed during the Love From Philly event at the beginning of May. Bandleader Adam Granduciel told World Cafe how his band perfected the art of the socially distanced livestream.  Tiny Desk Bob Boilen/NPR Members of our team listen to a lot of different music. So it’s unusual when a new artist elicits communal adoration from teammates with seriously divergent taste. That was the case with Lankum— so naturally, the band got an invite to the Tiny Desk. It helps to be quarantined with someone you love. This week, Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn — aka Sylvan Esso — proved it in their charming, stripped-down Tiny Desk (home) concert. One More Thing We stan dad. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Books, Pop Culture, Health and more! Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music! You received this message because you're subscribed to NPR Music emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy