NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Nov. 15

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

NPR Music's Ann Powers and Daoud Tyler-Ameen are your guides to the most compelling releases out on November 15. Featured Albums:• FLO, Access All Areas• Dwight Yoakam, Brighter Days• Ganavya, Daughter of a Temple• Wussy, Cincinnati OhioCheck out the longer list of albums out Nov. 15 and stream our New Music Friday playlist at https://npr.org/music.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 heads up, this podcast contains explicit language. Well, David, I got to see a few movies this past week. What'd you see? I finally saw Anora, which I have been waiting to see for quite a while. I'm a huge fan of the director, Sean Baker, and it did not disappoint. And the music, you know, it's like this trashiest dance music you would ever hear. As they go from like Brighton Beach nightclubs to Vegas, it's super fun. Musically, it's a super fun movie, too.

And then I went to see Blitz, which is directed by Steve McQueen. If you saw Lovers Rock, many people I know think that's the best music-oriented film of this century. Yeah. You know, you talked to me about reality bites when we talked about Matthew Sweet a couple of weeks ago. And now I instantly went and watched Reality Bites. Oh, yay. Which was maybe most fun in retrospect for the cameos, because you got to see a little bit of Evandando and Dave Perner from Soul Asylum hanging out. Right, right. But Blitz has great music, not just cameos, but two of the main roles feature

Benjamin Clementine, who's kind of not that well-known, but he's a fantastic, kind of like, I don't know, genre resistance musician, a young guy. And then the mod father himself, Paul Willer, plays Sershey Rorden's grandfather, and he is freaking great. You get to see him sitting at the piano with Sersh Rorden singing, ain't misbehaving, it's really fantastic. But what about you? What are your favorite cameos by musicians in movies? Well, to the point of somebody that we'll be discussing today,

when was the last time you saw Panic Room? David Fincher's Panic Room? Have you seen that? Never? Okay. Isn't that Jody Foster? It's Jody Foster. It's a very, very young Kristen Stewart,

who's actually amazing in it. But the fun of that movie, such as it is, because it's sometimes a, you know, a rough movie and a scary movie. It's this intense thriller about Jody Foster and Kristen Stewart being trapped in their house by this trio of robbers who are trying to get to safe inside of the house. And the three guys who break in are Forrest Whitaker, Jared Leto, and your boy, Dwight Yocum. He wears a ski mask the entire time, and he is terrifying.

His character's name is Raul, and anytime anybody asks him what he's doing or why he's being so weird and violent, his answer is, I'm Raul. Hey, everyone, it's New Music from NPR Music, here to talk about the best and most discussion-worthy albums coming out today, November 12th. I'm Daud Tyler Amin, here with critic and correspondent Anne Powers. Hi, Ann. Hello, hello, hello. Coming up today, new music from the interdisciplinary singer and superiors. Uthesaire Ganavia, the long-delayed return of modern outlaw Dwight Yocum, and a veteran Midwest indie rock band tries to make sense of a loss in their inner circle. Plus, some insights on the rocky road between teen idol status and a grown-up career. You know, Di, before we get going today, I just

want to acknowledge, like, there are some big name releases this week, Gwen Stefani, Lincoln Park, John Batiste playing Beethoven. Mary J. Blige. But we chose stuff that we actually really love and we thought was, you know, we wanted to bring it to people's ears. So I just want to say that and say I'm happy about our choices. Although I sort of have a feeling that this first artist we're going to talk about might be destined for some big things. If you've had the thought in the past few years that the age of the girl group might be behind us, these three women from London would like a word. Our first pick comes from the British R&B trio Flo, whose debut full length is titled, Access All Areas.

When you push upon me, fire. So who is Flo? It's three women from London, Renee Downer, Stella Koresma, and Georgia Douglas. They broke through a couple years ago with Cardboard Box, a single that got a lot of TikTok play. They released an EP in 2022 called The Lead. They're a girl group sort of in the classic sense, down to the sort of prefab kind of origin story. I know that's a little bit of a dirty word, but all of that to say that, you know, their label and their manager. Essentially, I think we're looking at how pop groups were kind of

still thriving over in South Korea. But for the past 20, 25 years, there hasn't been a lot of play for groups in that area in America and the UK. So they put out a call and the members auditioned. And then after that, you know, the similarities start to fade. If you've read John Perelis's article about them in the New York Times, you'll know that the story of this album is kind of a story of this group's agency. They've been around since 2019, and the singles kept coming, but they kept saying, our debut album isn't ready. We want the songs to be perfect.

We want them to be complete. And that is why it is taken until late 2024 to finally get access all areas. Well, David, it's interesting that you say they're filling a gap for girl groups, because of course there has been a legacy of girl groups in the 21st century in England specifically. And of course, if we can go back to the Spice Girls model,

the model for all or origin point of everything contemporary in this genre or in this style. But then we had little mix, we had all saints, we've had a few. Sure, Fifth Harmony. But what you're saying is so important because most of those girl groups had success and then kind of had their struggles or, you know, members broke off and did their own things, whatever.

I'm thinking about Little Mix. But do you think Flo kind of solved a problem by waiting? I think they're very aware of the history that precedes them. And actually, if you listen to the intro track on this record... I would like to introduce you to a tenacious trio of talented young ladies. We get the voice of Cynthia Arrivo, Elfaba herself, who basically tells a... sort of, I mean, kind of like a biblical genesis style origin story and about how in the early

years of the 2000s, the world felt the need for some bad bitch replenishment. That's for words, not mine, to fill the roles that were being vacated by, you know, Destiny's Child and SWV and, you know, these groups that had sort of dominated the 90s and early 2000s and then we're kind of, you know, passing out of the mainstream. In 2019, a pact was formed. A promise was made. A movement began. Our girls found each other and meticulously prepared a feast for our ears. Also, there are, on this record, some flips of some familiar phrases and song titles.

There is a song called Just a Girl. There is a song called Caught Up, which does not sound like the Usher song, but to me is a very fun reappropriation of its premise. Why don't we listen to a little bit of that? How much do you think this flow record takes from the 90s versus kind of the K-pop example of the 21st century? I mean, I think it is taking from everything at once. And that's why the main word that I would use to describe my experience with this record is overwhelm. In a good way?

In a good way. I mean, I really, I was not ready for how much would be going on, not just in the production, which is, I mean, it's busy. There is a whole lot swimming around in the headphones. But also, the way that the vocals are composed, the way that they are performed, and the way that they are produced and mixed, all of those parts of the process, I think, are really aware of each other. and it means that they are able to pull off these, you know, switches between who's singing vocals on one line and who is on another and when the vocals sort of like converge into this incredibly tight braid that feels unbreakable. It's almost hard to imagine three people just sort of like sitting on a stoop harmonizing. And they can do that. Like they obviously really can sing.

But this feels like it's made very much with an understanding of all of the. the tools available to them from the start. It's adventurous. Way adventurous. I'd say so. And it feels kind of futuristic. They are pulling off things that feel to the naked ear sort of impossible. These really...

Like that song, Shoulda Woulda Kuda, for example, maybe? That is a great example, because that is nostalgia sort of turning itself inside out. Here you have an R&B very much in the sort of dark child style, that producer who he did a lot of work with Destiny's Child. I think he worked on Say My Name. But if you listen, the snare is so weird. It's hitting late. It's a little bit off the grid. And it's kind of knocking you out of the groove.

And as a result, it's sort of knocking you out of that familiarity and nostalgia. You can't just sit back and feel like you're listening to a Destiny's Child song. There's something, you know, like J.K. Simmons in Whiplash, just banging a cowbell next to your ear to try to throw you off. That is Access All Areas from the British Trio Flow. And I got to pass the mic to you because I've been told that as far as fandom is concerned, you and this guy, you go back. Okay, well, we're going to talk about the new album by My Boo and Everybody's Boo who fell in love with Country. via rock and roller or cow punk or whatever back in the 80s, Dwight Yokem and his new album, Brighter Days.

Brighter days are up ahead. Brighter days, that's what you said the first time you ever spoke to me. Around each corner shines a sun to see. So when I was living in San Francisco, mid-80s and I was working at Tower Records, I was just a teenager still. His first record came out, guitarist, Cadillacs, and I freaking fell in love with it and fell in love with Dwight. And we all had to make our own name tags at Tower Records.

And mine, which I still have, is a picture of Dwight that I cut out of Rolling Stone with his long, long legs and his tight, tight blue jeans. And I cut out the caption which read, If Blue Jeans have a religion, Dwight Yoakum would be their god. And I wish I could have known you then. I think about this all the time. Well, it was good times, and I learned so much from listening to Dwight Yulcombe because not only is he a sexy guy, but he is a scholar of country music, of popular music, of rock and roll,

and he always has been from the days when he broke out of the gate as one of the shining lights of the new generation of country that included also people like Steve Earle and Randy Travis and Tricia Yerwood. He's been honing a sound that is just impeccable and always adventurous in a really interesting way. So it's a California country sound, even though Dwight comes from Kentucky originally by way of Ohio. But it's really grounded in that Bakersfield sound of people like Buck Owens, but also early rock and roll and the Beatles, you know, and the monkeys and artists like that. And you hear that on this record, Brighter Days, almost more than you ever heard it before. For sure. I wrote down so many times, Beatles, Beach Boys. There's a lot of really beautiful, high-register singing. The song Bound Away has a main guitar riff that feels very sloop John B.

But by the way, that's a song by Cake. Oh, that's right. Dwight found inspiration from this cake song. It's so him, you know? He gives it that kind of Irish She meets Beach Boys sound. And this record took him a long time to make, working with his usual band in a lot of different studios in L.A. in the L.A. area. And part of the reason why it took him a long time to make is because he has a little boy. At 68 years old, he has a four-year-old son, who actually appears on this record. I know.

Congratulations, right? What an adorable little boy. But he really does seem in command of a lot. of different styles. To me, it sort of simulates the sound of a live performance in a roadhouse. It just feels very like plug in and play and, you know, the guitar tone is really raw and biting and the drums are really roomy. It will help us every day. He does an arrangement of Keep on the Sunny Side, the traditional song, which starts out a cappella and then the beat drops and the drums are kind of, I mean, they're what you might think of as typically like a disco or a dance beat.

Like that, you know, kick, hat, snare hat kind of thing. Yeah, it's, it's all over the place, but in a great way. And, you know, he's, he's in a great mood, a lot of really happy songs here, which isn't necessarily Dwight Yolkham's M.O. I mean, he's known as a, as a great purveyor of heartbreak and heartache, especially on. on his masterpiece album, third album, Buenos Noches from a Lonely Room. You know, there's a great song called I'll Pay the Price on here. That is classic, you know, country sorrow. But mostly we're in a happy place. And we're in a happy place with a very important person, Post Malone.

We should say, yeah, apart from his son Dalton, Post Malone is probably the most important guest here. It's a song called. called I don't know how to say goodbye, parentheses, bang, bang, boom, boom. And that's a Dwight composition, by the way. And what it makes me think about is that post Malone in the hip-hop pop phase that we knew him in for the first, I don't know, eight years of his career, was channeling this sort of lovable dirtbag energy, not only in his lyrics and in his, you know, visual presentation, but in his voice. I mean, it was really, there was, there was, there was really a kind of, you know, I kind of just

rolled out of bed feeling to the way that he performed, you know, and, you know, where he sounded like a guy who's like kind of a screw up and kind of a bad boyfriend, but you can't help but love him. And it's interesting to compare that to his country persona, the thing that he's finally arrived at this year with F1 trillion, because it feels like he's playing a little bit of a different character. And obviously, he's trying his best to sort of have that new guy shine through. in this duet with Dwight Yoke. Bang, bang, boom, boom, there's nothing left here now with sadness.

And bang, bang, boom, boom, and the emptiness of a broken heartbeat, much more music to share with you right after this. And this next record kind of feels like welcoming a friend back to the table just because her name has come up so much this. year. She was one of the featured voices on Emmanuel Wilkins Blues Blood, which came out last month. She appeared on a Resente album from this year. She's a really frequent collaborator with some of the biggest stars in UK jazz right now, and she already released another album in 2024. So who is

this mystery woman? She is multidisciplinary. She is a big thinker, Ganavia. And this album, daughter of a temple is maybe the most powerful realization of her expansive vision. Let's just listen to a little bit of a track dedicated to the person who inspired this whole project, Alice Coltrane. Ganavi was born in New York City, and she currently lives in California. But she spent much of her youth in Tamil Nadu, which is the southernmost part of India, with her grandmother, who was a noted singer and had this. troop that Ganavia joined very young. And they specialized in singing Abang's, which are 12th

century devotional poems written by Hindu saints. So that's her background. It's important to know that because everything she does is in some way devotional. But she also, she's just like she's done everything, man. Like she went to Harvard and she also has a degree from Berkeley. And she's super steeped. And as you mentioned, Doe, in the international jazz scene, working with people like Emmanuel Wilkins and Shabaka Hutchings and Esperanza Spalding, who is like her soul sister and who appears in the first track on this album, a beautiful kind of devotional moment between them. This record, well, just let me tell you about how it came about. It arose from a prompt that Ghanavia gave herself, which was to invite anyone who brought up Alice to

Coltrane to her to be part of this record. We mentioned Emmanuel Wilkins, Esperanza Spalding, Shabaca Hutchings, the harpist, Darian Donovan Thomas, the late Wayne Shorter and his wife, Carolina, shorter, the opera and theatrical producer Peter Sellers. Gannavia had made a film with him in 2021, by the way, and many members of her family. I'll tell you, the one that really threw me was the track Ome Supreme, which starts, it's It's 10 minutes long, and the first few minutes is Vijay Eyre just shredding so hard. And I'm sure he played all of that in like a live, a linear take, but there were moments

where I kept wondering if there were overdubs because the left and right hand seemed to be moving so independently. And some of that is probably just a function of creative mixing. You can put a lot of mics on a piano, but man, it just, there's some really powerful and disorienting movement in the mix. And then when Ganavia's voice finally enters, the effect is much less like a solo entity sort of taking the spotlight and much more like a mantra. The lines are very simple and unadorned and repetitive. Emmanuel Wilkins is in there, you know, just wailing on sacks. And if anything, he's the sort of like frilly, melismatic

presence. But she feels really decentered in all of this. Well, David, I think that that is the quality of South Asian devotional music across many different religious practices and geographical regions. And I say this with just the tiniest amount of authority, because I got really into different examples of sort of fusion efforts to bring South Asian music from various regions to the West or connect with Western traditions, especially jazz. So obviously, went back and listened to John McLaughlin's Mahavishnu Orchestra. I got really into Shakti, the global music group fronted by Zakir Hussein. And also, I really loved Krishna Das. So I don't know, these are all examples of musicians who kind of bring East and West together. And I think just

getting back to your point out about how Ganabe feels decented, you have to bring a different kind of listening practice into this musical practice. You have to meet her practice with your own different way of approaching music. This album is a journey. And her family is all over this record, like on the track Om Nava Shavaya, which features the harpist Charles Overton and her dad, Ghana-son Doriswamy. You just have to sit with it, you know, you really, really do. I love that in the center of it, there is a recording of Wayne and Carolina Shorter. Yeah. Chanting. It's going to take you places you didn't expect. That's what I have to say about this record.

Give it the time it deserves. That is Daughter of a Temple from the artist Ganavia. One more before we go to our lightning round, and it's a bit of a song. A somber note, but a rewarding one, I'd say. It's somber and joyful at the same time, particularly for many people I know who love this band. This is the new album from Wissy, the greatest band from Cincinnati, Ohio. And the record is called Cincinnati, Ohio. And let's hear a little of a song called Shura's the Sun.

So who is Wissy? You might ask. You might be asking right now, who is this band? And all I can say is they're one of those bands that is so beloved by perhaps a small contingent of rock fans and has been since 2001 when they formed. And actually, for many years before that, many of us were fans of Woossey, Maine Manchuk Cleaver's previous band, The Ass Pony's. So I don't know, Dode. I was, thinking about my relationship to this band and my friend's relationship to it. And I wondered if you had any bands in your lives who are like this, who are just, they have put out a ton of records, they've been around forever, they have existed a certain level. And the people who love them,

love them like you love your mom. But they're never going to break through. And that's not a goal. I don't know. Do you have bands like that in your life? Maybe Ida. I mean, I thought listening to this record a lot about some of the beloved 90s and 2000s indie rock bands in this mode. And Ida is one of them for sure. This record comes after the death of their long time. Petal Steel guitarist John Earhart, also known as John E. And Lisa Walker, who's the other main songwriter in Singer and Wussy, has said that this is about kind of like looking at grief in the most infinitesimal detail. I cried twice while walking.

on my evening walk the other day and listening to this record, because there are some lyrics on this record that are so, ah, not only are they moving, they're just, they just cut to the bone. They're so honest about how it feels when you lose someone, and also when you're getting older yourself. We should talk about the Great Divide, the song that starts this record, which has the line. Actually, this is the chorus, actually.

I don't know what to do with this old drive. It's got your initials sharpied on the side. I nearly called to ask you for a ride. I hear you still across the Great Divide. That's the song that Lisa was talking about when she said this is about the minutiae of loss. And it is. It's these things, these sort of very casual pedestrian problems that you run into after losing someone. Things that aren't even devastating in themselves.

They're just sort of befuddling. Woosie's songs have always been about kind of the mundane. details of daily life and that maybe not that picturesque details of daily life, but within this musical vehicle that truly does reach transcendent levels. I mean, Bob Criscow famously called Bussie the Velvet Underground meets the Flying Burita Brothers, but you have to hear them and understand how big these songs are, even as the lyrics and the voices are very relatable. The song Desperation AM starts with the line Sitting at the four-way stoplight

at the corporation line. That's so little information. That's like half a dozen words. And yet you suddenly kind of know exactly where you are, right? You can picture that dead-end company town where all of those dreams are dying. I'm just going to mention my favorite line on the record. This is from a Chuck song.

It's called Please Kill Me. And he sings, you lay wide awake, running down the list of things you'll never do again. Man, that line just hit me like a ton of bricks, man. It's just, ugh. They really, they have a way with articulating how repetition and routine when it's not leading you anywhere you want to go can feel, you know, can feel painful, can feel violent to subject yourself to,

and it hints at the ways that people numb themselves to escape that feeling. But I also must say, that Woossey is also a very fun band. Yes. And there's humor. There's humor on this album. Even when I was talking about with Please Kill Me, I mean, after he utters that devastating line, eventually, then he says,

and you say, please kill me, which is kind of a joke, you know? That's a line we always say is a joke, right? It's joy, it's pain, it's all wrapped up in one beautiful, Midwestern, shaggy package. That is Cincinnati, Ohio by the, band Listen. As always, there is much more music out today than we can cover in depth, including some we just couldn't hear in advance. Also out today, new albums from As I Lay Dying, Jin from BTS, 070 Sheik, Gwen Stefani, who's

making a little bit of a Nashville turn, the human vocaloid poppy, who is continuing her reign of metalcore releases, Lincoln Park's new album with their new singer Emily Armstrong, and a solo Beethoven piano outing from John Batiste. And what's on your list? Well, the legendary jazz metal noise trio pain killer, that's John Zorn, the bassist producer Bill Laswell, and the drummer-turned-programmer, Mick Harris, has returned with a new take on their face-melting music on Samsara,

their first album in 30 years. I also really like this synth-pop artist, Sophie Royer. She is offering a highly danceable treatise on Young Womanhood on her young girl Forever album out on Stone's Throw Records. And I'm always here for a new Mary J. Blyde's record returns with gratitude on her own imprint, Mary Jane Productions. And finally, two picks from the vault, Anne, speak to me of the family Parton. Well, Dali Parton loves her family, and she and her family members have made this enormous box set telling the story of her family, the musical story of her family. it's called Smoky Mountain DNA, Family, Faith, and Fables.

And to take us to break, it's been a little over three years now since the death of Daniel Dumalay, better known as the rapper MF Doom or Just Doom. He was just 49. He was this often electrifying, occasionally confounding presence, and his personal life was so closely guarded that it took several months before his death was even announced. But he remains so massively influential. And today, listeners can hear a deluxe edition of, of his 2004 album, M. Food, with remixes and archival interviews to celebrate its 20 years.

After the break, for musicians who start their careers as teens and then decide to keep going, what does it take to get the world to accept you and your music as grown up? That's after this. for me to say why, why, why, why, why, why. Welcome back to New Music Friday, and we're listening right now to a little bit of the new album by Sean Mendes,

which is out today and is simply titled Sean. And that first name only as an album title is often a signal that there's some kind of new course being charted or maybe just a return to basics, let's say. And that feels like it's the case here. If you know Sean Mendes mainly as the guy who sings stitches, like your man's sounding a little different here, and it doesn't feel like an accident. I no doubt you aren't like micro-tracking.

The career of Sean Men is the way that maybe I have, because I do find him an interesting artist. But he was on a big world tour in 2022 for his album Wonder, and he called it off. He said, I need a mental health break. And this new record is the result of that break and what came after. And it's really interesting. Like there's people on this record who've worked with Rain. and Nate Mercero, who worked with Andre 3000 on the flute record, just unexpected people. Mendez is taking some chances.

Now, Sean Mendez is of a piece with somebody else who's been in the news this week, Sabrina Carpenter, who grabbed a whole bunch of Grammy nominations, including Best New Artist, even though the relevant album, short and sweet, is her sixth. That's been pointed out by a lot of folks. These are two people who started very much as, like, teen idols, who are now in their mid-20s, and they are reminders that the process of transitioning between these two phases, it just feels really different from how it was like 20, 25 years ago, right? Well, it's not easy, I think, because you're living your life in front of millions,

in a way that previous generations didn't. You know, even the great teen idols of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 80s, et cetera, didn't have that micro attention on them. And it's amazing to me that both Sean Mendez and Sabrina Carpenter have made this transition so gracefully, I think. Especially Sabrina. Like, she managed to kind of grow up quietly in public and got herself out from under a kind of silly scandal with Olivia Rodrigo and came out with this record that I just love. It's one of my favorite, it's probably my favorite pop album of the year, actually. I had so many moments listening to Short and Sweet where I was like,

girl, I didn't know you were funny. She's so funny. I love that about her, but it also is a very adult record. I mean, a song like Bedchem, for example, you know, I mean, that's a racy song, but there's no discomfort. There's no issue with her

being this sexy woman that she is, being kind of like a tiny May West or whatever. It totally works. Well, since we're talking about how sexual presentation is the potentially radioactive factor in a lot of these transitions. I feel like we have to go back to the turn of the millennium and the Mouse Gatier

brigade that was coming of age at the time, in particular, one Miss Brittany Jean Spears. Oh, man, you just have to make things complicated, don't you doubt? This is a hard one to talk about. I have so many good examples of teen stars who made great records that, you know, introduce them as adults, but you got to go to Brittany. Okay. Well, tell us about it. Let's say, oh God. Guardian of the Patriarchy. Tell us about what you think about Britney Spears. I'm not opening that can of snakes, as it were.

Here's the thing that I'll say about it, just to get these things on the record. Because I do think it is an important part of this conversation. We don't have to linger on it. Brittany comes out in the late 90s with a very specific image. She's doing, you know, this kind of Lolita thing, but she's still very much oriented toward kids. Once you get to the turn of the 2000s and the self-titled album, Brittany, now we're in the era of I'm a slave for you, where she is explicitly saying,

I'm not a little girl anymore in the text of the music. She's got a Neptune's beat. She had a song called Not a Girl, Not Yet a Woman. I just have to interrupt that and throw that in here. She's like, that's her story. That is her story. Now, once you go further along that track and some of the other records over the course of the 2000s, that's when things get really messy

because honestly her personal life was really messy and so once you reach an album like Blackout in 2007 which is I think a really cool album a really difficult album

but one that was sort of in line unexpectedly with the way that pop was going but you know it's also just emblematic of a really messy time and a really hard time for her

well I mean the problem with making Brittany Spears, our prime example of a teen star growing up, is that it was never resolved, you know, and because her own personal story, as we all know more than we used to, is so tragic, really, you know. I mean, honestly, sometimes I think she had more authority in the studio on her earlier efforts than on her later efforts when she was really, like, having public breakdowns. That's not to say blackout isn't a cool record, but at the time I wrote a, about it. I'm like, I don't even hear Brittany Spears here as a presence, really. Now, she herself has said she wanted to make that turn and she wanted to get deeper into more challenging sounds

and more challenging music. But I also saw her perform during that time, and it wasn't a pleasant thing. The VMA performance of Gimme Moore was like pretty notorious. Yeah, I saw her in concert, you know, on that tour. And it was, yeah, she seemed very checked out. It's all I will say. I don't know. Maybe we can talk about some happier examples of artists who came out of their teen years and hit it out of the ballpark or at least made a viable future for themselves. Well, a success story, I hate to bring him up right after Britney because he's sort of the villain in the Britney Spears story at this point. But Justin Timberlake, man, did he ford that gap like nobody else? He really did. And again, I saw him when he was first debuting his solo record after

in sync. And again, like you said, I'm not commenting on his personal life or what kind of guy he is, but I do want to say, I remember seeing him at the House of Blues in Anaheim, and it was an amazing show. And he was at the piano for most of that show, which leads me back to the subject of what does it sound like? What's the right sound for a teen star moving out of their teen years? And I think oftentimes what works is a move toward the most awful word in pop criticism, authenticity. Yeah, I knew it was coming. And musical virtuosity. And I think what Justin Timberlake was doing when he came out as a solo star was showing us he could really play, he could really sing, he could inhabit that adult

space of a band leader. I think also, I mean, having the Neptunes and Timbalin in his corner, another, I mean, certainly a marker of authenticity in the moment that, like, hip hop was really, truly becoming America's pop music in a way that nobody could deny. And so having their cosign and moving in that direction sort of aligned with the current of pop music and away from, I mean, I hate to characterize it this way, but so much of that millennial era of team pop of Insync and. the Backstreet Boys and Brittany and Christina seemed to be taking place within a Disneyland-like world. I know a lot of them came out of the Disney factory, but they didn't really engage with desire in a way that felt honest.

It was this very, you know, fairy tale version of like kind of, you know, romance and fun. And when you started to see cracks in that, oh, you look like you disagree with me. No, no, no, I don't disagree with you at all. I actually, I'm just thinking it's hilarious that you are sitting here wanting to talk about desire and sexuality. And I'm like, no, I want to talk about the music. I want to talk about the musical. What happened? Did we exchange souls or something? Because I guess so. You're being me for a while and I'm being you. That's all I can say. But one other thing, I'm just going to say, a person who maybe did both things at once, like made a record that was musically convincing but also showed an adult mature approach. to sexuality and desire is Harry Styles, right? Watermelon sugar. The sound is sort of like announcing Harry Styles as the, I don't know, the new legacy bearer for Beatle-esque pop or, you know, guitar-ish pop.

It just created a new space for him to be himself. And we all believe that that's who he is. I think that's the thing, too. like it has to sound natural. It has to sound like this is where the artist would go. Nobody else is telling them where to go. That's so important for these growing up records. Yeah. And sometimes it takes people a couple of tries to arrive there. Everybody remembers when Miley Cyrus made this transition. It was a loud moment. Well, you know, I'll stand up for Miley's like rock effort. I took my daughter to it. My daughter was like four years old and I took her to see Miley in her when she had a

rock band and she was like going to make rock music. It was called breakout. It was 2008 and she was going to be like a rock star. But it didn't stick. She made another record like that and then she made bangers. And bangers announced her problematic adult self, which I will always stand up for by the way. Although I know it's complicated and she deserves the critique she's received, especially for racial appropriations. But I think what Miley did that was genius and the Miley that she found, the adult Miley that she announced to the world that was really her, was this trickster who was going to like do crazy things and, you know, just be a wild card.

And I think she did that, I don't know, I believed her. I mean, she went on, she made a record with a flaming lips for goodness sake. I think so, too. I mean, this is what I'm saying is that she had, she had more tricks in her pocket than people assumed when they saw her, like, rubbing up on Robin Thick. Well, that was a dark moment. I do not approve of that. That was bad. You could be forgiven for witnessing that and not thinking that a couple of years later, she would have, you know, a recording with Laura Jane Grace and Joan Jett of the replacements and it's great.

And it's like one of those things that, like, reminded people. like, oh, God, she can really sing, let alone having, you know, ruling the charts last year with a sort of I Will Survive style disco ballad. You said that sometimes the transition doesn't work the first time for these teen stars who are trying to grow up. And I think a great example of that is Bobby Brown. You know, Bobby Brown, when he left New Edition, the first record he made, it was called King of Stage. And it was produced by one of my favorites, Larry Blackman of Cameo, the amazing adventurous funk band cameo.

Yeah, yeah. And it's a really kind of weird and interesting record, but it only produced one hit single. And that didn't make Bobby feel good. Bobby wasn't into that. So he moves on and he starts working with L.A. Reed and Babyface and Teddy Riley. And that's when he makes Don't Be Cruel. And suddenly he's a huge, massive.

star, that's the record that has my prerogative. Right. So sometimes it's worth seeking out these weird records that teen stars made that didn't work before they made the one that did work, you know. Yeah. Well, on that tip, going a little bit outside of the teen pop arena, but Patrick Stump from Fallout Boy, who, you know, I think he was actually a teenager when that band started, had this moment when Fallout Boy was on hiatus.

It was unclear if they were going to come back. And in 2011, he made a solo record called Soul Punk, which was him playing every instrument and trying to, I guess, literally mash together the two main influences of his life, being this kid who grew up with Prince and Michael Jackson and, you know, but also had found his people in Chicago hardcore and had broken through with this massive pop punk band. And in this moment where, you know, nobody really knew what was going to happen with the band. Nobody knew if pop punk was ever going to be like cool again because its public stock had kind of crashed and burned at the end of the 2000s. And he made this very layered, weird

record that I don't know if I'd say if it's 100% successful, but I do think it has just a ton of great ideas. And it's so cool to see him being a studio rat and getting to do like everything that he wants to. He plays drums on it. He plays trumpet on it. He, you know, he does like Justin Timberlake style vocal layering. And, you know, he toured this record and, like, dressed like, you know, Klaus Nomi on stage and just got to explore this whole other side of himself before, you know, the world finally decided that it was ready for Fall Out Boy again. You know, I want to reach back in history and bring in an example you might not expect,

which is the Everly Brothers. We were talking about Dwight Yolkham before, and I meant to mention the Everly Brothers because I think they're a huge influence on Dwight. But of course they started as teen idols, right? Songs like Wake Up Little Susie. And they made this record in 1968 called Roots. That's like this country rock record. It's so beautiful.

And it wasn't very commercially successful, but what a record. So, I mean, this is something that's been happening forever. It's just happening under a more intense lens, I think, right now as we're seeing the Sean Mendez's and the Sabrina Carpenter's figure it out. Have to note, we haven't even mentioned Michael Jackson, probably the most success. transition of all time, artistically, from the teen realm to the adult realm, although, of course, the story of his life casts a dark shadow over his music. But I'm wondering, Daoud, like, are there artists who you think made this transition so seamlessly that we can hardly even tell when they transition from kids to adult? It's a fair question. I mean, it is strange to think about Michael Jackson in this context.

because it does, that is a case of somebody having so much momentum from such a young age that, you know, their continued rise is just kind of unstoppable. And you get into some weird questions there about like whether there should even be such a thing as a famous child. You know, what is it to these people? Let me just recommend Margot Jefferson's amazing book on Michael Jackson. If you haven't read, it's great on this subject. I was thinking about this question. And I actually thought about Usher just because Usher's, we've had Usher on the brain a little bit this year.

You know, he had a Super Bowl show. He, you know, he had his residency recently. And, you know, Usher is somebody who started as a kid and just sort of, you know, bridge that gap. And by 1997 was, you know, making my way and, you know, was starting to show up in movies. I think the version of success there is that he just, he didn't really call attention to it. In the way that, you know, so much of the time around that time, you know, you had moments like Christina Aguilera wearing, you know, crotchless chaps. Although I love that record. Oh my God. I loved the XXTina persona.

But it's like, Fighters still my favorite Christina song. But it's like no matter, you know, what the quality of the music. and the artistry and the intention might have been like people clown her so hard for that. The signal to noise ratio for it was not great. It was like at that moment her future as a singing show contestant judge just rolled out before her, you know. So I think people like Usher, people like somebody we haven't even mentioned yet, but Olivia Rodriguez, who just decide to make the adult record that they want to make without stopping to ask the world for permission. Or they have good partners who help them make.

that record in the case of Olivia Rodrigo, Dan Nigro, made that happen. Or, no, it didn't make it happen. I give Olivia full credit. But having a good team, a good partner really helps. But I have to say, there's one person whose name we haven't mentioned, and we got to say it. Taylor Swift. Oh, there she is.

I think Taylor Swift is the greatest example of an artist who grew up in public completely gracefully and never had a stumble. Never had a stumble. Hmm. I wonder if I agree with that. Come on now. Come on now. Speak now in 2010.

Red in 2012. I guess I... I guess you're right. The stumbles that I'm thinking about are mostly like PR things where she maybe got into it with another celebrity. And, you know, this is stuff that's sort of outside of the studio. But it just in terms of like... Also, that was after she made that transition. Maybe it's because Taylor never...

completely grew up in the eyes of the public. I mean, now I think she has, but, you know, maybe because she hung on to her teenage sensibility and somehow perfectly married it to an adult sensibility. Oh, you know what? It's, okay, this is reminding me. And you spoke with her old colleague Sam Sanders on his show into it about how part of the reason that Taylor has never totally grown up in the eyes of the world is because she doesn't have children. Not yet. I mean, that was a couple years ago now. But I do think there is a way in which both through her own agency and because of how she exists as an icon, as a public figure, Taylor Swift has somehow avoided the pitfalls. I think I agree with you. Musically, I guess. I mean, if there was any moment where she made a tacit announcement about sort of embracing an adult self, it was probably at the great. with her performance of all too well in 2014. Absolutely, Dyer. That's exactly what I'm saying. It combines an acknowledgement of personal maturity.

I mean, that song is about, among other things, having sex, which, of course, Taylor had not talked about in her songs that much before that song. And virtuosity, because she sat at the piano and performed that song. She's a woman now. Girl, you're a woman now. Folks, that is it from here, the air was cold, but something about it felt like home.

Somehow a night. Left in my star. Folks, that is it for this week's New Music Friday. On our radar next week, new music from Kim Deal, Michael Kiwanuka, and Father John Misty. In the meantime,

you can send your feedback on today's episode 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, 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 and Apple Podcasts to sign up. Today's episode was produced by Simon Rentner.

Our editor is Jacob Gans. I'm Daiud Tyler Rameen. I'm Ann Powers. Come back next week for more new music Friday. Till then, happy listening.