Stephen Thompson appears in the following:
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Mr. Robot' And Title Sequences
Friday, September 04, 2015
Last week, when Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon and I gathered to talk about the great summer entertainment we'd neglected to discuss on the show, we came to a realization mid-taping: All three of us had been watching, and loving, the USA Network series Mr. Robot, which aired the last episode ...
First Listen: Low, 'Ones And Sixes'
Wednesday, September 02, 2015
It's one thing for Low to have made a rewarding career of spare, dramatic, glacially paced music — for song after slow-moving song to have been constructed out of little more than crystalline guitar lines, minimal bass, maybe a few effects here and there, brushes of snare and ...
Small Batch: The VMAs, From Speeches To Singing To Squads
Monday, August 31, 2015
[You can hear Stephen Thompson and Linda Holmes chat about the VMAs on a Small Batch edition of Pop Culture Happy Hour by hitting the play button at the top of this post.]
There are awards shows bolstered by social media — Grammy telecasts, for example, that lend themselves to ...
The Good Listener: Should Fans Fear Side Projects?
Saturday, August 29, 2015
We get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside the T-shirt we bought to express our love of goats is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives. This time around: thoughts on side projects.
Ann in County Cork writes via Facebook: "I am ...
First Listen: Lou Barlow, 'Brace The Wave'
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
Lou Barlow's circuitous path as a recording artist has taken him through key roles in Sebadoh and Dinosaur Jr., not to mention The Folk Implosion, which cracked the pop charts with "Natural One" back in the '90s. He's also put out a ...
The Giant Foam Finger: Is Winning Everything?
Tuesday, August 25, 2015
The weekend before last, a pro athlete by the name of James Harrison announced on Instagram that he'd returned the participation trophies his kids had received for playing youth sports, writing, "While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Straight Outta Compton' And Too Much TV
Friday, August 21, 2015
Linda Holmes is finally back from two and a half weeks cooped up in an L.A. hotel for the Television Critics Association's press tour, but her return coincides with Glen Weldon's vacation, so Linda and I are joined by two guest panelists this week: All Things Considered cohost Audie Cornish ...
First Listen: Beach House, 'Depression Cherry'
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Beach House works with a simple set of ingredients — a few vintage keyboards, programmed drums, an electric guitar and the drowsily alluring voice of Victoria Legrand — to evoke a specific tone that rarely varies. And yet Depression Cherry, the Baltimore duo's fifth album in the last decade, ...
Kacey Musgraves: Tiny Desk Concert
Monday, August 17, 2015
Given the timing of Kacey Musgraves' appearance in the NPR offices — the Supreme Court had legalized gay marriage across America mere hours earlier — it was inevitable that the singer would trot out "Follow Your Arrow," the most anthemic go-your-own-way jam on Musgraves' 2013 debut album, Same Trailer ...
The Giant Foam Finger: What We Talk About When We Talk About Brett Favre
Monday, August 17, 2015
In the first two episodes of The Giant Foam Finger — a new, sports-themed offshoot of Pop Culture Happy Hour — NPR Code Switch blogger Gene Demby and I have discussed one play in a decade-old NFL game, and we've tackled the phenomenon of fan hatred. This ...
The Good Listener: Are Tall People Obligated To Stand In The Back At Concerts?
Saturday, August 15, 2015
We get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside the mammoth box someone used to ship us a single bottle of beer is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives. This time around: thoughts on tall folks at concerts.
Stephanie B. writes via ...
All Songs +1: Marking The Demise Of 'The Spotify Of The '80s'
Friday, August 14, 2015
Columbia House (actually, the company that has owned Columbia House since 2012) filed for bankruptcy this week, which will mean a great deal to those who were music lovers in the 1980s and '90s, and probably close to nothing to listeners under the age of 30. Columbia House was a ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Difficult People' And Amusement Parks
Friday, August 14, 2015
Linda Holmes is this close to returning home from two and a half weeks at the Television Critics Association press tour — so close, she swears can practically feel the fabric of the sheets on her very own bed — but she's absent from this week's Pop Culture Happy Hour ...
Song Premiere: David Wax Museum, 'Guesthouse'
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
David Wax and Suz Slezak, the married couple who form David Wax Museum, have put an extraordinary amount of research and work into their sound. They've spent years studying folk music in Mexico, digging back to its roots there to find inspiration, and have traveled the world as official ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: 'Wet Hot American Summer' And Impossible Missions
Friday, August 07, 2015
Linda Holmes is in L.A. for the Television Critics Association press tour, so she's appearing on this episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour as a panelist, calling in from NPR West. I'm in her host chair. A commercially disastrous 2001 movie has just gotten an eight-episode TV prequel on Netflix. ...
The National's Matt Berninger Has A New Band
Tuesday, August 04, 2015
Partnerships between well-known musicians often result in unequal collaborations: One voice, usually the singer's, winds up dominating. So it's refreshing to hear "Return To The Moon," the first released song by a project called EL VY.
Pronouncing its name "El Vie" (not "El Vee"), the duo features The National ...
The Good Listener: How Do I Play DJ Without Embarrassing Myself?
Saturday, August 01, 2015
We get a lot of mail at NPR Music, and alongside the brick-sized bale of bills that arrived during our recent vacation is a slew of smart questions about how music fits into our lives. This time around: thoughts on how to play DJ from the passenger seat of a ...
Pop Culture Happy Hour: Music, Movies And Music In Movies
Friday, July 31, 2015
Our pal Ari Shapiro is in a decent amount of demand these days: He's wrapping up a stint as an NPR international correspondent based in London, he's toured as a guest vocalist with the band Pink Martini, and he's just been named one of the hosts of All Things ...
The Giant Foam Finger: Sports Hatred
Monday, July 27, 2015
A couple weeks ago, Code Switch blogger Gene Demby and I sat down to reflect on a decade-old sports moment — a single play in a single game — and describe how it affected us as rival fans of the teams involved. In this second episode of the series we're ...