New Music Friday: The best albums out March 13

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4.3 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

James Blake. Kim Gordon. Sturgill Simpson's country-funk alter ego. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson chats with Amelia Mason from WBUR in Boston about their favorite albums out Friday, March 13. Plus, a handful of NPR Music writers and critics offer personal picks in our lightning round.

The Starting 5

(00:00) Introduction & Oscars predictions
(02:15) Johnny Blue Skies & The Dark Clouds, 'Mutiny After Midnight'
(08:50) James Blake, 'Trying Times'
(17:04) Anjimile, 'You're Free To Go'
(22:53) Kim Gordon, 'Play Me'
(27:52) Blessing Jolie, '20nothing'

(35:15) The Lightning Round

- Morgan Nagler, 'I've Got Nothing To Lose, and I'm Losing It'
- Tinariwen, 'Hoggar'
- Jorge Drexler, 'Taracá'
- The Tallis Scholars, 'Nico Muhly: No Resting Place'
- Fugazi, 'Albini Sessions'

Sample the albums via our New Music Friday playlist and see our Long List of notable releases on NPR.org.

Credits:
Host: Stephen Thompson
Guest: Amelia Mason, WBUR
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Digital Producer: Dora Levite
Editors: Otis Hart, Elle Mannion
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Special thanks to Felix Contreras, Tom Huizenga and Lars Gotrich

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language.
0:04.5	Something I've been going to tell you for a long time.
0:09.3	It might hurt you.
0:11.3	Hope you don't lose your mind.
0:13.4	Happy Friday, everyone from NPR Music.
0:15.9	It's New Music Friday.
0:17.1	I'm Stephen Thompson here with Amelia Mason of WBUR in Boston.
0:22.1	Welcome back to the show, Amelia.
0:23.4	Thank you so much for having me back.
0:25.6	This show is out on Friday, March 13th, as we head into Oscars weekend, Amelia.
0:31.7	Do you have any Oscars hot takes?
0:33.6	Oh, boy. I don't know.
0:35.4	I don't know if I should speak on it.
0:37.1	There were some movies I enjoyed a lot and other movies I enjoyed a lot less.
0:42.1	All right. You know, this show is technically all about love, but give me your hate-related hot take.
0:48.9	Okay. I really, really, really did not enjoy Frankenstein. I didn't like, Visually speaking, I found it to be... It looked like a video game. And just overwrought and... Overwrought is a pretty fair hit on that movie. It is overwrought, and I think, you know, the original story is overwrought, which is one of the things I kind of disliked about the book, honestly.
1:30.5	So you're just anti- Frankenstein, period. Maybe I just hate Frankenstein. What about you? Oh, I'm all about sinners. I'm not only is sinners my favorite movie of the year, but I think it's going to win best picture. I think it might too. I think it's got a edge. That's the hill I'm going to die on. We did a whole Pop Culture Happy Hour Oscars preview.
1:27.8	If you go to the pop culture happy hour feed to
1:32.7	hear that. And I'm like the one person who is like persistently extremely optimistic that
1:38.4	Sinners is going to have this like massively huge night. I think it has an edge right now. It seems
1:42.9	to be not exactly a front rudder, but like might have a bit of an edge, a little nose. I think it has an edge right now. It seems to be not exactly a front rudder,
1:45.1	but like might have a bit of an edge, a little nose. I liked it very much. It wasn't my very
	...

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