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New Music Friday: Our Top 8 Albums For July 19

The Flaming Lips. Their new album, <em>The King's Mouth, </em>is on our shortlist for the week's best new releases.
Courtesy of the artist
The Flaming Lips. Their new album, The King's Mouth, is on our shortlist for the week's best new releases.

Nearly 40 years into their career, The Flaming Lips remain remarkably ageless and endlessly creative. They return this week with another heady, psychedelic pop record inspired by a surreal art installation by frontman Wayne Coyne. On this week's New Music Friday, we climb inside the band's kaleidoscopic new record, The King's Mouth. Also on the show: the powerful pop voice of Freya Riding, Tony Molina's fuzzy 15-song collection Songs From San Mateo County (which clocks in at roughly 15-minutes), social satire from the duo IDER, Houston rapper Maxo Kream's RCA label debut and more. NPR's Lars Gotrich, Sidney Madden, Ann Powers, and Stephen Thompson join host Robin Hilton to share their picks for the best new albums out on July 19.

Featured Albums:

  • Freya Ridings: Freya Ridings
    Featured Song: "Holy Water"
  • Tony Molina: Songs From San Mateo County
    Featured Song: "Not the Way to Be"
  • IDER: Emotional Education
    Featured Song: "Busy Being A Rock Star"
  • Maxo Kream: Brandon Banks
    Featured Songs: "Brothers" and "Bissonet"
  • The Flaming Lips: The King's Mouth
    Featured Songs: "How Many Times" and "Giant Baby"
  • Ada Lea: What We Say In Private
    Featured Song: "Wild Heart"
  • avery r. young: tubman.
    Featured Song: "Get to Know a Nina Simone Song"
  • Lingua Ignota: Caligula
    Featured Songs: "Butcher of the World" and "May Failure Be Your Noose"
  • Other notable releases for July 19: Beyoncé - Lion King: The Gift; Jacob Collier - Djesse IIs; Generationals - Reader as Detective; The Quiet Temple - The Quiet Temple; Saul Williams - Encrypted & Vulnerable; Sum41 - Order in Decline.

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Robin Hilton is a producer and co-host of the popular NPR Music show All Songs Considered.
    Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)
    Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.
    Listen to the Viking's Choice playlist, subscribe to the newsletter.
    Sidney Madden is a reporter and editor for NPR Music. As someone who always gravitated towards the artforms of music, prose and dance to communicate, Madden entered the world of music journalism as a means to authentically marry her passions and platform marginalized voices who do the same.