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Holly Andres / Capitol Records The Decemberists' Shiny, Happy Protest Album
“There’s something therapeutic in looking at the apocalypse and laughing,” Colin Meloy says of the band’s I’ll Be Your Girl.
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Annette Lee / Beggars Group A 'White Woman's Voice' Interrogates Itself
The experimental pop singer Merrill Garbus of Tune-Yards intensifies her politics and dance grooves for i can feel you creep into my private life.
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Dylan Martinez / Reuters 2017 in Pop: Revenge of the Strummer Boy
Ed Sheeran, Justin Bieber’s followers, and the One Direction diaspora succeeded with PG, easy-listening pop.
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Owen Sweeney / AP The False Prophets of Protest Music
Members of Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, and Cypress Hill team up for political rock that seems immediately obsolete.
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You Know What Song This Will Be About
If you follow (or have heard of) the Brazilian experimental-percussion group Uakti, you probably are already aware that they have…
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Watch Out, Tom Jobim and Elis Regina
There is a new contender for Greatest Version of World’s Greatest Song: Thanks to reader A…
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Your Bossa Nova Winner, and 4 Honored Finalists
The results are in. I’ll get to them shortly. First, the standards of judging I’ve found myself applying as I’ve…
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Late Entries in the Águas de Março Derby, Featuring Don Draper
In addition to the ~20 versions in the other dispatches shown further down on this page, here are a few…
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Fim do Caminho for The World's Greatest Song
There’s nothing quite like travel, events, the flu/pellagra, and learning you’re the object of an IRS identity-theft case…
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Agony, Ecstasy, and Águas de Março
It has been unexpectedly rewarding to raise the topic of The Greatest Song Ever™, Águas de Março by Antonio Carlos…
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Question for the Ages: Which Version of Águas de Março Really Is the Greatest?
Following an item this week on the world’s greatest song, or one of them, some followup discussion on the song…
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The Greatest Song Ever Recorded, Now in Pomplamoose Version
OK, there are lots of great songs. But for me this one has always been in the very first tier…
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Because We Haven't Heard About My Favorite Coventry-Based Band in a While ...
I could have written this item decades ago if my last name were Smith.
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'Music for People Who Have Given Up'
'That's not an opinion, it's a fact.'
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On the Pomplamoose Beat: Nataly Dawn Goes Solo
You've been waiting for this news...
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Gangnam Style's Broadway Roots
What America's most esteemed choreographer and Korea's biggest celebrity have in common.
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All Jobim, All the Time
The surprising connections between a musical genius of the 1960s and a struggling politician of the 2010s.
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Readers on the Warpath about 'Tom' Jobim
Which of today's politicians does the great Brazilian composer really bring to mind?
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June 23: Embarrassment of Riches in D.C.
A book talk, a music show -- you have no excuse to be cranky or bored
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Gil Scott-Heron
A singer whose voice, poetry, and music marked an age
