NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out May 17

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

NPR Music's Stephen Thompson and Hazel Cills discuss new releases by Billie Eilish, Portishead's Beth Gibbons and Rapsody.Featured albums:- Billie Eilish, 'Hit Me Hard and Soft'- Rapsody, 'Please Don't Cry'- Beth Gibbons, 'Lives Outgrown'Other notable albums out May 17:- Shellac, 'To All Trains'- The Avett Brothers, 'The Avett Brothers'- V/A, 'Everyone's Getting Involved: A Tribute to Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense'- Mach-Hommy, '#RICHAXXHAITIAN'- Cage the Elephant, 'Neon Pill'- of Montreal, 'Lady on the Cusp'- Wu-Lu, 'Learning To Swim On Empty'- Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band, 'Loophole'- The Lovely Eggs, 'Eggistentialism'- Kaia Kater, 'Strange Medicine'- Álvaro Díaz, 'SAYONARA'- ZAYN, 'Room Under the Stairs'- One Step Closer, 'All You Embrace'- A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, 'Better Off Alone'- Crumb, 'AMAMA'- Lightheaded, 'Combustible Gems'- Pallbearer, 'Mind Burns Alive'- Joywave, 'Permanent Pleasure'- Blitzen Trapper, '100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions'- Payroll Giovanni, 'Have Money, Have Heart' EP- UFOmammut, 'Hidden'- SQÜRL, 'Music for Man Ray'- pub, 'process the wise'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 warning before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. So, Hazel, when I think about this year in music, I think of two things. I think one, grievance. It's the year of the pop culture grievance. Your Beyonce record, your Taylor Swift record, your Kendrick Lamar versus Drake and all that stuff. The other thing I think about is gigantic pop stars releasing new Elie. every few weeks. Yes.

Which did not happen in 2023. No, we've got, you know, as you said, Taylor, Beyonce, Dua Lepa just released an album recently. Yep. It feels like all of our biggest players are like entering the ring again this year. And it's a lot. It's kind of like whiplash. There's just a huge release every few weeks.

Yeah. And I think if you're looking for a cause, I would point to the writer's strike in television that kind of shut down a lot of the promotional vehicles for big pop records in 2023. So it felt like a lot of people were keeping their powder dry. And now we are yielding the benefits. Slash the onslaught. Yeah, the onslaught. Yeah. And I also think, like, I don't know, a desire for spectacle. Like maybe like in a post-Barbenheimer world, this sort of coming together for these big pop music moments is something that I feel like, at least anecdotally in my world people are craving a little bit more. A pop cultural event. Yeah. And a little piece of the

monoculture. Yeah. That we can all talk about. If they can steal it from Taylor Swift. If they can steal it from Taylor Swift, who does not yield a moment to anyone else. Absolutely not. Well, for those who don't know, this is New Music Friday from All Songs Considered. I am Stephen Thompson here with my wonderful NPR music cohort, Hazel Sills. Hey. We've got a bunch of great records we're going to talk about this week, including Rhapsody and Beth Gibbons from Portishead with her new album. But first, we're going to talk about Billy Eilish, one of our biggest pop stars.

Her new album is called Hit Me Hard and Soft. This song is called Lunch. So Hazel, I want to talk about this. this record. There was a different kind of ramp up to this release. She didn't release any singles. We heard no music from this record coming up. All that we knew was New Billy Ilish, New Billy Ilish, New Billy Ilish. What do you actually think of Hit Me Hard and Soft now that it's actually out? I love this album, and I'm very pleasantly surprised by it because, you know, as you said, she didn't release any singles from this album. You know, I read a profile with her in Rolling Stone where

she talked about, you know, this is kind of like an album album. Like she really wanted people to experience it as a whole. And listening to it, I completely agree with her. I feel like coming out of, you know, her big hit from Barbie, what was I made for, which, you know, won so many awards, including the Academy Award. I was kind of worried that this would be an album of what was I made for. Which, you know, is a great mode for Billy, but I'm kind of into the goth, pop, dancey Billy.

And, you know, I think as you just heard from that song, lunch, which is like kind of the closest thing that Billy could make to like a Peaches song. Wow. It's not quite that. I know. You're like, disagree. But yeah, but it's sexy. It's fun.

It's electronic. And I think that this album, to me, kind of finds the sweet spot between Billy's more classic pop, you know, maybe jazz oriented tendencies as an incredible singer and artist. And then sort of those, you know, more. electronic gothic pop influences that we heard from her debut. So I really love this album. One of my first reactions listening to this record is, you know, every year we wind up, and it's often you and me, Hazel, and a few other members of our team, wind up having to break down the front runners for the Grammys.

And kind of what are the Grammy narratives? And obviously, it's mid-May. It's a little early to be talking about an award ceremony that's not going to be. going to take place until like... Yeah, please don't start. But I feel like the Grammy race and so much of the dialogue around pop music is like what wins album of the year. And I think that the race for 2025's album of the year has often already been pegged as a Taylor Swift v. Beyonce race. And I listen to this record and I think, ooh, this sounds like a dark horse. I think a lot of people are going to like this record.

And you mentioned what was I made for and worrying about it being an album of these kind of ethereal ballads. I think it's not that either. There's still a lot of songs that breathe really softly and kind of pull you into her vocal in a way that that song does.

But there are also songs like Lunch, which is like a queer electro-pop, banger. She's doing a lot more with her voice than I was necessarily expecting her to do. She's pulling you in with whispers in some spots. But in other spots, she's like, there's a song on this record called Birds of a Feather, which kind of lands at this really intriguing spot for her, where she's singing at this kind of softer, higher register that's really suited to electropop. It's swerving away from those dark spaces. that she was occupying on her first record,

while still sounding like herself. Yeah, I love, I also really singled out birds of a feather because exactly for the reason you did where, you know, Billy has such a distinctive, airy vocal that can take so many different levels and intensities of production in a way that I love. And I think when I was worried about like, oh, would the album lean too much into the,

what was I made for spectrum, it's because I want to do. hear that evolution in her in her vocal and I think you know as you said about the Grammys and sort of looking for narratives and things like that I hear this album as an album of evolution for Billy she's not really doing the thing that she was known for when she kind of came out of the gate as a 17 year old making like creepy pop music but she's also not sort of retiring into like singer-songwriter spaces and no yeah I think yeah it's it's I can hear her pushing at the boundaries of what she's done before,

even in terms of the fact that she didn't really singles. This is her third album. She's a huge pop star. And I think withholding that is also a really great testament to the ways in which she's thinking about her art right now and the ways in which she's thinking about, you know, how people are consuming her music. Well, and not to just like compare it to every other pop record to enter the marketplace this year. but I was struck by kind of the juxtaposition between this record and Ariana Grande's record that she put out a couple months ago.

I was kind of unimpressed with that Ariana Grande record because it seemed to float away without, like, it had this kind of ethereal effervescent quality, but it didn't necessarily seem rooted in very much sonically. And so, like, I couldn't latch on to any of it. It was like a vapor. And this record has some similar sound. But at the same time, they feel very rooted in something. They feel like they come from a distinct point of view.

They pivot in interesting ways. Her songs go through phases in ways where they're not necessarily sticking to one sound for the duration of a song. And this is where I have to give flowers to Phineas, who writes her songs with her, and helps craft a lot of these soundscapes with her. This record manages to feel cohesive but never saming. No, I think that's totally true. And I also think, you know, in terms of it being grounded, like this is a breakup album.

Most of these songs are about loving someone, losing that love, breaking someone's heart, having your heart broken. It does feel experimental. And like, Billy is playing with music in a way on this album that I feel like I haven't heard her play with music before. And, you know, to your point about, like, songs not sounding the same, something that was really unique and surprising to me about this record was that song La Mour de Mavi.

I was just going to mention this song. Yeah, I feel like we singled out all the same songs. I wish you the best for the rest of your life. Felt sorry for you when I looked in your eyes, but I need to confess. I told you a love. I said, did I break your heart? waste your time I tried to be there for you

Then you tried to break my Which, you know, starts as this like acoustic, you know, minimalist number I think like something that you would expect from Billy And then, you know, it ends as a really high energy dance song With like shares believe level auto tune And I'm like, okay, Billy, like take me to the rave. Like, I haven't heard you in this mode before, and I would have never expected this

at the end of this song, but, like, I am along for your ride. This song was what I had gotten to when I wrote in my notes, gosh, this is an interesting record. Because that song really jumps out as, like, sonically inventive and vocally interesting, where you really don't know where it's going to go next. I did want to talk about one more song on this record before we move on to talk about other stuff. I wanted to talk about the track that opens this record. It's called Skinny. And it is kind of the one song on this record that to me, A, it feels like a counterpart to what was I made for. It feels a little bit like what was I made for if it were overtly about being Billy Eilish.

when I feel fine. 21 people say I look happy just because I got skinny but they hold me still mean. It kind of acknowledges that the internet is this like giant maw that needs to be fed. There's a line when I step off the stage I'm a bird in a cage

where it feels like it's a little more in that Taylor Swift place of this is what it's like to be me, specifically Billy Eilish pop star. What did you think of this song? I mean, I thought that this song was kind of a perfect encapsulation of the kind of ridicule that Billy has gotten, the sort of microscope that has been put on her as an artist, as a teenager, as someone, you know, exploring their sexuality in real time in front of the world. You know, Taylor Swift is an artist, and a lot of pop artists do this where they sometimes do a detriment, take that public narrative and infuse it in their art so much that it becomes the message of their art, this kind of victimization or feelings about how the public feels about them. And, you know, I think Billy balances, you know, those feelings really beautifully on this song in a way that I feel like she's going to be okay.

it's not the narrative of the album. But I think, like, you know, having released what was I made for, which was supposed to be this deeply universal, you know, creating a sense of community and womanhood and what you experience as a woman and how it related to Barbie the film, you know, seeing her kind of take the seed of that and take it to a personal place was, was really compelling to hear. It does serve as connective tissue between these two eras of Billy Eilish's career. It's like a perfect through line from what was I made for to the rest of this record. And it kind of delivers you off of that terrain after one song. All right, that's Billy Elish. Her new album is called Hit Me Hard and Soft. We got a couple more great records we're going to get to on this week's New Music Friday. But first,

let's take a quick break. It's New Music Friday from NPR and All Songs Considered. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Hazel Sills, and we're talking about some of the best new albums out today, May 17th. Next up is the rapper Rhapsody. Her new album is called Please Don't Cry, and this song is Black Pop Star. Oh no. Here I go, yo, yo, got an attitude, snapback. Never like to show that side, so I try to let it ride like

an old school ponny. Yeah. Saw what you said, but I focused on a bridge. Shopping Spreeze made me feel better. I ain't mad. Overnight days when I go see my bed, got to put the lingerie in a duffel bag. Add it on more like I ain't got baggage already. Yeah, yeah, I'm a hurt my back. So this is Rhapsody's fourth album. It's her first since 2019's Eve. Her album, Layla's Wisdom from 2017 was nominated for Best Rap album at the Grammys. She has worked with some of the biggest stars in hip-hop.

She's recording for Jay-Z's label. She was featured on Tipa Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar. She toured with Mack Miller. This record to me, first of all, it is just emptying a dump truck full of ideas for 65 solid minutes. You know, Rhapsody is a rapper who, like, works with really big ideas in her music. I mean, her last album, Eve, was sort of this, like, love letter to black women. It was really about paying tribute to black womanhood. And this album feels, you know, similarly intellectual. But it's really about working on herself and sort of. of self-actualization and sort of the narratives that have been placed on her, the narratives that she

has convinced herself are the truth and sort of unpacking that. And, you know, I read an interview with her that she did with Hot 97 where she kind of talked about almost leaving hip hop before she put this album out because she said, like, it wasn't hard for me to be myself, but it was getting hard to, you know, be in the music business and feel like people care or that there's space for you or that people value you. And I hear all of that context, you know, in these songs. One of the first things that jumps out about this record to me is, as you said, Hazel, how personal it is.

That, like, I think of her as an artist who makes really grand, ambitious, bold statements. And that is the case here. But this is about her life and herself, and she's rapping about anxiety. She's rapping about rumors surrounding her sexuality. There's a song on this record called Stand Tall. Reading Sufi, say time is money, coin and roomy.

Didn't inventors paid attention and listen to what Umi said. Shine your light, bags of bags, no matter if they tune me brand. Judgments on me, they wonderin if I'm an ether fan. All because I choose the stylish sneakers and some baggy pants. Used to make me Aggie, want to black out like the Aggie fans. I suffer from anxiety. Doctors probably tired of me trying to meditate to calm. My heart is racing like an ambulance, so I ain't got no answers.

You can believe what you choose. I'm trying to focus on sleeping in the night without waking up panicking. Steph lost a father. I'm trying to be here for my friends in them. Meath lost a father. I'm trying to be here for my friends in them. Free my spirit. And she's really explicitly talking about like triggers for things that set off anxiety.

But she's also, at one point on this record, she just says, y'all need to read Dick Gregory. And it made me laugh because, you know, Dick Gregory was a comedian. and civil rights figure and a thinker and just like a big, big ideas man. And it felt to me like it was sort of like, man, there are these huge statements. They've already been written. Go read them. You know, educate yourself and then come back to me.

And that just made me chuckle because she, like, this record has so much to say, but it's not necessarily trying to be a grand unified theory of everything. No, it definitely feels like there is a sense of, this is who I am. Like, she's working through these things on the album, but she is not here to sit you down and educate you. And I think, like, this is also a very therapy-influenced album. You know, you said she raps about anxiety. You know, one song that stood out to me was that song, That One Time.

It only took one time. I came out different. I'm just like Gloria. Except my smile missing I was experimenting I've been on fly I found out so to women You were my one time

I came out different My smile gone I'm turned out Now I can't listen to those songs Memories come with them Hard to revisit Hard to count on love My heart broke to a bunch of digits

In the mirror Asking my inner child What I'm missing What's wrong with me That's what's wrong with me never feeling kind of socially accepted, never, you know, necessarily feeling pretty. And she kind of wraps about, like, who she's living for. She wraps this lyric where she says, you know, she's clinging to society who always label me but can't define me entirely.

And I see this album is like, you know, really working through all of the labels that people have put on her about, you know, her talents as a rapper, her talents as a woman, her sexuality. You know, it's great to get an album where you hear an artist working through those ideas in real time. As I've said, this record is 65 minutes long. It is stuffed with ideas. It also fleshes out her ideas with, I think, really well-chosen and interesting guests. Erica Badu is on this record. Lil Wayne pops up on this record. Alex Isley.

There's a track on this album called Never Enough, which brings. brings in Kaznamdi for a track that's kind of more in like the landscape of dubby reggae. Because everyone get once on this, in Babylon you care for a piece. Just silver and gold are they seeking. Yeah. I'm like rosters and n' eyes. I know one love. I know God.

I know that karma I jog. My memories flew abroad. Out in Jamaica trying to dance away, my sorrow and sobs. And that's my phone somebody's son. I'm in the son getting dog. I like the brown on my skin. Look like Malik Robert art. I can't throw stars in the ceiling but can't make space in your heart.

I know the part I played. I live with it all. I regret. I disconnect. Yeah, that's mostly my fault. It's my fault. And that song leads into a track called He Shot Me, which is interpolating Bob Marley's I Shot the Sheriff.

And so you're hearing her weave in a lot of interesting influences that break up what could have been the wrong hands felt monot. just kind of being flooded with ideas. You have these interludes and breaks and genre explorations that show her kind of continuing to search in her sound. Yeah. Yeah. I think of Rhapsody as someone who, you know, especially on her last album and this album,

she's kind of creating a universe. You know, she's always sort of shouting out or hearkening the women who've come before her or bringing them in as collaborators, you know, or interpolating their music or sampling them, but she's also like situating herself within that universe of black womanhood, of, you know, sexuality, things like that. And so she's, you know, it's like you're never quite just getting her. You're getting everything that she's kind of absorbed as an artist. That's Rhapsody. Her new album is called Please Don't Cry. We're going to do a lightning round, but first we've got one more record that we want to get to. It is the new.

album by Beth Gibbons from Portishead. It's called Lives Outgrown. Let's hear a little bit of floating on a moment. So, Hazel, I know you to be a Portishead fan. I know you to be a Beth Gibbons fan, and I know you to be very excited about this record. Tell me about it. Yeah, this is Beth Gibbons' first solo album, which is kind of crazy to say. I mean, her output has been pretty sparse over the last decade or so. I mean, Portishead hasn't had a new album since 2008. She did release a recording of Gretzky's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs a few years ago. And crazy enough, the last time that we heard Beth Gibbons was on a Kendrick Lamar album. I was on a Kendrick Lamar album.

She had a totally left field cameo on 2022's Mr. Morrell and the Big Steppers. Great cameo. But yeah, she, this album, Lives Outgrown, you know, is a collection of, songs that she recorded over the course of 10 years, which is crazy to think about. And, you know, it's really about Beth Gibbons, you know, who's 59, kind of reflecting on ideas of mortality, anxiety, menopause, you know, sort of really thinking about her place in life and her future and her past. And, you know, that song floating on a moment is a really great example of that sort of introspection where she kind of sings about being on this voyage that the living have never

experienced and sort of not really knowing how much time she has left. And so it's a really beautiful dark song that plays on these really big themes that sort of carry through throughout the album. I just want to point out that Beth Gibbons and I are both in our 50s, and I am not thinking about mortality like this at all. I intend to live forever. Just like Orlando style, you're just like centuries ahead. Yeah. I, it's, I, I, I, I, this is a beautiful record. And part of what really jumped out at me listening to this record is on one level it is a, it's a, you know, it's a singer-songwriter record about the themes that you were talking about, about mortality and aging and kind of coming into your own identity and a lot of stuff that a lot of singer-songwriter records are ultimately about. But it is also a really sonically inventive record. She worked with Lee Harris from Talk Talk, who has worked on a soundscape or two over the course of a brilliant career. And it was interesting.

Like, I was trying to track down, like, what is that sound? What is that stringed instrument? Is that one of those whirly teams, you know, where you swirl it and it goes, you know, you can kind of like listen to this record on headphones and pick out, like, huh, they really, they really, they really were. went deep on just the sound of this record. And I was reading like there's a jute on this record. There's a, there's a, like a stringed instrument they didn't even have a name for that has like rubber strings. And it was, it was interesting like listening to this record and sort of feeling,

feeling that sense of playfulness and invention in these arrangements, even as the subject matter can be pretty serious. And, you know, you've got, you've got songs. this record that really have like an ambitious sweep to them. Like there's a song on this record called Lost Changes. And I immediately clocked like, this song has like Pink Floyd vibes in ways that a lot of singer-songwriter albums wouldn't necessarily get to it. Hey, you over there, change your heart instead of stare.

There's a track called Rewind that has like this mixture of kind of sounds from all over the world, moments that are kind of, that are kind of airy and swirling, almost like they're, like from that Billy Elish record we talked about at the top of the segment, but also like a real note of menace in the sound, like there's like there's a storm brink. Portishead as a band has a very distinctive sound. a sound that like basically launched a genre in trip hop in the Bristol sound. And, you know, this album doesn't sound like a port-a-set album at all. Like if you're, if you're expecting that, that's not what this is. But as you said, the scale of this album is so insane. And it feels

almost like when I was listening to it, it felt almost like a film score or even like it could be, you know, the music for like a grand kind of musical about the themes. that Beth is playing on in the lyrics to this record. And yeah, as you said, you know, the percussion on this album is very intense and very much at the forefront. And they did use a lot of unconventional percussion in making this album.

They use like Tupperware containers, a cardboard box full of curtains, metal sheets, like really just throwing it all in there. And you definitely, you know, hear it. But in a way that's like really beautiful and gets the project to this massive, massive scale. You know, a song that stood out to me is that song, Reaching Out, you know, where you can really hear this kind of,

all of these sounds kind of coming together and this, like, beautiful cacophony of, like, noise, like big notes of brass and drums. It's definitely, you know, as you said, like a singer-songwriter record, but there's so much going on in this album that really kind of speaks to the intensity of the messages of it. Well, that is Beth Gibbons. Her new album is called Lives Outgrown. We could not possibly get to all the records that we wanted to talk about that were coming out today, May 17th.

So we are going to do a lightning round, but first, let's take a quick break. All right, so, Hazel, let's do a quick round up with some of the other records out today, May 17th. The first one I wanted to talk about is an album called To All Trains by the band Shalak. Shalak is three guys. One of them is the late Steve Albini producer whose work we've been celebrating all week in the aftermath of his death. This is Shalak's first studio album in 10 years and in true Shalak style. They made absolutely none of it available for people to listen to before the release date. If you, like us, are thinking about Steve Albini and his vast legacy, this record provides a real capstone to that, and I'm really looking forward to spending some time with it.

I also wanted to talk about the first album in five years from the band The Avet Brothers. They've been obviously floating around for decades now. Their new album is self-titled, and once again, the Avid brothers are exploring big questions, big questions. about the self and morality and life and love. In a style that really has continued to kind of creep beyond their core sound of kind of scrappy bluegrass and folk sounds, the Avid brothers have been exploring in different media in recent years. They most recently spawned a stage musical called Swept Away. So they're in kind of an interesting place in their career,

and I'm happy that they're back with a new record. A24 recently released the incredible Talking Heads documentary Stop Making Sense in theaters. I got to see it in theaters last year. And now today they are releasing a star-studded tribute album to Stop Making Sense featuring artists like Lord, Blanchel, Paramore, all of them interpreting the music of that classic documentary. And it's so nice to hear, you know, a crop of modern artists, like keep revisiting. visiting the music of Talking Heads in 2024. Today they released, everyone's getting involved, a tribute to Talking Heads Stop Making Sense.

All right, well, that'll do it for New Music Friday. Hazel Sills, thanks so much for joining me. Thank you for having me. If you want to hear all the music we've featured on this week's show, along with a bunch of other great new music out today, NPR Music has expanded playlists in Apple Music and on Spotify. search for NPR's new Music Friday playlist in either of those apps. You'll want to sign up for NPR Music's weekly newsletter.

It's written by the wonderful fan powers and the not as wonderful Stephen Thompson. To subscribe, go to npr.org slash music newsletter. Please remember that if you want to listen to this show, sponsor free, you can support our work by joining NPR Music Plus. Just go to plus.npr.org slash NPRMuselior.org. search for NPR music in Apple Podcasts. This week's show has been produced and edited by Joaquin Kotler with editorial support from Saraya Mohamed.

From NPR Music and All Songs Considered, I'm Stephen Thompson, encouraging you to be well, take a break, and treat yourself to lots of great music.