New Music Friday: The best albums out Oct. 3

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2025

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

dodie. Molly Nilsson. Leon Vynehall. We welcome Skylar Rochelle of 90.9 The Bridge in Kansas City to the show to recommend five albums not made by Taylor Swift.

The Starting 5:

• dodie, 'Not For Lack Of Trying'
• Blue Lake, 'The Animal'
• Snõõper, 'Worldwide'
• Molly Nilsson, 'Amateur'
• Leon Vynehall, 'In Daytona Yellow'

The Lightning Round:

• S. Carey, 'Watercress' (EP)
• Leisi, 'For Dinah' (A Tribute to Dinah Washington)
• Alfa Mist, 'Roulette'
• Prewn, 'System'
• Upchuck, 'I'm Nice Now'

View our long list of new albums out on Oct. 3 and sample more than 50 of them via our New Music Friday playlists on npr.org.

Credits

Host: Stephen Thompson
Guest: Skylar Rochelle, 90.9 The Bridge
Audio Producer: Noah Caldwell
Digital Producer: Elle Mannion
Editor: Otis Hart
Production Assistant: Dora Levite
Executive Producer: Suraya Mohamed

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Transcript

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0:00.0	A quick note before the show, this podcast contains explicit language.
0:03.9	I had a bad habit of missing lovers past.
0:10.6	Happy Friday, everyone, from NPR Music.
0:13.2	It's New Music Friday.
0:14.5	I am your host, Stephen Thompson.
0:16.5	I'm here with Skylar Rochelle from 90.9, The Bridge in Kansas City.
0:20.5	Hey, Skyler. Hi, Steven. Thank you so much for
0:23.0	having me. It is a pleasure to have you. I'm so glad you're here. So the elephant in the room this week
0:28.8	is the new Taylor Swift album, The Life of a Showgirl, which we are not going to discuss in depth on
0:35.7	this episode. Well, so obviously we were taping this earlier in the week,
0:39.5	but I know that you got an extra special early listen to the record, and I'm curious to hear
0:44.3	what you think. Yeah, I got to hear it a bunch of times in the roughly 48 hours leading up to
0:49.4	its release. And as you can imagine, NPR has lots of coverage rolling out in the next few days, so I will keep it brief.
0:56.8	Basically, Taylor Swift has hinted that this was going to be kind of a back-to-bangers record.
1:01.9	She produced it with Max Martin and Shelbach, who worked with her on her early pivots into pop music,
1:07.7	and I think that comes through here.
1:09.3	But the life of a showgirl still,
1:11.3	I think, fits thematically with songs from her more, I kind of describe it as her more autumnal era,
1:18.1	with, you know, albums like folklore and Midnights and the Tortured Poets Department.
1:22.0	It's just more contained and compact, more brightly produced, with more overt moments of joy. It's 12 songs in a little more
1:30.7	than 40 minutes. Those 40 minutes are pretty big on drama and grandeur. It's definitely a record
1:36.3	about falling in love with her fiance, Travis Kelsey, but it's also bringing in notes of
	...

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