NPR Music - New Music Friday: The best albums out Oct. 10

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Madi Diaz. Madison Cunningham. The return of Mobb Deep. Guest host Rodney Carmichael chats with Celia Gregory from WNXP in Nashville about their favorite albums out Friday, Oct. 10.Intro:- Patti Smith, 'Horses (50th Anniversary)'The Starting 5:- Madi Diaz, 'Fatal Optimist' (Stream)- Princess Nokia, 'Girls' (Stream)- Madison Cunningham, 'Ace' (Stream)- Makaya McCraven, 'Off The Record' (Stream the singles)- Mobb Deep, 'Infinite' (Stream)The Lightning Round:- NoSo, 'When Are You Leaving?'- Jay Som, 'Belong'- Amber Mark, 'Pretty Idea'- Black Eyes, 'Hostile Design'- Gabriel Kahane, 'Heirloom'See the long list of albums out Oct. 10 and sample dozens of them via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org.Credits:Host: Rodney CarmichaelGuest: Celia Gregory, WNXPAudio Producer: Noah CaldwellDigital Producer: Elle MannionEditor: Otis HartExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language. Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. Happy Friday, y'all. Rodney CarMichael here, writer and correspondent at NPR Music, filling in for host Stephen Thompson this week. Now, each week on New Music Friday, we speak to a member of the NPR Music Network, and for today, October 10th, we're welcoming Celia Gregory from WNXP, NPR, NPR, Nashville. What up, Celia.

Hi, Rodney. It's so good to do this show with you. I hope to meet you, IRL, sometime soon. Yeah, you know, I almost feel like we're playing like some weird game of musical chairs because you were obviously the pro at this, and somehow I'm the one that's sitting in the guest host seat. Our powers combine, right? All right, so this week, we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Patty Smith's 1975 LP Horses.

You got a favorite song from this album, Celia? It's got to be Gloria. Like, I grew up listening to the Van, the Man version of that and then had to come around to the Patty Smith version later in life and had such an appreciation for it because of the extra verses and just, like, her snarl, you know? So that's my clear favorite. You know, I really messed with that bass line on Redondo Beach.

You know, it feels a little funkadelic to me. Speaking of another classic album that turns 50 this year, shout out to the mothership connection. But what else is going on with Patty Smith this year? Well, I think, first of all, 50 is so significant. And I was reading some coverage she did around the 40th, 10 years ago. And she's like, thanks for correlating me with punk music, but I was not a punk. My band, we were not punk music.

So I think it's interesting the correlation and causation sort of arguments about her legacy. But, Rodney, she's still telling new stories. She's got a third memoir on the way. So this, you know, anniversary release of horses. almost coincides with this new book coming out in November. Nice, nice. All right, let's keep it rolling. All right, first up this week, we got a new album from singer-songwriter Maddie Diaz,

titled Fatal Optimus. Let's hear a taste from the song, if time does what is supposed to. I can't make it down the block without you getting in my thoughts, and I can't tell my right from left, my up from down. It's like every day is. One day I'm getting through. One day I wake up and I'll be over you.

If time does what it's supposed to, and I'm asleep won't dream that you're still next to me. Leaves start and fall the same place. Flowers move right on and I'll be over you. Now they're calling this album the last entry in her heartbreak trilogy, Celia. It's really stripped down and apparently she wrote this. album in total isolation? Listen, first of all, I hope it's the last.

I don't think I can take much more. And I mean that in a good way. Maddie Diaz makes such great cathartic music, but this is the most bear and spare that we've ever heard her. And so her voice is crystal clear. You can hear every sip of air, and it's just her and her acoustic guitar. So it's almost a solo acoustic record. There's some instrumentation at the end.

We'll get to that. But it is heartbreak on display. And she's even sort of admitted, yep, I'm here again. More breakup songs for you all, but they are doing what they're supposed to. Much like that song talks about, you know, time healing you from a breakup. She's moving through it, and we can hear her over the course of these tracks, moving through it. So have you been riding with her for all three albums? This trilogy, yes. I mean, I remember when I first moved to Nashville,

she was still performing in small clubs here and then moved away and then moved back and released history of a feeling, which was absolutely the soundtrack to my sad girl fall in 2021. one. She's right on time again. But it was really last year with weird faith that she burst through to wider audiences, I think. I mean, definitely an NPR music darling and just more celebrated for this confessional songwriting style. So I think folks that jumped on board with weird faith are going to be rewarded handsomely with this beautiful arrangement of songs on this new one too. You know, listening to the album, it kind of made me think about how they say, you know, the stages of grief don't necessarily come in order.

Like, I hear her reaching for the point of acceptance on some songs, but then sometimes on a song, like, heavy metal, it feels like she's starting to look back at the rawness again just trying to remind herself how resilient she is, maybe.

Yeah, that was one of my highlights, too. She's like, my heart isn't gold, platinum, or even silver, it's heavy metal. And so it's an awesome sort of double entendre for such a soft folk song, right? But she's saying, I am hardened and here's why. Because again, I've been through it. I've been running so hard.

Don't know how it does and pray. It's a good... Some of my favorite phrases come up in, why did you have to bring me flowers? She says, my toxic trait is holding on, your toxic trait is showing up. So this is lamenting, even when it's a good one, I can't make it work.

And I just can't. It's very relatable content. Maddie Diaz is always serving up in these nice little songs. I moved out myself. I wasn't a to say that you're so good. So despite the heavy sad girl that Maddie's given us, you say she's got some surprise for us at the end of the album.

Yes, first of all, I'm such a sucker for like track order and what it sounds like to start and end a record. And she did not disappoint with the title track being the last song. Fatal Optimist is sort of the only one that culminates in more of an uptempo tune, first of all, and more instrumentation. It fleshes out, and it feels like, speaking of your stages of grief, like the rebirth, like the return to one's self, and it ends on a high note.

So we can thank her for that, even if the bulk of these songs are tear in your beer, just like we expected and hoped for. Forget I've ever been hurt. The reasons why. Forget that I'm on when I start looking at the... That was Maddie Diaz with Fatal Optimist. All right, next up, we got Princess Nokia back with the LP Girls, and this song is Blue Velvet. Girlhood is a spectrum, pretty is destruction. I just fell from grace, then I made it into something. By you fair the first time, then I called my cousins. Buzzers get the buzzing. Timber in my button.

Tattered, frilly dresses, bloody covered knuckles. Rodding from my inside, glitter bones and honey. Daughter of thy lilyth, sister of Da'Eve. Men are violent liars, Adams' apple books their thieves. I am so disgusting. I am so salacious. I am pure as evil with the sweetest bit of fragrance. I am not your sister.

I am not your friend. I am full of anger, full of violence, and then Look at how you made me, look at how I'm behaving, look at what it gave me, alchemists my aching. Carrie when she went to prom, stop and give me back my crown. Pigsblood when I hit the stage, bitch is kissed the floor I walk. Rodney, when I first heard that single, I was, I cursed. I cursed aloud, like, oh, she's done it.

I really love this introduction to Princess Nokia, but the rest of the album includes bangers too. And I think the truth here is that she's speaking her truth. And a lot of it is, here are my oppressors, and I'm calling you out. And the other half is, let's party. I love being a woman. So there's the both and that I think is really fun to balance on this record. No doubt.

No doubt. And I want to start with like a disclaimer because I don't want to be guilty of trying to mass playing this song or this album. But before we even get deeper into either one of out, I feel like it's worth laying some context. Because, you know, it feels like every year for the past decade, critics declare it the year of the woman in rap. You know, it's like some mountain that we have yet to scale. And at some point, I feel like we just got to acknowledge that women have been running a rap game for a while now. And they've been running it oftentimes with the kind of sexual deviance that, you know, tends to earn a lot more criticism than men ever get for playing that same game. And then there's no key, you know, they made this.

grand entrance around 2016 with the mixtape 1992. They had this golden era sound, but they were still doing something like totally unheard of by, you know, placing themselves within kind of this Afro-Indigenous lineage, embracing Santa Ria on songs like Brujas, tackling the gender binary on their breakout hit tomboy. And in a lot of ways, this album reminds me of that early success, because Nokia refused to be pigeonhole by that success, and they bounced around genres for a while

and probably lost some rap fans along the way. You know, but even on this album, they mix up hip-hop with some pop vibes and some EDM vibes. So, you know, there are these songs on the album where Nokia is really confronting the patriarchy head on, from personal trauma to really just like the universal ways that it feels like womanhood and girlhood are made out to be taboo, especially songs like Medusa and Period Blood.

I'm contradicting religion and overthrowing men. I'm praying on the downfall of politicians and many men. I'm saying prayers at night to cease the fire war. I'm putting ice back in the fridge to help the six-year-old. I'm wishing death and disease on all the evil men who contribute to what is wrong. I hope the earth will swallow them. I like period blood. I think it's sexy.

Leave a cup in my guts. My bet she's kind of messy. First of all, thank you for your disclaimer. That didn't feel like a mansplain. That felt like you giving women in hip hop their flowers and not just right now, but historically. And I appreciate that. I'm not the resident expert on hip hop at all.

Or girlhood, I guess I should say. But, you know, she speaks to women's rights and women's wrongs. And that's so resonates. I think we are so sick of being nice. And now there's like a little bit more permission structure with some of the popier stars that are doing it, like the Charlie Xiexie. Sabrina Carpenter, Chappellone,

and women in hip-hop have already been out on that ledge and getting the flack for it. And here, we hear the pop influences, as you said, and hip-hop, and it all works because we're not as shocked anymore if women are going to speak their truth. She's dropping C-bombs, like once upon a time, F-bombs would be taboo, right? We've just pushed it a little bit.

We've pushed the boundary, but this is real stuff that she's singing about and rapping about, and it also is a groove. Like the pop songs that are inspired directly, she said by Charlie XXX are about just like hanging with your girls, having a fun summer. It's not all serious, but she somehow balances it over the course of girls. I am very girly and also very violent. I'm the she-devil to Jezebel and a tyrant.

I'm the whistleblower when men try to make a silent. I'm the older woman unmarried and undecided. I'm really digging this album. And I'm really hoping that a lot of folks who might have fallen off or didn't necessarily ride the Nokia away. all the way through will find themselves back to this album because it's not only important for her, but for us as well, you know? And I think that a lot of what's being said on here needs to be said with a loud megaphone. So I'm hoping people receive it and bump it, all that. Rodney, you mentioned a couple of my favorite tracks to Medusa and Period Blood, and I was thinking

how some of these backing tracks are actually really pretty. And then she, like, says some hard truths, right? She said in Medusa, I will undisguise you and bring you to the light. And then there's like this metal riff at the end. Like she's able to speak her truth, speak some hard truths and not risk offending. But some of this is really, production-wise, really pretty too.

So I think people might be surprised if they first and only hear blue velvet what the rest of the album contains. Hail Medusa blood moon in her eyes. Hell Medusa, make a grown man cry. Hell Medusa kiss of death on her lips. Catch the Holy spirit repute the bed dip.

Hell, Medusa blood moon in her eyes. Hell Medusa make a grown man cry. All right, that's Princess Nokia with girls. We got some more albums to get to, as well as our lightning round. We'll hear from some more NPR colleagues about some of their favorite albums this week. But first, we'll take a quick break. Catch the Holy Spirit, rebuke the bad dick. All right, we're back with New Music Friday.

So, Celia, I'm originally from Atlanta, which is a whole lot closer to you than where I currently am, which is outside of Boston. So I'm really eager to hear what's going down this fall in Nashville at WNXP. Well, at the time of this recording, it's only barely sort of flirted with fall. We had a fake fall earlier and now it's actually transitioning. You know how it is in the southeast. It's hot. Of course.

But here at WNXP, we are stoked. We are coming up quickly on our official fifth birthday. We started and turned the station over on November 30th, 2020. Awesome time to start a radio station when nobody's driving. everybody's at home. But we're still thriving, man. And we've had all these series of birthday celebrations that, of course, coincide with live music, wherever we can gather folks. We just had a Kuko show that was sold out here at Brooklyn Bull, and we're doing this really special thing with Jose Gonzalez at our art museum. So a nice collab, celebrating

the visual arts and the sonic arts and our little scrappy nonprofit station, which, of course, now, as you know, is 100% listener funded. No dollar dollar bills from the government. And we're really thankful for all of our backing and it's growing. All right. Well, we got another album that you brought to the show this week from singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham with the album, Ace. And this song we're going to hear is Golden Gate on and on. Man, this is really jamming in my headphones right now. I was really enjoying that.

All right, Celia, this is another album tracking Heartbreak. But Madison's take on the sound is totally different. than what we heard earlier from Maddie, right? Yeah, and also how blessed are we to have two Maddies with this level of songwriting coming through on October 10th? I'm obsessed with this album from Madison Cunningham. You know, back in WNXP history, Revealer was sort of her breakthrough. She won a Grammy for it. And she's not been quiet since.

She's been collaborating with a ton of people. She's like always, you know, a phone call away, like with deep sea diver. She did a whole record of Buckingham Knicks covers with Andrew Bird. But I didn't realize she had this in the can. She wrote all these songs last summer in the wake of a heartbreak, and it is actually a jubilant heartbreak record. It is lush. It is almost musical theater, and I mean this in the best way, like the most complimentary way. There's not a lot of radio songs, quote unquote, on Ace, because she's bringing in the strings.

She's got the woodwinds. Any simple notion like Maddie Diaz might have had is expanded upon with all this beautiful instrumentation. And the word of the day is wow. I'm totally wowed by Ace. That's interesting how you say it's not necessarily music for the radio. But I'm assuming it's on y'all's playlist, right? Or it will be? Yeah, I mean, the song I just played is great, right?

Great uptempo number and has like this awesome percussive quality to it. But we know Madison Cunningham as like a dexterous guitarist. You know, so I was surprised how much more is happening here in these songs that she wrote and brought to life. I would love to know a sort of BTS of, okay, she jammed. all these songs out and wrote them in a flurry last summer. So then how did she decide what to add in? I'll have to ask her myself when she comes to Nashville in this spring. But I mean, everything here, of course, the collab with Robin Pecknold of Fleet Fox's great for single, people paying attention anytime there's a Fleet Fox's flare on it going into the fall.

There is really a beautiful work here that varies from, you know, it's almost Beatles-esque. I'm thinking of the song, Mummy, sounds like she's leaving home, you know? Then it goes all the mommy under the white bed. Hair brown leaves out the top of your head. Little dogsters, make sure you are dead. All in time and suddenly. Then it goes all the way into more like Nickel Creek territory.

It sounds like folk and could almost lean bluegrassy in the finger-picking style. have so many examples of recommended if you like for this. I mean, there's also Carol King sort of vibes on this with some of the more strip back, piano-centric tunes. But I think her songwriting here is really beautiful as far as like turns of phrase. She said there's no hill steeper than trying to get to equal. And is this as good as it gets when we get it right on a song called Take Two? Like gut punch, but how beautifully done, right? To be hit in the gut and hit in the heart with a song like that.

that is simple as you are. And the people that we were are now second. Okay, so that's Madison Cunningham with Ace. And now we take a hard left with this next joint from jazz, drummer, producer, and self-proclaimed beat scientist, Mackaya McCraven. He's dropping off his double LP this week called Off the Record. And this cut is called New Blue. Rodney, this was such a glut of great content to come.

consume, right? A double LP or four EPs, however you want to look at it. It sounds great, and there's a lot of ground covered here by McRaven, who, admittedly, sort of a new to me artist. I don't always play in the jazz sandbox, but it's so much more than jazz, as I know that you know, you probably have a lot of opinions about this work of art. Yeah, you know, the thing that really kind of mesmerizes me about this project. And I have to admit, I'm definitely not the resident jazz expert, although, you know, as a long-time hip-hop fan, jazz just becomes that. that terrain that you play in if you love the roots of hip-hop. And the thing that really mesmerizes me about this particular project and really has kept me glued to it is how it was made. You know, every song over this entire collection, which is 20 songs, like you said, it's a vinyl double LP, which is out today, and then over the course of the month, four separate EPs are going to hit the streaming sites. But every one of these 20 songs is basically, you know,

live improvisation. You know, McCraven is leading his band while he's pulling in all of these rhythmic, diasporic elements from hip-hop and his approach to looping, which you really hear stand out in a song like Boombath. First of all, I can never comprehend

how somebody does live improvisation, but, you know, he even said when he was growing up, jazz was, like, corny. It was like white people's stuff. Like, you didn't want to lean too hard into jazz, so then he could dabble in hip-hop, fascinating story. We won't hit every bio point here, but I'm not just surprised and gobsmacked by this output of 20 songs, but his whole history of making music and the different

arenas he's played in so that he is bringing not just his study of different types of music in, but his collaborations make this so rich, because it'll go from a song that's more soul forward to one that's way jazzier and then one that's super hip-hop influenced. And I think he does it all very, very well and of course is giving credit where it's due to all these collaborators like guitarists and such. It's interesting also to kind of hear him talk about how he's really drawn to folk music, which again, on his face, you don't immediately think of that when you're listening to the beat scientist. Yeah, and Ronnie, it's worth noting, I mean, the intention around this is for people to imagine being there in the live environment. He said he's sort of alluded to this like digital overreliance, which is why, of course, he's rewarding folks that want to buy the physical media first.

But he's saying this digital overlines, you know, actually keeps us isolated. And so he wanted here to, quote, create an energy that amplifies the magic and the underground moments where we come together and we experience something wild, different, off the cuff, human. And that's what you feel here, even with all these technological advancements. It's a very human-sounding collection of songs because you get the live, you know, effects and the reactions in that live space. And yet, some of it, you know, there was this song, I guess the standout for me as a whole. is the Hidden Out EP of the four. And this single, away, is so pretty. It's almost ambient.

I'm, again, just amazed by the range covered here and hope to now follow this artist and just lap up whatever he's offering because clearly he's skilled in all of these different subgenres of the music he's making. That's Mackaya McCraven with the double vinyl LP off the record.

Let's pause to pay some bills. We'll be back as promised with the lightning round and one more album, But first a short break And more new music Friday And we're back on New Music Friday Next up The legendary duo Mobb Deep returns

With Infinite And the name of this joint Is against the world New York is just one crumb On the map One crumb ain't a lot You happy with that piece I'm gonna need that pot

To satisfy my thirst Passify my greed For blood money and power The fans turn me To a monster Addicted to when they scream You have one hit in your life One second in fame

One of you niggins Everybody pays All of you niggins back up Or I'm gonna start spraying Rodney, it sounds so good in my headphones Once again It's like we get all new fresh years Now that we're able to share

This full record with everybody else Infinite out today How are you feeling about this? I'm gonna immediately lob back to you To sort of school us on the history and importance of Mob Deep And why this album right now is significant as well Yeah, well, I mean, this album is special for sure, and not just because it's the first release from Prodigy and Havoc since Prodigy died in 2017, but also because it's going to be the last Mobb Deep album.

That's according to Havoc. Of course, next month marks the 30th anniversary of Mobb Deep's second album, The Infamous, and this is the album that defined grimy East Coast realism, smack dab in the middle of the crack era. two cats coming out of Queens Bridge, which is still the largest housing project in United States, and home to so many hip-hop legends, including Nas, who actually plays an interesting role in this release. Besides appearing on the album on at least two songs, he's really responsible for putting it out. This album is being released on his label Mass Appeal, and is part of their Legend Has It series, which has a series, which has already. produced LPs this year from Ghost Face Killer and Rayquan.

It's really been an interesting year in hip-hop because it's been a year in which a lot of the older cats are driving a lot of the passion and the interest around the genre. And I think this is an album that's going to fit right into that mold too. 7 p.m. and I just woke up 8 p.m. in my bulletproof truck. 9 p.m. scoop the out I mean, first of all, this is 2017 that Prodigy passed, right? So how do we have these vocals on this, which of course will be their last Asmod Deep if this is the last week and hear from him? How did they fold this together? Okay, so these Prodigy verses are totally unreleased, never heard before,

and they were all stockpiled vocals that the producer, the Alchemist, had. The Alchemist is, of course, a producer who's produced a lot of Mobb Deep and solo Prodigy projects. So he and Havoc, the other half of Mobb Deep, who's always been the production half, got together, co-produced this album. I actually got to talk to Havit, and he talked about the feeling of hearing a lot of these verses for the first time, almost a decade after Prodigy is passed. and what that was like for him to then turn around and create with his partner who was not, you know, present in the flesh in this moment and time. And I think the really interesting thing about this project, you know, a lot of, a lot of posthumous projects in hip hop, they tend to sound kind of stitched together, you know, like literally Frankenstein. But this doesn't really feel like a mob deep album that needs an asterisk. Prodigy is on every song.

You don't feel like they were trying to really stretch out just a few remaining verses from him. And the chemistry feels pretty seamless. You know, they just maintain that authentic mob deep sound. It's dark. It's ominous. And, you know, it still works. You're right.

And let's celebrate the grimy, but also that we have this stitched together. So elegantly, as you said, it doesn't sound force fit. And thanks for bringing this one to the first. for it today, Rodney. For sure, for sure. They don't make them like us no more.

Stakes in the grass, so you know I'm cutting my lawn. Don't get it fucked up. Know what type of time I'm on. The face ones in your circle compromising, y'all. All right, so that was Mob Deep with Infinite. All right, now we got something special with Stephen out this week. We're going to do a lightning round to hear some faves from some of our NPR

colleagues on other albums out October 10th. And, Seale, we're going to start with you. I got to throw us. When Are You Leaving? Really well documented that the artist Beck Wong has gone through a lot of transitions personally, professionally, and we've been along for the ride. It's been really well documented. Now we have this celebration of new identity, but still admitting it's not all roses. You know, there's still a lot of hard knocks here. So when are you leaving? Beautiful arrangement of songs. And it might be obvious that this is a classically trained artist went to USC music school.

so even a solo piano tune is not out of place on this one. When are you leaving from the artist no-so? Hey, this is music editor, Hazel Sills, and my lightning round pick is the album Belong by the artist J-SOM. This is J-SOM's first album in six years. She spent that time producing for and playing with other artists. And I think you can really hear that collaborative spirit on this record. There are great features from Haley Williams of Paramour

and Jim Adkins of Jimmy E. World. It's just a really great indie rock record. This is Belong by J. Som. Hey, I'm MPR Music Editor Sheldon Pierce, and my lightning round pick is Amber Mark's new album, Pretty Idea. The R&B singer, who released one of NPR's favorite records of 2022, Three Dimensions Deep, returns with a more focused album of sunny, soft-spun, guitar strum,

soul that lets light and air into every corner of her sound. producing a full length that is warm and bracing. This is Let Me Love You, the second single from Amber Mark's Pretty Idea. Hey, y'all, this is Lars Gottrich, and my lightning round pick is hostile design by Black Eyes. Now, it's extremely rare for any band to release. It's the best album 21 years after the last one, but Black Eyes has always been a rare and wild breed. At the end of its first run, the DC punk band leaned into its chaotic side. Two vocalists, two drummers, squawking saxophone, funky bass lines, and guitar feedback.

Hostile design picks up that thread and makes something heavier and weirder, an apocalyptic love cry in danceable dub. Tom Heisinga here, and I'm loving this new piano concerto by Gabriel Cahain. He's a singer-songwriter. with one foot in pop music and the other in classical. He comes by it honestly, actually, because his father is the pianist and conductor Jeffrey Cahain, and Gabriel wrote this concerto called Aerlum for his dad,

infusing it with family history and weaving in some quotes from one of his own best-loved songs. The music is dressed in kind of a colorful post-romantic style, echoes of Rachmaninoff maybe. Jeffrey Cahain is the pianist here with the orchestra called The Knights, led by Eric Jacobs. And that's our show for this week.

See you. I really appreciate you taking your time out at WNXP in Nashville and helping me drive this thing because I think I would have been at a loss otherwise. So I really appreciate you. No, it's been such a pleasure to go hard on these records. And, yeah, so much deep listening. It was really fun to do alongside you.

And I hope everybody's going to listen to these records we discussed on their own time. If you enjoyed this week's show, we always appreciate a positive review on Apple, Spotify, or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and edited by Otis Hart. The executive producer of NPR music is Saraya Mohamed. We'll be back next week to discuss new music

with Travis Holcomb from KCRW in Los Angeles. Until then, man, just enjoy some good music this weekend. Peace.