Pop

Lana Del Rey continues a time-honored pop tradition of developing a public persona that challenges fans to decide what's real and what's not.

In 1986, a bomb planted by the Peruvian terrorist group Shining Path exploded in the luggage rack above Sam Baker. Somehow, during his long recovery, songs focused on empathy started coming to him.

Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez tell Terry Gross about the inspiration for "Let It Go" and a "very strong strike across the bow at all princess-myth things" song that didn't make the film.

The country singer treats the classic songs on her new album like living, vital pieces of art that can withstand being taken apart, thought about and re-imagined.

Surrounded on the charts by younger men and their big hits about drinking and partying, Sara Evans' hit-single success of Slow Me Down's title song all the more heartening.

To hear G I R L, you'd think Pharrell's world consisted of grooving on catchy beats and flirting with women. It's a lightweight image that draws gravitas from his prolific work ethic.

Both Jon Pardi and Jason Eady have to confront the dilemma of all young country musicians: how to navigate the pop current that keeps country music commercially viable while connecting to a past that fewer and fewer listeners are aware of.

There was a time when people in the know in Memphis described James Govan as Otis Redding's natural successor. A new compilation collects some of his unreleased recordings.

His 18th album is a mixed-bag assortment of covers and originals brimming with undimmed eagerness.

You could look at Rosewoman's New YorUba band as reuniting cousins who've drifted apart: jazz and folkloric Cuban music with its own family ties to the slave coast of West Africa.

With new songs and covers, La La Brooks' All or Nothing isn't just an attempted career comeback.

In 2012, the band became another rock group that was celebrating its 50th anniversary. This year, it released Made in California, an eight-hour, six-disc retrospective of their career that, perhaps inadvertently, shows how this once-great force in American popular music faded from public view.

The smart songwriter behind the much-beloved "Hey Sandy" returns after eight years. Dear Mark J. Mulch, I Love You is full of smart wordplay and Mulcahy's unmistakable voice, but it's also driven by loss

Between 1962 and 1965, The Beatles were featured on 53 BBC radio programs. For The Beatles: The BBC Archives, executive producer Kevin Howlett had to search for many of these recordings, and they weren't easy to find.

Whether glossy and heartfelt (Clarkson's Wrapped in Red) or earnest and playful (Lowe's Quality Street: A Seasonal Selection for All the Family), these albums can help conjure a holiday mood in the month before Christmas.

What had been an infrequent novelty — mixing electronic and '30s beats with scat and big band-ish horn solos — has become more and more common among European dance musicians and producers. Critic Milo Miles looks at two compilations that highlight this European dance trend.

As part of Crosby, Stills & Nash, the British singer-songwriter helped define a West Coast sound. Here, he discusses the influence of Buddy Holly, The Everly Brothers and marijuana on his career, as well as his new memoir, Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life.

When record producer and songwriter George "Shadow" Morton died on Valentine's Day this year, he left behind a legacy as murky as his nickname, which he got from disappearing on long benders. A new compilation collects Morton's hits for The Shangri-Las, Iron Butterfly and Janis Ian.

The pop star has a flair for the extravagant, to say the least, but his new album is stripped down. He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross about the "Elton John excess," his fear of sex as a young man, and how Liberace's example encouraged John to make the piano a star instrument.