Relatives of the late music icon Nina Simone are deeply upset over the casting of actress Zoe Saldana as Simone in the forthcoming biopic Nina. A first trailer has been released for the film, which opens on April 22, and many fans were taken aback to see that makeup was applied to darken the skin of Saldana (a black…

Over at the Morning Show we are getting ready to send Sean and Jade into their new time slots and wake Oake and Riley at the crack o' dawn starting Monday, so for today's 9:30 Coffee Break let's focus on songs that feature notable transitions.

Wednesday night at the Turf Club, Poliça opened a three-night series of shows celebrating the Friday release of their third album, United Crushers. Their set consisted almost exclusively of songs from the new album, making full use of the venue’s relatively new sound system. (Standing near the side of the stage, with his friend Har Mar Superstar,…

Singer-songwriter Gaelynn Lea, a Duluth artist who plays and teaches fiddle, has won National Public Radio’s Tiny Desk Contest with a moving rendition of her song “Someday We’ll Linger in the Sun.” Lea prevailed over 6,000-plus other entrants in the contest. “We’re excited to welcome Gaelynn to the Tiny Desk at NPR in Washington, D.C.,”…

For today's 9:30 Coffee Break, what songs do you want to hear by artists who use diacritical marks or graphic symbols in their names? Send us your requests.

In a stunning announcement, a group of Oklahoma institutions has shared news of the acquisition of an enormous private archive maintained by Bob Dylan. Spanning Dylan’s entire career, the archive includes everything from song drafts to personal correspondence to multimedia. The archive is set to be opened to scholars and made available to the public,…

On the heels of releasing their sophomore LP, Matty Healy of the 1975 sat down to chat with New Hot host David Safar to talk about I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It, forthcoming demo releases and making bold decisions in the name of the album.

Who was the white-haired woman who danced with Bruce Springsteen during “Dancing in the Dark” at his Monday night Xcel Energy Center show? It was 91-year-old St. Paul resident Jeanne Heintz, a longtime Springsteen fan who’s attended over 100 of the Boss’s shows and previously danced with Bruce onstage in Des Moine in 2008. This time, E Street…

Today's Coffee Break theme is inspired by actual events: Because it's Super Tuesday, what songs do you want to hear that include the word 'super' in the lyrics? Send us your requests.

Poliça: United Crushers Poliça are pulling no punches on their third album, which sees the Minneapolis group — whose international profile continues to rise — struggling with the social turbulence that Minnesotans, and all Americans, were experiencing as the collection came together in recent months. “I drive around and I see that big, ominous ‘United Crushers’…