window.__IS_SSR__=true
window.__INITIAL_STATE__={
"attachmentsReducer": {
"audio_0": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_0",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background0.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_1": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_1",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background1.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_2": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_2",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background2.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_3": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_3",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background3.jpg"
}
}
},
"audio_4": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "audio_4",
"imgSizes": {
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/themes/KQED-unified/img/audio_bgs/background4.jpg"
}
}
},
"placeholder": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "placeholder",
"imgSizes": {
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 107,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"height": 533,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-768x512.jpg",
"width": 768,
"height": 512,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"height": 1024,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"fd-lrg": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"height": 1024,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"fd-med": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"fd-sm": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"height": 533,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"height": 576,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"xxsmall": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 107,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"xsmall": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"small": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"xlarge": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1280,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-32": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 32,
"height": 32,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-50": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 50,
"height": 50,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-64": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 64,
"height": 64,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-96": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 96,
"height": 96,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"guest-author-128": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 128,
"height": 128,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"detail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-1333x1333-1-160x160.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/KQED-Default-Image-816638274-2000x1333-1.jpg",
"width": 2000,
"height": 1333
}
}
},
"arts_13871524": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871524",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871524",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13871495,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801.jpg",
"width": 1616,
"height": 1080
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-1020x682.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 682
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-1200x802.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 802
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-800x535.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 535
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DSC7801-768x513.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 513
}
},
"publishDate": 1576199985,
"modified": 1576201990,
"caption": "Rapper and creative director Brookfield Duece and his grandfather, Albert Alvin Johnson.",
"description": "Rapper and creative director Brookfield Duece and his grandfather, Albert Alvin Johnson.",
"title": "Rapper and creative director Brookfield Duece and his grandfather, Albert Alvin Johnson.",
"credit": "Pendarvis Harshaw/KQED",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13950419": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13950419",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13950419",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13871243,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 107
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268.jpg",
"width": 2121,
"height": 1414
},
"2048x2048": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-2048x1365.jpg",
"width": 2048,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1365
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 680
},
"1536x1536": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-1536x1024.jpg",
"width": 1536,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1024
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1280
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 533
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/iStock-600057268-768x512.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 512
}
},
"publishDate": 1705434229,
"modified": 1705434306,
"caption": null,
"description": null,
"title": null,
"credit": "DGLimages/ iStock",
"status": "inherit",
"altTag": null,
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13871463": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871463",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871463",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13871426,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1-160x90.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 90
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1.jpg",
"width": 1068,
"height": 600
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1-1020x573.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 573
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1-800x449.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 449
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85-1-768x431.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 431
}
},
"publishDate": 1576192052,
"modified": 1576192065,
"caption": null,
"description": null,
"title": "npr-2019-music_albums_bkou-16x9_wide-ae30622e2f47c53ff50c84eed7e940400eda6e60-s1500-c85",
"credit": "Illustration: Belinda Kou for NPR",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13871017": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871017",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871017",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13871003,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-160x90.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 90
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video.jpg",
"width": 2000,
"height": 1125
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-1020x574.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 574
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-1200x675.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 675
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-1920x1080.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1080
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-800x450.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 450
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/katy-perry-song-video-768x432.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 432
}
},
"publishDate": 1575590142,
"modified": 1575590192,
"caption": "Katy Perry in the festive video for \"Cozy Little Christmas.\"",
"description": "Katy Perry in the festive video for \"Cozy Little Christmas.\"",
"title": "Katy Perry in the festive video for \"Cozy Little Christmas.\"",
"credit": "YouTube",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13863823": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13863823",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13863823",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13863821,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-160x112.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 112
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c.jpg",
"width": 1487,
"height": 1045
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-1020x717.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 717
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-1200x843.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 843
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-800x562.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 562
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/08/bkill-by-tammy-rae-carland_custom-bbaf0b885950a5e9dc6a68364dfc9c35ad55805c-768x540.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 540
}
},
"publishDate": 1565636709,
"modified": 1575943271,
"caption": "Bikini Kill in the 1990s.",
"description": "Hanna with her Bikini Kill bandmates Kathi Wilcox (left) and Tobi Vail in the 1990s.",
"title": "Hanna with her Bikini Kill bandmates Kathi Wilcox (left) and Tobi Vail in the 1990s.",
"credit": "Tammy Rae Carland/Courtesy of the artist",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13871186": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871186",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871186",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13871151,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-160x100.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 100
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1200
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-1020x638.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 638
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-1200x750.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 750
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-1920x1200.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1200
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-800x500.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 500
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN_-768x480.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 480
}
},
"publishDate": 1575937579,
"modified": 1575937637,
"caption": "Murray Bowles in 1992.",
"description": "Murray Bowles in 1992.",
"title": "MurrayBowles.1992.MAIN",
"credit": "Courtesy Corbett Redford",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13871066": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871066",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871066",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13871065,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/gettyimages-1178683444-a5cd1aa14d4bd9224b4796b9bae7acd04ff00d62-895x576.jpg",
"width": 895,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/gettyimages-1178683444-a5cd1aa14d4bd9224b4796b9bae7acd04ff00d62-160x120.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 120
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/gettyimages-1178683444-a5cd1aa14d4bd9224b4796b9bae7acd04ff00d62-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/gettyimages-1178683444-a5cd1aa14d4bd9224b4796b9bae7acd04ff00d62.jpg",
"width": 895,
"height": 671
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/gettyimages-1178683444-a5cd1aa14d4bd9224b4796b9bae7acd04ff00d62-800x600.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 600
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/gettyimages-1178683444-a5cd1aa14d4bd9224b4796b9bae7acd04ff00d62-768x576.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
}
},
"publishDate": 1575824577,
"modified": 1575824577,
"caption": null,
"description": "Juice WRLD, seen here performing in Oakland, Calif., in September, reportedly died on Sunday in Chicago at age 21.",
"title": "Juice WRLD, seen here performing in Oakland, Calif., in September, reportedly died on Sunday in Chicago at age 21.",
"credit": null,
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13871026": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871026",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871026",
"found": true
},
"title": "1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980",
"publishDate": 1575591196,
"status": "inherit",
"parent": 13870838,
"modified": 1738615422,
"caption": "Eun Sun Kim.",
"credit": "Courtesy San Francisco Symphony",
"altTag": "Eun Sun Kim",
"description": null,
"imgSizes": {
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-160x107.jpg",
"width": 160,
"height": 107,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-800x533.jpg",
"width": 800,
"height": 533,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-768x512.jpg",
"width": 768,
"height": 512,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"large": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-1020x680.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"height": 680,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-1200x800.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"height": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"height": 372,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"height": 576,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1-1920x1280.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1280,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg"
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/1.San_Francisco_Opera_Music_Director_Designate_Eun_Sun_Kim_photo_Marc_Olivier_Le_Blanc-5466-e1575591105980-1.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1280
}
},
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13871025": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13871025",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871025",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13870973,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-1038x576.jpg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-160x100.jpg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 100
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-672x372.jpg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1201
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-1020x638.jpg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 638
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-1200x751.jpg",
"width": 1200,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 751
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-1920x1201.jpg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1201
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-800x500.jpg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 500
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/climate-1920x1201-768x480.jpg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 480
}
},
"publishDate": 1575591152,
"modified": 1575591227,
"caption": " (Photo by Maksim Shutov/Unsplash)",
"description": " (Photo by Maksim Shutov/Unsplash)",
"title": "climate-1920x1201",
"credit": " (Photo by Maksim Shutov/Unsplash)",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
},
"arts_13870852": {
"type": "attachments",
"id": "arts_13870852",
"meta": {
"index": "attachments_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13870852",
"found": true
},
"parent": 13870578,
"imgSizes": {
"twentyfourteen-full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-1038x576.jpeg",
"width": 1038,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 576
},
"thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-160x90.jpeg",
"width": 160,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 90
},
"post-thumbnail": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-672x372.jpeg",
"width": 672,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 372
},
"kqedFullSize": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2.jpeg",
"width": 1920,
"height": 1080
},
"large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-1020x574.jpeg",
"width": 1020,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 574
},
"complete_open_graph": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-1200x675.jpeg",
"width": 1200,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 675
},
"full-width": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-1920x1080.jpeg",
"width": 1920,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 1080
},
"medium": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-800x450.jpeg",
"width": 800,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 450
},
"medium_large": {
"file": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/Ghazi-x-Mozzy-2-768x432.jpeg",
"width": 768,
"mimeType": "image/jpeg",
"height": 432
}
},
"publishDate": 1575427262,
"modified": 1575507168,
"caption": "From left to right: EMPIRE's Eamon Mulligan, Ghazi Shami, Mozzy, Nima Etminan and David Grear. ",
"description": "EMPIRE president Ghazi Shami (second-from-left) and vice president Nima Etminan (second-from-right) created a record label that connects rising Northern California talent like Mozzy (center) with the mainstream music industry.",
"title": "Ghazi x Mozzy 2",
"credit": "Zachary Burnett",
"status": "inherit",
"isLoading": false,
"fetchFailed": false
}
},
"audioPlayerReducer": {
"postId": "stream_live",
"isPaused": true,
"isPlaying": false,
"pfsActive": false,
"pledgeModalIsOpen": true,
"playerDrawerIsOpen": false,
"liveAudioPlayStartedAt": 0,
"liveAudioPlayContext": ""
},
"authorsReducer": {
"byline_arts_13871243": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "byline_arts_13871243",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"slug": "byline_arts_13871243",
"name": "Juli Fraga",
"isLoading": false
},
"byline_arts_13871426": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "byline_arts_13871426",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"slug": "byline_arts_13871426",
"name": "NPR Music",
"isLoading": false
},
"byline_arts_13871285": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "byline_arts_13871285",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"slug": "byline_arts_13871285",
"name": "Neda Ulaby",
"isLoading": false
},
"byline_arts_13871065": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "byline_arts_13871065",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"slug": "byline_arts_13871065",
"name": "Anastasia Tsioulcas",
"isLoading": false
},
"byline_arts_13870973": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "byline_arts_13870973",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"slug": "byline_arts_13870973",
"name": "Grayson Haver Currin",
"isLoading": false
},
"gmeline": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "185",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "185",
"found": true
},
"name": "Gabe Meline",
"firstName": "Gabe",
"lastName": "Meline",
"slug": "gmeline",
"email": "gmeline@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"arts"
],
"title": "Senior Editor, KQED Arts & Culture",
"bio": "Gabe Meline entered journalism at age 15 making photocopied zines, and has since earned awards from the Edward R. Murrow Awards, the Society for Professional Journalists, the Online Journalism Awards, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies and the California Newspaper Publishers Association. Prior to KQED, he was the editor of the \u003cem>North Bay Bohemian\u003c/em> and a touring musician. He lives with his wife and daughter in his hometown of Santa Rosa, CA.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5bebe57be0d8bc2dd318934feb47299e2d2d10cba28d09d8d7afb389a2ce2bdd?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": null,
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"administrator"
]
},
{
"site": "artschool",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "pop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "bayareabites",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "food",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "liveblog",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "hiphop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Gabe Meline | KQED",
"description": "Senior Editor, KQED Arts & Culture",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5bebe57be0d8bc2dd318934feb47299e2d2d10cba28d09d8d7afb389a2ce2bdd?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5bebe57be0d8bc2dd318934feb47299e2d2d10cba28d09d8d7afb389a2ce2bdd?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/gmeline"
},
"cveltman": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "8608",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "8608",
"found": true
},
"name": "Chloe Veltman",
"firstName": "Chloe",
"lastName": "Veltman",
"slug": "cveltman",
"email": "cveltman@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [],
"title": "Arts and Culture Reporter",
"bio": "Chloe Veltman is a former arts and culture reporter for KQED. Prior to joining the organization, she launched and led the arts bureau at Colorado Public Radio, served as the Bay Area's culture columnist for the New York Times, and was the founder, host and executive producer of VoiceBox, a national award-winning weekly podcast/radio show and live events series all about the human voice. Chloe is the recipient of numerous prizes, grants and fellowships including a Webby Award for her work on interactive storytelling, both the John S Knight Journalism Fellowship and Humanities Center Fellowship at Stanford University, the Sundance Arts Writing Fellowship and a Library of Congress Research Fellowship. She is the author of the book \"On Acting\" and has appeared as a guest lecturer at Yale University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music among other institutions. She holds a BA in english literature from King's College, Cambridge, and a Masters in Dramaturgy from the Central School of Speech and Drama/Harvard Institute for Advanced Theater Training.\r\n\u003ca href=\"https://www.chloeveltman.com\">www.chloeveltman.com\u003c/a>",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/55403394b00a1ddab683952c2eb2cf85?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "chloeveltman",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": []
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "pop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": []
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Chloe Veltman | KQED",
"description": "Arts and Culture Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/55403394b00a1ddab683952c2eb2cf85?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/55403394b00a1ddab683952c2eb2cf85?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/cveltman"
},
"slefebvre": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11091",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11091",
"found": true
},
"name": "Sam Lefebvre",
"firstName": "Sam",
"lastName": "Lefebvre",
"slug": "slefebvre",
"email": "sdlefebvre@gmail.com",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [],
"title": null,
"bio": "Sam Lefebvre is an award-winning reporter at KQED Arts. He has worked as an editor and columnist at the \u003cem>East Bay Express\u003c/em>, \u003cem>SF Weekly \u003c/em>and Impose Magazine, and his journalism and criticism has appeared in \u003cem>The New York Times\u003c/em>, the Guardian and Pitchfork.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/143b570c3dec13ae74c6aa2369b04fc8?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": "Lefebvre_Sam",
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"author"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Sam Lefebvre | KQED",
"description": null,
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/143b570c3dec13ae74c6aa2369b04fc8?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/143b570c3dec13ae74c6aa2369b04fc8?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/slefebvre"
},
"ralexandra": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11242",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11242",
"found": true
},
"name": "Rae Alexandra",
"firstName": "Rae",
"lastName": "Alexandra",
"slug": "ralexandra",
"email": "ralexandra@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": true,
"staff_mastheads": [
"arts"
],
"title": "Reporter/Producer",
"bio": "Rae Alexandra is a Reporter/Producer for KQED Arts & Culture, and the creator/author of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/program/rebel-girls-from-bay-area-history\">Rebel Girls From Bay Area History\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/bizarrebayarea\">Bizarre Bay Area\u003c/a> series. Her debut book, \u003ca href=\"https://citylights.com/politics-current-events-history/unsung-heroines35-women-who-changed/\">Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area\u003c/a> was published by City Lights in March 2026. In 2023, Rae was awarded an SPJ Excellence in Journalism Award for Arts & Culture. Rae was born and raised in Wales and subsequently — even after two decades in Northern California — still uses phrases that regularly baffle her coworkers.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/edfee8176c80cc0a382b051190f5341997df378a934a5774dcb0977732dfd401?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": null,
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": null,
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "pop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "bayareabites",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "science",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Rae Alexandra | KQED",
"description": "Reporter/Producer",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/edfee8176c80cc0a382b051190f5341997df378a934a5774dcb0977732dfd401?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/edfee8176c80cc0a382b051190f5341997df378a934a5774dcb0977732dfd401?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/ralexandra"
},
"nvoynovskaya": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11387",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11387",
"found": true
},
"name": "Nastia Voynovskaya",
"firstName": "Nastia",
"lastName": "Voynovskaya",
"slug": "nvoynovskaya",
"email": "nvoynovskaya@kqed.org",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [
"arts"
],
"title": "Editor and reporter",
"bio": "Nastia Voynovskaya is a reporter, editor and host at KQED Arts & Culture. She's been covering the arts in the Bay Area for over a decade, with a focus on music, queer culture, labor issues and grassroots organizing. She has edited KQED story series such as Trans Bay: A History of San Francisco's Gender-Diverse Community, and co-created KQED's Bay Area hip-hop history project, That's My Word. Nastia's work has been recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists and San Francisco Press Club. She regularly appears on podcasts and radio programs, including NPR's All Songs Considered, and hosts live events where music, culture and conversation meet.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5025ee460e5a85d69ca20ea6c6f2f80d7e17795c828f61ea3aecfcd924e9042e?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": null,
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": "https://www.instagram.com/nananastia/",
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"administrator"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "pop",
"roles": [
"administrator"
]
},
{
"site": "bayareabites",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "podcasts",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "hiphop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Nastia Voynovskaya | KQED",
"description": "Editor and reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5025ee460e5a85d69ca20ea6c6f2f80d7e17795c828f61ea3aecfcd924e9042e?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5025ee460e5a85d69ca20ea6c6f2f80d7e17795c828f61ea3aecfcd924e9042e?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/nvoynovskaya"
},
"ogpenn": {
"type": "authors",
"id": "11491",
"meta": {
"index": "authors_1716337520",
"id": "11491",
"found": true
},
"name": "Pendarvis Harshaw",
"firstName": "Pendarvis",
"lastName": "Harshaw",
"slug": "ogpenn",
"email": "ogpenn@gmail.com",
"display_author_email": false,
"staff_mastheads": [
"arts"
],
"title": "Community Engagement Reporter",
"bio": "Pendarvis Harshaw is an educator, host and writer with KQED Arts.",
"avatar": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/972b77ee8e3f346ae2b00622661187fbfabd059b5693bbdc1475ea7a722fd4cd?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twitter": null,
"bluesky": null,
"facebook": null,
"instagram": "ogpenn",
"linkedin": null,
"sites": [
{
"site": "arts",
"roles": [
"administrator"
]
},
{
"site": "news",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
},
{
"site": "bayareabites",
"roles": [
"author"
]
},
{
"site": "hiphop",
"roles": [
"editor"
]
}
],
"headData": {
"title": "Pendarvis Harshaw | KQED",
"description": "Community Engagement Reporter",
"ogImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/972b77ee8e3f346ae2b00622661187fbfabd059b5693bbdc1475ea7a722fd4cd?s=600&d=blank&r=g",
"twImgSrc": "https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/972b77ee8e3f346ae2b00622661187fbfabd059b5693bbdc1475ea7a722fd4cd?s=600&d=blank&r=g"
},
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/author/ogpenn"
}
},
"pagesReducer": {
"arts_category_music": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_69",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "69",
"score": 10.848233
},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Music",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Music Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 70,
"slug": "music",
"isLoading": false,
"title": "Music",
"pageMeta": {
"site": "arts",
"WpPageTemplate": "page-topic-editorial",
"currentPage": 129
},
"blocks": [
{
"blockName": "kqed/post-list",
"attrs": {
"layout": "cardArticle2",
"query": "posts/arts?category=music",
"seeMore": false,
"paginated": true,
"page": 129
}
},
{
"blockName": "kqed/ad"
}
]
}
},
"pfsSessionReducer": {},
"postsReducer": {
"stream_live": {
"type": "live",
"id": "stream_live",
"audioUrl": "https://streams.kqed.org/kqedradio",
"title": "Live Stream",
"excerpt": "Live Stream information currently unavailable.",
"link": "/radio",
"featImg": "",
"label": {
"name": "KQED Live",
"link": "/"
}
},
"stream_kqedNewscast": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "stream_kqedNewscast",
"audioUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/RDnews/newscast.mp3?_=1",
"title": "KQED Newscast",
"featImg": "",
"label": {
"name": "88.5 FM",
"link": "/"
}
},
"arts_13871495": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871495",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871495",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1576234815000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "uplifting-culture-in-east-oaklands-brookfield-village",
"title": "Brookfield Duece, a Son of East Oakland",
"publishDate": 1576234815,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "Brookfield Duece, a Son of East Oakland | KQED",
"labelTerm": {},
"content": "\u003cp>Brookfield Village is in deep East Oakland, and it’s a real neighborhood… people know each other. It’s a blue-collar community with longtime homeowners. But it has its struggles. A recent article noted that Brookfield Village is located in one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/08/the-bay-areas-10-poorest-neighborhoods/\">poorest ZIP codes in the Bay Area\u003c/a>. But the community is rich in culture, evidenced by the folks who come from there, like rapper and creative director Brookfield Duece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brookfield Duece is an artist ingrained in the community. His childhood friends still live around the corner. And his family has been there for generations. His grandfather, Albert Alvin Johnson, used to lay asphalt for the City of Oakland. Meaning Brookfield Duece’s grandfather literally helped build this town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last few years, Brookfield Duece has been putting out projects consistently, in fact, this year he dropped two albums, “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/0zzkDtaIdM1FmL7In2JLxo\">America’s Orphans\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/64XW9N7sybCejZbNYnWhYY\">2016\u003c/a>”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brookfield Duece says he wants to change the perception of his neighborhood; and he’s doing that. You can see him working alongside folks like his cousin, NBA star Damian Lillard. Together they dropped the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP96O3iAQDM\">Dre Grant\u003c/a>” music video, in which Brookfield Duece is featured and helped co-direct. The music is dope and the clips in the video feature glossy testimonials from neighborhood residents, including Dre Grant himself. The video shows a community, culture and a neighborhood that’s sometimes overlooked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/mP96O3iAQDM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "Brookfield Duece is using his music to make sure the story of his neighborhood is told properly. ",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1726764627,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": false,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 6,
"wordCount": 249
},
"headData": {
"title": "Brookfield Duece, a Son of East Oakland | KQED",
"description": "Brookfield Duece is using his music to make sure the story of his neighborhood is told properly. ",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Brookfield Duece, a Son of East Oakland",
"datePublished": "2019-12-13T03:00:15-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-09-19T09:50:27-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"source": "Rightnowish",
"sourceUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/rightnowish",
"audioUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/rightnowish/2019/12/RightnowishEp08BrookfieldDuece.mp3",
"sticky": false,
"templateType": "standard",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"path": "/arts/13871495/uplifting-culture-in-east-oaklands-brookfield-village",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Brookfield Village is in deep East Oakland, and it’s a real neighborhood… people know each other. It’s a blue-collar community with longtime homeowners. But it has its struggles. A recent article noted that Brookfield Village is located in one of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/12/08/the-bay-areas-10-poorest-neighborhoods/\">poorest ZIP codes in the Bay Area\u003c/a>. But the community is rich in culture, evidenced by the folks who come from there, like rapper and creative director Brookfield Duece.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brookfield Duece is an artist ingrained in the community. His childhood friends still live around the corner. And his family has been there for generations. His grandfather, Albert Alvin Johnson, used to lay asphalt for the City of Oakland. Meaning Brookfield Duece’s grandfather literally helped build this town.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last few years, Brookfield Duece has been putting out projects consistently, in fact, this year he dropped two albums, “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/0zzkDtaIdM1FmL7In2JLxo\">America’s Orphans\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/64XW9N7sybCejZbNYnWhYY\">2016\u003c/a>”.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Brookfield Duece says he wants to change the perception of his neighborhood; and he’s doing that. You can see him working alongside folks like his cousin, NBA star Damian Lillard. Together they dropped the “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP96O3iAQDM\">Dre Grant\u003c/a>” music video, in which Brookfield Duece is featured and helped co-direct. The music is dope and the clips in the video feature glossy testimonials from neighborhood residents, including Dre Grant himself. The video shows a community, culture and a neighborhood that’s sometimes overlooked.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/mP96O3iAQDM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/mP96O3iAQDM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871495/uplifting-culture-in-east-oaklands-brookfield-village",
"authors": [
"11491"
],
"programs": [
"arts_8720"
],
"categories": [
"arts_1",
"arts_69"
],
"tags": [
"arts_1118",
"arts_6764",
"arts_4506"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871524",
"label": "source_arts_13871495"
},
"arts_13871243": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871243",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871243",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1576198855000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts"
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1576198855,
"format": "aside",
"title": "In the Expensive Bay Area, Artists Navigate Unique Mental Health Challenges",
"headTitle": "In the Expensive Bay Area, Artists Navigate Unique Mental Health Challenges | KQED",
"content": "\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13871302\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0.jpeg\" alt=\"A music studio viewed from above. A man sits in a chair with a guitar and looks up.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0-768x432.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Housewarmers’ bandleader Ian Santillano says that the Bay Area’s high cost of living can exacerbate the unique pressures musicians face by virtue of their profession. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ian Santillano)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As a musician, it can be difficult to navigate a community stricken with mental health concerns,” says \u003ca href=\"https://seanthompson.bandcamp.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sean Emmett Thompson\u003c/a>, a 26-year-old singer and guitarist who lives in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grueling tour schedules, financial ups and downs, performance anxiety, fear of failure—musicians face unique job pressures that can make them more prone to mental illness. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.the73percent.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019 survey\u003c/a> of nearly 1,500 independent musicians conducted by music distributor \u003ca href=\"https://www.recordunion.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Record Union\u003c/a> found that 73 percent of respondents struggled with anxiety and depression, and 33 percent grappled with panic attacks. Furthermore, a \u003ca href=\"https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/fd3b380d63e4e4a1219017768f5a56a2004e0916b59065565bac67b9d9562a22/3955058/Gross%20%26%20Musgrave%20%282016%29%20Can%20Music%20Make%20You%20Sick%20Pt1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2016 University of Westminster survey\u003c/a> of 2,211 U.K. musicians found that respondents were three times more likely than the general population to become depressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While composing and playing music can be therapeutic, trying to turn that into a full-time career can be an occupational hazard. Performing music puts an artist’s talent on display, and while this is one way to garner fans, it makes artists vulnerable to the praise and rejection of others. [aside postid='arts_13857471']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13857471/artist-passion-exploitation-duke-study\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">issues of fair compensation\u003c/a>: as one University of Westminster survey respondent shared, “A doctor doesn’t perform surgery for ‘exposure.’” Artists disclosed that poor pay, impostor syndrome and toxic working conditions had damaged their mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These challenges are especially pronounced in the Bay Area, where high living costs make it nearly impossible for local artists to pursue their passion full time. And in a competitive industry, being pulled away from one’s art can cause feelings of insecurity and doubt to surface. \u003ca href=\"https://www.iansantillano.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ian Santillano\u003c/a>, a 23-year-old Bay Area musician and leader of the band \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Musician-Band/The-Housewarmers-313769652609322/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Housewarmers\u003c/a>, says not having enough time to work on music can rattle his confidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get anxious, because I wonder if I am doing enough and if I’m \u003cem>truly \u003c/em>a musician,” he says. At those times, impostor syndrome can set in—a dreadful feeling that’s amplified when Santillano scrolls through fellow artists’ Instagram feeds. [aside postid='arts_13869819']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson has faced similar struggles. “When I first moved to San Francisco, I could barely make ends meet,” he says. Like many artists, Thompson teaches music lessons and takes on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/ourturbulentdecade/2019-the-gig-economy-defined-how-artists-do-business-heres-whats-likely-to-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">side projects\u003c/a>, but overworking can make it tricky to find a work-life balance. “I’ve had difficulty saying ‘no’ to projects for fear of losing out on an opportunity, which only creates more stress,” says the artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, those stressors caused Thompson to become anxious and depressed, “When you’re distracted by other work responsibilities, composing music is hard,” he shares. Not being able to create new music feeds impostor syndrome, which can leave Thompson feeling aimless and inadequate. Despite those challenges, he’s never seen a mental health professional. “Once I’m financially stable, I hope to address my mental health needs in therapy,” Thompson adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871305\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871305\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o.jpg 1544w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sean Thompson (center). \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the artist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While many artists battle with mental illness, the latest survey results suggest that only 40 percent of suffering musicians received mental health care, while over 50 percent turned to alcohol and drugs to numb their pain, which isn’t uncommon for people \u003ca href=\"https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/comorbidity-substance-use-disorders-other-mental-illnesses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with mental illness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t see the wonder in the world,” recalls \u003ca href=\"https://www.mroliverblank.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oliver Blank\u003c/a>, 37, a Bay Area artist and composer. Last year, Blank’s long-term relationship ended, and his intense grief caused his creative drive to dwindle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that time, Blank was working on his podcast \u003ca href=\"https://www.mroliverblank.com/art-index/the-one-who-got-away\">\u003cem>The One Who Got Away\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which intimately depicts the lingering grief that travels with loss. For the podcast, Blank invited people from all over the world to call a phone number and leave a message for a lost loved one, or forgotten romance, answering just one question: “What would you say to the one who got away?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hearing other people’s grief-stricken stories amplified Blank’s suffering, which only intensified his sadness. “I didn’t want to die or to hurt myself, but I wanted to go to sleep for a very long time,” the artist explains. [aside postid='arts_13861452']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerned friends encouraged Blank to talk to a therapist. He reached out for professional help, but initially, no one reached back. “The biggest issue was finding a therapist who would return my call,” says Blank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many people, navigating the mental healthcare system can be puzzling. Firstly, even with health coverage, high-deductible insurance plans require people to pay upfront for medical expenses, including psychotherapy, which can be costly. In the Bay Area, the economic boost brought on by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/23916/bay-area-boom-driving-up-cost-of-therapy\">tech boom\u003c/a> has driven up the cost of rent, food and psychotherapy. As a result, therapy can cost anywhere between 140 and 300 dollars per session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More affordable options are available, but finding the right type of help isn’t always straight forward. Websites like \u003ca href=\"https://www.betterhelp.com/helpme/?utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=Search_PPC_c&utm_term=better%2Bhelp_e&utm_content=13899929650&network=g&placement=&target=&matchtype=e&utm_campaign=177007450&ad_type=text&adposition=1t1&gclid=CjwKCAjwlovtBRBrEiwAG3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Better Help\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lp.talkspace.com/try?utm_source=google&utm_medium=sembrand&utm_campaign=SEARCH_GOOGLE_BRAND&utm_content=apply65&utm_term=talkspace&gclid=CjwKCAjwlovtBRBrEiwAG3XJ-6Uy8h5LQ-0XOeo4by1B5Hv1x5qjWf2Hn4ZnJ6sUB-BxoLTnlLf74RoCOV8QAvD_BwE\">Talkspace\u003c/a> offer counseling online. While convenient, talking to a therapist online may not be ideal for people with acute mental health symptoms, such as panic attacks, thoughts of self-harm and severe depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those seeking in-person mental health care, the non-profit organization \u003ca href=\"https://openpathcollective.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Open Path Psychotherapy Collective\u003c/a> provides affordable counseling services, and its fees range from 30 to 60 dollars per session. According to the website, over 300 therapists in the Bay Area provide mental health services through the Open Path network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychotherapy training clinics staffed by graduate students and recent graduates also provide accessible care. For instance, in San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ciis.edu/counseling-and-acupuncture-clinics/center-for-somatic-psychotherapy\">Center for Somatic Psychotherapy (CSP)\u003c/a> offers sliding-scale psychotherapy services seven days a week, and therapy is provided by graduate students and recent graduates from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to offering traditional talk therapy, CSP therapists promote self-awareness and stress reduction by helping clients connect with the mind, body and spirit, says Steuart Gold, the CSP clinic director. “Somatic therapy encourages accessing the wisdom of the body and creates conditions where one’s creative self can live its fullest expression,” he explains. With this focus, Gold says musicians and artists often benefit from somatic psychotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though it took many phone calls, Blank eventually found a therapist. “My therapist diagnosed me with depression and told me I was experiencing suicidal ideation,” he shares. Receiving a diagnosis helped Blank understand the nature of his pain, which aided in the healing process. “I immediately felt relief,” he shares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, Santillano and Thompson find emotional support by talking to their peers. Still, Thompson hopes to speak to a therapist in the near future, “I believe therapy can help me pinpoint things that I haven’t been able to put together for myself,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 1193,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 22
},
"modified": 1705434336,
"excerpt": "Research shows musicians struggle with mental health issues at high rates. The Bay Area's cost of living doesn't help. ",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "Research shows musicians struggle with mental health issues at high rates. The Bay Area's cost of living doesn't help. ",
"title": "In the Expensive Bay Area, Artists Navigate Unique Mental Health Challenges | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "In the Expensive Bay Area, Artists Navigate Unique Mental Health Challenges",
"datePublished": "2019-12-12T17:00:55-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-01-16T11:45:36-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "in-the-expensive-bay-area-artists-navigate-unique-mental-health-challenges",
"status": "publish",
"templateType": "standard",
"nprByline": "Juli Fraga",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"sticky": false,
"showOnAuthorArchivePages": "No",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/arts/13871243/in-the-expensive-bay-area-artists-navigate-unique-mental-health-challenges",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871302\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13871302\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0.jpeg\" alt=\"A music studio viewed from above. A man sits in a chair with a guitar and looks up.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0-160x90.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/image0-768x432.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Housewarmers’ bandleader Ian Santillano says that the Bay Area’s high cost of living can exacerbate the unique pressures musicians face by virtue of their profession. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Ian Santillano)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As a musician, it can be difficult to navigate a community stricken with mental health concerns,” says \u003ca href=\"https://seanthompson.bandcamp.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sean Emmett Thompson\u003c/a>, a 26-year-old singer and guitarist who lives in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Grueling tour schedules, financial ups and downs, performance anxiety, fear of failure—musicians face unique job pressures that can make them more prone to mental illness. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.the73percent.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019 survey\u003c/a> of nearly 1,500 independent musicians conducted by music distributor \u003ca href=\"https://www.recordunion.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Record Union\u003c/a> found that 73 percent of respondents struggled with anxiety and depression, and 33 percent grappled with panic attacks. Furthermore, a \u003ca href=\"https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/fd3b380d63e4e4a1219017768f5a56a2004e0916b59065565bac67b9d9562a22/3955058/Gross%20%26%20Musgrave%20%282016%29%20Can%20Music%20Make%20You%20Sick%20Pt1.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2016 University of Westminster survey\u003c/a> of 2,211 U.K. musicians found that respondents were three times more likely than the general population to become depressed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While composing and playing music can be therapeutic, trying to turn that into a full-time career can be an occupational hazard. Performing music puts an artist’s talent on display, and while this is one way to garner fans, it makes artists vulnerable to the praise and rejection of others. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "aside",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"postid": "arts_13857471",
"label": ""
},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13857471/artist-passion-exploitation-duke-study\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">issues of fair compensation\u003c/a>: as one University of Westminster survey respondent shared, “A doctor doesn’t perform surgery for ‘exposure.’” Artists disclosed that poor pay, impostor syndrome and toxic working conditions had damaged their mental health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These challenges are especially pronounced in the Bay Area, where high living costs make it nearly impossible for local artists to pursue their passion full time. And in a competitive industry, being pulled away from one’s art can cause feelings of insecurity and doubt to surface. \u003ca href=\"https://www.iansantillano.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ian Santillano\u003c/a>, a 23-year-old Bay Area musician and leader of the band \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Musician-Band/The-Housewarmers-313769652609322/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Housewarmers\u003c/a>, says not having enough time to work on music can rattle his confidence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I get anxious, because I wonder if I am doing enough and if I’m \u003cem>truly \u003c/em>a musician,” he says. At those times, impostor syndrome can set in—a dreadful feeling that’s amplified when Santillano scrolls through fellow artists’ Instagram feeds. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "aside",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"postid": "arts_13869819",
"label": ""
},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thompson has faced similar struggles. “When I first moved to San Francisco, I could barely make ends meet,” he says. Like many artists, Thompson teaches music lessons and takes on \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/ourturbulentdecade/2019-the-gig-economy-defined-how-artists-do-business-heres-whats-likely-to-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">side projects\u003c/a>, but overworking can make it tricky to find a work-life balance. “I’ve had difficulty saying ‘no’ to projects for fear of losing out on an opportunity, which only creates more stress,” says the artist.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past, those stressors caused Thompson to become anxious and depressed, “When you’re distracted by other work responsibilities, composing music is hard,” he shares. Not being able to create new music feeds impostor syndrome, which can leave Thompson feeling aimless and inadequate. Despite those challenges, he’s never seen a mental health professional. “Once I’m financially stable, I hope to address my mental health needs in therapy,” Thompson adds.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871305\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871305\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/10531349_10152705050652868_411939417121906542_o.jpg 1544w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sean Thompson (center). \u003ccite>(Courtesy of the artist)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While many artists battle with mental illness, the latest survey results suggest that only 40 percent of suffering musicians received mental health care, while over 50 percent turned to alcohol and drugs to numb their pain, which isn’t uncommon for people \u003ca href=\"https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/comorbidity-substance-use-disorders-other-mental-illnesses\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">with mental illness\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I couldn’t see the wonder in the world,” recalls \u003ca href=\"https://www.mroliverblank.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oliver Blank\u003c/a>, 37, a Bay Area artist and composer. Last year, Blank’s long-term relationship ended, and his intense grief caused his creative drive to dwindle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At that time, Blank was working on his podcast \u003ca href=\"https://www.mroliverblank.com/art-index/the-one-who-got-away\">\u003cem>The One Who Got Away\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, which intimately depicts the lingering grief that travels with loss. For the podcast, Blank invited people from all over the world to call a phone number and leave a message for a lost loved one, or forgotten romance, answering just one question: “What would you say to the one who got away?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Hearing other people’s grief-stricken stories amplified Blank’s suffering, which only intensified his sadness. “I didn’t want to die or to hurt myself, but I wanted to go to sleep for a very long time,” the artist explains. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "aside",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"postid": "arts_13861452",
"label": ""
},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Concerned friends encouraged Blank to talk to a therapist. He reached out for professional help, but initially, no one reached back. “The biggest issue was finding a therapist who would return my call,” says Blank.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For many people, navigating the mental healthcare system can be puzzling. Firstly, even with health coverage, high-deductible insurance plans require people to pay upfront for medical expenses, including psychotherapy, which can be costly. In the Bay Area, the economic boost brought on by the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/stateofhealth/23916/bay-area-boom-driving-up-cost-of-therapy\">tech boom\u003c/a> has driven up the cost of rent, food and psychotherapy. As a result, therapy can cost anywhere between 140 and 300 dollars per session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More affordable options are available, but finding the right type of help isn’t always straight forward. Websites like \u003ca href=\"https://www.betterhelp.com/helpme/?utm_source=AdWords&utm_medium=Search_PPC_c&utm_term=better%2Bhelp_e&utm_content=13899929650&network=g&placement=&target=&matchtype=e&utm_campaign=177007450&ad_type=text&adposition=1t1&gclid=CjwKCAjwlovtBRBrEiwAG3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Better Help\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lp.talkspace.com/try?utm_source=google&utm_medium=sembrand&utm_campaign=SEARCH_GOOGLE_BRAND&utm_content=apply65&utm_term=talkspace&gclid=CjwKCAjwlovtBRBrEiwAG3XJ-6Uy8h5LQ-0XOeo4by1B5Hv1x5qjWf2Hn4ZnJ6sUB-BxoLTnlLf74RoCOV8QAvD_BwE\">Talkspace\u003c/a> offer counseling online. While convenient, talking to a therapist online may not be ideal for people with acute mental health symptoms, such as panic attacks, thoughts of self-harm and severe depression.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For those seeking in-person mental health care, the non-profit organization \u003ca href=\"https://openpathcollective.org/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Open Path Psychotherapy Collective\u003c/a> provides affordable counseling services, and its fees range from 30 to 60 dollars per session. According to the website, over 300 therapists in the Bay Area provide mental health services through the Open Path network.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Psychotherapy training clinics staffed by graduate students and recent graduates also provide accessible care. For instance, in San Francisco, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ciis.edu/counseling-and-acupuncture-clinics/center-for-somatic-psychotherapy\">Center for Somatic Psychotherapy (CSP)\u003c/a> offers sliding-scale psychotherapy services seven days a week, and therapy is provided by graduate students and recent graduates from the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to offering traditional talk therapy, CSP therapists promote self-awareness and stress reduction by helping clients connect with the mind, body and spirit, says Steuart Gold, the CSP clinic director. “Somatic therapy encourages accessing the wisdom of the body and creates conditions where one’s creative self can live its fullest expression,” he explains. With this focus, Gold says musicians and artists often benefit from somatic psychotherapy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though it took many phone calls, Blank eventually found a therapist. “My therapist diagnosed me with depression and told me I was experiencing suicidal ideation,” he shares. Receiving a diagnosis helped Blank understand the nature of his pain, which aided in the healing process. “I immediately felt relief,” he shares.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "floatright"
},
"numeric": [
"floatright"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For now, Santillano and Thompson find emotional support by talking to their peers. Still, Thompson hopes to speak to a therapist in the near future, “I believe therapy can help me pinpoint things that I haven’t been able to put together for myself,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871243/in-the-expensive-bay-area-artists-navigate-unique-mental-health-challenges",
"authors": [
"byline_arts_13871243"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_235"
],
"tags": [
"arts_1118",
"arts_7321",
"arts_4773"
],
"featImg": "arts_13950419",
"label": "arts"
},
"arts_13871426": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871426",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871426",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1576192279000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts",
"term": 137
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1576192279,
"format": "standard",
"title": "NPR's 25 Best Albums of 2019",
"headTitle": "NPR’s 25 Best Albums of 2019 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This list was made by writers, editors and producers at NPR Music operating under two rules: Albums had to be released during 2019 and no lead artist was allowed to appear on both this list and our list of the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778226410/the-25-best-songs-of-2019\">\u003cem>25 Best Songs of 2019\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. You can find the rest of our picks for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778229970/best-music-of-2019-editors-note\">\u003cem>the best music of 2019 here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>25.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Tyler, The Creator\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmAsUQEFYGI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Generally speaking, breaks-up are trash. But what if you’re not even allowed to call it a break-up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>IGOR, \u003c/em>the fifth studio album from Tyler, The Creator, mourns a love that was never really allowed to flourish in the first place. Across 40 minutes, \u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em> draws, erases and redraws emotional lines in the sand, smudging up Tyler’s self-esteem with each new boundary crossed. The pining of “EARFQUAKE,” the short-lived euphoria of “I THINK,” the feeble negotiation of “NEW MAGIC WAND,” the obvious lie of “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE,” the diluted compromise of “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” Think of these tracks as the face muscles that construct the dead-eyed, sanguine smile you flash during that first unexpected run-in with your ex. Even with a supporting chorus of Kanye West, Lil Uzi Vert, La Roux, Solange and more, the true magic of this album is Tyler’s ability to let his guard down just enough to give you symphonic slivers of his heartbreak. —\u003cem>Sidney Madden\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/12/11/569203961/tyler-the-creator-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Tyler Perform At NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>24.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Tanya Tucker\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>While I’m Livin’\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVEd0YUx7X8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In spite of the reverence shown for country music made in the 1970s and the groundswell of nostalgia for ’90s country, Tanya Tucker—an artist whose high-caliber hits spanned both eras—has been perpetually underappreciated. This year she found champions in Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile, who took up the task of framing Tucker with a warmly rustic, often rocking vintage sound on \u003cem>While I’m Livin’\u003c/em>. The album cast a more intimate spotlight on her gravelly timbre and the sensuality and gravitas of her phrasing, but more than that, its songs showcased her interpretive gifts and, at long last, placed her at the center of her own enthralling mythology. —\u003cem>Jewly Hight\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2019/11/12/778265643/hear-tanya-tucker-perform-selections-from-her-first-original-album-in-17-years\">Hear Tanya Tucker In Concert At AmericanaFest\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>23.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Kris Davis\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Diatom Ribbons\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVhEV5RDG4w\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the hands of pianist Kris Davis, a musical phrase can bristle or bloom—sometimes managing both at once, as often happens on this visionary album. Working with two core partners, turntablist Val Jeanty and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, Davis devises a new strain of avant-garde chamber-jazz, volatile yet gleaming. A clutch of blue-chip guests (like Nels Cline and Marc Ribot on guitars, Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone and Esperanza Spalding on spoken word) bring personality as well as fire. This is sound that refuses stasis, insisting on endless renewal from one moment to the next. —\u003cem>Nate Chinen, WBGO\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>22.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Bad Bunny & J Balvin\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>OASIS\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPc3Pe42bGI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bad Bunny and J Balvin have both taken up the charge to make urbano a worldwide project without sacrificing the hunger that has made the genre seem abrasive and vulgar to some in their industry. That this album-length collaboration by two of urbano’s most visible artists covered as much genre territory as it did prompted another examination of its often relegated place within “Latin” music, whatever that is. From the knotted bass punto guajiro on “Yo Le Llego” to the rock en español”Un Peso” with Enanitos Verdes’ Marciano Cantero to the two taking a backseat to Afrobeats rising star Mr. Eazi on the closer “Como Un Bebé,” \u003cem>OASIS \u003c/em>stretches across the spectrum of where urbano has been and where it’s going. —\u003cem>Stefanie Fernández\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2018/12/24/679179404/bad-bunny-en-espa-ol-el-nuevo-disco-y-sus-influencias\">Bad Bunny’s Alt.Latino interview\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>21.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>John Luther Adams\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Become Desert\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VN9TBfWAEo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is, simply put, one of the most stunning recordings of 2019. John Luther Adams’ follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning \u003cem>Become Ocean\u003c/em> is brought to life here by the Seattle Symphony and its conductor emeritus Ludovic Morlot in grand-scale minimalist fashion. The orchestra’s 100 or so musicians and a chorus of singers weave a beatless, beatific drone that draws inspiration from the deceptive monotony of our planet’s deserts, where time only appears to stand still. Like its namesake, \u003cem>Become Desert\u003c/em> feels infinite, stretching out in every direction at once; even after 40 celestial minutes, its ending arrives unexpectedly, lest we forget that sand always runs out. —\u003cem>Otis Hart\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2014/09/28/350911062/an-inviting-apocalypse-john-luther-adams-on-become-ocean\">John Luther Adams on All Things Considered\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>20.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Sault\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>5\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1F0qO7QIR4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And then, out of thin air, an impossibly polished, balanced and restrained piece of work from a faceless trio—we think it’s a trio, at least—quietly slipped into the world. The surreptitious Sault—is it pronounced “soo” or “salt” or “so,” we wonder—may have connections to the equally mysterious-at-the-outset group Jungle, a rumor that has some heft given the evolved disco/pop/R&B/soul genetics they clearly share. But while mysteries are fun, and can be a slam-dunk marketing approach too, there’s no urgent need to solve this one. First of all, this lovely, wholly consistent album is answer enough. But also, the group will most likely be unavoidable in the new year, so enjoy the unknowing while you still can. —\u003cem>Andrew Flanagan\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>19.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Lana Del Rey\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Norman F****** Rockwell\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qolmz4FlnZ0\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=ten%20year%20challenge&geo=US\">Twice this year\u003c/a> across social media, the so-called ten-year challenge meme made the rounds (and prompted some extremely 2019\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/kateo/status/1084199700427927553\"> cybersecurity concerns\u003c/a>). Consider, then, a side-by-side accounting for a certain pop star who came into full flower over the course of the decade: In 2011, Lana Del Rey’s mere presence was viewed by some as an affront to the ideal of authenticity; in 2019, few albums achieved the critical consensus that greeted \u003cem>Norman F****** Rockwell! \u003c/em>At some point between “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE6wxDqdOV0\">Video Games\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSX_OcpeJg\">The Greatest\u003c/a>,” Lana Del Rey went from upending accepted norms to voicing our collective unease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Norman F****** Rockwell! \u003c/em>sharpens the singular vision that’s always animated Lana Del Rey’s body of work. As her discography has grown, her imagery has evolved: less shorthand, more self-reference. With callbacks crisscrossing place and time, her music is now made of her own sepia-toned mythology. In collaboration with producer Jack Antonoff, drawing on the Laurel Canyon sound, she achieves both timelessness and timeliness in tone. Wistful, resigned and cutting, it’s a fitting swan song for the decade. —\u003cem>Lyndsey McKenna\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/757545360/lana-del-rey-lives-in-americas-messy-subconscious\">Ann Powers on Lana Del Rey\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>18.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>iLe\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Almadura\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTzL-G2kIA8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>iLe recorded \u003cem>Almadura\u003c/em> long before the political situation in Puerto Rico came to a historic conclusion this past summer, but the themes she addresses on the album were the same as those raised in the massive protests that eventually drove its governor from power: musical stands against injustice and inequality, passionate statements of cultural pride and a barely contained fury at being at the mercy of U.S. policies for over 100 years. Case in point: “Tu Rumba” comes across as a hypnotic love song that stands as a personal statement of desire, but like the best protest music, the power of the message is in the storytelling. It’s a cleverly-worded plea for social justice set to a masterful pastiche of Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The powerful music on \u003cem>Almadura \u003c/em>will long outlast the injustices iLe and the rest of the island are fighting against. —\u003cem>Felix Contreras\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2019/07/10/740190505/ile-and-making-movies-discuss-music-activism-and-mixing-the-two\">Alt.Latino’s interview with iLe\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>17.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Holly Herndon\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>PROTO\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4sROgbaeOs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spirit of collaboration courses through Holly Herndon’s third album, \u003cem>PROTO\u003c/em>. The talk that’s surrounded it has focused on Herndon’s co-creation of an AI that became part of an ensemble she worked with to make the record. While that’s of note, it does a disservice to the music, which is epic on every level. Human voices and machine voices coalesce in double helix formations; trance motifs and mile-wide drums offset the choir’s earnest emoting and lyrics unfurl like folk stories. \u003cem>PROTO \u003c/em>is an album about the human spirit and the future that new kinds of collaboration—or, as Herndon calls it,\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hollyherndon/status/1199455651170263040\"> interdependence\u003c/a>—could bring. —\u003cem>Ruth Saxelby\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/767904887/the-2010s-a-music-making-evolution-and-revolution\">All Songs Considered interviews Holly Herndon\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>16.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Burna Boy\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>African Giant\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zvDLW5Klo8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burna Boy has been a superstar of Nigerian music for years. “I am an AFRICAN GIANT,” he blasted on Instagram after Coachella displayed his name on a festival poster with what he considered a too-small font. Months later, he released his fourth album with the same title. Whether it’s conceit or confidence, Burna Boy deserves to brag. Every one of the album’s 19 tracks is a gem and features his signature Afro-fusion genre blend of dancehall, reggae, R&B and hip-hop. Though fundamental African rhythms are clearly defined, the album’s dance-infused pop sensibility makes it a crossover success. And while its musicality and artfulness are outstanding, the album spans party anthems and themes of love, history and political activism too. It’s no surprise that Burna Boy received his first Grammy nomination for this album. Look for his name in larger fonts in the future. —\u003cem>Suraya Mohamed\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/18/779548274/burna-boy-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Burna Boy perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>15.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Ancestral Recall\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYFFV7exVWs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>New Orleans trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is one of the most compelling voices working in music today—and his latest “stretch music” album is possibly his most ambitious work to date. With guest artists including musician/poet/rapper/actor Saul Williams, \u003cem>Ancestral Recall\u003c/em> is an intense, keenly felt and richly articulated celebration of many of the musical streams that have nourished generations of the African, Native and Caribbean diasporas—a sonically and texturally spacious project that would feel urgent and necessary at almost any time, but asserts itself especially now. From the exuberant, endlessly intricate West African polyrhythms of “I Own The Night” to the Afro-Latinx groove of “The Shared Stories of Rivals” to the metallic, Afrofuturist clang of “Prophesy,” this project is both firmly rooted in the past and a vision of a dynamic, powerful future. —\u003cem>Anastasia Tsioulcas\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SxzS4mtH9o\">Watch Jazz Night In America’s Christian Scott special\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>14.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Weyes Blood\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Titanic Rising\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFtRq6t3jOo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A lot of artists made big, ambitious albums in 2019, but few soared as wondrously as Weyes Blood’s \u003cem>Titanic Rising. \u003c/em>Singer Natalie Mering’s meticulously layered harmonies drew comparisons to the celestial sounds of Enya and her winding melodies, crystalline voice and autumnal reflections owe just as much to ’70s folk-pop icons like Joni Mitchell or The Carpenters. It’s a beautiful and potent mix, one Mering deftly subverts with hints of madness. Songs suddenly stagger and devolve into warped or broken electronics while her videos, for songs like “Everyday” or “Mirror Forever,” include graphic scenes of murder, rape and drug use. It’s a beautiful world, but we are not okay. —\u003cem>Robin Hilton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786391406/weyes-blood-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Weyes Blood perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>13.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Our Native Daughters\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Songs Of Our Native Daughters\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeTEgDy7kbQ&list=RDFeTEgDy7kbQ&index=1\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Our Native Daughters chose a band name and album title that highlight the kinship ties between the four group members—Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell and Leyla McCalla—and their musical, cultural and spiritual ancestors. It would’ve been a historic event for four women of color who write, reinterpret and perform roots music on banjo to simply come together and make music—their collaboration is, in and of itself, a reminder of the whitewashed African roots of their instruments. But, urged on by Giddens, they shaped a song cycle aimed at reversing the erasure of black women from American historical narratives, at zeroing in on the dehumanizing suffering black women faced under slavery, their strategies of survival and resistance, their sharp, sly critiques of oppressive systems, their creativity. The Daughters’ collaboration is enriched by the distinctness of each of their voices: the dogged Appalachian blues rock of Kiah’s “Black Myself,” the willowy reverence of Russell’s “Quasheba, Quasheba,” the commandingly vivid narration of Giddens’ harrowing call-and-response “Mama’s Cryin’ Long,” the Kreyol liveliness of McCalla’s “Lavi Difisil,” the polyrhythmic communal audacity of “Moon Meets the Sun.” It’s an album that rustles with collective imagination and purpose. —\u003cem>Jewly Hight\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/02/14/693624881/first-listen-our-native-daughters-songs-of-our-native-daughters\">Jewly Hight reviews \u003cem>Songs Of Our Native Daughters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>12.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Ari Lennox\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Shea Butter Baby\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf06109Zivo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/728737359/ari-lennox\">Ari Lennox\u003c/a> declared her intentions for her debut album right from the title. \u003cem>Shea Butter Baby\u003c/em> speaks to an often misunderstood and underrepresented music lover: The Black woman. The D.C. native sings about universally recognizable ebbs and flows of life on songs like “Broke,” “BMO” and “Speak To Me,” which are sprinkled with euphemisms that will hit women of color first. Producers Elite and Ron Gilmore handle the bulk of production, lacing her words with jazzy and soulful sonics that put her range on display. Awards season has begun and we’ve already seen \u003cem>Shea Butter Baby\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35mxg/ari-lennoxs-shea-butter-baby-deserves-better-than-its-award-season-soul-train-awards-grammys-2019-snubs\"> obviously snubbed\u003c/a> by the Soul Train Awards and the Grammys. It’s just more confirmation that we need Ari’s voice now more than ever. —\u003cem>Bobby Carter\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/763604571/ari-lennox-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Ari Lennox perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>11.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Vagabon\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Vagabon\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzFb1z_-Cvw\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The working title for Laetitia Tamko’s second album as Vagabon was \u003cem>All the Women in Me\u003c/em>—a versatile phrase to sum up everything from the roles women play in society to the singer’s own complex identity as a Cameroonian who relocated to New York at 13. But the moniker didn’t stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After 2017’s \u003cem>Infinite Worlds\u003c/em> pushed past the boundaries of bedroom pop, Tamko’s new record expands her sound still further, most notably landing on synth-smeared electro-pop in masterful, appropriately fluid songs like “Flood” and “Water Me Down.” Singing of her deep ambivalence about love and identity, Tamko ultimately settled on the only album title that could sum up the full measure of her sleek, soulful shape-shifting: \u003cem>Vagabon\u003c/em>. —\u003cem>Stephen Thompson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/15/757514260/stream-laetitia-tamko-on-the-making-of-vagabon\">Laetitia Tamko On The Making Of \u003cem>Vagabon\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>10.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Jenny Hval\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>The Practice Of Love\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wACSfREgJys\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What does it mean to make a family? How do we care for each other? How do we make sense of our relationships with our bodies or the planet—and how do those relationships impact each other? To grapple with these questions, Jenny Hval made her most accessible album yet; the production is delicately beautiful and hypnotic, with lyrics that unspool like poetry. Hval and her collaborators conjure Georgia O’Keefe, ponder childlessness and search for God. Quotidian objects—dried figs, stretch mark cream, a cigarette, a porn magazine—become vessels for meaning both grander and more visceral than expected. This isn’t \u003cem>love\u003c/em> in the strictly romantic sense—nor is it strictly platonic, or familial, or sexual. Instead, as the title promises, the album depicts intimacy as a process: a series of trials and metaphors that draw us closer to each other. —\u003cem>Marissa Lorusso\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>9.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>billy woods & Kenny Segal\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Hiding Places\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXFgjQ9dZ8M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s said that comedy is tragedy plus time, but what if the tragedy never ends? Does the lengthening onslaught ever become absurd enough to laugh at? billy woods released two great albums in 2019: the jagged \u003cem>Terror Management\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Hiding Places\u003c/em>, a collaboration with L.A. producer Kenny Segal. The latter is an album-length self-excavation that crawls through moldy memories in a brutal poetry that is at times darkly funny but mostly wrestles with personal and societal truths that’ll leave you touched, shook. woods found an inspired partner in Segal, whose beats are built like the condemned house falling apart on the album’s cover. On “Speak Gently,” heavy fuzz guitar suddenly disintegrates as if Thanos had snapped his fingers; it’s disarming, haunting. woods rocks references to authors who distilled drama with forceful wordplay (John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger and Charles Dickens), but he himself knocks at their door with an ability to wrap nostalgic imagery within a crucial moment that never leaves your psyche: “Dollar movie theater, dingy foyer, little kid, not a penny to my name / F*****’ with the joystick, pretendin’ I was really playin’.” —\u003cem>Lars Gotrich\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778228299/9-rap-albums-as-dark-and-dystopian-as-2019\">billy woods is the rapper of 2019\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>8.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Lankum\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>The Livelong Day\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxKx-BBWX8Q\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This stunningly beautiful, trance-inducing album record draws heavily on traditional Irish folk music, but with a deep dark Dublin twist. The sound of drones play a central role in the overall tone of \u003cem>The Livelong Day. \u003c/em>Brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, Radi Peat and Cormac MacDiarmada create crushing, apocalyptic, layered drones using Uilleann pipes, harmonium, fiddle, voice and more. It has the intensity of electronic music, but this is all acoustic musicin service of songs that are often centuries old. The opening track, “The Wild Rover,” goes back at least to the 16th century and is often thought to be a drinking song, one you might raise your glass to at a pub, singing, “No, nay, never no more / Will I play the wild rover / No, never no more.” But the original intent is that of a temperance song, and that’s how Lankum approach it, with a sustained heaviness to match the story’s consequence and building sense of regret. \u003cem>The Livelong Day\u003c/em> makes the past entirely fresh and present. —\u003cem>Bob Boilen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/21/771982922/lankum-and-the-strange-new-sounds-of-ireland\">Lankum’s All Songs Considered interview\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>7.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Caroline Shaw / Attacca Quartet\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Orange\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQlcyXacUrc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those who might consider the string quartet little more than a fusty, forgotten genre haven’t heard \u003cem>Orange\u003c/em>. With help from the expressively agile Attacca Quartet, Pulitzer-winning composer Caroline Shaw takes inspiration from the old masters but makes the music shine in her singular way. Shaw gene splices strands of Mozart and Ravel into rigorously assembled pieces such as “Plan & Elevation,” proving that while some tricks of string quartet architecture remain, her buildings emerge with fresh authority. From the album’s compact spaces to its expansive vistas, Shaw excels in the evocative power of the pluck—formally termed, pizzicato—which is the backbone of the ricocheting yet songful “Limestone & Felt.” They say the mark of a great artist is a smart, distinct and identifiable voice. If that’s true, Shaw has arrived, speaking loud and clear. —\u003cem>Tom Huizenga\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2019/04/19/700361912/caroline-shaws-love-letter-to-the-string-quartet\">All Things Considered’s review of \u003cem>Orange\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>6.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Sharon Van Etten\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Remind Me Tomorrow\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7sTHoeH0eA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Remind Me Tomorrow \u003c/em>opens with six seconds of silence. Then: simple piano chords. It’s a compelling, echoing acoustic introduction to a primarily synth-driven album, which at times resolves into chaotic crescendos. The starkness of those first chords of “I Told You Everything” offer a reprieve; a chance to gather yourself, to take one last breath before dunking deep beneath the surface. Because Sharon Van Etten has no time for superficiality. She pulls you under with her. Like that opening track warns, she tells you everything. \u003cem>Remind Me Tomorrow \u003c/em>is an album of introspection and honesty that never feels navel-gazing. In a time when people deploy terms like “emotional bandwidth” to refer to how much energy they have to support their own friends and family, this album reminds us that vulnerability is not a commodity, but the essence of genuine connection. —\u003cem>Raina Douris, World Cafe\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/766645155/sharon-van-etten-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Sharon Van Etten perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>5.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Aldous Harding\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Designer\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTgyJ8jWD3M\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>No music I heard this year convinced me I could hear my own cells dividing like \u003cem>Designer\u003c/em>, Aldous Harding’s approachable, enigmatic third album. It’s lovely, but how do you explain it? The New Zealand-born Harding writes songs in familiar, folk-simple forms but appends them with odd angles that sometimes land like jokes and sometimes like warnings. Voices emerge from the depths to thread hints of peril or restlessness into the fabric of gentle melodies. Harding’s lyrics are filled with poetic images that slip away when you try to grasp them—\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2019/02/19/695796657/aldous-harding-talks-about-her-intriguing-new-song-and-video\">she’s spoken\u003c/a> about her desire to resist interpretation. (With her flexible but utterly distinctive voice, she sometimes reminds me of Cat Stevens, if you never had a single clue what Cat Stevens’ songs were about.) The title track stops and starts as if looking over its shoulder to see if you’re still there. “The Barrel” could be a consideration of motherhood, or it could be about creation and destruction, a tale of a minor deity, off in a corner of the universe, a god sinking her fingers into clay, shaping a new world by rules as she imagines them. All that inscrutability could be off-putting, but \u003cem>Designer \u003c/em>is the kind of art that rewards questioning. It only frustrates if you demand answers. —\u003cem>Jacob Ganz\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/morning-becomes-eclectic/aldous-harding\">Aldous Harding performs live for KCRW’s \u003cem>Morning Becomes Eclectic\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>4.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Solange\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>When I Get Home\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6giKIu5jUvA\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Back when DJ Screw was plying his chopped-and-screwed mixtape trade heavy in Houston, Solange was living out her wonder years. His time-altering mixes—as otherworldly as Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist musings; as inventive as Kool Herc’s Merry-Go-Round breakbeat technique—were the soundtrack for anybody coming of age in the ’90s in H-Town. They tainted the water. They colored a universe. In the 19 years since DJ Screw’s death, his Screw music escaped Houston and infected the world. It practically became a genre unto itself, with DJs taking up the mantle, younger artists adopting the sound and producers incorporating his slurred, stutter-step technique. Then, Solange messed around and made the hardest Screw tape of the decade in the form of an R&B album: The woozy BPMs. The repetitive phrasing. The freestyle flows. If \u003cem>A Seat At The Table \u003c/em>was all about her giving the world a piece of her mind, \u003cem>When I Get Home\u003c/em> is Solange returning to her interior world for some peace of mind. It flew over some folks’ heads, but only because it so thoroughly resists the white gaze. “These are black-owned things,” as Solange sings on “Almeda.” She’s been around the world, professionally and personally, but there’s a special kind of power in being at home with yourself. —\u003cem>Rodney Carmichael\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/03/06/700256924/solange-at-home-in-space-city\">‘Still Tippin’: Solange At Home In Houston’\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>3.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Raphael Saadiq\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Jimmy Lee\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOrZgRJ88kc\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As a producer, an electric bassist and a singer-songwriter, Raphael Saadiq has long been meticulous: about chord voicings and melodic pathways, about the quantum mechanics of rhythm, about his sly evocations of classic soul and the wobble or sheen that brings them up to date. You could always count on him for craft and concision, the way you count on a sports car to roar to life when you turn the ignition key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Jimmy Lee\u003c/em>, Saadiq’s first studio release in eight years, has all of those musical trademarks in place. But it’s also untidy, uneasy, irresolvable. Drawing from personal history—including the death of his older brother, the album’s namesake, from a heroin overdose — Saadiq delivers an anguished suite of songs about black struggle and surrender, incarceration and redemption. The result is revelatory, not only for the raw emotion in his lyrics and delivery but also for the way that this material pushes his music out of a comfort zone. —\u003cem>Nate Chinen, WBGO\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/05/784786360/raphael-saadiq-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Raphael Saadiq perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>2.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Angel Olsen\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>All Mirrors\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaN60k0-zY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t know that the record was going to sound this way at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those words, spoken by Angel Olsen \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/05/776382293/angel-olsen-and-john-congleton-on-how-they-made-all-mirrors\">during a conversation\u003c/a> we had just after \u003cem>All Mirrors\u003c/em> was released this fall, summed up my sentiments too. This album, Olsen’s fourth, runs screaming from her quiet side, with songs propelled by string arrangements that, along with her dramatic vocal performance, enhance the lyricism of some of Olsen’s most energetic songs. She co-produced this record with John Congleton; those string parts were written by Ben Babbitt and arranged by Jherek Bischoff. Congleton told me that after they first made a solo acoustic version of the album (a version you may get a chance to hear in 2020), they worked to expand its scope, aiming for “early period Scott Walker” as an inspiration, “where it’s fantastic songs, with really cool arrangements and you’re hearing something totally new.” This is an album of deep inner struggles thrust onto a bigger stage, with words—”What about my dreams? What about the heart?”—that matter, magnified magnificently. —\u003cem>Bob Boilen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/05/776382293/angel-olsen-and-john-congleton-on-how-they-made-all-mirrors\">Angel Olsen’s All Songs Considered interview\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>1.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Brittany Howard\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Jaime\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfizQsGWOxI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Black radicalism, the philosopher Fred Moten has written, cannot be understood outside the context of its origins in oppression; as a force of rebirth, it also always breaks out of that context. The same, Moten says, is true of black music—a broken circle, rooted and free, it demands a new way of listening. The first solo album by Alabama Shakes front woman Brittany Howard inspires such heady thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sinking her fingers into the dirt of her own life story as a black biracial queer woman born in the Deep South, now living far West of that beloved, problematic home, Howard wrote a set of songs that invoke Moten’s image of the groove as a broken circle. These are songs that draw the ear into their slow rhythms, only to disrupt and rearrange themselves; that build melodies like vines growing, turning and knotting into loops, getting tangled as they move toward sun. They tell stories of desire with names like “Stay High,” unorthodox faith through declarations like “He Loves Me” and family history by facing painful memories (in “Goat Head,” the stench of racism permeates). Yet following her own perspective, Howard turns confession on its head. To realize her songs’ deceptively plainspoken complexity, Howard and producer Shawn Everett brought together jazz disruptors Nate Smith on drums and Robert Glasper on keys, alongside her old bandmate and musical anchor, bassist Zac Cockrell. They took chances. They got psychedelic, locked into heavy funk, slid into classic R&B and then cleared space for Howard to be lonely, like the blues chanteuse she also can be. This album is a radical act of self-claiming, one that does more than reintroduce a great 21st Century voice. It turns a broken circle into an open road. —\u003cem>Ann Powers\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/15/768439696/brittany-howard-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Brittany Howard perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+25+Best+Albums+Of+2019&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": true,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 4846,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 56
},
"modified": 1705021683,
"excerpt": "We listened, voted and argued our way from more than 250 nominated albums down to just 25. And there was a clear No. 1.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "We listened, voted and argued our way from more than 250 nominated albums down to just 25. And there was a clear No. 1.",
"title": "NPR's 25 Best Albums of 2019 | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "NPR's 25 Best Albums of 2019",
"datePublished": "2019-12-12T15:11:19-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-01-11T17:08:03-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "the-25-best-albums-of-2019",
"status": "publish",
"nprApiLink": "http://api.npr.org/query?id=778225628&apiKey=MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004",
"templateType": "standard",
"nprByline": "NPR Music",
"nprStoryDate": "Wed, 11 Dec 2019 06:59:52 -0500",
"nprLastModifiedDate": "Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:03:57 -0500",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"sticky": false,
"nprHtmlLink": "https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778225628/the-25-best-albums-of-2019?ft=nprml&f=778225628",
"nprImageAgency": "Illustration: Belinda Kou for NPR",
"nprStoryId": "778225628",
"nprRetrievedStory": "1",
"nprPubDate": "Wed, 11 Dec 2019 17:03:00 -0500",
"path": "/arts/13871426/the-25-best-albums-of-2019",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This list was made by writers, editors and producers at NPR Music operating under two rules: Albums had to be released during 2019 and no lead artist was allowed to appear on both this list and our list of the \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778226410/the-25-best-songs-of-2019\">\u003cem>25 Best Songs of 2019\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. You can find the rest of our picks for \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778229970/best-music-of-2019-editors-note\">\u003cem>the best music of 2019 here\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>25.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Tyler, The Creator\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/HmAsUQEFYGI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/HmAsUQEFYGI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Generally speaking, breaks-up are trash. But what if you’re not even allowed to call it a break-up?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>IGOR, \u003c/em>the fifth studio album from Tyler, The Creator, mourns a love that was never really allowed to flourish in the first place. Across 40 minutes, \u003cem>IGOR\u003c/em> draws, erases and redraws emotional lines in the sand, smudging up Tyler’s self-esteem with each new boundary crossed. The pining of “EARFQUAKE,” the short-lived euphoria of “I THINK,” the feeble negotiation of “NEW MAGIC WAND,” the obvious lie of “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE,” the diluted compromise of “ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?” Think of these tracks as the face muscles that construct the dead-eyed, sanguine smile you flash during that first unexpected run-in with your ex. Even with a supporting chorus of Kanye West, Lil Uzi Vert, La Roux, Solange and more, the true magic of this album is Tyler’s ability to let his guard down just enough to give you symphonic slivers of his heartbreak. —\u003cem>Sidney Madden\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2017/12/11/569203961/tyler-the-creator-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Tyler Perform At NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>24.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Tanya Tucker\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>While I’m Livin’\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/WVEd0YUx7X8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/WVEd0YUx7X8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In spite of the reverence shown for country music made in the 1970s and the groundswell of nostalgia for ’90s country, Tanya Tucker—an artist whose high-caliber hits spanned both eras—has been perpetually underappreciated. This year she found champions in Shooter Jennings and Brandi Carlile, who took up the task of framing Tucker with a warmly rustic, often rocking vintage sound on \u003cem>While I’m Livin’\u003c/em>. The album cast a more intimate spotlight on her gravelly timbre and the sensuality and gravitas of her phrasing, but more than that, its songs showcased her interpretive gifts and, at long last, placed her at the center of her own enthralling mythology. —\u003cem>Jewly Hight\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2019/11/12/778265643/hear-tanya-tucker-perform-selections-from-her-first-original-album-in-17-years\">Hear Tanya Tucker In Concert At AmericanaFest\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>23.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Kris Davis\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Diatom Ribbons\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/DVhEV5RDG4w'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/DVhEV5RDG4w'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In the hands of pianist Kris Davis, a musical phrase can bristle or bloom—sometimes managing both at once, as often happens on this visionary album. Working with two core partners, turntablist Val Jeanty and drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, Davis devises a new strain of avant-garde chamber-jazz, volatile yet gleaming. A clutch of blue-chip guests (like Nels Cline and Marc Ribot on guitars, Tony Malaby on tenor saxophone and Esperanza Spalding on spoken word) bring personality as well as fire. This is sound that refuses stasis, insisting on endless renewal from one moment to the next. —\u003cem>Nate Chinen, WBGO\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>22.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Bad Bunny & J Balvin\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>OASIS\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/kPc3Pe42bGI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/kPc3Pe42bGI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Bad Bunny and J Balvin have both taken up the charge to make urbano a worldwide project without sacrificing the hunger that has made the genre seem abrasive and vulgar to some in their industry. That this album-length collaboration by two of urbano’s most visible artists covered as much genre territory as it did prompted another examination of its often relegated place within “Latin” music, whatever that is. From the knotted bass punto guajiro on “Yo Le Llego” to the rock en español”Un Peso” with Enanitos Verdes’ Marciano Cantero to the two taking a backseat to Afrobeats rising star Mr. Eazi on the closer “Como Un Bebé,” \u003cem>OASIS \u003c/em>stretches across the spectrum of where urbano has been and where it’s going. —\u003cem>Stefanie Fernández\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2018/12/24/679179404/bad-bunny-en-espa-ol-el-nuevo-disco-y-sus-influencias\">Bad Bunny’s Alt.Latino interview\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>21.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>John Luther Adams\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Become Desert\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/1VN9TBfWAEo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/1VN9TBfWAEo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This is, simply put, one of the most stunning recordings of 2019. John Luther Adams’ follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize-winning \u003cem>Become Ocean\u003c/em> is brought to life here by the Seattle Symphony and its conductor emeritus Ludovic Morlot in grand-scale minimalist fashion. The orchestra’s 100 or so musicians and a chorus of singers weave a beatless, beatific drone that draws inspiration from the deceptive monotony of our planet’s deserts, where time only appears to stand still. Like its namesake, \u003cem>Become Desert\u003c/em> feels infinite, stretching out in every direction at once; even after 40 celestial minutes, its ending arrives unexpectedly, lest we forget that sand always runs out. —\u003cem>Otis Hart\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2014/09/28/350911062/an-inviting-apocalypse-john-luther-adams-on-become-ocean\">John Luther Adams on All Things Considered\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>20.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Sault\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>5\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/i1F0qO7QIR4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/i1F0qO7QIR4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>And then, out of thin air, an impossibly polished, balanced and restrained piece of work from a faceless trio—we think it’s a trio, at least—quietly slipped into the world. The surreptitious Sault—is it pronounced “soo” or “salt” or “so,” we wonder—may have connections to the equally mysterious-at-the-outset group Jungle, a rumor that has some heft given the evolved disco/pop/R&B/soul genetics they clearly share. But while mysteries are fun, and can be a slam-dunk marketing approach too, there’s no urgent need to solve this one. First of all, this lovely, wholly consistent album is answer enough. But also, the group will most likely be unavoidable in the new year, so enjoy the unknowing while you still can. —\u003cem>Andrew Flanagan\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>19.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Lana Del Rey\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Norman F****** Rockwell\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/qolmz4FlnZ0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/qolmz4FlnZ0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=ten%20year%20challenge&geo=US\">Twice this year\u003c/a> across social media, the so-called ten-year challenge meme made the rounds (and prompted some extremely 2019\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/kateo/status/1084199700427927553\"> cybersecurity concerns\u003c/a>). Consider, then, a side-by-side accounting for a certain pop star who came into full flower over the course of the decade: In 2011, Lana Del Rey’s mere presence was viewed by some as an affront to the ideal of authenticity; in 2019, few albums achieved the critical consensus that greeted \u003cem>Norman F****** Rockwell! \u003c/em>At some point between “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE6wxDqdOV0\">Video Games\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSX_OcpeJg\">The Greatest\u003c/a>,” Lana Del Rey went from upending accepted norms to voicing our collective unease.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Norman F****** Rockwell! \u003c/em>sharpens the singular vision that’s always animated Lana Del Rey’s body of work. As her discography has grown, her imagery has evolved: less shorthand, more self-reference. With callbacks crisscrossing place and time, her music is now made of her own sepia-toned mythology. In collaboration with producer Jack Antonoff, drawing on the Laurel Canyon sound, she achieves both timelessness and timeliness in tone. Wistful, resigned and cutting, it’s a fitting swan song for the decade. —\u003cem>Lyndsey McKenna\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/04/757545360/lana-del-rey-lives-in-americas-messy-subconscious\">Ann Powers on Lana Del Rey\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>18.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>iLe\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Almadura\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RTzL-G2kIA8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RTzL-G2kIA8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>iLe recorded \u003cem>Almadura\u003c/em> long before the political situation in Puerto Rico came to a historic conclusion this past summer, but the themes she addresses on the album were the same as those raised in the massive protests that eventually drove its governor from power: musical stands against injustice and inequality, passionate statements of cultural pride and a barely contained fury at being at the mercy of U.S. policies for over 100 years. Case in point: “Tu Rumba” comes across as a hypnotic love song that stands as a personal statement of desire, but like the best protest music, the power of the message is in the storytelling. It’s a cleverly-worded plea for social justice set to a masterful pastiche of Afro-Caribbean rhythms. The powerful music on \u003cem>Almadura \u003c/em>will long outlast the injustices iLe and the rest of the island are fighting against. —\u003cem>Felix Contreras\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/altlatino/2019/07/10/740190505/ile-and-making-movies-discuss-music-activism-and-mixing-the-two\">Alt.Latino’s interview with iLe\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>17.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Holly Herndon\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>PROTO\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/r4sROgbaeOs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/r4sROgbaeOs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>A spirit of collaboration courses through Holly Herndon’s third album, \u003cem>PROTO\u003c/em>. The talk that’s surrounded it has focused on Herndon’s co-creation of an AI that became part of an ensemble she worked with to make the record. While that’s of note, it does a disservice to the music, which is epic on every level. Human voices and machine voices coalesce in double helix formations; trance motifs and mile-wide drums offset the choir’s earnest emoting and lyrics unfurl like folk stories. \u003cem>PROTO \u003c/em>is an album about the human spirit and the future that new kinds of collaboration—or, as Herndon calls it,\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/hollyherndon/status/1199455651170263040\"> interdependence\u003c/a>—could bring. —\u003cem>Ruth Saxelby\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/767904887/the-2010s-a-music-making-evolution-and-revolution\">All Songs Considered interviews Holly Herndon\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>16.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Burna Boy\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>African Giant\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/4zvDLW5Klo8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/4zvDLW5Klo8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Burna Boy has been a superstar of Nigerian music for years. “I am an AFRICAN GIANT,” he blasted on Instagram after Coachella displayed his name on a festival poster with what he considered a too-small font. Months later, he released his fourth album with the same title. Whether it’s conceit or confidence, Burna Boy deserves to brag. Every one of the album’s 19 tracks is a gem and features his signature Afro-fusion genre blend of dancehall, reggae, R&B and hip-hop. Though fundamental African rhythms are clearly defined, the album’s dance-infused pop sensibility makes it a crossover success. And while its musicality and artfulness are outstanding, the album spans party anthems and themes of love, history and political activism too. It’s no surprise that Burna Boy received his first Grammy nomination for this album. Look for his name in larger fonts in the future. —\u003cem>Suraya Mohamed\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/18/779548274/burna-boy-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Burna Boy perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>15.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Ancestral Recall\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/FYFFV7exVWs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/FYFFV7exVWs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>New Orleans trumpeter Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah is one of the most compelling voices working in music today—and his latest “stretch music” album is possibly his most ambitious work to date. With guest artists including musician/poet/rapper/actor Saul Williams, \u003cem>Ancestral Recall\u003c/em> is an intense, keenly felt and richly articulated celebration of many of the musical streams that have nourished generations of the African, Native and Caribbean diasporas—a sonically and texturally spacious project that would feel urgent and necessary at almost any time, but asserts itself especially now. From the exuberant, endlessly intricate West African polyrhythms of “I Own The Night” to the Afro-Latinx groove of “The Shared Stories of Rivals” to the metallic, Afrofuturist clang of “Prophesy,” this project is both firmly rooted in the past and a vision of a dynamic, powerful future. —\u003cem>Anastasia Tsioulcas\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SxzS4mtH9o\">Watch Jazz Night In America’s Christian Scott special\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>14.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Weyes Blood\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Titanic Rising\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RFtRq6t3jOo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RFtRq6t3jOo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>A lot of artists made big, ambitious albums in 2019, but few soared as wondrously as Weyes Blood’s \u003cem>Titanic Rising. \u003c/em>Singer Natalie Mering’s meticulously layered harmonies drew comparisons to the celestial sounds of Enya and her winding melodies, crystalline voice and autumnal reflections owe just as much to ’70s folk-pop icons like Joni Mitchell or The Carpenters. It’s a beautiful and potent mix, one Mering deftly subverts with hints of madness. Songs suddenly stagger and devolve into warped or broken electronics while her videos, for songs like “Everyday” or “Mirror Forever,” include graphic scenes of murder, rape and drug use. It’s a beautiful world, but we are not okay. —\u003cem>Robin Hilton\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/786391406/weyes-blood-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Weyes Blood perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>13.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Our Native Daughters\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Songs Of Our Native Daughters\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/FeTEgDy7kbQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/FeTEgDy7kbQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Our Native Daughters chose a band name and album title that highlight the kinship ties between the four group members—Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah, Allison Russell and Leyla McCalla—and their musical, cultural and spiritual ancestors. It would’ve been a historic event for four women of color who write, reinterpret and perform roots music on banjo to simply come together and make music—their collaboration is, in and of itself, a reminder of the whitewashed African roots of their instruments. But, urged on by Giddens, they shaped a song cycle aimed at reversing the erasure of black women from American historical narratives, at zeroing in on the dehumanizing suffering black women faced under slavery, their strategies of survival and resistance, their sharp, sly critiques of oppressive systems, their creativity. The Daughters’ collaboration is enriched by the distinctness of each of their voices: the dogged Appalachian blues rock of Kiah’s “Black Myself,” the willowy reverence of Russell’s “Quasheba, Quasheba,” the commandingly vivid narration of Giddens’ harrowing call-and-response “Mama’s Cryin’ Long,” the Kreyol liveliness of McCalla’s “Lavi Difisil,” the polyrhythmic communal audacity of “Moon Meets the Sun.” It’s an album that rustles with collective imagination and purpose. —\u003cem>Jewly Hight\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/02/14/693624881/first-listen-our-native-daughters-songs-of-our-native-daughters\">Jewly Hight reviews \u003cem>Songs Of Our Native Daughters\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>12.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Ari Lennox\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Shea Butter Baby\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Qf06109Zivo'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Qf06109Zivo'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/artists/728737359/ari-lennox\">Ari Lennox\u003c/a> declared her intentions for her debut album right from the title. \u003cem>Shea Butter Baby\u003c/em> speaks to an often misunderstood and underrepresented music lover: The Black woman. The D.C. native sings about universally recognizable ebbs and flows of life on songs like “Broke,” “BMO” and “Speak To Me,” which are sprinkled with euphemisms that will hit women of color first. Producers Elite and Ron Gilmore handle the bulk of production, lacing her words with jazzy and soulful sonics that put her range on display. Awards season has begun and we’ve already seen \u003cem>Shea Butter Baby\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35mxg/ari-lennoxs-shea-butter-baby-deserves-better-than-its-award-season-soul-train-awards-grammys-2019-snubs\"> obviously snubbed\u003c/a> by the Soul Train Awards and the Grammys. It’s just more confirmation that we need Ari’s voice now more than ever. —\u003cem>Bobby Carter\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/25/763604571/ari-lennox-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Ari Lennox perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>11.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Vagabon\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Vagabon\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/mzFb1z_-Cvw'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/mzFb1z_-Cvw'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The working title for Laetitia Tamko’s second album as Vagabon was \u003cem>All the Women in Me\u003c/em>—a versatile phrase to sum up everything from the roles women play in society to the singer’s own complex identity as a Cameroonian who relocated to New York at 13. But the moniker didn’t stick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After 2017’s \u003cem>Infinite Worlds\u003c/em> pushed past the boundaries of bedroom pop, Tamko’s new record expands her sound still further, most notably landing on synth-smeared electro-pop in masterful, appropriately fluid songs like “Flood” and “Water Me Down.” Singing of her deep ambivalence about love and identity, Tamko ultimately settled on the only album title that could sum up the full measure of her sleek, soulful shape-shifting: \u003cem>Vagabon\u003c/em>. —\u003cem>Stephen Thompson\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/15/757514260/stream-laetitia-tamko-on-the-making-of-vagabon\">Laetitia Tamko On The Making Of \u003cem>Vagabon\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>10.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Jenny Hval\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>The Practice Of Love\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/wACSfREgJys'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/wACSfREgJys'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>What does it mean to make a family? How do we care for each other? How do we make sense of our relationships with our bodies or the planet—and how do those relationships impact each other? To grapple with these questions, Jenny Hval made her most accessible album yet; the production is delicately beautiful and hypnotic, with lyrics that unspool like poetry. Hval and her collaborators conjure Georgia O’Keefe, ponder childlessness and search for God. Quotidian objects—dried figs, stretch mark cream, a cigarette, a porn magazine—become vessels for meaning both grander and more visceral than expected. This isn’t \u003cem>love\u003c/em> in the strictly romantic sense—nor is it strictly platonic, or familial, or sexual. Instead, as the title promises, the album depicts intimacy as a process: a series of trials and metaphors that draw us closer to each other. —\u003cem>Marissa Lorusso\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>9.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>billy woods & Kenny Segal\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Hiding Places\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/gXFgjQ9dZ8M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/gXFgjQ9dZ8M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s said that comedy is tragedy plus time, but what if the tragedy never ends? Does the lengthening onslaught ever become absurd enough to laugh at? billy woods released two great albums in 2019: the jagged \u003cem>Terror Management\u003c/em> and \u003cem>Hiding Places\u003c/em>, a collaboration with L.A. producer Kenny Segal. The latter is an album-length self-excavation that crawls through moldy memories in a brutal poetry that is at times darkly funny but mostly wrestles with personal and societal truths that’ll leave you touched, shook. woods found an inspired partner in Segal, whose beats are built like the condemned house falling apart on the album’s cover. On “Speak Gently,” heavy fuzz guitar suddenly disintegrates as if Thanos had snapped his fingers; it’s disarming, haunting. woods rocks references to authors who distilled drama with forceful wordplay (John Steinbeck, J.D. Salinger and Charles Dickens), but he himself knocks at their door with an ability to wrap nostalgic imagery within a crucial moment that never leaves your psyche: “Dollar movie theater, dingy foyer, little kid, not a penny to my name / F*****’ with the joystick, pretendin’ I was really playin’.” —\u003cem>Lars Gotrich\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/11/778228299/9-rap-albums-as-dark-and-dystopian-as-2019\">billy woods is the rapper of 2019\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>8.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Lankum\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>The Livelong Day\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/JxKx-BBWX8Q'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/JxKx-BBWX8Q'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>This stunningly beautiful, trance-inducing album record draws heavily on traditional Irish folk music, but with a deep dark Dublin twist. The sound of drones play a central role in the overall tone of \u003cem>The Livelong Day. \u003c/em>Brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, Radi Peat and Cormac MacDiarmada create crushing, apocalyptic, layered drones using Uilleann pipes, harmonium, fiddle, voice and more. It has the intensity of electronic music, but this is all acoustic musicin service of songs that are often centuries old. The opening track, “The Wild Rover,” goes back at least to the 16th century and is often thought to be a drinking song, one you might raise your glass to at a pub, singing, “No, nay, never no more / Will I play the wild rover / No, never no more.” But the original intent is that of a temperance song, and that’s how Lankum approach it, with a sustained heaviness to match the story’s consequence and building sense of regret. \u003cem>The Livelong Day\u003c/em> makes the past entirely fresh and present. —\u003cem>Bob Boilen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/21/771982922/lankum-and-the-strange-new-sounds-of-ireland\">Lankum’s All Songs Considered interview\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>7.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Caroline Shaw / Attacca Quartet\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Orange\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/eQlcyXacUrc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/eQlcyXacUrc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Those who might consider the string quartet little more than a fusty, forgotten genre haven’t heard \u003cem>Orange\u003c/em>. With help from the expressively agile Attacca Quartet, Pulitzer-winning composer Caroline Shaw takes inspiration from the old masters but makes the music shine in her singular way. Shaw gene splices strands of Mozart and Ravel into rigorously assembled pieces such as “Plan & Elevation,” proving that while some tricks of string quartet architecture remain, her buildings emerge with fresh authority. From the album’s compact spaces to its expansive vistas, Shaw excels in the evocative power of the pluck—formally termed, pizzicato—which is the backbone of the ricocheting yet songful “Limestone & Felt.” They say the mark of a great artist is a smart, distinct and identifiable voice. If that’s true, Shaw has arrived, speaking loud and clear. —\u003cem>Tom Huizenga\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2019/04/19/700361912/caroline-shaws-love-letter-to-the-string-quartet\">All Things Considered’s review of \u003cem>Orange\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>6.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Sharon Van Etten\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Remind Me Tomorrow\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/j7sTHoeH0eA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/j7sTHoeH0eA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Remind Me Tomorrow \u003c/em>opens with six seconds of silence. Then: simple piano chords. It’s a compelling, echoing acoustic introduction to a primarily synth-driven album, which at times resolves into chaotic crescendos. The starkness of those first chords of “I Told You Everything” offer a reprieve; a chance to gather yourself, to take one last breath before dunking deep beneath the surface. Because Sharon Van Etten has no time for superficiality. She pulls you under with her. Like that opening track warns, she tells you everything. \u003cem>Remind Me Tomorrow \u003c/em>is an album of introspection and honesty that never feels navel-gazing. In a time when people deploy terms like “emotional bandwidth” to refer to how much energy they have to support their own friends and family, this album reminds us that vulnerability is not a commodity, but the essence of genuine connection. —\u003cem>Raina Douris, World Cafe\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/07/766645155/sharon-van-etten-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Sharon Van Etten perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>5.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Aldous Harding\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Designer\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/pTgyJ8jWD3M'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/pTgyJ8jWD3M'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>No music I heard this year convinced me I could hear my own cells dividing like \u003cem>Designer\u003c/em>, Aldous Harding’s approachable, enigmatic third album. It’s lovely, but how do you explain it? The New Zealand-born Harding writes songs in familiar, folk-simple forms but appends them with odd angles that sometimes land like jokes and sometimes like warnings. Voices emerge from the depths to thread hints of peril or restlessness into the fabric of gentle melodies. Harding’s lyrics are filled with poetic images that slip away when you try to grasp them—\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2019/02/19/695796657/aldous-harding-talks-about-her-intriguing-new-song-and-video\">she’s spoken\u003c/a> about her desire to resist interpretation. (With her flexible but utterly distinctive voice, she sometimes reminds me of Cat Stevens, if you never had a single clue what Cat Stevens’ songs were about.) The title track stops and starts as if looking over its shoulder to see if you’re still there. “The Barrel” could be a consideration of motherhood, or it could be about creation and destruction, a tale of a minor deity, off in a corner of the universe, a god sinking her fingers into clay, shaping a new world by rules as she imagines them. All that inscrutability could be off-putting, but \u003cem>Designer \u003c/em>is the kind of art that rewards questioning. It only frustrates if you demand answers. —\u003cem>Jacob Ganz\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.kcrw.com/music/shows/morning-becomes-eclectic/aldous-harding\">Aldous Harding performs live for KCRW’s \u003cem>Morning Becomes Eclectic\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>4.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Solange\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>When I Get Home\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/6giKIu5jUvA'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/6giKIu5jUvA'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Back when DJ Screw was plying his chopped-and-screwed mixtape trade heavy in Houston, Solange was living out her wonder years. His time-altering mixes—as otherworldly as Sun Ra’s Afrofuturist musings; as inventive as Kool Herc’s Merry-Go-Round breakbeat technique—were the soundtrack for anybody coming of age in the ’90s in H-Town. They tainted the water. They colored a universe. In the 19 years since DJ Screw’s death, his Screw music escaped Houston and infected the world. It practically became a genre unto itself, with DJs taking up the mantle, younger artists adopting the sound and producers incorporating his slurred, stutter-step technique. Then, Solange messed around and made the hardest Screw tape of the decade in the form of an R&B album: The woozy BPMs. The repetitive phrasing. The freestyle flows. If \u003cem>A Seat At The Table \u003c/em>was all about her giving the world a piece of her mind, \u003cem>When I Get Home\u003c/em> is Solange returning to her interior world for some peace of mind. It flew over some folks’ heads, but only because it so thoroughly resists the white gaze. “These are black-owned things,” as Solange sings on “Almeda.” She’s been around the world, professionally and personally, but there’s a special kind of power in being at home with yourself. —\u003cem>Rodney Carmichael\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/03/06/700256924/solange-at-home-in-space-city\">‘Still Tippin’: Solange At Home In Houston’\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>3.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Raphael Saadiq\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Jimmy Lee\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/QOrZgRJ88kc'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/QOrZgRJ88kc'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>As a producer, an electric bassist and a singer-songwriter, Raphael Saadiq has long been meticulous: about chord voicings and melodic pathways, about the quantum mechanics of rhythm, about his sly evocations of classic soul and the wobble or sheen that brings them up to date. You could always count on him for craft and concision, the way you count on a sports car to roar to life when you turn the ignition key.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Jimmy Lee\u003c/em>, Saadiq’s first studio release in eight years, has all of those musical trademarks in place. But it’s also untidy, uneasy, irresolvable. Drawing from personal history—including the death of his older brother, the album’s namesake, from a heroin overdose — Saadiq delivers an anguished suite of songs about black struggle and surrender, incarceration and redemption. The result is revelatory, not only for the raw emotion in his lyrics and delivery but also for the way that this material pushes his music out of a comfort zone. —\u003cem>Nate Chinen, WBGO\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/12/05/784786360/raphael-saadiq-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Raphael Saadiq perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>2.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Angel Olsen\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>All Mirrors\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/6uaN60k0-zY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/6uaN60k0-zY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>“I didn’t know that the record was going to sound this way at all.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those words, spoken by Angel Olsen \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/05/776382293/angel-olsen-and-john-congleton-on-how-they-made-all-mirrors\">during a conversation\u003c/a> we had just after \u003cem>All Mirrors\u003c/em> was released this fall, summed up my sentiments too. This album, Olsen’s fourth, runs screaming from her quiet side, with songs propelled by string arrangements that, along with her dramatic vocal performance, enhance the lyricism of some of Olsen’s most energetic songs. She co-produced this record with John Congleton; those string parts were written by Ben Babbitt and arranged by Jherek Bischoff. Congleton told me that after they first made a solo acoustic version of the album (a version you may get a chance to hear in 2020), they worked to expand its scope, aiming for “early period Scott Walker” as an inspiration, “where it’s fantastic songs, with really cool arrangements and you’re hearing something totally new.” This is an album of deep inner struggles thrust onto a bigger stage, with words—”What about my dreams? What about the heart?”—that matter, magnified magnificently. —\u003cem>Bob Boilen\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/11/05/776382293/angel-olsen-and-john-congleton-on-how-they-made-all-mirrors\">Angel Olsen’s All Songs Considered interview\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003ch6>1.\u003c/h6>\n\u003ch3>Brittany Howard\u003c/h3>\n\u003ch3>\u003cem>Jaime\u003c/em>\u003c/h3>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/CfizQsGWOxI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/CfizQsGWOxI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Black radicalism, the philosopher Fred Moten has written, cannot be understood outside the context of its origins in oppression; as a force of rebirth, it also always breaks out of that context. The same, Moten says, is true of black music—a broken circle, rooted and free, it demands a new way of listening. The first solo album by Alabama Shakes front woman Brittany Howard inspires such heady thoughts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sinking her fingers into the dirt of her own life story as a black biracial queer woman born in the Deep South, now living far West of that beloved, problematic home, Howard wrote a set of songs that invoke Moten’s image of the groove as a broken circle. These are songs that draw the ear into their slow rhythms, only to disrupt and rearrange themselves; that build melodies like vines growing, turning and knotting into loops, getting tangled as they move toward sun. They tell stories of desire with names like “Stay High,” unorthodox faith through declarations like “He Loves Me” and family history by facing painful memories (in “Goat Head,” the stench of racism permeates). Yet following her own perspective, Howard turns confession on its head. To realize her songs’ deceptively plainspoken complexity, Howard and producer Shawn Everett brought together jazz disruptors Nate Smith on drums and Robert Glasper on keys, alongside her old bandmate and musical anchor, bassist Zac Cockrell. They took chances. They got psychedelic, locked into heavy funk, slid into classic R&B and then cleared space for Howard to be lonely, like the blues chanteuse she also can be. This album is a radical act of self-claiming, one that does more than reintroduce a great 21st Century voice. It turns a broken circle into an open road. —\u003cem>Ann Powers\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "floatright"
},
"numeric": [
"floatright"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>■ MORE: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/10/15/768439696/brittany-howard-tiny-desk-concert\">Watch Brittany Howard perform at NPR’s Tiny Desk\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=The+25+Best+Albums+Of+2019&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871426/the-25-best-albums-of-2019",
"authors": [
"byline_arts_13871426"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_75"
],
"tags": [
"arts_9464"
],
"affiliates": [
"arts_137"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871463",
"label": "arts_137"
},
"arts_13871003": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871003",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871003",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1576181211000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts"
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1576181211,
"format": "standard",
"title": "Christmas Song Cliché Bingo, 2019 Pop Music Edition",
"headTitle": "Christmas Song Cliché Bingo, 2019 Pop Music Edition | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>It’s that time of year again, when a sizable percentage of beloved musicians refuse to release any new material unless it’s bogged down in festive tropes. I know what you’re all (probably? maybe? not at all?) wondering: Do 2019’s primary contenders for “new Christmas classic” have any staying power? Well, that depends on how many seasonal mentions the singers can cram into a single track. Let me introduce you to a little game I’m going to call… Christmas Cliché Bingo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bingo card combines all of the key elements from the two contemporary songs that dominate every festive season: Mariah Carey’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXQViqx6GMY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">All I Want For Christmas is You\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fairytale of New York\u003c/a>” by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. Feel free to print it out, play along, and use it for drinking game-related purposes throughout the festive season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871309\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871309\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"Christmas Song Bingo\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christmas Song Bingo\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[NB: The “Non-Gift Wishlist” square applies to every mention of wanting something for Christmas that isn’t a physical present.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s do this!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Liam Payne, “All I Want (For Christmas)”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871326 alignnone\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ex-One Direction singer has the distinction of only ticking three boxes on the cliché card, thanks to his bold decision to write a seasonal song about clinging desperately to an unhealthy relationship for reasons that remain entirely unclear.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The complete and total absence of sleigh bells.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Almost none. You will probably never hear this again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9vsr9i_AFM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Alessia Cara, “Make it to Christmas”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871331 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alessia Cara’s seasonal single is basically a jauntier version of Liam Payne’s. She too is clinging to a relationship for arbitrary seasonal reasons, except she’s added a soupçon of familial guilt to make the whole thing even more unreasonable.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The lyrics “Don’t know what I’ll say to dad when he sees the empty chair / Don’t wanna hear my mom say ‘Told you so’” are so brazenly manipulative, it’s astonishing.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Only in department stores.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLrmP9GBd3c\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Kelly Rowland, “Love You More at Christmas Time” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871323 alignnone\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the song equivalent of a warm bowl of rice pudding. No one is particularly excited about it, but no one is mad at it either. Feel free to shrug your way through it nonchalantly.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> No idea. I’ve already forgotten how it goes.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Only at your auntie’s house.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Dw9uSWdUqI\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Ne-Yo, “Just Ain’t Christmas”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871330 alignnone\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want a song that makes you feel seasonal, sexy and sad simultaneously, this is the one for you. Ne-Yo also has the distinction of being the first artist on this list to describe a human woman as if she’s a metaphorical gift.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> First Christmas song of 2019 you can grind to.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Only in The Club.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-k8TJqs6o8\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Little Mix, “One I’ve Been Missing” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871327 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a heartfelt ballad about looking forward to spending the holidays with your boo. Because you spend all year away from your boo. Seems quite specific to being in a touring band, but you do you, Little Mix.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The ’60s girl group vibes on the chorus.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity: \u003c/strong>A couple of years… but only in the U.K.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=31&v=HN6GHQroP1I&feature=emb_logo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Jonas Brothers, “Like It’s Christmas”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871324 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All you need to know is that it’s enough of a hand-clap-infused bop that all the clichés become somehow more tolerable.\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nBest Bit:\u003c/strong> The actual sense of joy peppered throughout.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Totally dependent on how long Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas appear happy in their marriage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_Bb8wRx_T4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Lea Michele, “Christmas in New York”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871328 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lea Michele’s ode to New York sounds less like a real tribute to the city, and more like a checklist of tourist crap she’s crossing off from a brochure. If you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like if someone wrote a song for the holidays with the express aim of licensing it for a plethora of regional advertising, wonder no more.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The shoutout to Thanksgiving at the start is okay I guess?\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Will be used on every New York tourist board commercial, every winter, until the end of time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DudygHca9AY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Taylor Swift, “Christmas Tree Farm” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871322 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that really matters here is that if you encored this track with “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Welcome to New York” and Swift’s 2007 \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taylor_Swift_Holiday_Collection\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Holiday Collection\u003c/em>\u003c/a> EP, you’d have a full bingo card. The song is fine, but whatever.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The “You-hoo-hoo!” part at the end that sounds like the chorus to “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuXNumBwDOM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ME!\u003c/a>”\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Probably. But only because it’s Taylor Swift.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN3rDTAdM2o\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Katy Perry, “Cozy Little Christmas” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871329 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is it okay to rhyme “whisky” with “frisky,” and “stressin'” with “caressin'”? Of course not. \u003cem>And\u003c/em> this Christmas single scores almost a complete card in Cliché Bingo. But it’s also the only one that’s been stuck in my head all week, so… Goddamnit, Katy Perry, you win.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The plinky piano.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Amazon Music subscribers had exclusive access to this a full year ago, but now this earworm has been unfurled on the rest of the world, expect to be cursing it annually for a long time to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg8Gk1iXEIs\u003c/p>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": true,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 1022,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 24
},
"modified": 1705021686,
"excerpt": "We count the clichés in this year's Christmas pop releases—and figure out which songs we'll have to hear in the future.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "We count the clichés in this year's Christmas pop releases—and figure out which songs we'll have to hear in the future.",
"title": "Christmas Song Cliché Bingo, 2019 Pop Music Edition | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Christmas Song Cliché Bingo, 2019 Pop Music Edition",
"datePublished": "2019-12-12T12:06:51-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-01-11T17:08:06-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "christmas-single-cliche-bingo-2019-pop-music-edition",
"status": "publish",
"templateType": "standard",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"sticky": false,
"path": "/arts/13871003/christmas-single-cliche-bingo-2019-pop-music-edition",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s that time of year again, when a sizable percentage of beloved musicians refuse to release any new material unless it’s bogged down in festive tropes. I know what you’re all (probably? maybe? not at all?) wondering: Do 2019’s primary contenders for “new Christmas classic” have any staying power? Well, that depends on how many seasonal mentions the singers can cram into a single track. Let me introduce you to a little game I’m going to call… Christmas Cliché Bingo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bingo card combines all of the key elements from the two contemporary songs that dominate every festive season: Mariah Carey’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXQViqx6GMY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">All I Want For Christmas is You\u003c/a>” and “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Fairytale of New York\u003c/a>” by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl. Feel free to print it out, play along, and use it for drinking game-related purposes throughout the festive season.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871309\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871309\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"Christmas Song Bingo\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Christmas Song Bingo\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>[NB: The “Non-Gift Wishlist” square applies to every mention of wanting something for Christmas that isn’t a physical present.]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Let’s do this!\u003c/p>\n\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Liam Payne, “All I Want (For Christmas)”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871326 alignnone\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-5-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The ex-One Direction singer has the distinction of only ticking three boxes on the cliché card, thanks to his bold decision to write a seasonal song about clinging desperately to an unhealthy relationship for reasons that remain entirely unclear.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The complete and total absence of sleigh bells.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Almost none. You will probably never hear this again.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/C9vsr9i_AFM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/C9vsr9i_AFM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Alessia Cara, “Make it to Christmas”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871331 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-10-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alessia Cara’s seasonal single is basically a jauntier version of Liam Payne’s. She too is clinging to a relationship for arbitrary seasonal reasons, except she’s added a soupçon of familial guilt to make the whole thing even more unreasonable.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The lyrics “Don’t know what I’ll say to dad when he sees the empty chair / Don’t wanna hear my mom say ‘Told you so’” are so brazenly manipulative, it’s astonishing.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Only in department stores.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/QLrmP9GBd3c'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/QLrmP9GBd3c'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Kelly Rowland, “Love You More at Christmas Time” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871323 alignnone\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-2-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the song equivalent of a warm bowl of rice pudding. No one is particularly excited about it, but no one is mad at it either. Feel free to shrug your way through it nonchalantly.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> No idea. I’ve already forgotten how it goes.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Only at your auntie’s house.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/_Dw9uSWdUqI'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/_Dw9uSWdUqI'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Ne-Yo, “Just Ain’t Christmas”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871330 alignnone\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-9-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you want a song that makes you feel seasonal, sexy and sad simultaneously, this is the one for you. Ne-Yo also has the distinction of being the first artist on this list to describe a human woman as if she’s a metaphorical gift.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> First Christmas song of 2019 you can grind to.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Only in The Club.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/k-k8TJqs6o8'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/k-k8TJqs6o8'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Little Mix, “One I’ve Been Missing” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871327 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-6-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a heartfelt ballad about looking forward to spending the holidays with your boo. Because you spend all year away from your boo. Seems quite specific to being in a touring band, but you do you, Little Mix.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The ’60s girl group vibes on the chorus.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity: \u003c/strong>A couple of years… but only in the U.K.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/HN6GHQroP1I'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/HN6GHQroP1I'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Jonas Brothers, “Like It’s Christmas”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871324 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-3-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All you need to know is that it’s enough of a hand-clap-infused bop that all the clichés become somehow more tolerable.\u003cstrong>\u003cbr>\nBest Bit:\u003c/strong> The actual sense of joy peppered throughout.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Totally dependent on how long Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas appear happy in their marriage.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/d_Bb8wRx_T4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/d_Bb8wRx_T4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Lea Michele, “Christmas in New York”\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871328 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-7-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lea Michele’s ode to New York sounds less like a real tribute to the city, and more like a checklist of tourist crap she’s crossing off from a brochure. If you’ve ever wondered what it would sound like if someone wrote a song for the holidays with the express aim of licensing it for a plethora of regional advertising, wonder no more.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The shoutout to Thanksgiving at the start is okay I guess?\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Will be used on every New York tourist board commercial, every winter, until the end of time.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/DudygHca9AY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/DudygHca9AY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Taylor Swift, “Christmas Tree Farm” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871322 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-1-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All that really matters here is that if you encored this track with “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” “Welcome to New York” and Swift’s 2007 \u003ca href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Taylor_Swift_Holiday_Collection\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u003cem>Holiday Collection\u003c/em>\u003c/a> EP, you’d have a full bingo card. The song is fine, but whatever.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The “You-hoo-hoo!” part at the end that sounds like the chorus to “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuXNumBwDOM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ME!\u003c/a>”\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Probably. But only because it’s Taylor Swift.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/mN3rDTAdM2o'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/mN3rDTAdM2o'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp style=\"text-align: center\">\u003cstrong>Katy Perry, “Cozy Little Christmas” \u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871329 aligncenter\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-800x800.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/xmas-song-bingo-FINAL-8-1920x1920.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Is it okay to rhyme “whisky” with “frisky,” and “stressin'” with “caressin'”? Of course not. \u003cem>And\u003c/em> this Christmas single scores almost a complete card in Cliché Bingo. But it’s also the only one that’s been stuck in my head all week, so… Goddamnit, Katy Perry, you win.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Best Bit:\u003c/strong> The plinky piano.\u003cbr>\n\u003cstrong>Longevity:\u003c/strong> Amazon Music subscribers had exclusive access to this a full year ago, but now this earworm has been unfurled on the rest of the world, expect to be cursing it annually for a long time to come.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/sg8Gk1iXEIs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/sg8Gk1iXEIs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871003/christmas-single-cliche-bingo-2019-pop-music-edition",
"authors": [
"11242"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69"
],
"tags": [
"arts_3388",
"arts_9396",
"arts_3247"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871017",
"label": "arts"
},
"arts_13871285": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871285",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871285",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1576018038000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts",
"term": 137
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1576018038,
"format": "standard",
"title": "Roxette's Marie Fredriksson Dead at 61",
"headTitle": "Roxette’s Marie Fredriksson Dead at 61 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Singer Marie Fredriksson, who co-founded the hitmaking Swedish pop group Roxette, died yesterday in Sweden. She was 61 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she became one of the most recognizable voices of her era, Fredricksson grew up in a tiny village, where her mom was a factory worker and her dad a postman. There wasn’t any day care, so he’d take her along while delivering mail and sing to her—the experience was formative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2C5TjS2sh4\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fredriksson \u003ca href=\"http://www.mariefredriksson.se/bio.php\">began\u003c/a> her music career in earnest as a teenager, performing in bands before going solo. But later, as half of Roxette, Fredriksson scored half a dozen hits—including the one above—and sold around 75 million albums. Frederiksson was diagnosed with brain cancer seventeen years ago, but she kept recording and touring until 2016, when her illness eventually forced her and bandmate Per Gessle to \u003ca href=\"https://www.thelocal.se/20160418/swedish-roxette-cancel-europe-summer-tour\">cancel\u003c/a> an upcoming summer tour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking in 2015, Fredriksson \u003ca href=\"https://vi.se/artikel/srwAdMdB-a0Ev3DKW-e491b\">recalled\u003c/a>, to the Swedish magazine \u003cem>Vi\u003c/em>, of her extended period of sickness: “When things were at their most difficult… even if nobody else believed in me, I believed in myself. Felt I had to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCC_b5WHLX0\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Roxette%27s+Marie+Fredriksson+Dead+At+61&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": true,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 216,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 6
},
"modified": 1705021695,
"excerpt": "As half of Roxette, Fredriksson was one of Sweden's most notable pop exports, selling tens of millions of albums and garnering several hit songs.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "As half of Roxette, Fredriksson was one of Sweden's most notable pop exports, selling tens of millions of albums and garnering several hit songs.",
"title": "Roxette's Marie Fredriksson Dead at 61 | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Roxette's Marie Fredriksson Dead at 61",
"datePublished": "2019-12-10T14:47:18-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-01-11T17:08:15-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "roxettes-marie-fredriksson-dead-at-61",
"status": "publish",
"nprApiLink": "http://api.npr.org/query?id=786678163&apiKey=MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004",
"templateType": "standard",
"nprStoryDate": "Tue, 10 Dec 2019 11:57:00 -0500",
"nprLastModifiedDate": "Tue, 10 Dec 2019 14:22:30 -0500",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"nprHtmlLink": "https://www.npr.org/2019/12/10/786678163/marie-fredriksson-of-pop-group-roxette-dead-at-61?ft=nprml&f=786678163",
"nprImageAgency": "AFP via Getty Images",
"nprStoryId": "786678163",
"nprByline": "Neda Ulaby",
"sticky": false,
"nprImageCredit": "Patrik Stollarz",
"nprRetrievedStory": "1",
"nprPubDate": "Tue, 10 Dec 2019 14:22:00 -0500",
"path": "/arts/13871285/roxettes-marie-fredriksson-dead-at-61",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Singer Marie Fredriksson, who co-founded the hitmaking Swedish pop group Roxette, died yesterday in Sweden. She was 61 years old.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Before she became one of the most recognizable voices of her era, Fredricksson grew up in a tiny village, where her mom was a factory worker and her dad a postman. There wasn’t any day care, so he’d take her along while delivering mail and sing to her—the experience was formative.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/k2C5TjS2sh4'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/k2C5TjS2sh4'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Fredriksson \u003ca href=\"http://www.mariefredriksson.se/bio.php\">began\u003c/a> her music career in earnest as a teenager, performing in bands before going solo. But later, as half of Roxette, Fredriksson scored half a dozen hits—including the one above—and sold around 75 million albums. Frederiksson was diagnosed with brain cancer seventeen years ago, but she kept recording and touring until 2016, when her illness eventually forced her and bandmate Per Gessle to \u003ca href=\"https://www.thelocal.se/20160418/swedish-roxette-cancel-europe-summer-tour\">cancel\u003c/a> an upcoming summer tour.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Speaking in 2015, Fredriksson \u003ca href=\"https://vi.se/artikel/srwAdMdB-a0Ev3DKW-e491b\">recalled\u003c/a>, to the Swedish magazine \u003cem>Vi\u003c/em>, of her extended period of sickness: “When things were at their most difficult… even if nobody else believed in me, I believed in myself. Felt I had to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/yCC_b5WHLX0'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/yCC_b5WHLX0'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Roxette%27s+Marie+Fredriksson+Dead+At+61&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/em>\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871285/roxettes-marie-fredriksson-dead-at-61",
"authors": [
"byline_arts_13871285"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_235"
],
"tags": [
"arts_925"
],
"affiliates": [
"arts_137"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871288",
"label": "arts_137"
},
"arts_13871212": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871212",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871212",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575997252000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts",
"term": 140
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1575997252,
"format": "standard",
"title": "Bikini Kill to Headline Burger Boogaloo 2020",
"headTitle": "Bikini Kill to Headline Burger Boogaloo 2020 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13855938/watch-bikini-kills-first-reunion-show-in-l-a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bikini Kill reunited\u003c/a> in Los Angeles earlier this year, it was a near-religious experience for longtime fans who hadn’t seen them since their split in 1997.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the pioneering riot grrrl band is back to headline \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burger-boogaloo-11-tickets-65083832495\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Burger Boogaloo\u003c/a> in Oakland. Burger Records’ annual fest returns to Mosswood Park on July 11–12, 2020, and it marks Bikini Kill’s first Bay Area show in 25 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other punk royalty, including the Circle Jerks and Alice Bag, join Bikini Kill on the bill. The rest of the lineup includes a variety of punk, post-punk, indie rock and garage rock acts—veterans and young musicians alike—including Plastic Bertrand, Bleached, Pansy Division, Flipper, Carbonas, The Fevers, The Younger Lovers, Panty Raid and Midnite Snaxxx. As always, Burger Boogaloo is hosted by director and counterculture hero \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13860384/john-waters-talks-microdosing-homelessness-and-cops-in-pride-before-burger-boogaloo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Waters\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Burger Boogaloo is running a holiday ticket special to celebrate the lineup announcement. \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burger-boogaloo-11-tickets-65083832495\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/RM31JAhFT88\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 166,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 6
},
"modified": 1705021701,
"excerpt": "The pioneering riot grrrl band's first Bay Area show in 25 years takes place at Oakland's Mosswood Park in July.",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "The pioneering riot grrrl band's first Bay Area show in 25 years takes place at Oakland's Mosswood Park in July.",
"title": "Bikini Kill to Headline Burger Boogaloo 2020 | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Bikini Kill to Headline Burger Boogaloo 2020",
"datePublished": "2019-12-10T09:00:52-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-01-11T17:08:21-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "bikini-kill-to-headline-burger-boogaloo-2020",
"status": "publish",
"templateType": "standard",
"venueName": "Mosswood Park",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"sticky": false,
"startTime": 1594450800,
"endTime": 1594537200,
"startTimeString": "July 11–12, 2020",
"eventLink": "https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burger-boogaloo-11-tickets-65083832495",
"path": "/arts/13871212/bikini-kill-to-headline-burger-boogaloo-2020",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13855938/watch-bikini-kills-first-reunion-show-in-l-a\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bikini Kill reunited\u003c/a> in Los Angeles earlier this year, it was a near-religious experience for longtime fans who hadn’t seen them since their split in 1997.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, the pioneering riot grrrl band is back to headline \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burger-boogaloo-11-tickets-65083832495\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Burger Boogaloo\u003c/a> in Oakland. Burger Records’ annual fest returns to Mosswood Park on July 11–12, 2020, and it marks Bikini Kill’s first Bay Area show in 25 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other punk royalty, including the Circle Jerks and Alice Bag, join Bikini Kill on the bill. The rest of the lineup includes a variety of punk, post-punk, indie rock and garage rock acts—veterans and young musicians alike—including Plastic Bertrand, Bleached, Pansy Division, Flipper, Carbonas, The Fevers, The Younger Lovers, Panty Raid and Midnite Snaxxx. As always, Burger Boogaloo is hosted by director and counterculture hero \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13860384/john-waters-talks-microdosing-homelessness-and-cops-in-pride-before-burger-boogaloo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Waters\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Burger Boogaloo is running a holiday ticket special to celebrate the lineup announcement. \u003ca href=\"https://www.eventbrite.com/e/burger-boogaloo-11-tickets-65083832495\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/RM31JAhFT88'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/RM31JAhFT88'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871212/bikini-kill-to-headline-burger-boogaloo-2020",
"authors": [
"11387"
],
"programs": [
"arts_140"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_235"
],
"tags": [
"arts_7264",
"arts_1693",
"arts_8246"
],
"featImg": "arts_13863823",
"label": "arts_140"
},
"arts_13871151": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871151",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871151",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575939692000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "murray-bowles-legendary-bay-area-punk-photographer-dies-at-68",
"title": "Murray Bowles, Legendary Bay Area Punk Photographer, Dies at 68",
"publishDate": 1575939692,
"format": "standard",
"headTitle": "Murray Bowles, Legendary Bay Area Punk Photographer, Dies at 68 | KQED",
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts"
},
"content": "\u003cp>Murray Bowles, the photographer who chronicled the characters, chaos and energy of the Bay Area’s punk scene for over three decades, died at his home in Sacramento on Sunday. He was 68.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often seen in the middle of swirling crowds, one arm lifting his camera into the air, Bowles created tens of thousands of images that captured the close-up intensity of a punk show. Many of his photos became defining images, particularly in the East Bay punk scene, and his photos graced magazines, record artwork and film documentaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the great rites of passage of being a teenage Berkeley punk rocker was finally getting into one of Murray’s pictures,” said close friend Anna Brown. “It meant that you were \u003cem>in\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13232566\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Billie Joe Armstrong (third from right) sings with Operation Ivy onstage at 924 Gilman, circa 1988.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13232566\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Billie Joe Armstrong (third from right) sings with Operation Ivy onstage at 924 Gilman, circa 1988. \u003ccite>(Photo: Murray Bowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bowles photographed thousands of bands, including many at Berkeley punk club 924 Gilman during the 1980s and 1990s. Along with bands like Crucifix, Filth, Crimpshrine and Fang, some of Bowles’ most iconic early photos capture young bands that went on to become globally known, like Operation Ivy, Neurosis, and Green Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bowles preferred the warehouses and basements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871168\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1080px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray.jpg\" alt=\"Murray Bowles depicted on the cover of Green Day's album 'Dookie.'\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1080\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13871168\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray.jpg 1080w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-1020x1020.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles depicted on the cover of Green Day’s album ‘Dookie.’ \u003ccite>(Richie Bucher)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“He was right in there with the gritty basement shows, with kids, just sweaty, wild and free,” Brown said. “And I think that one of the things that’s so great about Murrays’ pictures is that sort of joyfulness. Even if was the most violent, negative band, the pictures came across as really sweet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowles was such a ubiquitous presence at Bay Area punk shows that he was included by artist Richie Bucher \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B51xw5phoJrsez1PWqTuOOzRAFGOnbtN0ESHKc0/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on the cover\u003c/a> of Green Day’s 1994 breakthrough album \u003cem>Dookie\u003c/em>, in his signature point-and-shoot pose. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me, he’s the most important part of that drawing,” said Bucher, who initially wanted to include everyone in the Berkeley punk scene in the tableau, an impossible task. “I don’t know if I thought about it at the time, but I realize now that by putting him in there, I wasn’t leaving anybody out. Because everybody from our scene could connect to him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Murray, you are a legend,” wrote Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B51rOYnHlA4/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on Instagram\u003c/a> on Monday. “I remember seeing your photos up on the walls at Gilman the first time I ever went there. Amazing photographer, musician. The nicest man and a great friend to the punks. East Bay punk has a heavy heart today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[See a giant collection of Murray Bowles’ photos \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005407748464&sk=media_set&set=a.211229612400629&type=3\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">here\u003c/a>.]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Questions about the future of Bowles’ archive have already been addressed. Brown said that, with Bowles, she’s planned for decades to publish a book of his photographs, a project she still hopes to see to fruition. Bowles selected all the images before he died, and helped with an outline for the book. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corbett Redford, director of the documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13239750/the-definitive-documentary-on-east-bay-punk-is-coming-pit-warning\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, said that having access to Bowles’ archive was a crucial component to the film. “He was so generous to give [his archive] to us. We would not have a documentary if it was not for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871189\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871189\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles (R) with Very Small Records founder David Hayes. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Corbett Redford)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was through the making of \u003cem>Turn It Around\u003c/em> that 25 years of Bowles’ photos were finally preserved. Redford tells the story of driving to Bowles’ San Jose home with fanzine editor Robert Eggplant and Tim Armstrong from the band Rancid. There, the three went through decades of old photos and negatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was all gathering dust in his closet—30,000 negatives that were pretty disorganized,” Redford said. The three loaded all of Bowles’ negatives into the trunk, and drove back to Oakland to be cleaned and digitized over time by Caoimhe Carty, the film’s online editor. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I was driving back, I had what I felt was the Tiffany Diamond in the trunk,” Redford said. “I kept thinking, ‘Please don’t get in an accident. If I do, the entire history is gone.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13243294\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Green Day with first drummer John Kiffmeyer at Gilman, circa 1990.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13243294\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Green Day with first drummer John Kiffmeyer at Gilman, circa 1990. \u003ccite>(Murray Bowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bowles was raised in San Gabriel, California, and learned photography from his grandfather. Upon graduating from UC Berkeley in 1976, he found work as a computer programmer in San Jose, but an assignment to photograph a show for the fanzine \u003cem>Ripper\u003c/em> got him hooked on the action of punk. “I started bringing my camera to every show I went to,” he told \u003cem>Maximum RocknRoll\u003c/em> in \u003ca href=\"http://maximumrocknroll.com/murray-bowles/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a 2009 interview\u003c/a>. “It was addictive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowles initially distributed his photos by bringing a box of them to shows and selling them for 15 cents each to cover development costs, eventually raising the price to a quarter. It became a tradition among punks to scrape together change and buy pictures of themselves at shows from the week prior. In 1987, \u003cem>Maximum RockNRoll\u003c/em> published a special issue dedicated to Bowles’ photography, titled \u003cem>If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pit?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871178\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles-800x596.jpg\" alt=\"A stagediver at a GBH show in the early 1980s. \" width=\"800\" height=\"596\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871178\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles-768x572.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A stagediver at a GBH show in the early 1980s, from ‘If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pit?’. \u003ccite>(Murray Bowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Later, Bowles maintained an \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/murraybowles/?hl=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">active Instagram account\u003c/a>, posting pictures from shows along with his other hobbies: food, beer, bicycling, nature. He also played the viola for several bands, as well as the Peninsula Symphony and the occasional theatre pit orchestra. He worked for Dell Computers until his retirement, when he moved to Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There, Brown said, he continued to go to underground shows up until the end, always taking photos. “He really captured this side of punk that was not cliché,” Brown said. “He really got it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871203\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayViola-2.jpg\" alt=\"Murray Bowles, playing his viola.\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13871203\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayViola-2.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayViola-2-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles, playing his viola. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Corbett Redford)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Matt Saincome, founder of the punk satire site The Hard Times, remembered Bowles for his commitment and tenacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My friends and I, we threw a show at a barn in Clayton when I was 16,” Saincome said. “There were 12 people there, out in the middle of nowhere, up this mountain, it didn’t even have an address. Absolutely no one came. No popular bands. And all of a sudden, Murray popped up. It’s me and 12 of my friends, and then him… His dedication to punk went so far that he wasn’t just going to a couple venues here and there. He said, ‘I’m gonna drive up this mountain in Clayton, to a barn with cows and chickens.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-800x530.jpg\" alt=\"Murray Bowles at Sibley Park, in the East Bay hills.\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871194\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-1200x796.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles at Sibley Park, in the East Bay hills. \u003ccite>(Anna Brown)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Saincome echoed the sentiment that Bowles chronicled people, music and moments that would otherwise be forgotten, with an eye for people’s humanity. “If you’re a Bay Area punk kid, you can go to \u003ca href=\"https://pbase.com/murraybowles/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">his website\u003c/a> and watch yourself grow up in real time through his photos,” Saincome said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just the fact that it was him taking your picture—it made you feel legitimate, and valuable, and part of something,” said Bucher. “I had trouble feeling part of anything. But if Murray’s there, then it’s hard not to feel included.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Becca Bolo, a Gilman regular in the 1990s, put it, “Murray was an incredibly talented person who gave us the gift of seeing ourselves as the beautiful humans that we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "Shooting from the crowd, Bowles captured the intimate energy of punk's brightest figures.",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1743405158,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": false,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 26,
"wordCount": 1321
},
"headData": {
"title": "Murray Bowles, Legendary Bay Area Punk Photographer, Dies at 68 | KQED",
"description": "Shooting from the crowd, Bowles captured the intimate energy of punk's brightest figures.",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Murray Bowles, Legendary Bay Area Punk Photographer, Dies at 68",
"datePublished": "2019-12-09T17:01:32-08:00",
"dateModified": "2025-03-31T00:12:38-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"sticky": false,
"templateType": "standard",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/arts/13871151/murray-bowles-legendary-bay-area-punk-photographer-dies-at-68",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Murray Bowles, the photographer who chronicled the characters, chaos and energy of the Bay Area’s punk scene for over three decades, died at his home in Sacramento on Sunday. He was 68.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Often seen in the middle of swirling crowds, one arm lifting his camera into the air, Bowles created tens of thousands of images that captured the close-up intensity of a punk show. Many of his photos became defining images, particularly in the East Bay punk scene, and his photos graced magazines, record artwork and film documentaries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One of the great rites of passage of being a teenage Berkeley punk rocker was finally getting into one of Murray’s pictures,” said close friend Anna Brown. “It meant that you were \u003cem>in\u003c/em>.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13232566\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Billie Joe Armstrong (third from right) sings with Operation Ivy onstage at 924 Gilman, circa 1988.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13232566\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1920x1280.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/BILLIE-JOE-SINGS-WITH-TIM-OF-OPERATION-IVY-1988-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Billie Joe Armstrong (third from right) sings with Operation Ivy onstage at 924 Gilman, circa 1988. \u003ccite>(Photo: Murray Bowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bowles photographed thousands of bands, including many at Berkeley punk club 924 Gilman during the 1980s and 1990s. Along with bands like Crucifix, Filth, Crimpshrine and Fang, some of Bowles’ most iconic early photos capture young bands that went on to become globally known, like Operation Ivy, Neurosis, and Green Day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Bowles preferred the warehouses and basements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871168\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1080px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray.jpg\" alt=\"Murray Bowles depicted on the cover of Green Day's album 'Dookie.'\" width=\"1080\" height=\"1080\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13871168\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray.jpg 1080w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-768x768.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Richie.Murray-1020x1020.jpg 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1080px) 100vw, 1080px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles depicted on the cover of Green Day’s album ‘Dookie.’ \u003ccite>(Richie Bucher)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“He was right in there with the gritty basement shows, with kids, just sweaty, wild and free,” Brown said. “And I think that one of the things that’s so great about Murrays’ pictures is that sort of joyfulness. Even if was the most violent, negative band, the pictures came across as really sweet.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowles was such a ubiquitous presence at Bay Area punk shows that he was included by artist Richie Bucher \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B51xw5phoJrsez1PWqTuOOzRAFGOnbtN0ESHKc0/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on the cover\u003c/a> of Green Day’s 1994 breakthrough album \u003cem>Dookie\u003c/em>, in his signature point-and-shoot pose. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For me, he’s the most important part of that drawing,” said Bucher, who initially wanted to include everyone in the Berkeley punk scene in the tableau, an impossible task. “I don’t know if I thought about it at the time, but I realize now that by putting him in there, I wasn’t leaving anybody out. Because everybody from our scene could connect to him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Murray, you are a legend,” wrote Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/p/B51rOYnHlA4/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">on Instagram\u003c/a> on Monday. “I remember seeing your photos up on the walls at Gilman the first time I ever went there. Amazing photographer, musician. The nicest man and a great friend to the punks. East Bay punk has a heavy heart today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>[See a giant collection of Murray Bowles’ photos \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100005407748464&sk=media_set&set=a.211229612400629&type=3\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">here\u003c/a>.]\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Questions about the future of Bowles’ archive have already been addressed. Brown said that, with Bowles, she’s planned for decades to publish a book of his photographs, a project she still hopes to see to fruition. Bowles selected all the images before he died, and helped with an outline for the book. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corbett Redford, director of the documentary \u003cem>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13239750/the-definitive-documentary-on-east-bay-punk-is-coming-pit-warning\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk\u003c/a>\u003c/em>, said that having access to Bowles’ archive was a crucial component to the film. “He was so generous to give [his archive] to us. We would not have a documentary if it was not for him.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871189\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871189\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/DavidHayes.Murray.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles (R) with Very Small Records founder David Hayes. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Corbett Redford)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It was through the making of \u003cem>Turn It Around\u003c/em> that 25 years of Bowles’ photos were finally preserved. Redford tells the story of driving to Bowles’ San Jose home with fanzine editor Robert Eggplant and Tim Armstrong from the band Rancid. There, the three went through decades of old photos and negatives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was all gathering dust in his closet—30,000 negatives that were pretty disorganized,” Redford said. The three loaded all of Bowles’ negatives into the trunk, and drove back to Oakland to be cleaned and digitized over time by Caoimhe Carty, the film’s online editor. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When I was driving back, I had what I felt was the Tiffany Diamond in the trunk,” Redford said. “I kept thinking, ‘Please don’t get in an accident. If I do, the entire history is gone.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13243294\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Green Day with first drummer John Kiffmeyer at Gilman, circa 1990.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13243294\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-1180x787.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-960x640.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-240x160.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-375x250.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/05/GREEN-DAY-AT-GILMAN-1990-PHOTO-BY-MURRAY-BOWLES-520x347.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Green Day with first drummer John Kiffmeyer at Gilman, circa 1990. \u003ccite>(Murray Bowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Bowles was raised in San Gabriel, California, and learned photography from his grandfather. Upon graduating from UC Berkeley in 1976, he found work as a computer programmer in San Jose, but an assignment to photograph a show for the fanzine \u003cem>Ripper\u003c/em> got him hooked on the action of punk. “I started bringing my camera to every show I went to,” he told \u003cem>Maximum RocknRoll\u003c/em> in \u003ca href=\"http://maximumrocknroll.com/murray-bowles/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a 2009 interview\u003c/a>. “It was addictive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bowles initially distributed his photos by bringing a box of them to shows and selling them for 15 cents each to cover development costs, eventually raising the price to a quarter. It became a tradition among punks to scrape together change and buy pictures of themselves at shows from the week prior. In 1987, \u003cem>Maximum RockNRoll\u003c/em> published a special issue dedicated to Bowles’ photography, titled \u003cem>If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pit?\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871178\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles-800x596.jpg\" alt=\"A stagediver at a GBH show in the early 1980s. \" width=\"800\" height=\"596\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871178\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles-160x119.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GBH.Bowles-768x572.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A stagediver at a GBH show in the early 1980s, from ‘If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, Why am I in the Pit?’. \u003ccite>(Murray Bowles)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Later, Bowles maintained an \u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/murraybowles/?hl=en\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">active Instagram account\u003c/a>, posting pictures from shows along with his other hobbies: food, beer, bicycling, nature. He also played the viola for several bands, as well as the Peninsula Symphony and the occasional theatre pit orchestra. He worked for Dell Computers until his retirement, when he moved to Sacramento.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There, Brown said, he continued to go to underground shows up until the end, always taking photos. “He really captured this side of punk that was not cliché,” Brown said. “He really got it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871203\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 600px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayViola-2.jpg\" alt=\"Murray Bowles, playing his viola.\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13871203\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayViola-2.jpg 600w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayViola-2-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles, playing his viola. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Corbett Redford)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Matt Saincome, founder of the punk satire site The Hard Times, remembered Bowles for his commitment and tenacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My friends and I, we threw a show at a barn in Clayton when I was 16,” Saincome said. “There were 12 people there, out in the middle of nowhere, up this mountain, it didn’t even have an address. Absolutely no one came. No popular bands. And all of a sudden, Murray popped up. It’s me and 12 of my friends, and then him… His dedication to punk went so far that he wasn’t just going to a couple venues here and there. He said, ‘I’m gonna drive up this mountain in Clayton, to a barn with cows and chickens.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13871194\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-800x530.jpg\" alt=\"Murray Bowles at Sibley Park, in the East Bay hills.\" width=\"800\" height=\"530\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13871194\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-800x530.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-768x509.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-1020x676.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown-1200x796.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/MurrayBowles.AnnaBrown.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Murray Bowles at Sibley Park, in the East Bay hills. \u003ccite>(Anna Brown)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Saincome echoed the sentiment that Bowles chronicled people, music and moments that would otherwise be forgotten, with an eye for people’s humanity. “If you’re a Bay Area punk kid, you can go to \u003ca href=\"https://pbase.com/murraybowles/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">his website\u003c/a> and watch yourself grow up in real time through his photos,” Saincome said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Just the fact that it was him taking your picture—it made you feel legitimate, and valuable, and part of something,” said Bucher. “I had trouble feeling part of anything. But if Murray’s there, then it’s hard not to feel included.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Becca Bolo, a Gilman regular in the 1990s, put it, “Murray was an incredibly talented person who gave us the gift of seeing ourselves as the beautiful humans that we are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "floatright"
},
"numeric": [
"floatright"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871151/murray-bowles-legendary-bay-area-punk-photographer-dies-at-68",
"authors": [
"185"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_235",
"arts_1564",
"arts_70"
],
"tags": [
"arts_21795",
"arts_1118",
"arts_1543",
"arts_822",
"arts_913"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871186",
"label": "arts"
},
"arts_13871065": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13871065",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13871065",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575824801000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts"
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1575824801,
"format": "standard",
"title": "Rapper Juice WRLD Dead At Age 21",
"headTitle": "Rapper Juice WRLD Dead At Age 21 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>According to media reports, the fast-rising rapper Juice WRLD has died at age 21 after a medical emergency at Chicago’s Midway Airport. TMZ first \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/12/8/21001244/chicago-rapper-juice-wrld-dead-midway-airport-seizure\">reported\u003c/a> the death, saying that witnesses saw him having a seizure after disembarking from a private plane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Chicago Police Department confirmed to NPR on Sunday morning that a “21-year-old male suffered a medical emergency” at Midway, and was transported to Christ Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The CPD spokesperson said that detectives are conducting a death investigation, but no further information was available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juice WRLD was born Jarad Anthony Higgins in 1998, and grew up in the Chicago area. In March, the rapper hit No. 1 on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8502815/juice-wrld-billboard-200-no-1-album-death-race-for-love\">Billboard 200\u003c/a> chart with his album \u003cem>Death Race for Love\u003c/em>; earlier this week, Spotify announced that he was among the \u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/streaming/8545219/drake-ed-sheeran-spotifys-most-streamed-decade-wrapped\">top five\u003c/a> male artists streamed in the U.S. this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He first came to mainstream recognition with a 2017 EP, \u003cem>Nothings Different\u003c/em>; soon after, he signed a contract with Interscope worth a \u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8244598/juice-wrld-signs-interscope-3-million-joint-venture\">reported\u003c/a> $3 million. One of the EP’s singles, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzB1VGEGcSU\">Lucid Dreams\u003c/a>,” went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an unpublished interview with NPR’s Rodney Carmichael recorded this March, Juice WRLD talked about his reputation for making emo rap, and how, in his opinion, hip-hop has evolved towards emotional vulnerability. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like people are not afraid to touch on all their emotions,” he said. “Back in the day, especially when everybody was trying to act hard all the time, I feel like people just wasn’t touching on that side of their life. I don’t know if they were scared or they was in fear … but I feel as though some of the people now are more mature and more grown than the people back then because they talk about everything that they went through. Everything, not just the violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juice WRLD continued, “If they was involved in traphouses and violence and all that other stuff, they don’t just talk about that. They talk about everything. One song could be about a band or a traphouse. The next song could be about somebody writing love letters and crying in the traphouse because they shorty left them or cheated or something.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Reports%3A+Rapper+Juice+WRLD+Dead+At+Age+21&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 405,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 9
},
"modified": 1705021714,
"excerpt": "The fast-rising rapper collapsed at a Chicago airport in the early hours on Sunday. ",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "The fast-rising rapper collapsed at a Chicago airport in the early hours on Sunday. ",
"title": "Rapper Juice WRLD Dead At Age 21 | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Rapper Juice WRLD Dead At Age 21",
"datePublished": "2019-12-08T09:06:41-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-01-11T17:08:34-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "rapper-juice-wrld-dead-at-age-21",
"status": "publish",
"nprApiLink": "http://api.npr.org/query?id=786064628&apiKey=MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004",
"templateType": "standard",
"nprStoryDate": "Sun, 08 Dec 2019 11:29:52 -0500",
"nprLastModifiedDate": "Sun, 08 Dec 2019 11:33:54 -0500",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"nprHtmlLink": "https://www.npr.org/2019/12/08/786064628/reports-rapper-juice-wrld-dead-at-age-21?ft=nprml&f=786064628",
"nprImageAgency": "Getty Images",
"nprStoryId": "786064628",
"nprByline": "Anastasia Tsioulcas",
"sticky": false,
"nprImageCredit": "Tim Mosenfelder",
"nprRetrievedStory": "1",
"nprPubDate": "Sun, 08 Dec 2019 11:33:00 -0500",
"path": "/arts/13871065/rapper-juice-wrld-dead-at-age-21",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>According to media reports, the fast-rising rapper Juice WRLD has died at age 21 after a medical emergency at Chicago’s Midway Airport. TMZ first \u003ca href=\"https://chicago.suntimes.com/2019/12/8/21001244/chicago-rapper-juice-wrld-dead-midway-airport-seizure\">reported\u003c/a> the death, saying that witnesses saw him having a seizure after disembarking from a private plane.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Chicago Police Department confirmed to NPR on Sunday morning that a “21-year-old male suffered a medical emergency” at Midway, and was transported to Christ Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The CPD spokesperson said that detectives are conducting a death investigation, but no further information was available.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juice WRLD was born Jarad Anthony Higgins in 1998, and grew up in the Chicago area. In March, the rapper hit No. 1 on the \u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/chart-beat/8502815/juice-wrld-billboard-200-no-1-album-death-race-for-love\">Billboard 200\u003c/a> chart with his album \u003cem>Death Race for Love\u003c/em>; earlier this week, Spotify announced that he was among the \u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/streaming/8545219/drake-ed-sheeran-spotifys-most-streamed-decade-wrapped\">top five\u003c/a> male artists streamed in the U.S. this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He first came to mainstream recognition with a 2017 EP, \u003cem>Nothings Different\u003c/em>; soon after, he signed a contract with Interscope worth a \u003ca href=\"https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8244598/juice-wrld-signs-interscope-3-million-joint-venture\">reported\u003c/a> $3 million. One of the EP’s singles, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzB1VGEGcSU\">Lucid Dreams\u003c/a>,” went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an unpublished interview with NPR’s Rodney Carmichael recorded this March, Juice WRLD talked about his reputation for making emo rap, and how, in his opinion, hip-hop has evolved towards emotional vulnerability. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I feel like people are not afraid to touch on all their emotions,” he said. “Back in the day, especially when everybody was trying to act hard all the time, I feel like people just wasn’t touching on that side of their life. I don’t know if they were scared or they was in fear … but I feel as though some of the people now are more mature and more grown than the people back then because they talk about everything that they went through. Everything, not just the violence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Juice WRLD continued, “If they was involved in traphouses and violence and all that other stuff, they don’t just talk about that. They talk about everything. One song could be about a band or a traphouse. The next song could be about somebody writing love letters and crying in the traphouse because they shorty left them or cheated or something.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Reports%3A+Rapper+Juice+WRLD+Dead+At+Age+21&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13871065/rapper-juice-wrld-dead-at-age-21",
"authors": [
"byline_arts_13871065"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_1564"
],
"tags": [
"arts_1091"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871066",
"label": "arts"
},
"arts_13870838": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13870838",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13870838",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575583201000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "sf-opera-hires-first-woman-music-director-a-first-for-a-top-tier-company",
"title": "SF Opera Hires First Woman Music Director, Makes History",
"publishDate": 1575583201,
"format": "standard",
"headTitle": "SF Opera Hires First Woman Music Director, Makes History | KQED",
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts"
},
"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sfopera.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The San Francisco Opera\u003c/a> has a new music director. It’s the first time a top-tier opera company in the United States has hired a woman in this role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An accomplished orchestral conductor, \u003ca href=\"https://sfopera.com/about-us/people/bios/artists/Eun-Sun-Kim/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eun Sun Kim \u003c/a>is originally from South Korea, and is under 40. She stands out among the other people holding key artistic positions in the opera world, who are mostly white, male and older.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very unusual to have a female conductor for any major opera house or symphony. San Francisco Opera only had their first main stage woman conductor in 2004—Sara Jobin, with \u003cem>Tosca—\u003c/em>and only has had a handful since,” said Bay Area-based opera commentator Charlise Tiee, who blogs at \u003ca href=\"https://operatattler.typepad.com/opera/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Opera Tattler\u003c/a>. “I think it’s a great choice and it’s a long time coming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, the roster of women in top artistic roles with opera companies around the country is pitifully short. The Chicago Opera Theater, a smaller company than the San Francisco Opera, also has a woman music director, Lidiya Yankovskaya. Karen Keltner was a resident conductor with the San Diego Opera for many years, a role with fewer responsibilities than music director. Francesca Zambello, who often directs productions in San Francisco, stands alone as an artistic director of a major U.S. opera company: she leads the Washington National Opera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kim is the fourth person to have held the role of music director with the nearly 100-year-old San Francisco Opera. She succeeds Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, who left in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From my very first moments at San Francisco Opera, I felt this was home,” said Kim in a press release. “There was an unusual feeling of open collaboration across so many facets of the company—a real sense of professional alchemy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kim’s career includes significant credits as a conductor in both opera houses and concert halls. She has led productions for major opera companies like the Washington National Opera and the Houston Grand Opera. Her symphonic appearances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and she has upcoming engagements with the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera House.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am moved to hear that my gifted colleague Eun Sun Kim, in addition to being Houston Grand Opera’s principal guest conductor, will be the new music director of San Francisco Opera,” said Patrick Summers, artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera, in an email. “She is a brilliant musician, a superb conductor, a keen judge of talent and an empathic and gracious colleague. She is the perfect person at the perfect time for beloved company.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kim, who conducted the San Francisco Opera’s recent production of \u003cem>Rusalka\u003c/em>, officially begins her tenure in August 2021. Her responsibilities will include leading the opera’s orchestra, chorus and music staff as well as helping with artistic planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’ll be making an early appearance with the company this Friday, Dec. 6, leading some of its young resident artists—the Adler Fellows—in their \u003ca href=\"https://sfopera.com/about-us/press-room/press-releases/2019-Adler-Fellows-Concert/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">final concert\u003c/a> of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Eun Sun Kim brings a unique energy to San Francisco Opera,” said the company’s director general, Matthew Shilvock, in a press statement. “She connects all of us—audiences, artists, technicians, administrators—in the pursuit of one singular artistic journey, bringing thoughtful leadership, deep compassion and an incredible respect for everyone in the theater.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "Eun Sun Kim will be the first woman in the position at a top-tier U.S. opera company.",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1738615429,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": false,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 13,
"wordCount": 592
},
"headData": {
"title": "SF Opera Hires First Woman Music Director, Makes History | KQED",
"description": "Eun Sun Kim will be the first woman in the position at a top-tier U.S. opera company.",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "SF Opera Hires First Woman Music Director, Makes History",
"datePublished": "2019-12-05T14:00:01-08:00",
"dateModified": "2025-02-03T12:43:49-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"sticky": false,
"templateType": "standard",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"excludeFromSiteSearch": "Include",
"articleAge": "0",
"path": "/arts/13870838/sf-opera-hires-first-woman-music-director-a-first-for-a-top-tier-company",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sfopera.com/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The San Francisco Opera\u003c/a> has a new music director. It’s the first time a top-tier opera company in the United States has hired a woman in this role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An accomplished orchestral conductor, \u003ca href=\"https://sfopera.com/about-us/people/bios/artists/Eun-Sun-Kim/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Eun Sun Kim \u003c/a>is originally from South Korea, and is under 40. She stands out among the other people holding key artistic positions in the opera world, who are mostly white, male and older.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very unusual to have a female conductor for any major opera house or symphony. San Francisco Opera only had their first main stage woman conductor in 2004—Sara Jobin, with \u003cem>Tosca—\u003c/em>and only has had a handful since,” said Bay Area-based opera commentator Charlise Tiee, who blogs at \u003ca href=\"https://operatattler.typepad.com/opera/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The Opera Tattler\u003c/a>. “I think it’s a great choice and it’s a long time coming.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, the roster of women in top artistic roles with opera companies around the country is pitifully short. The Chicago Opera Theater, a smaller company than the San Francisco Opera, also has a woman music director, Lidiya Yankovskaya. Karen Keltner was a resident conductor with the San Diego Opera for many years, a role with fewer responsibilities than music director. Francesca Zambello, who often directs productions in San Francisco, stands alone as an artistic director of a major U.S. opera company: she leads the Washington National Opera.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kim is the fourth person to have held the role of music director with the nearly 100-year-old San Francisco Opera. She succeeds Italian conductor Nicola Luisotti, who left in 2018.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“From my very first moments at San Francisco Opera, I felt this was home,” said Kim in a press release. “There was an unusual feeling of open collaboration across so many facets of the company—a real sense of professional alchemy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kim’s career includes significant credits as a conductor in both opera houses and concert halls. She has led productions for major opera companies like the Washington National Opera and the Houston Grand Opera. Her symphonic appearances include the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and she has upcoming engagements with the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera House.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I am moved to hear that my gifted colleague Eun Sun Kim, in addition to being Houston Grand Opera’s principal guest conductor, will be the new music director of San Francisco Opera,” said Patrick Summers, artistic and music director of the Houston Grand Opera, in an email. “She is a brilliant musician, a superb conductor, a keen judge of talent and an empathic and gracious colleague. She is the perfect person at the perfect time for beloved company.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kim, who conducted the San Francisco Opera’s recent production of \u003cem>Rusalka\u003c/em>, officially begins her tenure in August 2021. Her responsibilities will include leading the opera’s orchestra, chorus and music staff as well as helping with artistic planning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She’ll be making an early appearance with the company this Friday, Dec. 6, leading some of its young resident artists—the Adler Fellows—in their \u003ca href=\"https://sfopera.com/about-us/press-room/press-releases/2019-Adler-Fellows-Concert/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">final concert\u003c/a> of the year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Eun Sun Kim brings a unique energy to San Francisco Opera,” said the company’s director general, Matthew Shilvock, in a press statement. “She connects all of us—audiences, artists, technicians, administrators—in the pursuit of one singular artistic journey, bringing thoughtful leadership, deep compassion and an incredible respect for everyone in the theater.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13870838/sf-opera-hires-first-woman-music-director-a-first-for-a-top-tier-company",
"authors": [
"8608"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_235",
"arts_967"
],
"tags": [
"arts_1118",
"arts_1071",
"arts_3316"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871026",
"label": "arts"
},
"arts_13870973": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13870973",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13870973",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575576753000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "music-for-our-emergency",
"title": "Music For Our Climate Emergency",
"publishDate": 1575576753,
"format": "standard",
"headTitle": "Music For Our Climate Emergency | KQED",
"labelTerm": {
"term": 137,
"site": "arts"
},
"content": "\u003cp>Greta Thunberg did not sail across the Atlantic Ocean\u003ca href=\"https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/08/1045161\"> for two weeks\u003c/a> to become a lead singer. But, just days after the 16-year-old proselytizer\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit\"> censured\u003c/a> a room of world leaders many times her age for their shared “fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” the internet made her one, anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most impassioned moments of Thunberg’s September sermon at the United Nations quickly sprouted musical memes. In New York, a drummer \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/greta-thunberg-swedish-death-metal-892000/\">growled\u003c/a> her words above relentless Swedish death metal, a nod to her homeland that doubled as a fundraising blunderbuss for Greenpeace. Two producers turned the speech into bombastic electronica, with roaring choirs and stomping boots\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GOoajKDIME\"> set to scenes\u003c/a> of forests burning and children marching. And another\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABIbH-LtpFs\"> mashed\u003c/a> the day’s \u003cem>cri de cœur\u003c/em>—”Right here, right now is where we draw the line.”—with the Fatboy Slim hit “Right Here, Right Now.” Just days later, Slim himself slipped it into a live set, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWvFcR7UtAI\">sending \u003c/a>his audience into a tizzy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpWftLOWXLY\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmentalism in music is nothing new, of course. A full quarter-century before James Hansen \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html\">told Congress\u003c/a> that humans were changing their climate, Peter La Farge, an indigenous songwriter from the Southwest, repeatedly warned of environmental devastation on 1963’s\u003ca href=\"https://folkways.si.edu/peter-la-farge/as-long-as-the-grass-shall-grow-sings-of-the-indians/american-folk-american-indian/music/album/smithsonian\"> \u003cem>As Long as the Grass Shall\u003c/em> \u003cem>Grow\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a remarkable album of Native American laments about the various plagues of pioneers. From Joni Mitchell \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20\">singing\u003c/a> of the birds, bees and DDT to Neil Young\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33N8M6tQ4e0\"> rhapsodizing\u003c/a> of “Mother Earth / and her healing ways” in 1990 (or\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaaJCJvFP9M\"> grousing\u003c/a> about “old white guys trying to kill mother nature” in 2019), the stars of the ’60s and ’70s have often stepped into a\u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring\"> post-\u003cem>Silent Spring\u003c/em>\u003c/a> fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s never stopped, really: Depeche Mode\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwS5WexDVHI\"> sang\u003c/a> of forests dying and streams putrefying in 1983, presciently alluding to climate-science deniers. One of Dave Matthews’ earliest songs, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdLj0c9iaEA\">One Sweet World\u003c/a>,” inspired a Ben & Jerry’s flavor that has raised tens of thousands of dollars for an\u003ca href=\"http://saveourenvironment.org/\"> environmental coalition\u003c/a>. There are\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3skR9wQL8s\"> entire milieus\u003c/a> of metal and punk devoted to socioecological unsustainability, realms where\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiADLX1ZXc\"> nuclear weapons\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QjXtrQKf88\"> animal agriculture\u003c/a> share culpability. On her second album, Miley Cyrus wrote a\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNEZp8BWGEU\"> rock song\u003c/a> about “going green,” while Anohni sardonically\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs\"> longed\u003c/a> for it all to burn—”dogs crying for water… fish go belly-up in the sea”—above demonic horns and militant drums on “4 Degrees.” Mos Def has\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N5Bk8FMw9Y\"> rapped\u003c/a> about the money-hungry ruining the water supply. And even Smash Mouth tried to alarm us about the corroding ozone layer and melting ice shelf during “All Star,” that song from\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo2SNtFofWI\"> \u003cem>Shrek\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thunberg’s unlikely ascendance as a source of inspiring samples highlights something that’s missing: a song that helps us sort through our globally mounting anxiety about climate change and our role in our own potential doom, an actual anthem that propels people towards action. Despite its news-cycle ubiquity and increasing threat of globe-altering impacts, songs touching on climate change have rarely crossed the threshold of the mainstream, existing instead as a distant flicker on the radar of our collective awareness. “Big Yellow Taxi,” perhaps as close as we’ve gotten to a unifying environmental ode, turns 50 next year; it’s been so ubiquitous for so long it feels as pat as an advertising jingle.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the last few years, however, global warming and the intense feelings it fosters have begun to creep subtly into lyrics where you may overlook them, a quiet corollary to a movement \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-experimental-musicians-are-soundtracking-the-end-of-the-world/\">spider-webbing\u003c/a> through electronic music. Songwriters are increasingly treating climate unease like the very air we breathe or the technology we use—a part of life with which we must reckon and reconcile, like love or lust or loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These new tunes aren’t protest songs as we think of them, and they don’t shoehorn motivational slogans into their choruses; they are reflections of a reality lived under the specter of global collapse, the evidence of our personal adjustments to an anxiously indeterminate present and future. And their writers, unlike Thunberg, aren’t looking to proselytize to world leaders or to synthesize scientific research into an empowering single—they’re not the experts, after all. They’re just people offering others a way to sort through what’s happening, even to mourn what’s already been lost. It’s the difference between a command and a confession, a lecture and a conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“We’re afraid of darkness. We’re afraid of endings. We’re afraid of death,”\u003c/strong> says Tamara Lindeman, a Canadian singer whose work as The Weather Station has started \u003ca href=\"https://theweatherstation.bandcamp.com/track/the-most-dangerous-thing-about-you\">to integrate\u003c/a> snippets of impending disaster into her songs. Her next album, due in 2020, commits to the subject. “To look at something so profoundly devastating is so scary, but it’s powerful if you can allow yourself to feel those feelings. You can stop hiding from it. Having that experience through art is healthy.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcPDgWMkEiM\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some of these newer songs confront global warming like a mammoth sparring partner, squaring up to the subject wielding rhetoric like fists. Andrew Bird’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv68Kivrl5g\">Manifest\u003c/a>” sounds as breezy as a Sunday stroll through the Laurel Canyon, with licks of whistling and gliding strings. But in the first verse, he renounces the United States’ westward sprawl, condemning a country of unfaithful stewards. He gazes at the ocean with anxiety and ponders the way we burn ancient organisms—the fossils in our fossil fuels—just to drive to the grocery store. During 2016’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_UKDPR7k_E\">Generation Why\u003c/a>,” Weyes Blood offers her fearful vision like she’s reading the evening news: “It’s not the past that scares me / Now what a great future this is gonna be.” She spells out “YOLO” during the hook, her mind caught in the evermore-tight vice between modern indulgence and future existence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others, though, are almost subliminal in their climate change invocations. Justin Vernon hides his worry in plain sight during Bon Iver’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIzFg4eEvbQ\">Holyfields\u003c/a>.” With his clutched falsetto, he renders “The dawn is rising / the land ain’t rising” almost as an aside, as if the circumstances of\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/high-tides-flood-venice-for-third-time-in-one-week/2019/11/18/ad73a1f8-0701-11ea-ac12-3325d49eacaa_story.html\"> modern Venice\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html\"> future\u003c/a> Mumbai, Bangkok and Miami are so obvious they’re best left coded. Lana Del Rey slips her own stark observations into the final verse of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSX_OcpeJg\">The Greatest\u003c/a>,” calmly inserting a note about wildfires and eternal heat waves between lines about Kanye West’s blond hair and Hawaii’s bomb scare. On a song where “the culture is lit,” it’s a lyrical detail that’s easy to miss—just as it’s possible to overlook that, on the album’s \u003ca href=\"https://images.app.goo.gl/NyMxNWrxnBe1idkz5\">cover\u003c/a>, California is burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Mills knows that coastline in flames well.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Born in Santa Monica and raised in Malibu, the songwriter and star producer, once\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/arts/music/blake-mills-releases-his-second-album-heigh-ho.html\"> called\u003c/a> “the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal” by Eric Clapton, is conditioned to months of perpetually balmy days, interrupted with occasional downpours as fall slides into winter. But a few years ago that rain was slow to come, and the landscape around Los Angeles felt like a tinderbox. When, at last, storms arrived, a friend joked to Mills that maybe it would be the last rain ever for Los Angeles. The storm’s petrichor, Mills remembers, smelled of nostalgia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mills sat down at his piano and began to ponder what that might mean. The result—a sobering, tender ballad called “Summer All Over”—teeters at the threshold of hope and despair. With his sigh caked on the keys like mud at the bottom of some drought-devastated lake, Mills tempers his quiet horror by “looking for laughter, looking for kindness,” for any human quality that aims to right our colossal wrongs. Mills captures that seesaw of feelings musically with a pervasive flicker of melodic dissonance. Electronics drift in the background, like smog hovering above a troubled valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Writing about the season of summer inherently evokes a Beach Boys vibe, maybe because I’m in Los Angeles,” says Mills, who penned the song with Cass McCombs and hopes to release it on his third album. “But the implication of the warmest season happening all over the world at the same time is an ‘endless summer.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He notes the sad irony of a term that, less than 50 years ago, belonged to\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/05J8PFXdYKeYNb8YjqqJYr\"> a relatively carefree\u003c/a> Beach Boys collection. But “Summer All Over,” an enticing title that suggests burnished bodies on a California shoreline, is tragically beautiful, a warm hug from an old ghost. Rock and roll can’t be all good times on the bleeding edge of environmental ruin.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>While touring for the last several years,\u003c/strong> Kentucky songwriter Joan Shelley came to similar epiphanies along the California coast. Not long ago, she was driving north from Los Angeles to Seattle between shows, marveling at the scenery along California’s fabled Highway 1. She remembers the cliffs and the sunlight glittering on the Pacific, a fantasy come to life. That image is captured by “\u003ca href=\"https://joanshelley.bandcamp.com/track/stay-all-night\">Stay All Night\u003c/a>,” a seaside reflection from her quietly uneasy 2019 album,\u003ca href=\"https://joanshelley.bandcamp.com/album/like-the-river-loves-the-sea\"> \u003cem>Like the River Loves the Sea\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. She marvels at the vista but, in the final verse of her reverie, wonders how temporary it may be, hoping that “the waves don’t rise this high.” Actually, it was the opposite: On a recent return visit, that road was closed, nearby cliffs washed into the water by landslides.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=3u4Pe2YHH-Y&feature=emb_logo\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>During the album’s arresting centerpiece, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u4Pe2YHH-Y\">The Fading\u003c/a>,” Shelley retreats to Kentucky, the place Mark Twain (\u003ca href=\"https://oregonscribbler.com/mark-twain-i-want-to-be-in-kentucky-when-the-end-of-the-world-comes-because-they-are-always-20-years-behind/\">allegedly\u003c/a>) joked he’d like to be when the world ended, because it’s always years behind everywhere else. Shelley keys on that idea as she reclines to witness the natural world overrun the order we’ve imposed upon it. “I cheered the flood / when the water hit the wall and won,” she lilts, her cotton-soft voice temporarily stiffening. It’s a love song at, and for, the end of time, an exercise in appreciating what you’ve had the chance to cherish, whether it’s a drink of gin or a gentle lover or a lovely day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, Shelley admits, she turns off the news, because the devastation is too much to hear. As a songwriter, then, it was paramount to create a new way of approaching that helplessness, of facing those truths. These songs don’t protest reality—they simply acknowledge it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With the small rooms I play for, I’m hoping to give people tools for feeling where we may want to be numb. There’s a grief that is hard to admit to,” she says. “But through art, people can express those low-humming anxieties in a way that isn’t so hard to face.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sweetly wizened voice trailing Shelley’s during “The Fading” belongs to fellow Kentucky native Will Oldham. She, in turn, adds harmonies across \u003cem>I Made a Place\u003c/em>, Oldham’s first record as Bonnie “Prince” Billy in eight years. Moments of intense worry and woe linger in the record’s quiet corners, absorbing the light of these seemingly incandescent songs. During the album’s jaunty first verse, a home burns, part of a personal conflagration that Oldham suggests is spreading. And during the hypnotic “Nothing Is Busted,” a wounded woman and an oblivious man capture the dynamic between our ecosystem and our social order, a relationship hamstrung by the need for new things to sell, buy and discard. “This particular assemblage of molecules and memories someday soon may just run out of gas,” Oldham sings in one song’s closing verse without pausing to take so much as a breath, as if racing against the apocalypse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of \u003cem>I Made a Place\u003c/em>, Oldham dances around or with these end times. But during “This Is Far From Over,” an acoustic stunner near the album’s center, he faces them with softness and resolve. Presumably written for his newborn daughter, the song conjures a world where rising tides force her to take to the sea as an adult, a continental refugee who will do her best to persevere. It is a tragic lullaby, a preemptive apology for the mess she will inherit. Despite the title, Oldham is neither blithe nor disingenuous, using the last verse to confront the possibility that new kinds of life will thrive in humanity’s absence. “The whole world’s far from over,” he sings in the final line at the edge of his falsetto, just where his voice might crack into tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Our kids are being handed a rotten deal, everyone’s children,”\u003c/strong> says The National’s Matt Berninger, father to a 10-year-old daughter, Isla. “The Industrial Revolution gave the Earth a gaping wound not that long ago in the grand scheme, and it’s bleeding out fast. But a tipping point is happening, I think, in understanding how rigged that system is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National have rarely been an overtly political band—Berninger has instead spent two decades mapping the darkest and most dangerous corners of his psyche. He’s worried out loud about\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPp-3QSXf1g\"> handing down\u003c/a> his worst habits to Isla, about\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZmE95t2Yw\"> taking love too hard\u003c/a> for his own health, and about\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxL_xRM0Wug\"> losing himself\u003c/a> in the\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCfWAVRR794\"> strange alchemy\u003c/a> of lust and blood and booze. But now the peril of climate change has entered that matrix of considerations, part of “the soup of everyone’s minds and hearts all the time,” as he puts it, alongside sex and drugs and comedy and general dread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2018, Berninger was at a wedding just north of Los Angeles when a song sketch from The National’s Aaron Dessner arrived. Berninger woke up one morning before sunset and, while wandering the streets, unspooled 17 verses to the loop, a sort of living chronicle of his consciousness. There were headline anxieties about the alt-right and immigration, opinions about R.E.M. and The Bible, an interest in the seemingly infinite minimalism of artist\u003ca href=\"http://www.artnet.com/artists/hanne-darboven/evolution-leibniz-a-bSB3naI0qNnejm9Es8cqXw2\"> Hanne Darboven\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Po61rjjdUPs\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When he sent the epic to Dessner and filmmaker and producer Mike Mills, they trimmed his diarist sprawl and added an unexpected twist: the dire verses of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvFrSG37idM\">Noble Experiment\u003c/a>,” a waltz for the end of humanity, released by indie-rock eccentrics Thinking Fellers Union 282 in 1994. During the finished version, “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/track/50DAgICmMnWaUVXQiLGlLx\">Not in Kansas\u003c/a>” from this year’s \u003cem>I Am Easy to Find\u003c/em>, a small choir intones those doomed words—”Be a fish or a weed or a sparrow / For the Earth has grown tired and all of your time has expired”—between Berninger’s own verses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National effectively nest the end of the world inside a laundry list of mundane thoughts; it’s like finding your own death certificate in the day’s otherwise ordinary mail. The world teems with distractions, “Not in Kansas” implies, to keep us from the crisis at the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know how any artist isn’t talking about all of this stuff—sexism, racism, global warming, corporate corruption. I can’t spend time on a song now unless it’s somehow \u003cem>aware\u003c/em> of that stuff,” Berninger says. “Art has the responsibility to try to enlighten, instead of \u003cem>just\u003c/em> entertain. Pop music is still afraid to get into it, but not everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the closest that recent pop has come to the subject is “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W9VYY5QpLg\">PARAD(w/m)E\u003c/a>,” a slyly sparkling 2018 single from the North Carolina duo Sylvan Esso. The tune is ebullient, with a chorus that sounds like a mechanized schoolyard chant and verses that shimmer like sunshine on the distant desert horizon. It’s possible to hear and even sing along without ever reflecting on its apocalyptic scenes—the gasless gas stations, the flora-less forests, the reprieve-less heat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W9VYY5QpLg\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singer Amelia Meath laughs ruefully about fans who show up to shows wearing homemade shirts reading “How’s that for manifesting our destiny,” having misinterpreted the song’s linchpin indictment as a self-help mantra fit for yogis. About halfway in, Nick Sanborn’s keyboards wobble from their glistening perch, slinking briefly into a morass beneath taunting handclaps. In the refrain, Meath’s proclamation of liberation—”We finally got free”—comes only after she reveals the cause: We’ve already ruined everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “PARAD(w/m)E” never landed on \u003cem>Billboard\u003c/em>‘s charts, it suggests a clear framework for some future global-warming protest anthem, much like Billie Eilish’s subtly hypnotic “all the good girls go to hell”: lyrics so sharp listeners might not feel the knife, surrounded by music that celebrates whatever it is we’ve salvaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one likes the guy at the party who is just talking about horrible stuff all the time. But that’s me,” says Meath, smiling. She’s worked to weave such concerns into Sylvan Esso’s third LP, likely arriving in 2020, without being didactic. “That song is cloaked, very specifically, to be easy to swallow. That is the dream: Make the funnest music about the heaviest shit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>In Iceland, mourners \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/08/19/okjokull-glacier-funeral-iceland-activists-establish-plaque/2049194001/\">\u003cstrong>hold\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> funerals for dead glaciers.\u003c/strong> In Washington state, a pioneering three-credit \u003ca href=\"https://www.uwb.edu/news/february-2018/environmental-grief\">course\u003c/a> called “Environmental Grief & Climate Anxiety: Coping in the Age of Consequences” teaches students how to sort through their despair and identify its sources. (The class subsequently became a\u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/us/global-warming-bringing-you-down-washington-state-offers-course-on-eco-anxiety-climate-grief.amp\"> Fox News punchline\u003c/a>.) And in magazines from\u003ca href=\"https://www.vogue.com/article/eco-anxiety-grief-mental-health-climate-change\"> \u003cem>Vogue\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/gy48d4/environmental-grief-climate-change-anxiety\"> \u003cem>Vice\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, recent articles about “eco-grief” signal the drift of these fears into the mainstream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Songs about climate change are an inevitable, essential, and overdue component of that movement, a necessary response and tool for people “to process the truth and the existential dread,” as Berninger puts it. And while these songs have slowly started to accumulate during the last several years, it seems that we’re just at the edge of a new tide of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, alongside new records from Sylvan Esso and The Weather Station, Grimes—a fringe pop star who has delighted in dancing at the edge of accessibility for a decade—will release\u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/news/grimes-announces-new-album-miss-anthropocene/\"> \u003cem>Miss Anthropocene\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. “Each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction,” she has written. So far, its singles have mined the power dynamics of abusive relationships and the burden of despondency, topics that get to the nuance of the overarching issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a presidential election year, when the United States is officially able \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/climate/trump-paris-agreement-climate.html\">to exit\u003c/a> the Paris Climate Agreement, Grimes likely won’t be alone, either in commiserating peers or coping listeners. The British singer-songwriter Bill Fay, now in his late 70s, touches on the topic for \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/news/bill-fay-announces-new-album-countless-branches-shares-new-song-listen/\">\u003cem>Countless Branches\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, due in January, while buzzy LA producer \u003ca href=\"http://shallou.com\">Shallou\u003c/a> cloaks concerns about environmental collapse in breakup imagery on an album due next summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of these songwriters work under the illusion that these tunes, however poppy or plainspoken, will literally \u003cem>fix\u003c/em> anything, from reversing President Donald Trump’s confusing climate-change \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/5622374/donald-trump-climate-change-hoax-event/\">denial\u003c/a> to adjusting people’s disposable plastic habits. As working musicians, they have practical issues of their own to navigate, anyway, as the mechanisms of distribution for their work—be it a server churning through electricity or\u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/9kz3y5/this-is-how-bad-your-vinyl-obsession-is-for-the-world\"> an LP made with petroleum\u003c/a> or a tour bus burning gas—inextricably entail a carbon footprint for now. Coldplay \u003ca href=\"https://news.yahoo.com/coldplay-postpones-future-global-tours-climate-change-fears-135905727.html\">won’t tour\u003c/a> behind their recent \u003cem>Everyday Life\u003c/em> until they can do so in a carbon-neutral way, a powerful stand from one of the world’s biggest bands but a strategy that’s not yet sustainable for small acts working merely for their living. It’s the essential friction of making and selling art that questions capitalist foundations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for now, these songs simply exist for the people who need them, their writers included. They’re not expressions of what they know or what they want you to do but only how they feel—and implicit permission slips for you to feel that way, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not hoping to shine a light on something for anybody. Everything that needs to be said is being said really clearly,” says Mills, referring to scientists and policy experts who know and can articulate what he cannot. “But my song is about how we’re reacting to that information. And despair in music can help soak up the despair of the people listening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Music+For+Our+Emergency&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "No, songs addressing climate change aren't new. But the new music that does seems animated less by a sunny streak of mainstream activism, and more by a certain feeling we all seem to be sharing.",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1729111703,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": false,
"hasVideo": true,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 40,
"wordCount": 3639
},
"headData": {
"title": "Music For Our Climate Emergency | KQED",
"description": "No, songs addressing climate change aren't new. But the new music that does seems animated less by a sunny streak of mainstream activism, and more by a certain feeling we all seem to be sharing.",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "Music For Our Climate Emergency",
"datePublished": "2019-12-05T12:12:33-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-10-16T13:48:23-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"sticky": false,
"nprImageCredit": "Shana Novak",
"nprByline": "Grayson Haver Currin",
"nprImageAgency": "Getty Images",
"nprStoryId": "784818349",
"nprApiLink": "http://api.npr.org/query?id=784818349&apiKey=MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004",
"nprHtmlLink": "https://www.npr.org/2019/12/05/784818349/songs-our-emergency-how-music-approaching-climate-change-crisis?ft=nprml&f=784818349",
"nprRetrievedStory": "1",
"nprPubDate": "Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:22:00 -0500",
"nprStoryDate": "Thu, 05 Dec 2019 06:00:00 -0500",
"nprLastModifiedDate": "Thu, 05 Dec 2019 11:22:49 -0500",
"templateType": "standard",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"path": "/arts/13870973/music-for-our-emergency",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Greta Thunberg did not sail across the Atlantic Ocean\u003ca href=\"https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/08/1045161\"> for two weeks\u003c/a> to become a lead singer. But, just days after the 16-year-old proselytizer\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit\"> censured\u003c/a> a room of world leaders many times her age for their shared “fairy tales of eternal economic growth,” the internet made her one, anyway.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most impassioned moments of Thunberg’s September sermon at the United Nations quickly sprouted musical memes. In New York, a drummer \u003ca href=\"https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/greta-thunberg-swedish-death-metal-892000/\">growled\u003c/a> her words above relentless Swedish death metal, a nod to her homeland that doubled as a fundraising blunderbuss for Greenpeace. Two producers turned the speech into bombastic electronica, with roaring choirs and stomping boots\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GOoajKDIME\"> set to scenes\u003c/a> of forests burning and children marching. And another\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABIbH-LtpFs\"> mashed\u003c/a> the day’s \u003cem>cri de cœur\u003c/em>—”Right here, right now is where we draw the line.”—with the Fatboy Slim hit “Right Here, Right Now.” Just days later, Slim himself slipped it into a live set, \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWvFcR7UtAI\">sending \u003c/a>his audience into a tizzy.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/zpWftLOWXLY'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/zpWftLOWXLY'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Environmentalism in music is nothing new, of course. A full quarter-century before James Hansen \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/1988/06/24/us/global-warming-has-begun-expert-tells-senate.html\">told Congress\u003c/a> that humans were changing their climate, Peter La Farge, an indigenous songwriter from the Southwest, repeatedly warned of environmental devastation on 1963’s\u003ca href=\"https://folkways.si.edu/peter-la-farge/as-long-as-the-grass-shall-grow-sings-of-the-indians/american-folk-american-indian/music/album/smithsonian\"> \u003cem>As Long as the Grass Shall\u003c/em> \u003cem>Grow\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, a remarkable album of Native American laments about the various plagues of pioneers. From Joni Mitchell \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20\">singing\u003c/a> of the birds, bees and DDT to Neil Young\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33N8M6tQ4e0\"> rhapsodizing\u003c/a> of “Mother Earth / and her healing ways” in 1990 (or\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaaJCJvFP9M\"> grousing\u003c/a> about “old white guys trying to kill mother nature” in 2019), the stars of the ’60s and ’70s have often stepped into a\u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring\"> post-\u003cem>Silent Spring\u003c/em>\u003c/a> fray.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s never stopped, really: Depeche Mode\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwS5WexDVHI\"> sang\u003c/a> of forests dying and streams putrefying in 1983, presciently alluding to climate-science deniers. One of Dave Matthews’ earliest songs, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdLj0c9iaEA\">One Sweet World\u003c/a>,” inspired a Ben & Jerry’s flavor that has raised tens of thousands of dollars for an\u003ca href=\"http://saveourenvironment.org/\"> environmental coalition\u003c/a>. There are\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3skR9wQL8s\"> entire milieus\u003c/a> of metal and punk devoted to socioecological unsustainability, realms where\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uiADLX1ZXc\"> nuclear weapons\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QjXtrQKf88\"> animal agriculture\u003c/a> share culpability. On her second album, Miley Cyrus wrote a\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNEZp8BWGEU\"> rock song\u003c/a> about “going green,” while Anohni sardonically\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi0q0O4V5Qs\"> longed\u003c/a> for it all to burn—”dogs crying for water… fish go belly-up in the sea”—above demonic horns and militant drums on “4 Degrees.” Mos Def has\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N5Bk8FMw9Y\"> rapped\u003c/a> about the money-hungry ruining the water supply. And even Smash Mouth tried to alarm us about the corroding ozone layer and melting ice shelf during “All Star,” that song from\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uo2SNtFofWI\"> \u003cem>Shrek\u003c/em>\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Thunberg’s unlikely ascendance as a source of inspiring samples highlights something that’s missing: a song that helps us sort through our globally mounting anxiety about climate change and our role in our own potential doom, an actual anthem that propels people towards action. Despite its news-cycle ubiquity and increasing threat of globe-altering impacts, songs touching on climate change have rarely crossed the threshold of the mainstream, existing instead as a distant flicker on the radar of our collective awareness. “Big Yellow Taxi,” perhaps as close as we’ve gotten to a unifying environmental ode, turns 50 next year; it’s been so ubiquitous for so long it feels as pat as an advertising jingle.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/94bdMSCdw20'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/94bdMSCdw20'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>In the last few years, however, global warming and the intense feelings it fosters have begun to creep subtly into lyrics where you may overlook them, a quiet corollary to a movement \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-experimental-musicians-are-soundtracking-the-end-of-the-world/\">spider-webbing\u003c/a> through electronic music. Songwriters are increasingly treating climate unease like the very air we breathe or the technology we use—a part of life with which we must reckon and reconcile, like love or lust or loss.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>These new tunes aren’t protest songs as we think of them, and they don’t shoehorn motivational slogans into their choruses; they are reflections of a reality lived under the specter of global collapse, the evidence of our personal adjustments to an anxiously indeterminate present and future. And their writers, unlike Thunberg, aren’t looking to proselytize to world leaders or to synthesize scientific research into an empowering single—they’re not the experts, after all. They’re just people offering others a way to sort through what’s happening, even to mourn what’s already been lost. It’s the difference between a command and a confession, a lecture and a conversation.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“We’re afraid of darkness. We’re afraid of endings. We’re afraid of death,”\u003c/strong> says Tamara Lindeman, a Canadian singer whose work as The Weather Station has started \u003ca href=\"https://theweatherstation.bandcamp.com/track/the-most-dangerous-thing-about-you\">to integrate\u003c/a> snippets of impending disaster into her songs. Her next album, due in 2020, commits to the subject. “To look at something so profoundly devastating is so scary, but it’s powerful if you can allow yourself to feel those feelings. You can stop hiding from it. Having that experience through art is healthy.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/mcPDgWMkEiM'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/mcPDgWMkEiM'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Some of these newer songs confront global warming like a mammoth sparring partner, squaring up to the subject wielding rhetoric like fists. Andrew Bird’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv68Kivrl5g\">Manifest\u003c/a>” sounds as breezy as a Sunday stroll through the Laurel Canyon, with licks of whistling and gliding strings. But in the first verse, he renounces the United States’ westward sprawl, condemning a country of unfaithful stewards. He gazes at the ocean with anxiety and ponders the way we burn ancient organisms—the fossils in our fossil fuels—just to drive to the grocery store. During 2016’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_UKDPR7k_E\">Generation Why\u003c/a>,” Weyes Blood offers her fearful vision like she’s reading the evening news: “It’s not the past that scares me / Now what a great future this is gonna be.” She spells out “YOLO” during the hook, her mind caught in the evermore-tight vice between modern indulgence and future existence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others, though, are almost subliminal in their climate change invocations. Justin Vernon hides his worry in plain sight during Bon Iver’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIzFg4eEvbQ\">Holyfields\u003c/a>.” With his clutched falsetto, he renders “The dawn is rising / the land ain’t rising” almost as an aside, as if the circumstances of\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/high-tides-flood-venice-for-third-time-in-one-week/2019/11/18/ad73a1f8-0701-11ea-ac12-3325d49eacaa_story.html\"> modern Venice\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html\"> future\u003c/a> Mumbai, Bangkok and Miami are so obvious they’re best left coded. Lana Del Rey slips her own stark observations into the final verse of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrSX_OcpeJg\">The Greatest\u003c/a>,” calmly inserting a note about wildfires and eternal heat waves between lines about Kanye West’s blond hair and Hawaii’s bomb scare. On a song where “the culture is lit,” it’s a lyrical detail that’s easy to miss—just as it’s possible to overlook that, on the album’s \u003ca href=\"https://images.app.goo.gl/NyMxNWrxnBe1idkz5\">cover\u003c/a>, California is burning.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Blake Mills knows that coastline in flames well.\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Born in Santa Monica and raised in Malibu, the songwriter and star producer, once\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/16/arts/music/blake-mills-releases-his-second-album-heigh-ho.html\"> called\u003c/a> “the last guitarist I heard that I thought was phenomenal” by Eric Clapton, is conditioned to months of perpetually balmy days, interrupted with occasional downpours as fall slides into winter. But a few years ago that rain was slow to come, and the landscape around Los Angeles felt like a tinderbox. When, at last, storms arrived, a friend joked to Mills that maybe it would be the last rain ever for Los Angeles. The storm’s petrichor, Mills remembers, smelled of nostalgia.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mills sat down at his piano and began to ponder what that might mean. The result—a sobering, tender ballad called “Summer All Over”—teeters at the threshold of hope and despair. With his sigh caked on the keys like mud at the bottom of some drought-devastated lake, Mills tempers his quiet horror by “looking for laughter, looking for kindness,” for any human quality that aims to right our colossal wrongs. Mills captures that seesaw of feelings musically with a pervasive flicker of melodic dissonance. Electronics drift in the background, like smog hovering above a troubled valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Writing about the season of summer inherently evokes a Beach Boys vibe, maybe because I’m in Los Angeles,” says Mills, who penned the song with Cass McCombs and hopes to release it on his third album. “But the implication of the warmest season happening all over the world at the same time is an ‘endless summer.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He notes the sad irony of a term that, less than 50 years ago, belonged to\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/album/05J8PFXdYKeYNb8YjqqJYr\"> a relatively carefree\u003c/a> Beach Boys collection. But “Summer All Over,” an enticing title that suggests burnished bodies on a California shoreline, is tragically beautiful, a warm hug from an old ghost. Rock and roll can’t be all good times on the bleeding edge of environmental ruin.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>While touring for the last several years,\u003c/strong> Kentucky songwriter Joan Shelley came to similar epiphanies along the California coast. Not long ago, she was driving north from Los Angeles to Seattle between shows, marveling at the scenery along California’s fabled Highway 1. She remembers the cliffs and the sunlight glittering on the Pacific, a fantasy come to life. That image is captured by “\u003ca href=\"https://joanshelley.bandcamp.com/track/stay-all-night\">Stay All Night\u003c/a>,” a seaside reflection from her quietly uneasy 2019 album,\u003ca href=\"https://joanshelley.bandcamp.com/album/like-the-river-loves-the-sea\"> \u003cem>Like the River Loves the Sea\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. She marvels at the vista but, in the final verse of her reverie, wonders how temporary it may be, hoping that “the waves don’t rise this high.” Actually, it was the opposite: On a recent return visit, that road was closed, nearby cliffs washed into the water by landslides.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/3u4Pe2YHH-Y'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/3u4Pe2YHH-Y'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>During the album’s arresting centerpiece, “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u4Pe2YHH-Y\">The Fading\u003c/a>,” Shelley retreats to Kentucky, the place Mark Twain (\u003ca href=\"https://oregonscribbler.com/mark-twain-i-want-to-be-in-kentucky-when-the-end-of-the-world-comes-because-they-are-always-20-years-behind/\">allegedly\u003c/a>) joked he’d like to be when the world ended, because it’s always years behind everywhere else. Shelley keys on that idea as she reclines to witness the natural world overrun the order we’ve imposed upon it. “I cheered the flood / when the water hit the wall and won,” she lilts, her cotton-soft voice temporarily stiffening. It’s a love song at, and for, the end of time, an exercise in appreciating what you’ve had the chance to cherish, whether it’s a drink of gin or a gentle lover or a lovely day.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sometimes, Shelley admits, she turns off the news, because the devastation is too much to hear. As a songwriter, then, it was paramount to create a new way of approaching that helplessness, of facing those truths. These songs don’t protest reality—they simply acknowledge it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“With the small rooms I play for, I’m hoping to give people tools for feeling where we may want to be numb. There’s a grief that is hard to admit to,” she says. “But through art, people can express those low-humming anxieties in a way that isn’t so hard to face.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The sweetly wizened voice trailing Shelley’s during “The Fading” belongs to fellow Kentucky native Will Oldham. She, in turn, adds harmonies across \u003cem>I Made a Place\u003c/em>, Oldham’s first record as Bonnie “Prince” Billy in eight years. Moments of intense worry and woe linger in the record’s quiet corners, absorbing the light of these seemingly incandescent songs. During the album’s jaunty first verse, a home burns, part of a personal conflagration that Oldham suggests is spreading. And during the hypnotic “Nothing Is Busted,” a wounded woman and an oblivious man capture the dynamic between our ecosystem and our social order, a relationship hamstrung by the need for new things to sell, buy and discard. “This particular assemblage of molecules and memories someday soon may just run out of gas,” Oldham sings in one song’s closing verse without pausing to take so much as a breath, as if racing against the apocalypse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For most of \u003cem>I Made a Place\u003c/em>, Oldham dances around or with these end times. But during “This Is Far From Over,” an acoustic stunner near the album’s center, he faces them with softness and resolve. Presumably written for his newborn daughter, the song conjures a world where rising tides force her to take to the sea as an adult, a continental refugee who will do her best to persevere. It is a tragic lullaby, a preemptive apology for the mess she will inherit. Despite the title, Oldham is neither blithe nor disingenuous, using the last verse to confront the possibility that new kinds of life will thrive in humanity’s absence. “The whole world’s far from over,” he sings in the final line at the edge of his falsetto, just where his voice might crack into tears.\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“Our kids are being handed a rotten deal, everyone’s children,”\u003c/strong> says The National’s Matt Berninger, father to a 10-year-old daughter, Isla. “The Industrial Revolution gave the Earth a gaping wound not that long ago in the grand scheme, and it’s bleeding out fast. But a tipping point is happening, I think, in understanding how rigged that system is.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National have rarely been an overtly political band—Berninger has instead spent two decades mapping the darkest and most dangerous corners of his psyche. He’s worried out loud about\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPp-3QSXf1g\"> handing down\u003c/a> his worst habits to Isla, about\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsZmE95t2Yw\"> taking love too hard\u003c/a> for his own health, and about\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxL_xRM0Wug\"> losing himself\u003c/a> in the\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCfWAVRR794\"> strange alchemy\u003c/a> of lust and blood and booze. But now the peril of climate change has entered that matrix of considerations, part of “the soup of everyone’s minds and hearts all the time,” as he puts it, alongside sex and drugs and comedy and general dread.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In December 2018, Berninger was at a wedding just north of Los Angeles when a song sketch from The National’s Aaron Dessner arrived. Berninger woke up one morning before sunset and, while wandering the streets, unspooled 17 verses to the loop, a sort of living chronicle of his consciousness. There were headline anxieties about the alt-right and immigration, opinions about R.E.M. and The Bible, an interest in the seemingly infinite minimalism of artist\u003ca href=\"http://www.artnet.com/artists/hanne-darboven/evolution-leibniz-a-bSB3naI0qNnejm9Es8cqXw2\"> Hanne Darboven\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/Po61rjjdUPs'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/Po61rjjdUPs'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>When he sent the epic to Dessner and filmmaker and producer Mike Mills, they trimmed his diarist sprawl and added an unexpected twist: the dire verses of “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvFrSG37idM\">Noble Experiment\u003c/a>,” a waltz for the end of humanity, released by indie-rock eccentrics Thinking Fellers Union 282 in 1994. During the finished version, “\u003ca href=\"https://open.spotify.com/track/50DAgICmMnWaUVXQiLGlLx\">Not in Kansas\u003c/a>” from this year’s \u003cem>I Am Easy to Find\u003c/em>, a small choir intones those doomed words—”Be a fish or a weed or a sparrow / For the Earth has grown tired and all of your time has expired”—between Berninger’s own verses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The National effectively nest the end of the world inside a laundry list of mundane thoughts; it’s like finding your own death certificate in the day’s otherwise ordinary mail. The world teems with distractions, “Not in Kansas” implies, to keep us from the crisis at the door.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t know how any artist isn’t talking about all of this stuff—sexism, racism, global warming, corporate corruption. I can’t spend time on a song now unless it’s somehow \u003cem>aware\u003c/em> of that stuff,” Berninger says. “Art has the responsibility to try to enlighten, instead of \u003cem>just\u003c/em> entertain. Pop music is still afraid to get into it, but not everyone.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps the closest that recent pop has come to the subject is “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W9VYY5QpLg\">PARAD(w/m)E\u003c/a>,” a slyly sparkling 2018 single from the North Carolina duo Sylvan Esso. The tune is ebullient, with a chorus that sounds like a mechanized schoolyard chant and verses that shimmer like sunshine on the distant desert horizon. It’s possible to hear and even sing along without ever reflecting on its apocalyptic scenes—the gasless gas stations, the flora-less forests, the reprieve-less heat.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/4W9VYY5QpLg'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/4W9VYY5QpLg'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>Singer Amelia Meath laughs ruefully about fans who show up to shows wearing homemade shirts reading “How’s that for manifesting our destiny,” having misinterpreted the song’s linchpin indictment as a self-help mantra fit for yogis. About halfway in, Nick Sanborn’s keyboards wobble from their glistening perch, slinking briefly into a morass beneath taunting handclaps. In the refrain, Meath’s proclamation of liberation—”We finally got free”—comes only after she reveals the cause: We’ve already ruined everything.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While “PARAD(w/m)E” never landed on \u003cem>Billboard\u003c/em>‘s charts, it suggests a clear framework for some future global-warming protest anthem, much like Billie Eilish’s subtly hypnotic “all the good girls go to hell”: lyrics so sharp listeners might not feel the knife, surrounded by music that celebrates whatever it is we’ve salvaged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“No one likes the guy at the party who is just talking about horrible stuff all the time. But that’s me,” says Meath, smiling. She’s worked to weave such concerns into Sylvan Esso’s third LP, likely arriving in 2020, without being didactic. “That song is cloaked, very specifically, to be easy to swallow. That is the dream: Make the funnest music about the heaviest shit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003chr>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>In Iceland, mourners \u003c/strong>\u003ca href=\"https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2019/08/19/okjokull-glacier-funeral-iceland-activists-establish-plaque/2049194001/\">\u003cstrong>hold\u003c/strong>\u003c/a>\u003cstrong> funerals for dead glaciers.\u003c/strong> In Washington state, a pioneering three-credit \u003ca href=\"https://www.uwb.edu/news/february-2018/environmental-grief\">course\u003c/a> called “Environmental Grief & Climate Anxiety: Coping in the Age of Consequences” teaches students how to sort through their despair and identify its sources. (The class subsequently became a\u003ca href=\"https://www.foxnews.com/us/global-warming-bringing-you-down-washington-state-offers-course-on-eco-anxiety-climate-grief.amp\"> Fox News punchline\u003c/a>.) And in magazines from\u003ca href=\"https://www.vogue.com/article/eco-anxiety-grief-mental-health-climate-change\"> \u003cem>Vogue\u003c/em>\u003c/a> to\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/gy48d4/environmental-grief-climate-change-anxiety\"> \u003cem>Vice\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, recent articles about “eco-grief” signal the drift of these fears into the mainstream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Songs about climate change are an inevitable, essential, and overdue component of that movement, a necessary response and tool for people “to process the truth and the existential dread,” as Berninger puts it. And while these songs have slowly started to accumulate during the last several years, it seems that we’re just at the edge of a new tide of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, alongside new records from Sylvan Esso and The Weather Station, Grimes—a fringe pop star who has delighted in dancing at the edge of accessibility for a decade—will release\u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/news/grimes-announces-new-album-miss-anthropocene/\"> \u003cem>Miss Anthropocene\u003c/em>\u003c/a>. “Each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction,” she has written. So far, its singles have mined the power dynamics of abusive relationships and the burden of despondency, topics that get to the nuance of the overarching issue.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a presidential election year, when the United States is officially able \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/04/climate/trump-paris-agreement-climate.html\">to exit\u003c/a> the Paris Climate Agreement, Grimes likely won’t be alone, either in commiserating peers or coping listeners. The British singer-songwriter Bill Fay, now in his late 70s, touches on the topic for \u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/news/bill-fay-announces-new-album-countless-branches-shares-new-song-listen/\">\u003cem>Countless Branches\u003c/em>\u003c/a>, due in January, while buzzy LA producer \u003ca href=\"http://shallou.com\">Shallou\u003c/a> cloaks concerns about environmental collapse in breakup imagery on an album due next summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of these songwriters work under the illusion that these tunes, however poppy or plainspoken, will literally \u003cem>fix\u003c/em> anything, from reversing President Donald Trump’s confusing climate-change \u003ca href=\"https://time.com/5622374/donald-trump-climate-change-hoax-event/\">denial\u003c/a> to adjusting people’s disposable plastic habits. As working musicians, they have practical issues of their own to navigate, anyway, as the mechanisms of distribution for their work—be it a server churning through electricity or\u003ca href=\"https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/9kz3y5/this-is-how-bad-your-vinyl-obsession-is-for-the-world\"> an LP made with petroleum\u003c/a> or a tour bus burning gas—inextricably entail a carbon footprint for now. Coldplay \u003ca href=\"https://news.yahoo.com/coldplay-postpones-future-global-tours-climate-change-fears-135905727.html\">won’t tour\u003c/a> behind their recent \u003cem>Everyday Life\u003c/em> until they can do so in a carbon-neutral way, a powerful stand from one of the world’s biggest bands but a strategy that’s not yet sustainable for small acts working merely for their living. It’s the essential friction of making and selling art that questions capitalist foundations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for now, these songs simply exist for the people who need them, their writers included. They’re not expressions of what they know or what they want you to do but only how they feel—and implicit permission slips for you to feel that way, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "floatright"
},
"numeric": [
"floatright"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m not hoping to shine a light on something for anybody. Everything that needs to be said is being said really clearly,” says Mills, referring to scientists and policy experts who know and can articulate what he cannot. “But my song is about how we’re reacting to that information. And despair in music can help soak up the despair of the people listening.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">\u003cem>Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NPR\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Music+For+Our+Emergency&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13870973/music-for-our-emergency",
"authors": [
"byline_arts_13870973"
],
"categories": [
"arts_22351",
"arts_2303",
"arts_69",
"arts_75"
],
"tags": [
"arts_1407",
"arts_2767",
"arts_9387",
"arts_21788"
],
"affiliates": [
"arts_137"
],
"featImg": "arts_13871025",
"label": "arts_137"
},
"arts_13870907": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13870907",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13870907",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575576541000
]
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "the-do-list-local-gifts-a-nia-wilson-film-angel-olsen-and-other-picks-for-dec-5-12",
"title": "The Do List: Local Gifts, a Nia Wilson Film, Angel Olsen and Other Picks for Dec. 5-12",
"publishDate": 1575576541,
"format": "audio",
"headTitle": "The Do List: Local Gifts, a Nia Wilson Film, Angel Olsen and Other Picks for Dec. 5-12 | KQED",
"labelTerm": {
"term": 140,
"site": "arts"
},
"content": "\u003cp>Looking for things to do in the Bay Area this weekend? The Do List has you covered with concerts, festivals, exhibitions, plays, performances and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can listen to this week’s episode with KQED’s Gabe Meline and Sam Lefebvre above, or read about our picks below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Feinstein\u003c/strong>: I don’t wanna say it… you don’t wanna admit it… but the holidays are here. And along with it come holiday concerts. It’s my personal opinion that if you’re gonna do a holiday concert, you should go all the way into syrupy sentimentalism, and after seeing him earlier this year, I can say that Michael Feinstein is the master of it. A constantly beaming smile, between-song stories about home and mother, it’s the whole nostalgic package. There’s a reason he’s among the best in the cabaret field. Michael Feinstein’s holiday show runs Thursday through Sunday, Dec. 5-8, in the elegant confines of Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://www.feinsteinssf.com/event/5f0c1805eed4142b59212366151094c7\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—GM\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angel Olsen\u003c/strong>: The other night I was at this sort of avant-drag theater performance in downtown Oakland, when one of the artists performed “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaN60k0-zY\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Lark\u003c/a>” by the songwriter Angel Olsen. It’s the opening song on her most recent album, \u003cem>All Mirrors\u003c/em>, and it really impressed on me just how instantly classic her work is—that in the midst of these ’90s rock anthems and expected torch songs, a drag queen does a two-month old ballad by Angel Olsen. She performs Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Fox Theater. \u003ca href=\"http://thefoxoakland.com/events/angel-olsen\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—SL\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashara Ekandayo Gallery Closing Reception\u003c/strong>: Nia Wilson, the 18-year-old woman who was murdered at MacArthur BART station a year and a half ago, had a lot of friends, a bright future, and with her cousins, a rap group, Girlz N the Hood. This week, there’s a short video screening and multimedia performance of \u003cem>Nia Wilson Station\u003c/em>, a project that examines the dangers that black women face in public spaces. It’s part of the final First Friday reception for Ashara Ekandayo Gallery, which is closing after two years with a show called \u003cem>Adjust Yo Eyes for This Darkness\u003c/em>. The reception and screening is Friday, Dec. 6, from 6pm–9pm, at Ashara Ekandayo Gallery in Oakland. \u003ca href=\"https://www.asharaekundayogallery.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—GM\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Local Gift Ideas\u003c/strong>: On Friday, Dec. 6, Oakland arts nonprofit \u003cstrong>Creative Growth\u003c/strong> holds their annual holiday studio sale. Creative Growth has played a critical role in promoting artwork by people with disabilities for decades, and this is a longstanding event where you can buy original works at affordable prices. It’s decorated the homes of some of my more stylish friends. \u003ca href=\"https://creativegrowth.org/exhibitions/holiday-studio-sale-2019\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>. On Saturday, Dec. 7, the \u003cstrong>East Bay Alternative Book & Zine Fest\u003c/strong> gets underway at Omni Commons in Oakland—the tenth annual installment of a crucial self-publishing summit. \u003ca href=\"https://omnicommons.org/calendar/events/10th-annual-east-bay-alternative-book-zine-fest/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>. And finally, on Sunday, Dec. 8, \u003cstrong>SFMOMA\u003c/strong> presents a small press book bazaar with community partners including Colpa Press and the Black Aesthetic. This event coincides with the opening of a new exhibition, \u003cem>Printed Publics: Contemporary Art and Design Publishing in the Bay Area\u003c/em>, and admission to the entire museum is free all day. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmoma.org/event/small-press-book-bazaar/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—SL\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Storm Large\u003c/strong>: Many people know this wonderful pop vocalist as a singer in the lounge- and classical-influenced ensemble Pink Martini. As for her own solo concerts… they can get \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kWpsB8x2Xs\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a little raucous\u003c/a>. Large brings her show “Holiday Ordeal” to the Hammer Theatre Center in San Jose on Saturday, Dec. 7; there’s an early show for the family, and a late show for adults that’s more risqué. Details here. And next weekend, coming full circle on this week’s picks, she’ll be at Feinstein’s in San Francisco; \u003ca href=\"https://www.feinsteinssf.com/event/fd576714964c8312665bd2f560da54d5\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—GM\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "It's holiday season—here are our picks for what to do this weekend.",
"status": "publish",
"parent": 0,
"modified": 1726764690,
"stats": {
"hasAudio": false,
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"paragraphCount": 9,
"wordCount": 671
},
"headData": {
"title": "The Do List: Local Gifts, a Nia Wilson Film, Angel Olsen and Other Picks for Dec. 5-12 | KQED",
"description": "It's holiday season—here are our picks for what to do this weekend.",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogDescription": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"twDescription": "",
"twImgId": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "The Do List: Local Gifts, a Nia Wilson Film, Angel Olsen and Other Picks for Dec. 5-12",
"datePublished": "2019-12-05T12:09:01-08:00",
"dateModified": "2024-09-19T09:51:30-07:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"audioUrl": "https://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio//2019/12/TheDoListforThursdayDec.mp3",
"sticky": false,
"templateType": "standard",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"startTime": 1575532800,
"endTime": 1576224000,
"startTimeString": "Dec. 5–12, 2019",
"path": "/arts/13870907/the-do-list-local-gifts-a-nia-wilson-film-angel-olsen-and-other-picks-for-dec-5-12",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Looking for things to do in the Bay Area this weekend? The Do List has you covered with concerts, festivals, exhibitions, plays, performances and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>You can listen to this week’s episode with KQED’s Gabe Meline and Sam Lefebvre above, or read about our picks below.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Michael Feinstein\u003c/strong>: I don’t wanna say it… you don’t wanna admit it… but the holidays are here. And along with it come holiday concerts. It’s my personal opinion that if you’re gonna do a holiday concert, you should go all the way into syrupy sentimentalism, and after seeing him earlier this year, I can say that Michael Feinstein is the master of it. A constantly beaming smile, between-song stories about home and mother, it’s the whole nostalgic package. There’s a reason he’s among the best in the cabaret field. Michael Feinstein’s holiday show runs Thursday through Sunday, Dec. 5-8, in the elegant confines of Feinstein’s at the Nikko Hotel in San Francisco. \u003ca href=\"https://www.feinsteinssf.com/event/5f0c1805eed4142b59212366151094c7\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—GM\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Angel Olsen\u003c/strong>: The other night I was at this sort of avant-drag theater performance in downtown Oakland, when one of the artists performed “\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaN60k0-zY\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Lark\u003c/a>” by the songwriter Angel Olsen. It’s the opening song on her most recent album, \u003cem>All Mirrors\u003c/em>, and it really impressed on me just how instantly classic her work is—that in the midst of these ’90s rock anthems and expected torch songs, a drag queen does a two-month old ballad by Angel Olsen. She performs Saturday, Dec. 7, at the Fox Theater. \u003ca href=\"http://thefoxoakland.com/events/angel-olsen\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—SL\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ashara Ekandayo Gallery Closing Reception\u003c/strong>: Nia Wilson, the 18-year-old woman who was murdered at MacArthur BART station a year and a half ago, had a lot of friends, a bright future, and with her cousins, a rap group, Girlz N the Hood. This week, there’s a short video screening and multimedia performance of \u003cem>Nia Wilson Station\u003c/em>, a project that examines the dangers that black women face in public spaces. It’s part of the final First Friday reception for Ashara Ekandayo Gallery, which is closing after two years with a show called \u003cem>Adjust Yo Eyes for This Darkness\u003c/em>. The reception and screening is Friday, Dec. 6, from 6pm–9pm, at Ashara Ekandayo Gallery in Oakland. \u003ca href=\"https://www.asharaekundayogallery.com/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—GM\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Local Gift Ideas\u003c/strong>: On Friday, Dec. 6, Oakland arts nonprofit \u003cstrong>Creative Growth\u003c/strong> holds their annual holiday studio sale. Creative Growth has played a critical role in promoting artwork by people with disabilities for decades, and this is a longstanding event where you can buy original works at affordable prices. It’s decorated the homes of some of my more stylish friends. \u003ca href=\"https://creativegrowth.org/exhibitions/holiday-studio-sale-2019\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>. On Saturday, Dec. 7, the \u003cstrong>East Bay Alternative Book & Zine Fest\u003c/strong> gets underway at Omni Commons in Oakland—the tenth annual installment of a crucial self-publishing summit. \u003ca href=\"https://omnicommons.org/calendar/events/10th-annual-east-bay-alternative-book-zine-fest/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>. And finally, on Sunday, Dec. 8, \u003cstrong>SFMOMA\u003c/strong> presents a small press book bazaar with community partners including Colpa Press and the Black Aesthetic. This event coincides with the opening of a new exhibition, \u003cem>Printed Publics: Contemporary Art and Design Publishing in the Bay Area\u003c/em>, and admission to the entire museum is free all day. \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfmoma.org/event/small-press-book-bazaar/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—SL\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Storm Large\u003c/strong>: Many people know this wonderful pop vocalist as a singer in the lounge- and classical-influenced ensemble Pink Martini. As for her own solo concerts… they can get \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kWpsB8x2Xs\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a little raucous\u003c/a>. Large brings her show “Holiday Ordeal” to the Hammer Theatre Center in San Jose on Saturday, Dec. 7; there’s an early show for the family, and a late show for adults that’s more risqué. Details here. And next weekend, coming full circle on this week’s picks, she’ll be at Feinstein’s in San Francisco; \u003ca href=\"https://www.feinsteinssf.com/event/fd576714964c8312665bd2f560da54d5\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">details here\u003c/a>.\u003cem>—GM\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13870907/the-do-list-local-gifts-a-nia-wilson-film-angel-olsen-and-other-picks-for-dec-5-12",
"authors": [
"185",
"11091"
],
"programs": [
"arts_140"
],
"categories": [
"arts_69",
"arts_70"
],
"tags": [
"arts_3944",
"arts_3247",
"arts_5355"
],
"featImg": "arts_13870980",
"label": "arts_140"
},
"arts_13870578": {
"type": "posts",
"id": "arts_13870578",
"meta": {
"index": "posts_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "13870578",
"score": null,
"sort": [
1575493893000
]
},
"parent": 0,
"labelTerm": {
"site": "arts"
},
"blocks": [],
"publishDate": 1575493893,
"format": "standard",
"disqusTitle": "EMPIRE Brought the Music Industry Back to San Francisco",
"title": "EMPIRE Brought the Music Industry Back to San Francisco",
"headTitle": "KQED Arts",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the early 2010s, the Bay Area’s rap scene was coming down from the high of the hyphy movement, which had flourished in the decade prior. Although Warner Brothers had a hit with E-40’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My Ghetto Report Card\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and the Lil Jon-produced “Tell Me When To Go” peaked in the Top 40, the dread-shaking, pill-popping subgenre didn’t go mainstream as predicted.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The region had also lost some of its music industry clout from the ’80s and ’90s, when Bill Graham Presents was one of the country’s most powerful promoters; Lookout Records took pop punk from East Bay subculture to platinum-selling genre; and Jive and Virgin were signing local rappers like Too $hort, E-40, Luniz and Richie Rich. Not to mention, the entire industry was figuring out how to turn a profit in the streaming age: Spotify debuted in the United States in 2011, lowering overall payments to artists and devaluing recorded music as a whole.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this shifting landscape, a San Francisco audio engineer named Ghazi Shami claimed his place in a new niche with a digital-first enterprise. When his label \u003ca href=\"https://www.empi.re/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EMPIRE\u003c/a> debuted in 2010, its proprietary software for getting music onto platforms and keeping track of royalties became a huge draw for artists. Keeping its focus primarily to rap, EMPIRE helped local artists develop strategies for the digital age when selling CDs out of car trunks no longer sufficed. Over the last decade, it became a crucial link between the Bay Area’s talent and the tech companies driving change, including Apple in Cupertino and Pandora in Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 2011, EMPIRE’s influence spread along the West Coast, with the label distributing early projects by Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. By 2012, EMPIRE had over a dozen entries on the Billboard charts—including an EP by Snoop Dogg, and Trinidad James’ hit “All Gold Everything,” which was inescapable at clubs at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13870597\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-13870597\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GettyImages-491968329-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Sage the Gemini performs onstage at Power 106 FM's Powerhouse at Honda Center on May 17, 2014 in Anaheim, California.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sage the Gemini performs onstage at Power 106 FM's Powerhouse at Honda Center on May 17, 2014 in Anaheim, California. \u003ccite>(Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet even among this roster of rising mainstream artists and established hitmakers, EMPIRE never lost sight of the Bay Area’s rap scene. It released projects by Oakland street rap mainstays J Stalin and Philthy Rich, and helped Fairfield’s Sage the Gemini usher in a new wave of West Coast party music with his 2013 hit “Gas Pedal.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“His whole life and career, Ghazi watched talented creatives come up in the Bay Area and have to move elsewhere to fulfill their career goals and aspirations,” says EMPIRE Vice President Nima Etminan. “When he has the chance to do something on his own, a big part of his M.O. is to do it here in San Francisco, to provide a home for people in his community, and to hire people from his community so that the next generation of G-Eazys and Kehlanis don’t feel the need to move away from home to have a career.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As rap began to eclipse rock as America’s most popular genre, EMPIRE’s early releases attested to Shami’s keen ear for new sounds. Migos’ 2013 “Versace,” for instance, popularized a new cadence from Atlanta, the triplet flow, which transformed the sound of rap this decade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPIRE’s flexible contracts were another key to its early success. Rather than locking promising artists into six-album deals as a major label would, EMPIRE put out one-off releases and moved nimbly, matching the pace of a genre informed by viral trends. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“If you aren’t able to get the music out to the masses, that music can stall or falter if you’re on a traditional release schedule,” says Gavin Rhodes, the co-founder of the music PR company Audible Treats, whose client Young Dolph rose from Memphis standout to mainstream star thanks to the label. “Ghazi and EMPIRE very much embraced the immediacy of the genre and of the artists.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, EMPIRE expanded from primarily a digital distributor to a full-service record label and publishing company, working with artists on merchandise, brand partnerships, radio placements and sync opportunities for commercials and television. “I think now distribution is an afterthought, technology takes care of distribution,” says Etminan. “The key for companies like ours is to add value to what the artist is doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That can mean pairing an emerging talent with the right songwriters and producers; locking in collaborators for music videos; and making sure their songs and videos get the right placements and promotion on streaming platforms. “And down to sitting down and talking to artists about basic things like their vision, their goals, their motivations—what they want to get out of being an artist so we can figure out how to best position them,” Etminan continues. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13870600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-13870600\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"EMPIRE artist Rexx Life Raj.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">EMPIRE artist Rexx Life Raj. \u003ccite>(Nastia Voynovskaya/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This individualized approach allowed EMPIRE to play a key role in the rise of Northern California artists like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13869513/rexx-life-raj-father-figure-3-empire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rexx Life Raj\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13842545/mozzy-on-gangland-landlord-kendrick-and-how-a-persistent-grind-pays-off\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mozzy\u003c/a>, and to rehabilitate some established stars’ careers. With EMPIRE’s help, Fat Joe and Remy Ma logged their biggest hit in over a decade with 2016’s Grammy-nominated “All the Way Up.” The label helped orchestrate a second act for Tyga; took a chance on unlikely (and highly controversial) Florida star XXXtentacion; and played a key role in the rise of top West Coast talent like Southern California’s Anderson .Paak and Vallejo’s SOB x RBE. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the past two years, EMPIRE has only gotten bigger. In 2018, the company announced a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13830592/sf-based-hip-hop-distributor-empire-inks-deal-with-universal-music\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">distribution partnership\u003c/a> with Universal Music Group, and earlier this year, EMPIRE opened the doors to a new recording studio in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPIRE’s expansions have coincided with other forms of growth in the local music industry. At the beginning of 2019, Bandcamp established a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13848866/inside-bandcamp-oakland-online-music-retailers-new-venue-record-shop-and-office\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">downtown Oakland headquarters\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and venue with an emphasis on local, independent artists. And San Francisco’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13816703/can-text-me-records-become-san-franciscos-new-hit-factory\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Text Me Records\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> emerged from the city’s historic Different Fur Studios, which was famous for recording jazz greats like Herbie Hancock in the ’70s and has since transformed into an incubator for emerging Bay Area artists such as Tia Nomore and Drew Banga. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPIRE’s team is now global, spanning New York, London, Atlanta, Amsterdam and Jakarta (following its success with rapper Rich Brian, EMPIRE has its sights set on Indonesia and the Philippines). Yet the label remains firmly rooted in Shami’s hometown, with its headquarters overlooking San Francisco’s financial district. And for Bay Area artists who wouldn’t otherwise have an in with the traditional record label system, their commitment to creating opportunity in the region has been a lifeline. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Ghazi could easily go to L.A., and it could grow ten-times faster real quick,” says Rexx Life Raj. “But he’s so adamant about staying home and building something from home cause he loves the Bay so much.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n",
"disqusIdentifier": "13870578 https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/?p=13870578",
"disqusUrl": "https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2019/12/04/empire-brought-the-music-industry-back-to-san-francisco/",
"stats": {
"hasVideo": false,
"hasChartOrMap": false,
"hasAudio": false,
"hasPolis": false,
"wordCount": 1237,
"hasGoogleForm": false,
"hasGallery": false,
"hasHearkenModule": false,
"iframeSrcs": [],
"paragraphCount": 18
},
"modified": 1575570838,
"excerpt": "How a small San Francisco label established itself as a force in the streaming era while majors scrambled to adapt. ",
"headData": {
"twImgId": "",
"twTitle": "",
"ogTitle": "",
"ogImgId": "",
"twDescription": "",
"description": "How a small San Francisco label established itself as a force in the streaming era while majors scrambled to adapt. ",
"title": "EMPIRE Brought the Music Industry Back to San Francisco | KQED",
"ogDescription": "",
"schema": {
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Article",
"headline": "EMPIRE Brought the Music Industry Back to San Francisco",
"datePublished": "2019-12-04T13:11:33-08:00",
"dateModified": "2019-12-05T10:33:58-08:00",
"image": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png"
}
},
"guestAuthors": [],
"slug": "empire-brought-the-music-industry-back-to-san-francisco",
"status": "publish",
"templateType": "eod",
"featuredImageType": "standard",
"postYear": "2012",
"postArticleBullets": [
{
"bulletLink": "/education/1606/californias-confusing-fight-over-gay-marriage",
"bullet": "A federal court in San Francisco strikes down Proposition 8, the statewide ban on gay marriage passed by voters in 2008. "
},
{
"bulletLink": "/news/83560/instagram-drops-plans-to-allow-user-photos-in-advertising",
"bullet": "Facebook buys Instagram, a startup founded in San Francisco in 2010, and introduces advertising to the photo-sharing platform."
},
{
"bulletLink": "/news/77350/after-raucous-city-council-meeting-reid-hands-police-report-to-blueford-family-redacted",
"bullet": "Skyline High School senior Alan Blueford is shot and killed by Oakland police officer Miguel Masso, prompting protests and a federal wrongful death lawsuit against the city. No criminal charges are filed. "
}
],
"path": "/arts/13870578/empire-brought-the-music-industry-back-to-san-francisco",
"audioTrackLength": null,
"parsedContent": [
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the early 2010s, the Bay Area’s rap scene was coming down from the high of the hyphy movement, which had flourished in the decade prior. Although Warner Brothers had a hit with E-40’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My Ghetto Report Card\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and the Lil Jon-produced “Tell Me When To Go” peaked in the Top 40, the dread-shaking, pill-popping subgenre didn’t go mainstream as predicted.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The region had also lost some of its music industry clout from the ’80s and ’90s, when Bill Graham Presents was one of the country’s most powerful promoters; Lookout Records took pop punk from East Bay subculture to platinum-selling genre; and Jive and Virgin were signing local rappers like Too $hort, E-40, Luniz and Richie Rich. Not to mention, the entire industry was figuring out how to turn a profit in the streaming age: Spotify debuted in the United States in 2011, lowering overall payments to artists and devaluing recorded music as a whole.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this shifting landscape, a San Francisco audio engineer named Ghazi Shami claimed his place in a new niche with a digital-first enterprise. When his label \u003ca href=\"https://www.empi.re/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">EMPIRE\u003c/a> debuted in 2010, its proprietary software for getting music onto platforms and keeping track of royalties became a huge draw for artists. Keeping its focus primarily to rap, EMPIRE helped local artists develop strategies for the digital age when selling CDs out of car trunks no longer sufficed. Over the last decade, it became a crucial link between the Bay Area’s talent and the tech companies driving change, including Apple in Cupertino and Pandora in Oakland. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By 2011, EMPIRE’s influence spread along the West Coast, with the label distributing early projects by Kendrick Lamar and Schoolboy Q. By 2012, EMPIRE had over a dozen entries on the Billboard charts—including an EP by Snoop Dogg, and Trinidad James’ hit “All Gold Everything,” which was inescapable at clubs at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13870597\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-13870597\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/GettyImages-491968329-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Sage the Gemini performs onstage at Power 106 FM's Powerhouse at Honda Center on May 17, 2014 in Anaheim, California.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sage the Gemini performs onstage at Power 106 FM's Powerhouse at Honda Center on May 17, 2014 in Anaheim, California. \u003ccite>(Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet even among this roster of rising mainstream artists and established hitmakers, EMPIRE never lost sight of the Bay Area’s rap scene. It released projects by Oakland street rap mainstays J Stalin and Philthy Rich, and helped Fairfield’s Sage the Gemini usher in a new wave of West Coast party music with his 2013 hit “Gas Pedal.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "fullwidth"
},
"numeric": [
"fullwidth"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“His whole life and career, Ghazi watched talented creatives come up in the Bay Area and have to move elsewhere to fulfill their career goals and aspirations,” says EMPIRE Vice President Nima Etminan. “When he has the chance to do something on his own, a big part of his M.O. is to do it here in San Francisco, to provide a home for people in his community, and to hire people from his community so that the next generation of G-Eazys and Kehlanis don’t feel the need to move away from home to have a career.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As rap began to eclipse rock as America’s most popular genre, EMPIRE’s early releases attested to Shami’s keen ear for new sounds. Migos’ 2013 “Versace,” for instance, popularized a new cadence from Atlanta, the triplet flow, which transformed the sound of rap this decade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPIRE’s flexible contracts were another key to its early success. Rather than locking promising artists into six-album deals as a major label would, EMPIRE put out one-off releases and moved nimbly, matching the pace of a genre informed by viral trends. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“If you aren’t able to get the music out to the masses, that music can stall or falter if you’re on a traditional release schedule,” says Gavin Rhodes, the co-founder of the music PR company Audible Treats, whose client Young Dolph rose from Memphis standout to mainstream star thanks to the label. “Ghazi and EMPIRE very much embraced the immediacy of the genre and of the artists.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the years, EMPIRE expanded from primarily a digital distributor to a full-service record label and publishing company, working with artists on merchandise, brand partnerships, radio placements and sync opportunities for commercials and television. “I think now distribution is an afterthought, technology takes care of distribution,” says Etminan. “The key for companies like ours is to add value to what the artist is doing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That can mean pairing an emerging talent with the right songwriters and producers; locking in collaborators for music videos; and making sure their songs and videos get the right placements and promotion on streaming platforms. “And down to sitting down and talking to artists about basic things like their vision, their goals, their motivations—what they want to get out of being an artist so we can figure out how to best position them,” Etminan continues. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_13870600\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg class=\"size-medium wp-image-13870600\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-800x450.jpg\" alt=\"EMPIRE artist Rexx Life Raj.\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-800x450.jpg 800w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-160x90.jpg 160w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1-1200x675.jpg 1200w, https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/12/Rexx-Life-Raj-1.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">EMPIRE artist Rexx Life Raj. \u003ccite>(Nastia Voynovskaya/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This individualized approach allowed EMPIRE to play a key role in the rise of Northern California artists like \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13869513/rexx-life-raj-father-figure-3-empire\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rexx Life Raj\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13842545/mozzy-on-gangland-landlord-kendrick-and-how-a-persistent-grind-pays-off\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mozzy\u003c/a>, and to rehabilitate some established stars’ careers. With EMPIRE’s help, Fat Joe and Remy Ma logged their biggest hit in over a decade with 2016’s Grammy-nominated “All the Way Up.” The label helped orchestrate a second act for Tyga; took a chance on unlikely (and highly controversial) Florida star XXXtentacion; and played a key role in the rise of top West Coast talent like Southern California’s Anderson .Paak and Vallejo’s SOB x RBE. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the past two years, EMPIRE has only gotten bigger. In 2018, the company announced a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13830592/sf-based-hip-hop-distributor-empire-inks-deal-with-universal-music\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">distribution partnership\u003c/a> with Universal Music Group, and earlier this year, EMPIRE opened the doors to a new recording studio in San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPIRE’s expansions have coincided with other forms of growth in the local music industry. At the beginning of 2019, Bandcamp established a \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13848866/inside-bandcamp-oakland-online-music-retailers-new-venue-record-shop-and-office\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">downtown Oakland headquarters\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and venue with an emphasis on local, independent artists. And San Francisco’s \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13816703/can-text-me-records-become-san-franciscos-new-hit-factory\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Text Me Records\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> emerged from the city’s historic Different Fur Studios, which was famous for recording jazz greats like Herbie Hancock in the ’70s and has since transformed into an incubator for emerging Bay Area artists such as Tia Nomore and Drew Banga. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">EMPIRE’s team is now global, spanning New York, London, Atlanta, Amsterdam and Jakarta (following its success with rapper Rich Brian, EMPIRE has its sights set on Indonesia and the Philippines). Yet the label remains firmly rooted in Shami’s hometown, with its headquarters overlooking San Francisco’s financial district. And for Bay Area artists who wouldn’t otherwise have an in with the traditional record label system, their commitment to creating opportunity in the region has been a lifeline. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
},
{
"type": "component",
"content": "",
"name": "ad",
"attributes": {
"named": {
"label": "floatright"
},
"numeric": [
"floatright"
]
}
},
{
"type": "contentString",
"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Ghazi could easily go to L.A., and it could grow ten-times faster real quick,” says Rexx Life Raj. “But he’s so adamant about staying home and building something from home cause he loves the Bay so much.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
"attributes": {
"named": {},
"numeric": []
}
}
],
"link": "/arts/13870578/empire-brought-the-music-industry-back-to-san-francisco",
"authors": [
"11387"
],
"categories": [
"arts_835",
"arts_69"
],
"tags": [
"arts_5397",
"arts_4648",
"arts_9345",
"arts_9344"
],
"featImg": "arts_13870852",
"label": "arts"
}
},
"podcastsReducer": {
"isFetching": false,
"fetchFailed": false,
"hasFetched": false,
"podcasts": {}
},
"radioProgramsReducer": {
"isFetching": false,
"fetchFailed": false,
"hasFetched": false,
"radioPrograms": {}
},
"radioSearchSegmentsReducer": {},
"programsReducer": {
"all-things-considered": {
"id": "all-things-considered",
"title": "All Things Considered",
"info": "Every weekday, \u003cem>All Things Considered\u003c/em> hosts Robert Siegel, Audie Cornish, Ari Shapiro, and Kelly McEvers present the program's trademark mix of news, interviews, commentaries, reviews, and offbeat features. Michel Martin hosts on the weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 1pm-2pm, 4:30pm-6:30pm\u003cbr />SAT-SUN 5pm-6pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/All-Things-Considered-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/all-things-considered"
},
"american-suburb-podcast": {
"id": "american-suburb-podcast",
"title": "American Suburb: The Podcast",
"tagline": "The flip side of gentrification, told through one town",
"info": "Gentrification is changing cities across America, forcing people from neighborhoods they have long called home. Call them the displaced. Now those priced out of the Bay Area are looking for a better life in an unlikely place. American Suburb follows this migration to one California town along the Delta, 45 miles from San Francisco. But is this once sleepy suburb ready for them?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/American-Suburb-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/american-suburb-podcast",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 19
},
"link": "/news/series/american-suburb-podcast/",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/RBrW",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?mt=2&id=1287748328",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/American-Suburb-p1086805/",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/american-suburb-podcast/feed/podcast",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkMzMDExODgxNjA5"
}
},
"baycurious": {
"id": "baycurious",
"title": "Bay Curious",
"tagline": "Exploring the Bay Area, one question at a time",
"info": "KQED’s new podcast, Bay Curious, gets to the bottom of the mysteries — both profound and peculiar — that give the Bay Area its unique identity. And we’ll do it with your help! You ask the questions. You decide what Bay Curious investigates. And you join us on the journey to find the answers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Bay-Curious-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Bay Curious",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/news/series/baycurious",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 3
},
"link": "/podcasts/baycurious",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bay-curious/id1172473406",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/500557090/bay-curious",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/category/bay-curious-podcast/feed/podcast",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9a90d476-aa04-455d-9a4c-0871ed6216d4/bay-curious",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/bay-curious",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/6O76IdmhixfijmhTZLIJ8k"
}
},
"bbc-world-service": {
"id": "bbc-world-service",
"title": "BBC World Service",
"info": "The day's top stories from BBC News compiled twice daily in the week, once at weekends.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9pm-10pm, TUE-FRI 1am-2am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/BBC-World-Service-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "BBC World Service"
},
"link": "/radio/program/bbc-world-service",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/global-news-podcast/id135067274?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/BBC-World-Service-p455581/",
"rss": "https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02nq0gn.rss"
}
},
"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
"title": "The California Report",
"tagline": "California, day by day",
"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The California Report",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 8
},
"link": "/californiareport",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kqeds-the-california-report/id79681292",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/26099305-72af-4542-9dde-ac1807fe36d5/kqed-s-the-california-report",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432285393/the-california-report",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqedfm-kqeds-the-california-report-podcast-8838",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/tcram/feed/podcast"
}
},
"californiareportmagazine": {
"id": "californiareportmagazine",
"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
"airtime": "FRI 4:30pm-5pm, 6:30pm-7pm, 11pm-11:30pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-California-Report-Magazine-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The California Report Magazine",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareportmagazine",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 10
},
"link": "/californiareportmagazine",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-california-report-magazine/id1314750545",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/564733126/the-california-report-magazine",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-california-report-magazine",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/tcrmag/feed/podcast"
}
},
"city-arts": {
"id": "city-arts",
"title": "City Arts & Lectures",
"info": "A one-hour radio program to hear celebrated writers, artists and thinkers address contemporary ideas and values, often discussing the creative process. Please note: tapes or transcripts are not available",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/cityartsandlecture-300x300.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.cityarts.net/",
"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
"subscribe": {
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/City-Arts-and-Lectures-p692/",
"rss": "https://www.cityarts.net/feed/"
}
},
"closealltabs": {
"id": "closealltabs",
"title": "Close All Tabs",
"tagline": "Your irreverent guide to the trends redefining our world",
"info": "Close All Tabs breaks down how digital culture shapes our world through thoughtful insights and irreverent humor.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/CAT_2_Tile-scaled.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Close All Tabs",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 1
},
"link": "/podcasts/closealltabs",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/close-all-tabs/id214663465",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC6993880386",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/92d9d4ac-67a3-4eed-b10a-fb45d45b1ef2/close-all-tabs",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/6LAJFHnGK1pYXYzv6SIol6?si=deb0cae19813417c"
}
},
"code-switch-life-kit": {
"id": "code-switch-life-kit",
"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
"airtime": "SUN 9pm-10pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Code-Switch-Life-Kit-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/code-switch-life-kit",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/1112190608?mt=2&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubnByLm9yZy9yc3MvcG9kY2FzdC5waHA_aWQ9NTEwMzEy",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/3bExJ9JQpkwNhoHvaIIuyV",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510312/podcast.xml"
}
},
"commonwealth-club": {
"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
"airtime": "THU 10pm, FRI 1am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Commonwealth-Club-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.commonwealthclub.org/podcasts",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
},
"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/commonwealth-club-of-california-podcast/id976334034?mt=2",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Commonwealth-Club-of-California-p1060/"
}
},
"forum": {
"id": "forum",
"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 9am-11am, 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Forum with Mina Kim and Alexis Madrigal",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/forum",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 9
},
"link": "/forum",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kqeds-forum/id73329719",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432307980/forum",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqedfm-kqeds-forum-podcast",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC9557381633"
}
},
"freakonomics-radio": {
"id": "freakonomics-radio",
"title": "Freakonomics Radio",
"info": "Freakonomics Radio is a one-hour award-winning podcast and public-radio project hosted by Stephen Dubner, with co-author Steve Levitt as a regular guest. It is produced in partnership with WNYC.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/freakonomicsRadio.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://freakonomics.com/",
"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/Freakonomics-Radio-p272293/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/freakonomicsradio"
}
},
"fresh-air": {
"id": "fresh-air",
"title": "Fresh Air",
"info": "Hosted by Terry Gross, \u003cem>Fresh Air from WHYY\u003c/em> is the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues. One of public radio's most popular programs, Fresh Air features intimate conversations with today's biggest luminaries.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 7pm-8pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Fresh-Air-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/fresh-air",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/4s8b",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Fresh-Air-p17/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/381444908/podcast.xml"
}
},
"here-and-now": {
"id": "here-and-now",
"title": "Here & Now",
"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
"airtime": "MON-THU 11am-12pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Here-And-Now-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/here-and-now",
"subsdcribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?mt=2&id=426698661",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Here--Now-p211/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510051/podcast.xml"
}
},
"hidden-brain": {
"id": "hidden-brain",
"title": "Hidden Brain",
"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/05/hiddenbrain.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/423302056/hidden-brain",
"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "NPR"
},
"link": "/radio/program/hidden-brain",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Science-Podcasts/Hidden-Brain-p787503/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510308/podcast.xml"
}
},
"how-i-built-this": {
"id": "how-i-built-this",
"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2018/05/howIBuiltThis.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this",
"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/3zxy",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Arts--Culture-Podcasts/How-I-Built-This-p910896/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510313/podcast.xml"
}
},
"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
"imageAlt": "KQED Hyphenación",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 15
},
"link": "/podcasts/hyphenacion",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyphenaci%C3%B3n/id1191591838",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/2p3Fifq96nw9BPcmFdIq0o?si=39209f7b25774f38",
"youtube": "https://www.youtube.com/c/kqedarts",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c3dd23c-93fb-4aab-97ba-1725fa6315f1/hyphenaci%C3%B3n",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC2275451163"
}
},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 18
},
"link": "/podcasts/jerrybrown",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/790253322/the-political-mind-of-jerry-brown",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1492194549",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/series/jerrybrown/feed/podcast/",
"tuneIn": "http://tun.in/pjGcK",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-political-mind-of-jerry-brown",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/54C1dmuyFyKMFttY6X2j6r?si=K8SgRCoISNK6ZbjpXrX5-w",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/44420f75-3b0e-4301-ab3b-16da6b09e543/the-political-mind-of-jerry-brown"
}
},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/xtTd",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Latino-USA-p621/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=201853034&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/APM-Marketplace-p88/",
"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
}
},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Masters-of-Scale-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WaitWhat"
},
"link": "/radio/program/masters-of-scale",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "http://mastersofscale.app.link/",
"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mindshift-podcast/id1078765985",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/464615685/mind-shift-podcast",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/stories-teachers-share",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0MxSpNYZKNprFLCl7eEtyx"
}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "On Our Watch from NPR and KQED",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1567098962",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/onourwatch",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/0OLWoyizopu6tY1XiuX70x",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-Our-Watch-p1436229/",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/show/on-our-watch",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510360/podcast.xml"
}
},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/otm",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
"title": "PBS NewsHour",
"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "pbs"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pbs-newshour-full-show/id394432287?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Perspectives_Tile_Final.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Perspectives",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id73801135",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/432309616/perspectives",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/perspectives/category/perspectives/feed/",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93dzIua3FlZC5vcmcvcGVyc3BlY3RpdmVzL2NhdGVnb3J5L3BlcnNwZWN0aXZlcy9mZWVkLw"
}
},
"planet-money": {
"id": "planet-money",
"title": "Planet Money",
"info": "The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy. Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/planetmoney.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/sections/money/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/planet-money",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/M4f5",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/planet-money/id290783428?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Planet-Money-p164680/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510289/podcast.xml"
}
},
"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Political-Breakdown-2024-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Political Breakdown",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 5
},
"link": "/podcasts/politicalbreakdown",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/political-breakdown/id1327641087",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/e0c2d153-ad36-4c8d-901d-f1da6a724824/political-breakdown",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/572155894/political-breakdown",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/political-breakdown",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/07RVyIjIdk2WDuVehvBMoN",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/tag/political-breakdown/feed/podcast"
}
},
"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "Possible"
},
"link": "/radio/program/possible",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/possible/id1677184070",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/730YpdUSNlMyPQwNnyjp4k"
}
},
"pri-the-world": {
"id": "pri-the-world",
"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.pri.org/programs/the-world",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "PRI"
},
"link": "/radio/program/pri-the-world",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/pris-the-world-latest-edition/id278196007?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/News--Politics-Podcasts/PRIs-The-World-p24/",
"rss": "http://feeds.feedburner.com/pri/theworld"
}
},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
"airtime": "SUN 12am-1am, SAT 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/radiolab1400.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/radiolab/",
"meta": {
"site": "science",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/radiolab",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/radiolab/id152249110?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/RadioLab-p68032/",
"rss": "https://feeds.wnyc.org/radiolab"
}
},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/reveal",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/reveal/id886009669",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Reveal-p679597/",
"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
}
},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Rightnowish-Podcast-Tile-500x500-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Rightnowish with Pendarvis Harshaw",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/721590300/rightnowish",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/programs/rightnowish/feed/podcast",
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rightnowish/id1482187648",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/rightnowish",
"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkMxMjU5MTY3NDc4",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/7kEJuafTzTVan7B78ttz1I"
}
},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
"title": "Science Friday",
"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
"airtime": "FRI 11am-1pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Science-Friday-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/science-friday",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/science-friday",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=73329284&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Science-Friday-p394/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/science-friday"
}
},
"snap-judgment": {
"id": "snap-judgment",
"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
"info": "The Snap Judgment radio show and podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic radio. Snap's musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. This is storytelling... with a BEAT!! Snap first aired on public radio stations nationwide in July 2010. Today, Snap Judgment airs on over 450 public radio stations and is brought to the airwaves by KQED & PRX.",
"airtime": "SAT 1pm-2pm, 9pm-10pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Snap-Judgment-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Snap Judgment",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://snapjudgment.org",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 4
},
"link": "https://snapjudgment.org",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/snap-judgment/id283657561",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/449018144/snap-judgment",
"stitcher": "https://www.pandora.com/podcast/snap-judgment/PC:241?source=stitcher-sunset",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/3Cct7ZWmxHNAtLgBTqjC5v",
"rss": "https://snap.feed.snapjudgment.org/"
}
},
"soldout": {
"id": "soldout",
"title": "SOLD OUT: Rethinking Housing in America",
"tagline": "A new future for housing",
"info": "Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Sold-Out-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Sold Out: Rethinking Housing in America",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/soldout",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 13
},
"link": "/podcasts/soldout",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/911586047/s-o-l-d-o-u-t-a-new-future-for-housing",
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-sold-out-rethinking-housing-in-america/id1531354937",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/soldout",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/38dTBSk2ISFoPiyYNoKn1X",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/sold-out-rethinking-housing-in-america",
"tunein": "https://tunein.com/radio/SOLD-OUT-Rethinking-Housing-in-America-p1365871/"
}
},
"spooked": {
"id": "spooked",
"title": "Spooked",
"tagline": "True-life supernatural stories",
"info": "",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Spooked-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED Spooked",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://spookedpodcast.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 7
},
"link": "https://spookedpodcast.org/",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spooked/id1279361017",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/549547848/snap-judgment-presents-spooked",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/76571Rfl3m7PLJQZKQIGCT",
"rss": "https://feeds.simplecast.com/TBotaapn"
}
},
"tech-nation": {
"id": "tech-nation",
"title": "Tech Nation Radio Podcast",
"info": "Tech Nation is a weekly public radio program, hosted by Dr. Moira Gunn. Founded in 1993, it has grown from a simple interview show to a multi-faceted production, featuring conversations with noted technology and science leaders, and a weekly science and technology-related commentary.",
"airtime": "FRI 10pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Tech-Nation-Radio-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://technation.podomatic.com/",
"meta": {
"site": "science",
"source": "Tech Nation Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/tech-nation",
"subscribe": {
"rss": "https://technation.podomatic.com/rss2.xml"
}
},
"ted-radio-hour": {
"id": "ted-radio-hour",
"title": "TED Radio Hour",
"info": "The TED Radio Hour is a journey through fascinating ideas, astonishing inventions, fresh approaches to old problems, and new ways to think and create.",
"airtime": "SUN 3pm-4pm, SAT 10pm-11pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/tedRadioHour.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/?showDate=2018-06-22",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/ted-radio-hour",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/8vsS",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=523121474&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/TED-Radio-Hour-p418021/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510298/podcast.xml"
}
},
"thebay": {
"id": "thebay",
"title": "The Bay",
"tagline": "Local news to keep you rooted",
"info": "Host Devin Katayama walks you through the biggest story of the day with reporters and newsmakers.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Bay-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Bay",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/thebay",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 2
},
"link": "/podcasts/thebay",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-bay/id1350043452",
"amazon": "https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/d800ea4c-7a2c-42f2-b861-edaf78a5db0b/the-bay",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/586725995/the-bay",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-bay",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/4BIKBKIujizLHlIlBNaAqQ",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC8259786327"
}
},
"thelatest": {
"id": "thelatest",
"title": "The Latest",
"tagline": "Trusted local news in real time",
"info": "",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/The-Latest-2025-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Latest",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/thelatest",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 6
},
"link": "/thelatest",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-latest-from-kqed/id1197721799",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/1257949365/the-latest-from-k-q-e-d",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/5KIIXMgM9GTi5AepwOYvIZ?si=bd3053fec7244dba",
"rss": "https://feeds.megaphone.fm/KQINC9137121918"
}
},
"theleap": {
"id": "theleap",
"title": "The Leap",
"tagline": "What if you closed your eyes, and jumped?",
"info": "Stories about people making dramatic, risky changes, told by award-winning public radio reporter Judy Campbell.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Leap-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED The Leap",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/theleap",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "kqed",
"order": 17
},
"link": "/podcasts/theleap",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-leap/id1046668171",
"npr": "https://www.npr.org/podcasts/447248267/the-leap",
"stitcher": "https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/kqed/the-leap",
"spotify": "https://open.spotify.com/show/3sSlVHHzU0ytLwuGs1SD1U",
"rss": "https://ww2.kqed.org/news/programs/the-leap/feed/podcast"
}
},
"the-moth-radio-hour": {
"id": "the-moth-radio-hour",
"title": "The Moth Radio Hour",
"info": "Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of true stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Moth storytellers stand alone, under a spotlight, with only a microphone and a roomful of strangers. The storyteller and the audience embark on a high-wire act of shared experience which is both terrifying and exhilarating. Since 2008, The Moth podcast has featured many of our favorite stories told live on Moth stages around the country. For information on all of our programs and live events, visit themoth.org.",
"airtime": "SAT 8pm-9pm and SUN 11am-12pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/theMoth.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://themoth.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "prx"
},
"link": "/radio/program/the-moth-radio-hour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-moth-podcast/id275699983?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/The-Moth-p273888/",
"rss": "http://feeds.themoth.org/themothpodcast"
}
},
"the-new-yorker-radio-hour": {
"id": "the-new-yorker-radio-hour",
"title": "The New Yorker Radio Hour",
"info": "The New Yorker Radio Hour is a weekly program presented by the magazine's editor, David Remnick, and produced by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Each episode features a diverse mix of interviews, profiles, storytelling, and an occasional burst of humor inspired by the magazine, and shaped by its writers, artists, and editors. This isn't a radio version of a magazine, but something all its own, reflecting the rich possibilities of audio storytelling and conversation. Theme music for the show was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of tUnE-YArDs.",
"airtime": "SAT 10am-11am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-New-Yorker-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.wnycstudios.org/shows/tnyradiohour",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/the-new-yorker-radio-hour",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1050430296",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/podcasts/WNYC-Podcasts/New-Yorker-Radio-Hour-p803804/",
"rss": "https://feeds.feedburner.com/newyorkerradiohour"
}
},
"the-sam-sanders-show": {
"id": "the-sam-sanders-show",
"title": "The Sam Sanders Show",
"info": "One of public radio's most dynamic voices, Sam Sanders helped launch The NPR Politics Podcast and hosted NPR's hit show It's Been A Minute. Now, the award-winning host returns with something brand new, The Sam Sanders Show. Every week, Sam Sanders and friends dig into the culture that shapes our lives: what's driving the biggest trends, how artists really think, and even the memes you can't stop scrolling past. Sam is beloved for his way of unpacking the world and bringing you up close to fresh currents and engaging conversations. The Sam Sanders Show is smart, funny and always a good time.",
"airtime": "FRI 12-1pm AND SAT 11am-12pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/The-Sam-Sanders-Show-Podcast-Tile-400x400-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.kcrw.com/shows/the-sam-sanders-show/latest",
"meta": {
"site": "arts",
"source": "KCRW"
},
"link": "https://www.kcrw.com/shows/the-sam-sanders-show/latest",
"subscribe": {
"rss": "https://feed.cdnstream1.com/zjb/feed/download/ac/28/59/ac28594c-e1d0-4231-8728-61865cdc80e8.xml"
}
},
"the-splendid-table": {
"id": "the-splendid-table",
"title": "The Splendid Table",
"info": "\u003cem>The Splendid Table\u003c/em> hosts our nation's conversations about cooking, sustainability and food culture.",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Splendid-Table-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.splendidtable.org/",
"airtime": "SUN 10-11 pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/the-splendid-table"
},
"this-american-life": {
"id": "this-american-life",
"title": "This American Life",
"info": "This American Life is a weekly public radio show, heard by 2.2 million people on more than 500 stations. Another 2.5 million people download the weekly podcast. It is hosted by Ira Glass, produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards.",
"airtime": "SAT 12pm-1pm, 7pm-8pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/thisAmericanLife.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.thisamericanlife.org/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "wbez"
},
"link": "/radio/program/this-american-life",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=201671138&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"rss": "https://www.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/rss.xml"
}
},
"tinydeskradio": {
"id": "tinydeskradio",
"title": "Tiny Desk Radio",
"info": "We're bringing the best of Tiny Desk to the airwaves, only on public radio.",
"airtime": "SUN 8pm and SAT 9pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/300x300-For-Member-Station-Logo-Tiny-Desk-Radio-@2x.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/series/g-s1-52030/tiny-desk-radio",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/tinydeskradio",
"subscribe": {
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/g-s1-52030/rss.xml"
}
},
"wait-wait-dont-tell-me": {
"id": "wait-wait-dont-tell-me",
"title": "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!",
"info": "Peter Sagal and Bill Kurtis host the weekly NPR News quiz show alongside some of the best and brightest news and entertainment personalities.",
"airtime": "SUN 10am-11am, SAT 11am-12pm, SAT 6pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Wait-Wait-Podcast-Tile-300x300-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/wait-wait-dont-tell-me",
"subscribe": {
"npr": "https://rpb3r.app.goo.gl/Xogv",
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=121493804&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/Wait-Wait-Dont-Tell-Me-p46/",
"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/344098539/podcast.xml"
}
},
"weekend-edition-saturday": {
"id": "weekend-edition-saturday",
"title": "Weekend Edition Saturday",
"info": "Weekend Edition Saturday wraps up the week's news and offers a mix of analysis and features on a wide range of topics, including arts, sports, entertainment, and human interest stories. The two-hour program is hosted by NPR's Peabody Award-winning Scott Simon.",
"airtime": "SAT 5am-10am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Weekend-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-saturday/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/weekend-edition-saturday"
},
"weekend-edition-sunday": {
"id": "weekend-edition-sunday",
"title": "Weekend Edition Sunday",
"info": "Weekend Edition Sunday features interviews with newsmakers, artists, scientists, politicians, musicians, writers, theologians and historians. The program has covered news events from Nelson Mandela's 1990 release from a South African prison to the capture of Saddam Hussein.",
"airtime": "SUN 5am-10am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Weekend-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/weekend-edition-sunday/",
"meta": {
"site": "news",
"source": "npr"
},
"link": "/radio/program/weekend-edition-sunday"
}
},
"racesReducer": {},
"racesGenElectionReducer": {},
"racesGenElection2026Reducer": {},
"radioSchedulesReducer": {},
"listsReducer": {
"posts/arts?category=music": {
"isFetching": false,
"latestQuery": {
"from": 1536,
"size": 12
},
"vitalsOnly": false,
"totalRequested": 12,
"isLoading": false,
"isLoadingMore": true,
"total": {
"value": 4900,
"relation": "eq"
},
"items": [
"arts_13871495",
"arts_13871243",
"arts_13871426",
"arts_13871003",
"arts_13871285",
"arts_13871212",
"arts_13871151",
"arts_13871065",
"arts_13870838",
"arts_13870973",
"arts_13870907",
"arts_13870578"
],
"complete": true
}
},
"recallGuideReducer": {
"intros": {},
"policy": {},
"candidates": {}
},
"savedArticleReducer": {
"articles": [],
"status": {}
},
"newslettersReducer": {
"isFetching": false,
"fetchFailed": false,
"hasFetched": false,
"newsletters": {},
"isSubscribing": false,
"isUnsubscribing": false,
"subscribedNewsletters": {}
},
"termsReducer": {
"about": {
"name": "About",
"type": "terms",
"id": "about",
"slug": "about",
"link": "/about",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"arts": {
"name": "Arts & Culture",
"grouping": [
"arts",
"pop",
"trulyca"
],
"description": "KQED Arts provides daily in-depth coverage of the Bay Area's music, art, film, performing arts, literature and arts news, as well as cultural commentary and criticism.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts",
"slug": "arts",
"link": "/arts",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"artschool": {
"name": "Art School",
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "artschool",
"slug": "artschool",
"link": "/artschool",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"bayareabites": {
"name": "KQED food",
"grouping": [
"food",
"bayareabites",
"checkplease"
],
"parent": "food",
"type": "terms",
"id": "bayareabites",
"slug": "bayareabites",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"bayareahiphop": {
"name": "Bay Area Hiphop",
"type": "terms",
"id": "bayareahiphop",
"slug": "bayareahiphop",
"link": "/bayareahiphop",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"campaign21": {
"name": "Campaign 21",
"type": "terms",
"id": "campaign21",
"slug": "campaign21",
"link": "/campaign21",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"careers": {
"name": "Careers",
"type": "terms",
"id": "careers",
"slug": "careers",
"link": "/careers",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"checkplease": {
"name": "KQED food",
"grouping": [
"food",
"bayareabites",
"checkplease"
],
"parent": "food",
"type": "terms",
"id": "checkplease",
"slug": "checkplease",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"education": {
"name": "Education",
"grouping": [
"education"
],
"type": "terms",
"id": "education",
"slug": "education",
"link": "/education",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"elections": {
"name": "Elections",
"type": "terms",
"id": "elections",
"slug": "elections",
"link": "/elections",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"events": {
"name": "Events",
"type": "terms",
"id": "events",
"slug": "events",
"link": "/events",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"event": {
"name": "Event",
"alias": "events",
"type": "terms",
"id": "event",
"slug": "event",
"link": "/event",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"filmschoolshorts": {
"name": "Film School Shorts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "filmschoolshorts",
"slug": "filmschoolshorts",
"link": "/filmschoolshorts",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"food": {
"name": "KQED food",
"grouping": [
"food",
"bayareabites",
"checkplease"
],
"type": "terms",
"id": "food",
"slug": "food",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"forum": {
"name": "Forum",
"relatedContentQuery": "posts/forum?",
"parent": "news",
"type": "terms",
"id": "forum",
"slug": "forum",
"link": "/forum",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"futureofyou": {
"name": "Future of You",
"grouping": [
"science",
"futureofyou"
],
"parent": "science",
"type": "terms",
"id": "futureofyou",
"slug": "futureofyou",
"link": "/futureofyou",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"jpepinheart": {
"name": "KQED food",
"relatedContentQuery": "posts/food,bayareabites,checkplease",
"parent": "food",
"type": "terms",
"id": "jpepinheart",
"slug": "jpepinheart",
"link": "/food",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"liveblog": {
"name": "Live Blog",
"type": "terms",
"id": "liveblog",
"slug": "liveblog",
"link": "/liveblog",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"livetv": {
"name": "Live TV",
"parent": "tv",
"type": "terms",
"id": "livetv",
"slug": "livetv",
"link": "/livetv",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"lowdown": {
"name": "The Lowdown",
"relatedContentQuery": "posts/lowdown?",
"parent": "news",
"type": "terms",
"id": "lowdown",
"slug": "lowdown",
"link": "/lowdown",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"mindshift": {
"name": "Mindshift",
"parent": "news",
"description": "MindShift explores the future of education by highlighting the innovative – and sometimes counterintuitive – ways educators and parents are helping all children succeed.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "mindshift",
"slug": "mindshift",
"link": "/mindshift",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"news": {
"name": "News",
"grouping": [
"news",
"forum"
],
"type": "terms",
"id": "news",
"slug": "news",
"link": "/news",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"newsletters": {
"name": "newsletters",
"type": "terms",
"id": "newsletters",
"slug": "newsletters",
"link": "/newsletters",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"perspectives": {
"name": "Perspectives",
"parent": "radio",
"type": "terms",
"id": "perspectives",
"slug": "perspectives",
"link": "/perspectives",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"podcasts": {
"name": "Podcasts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "podcasts",
"slug": "podcasts",
"link": "/podcasts",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"pop": {
"name": "Pop",
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "pop",
"slug": "pop",
"link": "/pop",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"pressroom": {
"name": "Pressroom",
"type": "terms",
"id": "pressroom",
"slug": "pressroom",
"link": "/pressroom",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"quest": {
"name": "Quest",
"parent": "science",
"type": "terms",
"id": "quest",
"slug": "quest",
"link": "/quest",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"radio": {
"name": "Radio",
"grouping": [
"forum",
"perspectives"
],
"description": "Listen to KQED Public Radio – home of Forum and The California Report – on 88.5 FM in San Francisco, 89.3 FM in Sacramento, 88.3 FM in Santa Rosa and 88.1 FM in Martinez.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "radio",
"slug": "radio",
"link": "/radio",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"root": {
"name": "KQED",
"image": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/2020/02/KQED-OG-Image@1x.png",
"imageWidth": 1200,
"imageHeight": 630,
"headData": {
"title": "KQED | News, Radio, Podcasts, TV | Public Media for Northern California",
"description": "KQED provides public radio, television, and independent reporting on issues that matter to the Bay Area. We’re the NPR and PBS member station for Northern California."
},
"type": "terms",
"id": "root",
"slug": "root",
"link": "/root",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"science": {
"name": "Science",
"grouping": [
"science",
"futureofyou"
],
"description": "KQED Science brings you award-winning science and environment coverage from the Bay Area and beyond.",
"type": "terms",
"id": "science",
"slug": "science",
"link": "/science",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"stateofhealth": {
"name": "State of Health",
"parent": "science",
"type": "terms",
"id": "stateofhealth",
"slug": "stateofhealth",
"link": "/stateofhealth",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"support": {
"name": "Support",
"type": "terms",
"id": "support",
"slug": "support",
"link": "/support",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"thedolist": {
"name": "The Do List",
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "thedolist",
"slug": "thedolist",
"link": "/thedolist",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"trulyca": {
"name": "Truly CA",
"grouping": [
"arts",
"pop",
"trulyca"
],
"parent": "arts",
"type": "terms",
"id": "trulyca",
"slug": "trulyca",
"link": "/trulyca",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"tv": {
"name": "TV",
"type": "terms",
"id": "tv",
"slug": "tv",
"link": "/tv",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"voterguide": {
"name": "Voter Guide",
"parent": "elections",
"alias": "elections",
"type": "terms",
"id": "voterguide",
"slug": "voterguide",
"link": "/voterguide",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"guiaelectoral": {
"name": "Guia Electoral",
"parent": "elections",
"alias": "elections",
"type": "terms",
"id": "guiaelectoral",
"slug": "guiaelectoral",
"link": "/guiaelectoral",
"taxonomy": "site"
},
"arts_category_music": {
"isLoading": true
},
"arts_69": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_69",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "69",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Music",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Music Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 70,
"slug": "music",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/music"
},
"source_arts_13871495": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "source_arts_13871495",
"meta": {
"override": true
},
"name": "Rightnowish",
"link": "https://www.kqed.org/podcasts/rightnowish",
"isLoading": false
},
"arts_8720": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_8720",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "8720",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Rightnowish",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "program",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Rightnowish Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 8732,
"slug": "rightnowish",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/program/rightnowish"
},
"arts_1": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Arts",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Arts Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1,
"slug": "arts",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/arts"
},
"arts_1118": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1118",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1118",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "featured",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "featured Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1135,
"slug": "featured",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/featured"
},
"arts_6764": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_6764",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "6764",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Rightnowish-Link-for-Social.jpg",
"name": "Rightnowish",
"description": "Art is where you find it. Each week, follow lifelong Oaklander, Pendarvis Harshaw, on a brief but memorable trip through the Bay Area’s creative hubs. ",
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": "Art is where you find it. Each week, follow lifelong Oaklander, Pendarvis Harshaw, on a brief but memorable trip through the Bay Area’s creative hubs.",
"title": "Rightnowish Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 6776,
"slug": "rightnowish",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/rightnowish"
},
"arts_4506": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_4506",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "4506",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Sports",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Sports Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 4518,
"slug": "sports",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/sports"
},
"arts_235": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_235",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "235",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "News",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "News Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 236,
"slug": "news",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/news"
},
"arts_7321": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_7321",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "7321",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "housing crisis",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "housing crisis Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 7333,
"slug": "housing-crisis",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/housing-crisis"
},
"arts_4773": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_4773",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "4773",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "mental health",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "mental health Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 4785,
"slug": "mental-health",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/mental-health"
},
"arts_75": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_75",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "75",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Pop Culture",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Pop Culture Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 76,
"slug": "popculture",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/popculture"
},
"arts_9464": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_9464",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "9464",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "2019",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "2019 Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 9476,
"slug": "2019",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/2019"
},
"arts_137": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_137",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "137",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": "https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/2/2014/04/logo-npr-lg1.png",
"name": "NPR",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "affiliate",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "NPR Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 138,
"slug": "npr",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/affiliate/npr"
},
"arts_3388": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_3388",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "3388",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "christmas",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "christmas Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 3400,
"slug": "christmas",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/christmas"
},
"arts_9396": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_9396",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "9396",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "christmas songs",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "christmas songs Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 9408,
"slug": "christmas-songs",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/christmas-songs"
},
"arts_3247": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_3247",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "3247",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "holidays",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "holidays Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 3259,
"slug": "holidays",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/holidays"
},
"arts_925": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_925",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "925",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "pop",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "pop Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 943,
"slug": "pop",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/pop"
},
"arts_140": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_140",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "140",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"name": "The Do List",
"slug": "the-do-list",
"taxonomy": "program",
"description": null,
"featImg": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/11/The-Do-LIst-logo-2014-horizontal-015.png",
"headData": {
"title": "The Do List Archives | KQED Arts",
"description": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogDescription": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"twDescription": null,
"twImgId": null
},
"ttid": 141,
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/program/the-do-list"
},
"arts_7264": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_7264",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "7264",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Bikini Kill",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Bikini Kill Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 7276,
"slug": "bikini-kill",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/bikini-kill"
},
"arts_1693": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1693",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1693",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "burger boogaloo",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "burger boogaloo Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1705,
"slug": "burger-boogaloo",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/burger-boogaloo"
},
"arts_8246": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_8246",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "8246",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "riot grrrl",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "riot grrrl Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 8258,
"slug": "riot-grrrl",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/riot-grrrl"
},
"arts_1564": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1564",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1564",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Remembrance",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Remembrance Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1576,
"slug": "remembrance",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/remembrance"
},
"arts_70": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_70",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "70",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Visual Arts",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Visual Arts Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 71,
"slug": "visualarts",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/visualarts"
},
"arts_21795": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_21795",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "21795",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "924 gilman",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "924 gilman Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 21807,
"slug": "924-gilman",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/924-gilman"
},
"arts_1543": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1543",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1543",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "green day",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "green day Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1555,
"slug": "green-day",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/green-day"
},
"arts_822": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_822",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "822",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "photography",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "photography Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 840,
"slug": "photography",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/photography"
},
"arts_913": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_913",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "913",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "punk",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "punk Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 931,
"slug": "punk",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/punk"
},
"arts_1091": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1091",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1091",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "obit",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "obit Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1108,
"slug": "obit",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/obit"
},
"arts_967": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_967",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "967",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Theater",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Theater Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 985,
"slug": "theater",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/theater"
},
"arts_1071": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1071",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1071",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "San Francisco Opera",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "San Francisco Opera Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1088,
"slug": "san-francisco-opera",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/san-francisco-opera"
},
"arts_3316": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_3316",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "3316",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "SF Opera",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "SF Opera Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 3328,
"slug": "sf-opera",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/sf-opera"
},
"arts_22351": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_22351",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "22351",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"name": "Climate",
"slug": "climate",
"taxonomy": "category",
"description": null,
"featImg": null,
"headData": {
"title": "Climate | KQED Arts",
"description": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogDescription": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"twDescription": null,
"twImgId": null
},
"ttid": 22363,
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/climate"
},
"arts_2303": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_2303",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "2303",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "Commentary",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "category",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "Commentary Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 2315,
"slug": "commentary",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/category/commentary"
},
"arts_1407": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_1407",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "1407",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "climate change",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "climate change Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 1419,
"slug": "climate-change",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/climate-change"
},
"arts_2767": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_2767",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "2767",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "commentary",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "commentary Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 2779,
"slug": "commentary",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/commentary"
},
"arts_9387": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_9387",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "9387",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "greta thunberg",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "greta thunberg Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 9399,
"slug": "greta-thunberg",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/greta-thunberg"
},
"arts_21788": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_21788",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "21788",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "indie rock",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "indie rock Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 21800,
"slug": "indie-rock",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/indie-rock"
},
"arts_3944": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_3944",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "3944",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "fox theater",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "fox theater Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 3956,
"slug": "fox-theater",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/fox-theater"
},
"arts_5355": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_5355",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "5355",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "nia wilson",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "nia wilson Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 5367,
"slug": "nia-wilson",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/nia-wilson"
},
"arts_5397": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_5397",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "5397",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "bay area rap",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "bay area rap Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 5409,
"slug": "bay-area-rap",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/bay-area-rap"
},
"arts_4648": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_4648",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "4648",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "empire distribution",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "empire distribution Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 4660,
"slug": "empire-distribution",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/empire-distribution"
},
"arts_9345": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_9345",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "9345",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "our turbulent decade",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "our turbulent decade Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 9357,
"slug": "our-turbulent-decade",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/our-turbulent-decade"
},
"arts_9344": {
"type": "terms",
"id": "arts_9344",
"meta": {
"index": "terms_1716263798",
"site": "arts",
"id": "9344",
"found": true
},
"relationships": {},
"featImg": null,
"name": "the 2010s",
"description": null,
"taxonomy": "tag",
"headData": {
"twImgId": null,
"twTitle": null,
"ogTitle": null,
"ogImgId": null,
"twDescription": null,
"description": null,
"title": "the 2010s Archives | KQED Arts",
"ogDescription": null
},
"ttid": 9356,
"slug": "the-2010s",
"isLoading": false,
"link": "/arts/tag/the-2010s"
}
},
"userPermissionsReducer": {
"wpLoggedIn": false
},
"eventsReducer": {},
"fssReducer": {},
"tvDailyScheduleReducer": {},
"tvWeeklyScheduleReducer": {},
"tvPrimetimeScheduleReducer": {},
"tvMonthlyScheduleReducer": {},
"userAccountReducer": {
"user": {
"email": null,
"emailStatus": "EMAIL_UNVALIDATED",
"loggedStatus": "LOGGED_OUT",
"loggingChecked": false,
"articles": [],
"firstName": null,
"lastName": null,
"phoneNumber": null,
"fetchingMembership": false,
"membershipError": false,
"memberships": [
{
"id": null,
"startDate": null,
"firstName": null,
"lastName": null,
"familyNumber": null,
"memberNumber": null,
"memberSince": null,
"expirationDate": null,
"pfsEligible": false,
"isSustaining": false,
"membershipLevel": "Prospect",
"membershipStatus": "Non Member",
"lastGiftDate": null,
"renewalDate": null,
"lastDonationAmount": null
}
]
},
"authModal": {
"isOpen": false,
"view": "LANDING_VIEW"
},
"error": null
},
"youthMediaReducer": {},
"checkPleaseReducer": {
"filterData": {
"region": {
"key": "Restaurant Region",
"filters": [
"Any Region"
]
},
"cuisine": {
"key": "Restaurant Cuisine",
"filters": [
"Any Cuisine"
]
}
},
"restaurantDataById": {},
"restaurantIdsSorted": [],
"error": null
},
"userAgentReducer": {
"userAgent": "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)",
"isBot": true
}
}
