Cyrena Touros

2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march, in recognition of the Stonewall uprising of 1969. Since then, Pride has evolved: from that small commemoration to community gatherings in progressive enclaves like New York and San Francisco to corporate-sponsored parades and ticketed events across all 50 states; from a space where people on the margins created fragile alliances to a mainstream festivity.

Phoebe Bridgers is the first to admit that she's not reinventing herself on her new album. "There's nothing avant-garde about it," she says of Punisher, her second solo record and fourth major musical project in the last three years. Even so, there's a quiet, assertive power to Punisher.

Our Daily Breather is a series where we ask writers and artists to recommend one thing that's helping them get through the days of isolation during the coronavirus pandemic.

Who: Cyrena Touros
Where: Washington, D.C.
Recommendation: Re-reading a beloved book

Tomorrow Perfume Genius, the band led by singer, songwriter and movement artist Mike Hadreas, releases its fifth studio album, Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. With an eclectic palette of Baroque pop, burbling rock and grunge, combined with a dance-focused visual treatment, the album is being greeted as a benchmark in Hadreas' career. NPR Music writers Marissa Lorusso and Cyrena Touros consider its impact, and the importance of Hadreas' career in setting a new standard for exploration of gender, sexuality and identity in rock, in the following exchange.

There's an old writing exercise that involves describing a color without naming it; it challenges the writer to evoke the emotional primacy of a concept we often take for granted.

Throughout the next few months, we'll be sharing some of the many 2020 Tiny Desk Contest entries that have caught our eyes and ears. There's still time to enter: We're accepting videos until 11:59 p.m. ET on March 30. You can watch a playlist of all the entries we've featured on the blog on YouTube.

Rambling along the sidewalk on the way to a party, body alight, something catches the eye. "Bugs in the streetlight," Ella O'Connor Williams sings. "Our time is over soon."

Conventional wisdom says that this is not the sort of maxim typically uttered by a 23-year-old; nevertheless, this acute pang of mortality anchors "Streetlight Blues" and I Was Born Swimming, Ella O'Connor Williams' debut record as Squirrel Flower.

Tomorrow is Library Card Registration Day. Never heard of it? Well, that's because poet and rapper Noname made it up.

When she's not recording in the studio, she's often at the library.

"Just going to the library and talking to a librarian and their wealth of knowledge on books and material is so amazing to me," she says.

Noname wants to encourage people to get their own library cards, not just for the free books, but also for the people who can guide you to them.

Pete Townshend: Not only is he the major creative force behind The Who, but he's also released several of his own solo records, prompted the first-known use of the term "rock opera" (for 1969's Tommy) and he's even credited with being the first person to smash a guitar on stage.

This year's Tiny Desk Contest judges are excited to finally be getting ready to pick the 2019 winner. In the meantime, there's a lot going on in the Tiny Desk Contest community.

It's not enough to make list after list. The Turning the Tables project seeks to suggest alternatives to the traditional popular music canon, and to do more than that, too: to stimulate conversation about how hierarchies emerge and endure. This year, Turning the Tables considers how women and non-binary artists are shaping music in our moment, from the pop mainstream to the sinecures of jazz and contemporary classical music. Our list of the 200 Greatest Songs By Women+ offers a soundtrack to a new century. This series of essays takes on another task.

Update: You voted, we listened. This week's fan-favorite Dog of the Tiny Desk Contest is: Juice and her human, Crys Matthews.

Matthews' shuffling acoustic tune with its campfire sing-along chorus captured your hearts as it put into words the life-changing learning experience that is loving a dog: "Won't you teach me how to be a little more like you / How to always see the best in people no matter what they do," Matthews sings.

The Tiny Desk Contest judges are one week closer to picking this year's winner — and in the meantime, there's a lot going on in the Tiny Desk Contest community.

You can participate in our weekly fan favorite votes, where we gather up some entries around a fun theme and ask you, the fans, to pick your favorite. There's still time to take part in this week's vote: Desks of the Tiny Desk Contest!

The British singer-songwriter and 2018 Slingshot artist was a critical and fan favorite last month at SXSW, and she seems to be riding that success all the way to one of late night television's biggest stages, The Tonight Show.

Fleetwood Mac's classic work has gotten a chart push from a piece of Internet virality centered around a clip of the Alcorn State University dance line, the Golden Girls.

A whole generation of musicians born in the 1980s have released formative albums in the last few years that mine the production landscape of their birth decade. Thunderous synths, trash-can lid percussion, and the volcanic, Phil Collins-style drum fills are back en vogue. Truly, the percussive emphasis of a well-timed shimmy of castanets is the tragically forgotten chef's kiss of '80s pop production.

On Laura Jean Anderson's debut single, she expertly checks most of these boxes and adds a diva-sized belt to the mix.