Marissa Lorusso

On the forthcoming Den-Mate album Loceke, Washington, D.C.-based songwriter Jules Hale excavates the complexity of her emotional landscapes, wrapping them in explosive, vibrant dream-pop. Whereas last year's Entropii EP was, Hale explains, "based on elemental subjects," Loceke is built on a series of alter egos and characters meant to represent the strengths, demons and personality quirks we all carry around with us.

Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers share a musical language: thoughtful, often sparse rock arrangements that bolster deeply self-aware, intimate lyrics. There's a sense of wisdom and compassion in the stories they tell, often undercut by a dark humor — like the kind of friend you'd dream of having to help nurse you through a heartbreak or help you find the fun in a stagnant situation.

There's a myth about self reflection: that it leads to self-love; that gaining an understanding of ourselves always brings peace. Perhaps that's true in the long term. But sometimes when we go looking for ourselves, we don't always like what we find.

Last year, NPR Music issued a correction to the history of popular music with our list of the 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women. This year, we sought to capture a new canon as it's forming with our list of The 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women⁺.

In 2014 I listened to "Dancing On My Own" by Robyn every day for 24 straight days. I wasn't alone; four of my friends did it, too. We were on a road trip, driving from Massachusetts to the west coast, down through California and back again. Someone put Robyn on the car stereo the first night of our trip, on a whim. This was four years after the song came out — just enough time for it to have faded into that somewhere between short- and long-term memories. I had maybe listened to the song a handful of times in the intervening years.

When Ratboys' Julia Steiner wrote "Figure," she did so from a place of pain.

"I wrote 'Figure' in the middle of the night in my bedroom a few years ago," she tells NPR Music, "and for me the song was a way to air all of my disparate frustrations and fears in one place."

It's a truth universally acknowledged that if it's pink, it'll likely be marketed exclusively to girls. (And, in that case, it'll probably cost more.) You may be tempted to think that fate has befallen our favorite pink drink, fretfully wondering: Is rosé just for women?

Netflix has greenlit a Dolly Parton anthology series, set to premiere in 2019, the company announced today. Each of the eight episodes will be based on one of Parton's songs, with the Emmy award-winning singer-songwriter appearing in select episodes and executive producing the series.

"As a songwriter, I have always enjoyed telling stories through my music," Parton said in a statement. "We hope our show will inspire and entertain families and folks of all generations."

San Francisco-based Pllush makes hazy dream-pop that pairs emotionally wrought lyrics with maxed-out shoegaze guitars. The band has developed a dense, harmony-rich sound over the course of several releases — all, up until now, under the name Plush. For the release of Stranger to the Pain, its forthcoming album, the band has added the second l to its name, honed its pop melodies and sharpened its guitar-heavy sound.

Note: NPR's First Listen audio comes down after the album is released. However, you can still listen with the Spotify or Apple Music playlist at the bottom of the page.

Update: The people have spoken. Bandits On The Run is the fan-favorite in this week's Desks of the Tiny Desk Contest vote!

The New York City-based group's soulful song "Paris" took you on a journey and picked up the title for favorite desk of the Tiny Desk Contest along the way. Congratulations to all six nominees, whose videos you can watch below.

Over on the Tiny Desk Contest website, you can now watch every single eligible entry to this year's Contest.

Update: The results are in, and your pick for our first weekly fan-favorite vote is: Yardij!

The indie-rock band's sunshiney style and laid-back tune won your hearts and took home the title for this week's Desks In The Wild category. Congratulations to the band and to all our other nominees this week! You can still check out their videos below.

The 2018 Tiny Desk Contest officially closed for entries last Sunday night. Videos poured in from every state across the country, featuring thousands of talented musicians performing behind thousands of desks.

For the artists who sent in their songs, the hardest part is over. But for us at NPR Music, it's just beginning. Our panel of judges is ready to watch your videos — and, in about a month, we'll announce this year's Contest winner.

Our entry deadline for the Tiny Desk Contest is fast approaching (you have until this Sunday at midnight EST) and we're still seeing tons of entries we love. (You can see all the eligible entries so far on the Tiny Desk Contest site, too.)

While preparing your last-minute entry — totally fine, by the way — check out these entries below to see what we on the other side have been marking (stick around until the end for an important tip on entering, too).

Scorpio and the Hunter, "Seven Sisters"

It's not every day you see a drag queen playing an autoharp. But for Trixie Mattel — comedian, musician and, as of last week, winner of the third season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars — country music and drag go together like high heels and false lashes.

Each time Tiny Desk Contest season rolls around, the whole team at NPR Music gets a chance to discover new (or new-to-us) artists from all across the country. We're still accepting entries for a few more weeks — until March 25 at 11:59 p.m. ET — but we've already started seeing entries we love. Here are a few that have caught our eyes (and ears) so far.

Jackie Venson, "Always Free"

The 2018 Tiny Desk Contest is now open! You can now submit your video via the entry form on our website. We'll be accepting entries through March 25 at 11:59pm EST.

When you're ready to enter, you'll need to:

• Film a video of you (or your band) performing an original song in front of a desk (any desk).
• Upload that video to YouTube.
• Submit that YouTube video via our entry form.

"Must Be Nice," the first single from Chicago band Varsity's forthcoming album Parallel Person, has a title that comprises a double meaning. The title phrase is habitually "bandied around sarcastically," says singer and keyboardist Stephanie Smith. But she says it can also be an ultimatum, as in: "I must be nice in order to be liked/noticed/not be considered a b****."

In music and the culture it reflects, 2017 was predictably unpredictable: idols fell, empires shook, consensus was scarce. This conversation is one of five on The Record with artists, makers and thinkers whose work captured something unique about a chaotic year, and hinted at bigger revelations around the bend.

The Philly art-rock band Palm seems to delight in being collaboratively weird. Bandmates Kasra Kurt and Eve Alpert bury their lyrics in singsong melodies and fractured, jittery guitar parts — both of which appear in constant, if antagonistic, communication with each other. The frenetic songs are made slightly more surefooted by bassist Gerasimos Livitanos and drummer Hugo Stanley, but the rhythm section's confrontational energy often undermines its own attempts at stability.

"The value of Death," wrote songwriter Sean Bean, of Boston's Bad History Month, in a dense, intimate introduction to new album Dead and Loving It, "is that it's an infallibly reliable fixed point on the horizon to navigate by when I'm lost at sea."