NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Aug. 29

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Sabrina Carpenter. The Beaches. Margo Price. This week, Stephen Thompson chats with NPR Music's Hazel Cills and WMOT's Jessie Scott about the best new albums out this new music Friday.The Starting 5:��� The Beaches, 'No Hard Feelings'• The Beths, 'Straight Line Was A Lie'• Margo Price, 'Hard Headed Woman'• Rodney Crowell, 'Airline Highway'• Anna Tivel, 'Animal Poem'Read more about WMOT's live webcast from AMERICANAFEST 2025.The Lightning Round:• Blood Orange, 'Essex Honey'• Jaelee Roberts, 'Let Me Be Lonely'• Brad Mehldau, 'Ride Into the Sun'• CMAT, 'EURO-COUNTRY'• Tiwa Savage, 'This One Is Personal'See the long list of albums out Aug. 29 and sample dozens of them via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Oh, boy. Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I am Stephen Thompson. We are going to do the show a tiny bit differently this week. We're going to split it into two parts with two very special guests. Later in today's episode, we're going to have a conversation with Jesse Scott from WMOT, a station serving Nashville and Middle Tennessee. We're going to talk about a little rush of new release.

in the Americana world. But first up, my NPR music colleague, Hazel Sills, is here. And we are going to talk bangers. Big pop and power pop records that are out today, August 29th, that we are extraordinarily excited about. Hazel, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure.

So the first record that you and I wanted to talk about is Man's Best Friend by Sabrina Carpenter, A huge pop star had, you know, one of the biggest breakthroughs of last year, you know, with a string of hits like espresso and please, please, please, please, and taste. And she's already back with a new record. Which is crazy to me. Crazy to me to put out two albums back to back over the course of two years. But I feel like she's just kind of trying to ride that same high of last year and piggyback on that success. And it is kind of smart.

It stands to be mentioned. This used to be commonplace. lot of, you know, legacy artists who were kind of around for the early days of pop and rock and roll were putting out, you know, multiple albums a year. But in this particular landscape, a quick cycle is usually two years. Yeah. I'm extremely excited to see what she does on this album because I think you and I were both big fans of, you know, last year's album, Short and Sweet, which I thought was just so irresistibly funny, like just came out of the gate and was such an incredibly funny pop singer and songwriter, and I'm curious to hear what she's going to be doing on this album.

And this is where I should note, we did not get advanced copies of Man's Best Friend. We, like the rest of the world, have only heard the song Manchild, you know, which is the first single of this record, dropped a couple months ago. It hit number one on the Billboard charts, and it has, among other things, a very, very, very, you mentioned the word funny, a very funny video. You know, she's doing what she does best on that song. which is just kind of like ragging on annoying dudes, making fun of boys who do her wrong.

It's a schick that she's kind of mastered, and I haven't gotten enough of it. Exactly. And I think, you know, first of all, bad boyfriends are a self-renewing resource. The world will never run out of bad boyfriends. I like my boys playing hard to get, and I like my men all incompetent,

and I swear they choose me. I'm not sure. Sabrina Carpenter, obviously not a star for everyone, but I just think what she's doing, this kind of like ditsy, Goldie Hawn, Lucille Ball type, like comedic act in her music is very charming. Absolutely. And, you know, it's worth noting, like, she comes from this kind of child star system that has sprung up, where you have these artists, you know, people like Olivia Rodriguez and Miley Cyrus,

who have come up in, in. kind of a child star system where they've been gearing up for this moment of adulthood since they were practically babies. And one way that that system has worked really well is a lot of these artists come with a certain amount of comedic chops. They have been training not only as singers, as dancers, as actors, but they've also honed their comic timing. And that's something that really comes through in Manchild and that I'm really hoping to hear throughout this record. I think that Sabrina Carpenter knows what she's doing. I think she wants to make you laugh. I think she's maybe going to do it in like cheeky kind of uncomfortable ways. But she, just as she loves to like toy with

the hymboes in her music, I think she's also toying with us as listeners. God bless her. That is Sabrina Carpenter. Her new album is called Man's Best Friend. We're going to have more coverage of this record on NPR music as the days and weeks unfold. Next up, I'm telling you right now, Hazel, one of my favorite albums of the year. It is The Beaches. The Beach's new album is called No Hard Feelings. So The Beaches are a rock band from Toronto. They've been around for actually more than a decade.

This is only their third album. Their last record from 2023 was called Blame My X. It was in my Uren Top 10. It had this absolutely magical single called Blame Brett, which is just one of my favorite songs of the last few years. Talk about songs, pummeling bad boyfriends. This is one that does it in such funny, witty, catchy ways. Perfect counterpart kind of to what we're talking about with Sabrina Carpenter,

but as a full-on rock band with kind of power pop arrangements, a flare for new wave and post-punk music that kind of seeps into these songs with big, catchy, catchy kind of cars-like hooks. This new record, No Hard Feelings, is kind of picking up where that left off, with a lot more of a focus on queer relationships, but don't worry, those relationships are just as doomed. Yeah, I was going to say, like, I feel like lead singer Jordan Miller, like, it's not just jabs at bad boyfriends,

it's jabs at bad girlfriends, it's jabs at everyone. There's such a sense on this album of, like, not biting one's tongue, like saying exactly what you want to say in your music in a way that just feels so, I feel free, even just listening to it. Like, I wish I could aspire to this level of, like, candidness on the music. Like, there's even a song called, you know, did I say too much where, you know, is kind of inspired by a member in the band, you know, who is having a relationship with a closeted woman. And the kind of band is, like, coming together and sort of screaming at this person and, like, kind of, you know, getting things off their chest. And I think it's such a good example of, like, you know, the tone of this album.

And that's sort of like, well, I'm just going to say exactly what's on my mind. It's interesting kind of reading about the making of this record and kind of the changes that the band implemented in the making of this record. One of the things that really jumped out at me is that when they talked about the album, Blame My Ex, that album is very centered on Jordan Miller's relationships. This record, oh, the guitarist, Kylie Miller, gets to write about her breakup, and the drummer Eliza Edmund McDaniel gets to write about her breakup. Leandra Earle has a song on this record called Lesbian of the Year, you know, that's kind of about kind of coming out. and coming to terms with that and still being yourself and finding, you know, that the relationships are just as messy and complicated as they were before. I feel like people or like, you know, fans of rock music get very existential about like the state

of the rock band or like the state of the band in general and, you know, listening to no hard feelings. They feel like a true rock band who like knows how to have fun. And there's kind of like a sense of like messiness and like filth to this music that I feel like. Like, I don't know, like, they, you know, they're singing about, like, you know, that they're the last girls at the party. And there's, you know, a song on this album was so good where they're kind of like counting down how long they're at the party. They're like, well, it's only 2 a.m. right? Well, it's only 8 a.m. right? And they're just not leaving because they're having such a good time. And it reminded me of bands like wet leg and, like, bands like Lambriene girls.

I feel like we're getting, you know, this wave of, you know, rock bands that are just like, you really feel like they could just, like, smash a guitar against. an amplifier or something. Like, they know how to have fun. Well, and Last Girls at the Party is such a great example of just like a true anthem about a specific type of person having a specific type of experience. So that song feels totally universal,

but very specific at the same time. And to me, like, you know, you mentioned with Sabrina Carpenter, the song of the summer and how, you know, where are all our big, frothy summertime pop bangers? To me, I'm like, why wasn't this record released on like Memorial Day weekend

instead of Labor Day weekend because people should have had this album queued up all summer long. They just finished partying, that's why. They had to wait, they had to wait until they were personally done partying to put the song in. And by that point, we were all done partying.

Exactly. Well, we'll just party into the fall. That is The Beaches. Their new album is called No Hard Feelings. Hey, guess what? We have another awesome power pop record by a band with a similar name, the Beths have a new album called Straight Line Was a Lie.

So the Beths are a kind of power pop band from New Zealand. Like the beaches, they've been around for more than a decade, put out a string of really terrific records in the last few years. They had an album in 2018 called Future Me Hates Me. That certainly put them on my radar. And ever since, they've just kind of churned out these kind of consistently charming, super catchy records that like this, new record really split the difference between massive kind of radio-friendly anthems and songs that

are slower and more reflective, but that still manage to convey just as much electricity and energy even at a slower pace. I was really struck reading about the making of this album and, you know, singer-songwriter Elizabeth Stokes, you know, being kind of open about starting new medication and SSRI and that's sort of like altering her abilities as a songwriter and sort of, you know, made her rethink her creative impulses. And I really felt listening to this album that I was getting a lot of music from a band that was kind of figuring out new forms of creativity or like not sort of leaning on the impulses that they have been leaning on for their past records.

Like I think that song, the opening track, Straight Line was a Lie. It's such a good example of that, you know, where it's like this sort of process and the path that you thought that you knew, like can still surprise. you and, you know, finding freedom and going down those new pathways and figuring out, like, how to make music together as a songwriter, how to make music together as a band. Yeah, and that first track is just such a mission statement out of the gate. It's so catchy. It's so brash. You know, the experience of listening to this record was really interesting. You know, my family maintains a playlist. You know, we have it on Spotify. It's called Katie

is in the car. And so it's our collection of big, super catchy. pop, hip-hop, R&B songs that are just like enjoyable on a road trip that will make a road trip fly by. And about two and a half minutes into this song, there's just a voice calling down from upstairs, put this on the playlist. Who is this? And that's kind of how I was feeling kind of in the first few minutes of this record as well. Like this goes directly on the KDIs in the car playlist.

It's so catchy. But almost immediately, the band kind of, cools down. You know, the second track on this record is called Mosquitoes. And it's a much more reflective kind of mid-tempo ballad. There's a softness to it. There's an intimacy to it. It's not like the Beaches record where it's like hitting you over the head in the best way. They're taking a moment and kind of pulling back and giving you softer sounds that fit seamlessly within these these bigger, catchier, sparklier arrangements. Bidding down, carving rock, slow erosion.

Softer sounds and also like softer lyricism where there's just like real moments on this album that felt very kind of like tender and like intimate to me. Like I really love a song on this album called Metal I thought was particularly beautiful. And there's a line on it that again I think I was connecting to this idea of being in a band, but also just sort of like, opening up new pathways for yourself, you know, where Stokes sings, I know I'm a collaboration,

bacteria, carbon, and light. And there's something very freeing to me about saying something like that where it's like at the end of the day, like you're just a human in process, like even on a cellular level. Just little moments like that where I was like, man, this is a beautifully written record. That is The Beth's. Their new album is called Straight Line Was a Lie. Hazel Sils, thank you so much for joining me. It is always a pleasure. We will be back in a moment with Jesse Scott from WMOT in Nashville to talk about some more of the great albums out today, August 29th.

But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here now with Jesse Scott from WMOT in Nashville. Welcome to the show, Jesse. It's so good to be here. Thank you for asking. It is a pleasure to have you. Well, I wanted to have you on to talk about two things.

One is the extraordinary flood of great new Americana music out today, August 29th. And two, we wanted to talk about Americana Fest, which is coming up in less than two weeks, and which you are a big part of. Yes, we are. And it's such a wonderful thing to have Nashville kind of be the mecca for Americana. It's been going on for 25 years now, and we have seen an enormous growth in the artist population here. It's such a wonderful thing to be on a perch overlooking, because it's amazing what people are putting out. Well, tell me about some of the artists who are playing. So we do the Americana Fest Day Stage in conjunction with World Cafe and NPR Music.

I'll just tell you one day. This is Wednesday, September 10th. We are there for six hours with I'm with her, Vicki Peterson and John Cousill, Tift Merritt, Robert Randolph, Clay Street Unit, and Seth Walker. That's just day one. I'm glad you corrected me when I said, you've got a lot going on or you're doing a lot with Maricana Fest. And you're like, well, we are. NPR Music will have a live stream of Americana Fest at NPRMusic.org. You can find that, you know, just by keeping your hand just hovering over our web page at all times.

But I am not a part of it because I will be sitting in a closet in Silver Spring, Maryland, just like I always am, every single day of my life. I used to live in Silver Spring, so I'm envisioning you. You can just imagine the overall vibe. Yeah. Well, we've got a bunch of great records we want to talk about, starting with Margot Price. Margot Price's new album is called Hard-Headed Woman. Don't let the bastards get you down. Margot Price from her hard-headed woman.

It is her fifth studio album that was recorded at the legendary RCA Studio A with producer Matt Ross Spang. She reunited with him for this one. He produced her first two records, Midwest Farmer's Daughter. and All-American Made. Yeah, you know, Marco Price has been floating around for a while now and always kind of straddling that center line between kind of folk and Americana and more mainstream country.

I love the way this record finds her doing that and also making room for swaggering bluesy rock. You know, don't let the bastards get you down. It's kind of a great example of that. And I love, as I was kind of scanning, you know, the backstory on that song that Chris Christopold, has a songwriting credit on it. You know, Chris Christofferson has since passed,

but he, you know, kind of famously whispered to Sheney O'Connor as she was getting, you know, booed at a concert. He kind of whispered to her, don't let the bastards get you down, you know, because of the controversies that she was embroiled in. And so you have this kind of, you know, spiritual nod in the form of a songwriting credit to Chris Christopherson. And you get a sense as you start to piece that sort of thing to get. Who's really inspiring Margot Price on this record?

Well, the other part of that title, too, is credited to Margaret Atwood. Yeah. And it really tells you some of who Margo is. I think in a really large way, she's keeping an outlaw country tradition alive. Yes. And she's really motivated by mission. Her mission with the music is to be true to herself, which I think she comes back to to with this record, she keeps her own counsel.

She's also, not for nothing, she is extraordinarily quotable. You know, in the song that we just played, there's this line, all the cocaine in existence couldn't keep your nose out of my business. It's a great line. And, you know, and I was jotting down lyrics over the course of listening to this record a second and third time. And, you know, whether she's performing her own music or, you know, performing songs written by friends and colleagues and people she respects, that

quotability really remains. There's a track on the album called Kissing You Goodbye, that is written by Jesse Coulter, who, you know, in addition to being a terrific talent in her own right, is Waylon Jennings's widow. And, you know, kissing you goodbye in the chorus is, get your tongue out of my mouth, I'm kissing you goodbye. And that is such, that is just such a terrifically funny, kind of classic old school country bit. of wordplay that just delighted me throughout this record. And, you know, she produced Jesse Coulter's most recent record. I got to see Jesse open for her at the rhyme,

and that show was, you felt the legacy. You know, you felt the baton pass. It was so cool. And I was so happy that she honored Jesse by bringing her on stage. Well, and I also appreciate the fact that not only does she represent kind of a piece of connective tissue between the past and the present, She's also shining a light on current people that she wants to reach a wider audience. There's a terrific song on the album called Love Me Like You Used to Do, which is a duet with Tyler Childers.

And as I was listening to it, I was like, is this a cover? I was like, this isn't Tanya Tucker's Love Me, like, no, it's a different song. I couldn't place the song. And I was going back and looking it up. And it turns out it's just, it's by her friend. I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce his name. I grew up in Wisconsin, and this was always pronounced Koo. But Stephen Knudson wrote the song, and he's just her friend, a Nashville songwriter that she wanted to shine a light on.

But it felt like it was a classic from 40 or more years ago. Don't I know you from somewhere? We'll pretend we're with somebody new. That is a taxi Pull me into the backseat And love me to do Love me used to do That is Margo Price

Her new album is called Hardheaded Woman Next up, talk about your country lifers Rodney Crowell has a new record It's called Airline Highway The Days fly by me Like dragons Search lives through my wind

Highway 61 is Airline Highway, and it's the southernmost part of Highway 61 as it leaves Mississippi going down further into the Delta. And this album, Tyler Bryant produced it. He and Rodney took equipment down into the field to make this record, which I just think is such a great visual for what it is. And on this record especially, he talks about. finally being able to live in the moment of it and be in the joy of the music and not be thinking about where it's going or who or what is next, but just be in it for this moment. Yeah, this record really feels lived in and personal in such a beautiful and compelling way. You know, I first heard Rodney Crowell in the late 1980s when I was a stockboy at a grocery store.

And I've, you know, I've told this story on this show probably a few times. You know, I was a teenager in rural Wisconsin, and I thought I was too cool for country music. But then, like, a song would get its hooks in me, and then another song would get its hooks in me. And then I would be like, who's Lyle Lovett? This guy's amazing. You know, who's Patty Loveless? And why is this the best song I've ever heard? You know, this experience of, like, having my teenage snobbery punctured by the undeniable grace and beauty and just all around fantastic.

of all this country music that was getting played in the late 1980s. And you and I were talking, you know, off-mic before we started recording about Keith Whitley and just like what a gem Keith Whitley was. Rodney Crowell was a big part of that country music universe of the late 80s where country hadn't had its like 90s kind of mega revival with Garth Brooks. It was kind of languishing in the grander scheme of popular music. But basically that gave the artists who were working in country license to experiment, licensed to incorporate folk music, incorporate, you know, southern rock the way like Steve Earle did.

It was a really fertile time for music, and Rodney Crowell was a huge part of that. And ever since, he has continued to be just like one of the great songwriting masters of country in Americana. Since you brought up Steve Earle, he calls that era the great country. gets integrity scare. There were all kinds of people that got signed back then, including Lowe, including Nancy Griffith, including Rodney. Yes.

And for a moment, we thought everything was going to be okay. It's an unusual morning. Great clouds rolling in. A red letter warning. There's menace. You can't change the weather. Can't change your luck. Can't live forever.

You can't pass the bug. There's a track on this album called Simple, and then parentheses, you wouldn't call it simple. And it's a mission statement. It's kind of spoken word in the verses, and then it kind of has sung choruses. And I was struck listening to it how much of a spiritual connection that song has

between Rodney Crowell and his late former father-in-law, Johnny Cash. and how kind of the approach he takes, the structure of the song feels like a cash song, even though they have very different voices, it felt like generations speaking to each other. And, you know, Johnny very much had that political piece. He was very aware of working men and women's troubles, and his music really spoke to that.

And I see Rodney continuing that legacy as well, where he always injects some real life into it. Well, and there are also straight up protest songs on this record. There's a song called Heaven Can You Help? That has that kind of rousing what is going on with the state of the world type of song. He's somebody who is writing songs about the world around him and finding opportunities to speak up for, as you said, sort of the downtrod. It's an incredible legacy of music.

He's come to play for us so many times, and my audience here, every time he's in the room, it just becomes an extra special night. He brings so much grace and grit, and we have so much gratitude, you know, for everything that he's done, all that he's brought through the years. Well, and I find that he manages to be, quotable and interesting as a songwriter, even when he's just like writing about women.

There's a song called Sometime Thang, and it's kind of this portrait of a woman that he has an eye for. And it's got this line, she's a wildwood flower and a red corvette. Tanya Tucker meets Kate Blanchette. And I just love that. Like, first of all, if you're 75 and writing a song about a crush, you're not writing about a 19-year-old. You're writing about someone who reminds you of a cross between Tanya Tucker and Kate Blanchette. Some kind of woman kind of follows in that same tradition. It's a portrait of a crush.

It's a grown-up crush. He's very much in love, which I am so happy for him to have found that in his life. And I think that it really informs him. And I think that's where those songs came from. You can try to make a thunder. You can try to stop the rain. You don't believe in making love to a sometime thing. Sometime things.

Sometimes things. You don't believe in making love to a song. That's Rodney Crowell. His new album is called Airline Highway. We've got one more record we want to talk about in-depth, as well as a lightning round of just some of the other great records out today, August 29th. But first, let's take a quick break. From NPR Music, it's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Jesse Scott from WMOT in Nashville. Before we get to our lightning round of some of the other great records out today, we've got one more record we want to talk about in-depth, and it is, just gorgeous. It's by a singer-songwriter named Anna Tivel. It is called Animal Poem. Gold Trombone and Broken Down, the wonder and violence, the wonder and sideways. So Anna Tivel is a folk singer from Portland, Oregon. She's been floating around for more than a decade. I gotta say, to know my wonderful, brilliant colleague Anne Powers is to know.

that my wonderful, brilliant colleague Anne Powers, loves the music of Anna Tivel. And we'll tell anyone within earshot to check out this fantastic music. This is Anna Tivel's seventh album. She played a tiny desk concert in 2023. I think that was at least partially Anne's doing. And boy, I gotta say,

spending some time with this record, Anne is right on the money. I use the phrase gritty and ethereal to describe some of the music on the new Margo Price. record. This is a record that is gritty and ethereal in equal measure in ways that the grittiness does not detract from the ethereal nature. The ethereal nature does not detract from the grittiness. It's just gorgeous through and through. We had her come play our weekly live lunch broadcast, finally Friday. This is a couple years ago. And she stopped time. You had to lean in.

You know, there was a quiet strength. And, you know, This record actually takes it even further with some of the instrumentation on it. I kind of find her in the vein of beat poets, and I'm just enthralled with what she does. Yeah, and I was interested kind of learning more about the making of this record, that she and her band recorded it live as, like, she and her collaborators were kind of gathered in a circle, and they just performed it in real time as a conversation all in the same room. And I expected, you know, based on that description that it might be something a little shaggier. And yet there just isn't a wrong note here.

And every time I came back and listened to this record, I was hooked in by another song. I would have a different favorite song every time I listen to it. There's a track called Paradise is in the Mind, which, you know, feels really tender and fragile and beautiful. And then a guitar solo. Then a guitar solo kind of kicks in around the three and a half minute mark and then saxes kind of sweep in. And the song just keeps building and getting grander. But that tenderness, that fragility, that beauty is all still there. It's a stream of consciousness of being on one's own.

And sometimes when you are in that mode and you open the door to all the thoughts starting to bang around in your brain, you easily can go from the serene to the chaotic. And I think she does that with this instrumentation. You know, it's funny, you know, I take notes, you know, as I listen to these albums, kind of to remind myself, you know, points I don't want to miss songs, I want to make sure I highlight. Sometimes those notes are really useful, and sometimes they are just utter useless garbage. As when I wrote down Badlands equals gorgeous.

No details. It's just written down, like, don't forget to mention the badlands is gorgeous, very insightful. Yeah, there you go. Driving through the badlands you were talking about all those strange formations making shadows you followed. The purple of the ages and the painted yellow lines. A photo never catches what you're after. That is Anna Tivel. Her new album is called Animal Poem. Now, as I have alluded to several times, there is a lot of music out today, August 29th. This is actually the last release date to be

considered for the Grammys in 2026. The window for Grammy eligibility closes effective like this weekend. So a lot of people were trying to slam a bunch of great music in just under the wire to get considered. So we cannot possibly get to everything just as we could. not possibly get to everything last week. But I'm going to kick us off with Dev Hines, who's been recording as Blood Orange for more than 15 years now. He's one of the most prolific and inventive collaborators in the business. And speaking of collaborators, his new record is loaded with them. Lord Caroline Polichek, Mustafa, Brendan Yates from Turnstile, Daniel Caesar.

The list goes on. And that list gives you a pretty clear indication that this is an artist who can't be easily pinned down to a single genre. Blood Orange's new album is called Essex Honey. Jaley Roberts has a new album. It's called Let Me Be Lonely. She is the IBMA International Bluegrass Music Association, female vocalist of the year. And she has a rich history in Nashville and Middle Tennessee.

Her father, Danny Roberts, is one of the Graskels. Byron House produced. This record, he is a legacy bassist in town here, and it has a great bluegrass sensibility, old school country sensibility, well-recommended, lovely voice. Jaley Roberts, let me be lonely. The great pianist Brad Meldow has a new album that celebrates the music of Elliot Smith. Now, Brad Meldow is not the first music. to release a set of piano-based Elliot Smith covers. Christopher O'Reilly had one almost two decades ago,

but this one is jazzy and inventive in fresh and exciting ways. It's not only got 10 songs by Elliot Smith, but also a handful of originals inspired by Smith. It's got guests like Chris Thiele all over it, and covers of classics by Nick Drake and Big Star to round out the set. The whole thing is just lovely. Brad Meldow's new album is called Ride In. to the sun.

Kira Mary Alice Thompson is better known as CMAB. She was born in Dublin, moved to Manchester, England to pursue a career in music, and has issued the Euro country album today. It's got an extra bit of pop, but her voice recalls the country crooning women. Going all the way back to Patsy Klein, I am particularly engaged with the title track, Euro Country. Yeah. Finally, the Nigerian singer-songwriter Tiwa Savage is back with her first full-length album in five years. Tewa Savage's music mixes R&B with Afrobeat and pop and hip-hop.

The songs that she sings are, you know, are incorporating three different languages, including English. She's been a frequent guest and songwriter on other people's records, everyone from Nas to Coldplay, but her own music kind of bursts with unique charisma. T.W Savage's new album is titled, This One Is Personal. It's out. Now, Jesse, I am about to give you a lot of music to prepare for this conversation. How do you pick one song as your favorite?

It's really, really, really hard to pick. Zach Top, who is an old school, modern-day country crooner, has a brand new album, Ain't In It for My Health. Check up Between the Ditches. Those curves will sneak up on you late at night. Going wrong comes easy. How, it ain't that life. I've got to say, thank God for friends and four-wheel drive.

Because I go left. Sometimes a little too far right. Yeah, I'm good at crossing that blind and needing me some help. But I'm learning... This week, this task is basically impossible because there are multiple records where I'm going to go back not only and dwell on one specific song to play over and over again,

which is usually kind of how I keep reliving these records because I'm always having to listen to new music. But there are several records this year where every time I've gone back and played them in their entirety, I've loved them more and more and more. And that is true of the Beaches record, which is just one of my big summary power pop albums of 2025. But then this Anatovil record, every time I go back to it, I love it more and more and more. So how do I pick just one song? Jesse, how do I do it? You can't. You don't have to. That's the good news.

You know what? I wrote gorgeous next to the song Badlands by Anna Tivel, and I'm going to stick with that. It's just gorgeous. Spend the whole weekend with it. You will be glad that you did. Driving through the badlands you were talking about time. All those strange formations making shadows you follow.

That is our show for this week. Thank you so much, Jesse Scott, for taking time out of your week at WMOT in Tennessee. Thanks, Stephen. If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR music is Soraya Mohamed. We'll be back next week to discuss new music with Alisa Ali at WFUV in New York.

Until then, take a moment to be well. Stand at your kitchen window listening to all the great music we just played and treat yourself. to lots of great music. And hydrate. And hydrate. Always good advice.