Best known as the lead singer for Roxy Music, Ferry released two solo albums in the '70s filled with covers. A marvelous new concert album features Ferry performing many of these songs live.
The electronic artist's new album, her first since 2015's acclaimed Art Angels, subverts the expectations of mainstream pop music with dark, densely-layered songs.
Bley spent decades leading big bands. Now in her 80s, the jazz composer and pianist has a new album with longtime pal and partner bassist Steve Swallow and English saxophonist Andy Sheppard.
On Changes, his first studio album in five years — after a trying decade-plus of growing up in the digital spotlight — Justin Bieber sounds reinvigorated.
The Tulsa, Okla.,-based singer-songwriter has a reputation for writing superb sad songs, but his new record shows a wider range of emotions, with novelistic details in the lyrics.
In 2016, Jackson Browne went to Haiti to donate recording equipment to a local music studio. The songs recorded there since became a new album: Let The Rhythm Lead: Haiti Song Summit, Vol. 1.
Kevin Parker's fourth album as the leader of Australian rock band Tame Impala comes after a five-year gap. It's music that comes wrapped in its own bubble, far from the cascading miseries on the news.
Parker's breezy new album, which mixes live music with vintage synthesizers, draws on R&B, early hip-hop, droning electronica, jazz-funk, Afropop and flailing '60s-rock solos.
Led by New Pornographers member Dan Bejar, the band takes inspiration from The Twilight Zone and Edgar Allan Poe to evoke a distressed intensity on its new record.
The latest album by the rapper formerly known as Mos Def will be heard by very few people — a fact that represents everything fascinating and frustrating about his last decade.
Piano prodigy Joey Alexander is a fixture of the jazz world at the age of 16 and his new album shows how his sound has matured and grown into graceful original compositions.
The Canadian singer-songwriter wrote, produced and performed all 11 songs on his new album, presenting himself as a lonely first-person narrator pining over an ex-girlfriend.
While members of Hop Along appear on her solo debut, Likewise is decidedly Frances Quinlan's vision. Her voice and unique, meandering melodies sit at the forefront of an inquisitive record.
For NPR's One-Hit Wonders / Second-Best Songs series, Rolling Stone's Anthony DeCurtis recommends "Battleship Chains" by The Georgia Satellites, known for "Keep Your Hands to Yourself."
The 23-year-old Southern blues rocker strikes out on his own with a soulful new album produced Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys. The record is a real beauty — and a turning-point for King.
When it comes to the Underground Railroad, everyone knows Harriet Tubman. But a new oratorio sheds light on a different, key figure named William Still.
In the early 1960s, saxophonists Davis and Griffin co-led a jumping two-tenor band. A live recording of their 1962 Seattle show is now available on Ow! Live at the Penthouse.
BUBBA sounds like the hazy, dream-like moments before last call; the club is packed and everyone is transfixed in a sort of effortless, collective rhythm.
Though their improvising gets rowdy at times, the Very Practical Trio players don't neglect the tune when they jam. Kevin Whitehead says the ensemble's new album has a nice give and take.
Blessed with a Kentucky croon and a gift for storytelling, Childers offers a slice of country life on his recent album, with songs about marriage, life on the road and the school bus he took as a kid.
Few things haunt a critic more than loving something and not being able to share it. This year, Fresh Air critic John Powers circles back to Unbelievable,Atlantics, Where the Light Falls and more.
Marcus gets a clean, unfettered sound from both his band and his instrument on his new album. Trio+ is crisp, tight and varied — with more good melodies than we can dip into.
