Discover New Music With NPR’s Austin 100 Playlist
Looking for new music to lose yourself this weekend? Look no further. Each year, NPR’s All Songs team considers a playlist of 100 songs for the South By Southwest Music Festival, and it never fails to attract new artists and genres.
“The Austin 100 cuts the playing time to just over six hours, highlighting hundreds of carefully selected moments from the thousands of artists playing at SXSW 2019,” writes Stephen Thompson of All Songs Thinkred. “A multi-genre playlist that spans almost the entire world, it is carefully designed to help you find music you love that you would never otherwise have heard.”
You can find out about each of the artists and songs included here and stream your playlists on Spotify , Apple Music, Tidal, and YouTube . (The team is compiling other playlists from songs heard during the festival, which you can listen to here and here .)
What sets NPR’s list apart from other listings I’ve found is that they target not only aspiring artists, but artists from all over the world. It’s easy to listen to music where you live, or just the language you speak, but this playlist always reminds me of the transcendental nature of music.
I am proud to say that I was familiar with some of the songs on this year’s playlist before listening to them. Perhaps this is an indicator that my musical tastes are improving, or at least I am listening to a wider variety of music than in past years? You can listen and decide for yourself .