This week, we’re sharing news about the musician who won this year’s Tiny Desk Contest — plus, hear stories and music from NPR’s Songs of Remembrance project.
Jacquelyn Marie / Courtesy of the artist
There’s one phone call that Bob Boilen, host of All Songs Considered and creator of the Tiny Desk series, looks forward to every year: calling the winner of the Tiny Desk Contest to share the good news. This year, that honor went to Alisa Amador, a songwriter from Boston, Mass. (You can hear some of that very sweet phone call on this week’s episode of All Songs Considered.)
Amador's family is from Puerto Rico, New Mexico and Argentina, and she says her winning song, “Milonga accidental,” is "an ode to in-between-ness, to having several identities at once, to feeling split between cultures and languages." 2022 was Amador’s fifth year entering the Contest but the first time she submitted a song entirely in Spanish. It’s always a delight to watch artists return to the Contest over and over — especially for an artist like Amador, whose entries have demonstrated her commitment to both her local music scene and to sharpening her own sound. She spoke to member station WBUR about the support she’s found in Boston’s singer-songwriter community and what the Tiny Desk Contest has meant to her.
And speaking of winning performances: The 66th Eurovision Song Contest took place in Italy last week; this year's winner was Ukraine’s Kalush Orchestra. Our friends at Pop Culture Happy Hour talked about the pageantry, the bops, the ballads and what this year’s competition has to say about the state of the world. Pop Culture Happy Hour also talked this week with critics Christina Lee and Marcus J. Moore about the intense introspection of Kendrick Lamar’s new albumMr. Morale & The Big Steppers; plus, Moore — who wrote a biography of Lamar — wrote a review of the record, which he calls “a testament of a complicated soul with a lot more work to do,” for our site.
This week also saw the U.S. pass a grim milestone: One million people in the country have died from COVID-19. To put a face on this number and pay respect to the departed, NPR asked our audience to share songs that reminded them of a loved one lost to COVID-19. In the Songs of Remembrance project, you can hear those songs and read about the people who loved them.
Finally: This week, we published a thorny feature about metal musician Matt Pike. Pike is a Grammy-winning artist and a member of two iconic groups, Sleep and High on Fire, who overcame long odds to earn at status as a kind of rough-hewn icon of contemporary metal. He’s a fearsome guitarist and a songwriter compelled by concepts that could be drawn from fantasy novels and/or inspired by drug use. Pike is also a proponent of conspiracy theories — particularly those of David Icke, whose ideas have frequently been associated with global antisemitism. Writer Grayson Haver Currin has long been a fan of Pike’s music, including the solo album he released earlier this year. But the more Pike talked about his commitment to Icke’s ideas, the more Currin felt uneasy about his fandom. His article digs into how and why Pike came to believe what he does — and how a fan can or should respond when an artist they love does or says something they find odious or even dangerous.
Rappers Young Thug and Gunna were arrested last week under an indictment that named nearly 30 people and contained evidence going as far back as 2013. These high-profile arrests mark a rising trend in the criminalization of hip-hop artists under the RICO Act, a law that was originally designed to fight organized crime like the mafia. In a recent special episode of Louder Than a Riot, co-hosts Sidney Madden and Rodney Carmichael consider the tension between fans that applaud street cred and the law enforcement that uses it as evidence.
Vangelis, the composer who gave the movie Chariots of Fire its signature synth-driven sound, died this week at 79 years old. The synth pioneer also composed the soundtrack for the original Blade Runner and Carl Sagan's PBS documentary series Cosmos, and was prolific in his solo career.
This week on New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, hear a conversation about the new album from Harry Styles, plus a stunning debut album from R&B singer Ravyn Lenae, a new release by jazz pianist Joey Alexander and more.
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