Stephen Thompson (3:39)

Yeah, and that perspective really comes through here. I mean, you know, famously, she has gone through a divorce over the course of several of these albums. Star Crossed is reflecting directly on the immediate aftermath of that divorce. Deeper well is kind of about finding yourself in the aftermath of. And this record kind of takes a lot of those ideas a step further. And so there are a number of songs here that are different perspectives on loneliness and solitude and kind of finding comfort in your own skin, but also wrestling with. How do we put it? Frustrated Celibacy.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (4:16)

Ain't nobody's tool up in my shed Ain't nobody's boots under my bed Ain't nobody's truck up in my drive for a late night Call for a a real good time don't do notches on my belt and tired of keeping my hands to myself 91 1. It's officially a cry for help, y'.

Background Vocalist or Singer (4:41)

All.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (4:42)

I'm going through a dry spell. Yep.

Julie Height (4:48)

I really appreciate the innovation that she brings to writing about being alone, you know? Cause you think of the canon of country songs about loneliness like I'm so lonesome, I could cry, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, all these barroom weepers that are about, you know, loneliness as though it is life ending. And it's so. Those songs are so fixated on the person that is no longer there and longing for them. But, I mean, Casey Musgraves really is exploring all these other possibilities of being alone. You know, I mean, she is writing about this sense of clarity and peace of mind and a sense of contentment that she has experienced being out in a remote location by herself and even, you know, finding room to reflect and ruminate on past patterns and experiences. So I love hearing that in Casey Musgrave's new song, Loneliest Girl. And as you mentioned, I mean, it plays out in so many different ways on different songs on this album.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (6:07)

I could go days without seeing someone. I don't have to push anyone out of my bed no awkward conversations that I don't want to have yeah, I'm the loneliest girl in the world

Stephen Thompson (6:30)

Loneliest Girl. I mean, that's kind of a song about the bright side of loneliness and kind of not having to deal with a partner's BS and drama. But at the same time, it's not leaning entirely into that. It is looking at it from a number of different perspectives. And I love the way that she has been able to do that over the course of her career. You take the title track from this record. Middle of Nowhere is kind of about returning home, you know, to tiny Golden Texas and letting that be a cleansing experience even after, you know, this, this, like, long and fruitful career that kicked off with songs about the dark side of rural life and how suffocating small towns can be. And as somebody who grew up in a very, very small town myself, I really appreciated that her songs are not just praising rural life as the American ideal. They're understanding that there is a give and take wherever there are positives and negatives. And she's able to here kind of look at the positives of growing up

Background Vocalist or Singer (7:31)

in a small town somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (7:37)

I think maybe I'll just stay there. Don't tell me you miss me I don't care I'm somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

Julie Height (7:55)

I mean, she's also been living part time in Mexico in recent years, you

Stephen Thompson (8:00)

know, and those sounds come through here.

Julie Height (8:02)

Oh, yeah. And I think that the significance of the timing of Casey Musgrave's kind of celebrating how central Mexican and Mexican American voices and culture and musical influences, Tejano music, how central that is to country music and to Texas, celebrating that right now, you know, that's, that's no coincidence. I don't think the, the significance of, of doing that is, is lost on her. And those are meaningful and maybe even slightly challenging ideas to put out there

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (8:35)

right now here in uncertain Texas. I just don't know anymore. You think you really know somebody,

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice (8:50)

then

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (8:51)

they up and walk right out.

Stephen Thompson (8:55)

That is Kacey Musgraves. Her new album is Middle of Nowhere. Next up, American Football. American Football is back with their fourth self titled album, let's call it LP4.

American Football Band Member or Vocalist (9:09)

Ladies gentlemen, you've watched me walk through fire Swallow swords Ugly desire I've nothing left to fear now for my next trip you can watch me dis. If we're all born the same

Stephen Thompson (10:04)

so American Football, for those who don't know the band, they are from Urbana, Illinois. They put out one very celebrated record in 1999, only to disband. They reformed in 2014 and have put out three records ever since. To sum up the sound, they're often kind of referred to as an emo band, in part because of Mike Kinsella's vocals. But the sounds are just as influential by kind of jazz and math, rock and post rock. They're all kind of swirling together, held together by that voice and by these lustrous guitar lines in songs like Blood on My Blood.

American Football Band Member or Vocalist (10:44)

Please don't love me for the faces I keep pale don't ask why the devil hides in the details Just promise you won't love me don't make me use my pen My words killed before they'll kill again.

Julie Height (11:24)

It's so satisfying to hear how they are, you know, writing about and capturing grown up entanglements and reckoning with, you know, reckoning with where they are in life now. And I mean, listening to this album, I feel like I wasn't hearing any effort on their part to make maturity sound noble or feel noble or anything like that. But there's this searching self awareness and this. This sense that they're fumbling through, you know, and fumbling toward clarity during a season of life when you're, in theory, supposed to have it all together. And I think that. I mean, those interlocking guitar parts, they're these elegant thickets of complexity in there. I love that the arrangements are probably more expansive than ever for American Football.

Stephen Thompson (12:18)

Yeah. And I'm really glad that you brought up the way that the. These lyrics kind of address maturity without glorifying it in any way. And that's something that American Football has been doing so well for a really, really long time. I mean, the album they put out in 2019, which was the last record before this one, had this track on it with Hayley Williams from Paramore called Uncomfortably Numb, which is like one of the best songs about middle age I have ever heard. And this record is kind of picking up where it left off. The song no Feeling features Brendan Yates from Turnstile and. But the way that the song is able to kind of marry power and delicacy, you know, these kind of soft washes of synths and guitars as a backdrop to these kind of soft emotive vocals. And at the same time, there's real force to the arrangement.

American Football Band Member or Vocalist (13:06)

There's nothing new to say or do there's nothing new to crave Tell the doctors I'm done the kids adieu and mother to. One last goodbye One last kiss. One last dance the goddess.

Background Vocalist or Singer (13:46)

No pain

Julie Height (13:50)

that's such a difficult thing to do, I think, to give a sense of motion, you know, and to be able to capture that in a full band effort with so many different rhythmic layers heading in all different directions. It's a remarkable thing. And you also just made me think, Stephen, that I cannot wait for whatever playlist you ever are inspired to make about all of the songs that you love about middle age. I can't wait Sad Dad Presents.

Stephen Thompson (14:21)

I put together kind of like a year end compilations. I'm a few years behind now, but at the end of each year, I would put out these compilations of the songs that I loved in a given year. And I remember sending them to my friend, you know, covering like 2010 and 2011. And her response was these, these compilations should be called now that's what I call Divorce, Volumes one and two. All right, that is American Football. Their new album is self titled, but we're gonna go ahead and call it it LP4. We've got more records we're going to talk about, but first, let's take a quick break.

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Stephen Thompson (16:18)

from NPR Music, it's NEW MUSIC Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Julie Height from WPLN in Nashville. Julie, before we jump into our next record, tell us what's going on at wpln.

Julie Height (16:29)

I mean, there are always a million things going on at WPLN since it is Nashville's long standing news station and has a sister music station. So, you know, I kind of get to collaborate with both of those stations and with the there's a daily talk show called this Is Nashville. And, you know, because I am attached to a news station, I also get to do a lot of work around awards shows and what's happening with significant institutions and just developments in the Industry, how the system is working and, you know, I mean, who it's working for, who it's not working for. I do some of that through a recurring column called Key Changes. But it's kind of a nice place to be, to be able to do all of those things and then to get to see colleagues doing phenomenal investigative work and just reporting on the hard stuff of the state legislature and immigration and ICE and incarceration. So I feel really grateful to be positioned as senior music writer for the whole organization and kind of sharing my work and benefiting from and learning on a daily basis from the work that all my colleagues are doing.

Stephen Thompson (17:50)

I'm gonna come right out and say it. Julie. This is gonna be a controversial statement, but public media, it's a good thing.

Julie Height (17:56)

I agree. I second that emotion. I wholeheartedly agree.

Stephen Thompson (18:02)

All right, well, let's get on to our next record. Isaiah Rashad has a new album. It is called It's Been Awful.

Isaiah Rashad (Rapper - Song Lyrics) (18:08)

I got it jumping like water Potter boost hit the rain baby don't you spill out his shit it's contagious all these on my brain Cutting in my chin on my hip like a page Going through my phases I've been changing for the greater 3, 4, 5m Slater, we had a meeting in the kitchen Bout some chicken and some gravy and I'm right back on the road up though it paints me today Baby, what you working on? I've been working hard Nigga talking about me bad I done hurt it her and her and him on your mama running from the law got free my mind Sometime I won't get hot but I don't want my water When I feel like I can't breathe I grab my blood then my flow I've been smoking to the house.

Julie Height (19:01)

Isaiah Rashad, he is a rapper who has been perpetually kind of dogged by the question of where is the new music, since he is kind of prone to disappear for stretches of time because he went from, you know, demo to one full length album, another full length

Stephen Thompson (19:18)

album, and now five year hiatuses in between records.

Julie Height (19:22)

Yeah, and when he does release an album, like, it's been awful, it is such a satisfying listen. I mean, he has proven that the wait is worth it. This is an album that I listened to over and over again while running, by the way, and so I could really kind of sink into it. And it made me think about, like, there are so many cliches that come with the construct of an album that's about enduring hard times and going through painful Realities like, you might expect to hear, you know, kind of fresh, raw, unprocessed emotion, or maybe even kind of unearned catharsis, like an artist just quickly getting to some anthem about overcoming or, you know, writing from a point of view of inertia, emotional inertia, feeling stuck. And Isaiah Rashad does not give us any of that. I mean, the dimension of this album, it's been awful. Are. Are so broad as he sinks us into. Into his world. I mean, I. I hear it as like an inquiry into what honesty and agency look like for him as he moves through, you know, past and present trauma and the weight of responsibility to his family, to himself, you know, to his. To his peers, to his true fans. All of those things that just reminds us over and over again that he contains multitudes. I mean, as an artist and as a storyteller.

Stephen Thompson (20:53)

Yeah, those multitudes really, really come through here. I mean, a bunch of different songs on this record evoking a bunch of different sounds. I mean, there's a track called mom, which kind of gives off almost like outcast vibes, right? Like these springy, wobbly synth hooks behind him. Up in this house had to dust

Isaiah Rashad (Rapper - Song Lyrics) (21:13)

I'm loving this love and when you doubt it's like you flushed they baby don't know the price to hit these heights don't you touch My mind was screaming chomp, chomp, chomp but then you've

Stephen Thompson (21:21)

got a track like Boy in Red, which features sza, you know, who like the mark of success and quality, you know, where it's like that song is like kind of interpolating and warping a Fleetwood Mac sample. You know, you can hear kind of the hook from Dreams behind it. And then bringing in SZA to bring this kind of sleek style as well as a sense of mystery.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (21:44)

Hey, hey Thinking I don't wanna be

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (21:48)

friends I'm drinkin Pissed about you again so sorry don't mean to offend Living life on the fence Ain't your type My boyfriend even now it's your boys feeling horny annoyed now you want me

Background Vocalist or Singer (22:05)

again Take a go I've been driving

Julie Height (22:08)

your boat Lowering all your ste. Glad you let me in And I mean, there are some really well constructed hooks in the mix too. You know, I don't want to make it sound like it's like it is all kind of low key in his vocal approach or that it lacks, you know, attention to melody or anything. Because that, let me tell you, that track Camera's collaboration with Dominique Fyke. I was gonna mention this song got in my head, still in my head, you know, And I mean, that one is just such a well constructed. I find the whole thing to be incredibly satisfying. And I'm not mad that he took this long because he. He delivers. Isaiah Rashad delivers.

Background Vocalist or Singer (22:55)

If we could ride like we did before we could ride Correct. If we could ride like we did before we could ride Come right, I'm

Isaiah Rashad (Rapper - Song Lyrics) (23:10)

still taking it down Come over, come

American Football Band Member or Vocalist (23:13)

over Wait time came Slow hold on Come over, come over A wild wait

Stephen Thompson (23:23)

time came that is Isaiah Rashad. His new album is. It's been awful. Next up, Tori Amos. Tori Amos is back with her 18th solo studio album. It is called In Times of Dragons.

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (23:40)

Back then you would come home I know that I'm changing Once I was beauty Am I now the beast? He would have me believe that he's the dark enlightenment and he will haunt me down He's I for blood I am on the run now Elders won't be out this lizard demon has sadistic companions.

Stephen Thompson (24:28)

There's a lot to unpack with this one.

Julie Height (24:31)

Yeah, there is. I mean, here Tori Amos is, as you pointed out, 18th album, three and a half decades into her solo recording career. And she is an archetype, I would argue, at this point in time of the kind of baroque alternative singer, songwriter, piano powered, you know, artist exploring in fearless fashion, you know, and never kind of settling into. Into territory that feels safe. And I have long been struck by how Tori Amos, you know, how great she is. Is it closing the distance between the visceral, embodied and sensual on the one hand, and then on another hand, the mystical, the spiritual, the ecstatic, as well as the fantastical, magical and mythological. So I love that, you know, in this moment when we're getting kind of a resurgence of protest songs, protest music, that what she has given us on In Times of Dragons is political allegory, Tori Amos style. I mean, you know, a 17 track

Stephen Thompson (25:42)

journey, 76 minutes long.

Julie Height (25:45)

Yes, yes, I love that that is the approach that she took and her role on this album. The fictionalized protagonist that she introduces married a sadistic billionaire. And so like hearing her reckon with. With challenges to democracy by putting herself in that position and imagining, you know, what if I was complicit in this? What if I had bought into that kind of seductive power or hoarding power and hoarding wealth. I mean, that is, I think that is one of the things that makes it really striking and really makes it land emotionally for me.

Stephen Thompson (26:36)

I mean, this record kicks off with Shush, a song that references the Patriarchy by name.

Julie Height (26:42)

Yeah.

Stephen Thompson (26:42)

References the words Silent all these Years, which is kind of referencing her big breakthrough single from 1992. It is a song about kind of suppressing your voice and making yourself smaller to fit in at the same time as the pianos sound like heavy metal. Like it is some of the heaviest piano music you will hear. And if you want a sense of whether this record is for you, you get this big, hard, charging mission statement right out of the gate that tells you how ambitious it is, how deeply felt it is, how reflective it is, how much she's thinking about the expanse of her life and career, all in kind of this one storm of a song.

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (27:25)

You shut yourself Shut yourself Shut yourself Shut yourself down now Shut yourself Shut yourself Shut yourself Shut yourself down now.

Julie Height (27:52)

There are those moments, especially early on this album, that feel so ominous and menacing where this character, this protagonist, is kind of, you know, having these horrific realizations of the world that she has been living in. And then there's just a sense of motion to so many tracks as that character makes her escape and, you know, finds comrades, finds, cultivates solidarity, examines her roles. You know, I love the trick track Tempest, particularly because it encapsulates so many different pieces of the storytelling, you know, and that roiling and churning piano pattern and the orchestral treatment. And there's so many movements within that one song. So I. I can hear her and feel her kind of awakening to the danger and recollecting parts of. Of herself, you know, gathering her strength and developing trust in her intuition and her values again, you know, like, it's a good encapsulating piece of that journey.

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (29:01)

Suffocating I cannot breathe. I could.

Stephen Thompson (29:25)

That is Tori Amos. Her new album is In Times of Dragons. She is nowhere near out of ideas, that is for sure. We've got one more record we're gonna talk about in depth, as well as a lightning round of some of our other favorite albums out today, May 1st. But first, we're gonna take a quick break.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice (29:45)

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Stephen Thompson (30:33)

Cs apply from NPR Music. It's New Music Friday. I'm Stephen Thompson here with Julie Height from WPLN in Nashville. Before we get to our lightning round, there's one more record we want to talk about in some depth, and it is just lovely. It's by Anna Roxanne. It's called Poem one.

Background Vocalist or Singer (30:52)

I wanted to travel home into somewhere. I wanted to try. And go very far. A new life that I've yet to be.

Julie Height (31:46)

Anna Roxanne is an artist who has kind of evolved into her artistry at a. At a slow and measured pace. And I think that that has paid dividends in her music. I mean, she grew up in a Filipino immigrant household in the Bay Area, and then after high school, she really kind of meandered through studies of jazz and experimental and ambient and Hindustani traditional music as she made her way to actually considering herself an artist. So now she is in her composing and performing era fully and is currently based in New York, and that's where we find her on Poem one.

Stephen Thompson (32:29)

Yeah, this is just a beautiful record. This is one of those, like, reflective weekend morning listens. There's a track called Keepsake, and I kept toggling between, like, oh, this reminds me of Grouper, you know, this, like, really intimate, like, kind of stark, minimalistic ambient music. But then it, like, melds that with the grandeur of someone like Enya. And if I'm comparing someone to Enya, it is always a compliment. But, like, the way that this song takes her voice sometimes, it's. It takes kind of layers her voice over these simple piano lines. It's able to hit this spot where it feels big and interior at the same time.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (33:13)

Oh, I

Background Vocalist or Singer (33:18)

can never reach you

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (33:22)

so

Background Vocalist or Singer (33:23)

I'll keep a peace beside me

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (33:32)

I'll

Background Vocalist or Singer (33:32)

hold it like a jewel I'll carry the air.

Julie Height (33:49)

I'm so glad that you mentioned Keepsake, because I read that that was actually the first song that she wrote for this project that kind of set the tone, you know, writing just after a breakup. And I think that it is such a model of patience, you know, that, like, in this song, we hear her just sitting with this excruciating sensation of newly fractured intimacy, you know, of newly being separated from someone that she was used to having near and then treating, you know, Keepsake, literally or figuratively, keepsakes as. As a symbol that the intimacy that they shared was real and was worth remembering. So that I think that is a great introduction to the album because I was thinking about. I mean, she really is centering her singing more than she has in past work. And it is soft and quiet in her vocal approach, but it's not past or meek because there's that patience is fierce, that willingness to sit with emotion is fierce, isn't it?

Stephen Thompson (35:01)

Absolutely. And you know what I was saying about, like, if I compare somebody to Enya, it's always a compliment. The track Untitled 2, which is really showcasing her voice, like you said, actually got shades of Mimi Parker from Low. And that is about as high a compliment as I'm capable of paying.

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (35:46)

No peace.

Background Vocalist or Singer (35:52)

Or self control.

Stephen Thompson (35:59)

That is Anna. Roxanne. Her new album is called Poem One. Well, Julie, there was a ton of great Music out today, May 1st. We could not possibly get to all of it. So we always like to close this show out with a lightning round of some of our other favorite records out today. I'm gonna kick us off. This episode just happens to drop on the 20th anniversary of my first day at NPR. So I've been reflecting.

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (36:28)

Congrats.

American Football Band Member or Vocalist (36:28)

Congrats.

Stephen Thompson (36:28)

Thank you. Thank you very much. It feels like a special little milestone. And I've been reflecting on those early months when I was first getting my footing and we were kind of still figuring out even what NPR Music was gonna be. And I remember one of the first artists that I remember kind of discovering in those early days was an LA singer songwriter named Jessica Hoop. And I first heard her because KCRW in LA was all over her. And I've been smitten with her kind of unusual voice and sound for 20 years now. She's gotten co signs from Tom Waits. She made a great record 10 years ago with Sam Beam from Iron and Wine. She's performed two Tiny Desk concerts, and now she's got this great new record full of dense, distinctive, quirky pop. It's called Long Wave Home.

Isaiah Rashad (Rapper - Song Lyrics) (37:18)

What?

Casey Musgraves (Singer - Song Lyrics) (37:19)

Three words?

Tori Amos (Singer - Song Lyrics) (37:20)

And I'm there searching I find people,

Background Vocalist or Singer (37:24)

people everywhere and no friend of mine.

Julie Height (37:35)

All right, my pick for today is Casper Sage. He's a rising alternative R and B singer, songwriter, originally from Oklahoma City, but currently based in Nashville, where he moved to go to college. And I love that on this project, Patina, Casper Sage is attuned to both the strong pull of nostalgia and is also operating with this awareness that allowing himself to be consumed by that nostalgia would be paralyzing. So he leans into yearning as kind of a forward moving animating force.

Background Vocalist or Singer (38:12)

To believe in something, to feel alive, to make dreams of nothing. A dream won't die.

Julie Height (38:28)

That is Casper Sage and his new project out today is Patina.

Stephen Thompson (38:33)

All right, next up, our wonderful production assistant, Dora Leslie Levitt. What do you got for us, Dora

Dora Leslie Levitt (Production Assistant) (38:37)

an album I want to highlight this week is existential thoughty by New York based musician and producer Dwendita. Across 12 short tracks, Duendita's echoey layered vocals reflect on heartbreak, loneliness, intimacy and solitude and lands with self love and an understanding that they're worthy of joy. The album stretches from jazzy R and B to solo piano and harp, breakbeat drums and some atmospheric acap. And the entire thing is self produced. I highly recommend if you're looking for a reminder to be a little bit more gentle with yourself. Again, that's existential thoughty by Duane.

Stephen Thompson (39:29)

All right, next up, Julie, you and I share this treasured colleague Anne Powers.

Anne Powers (39:34)

Anne, what do you got, my Lightning Round pick? Today is Dark on a Sunny Day, the debut album by Maisie Owen. You know, I think a lot of people have an idea of what a Nashville singer songwriter should sound like, twangy with a country flair or maybe pop punk in the Hayley Williams vein. But maisie Owen, who's 23 and grew up here where I also live, claims her own space on this gentle, eerie debut. It reaches back to the edgier side of 60s folk, I don't know, like Vashti Bunyan, and to the freak folk of the 90s, to people like Aila Diane or Josephine Foster. It makes total sense to me that Dark on a Sunny Day is on the Tompkins Square label, which has released albums by other young folk artistes like Marin Bradley, Riley Walker, Gwennifer Raymond. Owen is an equally gifted time traveler and she always stands on the edge of the unknown.

Stephen Thompson (40:52)

And finally, NPR music editor Hazel Sills, who has gotten me out of so many jams of my own making. Hazel, what do you got for us?

Podcast Host or Announcer (41:00)

So I wanted to shout out a great album out today by the electronic producer Akta Akta, and it's titled Sigils for Survival. Akta Akta is an artist who makes extremely euphoric house music that is really inspired by her work as a DJ who mostly spins viny. But her music is also about her experiences of being a trans woman, navigating the world that we live in, you know, finding freedom. And the music on this album really reflects that mission. It's so playful, it's so uplifting and, you know, even at times almost like a meditation. It's just a gorgeous album.

Background Vocalist or Singer (41:45)

Keep on passing off. Yes, keep on passing off.

Podcast Host or Announcer (41:58)

That was Sigils for Survival by Octaocta,

Stephen Thompson (42:01)

and that is our show for this week. Thank you so much, Julie Height, for taking time out of your week at WPLN in Nashville.

Julie Height (42:08)

Thanks for having me.

Stephen Thompson (42:09)

It is so such a pleasure if you enjoyed this week's show. We always appreciate a positive review on Apple or Spotify or whatever app you're listening to right now. This episode was produced by Noah Caldwell and Elle Manion and edited by Otis Hart. Our production assistant is Dora Levitt. The executive producer of NPR Music is Soraya Muhammad. We'll be back next week to discuss more new music with another fantastic voice of Nashville, the great, great and good Celia Gregory of wnxp. Until then, take a moment to be well Watch the Gwennifer Raymond Tiny Desk concert. It will change your life and treat yourself to lots of great music.

Sponsor/Advertisement Voice (43:11)

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Pop Culture Happy Hour Announcer (43:56)

Ever feel like there's always something new that everyone's talking about? Ever feel like you're always out of the loop? Over at Pop Culture Happy Hour, the round table pop culture podcast we've got you every episode. We discuss everything movies, books, games and shows so you'll never feel like you're missing any part of the conversation. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour only from npr. Wherever you get your podcasts.