Stephen Thompson

For John Darnielle, goth isn't a sound or a style so much as a state of mind: a source of comfort and connection for more than just the young and lost.

On the Montreal-based indie-pop band's first album in seven years, Elizabeth Powell's voice captures a just-right mix of sweetness and ache.

To fertilize its barley, a brewery in Denmark is using urine collected at the Roskilde Music Festival. The beer is called "Pisner," because of course it is.

Loveless unlocks the slow-burning desperation at the heart of an electro-pop banger.

The singer has made a specialty of string-swept odes to perseverance, and "Are You Getting Through" is a particularly strong entry in his recent catalog.

Known for her work in The Pierces, the singer goes solo with a song about broken trust.

The ingredients of "Wishing Girl" are simple but potent: a whistled hook, Gil Landau's briskly strummed ukulele, and the sweetly plainspoken voice of Yael Shoshana Cohen.

Hear "Electric Intercourse," the first previously unreleased song to trickle out from a forthcoming deluxe reissue of Prince's 1984 classic Purple Rain.

Wainwright has just released a cover of "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" to support a charity called The Art Of Elysium.

Foster The People will return with its third, as-yet-untitled album this summer. In the meantime, the L.A. band has just released three new songs.

On her fourth solo album, the Kentucky singer-songwriter's music once again functions as a headache remedy, nerve tonic and comfort food rolled into one.

Will Oldham and his band pay tribute to Merle Haggard by reaching across the country legend's discography to paint a vivid, chronology-busting, album-length portrait.

The Irish singer-songwriter's latest song strikes a sure-footed balance between airy tenderness and coolly jazzy melancholy.

Novo Amor's "Carry You" highlights the soft, airy, fragile falsetto of singer Ali Lacey.

"To apply, please send cover letter explaining experience, resume and your dankest Mac meme or Mac-related GIF to..."

NPR's Steve Inskeep and Stephen Thompson discuss the complex history of "Deliverance," a previously unreleased Prince song from 2006 that came out this week.

An attacker killed a police officer in Paris, days ahead of France's presidential election. Also, House Republicans say they are putting the "finishing touches" on a new health care plan.

A new EP featuring six of Prince's previously unreleased songs was scheduled for release Friday. But a lawsuit filed by the late artist's estate may prevent it from ever coming out.

The Saskatoon trio's songs purr seductively, with warmly shimmering guitars and an overarching subtlety that's inviting, never distant.

The Police's "Every Breath You Take" was already a pretty creepy song. Now, it and many other love songs have been re-envisioned as the covers of Stephen King-style horror paperbacks.