Bob Boilen

What a killer song. In fact, of all the tunes the All Songs Considered crew inspected before we headed down to Austin for SXSW, "Colors," the debut single by Genevieve, was the team favorite.

Genevieve's official video for "Colors" furthers the song's message: Find pride in who you are. ...

After a week of 16-hour days and little-to-no sleep, the All Songs Considered gang is back from Austin with a slew of musical discoveries from the 2015 South by Southwest music festival. On this week's show, hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are joined by NPR Music's Stephen Thompson to ...

If you love music as much as we do (we really love music), there's a good chance that this is one of your favorite weeks of the year. This is when the massive South by Southwest music festival and conference bubbles up and spills over into the streets of Austin, ...

Spoiler alert: The Punch Brothers came to the Tiny Desk on Chris Thile's birthday. We made him a cake and gave him an NPR surprise! This wasn't the first time the brilliant mandolinist had brought a project to my desk, it was his fourth. The last ...

On this week's All Songs Considered, we look at one of life's immutable truths: Nothing's ever easy! Or, at least some things are way harder than they need to be. That's part of the message in the new kiss-off song that opens our show, "Hot Scary Summer," from the upcoming ...

It says a lot that, with almost 7,000 entries to choose from, we selected Fantastic Negrito as the winner of our Tiny Desk Concert Contest. For his winning submission, he performed "Lost In A Crowd" in a freight elevator in Oakland. It was his passion, his voice and ...

If you're attracted to the strange, then you must watch "The Strangest Eyes." The music video for this song, by Wasted Wine, feels like a bastard child of David Lynch and Nick Cave. There's humor, but damn it's dark.

Wasted Wine is from Taylors, South Carolina. You can hear the ...

BOOTS is the project of musician Jordan Asher. You may have heard his work in collaboration with Beyoncé on her self-titled 2013 album. Now he has his own project, this 30 minute self-directed film built around five of his songs. That project, and an accompanying soundtrack EP by BOOTS, is ...

I like music videos best when they turn me onto a new artist. This riveting stop-motion video has me listening to the music of Eskmo, an L.A. composer and producer and the moniker of Brendan Angelides. The video is reminiscent of Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" — both feature a ...

This week on All Songs Considered, we get heavy — heavy lyrics, heavy themes — as hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton explore the meaning of life, even breaking it down to the atomic level, with existential music from English folk singer Bill Fay, Björk and more.

Bill ...

What a night! NPR Music will be at SXSW in Austin, Texas on Wednesday, March 18 to present an amazing night of music. Courtney Barnett will play her entire new album live, the week before it comes out. Stromae, a European star who has racked up ...

I first saw Phox in an impromptu concert at a restaurant in Philadelphia. I thought the band was talented and charming, and I still do. Phox is six friends from Baraboo, Wis., who make pretty, catchy music. The group's not-so-secret weapon is Monica Martin, who sings with a smoky ...

Pokey LaFarge's passion for women, storytelling and American blues and gospel all come together on this song, the title track of his new album, Something in the Water. LaFarge wrote to us to tell us that the song "is about the ups and downs of a Midwestern love ...

It's rare to be a choreographer with a rock band, or a rock band with a choreographer, but that's much of what makes People Get Ready unique. Steven Reker is a graceful dancer who sometimes straps his guitar around his waist and spins while the neck of the guitar hammers ...

Sometime years from now I may be asked: What was your favorite day at NPR? I am likely to say it's the day Dan Deacon got the NPR staff worked up into a giant dance party! It's also the day Deacon and staff wheeled in an upright piano ...

Forty years ago this week, Led Zeppelin released the band's monumental sixth album, the double LP Physical Graffiti. It was, as guitarist Jimmy Page himself tells us in this interview, "the mother of all double albums," with some of the band's most memorable songs, including "Kashmir," "Houses Of The ...

It may be freezing on the east coast, but on All Songs Considered this week, we've got the hottest tracks to keep you out of the cold.

At the top, North Dakota songwriter Tom Brosseau tells a heartbreaking story about a boy abandoned by his mother. Patrick Watson returns with ...

With her huge voice and an assist from talented trombonist Daniel Walter Eaton, Zola Jesus presented a curious combination at the Tiny Desk — a combination I hardly ever encounter. Having seen her mostly with a big and powerful band, I wondered if this configuration would work. But it ...

More than ever, we are a creative culture. A simple shout out to participate in our Tiny Desk Concert Contest deluged us with almost 7,000 video entries. And the quality of those entries — not simply the technical quality but the quality of idea and imagination — was boundless. We ...

"They call me the hard luck boy," Tom Brosseau says at the top of his enchanting new album, later adding, "It all happened a very long time ago, when I was just a boy. My mother took me on what she called 'a little shopping trip' four or five ...