Sidney Madden is a reporter and editor for NPR Music. As someone who always gravitated towards the artforms of music, prose and dance to communicate, Madden entered the world of music journalism as a means to authentically marry her passions and platform marginalized voices who do the same.
Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)
The album's namesake, Polari, is a set of a few hundred words and phrases that was adopted by gay men as a way of speaking in secret during periods of criminalization.
Dolly Parton's late husband, Carl Dean, died this week. He inspired some of her biggest songs, including a new one. "If You Hadn't Been There" is Parton's ode to Dean and their six decades together.
King Charles III has admitted he is not impervious to a generational earworm like Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head," after sharing a playlist that represents the soundtrack of his life.