Lars Gotrich

The 2021 Tiny Desk Contest closed for entries on June 7, and our judges are now combing through entries to find a winner. In the meantime, we've been sharing some of the many entries that have caught our eyes and ears.

Few things fill the heart with hope like a group of young girls playing punk rock in a public library. In a space where books and information open minds, there too our minds should be blown by power-chord-punctuated screams of "Poser! Blockhead! Riff raff! Jerk face!"

Les McKeown, best known as the singer for Scotland's Bay City Rollers, died April 20 of unspecified causes. He was 65.

"It is with profound sadness that we announce the death of our beloved husband and father Leslie Richard McKeown," wrote wife Peko Keiko and son Jubei McKeown on the singer's Facebook account. "Leslie died suddenly at home on Tuesday. We are currently making arrangements for his funeral and ask for privacy after the shock of our profound loss."

Michael Turner — better known as Double K, rapper and producer in the Los Angeles duo People Under The Stairs — died Jan. 30 of unspecified causes. He was 43. A friend, DJ Mark Luv, shared the news via Instagram, writing that Turner "passed away peacefully." An examination by the LA County Medical Examiner-Coroner has yet to be performed.

Daniel Dumile, the rapper and producer best known as MF DOOM, died Oct. 31, according to a message posted on his Instagram account by his wife, Jasmine Dumile on Thursday. No cause of death was given. He was 49 years old.

Jasmine Dumile's post reads:

Updated on July 20 at 1:47 p.m. ET.

The listening party has ended, but you can stream the album below via Spotify or Apple Music.

Updated on July 20 at 1:50 p.m. ET

The listening party has ended, but you can stream the album below via Bandcamp.

Updated on June 18 at 1:33 p.m. ET.

We are no longer updating or taking submissions for this page.

As more festivals, performances and concerts are canceled due to the coronavirus shutdown, musicians of all stripes and sizes are taking to social and streaming platforms to play live for their fans,

Kim Shattuck, the guitarist, singer and songwriter of The Muffs, The Pandoras and The Coolies died Wednesday after a two-year battle with ALS, as confirmed to NPR by Omnivore Recordings co-founder Cheryl Pawelski. She was 56.

Released in late 2008, Lost Wisdom occupies a cherished space in Mount Eerie's catalog, where Phil Elverum collaborated with his favorite singer, Julie Doiron, and Fred Squire. Between that album and Dawn, released just a month later, it stamped a deceptively softer moment in time for Mount Eerie, where sparse, yet decorative arrangements were vessels for quiet echoes that grew with repeat listens.

There's a new, unreleased song from R.E.M. out today, with all proceeds going to Mercy Corps, an organization helping those in the Bahamas impacted by Hurricane Dorian.

When Kim Gordon dropped "Murdered Out" three years ago, her first single under her own name, she didn't ascribe it any significance. "It just kind of happened randomly," she told NPR at the time.

When Denzel Curry spits bars over a particularly decibel-shattering beat, there's a command of noise. The Miami rapper lives both inside and out of the mayhem ("Ricky," "Black Metal Terrorist"), but is just as comfortable revealing his soul ("Speedboat," "Clout Cobain") in productions and performances simultaneously hard and melodic. He's starting to come into his own as a rap chameleon, but lately he's been teasing another transformation as a shape-shifting rock frontperson.

Have you ever had a roommate sell your stuff while you were on vacation? But instead of a ratty couch that won't nearly pay rent, it's super-intimate letters and recordings that you'd never want anyone to read or hear, like, ever? Madonna feels your pain.

Miranda Lambert really knows how to announce a new single. For "It All Comes Out in the Wash" — a cute-as-hell country bop that reminds us that "hard times do eventually pass," as she put it in a press release — Lambert filmed her shirtless husband doing laundry. You know, as one does.

In her Turning the Tables essay for NPR Music, singer-songwriter Kaia Kater extols Rhiannon Giddens' virtues as not only a singer, fiddler, banjoist and folklorist, but also as a reckoner of truth. "Throughout her career Giddens has been reaching towards something more imperative than the honors and praise she's received," Kater writes.