New Music Friday: The best albums out Aug. 22

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 August 2025

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Nourished By Time. Mac Demarco. Earl Sweatshirt. Stephen Thompson and Vermont Public's Tad Cautious discuss the best new albums out this new music Friday.

The Starting 5:

• Nourished By Time, The Passionate Ones

• Pino Palladino & Blake Mills, That Wasn't a Dream

• Greg Freeman, Burnover

• Kathleen Edwards, Billionaire

• Mac DeMarco, Guitar

The Lightning Round:

• Laufey, A Matter of Time

• Sombr, I Barely Know Her

• Ami Taf Ra, The Prophet and the Madman

• Deftones, private music

• BigXthaPlug, I Hope You're Happy

• Teyana Taylor, Escape Room

• Night Owls, Versions II

• Kid Cudi, Free

• Earl Sweatshirt, Live Laugh Love

• Ghostface Killah, Supreme Clientele 2

See our long list of albums out Aug. 22 and sample dozens of them via our New Music Friday playlist on npr.org.

Credits

Host: Stephen Thompson

Guest: Tad Cautious, Vermont Public

Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell

Digital Producer: Elle Mannion

Editor: Otis Hart

Production Assistant: Dora Levite

Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson. Every week on New
0:10.5	Music Friday, we speak to a member of the NPR Music Network. And today, August 22nd, we are welcoming
0:16.0	Tad cautious from Vermont public. Hey, Tad. Hey, how you doing? I am doing well. It is a pleasure to have you on the show. Welcome to New Music Friday.
0:24.3	Likewise. Thank you so much. I'm excited to talk about all these records.
0:28.0	Yeah. So before we start, I want to just state up front. It is an odd release week.
0:33.2	Basically, there have been a ton of kind of late-breaking titles in pop and R&B and hip-hop, which made it tougher than usual to plan.
0:42.5	This time of year always sneaks up on us.
0:44.7	It's always a little frantic because we're coming up on the end of the eligibility window for next year's Grammy Awards.
0:51.3	So the way we decided to deal with the glut is just pick five new records
0:56.5	we love, regardless of popularity, regardless of how they're going to perform or not perform on
1:01.8	the charts or in awards shows, and then present for you a super-sized lightning round at the end of the
1:09.0	show. So in the meantime, let's kick off the show with Nourished by Time.
1:13.9	Nourished by Time has a new album called The Passionate Ones.
1:18.2	Yeah, I fall down and train you, baby.
1:23.3	Gruns are gone of transmitting.
1:30.3	A super-atchezable connection
1:32.3	With a touch
1:34.3	of danger
1:36.3	Please be careful
1:39.3	With my orientation
1:42.3	Not well But to So, my lord, yet she's not a word for a singer,
1:45.0	but to God
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 23 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.