All Songs Considered

On this week's All Songs Considered, we share new music from legendary producer and ambient pioneer, Daniel Lanois, and from the friends-for-life trio Nonkeen, whose new album comes in the aftermath of a "freak carousel accident." Also on the show is a shout-along emo track from Montclair, N.J.'s Pinegrove and a psych-pop track about never wanting to go outside from Morgan Delt, who recently signed with Sub Pop.But first, we take a moment of silence for the Weeknd, who lost his microphone, and explain to our intern that not everything on the Internet is real. 1. Nonkeen "Glow," Daniel Lanois "Heavy Sun," 3. Half Waif "Turn Me Around," 4. Pinegrove "Old Friends," 5. Morgan Delt "I Don't Wanna See What's Happening Outside," 6. Deap Vally "Royal Jelly"

It's only June and this year is already jam-packed with remarkable new artists who've released some of 2016's most memorable music. These are artists who released their very first songs or first full-length albums so far this year.Last week we asked for your picks for the best new artists from 2016's first half. We tallied the votes and have your top 10 listed below, alongside quotes that some of you submitted with your votes. The artists you picked cross genres, from the scuzz-y slacker rock of Lucy Dacus to the tender country music of Margo Price. But the thing that links them all, what you told us matters most to you, is a sense of authenticity.But first, Bob and Robin share their favorites: the wound-tight, propulsive sound of Weaves and the quiet, textured tunes of Ry X.1. Big Thief, 2. Margaret Glaspy, 3. Overcoats, 4. Whitney, 5. Maggie Rogers, 6. Lucy Dacus, 7. Mothers, 8. Margo Price, 9. Honeysuckle, 10. Japanese Breakfast

On this week's All Songs Considered we come full circle. Robin Hilton opens the show by looking back in time with a weird, psychedelic track by Cornelius from his long out-of-print, newly reissued album Fantasma. If the song doesn't justify itself, Bob Boilen provides an argument for looking back with a song by The Wild Reeds called "Everything Looks Better (In Hindsight)."Also on the show: We also play an electro-folk track by the Israeli sisters A-WA and a new song by Tiny Desk veterans Bellows. But first, Robin and Bob talk knee surgery.

We have a new song and an interview with Hozier. The song is a love song for the film "The Legend of Tarzan"

On this week's All Songs Considered mix, we play songs about longing, loss, and healing, with premieres from The Tallest Man On Earth, pop singer LP and more.Co-host Robin Hilton opens the show with "Strange," a track LP wrote after realizing that what unites is how strange and wonderful we all are. Host Bob Boilen follows with a psychedelic track by two teenaged brothers from Hicksville, Long Island who go by the name The Lemon Twigs. We also hear from singer Adam Torres for the first time in nearly a decade and share a song by Charles Bradley that connects Black Sabbathwith James Brown. Plus: One of Robin's all-time favorite singer-songwriters, Chris Staples, is back with another heartbreakingly beautiful album called Golden Age, and we play a brand new song from The Tallest Man On Earth. We end with a song for those we've lost, "Prayer For The Dying" by Lisa Hannigan.But first, Robin tells us that he can, in fact, see stars from his house in the suburbs, shares why he loves letting his dog out right before bed and how it all ties in with this week's mix: 1. LP: "Strange," 2. The Lemon Twigs: "As Long As We're Together," 3. The Tallest Man On Earth: "Time Of The Blue," 4. Adam Torres: "Outlands," 5. Chris Staples: "Relatively Permanent," 6. Charles Bradley: "Changes," 7. Lisa Hannigan: "Prayer For The Dying"

Of all the musicians on the planet, you'd think Paul McCartney would have, by now, figured out this whole songwriting thing. But as he tells us in this week's +1 podcast, "You never get it down. I don't know how to do this. You'd think I do, but it's not one of these things you ever really know how to do."The occasion for our conversation with Paul McCartney is a new box set out today, Pure McCartney, that compiles 67 songs from his nearly five decades as a solo artist. But over the course of this forty-minute discussion, McCartney opened up about much more, from his memories of working with John Lennon to his creative process, how he stays inspired and why, as he tells us, he sometimes thinks he should take songwriting more seriously.Paul McCartney spoke to us from the Hog Hill Mill studio in East Sussex. You can listen to the full interview with the link above or read edited highlights below.

On this week's All Songs Considered, we play songs about facing fears, being true to yourself and not worrying about what everyone else thinks, plus a new song from Angel Olsen and a conversation with her about her surprising new sound.Robin Hilton opens with an introspective pop gem from the Portland, Ore. band Ages And Ages inspired by the ephemeral nature of nearly everything. Bob Boilen follows with a sonic adventure from the Asheville, N.C. folk group River Whyless.Also on the show: Bed., another Portland band, has an ode to being free and escaping the comforts of home; The D.C. band Paperhaus has a fierce new single with some mind-blowing drumming and singer Hannah Georgas takes a simple piano ballad and turns it into a syncopated wonder with pulsing horns.But first, Bob settles back in after a month on the road while Robin tries to put on a new face with a coffee mug that might just change his whole outlook on life.Playlist:1. Ages And Ages: "They Want More"2. River Whyless: "All Day All Night"3. Angel Olsen: "Intern"4. Bed.: "Billy Joel"5. Paperhaus: "Silent Speaking"6. Hannah Georgas: "Waste"

Sean Lennon's latest collaboration is with Primus bassist and lead singer Les Claypool. They're calling themselves the Claypool Lennon Delirium, and their new album is a collection of trippy, psychedelic space jams called The Monolith Of Phobos (a reference to a large rock discovered on Phobos, a moon orbiting Mars).Most of the songs are celestial meditations with surreal lyrics about space exploration or drugs. But one track, "Bubbles Burst," offers a more personal reflection from Lennon about his memories of Michael Jackson's pet chimpanzee, Bubbles. Lennon and Jackson were friends and, as a child in the mid-1980s, Lennon would hang out with Bubbles at Jackson's Neverland ranch.The song itself is a plainspoken description of how Jackson acquired Bubbles and what it was like living at Neverland. But a new video for "Bubbles Burst" adds an unsettling twist, portraying Jackson as grotesque and demented.For this week's +1 podcast, we spoke with Lennon about how he came to write "Bubbles Burst" and how he wants people to feel when they see the video.

This week on a very special edition of All Songs Considered ... guitarist, actor, writer (and former writer for NPR Music, at her Monitor Mix blog) Carrie Brownstein returns. She joins us, along with NPR Music's Stephen Thompson, to do something we don't normally do: Talk about the songs we really, really don't like.Our mission at All Songs is to bring you our favorite musical discoveries of the week. But after Stephen wrote his column examining Starship's widely reviled hit single "We Built This City," we watched the comments pour in like an out-of-control fire hose, and got to talking about all the songs that drive us bonkers. It was so much fun we decided to continue the discussion here, with a look at some of the contenders for worst songs of all time and why they stick in our craw. These are relentless earworms — songs you can't escape once they're in your head — or annoying novelty songs. "The Candy Man," anyone? We also look at songs that take themselves too seriously, songs we used to love until they were ruined by a bad personal experience and more.Please direct your "Dear Idiots" letters via email to allsongs@npr.org.

On this week's episode we've got one of the sunniest bands of all time, mesmerizing music from the Sahara and an elegy to growing old.Co-host Robin Hilton gets things started with a sweetly sad song from Matt The Electrician, a pop-folk singer based in Austin who no longer has anything to do with his own hands, while host Bob Boilen follows with Esmé Patterson, a singer with roots in folk music and a new album that stretches into the world of gritty rock.Also on the show: The Monkees celebrate the band's 50th anniversary with a new album that includes the bubbly pop song "You Bring The Summer;" singer Adia Victoria sings sultry blues with a distinctive voice and the Algerian band Imarhan has an incredible debut album of Tuareg music.But before we get to any music, Bob explains how he ended up flat on his back on a train platform.

Paul Simon has a new album coming out and it's wonderful. Titled Stranger To Stranger, it's his thirteenth solo release and he told me he it could be his last, at least for a while. For this week's +1 podcast, I sat with Paul Simon at NPR's New York bureau to talk about the new record, but more specifically to talk about a single song on the album, the puzzling and quirky opening cut, "The Werewolf." Paul Simon walked me through the song, the thousands of decisions he had to make and the minutia of songwriting that I think makes his music complex, conversational and memorable. This entire song was inspired by a sound, and from that sound Paul Simon had to find the subject and characters. What he came up with is a scary tale of where he believes we are in the 21st century.

This week's essential mix from All Songs Considered includes a surprising, electronic, mostly instrumental cut from The 1975 — a British group known more for its brash Top-40 pop and rock — an intimate home demo recording from My Morning Jacketand a spare, moody cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" by the Irish folk singer known as SOAK.Also on the show: A new studio recording of "Some Day We'll Linger In The Sun," the heartbreakingly beautiful song by Gaelynn Lea that won this year's Tiny Desk contest; A troubled love story from singer Haley Bonar and mangled, electronic rock from the Toronto-based band Holy F***.But before we can even think of playing any music, Robin needs to pound his seventh cup of coffee of the day and welcome Bob back from his week on the road.

Earlier this week we asked you to tell us what your favorite song is right now — the one track you can't stop listening to. Maybe it's something from one of the big releases, or maybe it's something from a lesser-known artist off everyone's radar. Or maybe it's an older tune.On this week's +1 podcast, All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen is away, but co-host Robin Hilton is joined by NPR Music's Stephen Thompson to talk about the one song NPR Music listeners say they can't get enough of right now.

It's hard to imagine an artist who works harder or cares more about what their fans think than Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo. For the past 20-plus years he's been a tireless and meticulous songwriter who maintains incredibly detailed spreadsheets with hundreds of titles for songs that don't yet exist, and lyric fragments organized by word and syllable count. He obsessively studies the intricacies of other well-loved pop songs, cataloging every element, trying to understand why they work and how he can make his own songs better.With every note Cuomo agonizes over, he's thinking about the complicated relationship he's had with Weezer's fans. For some, the band has never lived up to its 1994 debut release, the self-titled "Blue" album, and that weighs heavily on Cuomo. And even though plenty of critics and fans think Weezer's latest record, the self-titled "White" album is as good as anything the band has done, that hasn't kept Cuomo from fretting over every review.On this week's show, Rivers Cuomo joins us to share some of the stories behind the band's new record and to play some of the songs by other artists he's loving now. He also talks about what it's like to reach middle age, have kids and how he stays inspired to write songs that still resonate with young people.

It really started nearly two weeks ago when Beyoncé surprise-released her monstrously good record, Lemonade, via an album-length video shown on HBO. Drake followed a few days later when he unloaded 20 new songs on fans with the epic album Views. Then Radiohead teased out some video clips — and eventually a new song called "Burn The Witch." James Blake quickly followed on Thursday with three unannounced songs and, a few hours later, a whole new album with 17 stunning tracks. A bit later on Thursday night, Chance The Rapper popped up on the Jimmy Fallon show with a new song and announced that his new album would be here on May 13. Now, as we close out the week, Radiohead is back again with another new song and news that a full album is coming at 2 p.m. ET Sunday, May 8.On this week's +1 Podcast, All Songs Considered hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are joined by NPR Music's Saidah Blount and Jacob Ganz to talk about why artists are resorting to stealthy tactics, what the deluge of surprise releases means for the way we listen and which ones we're spending the most time with.