Music

Too much sugar is unhealthy — and it's easy, in today's world, to get too much. Sugar is empty calories, it causes decay, it implies a lack of substance, and yet we crave it. But our brains also run on it, and it's critical in energy production. For better and worse, sweetness is intoxicating. So how do we find balance? On its latest album, Hello Memory, the Brooklyn trio Little Daylight offers a sort of nutritional road map.

The rhetorical essence of punk is the decision to say what others believe should not be said. It points out the "no" lurking within or near every "yes." It demands an ongoing reckoning with true outsiders, and with what remains wrong in society despite everyone's best efforts, simply because people and the structures they make are flawed.

Are there genres of music that are simply too far apart for any one musician to hold onto them both at same time?

If anyone knows, it might be Marty Friedman.

Ever since she helped form The Pretenders in the late 1970s, Chrissie Hynde has identified as part of the legendary British band. Recently, though, Hynde set out as a solo artist, releasing the album Stockholm in June.

Hynde tells World Cafe that the album is a product of collaboration; she even traveled to Sweden to work with Bjorn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John. That pairing led to others, including unlikely appearances by Neil Young and John McEnroe.

Hear a four-song set on today's World Cafe.

Michael and Lisa Gungor started the musical collective Gungor, a band that calls Arcade Fire, Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens to mind.

For the past 15 years, Fink has been a solo project for Berlin-based songwriter Fin Greenall. But with his album, Hard Believer, he enlisted the help of longtime friends Guy Whittaker and Tim Thornton to help him develop his new material. In part because each participant has a different musical background, the new songs sound especially varied and dynamic. As Greenall says, "They even taught me how to play live" — as you can see for yourself in this performance of "Looking Too Closely."

English electro-pop musician Dan Croll released his debut album earlier this year; it's titled Sweet Disarray, an apt name for such a stylistically rich record.

Croll went to school for music at the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, which was founded by Paul McCartney. Croll was even chosen by his classmates to meet Sir Paul; we'll hear that story and a live set in the studio today.

The year is half over and that means NPR Music and our public radio partners have been obsessing over our favorite songs of the year so far. The full list of 50 songs makes a potent stew ranging from power pop and brash hip-hop to electro-fueled dance music and intimate portraits from jazz vocalists, classical guitarists and folk troubadours.

To celebrate Fourth of July this Friday, KSUT has two Feature CDs for you to hear at noon. First, we'll hear the latest by newgrass favorites the Infamous Stringdusters. "Let It Go" is a light-hearted album by design. Then it's the latest by Bruce Robison & Kelly Willis, "Our Year." The Bruce & Kelly show comes to the Durango Mountain Resort as part of Music in the Mountains on July 25th. Because it's the Fourth, we won't have a Zia Trivia contest ... but you can enjoy listening to both of these CDs in their entirety while getting ready for your Independence Day cookout!