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NPR's annual list of the year's best albums is full of work by musicians who hit career peaks, discovered their voices or willed something new into reality.

Joanna Newsom's new album, Divers, is novelistic, with recurring musical themes, memorable characters and a preoccupation with the change brought on by passing time.

In a conversation with Rachel Martin, Iceland's musical auteur unpacks a new release that couldn't be more different from 2015's stark breakup album, Vulnicura.

Hear new songs by Chicago hip-hop artist Rich Jones, Toronto garage-rockers Alvvays and French dance-pop duo Burning Peacocks in this month's list.

In this week's Heat Check selects, prodigies past and present connect with OGs and friends, rappers stretch the limits of genre, young artists breathe new life into unmistakable samples and more.

Though the Bay's vibrant rap community lit the fuse on many of the stars, styles and innovations that have blown up across the map, the region might still be best known for being underestimated.

New albums by Don Toliver and LUCKI take opposite paths to the same calling, an understanding of rap as texture rather than text.

From Billie Eilish to Bad Bunny, JT to J.Lo, boygenius to Ice Spice, here they are: the home-run performances, the solid base hits and the outright whiffs.

Host Madeleine Brand talks with the Tucson-based band Calexico, who try to capture the spirit of their region in music - a soundtrack to the Southwest. (6:30) {Calexico, Even My Sure Things Fall Through. Quarterstick Records, Chicago, IL: 1998-2001}.

Beginning September 17th, Watch Shovels & Rope, Los Lobos, Ani DiFranco, Strand of Oaks and more perform live on the Camden Waterfront in Camden, N.J.