Helly Luv is actually an edgy pop star

Time to catch up with Helly Luv, who makes most so-called edgy acts seem like the soft options they are:

She's Iraqi. That song is a direct attack on ISIS. And she insisted on making the video for it in Iraq.

All Things Considered have been to Iraq to find out how she's gone down there:

Audiophiles' audio fails

NPR ran an online quiz to see if people could really tell the difference between high quality digital music files and lower quality ones. They can't. Sorry, Pono and Tidal.

Bookmarks: Sly And The Family Stone

Cynthia Robinson, founding member of the Family Stone, talks to NPR about the process of putting the band together:

Stone himself acknowledged in a 2009 interview with KCRW that he had in mind a mix of race and gender. That mission wasn't always easy: Jerry Martini says he remembers a point when Stone was pressured by the Black Panthers to kick the white members out of the band.

"I was in the airport when they approached and they told me to get ... out of the way," Martini says. "Sly always, always stood up for me, and in many instances, he saved my butt. When I got hit a couple times ... he just stood there ready to fight."

Bookmarks: The Raveonettes

The Raveonettes have had the bejesus interviewed out of them on NPR:

Foo: "I think people are under the impression that we are a very retro, vintage band — that we sort of stick to those decades of the '50s or '60s. But we've always been a band that really embraced technology. We've always had a lot of samples, and we don't stay true to [dated methods] of production as such, you know, to only play with vintage instruments. I think our music has always been combining all the decades, really."

Everyone loves Public Radio

We're quite lucky in the UK as, despite the Tories and Lib Dems' best efforts, we still have a fairly decent public radio service in the BBC.

America's public radio is also pretty good, but needs a lot more support, which is why they're spending a month celebrating their musical achievements.

As part of the events, a whole bunch of artists have signed a love letter to public radio, as Rolling Stone reports:

A group of musicians including Jack White, My Morning Jacket, Death Cab for Cutie, MGMT, M. Ward, the Roots, Tony Bennett, John Mayer and members of Pearl Jam, Phish and Fleet Foxes have penned a "love letter" to public radio as part of Public Radio Music Month.

"Thank you for taking chances," the letter reads. "Thank you for playing our music even when – especially when – it doesn't sound like everything else on the radio dial. Thank you for inviting us into your studios and asking us intelligent questions. Thank you for introducing us to some of the most important music in our lives, music that made us who we are."

It's really easy to take these things for granted. Let's try to value them, shall we, whichever country we're in?

Downloadable: Peggy Sue

Peggy Sue were on NPR's World Cafe earlier today; you can snaffle their two live tunes for free thanks to the unique way NPR is funded.

Streaming now: Wild Flag

NPR have got the first, proper recording from Wild Flag.

If you need a prompt:

[T]he recently formed band featuring former NPR Music blogger and Sleater-Kinney guitarist Carrie Brownstein, Mary Timony (Helium), Janet Weiss (Quasi, Sleater-Kinney) and Rebecca Cole (The Minders).

Oh, yes. The album is coming out on Record Store Day, but NPR have a taste to dip your beak into.

[via @sleepssundays]

Listen with No Rock: Tegan And Sara

With thanks to the ever-delightful Minnesota Public Radio, here's Tegan And Sara in session from last week:

Downloadable: Carrie Brownstein's The Spells

Something which I've had sat in my inbox for an embarrassingly long time without posting: an email from Barry S pointing to NPR hosting mp3s and streams (and an interview) from Carrie Brownstein's The Spells project. Thanks to Barry, and apologies for having sat on this for way too long.

The Dead want it all

Carrie Brownstein was putting together an online mix for her NPR blog, and wanted to include a Grateful Dead track. She politely asked permission. And the response?

they refused unless we promised to do a piece on them on All Things Considered. In addition, we would need to run a feature on The Dead on the site. Here's a sentence I've never written: Someone needs to take a bong hit and chill out. Just a simple "no thanks" would have sufficed. Are The Dead really in need of publicity? Because I swear there's a dancing bear sticker on every third car I see in Portland. And now I've written a paragraph on them anyway, for free, not even in exchange for a song. Doesn't that count?!

You don't even have to scratch a hippy very hard to find the hard-nosed pigopolistic pig underneath, do you?

Something to listen to: REM SXSW NPR

NPR is hosting a full stream of REM's SXSW show.

[LINK FIXED - apologies]

Carrie on blogging

Switching on the blog software for NPR: Carrie Brownstein, once of Sleater Kinney, now in charge of MonitorMix.

Something to listen to: I predict they'll do I Predict A Riot

The Kaiser Chiefs turn up on WXPN's World Cafe for a four-song set.

Clear Channel and NPR share a program

The outrageous new rates for US internet radio company royalties has managed to unite the yin and yang of American radio: National Public Radio and Clear Channel are leading a call for the Copyright Royalty Board to think again:

Jonathan Potter, the executive director of the Digital Media Association, which represents major online companies affected by the decision, asked that the judges specifically allow a per-tuning-hour approximation measure for paying the royalties.

Potter also asked the judges to clarify a $500 annual fee per broadcasting channel, saying that with some online companies offering many thousands of listening options, counting each one as a separate channel could lead to huge fees for online broadcasters.

NPR argued in its filing Monday that the new rules would have "crippling effects" on public radio's ability to meet its mandate of serving the public interest, and it also objected to the $500 per-channel minimum fee.

A group of commercial broadcasters including San Antonio, Texas-based Clear Channel, the largest radio company in the country, also asked for a reconsideration of key parts of the ruling, saying that the methods used to calculate the fees were faulty.

The only people who seem to think that setting rates at a level which will totally kill off the medium are, erm, SoundExchange, who make their money from collecting the fees:

SoundExchange, an entity that collects royalties from digital music broadcasters and distributes them to rights holders, has said the ruling was fair and that the rapid growth in advertising revenues from online music broadcasting would more than allow webcasters to cover the new fees.

SoundExchange haven't really worked through their thinking here: they believe that because the total advertising take from internet radio is an estimated half a billion, that means that a total royalty rate of less than half a million leaves a profit. However, the new rates means that every service will have to pay at least five hundred dollars - but many (probably most) internet broadcasters are hobbyists or small-scale, and few of those will be making five hundred bucks a year from advertising.

Save All Songs Considered... and stuff

Of course, far be it from us to tell the US how to spend its money, but we're interested to hear that - in the face of George Bush attempting to take funds from PBS and NPR to spend, ooh, elsewhere - MoveOn are campaigning for the US public broadcasters to be given permanent funding. It sounds like a good plan to us.