Robin Hilton

This past weekend's post from Emily White, our current All Songs Considered intern, provoked heated discussion about the current state and possible future of music consumption and creation. Emily's personal essay — as a young person who came of age after the moment when music became widely available digitally — was about the evolution of her views toward the music industry, artists and how to support them, as those issues relate to rapidly changing technology.

Around this time each year I begin to marvel at how we've already reached the halfway point. I haven't even taken down my Christmas lights yet and already everyone's reflecting on all the great music we've had so far.

We're a few weeks into our search for the albums everyone can agree on, and some of the results of our surveys so far have been surprising. Most of you haven't even heard the Once soundtrack or The Band's Music From Big Pink? How is that possible?

Bob Boilen and I are taking our show on the road! It's time we busted out of this two-bit joint and mingled with the world's great unwashed. So here's what we're doing: This summer, we'll visit different cities across the country and bring people together to hear and talk about great music.

Look for guest appearances from public radio's galaxy of stars, as well as surprise performances from our favorite artists. It's our version of a "listening party," and we want to see you there. Here's where we're going and when (more dates to be announced):

A beautifully frenetic electronic-pop oddball — and we mean that in the greatest way — Dan Deacon has announced plans to release a new full-length album this summer. It's triumphantly titled America. Deacon is giving fans a taste of the new record with the song "Lots."

You can also download "Lots" from the Dan Deacon website. America is out on Domino Records August 28.

When we began our search for the albums everyone can love a couple of weeks ago, we neglected to include the "haven't heard" option in our first survey (hey, this music stuff is hard!). So here it is again for all of you who were forced to vote "no" on The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill or Kind Of Blue, when you actually hadn't heard them.

Previous Surveys

This week's quiz comes courtesy of Janet Weiss, drummer for the band Wild Flag (and former drummer for Sleater-Kinney). She's got some killer fills and intros here that (I thought) ranged from pretty easy to pretty hard. But see what you think.

Drag the intro or fill (or beat) to the album it's from. If you get it right, the song names will appear.