New Music Friday: The best albums out March 27

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🗓️ 27 March 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

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Summary

Robyn. RAYE. A jazzy left turn from Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson chats with Alisa Ali from WFUV in the Bronx about their favorite albums out Friday, March 27. Plus, a handful of NPR Music writers and critics offer personal picks in our lightning round.

The Starting 5

(01:42) Robyn, 'Sexistential'
(07:15) RAYE, 'This Music May Contain Hope'
(14:21) Courtney Barnett, 'Creature of Habit'
(20:20) The New Pornographers, 'The Former Site Of'
(25:32) Flea, 'Honora'

(32:08) The Lightning Round

- Connie Converse, 'How Sad, How Lovely' (Reissue)
- Snail Mail, 'Ricochet'
- The Philharmonik, 'Transcendentalism I' EP
- Irreversible Entanglements, 'Future Present Past'
- Sluice, 'Companion'
- Charlotte Cornfield, 'Hurts Like Hell'

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: Alisa Ali, WFUV
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Digital Producer: Dora Levite
Editors: Otis Hart, Elle Mannion
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed
Special thanks to Bobby Carter, Sheldon Pearce and Ann Powers

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music.
0:08.8	It's New Music Friday.
0:10.2	I'm Stephen Thompson here with Alisa Ali of WFUV in New York.
0:14.6	Welcome back to the show, Alisa.
0:16.0	So glad to join you again, Stephen.
0:17.9	See your beautiful face and your multifiless voice.
0:23.2	I'm often accused of having both of those things. It is a pleasure to have you here. It is Friday, March 27th, one of the,
0:30.7	it's got to be the busiest music release day of the year so far. And I think when 2026 is over,
0:38.6	we will look back and say,
0:44.9	a lot of records on March 27th. It was a good week. Hard to pick just the few, although we've got a lot for you today. Yeah, we picked out five albums we're going to talk about in depth.
0:49.8	We also have a lightning round of some of the other terrific records out today, March 27th. But we're not even getting to your Charlie Puth. We're not getting to Jose Gonzalez, Melissa Etheridge, Slater with three Wies, Ty Myers, Need to Breathe, Yeat, Fettywop, Tom Mish. Tons and tons of new music out today. Alisa, how do you even dredge through it all to figure out what you want to talk about here?
1:11.5	You just go through the list and then you got to rank them. It's ranked choice voting over here.
1:16.8	That's how we roll in New York.
1:20.5	I'm trying to make political parallels of like which candidate you've, about the candidates that you've rejected.
1:27.6	Oh boy. I don't want to diss anybody.
1:29.6	We'll probably leave that for another podcast.
1:31.6	All right, well, we don't actually rank albums on this show.
1:34.9	Just because we talk about something first doesn't mean it's automatically the best.
1:38.1	But I guess for the purposes of that particular analogy, I guess your vote is going to the album that's going to kick off this show.
1:44.2	Robin is back with a new record. It's called Sexistential.
1:49.5	Yeah, I'm so close. I'm almost there. Want you to tell me how to do it.
1:57.6	It's not as good by myself. So, baby, will you talk me through it?
	...

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