The Best Music Of July: NPR Staff Picks

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Every month, we ask the NPR Music staff: What's the one song you couldn't escape? What's the one album to which you'll return all year? In July, we found solace in veterans (Billy Bragg) and newcomers (Canary Room), witnessed personal transformations from IDK and WILLOW, hit funky grooves with William Parker and heard angels become mortal in a collaboration between Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine.

Follow the #NowPlaying blog for the NPR Music staff's favorite new songs.

Billy Bragg: "I Will Be Your Shield" from The Million Things That Never Happened

Just when my anxiety was starting to fade like the summer sunsets I've been enjoying on various Nashville patios, the COVID Delta variant has hit hard. I'm vaccinated, but still feel the whiplash as friends test positive and it no longer seems so safe to resume the relaxed, connected life I love. I needed a song that could shelter me. Just in time, Billy Bragg — the troubadour who's been giving his fans virtual hugs since the early 1980s — released this blood pressure-lowering testament to enduring love and trust. It's a track from his first solo album in eight years, out this October. —Ann Powers

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Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine: "Reach Out" from A Beginner's Mind

"Reach Out" is one of the first releases from the new collaboration between Sufjan Stevens and Angelo De Augustine, A Beginner's Mind. The song is loosely based on the 1987 German fantasy-meets-romance film Wings of Desire, where angels listen to the thoughts of Berliners. One angel strays and becomes mortal to experience the sensation of being a human: feeling, touching, loving rather than simply spectating.

"Reach Out" echoes these themes of isolation and mortality, epitomized by lyrics like, "I would rather be the flower than the ocean," and shortly after, "I would rather be devoured than be broken." And in the most Sufjan Stevens way, he and De Augustine's delicate vocals and instrumentals make these enormous themes feel floral and approachable. —Sofie Hernandez-Simeonidis

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