Over a million fans are expected to turn up on Rio's famous Copacabana beach Saturday for Madonna's end-of-tour mega concert ..read more

NPR's Scott Simon talks with composer Jeff Beal about his new collection of solo piano works, "The New York Etudes," and about living and working with multiple sclerosis ..read more

The former Dire Straits frontman talks about his latest solo album, "One Deep River." (Image credit: Murdo MacLeod ..read more

Here in the Pitch, her best album, feels completely lucid.'/> The singer-songwriter's fourth album is her best yet, with crisp, commanding songwriting, shades of '60s baroque pop and melodies that seem to have existed forever ..read more

Pro-Palestinian protests have been popping up at universities around the world, and in the last few days things have escalated at a number of those campuses. Columbia University called on police to shutdown the encampment on their university lawn and 300 people were arrested. At University of California Los Angeles, about 200 pro-Israel counter-protestors raided a pro-Palestinian encampment. To get first hand accounts of the protests, Brittany talks to two student journalists: Shaanth Nanguneri, an undergraduate reporter at the UCLA, and Claire Davenport, a graduate reporter at Columbia Unive ..read more

The outrageously fun Japanese punk band speeds and screams through its catalog. (Image credit: Michael Zamora/NPR ..read more

Radical Optimism, the further adventures in the pop music time machine.'/> On the May 3 episode of New Music Friday, NPR Music's Hazel Cills and WRTI's Nate Chinen discuss the week's essential new albums, including Radical Optimism, from the dance-pop superstar Dua Lipa. The songs on Radical Optimism are mostly in the vein of Dua Lipa's earlier work, but that itself might be reason to keep a militantly sunny attitude: A parade of hits from her last album, Future Nostalgia, proved to have incredible staying power — "Levitating" hung around in the top 10 of Billboard's Hot 100 chart for near ..read more

A big part of what makes the Final Fantasy franchise so beloved is its score. Rebirth's composers aimed to make music that pleases fans of the original while trying something new and surprising ..read more

A new documentary, Hip-Hop and the White House, considers rap's association with presidential politics — and in so doing, reveals a persistent misunderstanding of how both operate. (Image credit: Ron Sachs/Consolidated News Pictures ..read more

We received nearly 7,000 entries to this year's Tiny Desk Contest. Cast your vote for your favorite entry from Top Shelf ..read more