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Cold War Kids' second album, Loyalty to Loyalty, is based on the work of a little-known philosopher named Josiah Royce, who challenged Nietzsche's positions in the early 1900s. The art-pop band straddles the line between both philosophies in atypical rock fashion.

As a member of the multiplatinum rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea wouldn't seem to need higher education to further his career. But the bassist has just enrolled as a freshman at USC's music program. For Flea, it's an opportunity to learn the academic side of music.

Four Last Songs, by German composer Richard Strauss, is a song cycle marked by the awareness and acceptance of death. A new recording captures world-famous soprano Renee Fleming as she sings his last pieces for a second time — this time with a new direction.

Rapper Snoop Dogg's latest release, a collaboration with Bollywood star Akshay Kumar, is a recent example of urban desi, which blends South Asian pop culture with American hip-hop. Originating in the U.K., the style of music is spreading in the U.S. and India.

Humorist Elizabeth McCracken explores the landscape of grief in this wrenching, clearsighted memoir of the year that follows a son's death in utero.

A new PBS series traces the history of the people, wildlife and geology of the Appalachian mountains. The creators of Appalachia: A History of Mountains and People discuss the rich stories that have emerged from one of Earth's oldest mountain ranges.

The Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter's new album, Little Wild One, tackles the subjects of post-Sept. 11 New York City and motherhood. Osborne discusses the record and how her new appreciation of New York helped provide the inspiration.

Tod Machover's goal is to put music into the hands of people who want to play it — or at least imagine it. He and his team at MIT helped to create Guitar Hero, and one of his latest projects helps people with disabilities write and perform music.

Blogger Drew Kerr talks about his critique of the many title songs accompanying James Bond movies. He's ranked all 20 of them from best to worst and talks about his selections and criteria here.

There were great rock drummers before Mitch Mitchell, and there were even better drummers after him. But Mitchell's jazz-influenced drumming was just as indispensable as Hendrix's guitar in The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mitchell was found dead in his hotel room early Wednesday. He was 61.

A mecca for classical composers looking for ways to bridge music and technology, IRCAM in Paris has been an incubator for some of the most compelling developments in contemporary classical music and acoustics of the past three decades.

Earl Scruggs' name is almost synonymous with the banjo. And for a good reason, too — he helped pioneer Bluegrass music with his three-finger banjo picking technique, now known as "Scruggs Style."

The Oslo-based trio of vocalists introduces a Norwegian Christmas tune, as well as a few traditions from their homeland, in NPR's Studio 4A. The group's latest recording has just been nominated for a Grammy Award.

Folk music's Mike Seeger was an adventurer who wanted nothing more than to share his discoveries. He found overlooked musical treasures, polished them off a little and wondered at them. He sought out undiscovered or disappeared musicians in Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina — including Dock Boggs. Seeger died Friday at 75.

Before he died, the great pianist donated a treasure trove of privately made recordings to Yale University. Now some of those very public recitals are being issued on CD, including searing 1940s performances from Carnegie Hall.

In 1968, Van Morrison released what would become a seminal recording in the history of popular music: Astral Weeks. It is Van Morrison's most praised album — although it was almost shelved by his record label. This year, he's performing every song from the album in select cities, and host Guy Raz caught up with him during his stop in Washington, D.C.

The Meat Puppets, a punk rock band led by brothers Cris and Curt Kirkwood, played with Nirvana on MTV Unplugged in 1994, and released the hit single "Backwater" the next year. Two years later, Cris plunged into a decade of heroin addiction, and the band fell apart. Now the Kirkwoods are back with Sewn Together, the band's second album since Cris' return.

In a curious case of musical evolution, the older Lee Fields becomes, the closer he gets to perfecting the sound of soul that he grew up with. His latest release, My World, finds an ideal middle ground between the slow grind of Southern blues and the faster, funkier stylings of retro-soul.

Henry Alford recommends one of the least "ooey-wooey books about religion or philosophy" he's ever read: the Tao Te Ching, a collection of aphorisms that dates back two millennia and invites constant reinterpretation.

NPR Music's Song of the Day features a new track every weekday, with analysis of the music, links to each artist's Web sites and, of course, a chance to hear the song itself. Here, Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson talks about recent selections by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Kurt Elling and more.

Astatke is a well-born Ethiopian who fell in love with jazz in the early '60s and has been making music ever since. His most impressive effort, critic Robert Christgau says, is his latest album Inspiration Information, which he created in collaboration with the British experimental funk musicians in The Heliocentrics.

Seeger was a leading figure in the 20th century resurgence of American traditional music and a noted field collector of rural Southern music. He recorded hundreds of musicians in their homes and local performing venues.

New Yorker journalist Andrew Marantz says Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's administration has rewritten Hungary's constitution to consolidate his power. U.S. conservatives are taking note.

Kurtis Blow, one of the first superstars of rap, celebrates his 50th birthday Sunday. His 1980 megahit "The Breaks" introduced to the world a new sound that would come to be called "rap." NPR's Guy Raz called him up in Burlington, Vt., where he is currently on tour, to find out what he has been doing lately.

Mike Disfarmer snapped portraits of anyone and everyone in the small town of Heber Springs, Ark. The photos spanned a period from the Great Depression through World War II. Guitarist Bill Frisell composed a series of musical vignettes based for Disfarmer's work on a new album appropriately called Disfarmer.