The Best Music Of July: NPR Staff Picks

NPR Music

NPR

Music

4.3 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In July, we found solace in veterans (Billy Bragg) and newcomers (Canary Room), witnessed personal transformations from IDK and WILLOW, hit funky grooves with William Parker and heard angels become mortal in a collaboration between Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine.

Songs heard in this episode:
• Billy Bragg: "I Will Be Your Shield" from The Million Things That Never Happened
• Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine: "Reach Out" from A Beginner's Mind
• Canary Room: "Christine" from Christine
• WILLOW: "don't SAVE ME" from lately I feel EVERYTHING
• IDK: "Hey Auntie" from USEE4YOURSELF
• William Parker: "Tabasco" from Mayan Space Station

Follow the #NowPlaying blog for the NPR Music staff's favorite new songs.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, my name is Peter Segal and I am here to help you with the most pressing problem facing
0:03.5	civilization today. There are too many good podcasts to listen to. Now why not avoid that
0:08.4	whole problem by listening to an extremely silly podcast hosted by me? On Weight Weight
0:12.3	Don't Tell Me, it's Wisecracks about the week's news, shenanigans, fart jokes, and general
0:16.0	silliness. And doesn't that sound pretty great right now? Listen to the Weight Weight Don't Tell Me
0:20.5	Podcast from NPR. For NPR music, you're connected to all songs considered. I'm Bob Boylin,
0:26.4	and today we bring you the best of July. Where members of the NPR music team choose their favorite
0:33.0	albums or singles from the month gone by. We begin with NPR music critic and correspondent and
0:39.5	powers and her love for the song by Billy Bragg called I Will Be Your Shield.
0:45.0	I bet a lot of people are feeling the way I'm feeling right now, which is anxious and whiplashed.
0:51.2	Just as I was reconnecting with friends and feeling more relaxed about moving through the world,
0:58.1	the Delta variant brought COVID back in a real way. And I just have really been struggling
1:05.6	with the fact that it no longer seemed so safe to resume the relaxed connected life. I love
1:10.9	even though I am vaccinated. I needed a song that could shelter me. And just in time, one of my favorite
1:18.2	troubadours, Billy Bragg, who's been giving me and all of his fans virtual hugs alongside
1:25.1	potent political messages since the early 1980s released this blood pressure lowering testament
1:31.6	to enduring love and trust. It's a track from his first solo album in eight years, which is coming
1:38.0	out this October. And it's really, really helping me get by right now. So thank you, Billy. You'll
1:46.1	always be my milkman of humankind this and I love that you're being our shield.
2:16.1	For confidence, confiding me instead, when every little setback just makes you want to cry.
2:33.9	When the whole world seems against you and you don't know why, in the battle against your demons,
2:53.0	I will be your shield. When the world is lost all meaning to give you, stand for, I love this, the one thing that's real.
	...

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