NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out June 14

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

This week, NPR Music's Daoud Tyler-Ameen and Ann Powers steer the New Music Friday podcast straight into the oncoming Father's Day weekend, following the lead of country superstar Luke Combs, whose new album Fathers & Sons is a heartfelt meditation on what it means to fill both of those roles. It's Combs' first album since his cover of Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" landed him on the pop charts last year. Also this week: Raveena, whose won over many fans at NPR Music with her 2022 album Asha's Awakening, excavates the sounds of millennial pop and R&B on Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain and a long-celebrated 1974 bootleg of Paul McCartney and Wings playing live in the studio gets an official release.Featured Albums:• Luke Combs, 'Fathers & Sons'• Raveena, 'Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain'• Paul McCartney & Wings, 'One Hand Clapping'Other notable albums out June 14:• The Decemberists, 'As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again'• Normani, 'Dopamine'• PJ Morton, 'Cape Town to Cairo'• This is Lorelei, 'Box for Buddy, Box for Star'• Jess Cornelius, 'Care/Taking'• Sadler Vaden, 'Dad Rock'• Don Tolliver, 'Hardstone Psycho'• Hermanos Gutiérrez, 'Sonido Cósmico'• Sam Morton, 'Daffodils & Dirt'• John Cale, 'POPtical Illusion'• Isobel Campbell, 'Bow to Love'• John Grant, 'The Art of the Lie'• Lalah Hathaway, 'VANTABLACK'• Moby, 'always centered at night'• Zsela, 'Big For You'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

Just a heads up before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Anne K. Powers. Say my name. I'm always honored to be in your presence. But especially today, the world is going to hear this a few days later. But the day that we are speaking, June 11th, is the publication date of your book, traveling on the path of Joni Mitchell. Finally.

Oh, my gosh. You must all be so sick of hearing about this book. I worked on it for seven. Six of it? Well, yeah. I mean, you must be sick of it. It's really. So this is the fun part. Well, I should hope so. I mean, I got to start the audio book on the treadmill this morning. Oh, yay. I will tell you, I felt very seen by the introduction of this book. I'll tell you why. Because I am excited for this book on a personal level, because it has been my secret shame for a long time that I don't really feel like I know enough about Joni. As much as I feel like I should, I've always felt sort of strangely intimidated by the magnitude of her myth and her rep is this living genius. And every time I tried to dive in, there was always a little bit of a force field, this sense that there was like something to get that I wasn't getting.

And you, obviously were coming at it from a much more informed and scholarly place, but it sounds like there were parts of you that felt similarly. Absolutely. I guess you're my target audience, I think so. Really, I mean, this book is for the fans, but really this book is for anyone who, on the wide spectrum of appreciation, intimidation, engagement, frustration with Joni Mitchell, and with, you know, the whole idea of a musical icon or musical legend. So I really wanted to trace her life story as an artist and as a person, but also the story of how she became all caps,

Joni Mitchell, and that's a huge part of my motivation. Well, congratulations. There's been a lot of hard emojis in the office slack for you so far today. You know, on some level, I'm just another girl with a new release this week, just like all the artists we're going to be talking about today. All right. Should we start the show? Yeah, let's do it.

Hey, everybody. It's New Music Friday from NPR Music. here to talk with you about the best and most discussion-worthy albums coming out today, June 14th. I'm Daoud Tyler Rameen. I'm an editor at NPR Music. And besides the author of Traveling, Who Are You? Oh, well, I'm Anne Powers, Music Critic and Correspondent for NPR Music. Today on the show, we will hear the latest from R&B Earth Mother, Ravina, as well as an old Paul McCartney recording that is getting a proper release after 50 years as a legendary bootleg. But first, attention must be paid. Anybody who felt pretty sure that Taylor Swift's iron grip

on the top spot of the Billboard 200 was just going to continue into the indefinite future because who could possibly begin to challenge her, Luke Combs has entered the chat. His new album, Out Just in Time for Father's Day, Clutch, is called Fathers and Sons, and it begins with a song called Front Door Famous. I see his face sometimes, out.

there in the crowd in between the melodies he's asking me when I'm coming home after all the lights come on after all the folks are gone I hit the road and close my eyes now imagine I'm walking through the front door here and daddy at the top of his lungs with a speed on the wood floor And I have to confess that I am one of the people to whom Luke Combs was kind of just a name before the phenomenon of his fast car cover last year. Not a small name. I mean a known name, a name with weight, but I just, I did not know his catalog. I did not know his rep in Nashville. Can you help me out with that? Like, I mean, who was he? Where did he come from?

Oh, absolutely. And there's no shame in that, diode, because Luke is an artist who I believe is going beyond the country realm now and really has become a pop star, you know, a global pop star, but who is also firmly in the country realm. So if you're not deeping the Nashville scene, maybe you missed his rise. Luke comes as really an artist who represents the 21st century wave of country music and the best of that, I think. So he comes from North Carolina and you can hear in his music, I think, a strong connection to bluegrass and old-timey music that he grew up listening to, along with classic country. I mean, he's in his mid-30s, so he's definitely a guy who grew up listening to Garth Brooks and,

you know, artists like that. But he first broke out in Nashville in 2017, and his star has steadily been rising ever since then. Combs' sound is a very pristine and sophisticated take on traditional country, and one of the most notable things about him is his evolution as a very 21st century star who's not afraid of tackling difficult issues, you know, issues that other country artists have avoided. In the wake of the Black Lives Matter protest, Combs publicly apologized for having once appeared in a video that included a Confederate flag and became really an embodiment of a country artist and a white

southerner who values human lives and, you know, is somewhat of a progressive. I would call him like a quiet progressive, you know. And ever since then, he's been on that path. And his music really represents his vision of what it means to be a Southern man now in the 2020s. And of course, he became even more famous when he appeared on the Grammys with Tracy Jatman, having covered Tracy's classic song, Fast Car, and having a huge hit with that. Yeah. So this song, Front Door Famous, I mean, like a lot of country songs, it's one of those things where just like the title kind of is the thesis. Yeah, exactly. But it also establishes the central device of the album, right? This is a song both about being a dad and having a dad and looking forwards and backwards in time. And so,

this song is sung both from the point of view of a dad returning home after being away and a son running out to greet him because he is embodying both roles. As soon as I get home seems like I'm gone again walking out the driveway I see his face pressed against the screen door teddy bear and a juice pack saying daddy please come back It tears me up every time, and I can't wait till I'm walking through the front. And that way, it's a classic country song. And I think this whole album is a great example of how Luke reworks classic country themes to suit this moment, you know. I mean, he's engaging with some of the cliches and some of the sentimental, you know, tropes of fatherhood throughout this album, not just on the song. But he's also saying, hey, you know what?

Fatherhood is somewhat unsettled in an age of divorce and, you know, an age of fathers who travel all the time. And he's looking at children who feel the absence of their fathers. He's looking at himself as, you know, a major touring artist who isn't necessarily around all the time for his two sons. And I think that's the greatest thing about this album. I mean, I'm going to pay a very high compliment. I think it's really in the vein of Merle Haggard, you know.

another guy who embodied, you know, sort of Nashville masculine ideals, but also imbued his songs with class consciousness and an awareness of the problems that families have and the problems that men bring to families. Well, on the subject of testing tradition, why don't we jump to the song, whoever you turn out to be? Yeah, I love that one. Because that is the song that really started to shape my understanding of what this record is interested in doing. Might not be the tank you empty burning gasoline the day you turn 16.

Just because dusty boots, a camouflage in your roots don't think you ever got a wear if that ain't you. I don't care. Yeah, I used to love to sling that dirt up down. But God might have a different map dot plan for you mapped out. I will say I was reflexively a little bit itchy at the start of this record. Understanding that it seemed totally heartfelt and well-intentioned, just because celebrations of family, maybe family values in parentheses, have in the past, sometimes, more than sometimes, often been used to kind of launder something a little bit more insidious, a kind of sort of

stifling traditionalism. That plus just the fact that like, I don't know, Father's Day isn't fun for everyone. And I was just like, am I gonna be able to get into this? And especially on second listen, and especially as regards to this song, I realize that it is interested in cracking some of those myths, because this is a song

where the idea of sort of the unconditional love of parenthood is really put to the test, right? I mean, I totally understand your trepidation though, because of course, songs about dads and about being a dad are just rampant in country music. It's always been an easy ride

right into the zone of sentimentality and reinforcing those family values that you're talking about. But this song really struck me too particularly for the way in which it frames a certain process of acceptance that's I think

common now among conservative parents, and this isn't what the song itself says. I'm going to just preface that and say, this is not what Luke Crumbs wrote or in his co-writers wrote explicitly in the lyrics. But this idea that whoever you turn out to be, you are my child and I will accept you, that very much echoes the way that a lot of parents, conservative parents, especially of LGBTQIA kids here in the South, talk about their kids. I mean, it's this kind of, you a political move of I learned acceptance through my own child, through this intimate connection, this intimate relationship. It's actually a classic part of queer liberation narratives and

queer, you know, like standing up for equal rights. I mean, it's really a very, very central way in which not just tolerance, but love and compassion emanates, you know, through families. And I I think this song is like a coded celebration or evocation of that story. It certainly can be leveraged that way, right? In the same way that plenty of country music can be weaponized towards, you know, more repressive ends. This is a song that, you know, I can see a lot of people really taking and using the same way that, like, there's so many pieces of art that don't say the thing that they eventually meant to the people. who came to love them. And it's wild to hear this song come into the mix after a couple of, as you said, like pretty down the middle songs about like raising little country boys and teaching them how to hunt and

fish and all of that stuff. There's always this sort of mirroring and doubling back and seeing things in both directions at once over the course of this album. Yeah, that's classic Luke Combs. And I should say this album has a very intimate feel. It was recorded. live and to me as a within the realm of mainstream country you know it sounds very immediate you feel like you're in the room with him as he's telling these stories and as they're you know his band is flushing them out and that intimacy I think also allows for the quality that I love in luke's music which is this vulnerability you know he's he's really able to present himself i mean okay picture picture this listeners Luke Holmes looks

like the guy who shops at the Bass Pro Shop, and he definitely does shop at the Bass Pro Shop. I've seen him in the Bass Pro Shop hats. He's burly. He's big. He does wear hunting camo, a lot on stage. You know, I remember years ago I'm seeing him perform and he's spitting, you know, spitting his tobacco into a Red Solo Cup. I mean, he is that Southern boy, that Southern man.

But here he's telling us about his own doubts. you know, his own questions about how he parents in a song like the man he's seasoned me, for example. You know, he's like, I want to be this man. Am I this man? I don't know, you know. He's Spider-Man and Walmart boots and a camouflage hat with a baby blue zip coat that gets hung up every cast.

He thinks he's learning fishing from the man that taught Bill dance. and I think as I'll tangle it and put it in his hands I hope he never finds out that I didn't hang the moon and I never scared a monster out to close it in his room One day between him leaving home

And drive it on my knee Yeah, that song is really digging into what you're talking about the way that many children, but boys especially, idealize their fathers, see them as super heroic. And the song has an understanding that there is a reason for and a utility even in those myths, but also they are wrong. Like plenty of great parents are constantly insecure. And, you know, it ties into things that he mentions

over and over about the impact of his chosen profession on his ability to be there or not as a father, just because of the simple calculus of not being able to be home and on tour at the same time. It's also in dialogue with another song on this record that comes right before it called Remember Him That Way, which is about witnessing his own father or his narrator's own father, who he looked up to in this way,

begin to age and begin to crack that myth of the super heroic dad. just purely through the passage of time. There's an old man in a lazy boy, TV on a western, fast asleep. Gray in his hair, at least what's left, but the heart of a lion beating in his chest. There's a little more slow in his good, a little less right. I just want

these days But I remember him 10 feet tall and bulletproof Throwing me a bawling Cowboy boots A whistle in the dogs wrenching his hand And a feel

I just want to say one more thing about this record Which is that You can take it on surface level As kind of a sentimental Father's Day You know, exercise But even in the tracks It seemed the most like that

Like my old man was right which he co-wrote with the great country chronicler of family life, Lori McKenna. That song goes a little deeper beneath the service because the way that that father is right isn't saying, you have to make mistakes, you have to be vulnerable. You know, he's not expressing some kind of like conservative agenda or something. And I think that's what Luke Combs is so great at on this record is adapting and humanizing and updating these stories that we've heard a million times before so that they feel good to us now.

For sure. Well, that's Fathers and Sons by Luke Combs, an album whose effect on me really surprised me. I foresee a lot of sales on CD for that one. Maybe that... I think so. We also see, I'm going to predict some Grammy noms for old Luke. Yeah.

Well, lots more to come, including one from the vault by a guy who just a few years removed from being a beetle, had himself a new band and was feeling himself for sure. That's coming up right after this. Hey, it's New Music Friday for June 14. I'm Daoud Tyler Amin here with Anne Powers, and our next record got me so hyped.

The second I hit play, it is the third album from Ravina, titled Where the Butterflies Go in the Rain, and this song is called Pluto. Try not to cry, it's been a few years since we had to say goodbye, but you were. I'm here as a butterfly

It's not like a It's better But some days I wish you'll hear Some days the sun It's perfect on my face And some days it's hidden ones In city landscapes We took a day to remember

How I wish you could see 28 I told you Anne that when I was listening to this I just knew that there were many influences, they were on the tip of my tongue and I couldn't find them. The closest I came was maybe 90s Janet, like a runaway or, you know, the like velvet rope era Janet Jackson. But you had some other ideas. Remind me because I can't remember now. Did you read that piece that Dan Charnas wrote about Sabrina Carpenter's espresso where he's like, everybody's...

Yes, I love that slate piece. That was... Yes, totally. In that piece, you know, he said, everybody's saying this is disco, but it's really like more like early 80s pop. And I think this, our little exchange about this mirrors that piece in that you her, you were looking back to 90s. I think this is early 2000s. I mean, it's, it's Revena, so it's 21st century all the way. I mean, she's such a great, as you pointed out to me, she's such a great curator of sounds and hybridizer of sounds. and, you know, whether it's the Indian influence that permeated her last record, Asha's Awakening, to this album, which is, it's her play at reinventing pop soul, you know, pop R&B.

But I really hear Christina Aguilera, the quieter songs, Nora Jones. Maybe you, I think you mentioned Nellie Furtado with somebody when I started talking to you about this. That's right, yeah. Just it's good. She's got that bounce. right? She's got a little hip-hop savvy. She's got what I call the millennial wiki-wiki. She totally does, but it's funny. I think that early 2000's style of pop and particularly women in pop, another person, Alicia Keys, Alicia Keys even had a song on her first album called Butterfly,

so I don't know if we're nodding to that. But there's a way in which the R&B of the 90s, the very hip-hop-infused RB of the 90s, became a little more teen pop, but also, a little more acousticy and folk poppy or even jazzy. It just like expanded and and got streamlined at the same time. And I feel like that's what Ravina's hitting with this. Compared to Asha's Awakening, her record from 2022, this record feels sort of conceptually tighter. Which is, I mean, it's still, like, 50 minutes. It's pretty long. But Asha's Awakening was over an hour. It ended with a guided meditation. that was something like 13, 14 minutes, which I thought was like, I mean, it's such a risk,

but I remember just like cackling because I was like, this is such a bold move. I just, I really appreciated the willingness to say like, this is what I do, this is what I'm about. Right, right, right. I want to jump real quick to the song Junebug. Look, think I'm only present for the summer that's pretending me. I'm not above it. We smother each other's energy. I need a shield.

I think about you to. Cover me. I'm fighting demons. My inner pieces get bobbing weave. I'm so unbalanced. I'm past a point of a pity plea. I'm making ends feel the ends when you pity me. I'm not for charity.

I'm not for opening up. I think my moments suck. I need the clarity. I'm in the act. I got a front to keep my inner peace. The way you see me now, I want you see me when I leave. Hide till I die.

You keep me up like a tetee. Fall till we fall, stand tall, no key. Baby, you got what I need like this marquee. Hold up. Oh, love. JPEG Mafia is the feature on this. He sounds great. He does.

But it is a simplified flow. JPEG Mafia has made some very, like, abrasive, intense music in his day. He had a record with Danny Brown last year called Scaring the Hose. So great. It's great. It's great. That is not the mode that he is in here. And I think there is a very specific calculation to rap features on non-wrap songs.

I am thinking. of things like Kendrick Lamar on the Bad Blood remix or like maybe an extreme example ludicrous on like Justin Bieber's baby where he's like he's toning things way down. He's like kind of painting in primary colors. And I think that's sort of what JPEG Mafia is doing here. It's like he still sounds like totally in the pocket. He's still using all of his power. But he's not going totally like aggressive or polysyllabic because like it's just like, I don't

know, to do so would be to scare the hose, I guess. Well, I mean, you know, he's adjusting his flow to fit with Ravina's flow, which I think, you know, is a little tougher than it seems at first. Listen, I mean, she's not rapping. I don't mean to imply flow in that way, but just the way she sings and also her lyrics, you know, she's such a, to use the taboo word, she's such a songbird on some level, you know, she has a very melifluous voice and it's very pleasing. But she also, there's a street sense to her and there's a kind of a, I don't know,

a pragmatic side on this record that I think we hear in these songs. Like she's expressing grief and melancholy and doubts as well as, you know, beautiful, dreamy, whimsical emotions. Yeah. It's also sort of willing to be known. There's a lot of studio chatter, I guess, like. within the skin of the song. I wrote down that on Junebug,

JPEG Mafia is kind of being the Q-Tip to her Janet. Oh, that's interesting. Speaking of Joni and speaking of Janet, thinking of Got Till It's Gone, and the way that you hear them kind of like laughing and goofing with each other. And the album feels really alive in those moments. I agree, and it's interesting how on this album

that arguably is aiming a little more for pop hits as it were, whatever that is in 2024, then her last album. Right. At the same time, we do get more of a sense of her as a person. Trying to make songs that are more accessible and connective has not reduced, you know, her presence or personality on these tracks, quite the opposite. I feel like I know her much better from this set of songs than I did from Asha's Awakening, which also, by the way, had like a sci-fi concept side to it as well.

Something like that. I mean, here we're down to earth and we're getting songs that I'm reading is also either about pregnancy or the desire to have a child. I mean, there's obviously baby mom. I think we should listen to that one a little bit. Sometimes I think skies can look like seats. That's a straight up like, let's make a baby jam. What did you think about that? It's sort of a rare thing now that I think of it, that it is sort of recontextualizing parenthood as sexy by foregrounding conception.

Which is frankly sexy in that it is sex. So there you go. Totally. I want to really quickly mention the song Little Bird. Which, speaking of intimacy, has an extraordinarily intimate feel to it. It feels like the first half of it was recorded live, like guitar and voice in one room. Maybe it was even like a rehearsal. Then there is an apparent flub where she says, oh, wait, how did I do this? Am I in the right place? Which gets sampled into this incredible flourish and suddenly we're in like multi-track fantasy land for the bridge

before we kind of fall back to Earth with that bare arrangement. Because it was really naive. How to guess about the content of this song. Yeah, to me it seems like it's addressing a friend or an intimate who might be going through a crisis around domestic violence, you know, or at least an oppressive relationship. And once you said that, I immediately thought of behind the wall by Tracy Chapman. Oh, wow.

Do you know, so that's an a cappella song. You're connecting us to Lou Combs here. Very good. I just, it's like Tracy Chapman's self-titled was on steady rotation in my household as a kid. But that is a song that is recorded entirely a cappella, and it really makes you sit in that discomfort. And I think there's some of the same effect going on here. Yeah, so Ravina does that so gracefully, I think. And that's a great connection.

And we could even go back to the 90s with songs like Me and a Gun by Tori Amos, you know, more confrontational. very clearly about the experience of being raped. But yeah, I love the intimacy on this track, and I love in general how she's establishing herself as a questing young woman, you know, who's really encountering difficult stuff, but holding on to her buoyancy and her heart throughout this record. That's Reveena's new record, where the butterflies go in the rain.

And we have one more before our lightning round, and I am going to hand the mic to you because I know this is one that you have been excited to do. into. Daoud, I'm so excited that we're talking about this. It's a little off the beaten track for New Music Friday and that this is a, well, it's technically an issue, I guess, not a reissue. It's an archival release. This is one hand clapping by the band Wings. And you know, when I saw this, I saw this on one of the release schedules of one of the websites like Album of the Year. And I thought, oh my God, somebody is using the name Wings. I can't.

can't believe it. It's not been that long since Paul McCartney had a band called Wings. How can this be? Yeah. I didn't realize that it was what it was because as much as I was a Wings fanatic as a child and a young teen, I'm not like a huge Wings Fanatic now. So I had to do a little research to discover this is actually a much coveted bootleg that's now been officially issued. It is a live recording made live in the studio with Wynn. at the moment when they have just emerging from their band on the run moment that, you know, rehearsing, they're, you know, pretty soon going to be making the albums that launch them as a huge, massive stadium band and that eventually leads to the great multi-disc live set Wings Over America.

But here we have this, this, like, completely on-fire band. Two new members in the band also on this recording, including Jimmy McCulloch, a young guitarist who's just brought so much to wings, you know. He's kind of like the Jimmy Page of Wings. I have to give the podcaster Paul Myers credit for that description of Jim McCulloch. So you have this absolutely on-fire band

in the studio and McCartney's created this environment where he can go anywhere, you know? He can play the rockers with the band. He's playing the hits. He's messing around playing old Beatles songs, playing old, you know, R&B songs in an early

rock and roll songs he loves. He's going back in time all the way it seems like to the music hall era, just messing around. In some ways, some people think this was Paul trying to remake Let It Be. You know, the session was filmed and was supposed to be a studio film about the band. Now, we're not going to go into the psychological complexities of Paul saying, I have to make let it be on my own without John, George, and Ringo around. But, Even with just the audio, I think the range it offers of Paul, as you say, like completely in his cups, feeling himself so strongly. It's just thrilling to me to hear this. I have to say, I didn't experience solo Beatles in the same way that you did.

I sort of liken it to when I was a kid and all of my friends were really into like the Star Wars extended universe. They were reading like the novels and playing the like PC games or whatever. I was like, seems fun, but I don't know. But it felt so outside the canon. You're just watching Star Wars over and over again. That's, I mean, kind of. I mean, honestly, like, it's, you know, if you had Beatles records in your house as a kid, then, yeah, probably you heard them an awful lot. And over time, what I think I came to understand McCartney as is a sort of Spielberg-like creator where he will just never stop working.

He'll, like, blaze through retirement age. Completely. The craft is always going to be top-not. Absolutely. Sometimes there's like a war horse or a BFG or something where it's, you know, maybe you don't feel passionately invested, but you can't be mad. No, that's such a great way to put it. I mean, revisiting these hits like Jet or band on the run or his solo single that became one of their, one of his, you know, most celebrated live songs, maybe I'm amazed. We do hear that incredible songcraft and that just, I don't know, it almost like.

comes out of his fingers without him thinking or something or comes out of his vocal cords without him thinking. You know, here's a funny thing, though, when I was a kid, I cannot stress how much of a Paul McCartney obsessive I was. I actually slept under a Mylar poster of his head for, I don't know, five years. I mean, nothing about this is surprising to me. It was, I was obsessed with Paul McCartney. And I found these songs so profound, but I'm revisiting them now, and especially the lyrics.

Again, maybe the Spielberg connection is a good one because, you know, Spilberg can be a big, he can be deep, subtle, or corny as hell. And I mean, Paul can be so corny. And his lyrics for some of these songs are almost nonsensical. Like, what the heck is going on in Soyley? But that song is also Paul in the band rocking out so hard. Some people have compared it to Hilt or Skilter as far as, you know, how much they push themselves as a band. But what do you think about the lyrics?

Because, I mean, truly, some of them are so goofy. I mean, this is the thing that sort of awakened me to the difference between McCartney and Lennon and Harrison. I mean, all of them as songwriters, is that McCartney seems to be so much about sensation, about the shape of a word as it exits your mouth. Right. So much more than, you know, the meaning or the sort of like intellectual, you know, basis behind it. It's like, does it feel good? Does it sound good? It's going in the song. Yeah, totally. And also about fantasy and about almost like a child's mind, you know? I mean, I think it's important when you think about this period of wings to also think about his family life.

You know, people constantly talked about Okra now. We put Linda in the band, you know, he had to do that because John was working with Yoko, whatever. I disagree. I think there were very different reasons why Linda was in that band. And I actually think she brought a lot to the sound of wings, you know, and hearing her voice in the songs. You know, it's important. But he was so focused on his family and raising his kids that I think he wrote these songs for his family.

You know, I think he wrote them for his kids. So when they have, you know, it's like, and the jailer man and Sailor Sam was, you know, these characters in band on the run or whatever. or just other lyrics that they're so goofy. I think that's why it's because it's magical mystery tour all over again. Before we go, I want to point to one thing that, to me, as a little bit of an outsider to this era of McCartney, was kind of the most fun to me, which is there are a few just solo voice and piano or solo voice and guitar tracks here, including a medley of the

long and winding road and Lady Madonna. I've seen that road before This to me stand in there This to me booked Baby at your breast Wonders how you manage to feed This to me sounds like McCartney at like a cabaret night Exactly

He booked four nights at Joe's pub His tie is a little loose you know, he's like taking requests, he's doing a little crowdwork, he's like sneaking in jokes. This is like my childhood dream, also my current dream, Paul, if you're out there. You know, and running through the hits fast to, you know, to keep folks happy. These songs are very abbreviated. He does like basically a verse and a chorus of each. But part of what he's doing here is sort of exploring like the expressiveness and expansiveness that is possible with a single instrument.

Like I thought of, there's a. a demo that you can find now because the Prince vault is open of Prince doing, I feel for you, alone on an acoustic guitar. And it, man, it's beautiful. And it is like, it is the whole band. He is playing the whole band with that one instrument. And that's kind of what I hear here. I hear you. I hear that. I think, you know, did Prince and Paul ever, did they ever collaborate? Oh, my goodness. That's a great question. I should know the answer. Oh, I'd be fascinated to know. To that, yeah. But that's a great connection you're making. And also the way he reaches back, as I mentioned before, to the beginning of rock and the beginning of the Beatles, really, right? So, you know, he does Blue Moon of

Kentucky. They do 20-flight rock, allegedly the song that Paul played for John when they first met, you know, Peggy Sue. Peggy Sue, Buddy Holly. Right. And he's making these connections with his, you know, I keep using the word goofy, but his playful songs that he's writing at this time. and that origin story of the Beatles and of his sensibility. So, yeah, I mean, he's an encyclopedia. He's like a living encyclopedia. And even during this time with Wings, when he's also remaking Arena Rock,

he's doing it by moving through the history of everything that's come before, including the Beatles. Well, that is just a sliver of the hour and a half of music on one-hand clapping by Paul McCartney and Wings. We got a few more picks to share with you in our Lightning Round when we come back. Welcome back to New Music Friday. It is time for our Lightning Round, a quick trip through some of the other notable releases coming out June 14th.

And do you want to kick us off? Pacific Northwest Rock and Roll Chamber Group, the Decemberists return with a super epic double CD that casts band leader Colin Beloy's magical realist tales within capacious settings that enhance their whimsical magic. I see the Decembrists as the rock and roll version of literary fantasists like Michael Chabon, Susanna Clark, and this volume only adds to that high-flying reputation. You know her from her years singing in Fifth Harmony, you know her as a prolific collaborator and guest artist, you know her as one of the mystery women who pops up at the end of the WAP video,

Taccardi and Megan's delight. Normani has been dropping singles from an ostensible solo album for years, and today it is finally here. Normani's debut studio album is called Dopamine. Bankrupt, I'm baby, you know how I'm coming. Booty you're bono-in-in-in-movie how I want me. Big girl shit, baby, I don't do no running. I can make it boom-boom-boom clap like I'm drumming.

Shake it make it tick, tick-tick-tick-bron pumping. Shake it make it tick-tick-tick-tick-bron bumping. Keyboardist, composer, and all-around music master, PJ Morton, took a 30-day trip across Africa to make his new album, Cape Town to Cairo. He worked with local musicians to compose and record much of this wonderfully eclectic and vivid travelogue on the spot there in Africa. Morton brings his own gospel, R&B, and pop sensibilities into these songs while finding new forms of expression on every stop along the way.

Nate Anus is one of those musicians who seems to just just write songs every day, as a matter of course, the way the rest of us brush our teeth. He has been best known in the past few years for the music he's made with Water from Your Eyes, his duo with Rachel Brown. But for years before and after that band's existence, he has been piling up material under his solo incarnation, This Is Lorelei, and his latest release is perhaps his most cohesive, thanks in part to the sobriety narrative that underpins many of the songs. The new album from This Is Lorelei is called Box for buddy box for star.

I fell in love with Jess Cornelius, the singer-songwriter and band leader who started in the Australian band Teeth and Tongue when she moved from her home country to Los Angeles a few years ago and released the fantastically poignant album distance. Well, she's back with caretaking. That's care slash taking. A set of songs that further develop her fascination with how people deal with change and disruption. This time through the lens of new motherhood.

growing concerns about the unsettled state of the earth. If you love betelessque pop with razor sharp insights, you'll love Jess Cornelius's caretaking. Oh, and I would have to mention one other album on the fly here, another surprise release, but Luke Combs has a rival or companion in the dad rock sweepstakes because Sadler Vaden, the guitarist for Jason Ispole, has released his own album about becoming a dad, and it's called Dad Rock. So Mazel Toff to you, uh, Souther. Ler Vaden. Congratulations. Love the Jams. And that is the show. Anne, do you have any self-care planned now that you're not on a year's long book deadline anymore? The spa day? Actually, I'm about to go on the road. I'm going to be doing an event in Toronto this coming Monday, and then I'm coming to the D.C. area

on June 22nd and doing something at the Kennedy Center. That's right. Tom Hising, our wonderful classical king, is going to be my interview companion. I'm eager to talk Joni with anybody who wants to spend a couple hours with me. Maybe I'll postmates you some Gatorade later today. Thanks for listening, folks. As always, send your feedback to all songs at npr.org. Leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash music newsletter.

And remember that you can get this show sponsor free and support our work by joining NPR Music Plus. Go to plus.npr.org slash NPR music or search for NPR music in Apple Podcasts to sign up. Today's episode was produced by Joaquin Kotler. We had editorial support from Jacob Gans and Soraya Muhammad. I'm Daoud Tyler Amin. I'm Ann Powers. Thanks for listening. See you next week.