British singer-songwriter Tracey Thorn writes music that chronicles themes in women's lives that aren't often addressed in pop lyrics. Take, for instance, the single "Babies," off her new solo album Record. The song is meant to be a humorous ode to birth control, but there's also a deeper feeling to it.
Presidential historian Jon Meacham says looking back at times when the nation was divided by partisan fury and racial strife can help shed light on "the politics of the moment."
Critic Ken Tucker says that Monroe's moody new album proves that the singer/songwriter is "working in a space that's almost entirely separate from anyone else in country music right now."
A few minutes into her performance at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday night, comic Michelle Wolf joked that the event organizers should have done more research before booking her. By the end of the set, the organizers may have agreed.
This is one weird-but-true story. It's a story that leads readers from 19th century scientific expeditions into the jungles of Malaysia to the "feather fever" of the turn of the last century, when women's hats were be-plumed with ostriches and egrets. And it's a story that focuses on the feather-dependent Victorian art of salmon fly-tying and its present-day practitioners, many of whom lurk online in something called "The Feather Underground."
Journalist Alex Wagner was 12 years old when a line cook in a diner asked her if she was adopted. Wagner was taken aback — her father's family came generations ago from Luxembourg, and her mother came to the U.S. from what was then Burma.
Dorough, who died Monday, spoke with Terry Gross in 1982 and 1996. He told her his career was launched when an advertising executive asked him to put the multiplication tables to music.
The 4 CD compilation of 1957 recordings on Verve showcase Armstrong with a lush studio orchestra and with pianist Oscar Peterson. It also includes a wealth of alternate and incomplete takes, warm-ups and rehearsal sequences.
Jake Tapper talks about his debut novel set in Washington D.C. during the McCarthy era, and about the challenges of interviewing people from the Trump administration when they state falsehoods or evade his questions. And
Rock critic Ken Tucker shares some hits he's listening to, including BlocBoy JB and Drake's upbeat "Look Alive" and the moody sound of Post Malone's "Walk It Talk It."
Historian Kathleen Belew's new book Bring The War Home is about how the white power movement expanded and consolidated when white supremacist and neo Nazi groups came together. They formed an openly anti-government agenda.
Pius IX became head of the Catholic church in 1846 and instituted the doctrine of Papal infallibility. Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Kertzer says his exile led to the emergence of modern Italy.
Gregory Pardlo's new memoir, Air Traffic, chronicles his complicated relationship with his father, a labor organizer who lost his job following the air traffic controllers' 1981 strike.
The Academy Award-winning filmmaker, who died on April 13, spoke to Fresh Air in 1994 about growing up in the former Czechoslovakia, first under the Gestapo, then under communist rule.
A woman with low self-esteem hits her head and suddenly sees herself as madly attractive. Critic David Edelstein says I Feel Pretty suggests the notion of what's "pretty" should be "elasticized."
Anderson, who died April 16, began his career as a street performer specializing in elaborate pranks. He spoke to Fresh Air in 1989 about an illusion in which he pretended to chop off his own hand.
Just who controls the Twitter handle @realDonaldTrump? If you guessed the president, journalist Robert Draper says you might be only partially correct.
Both shows are set in a dystopian near-future where things have gone terribly wrong — and both expand their established environments considerably in their sophomore seasons.
