NPR Music to offer first listen to Neil Young and Paul McCartney's new albums

NPR Music – www.NPR.org/music – is giving listeners an “Exclusive First Listen” to forthcoming albums from two legendary performers: Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain, and Electric Arguments from Paul McCartney’s side project as The Fireman. Electric Arguments is available on NPR Music now, a week ahead of its release, as free, live streaming. Beginning Monday, November 24 at 11:59PM (ET), Neil Young’s entire 2-disc set will be available for on-demand listening, leading up to the album’s release on December 2.

Sugar Mountain is a legendary snapshot from the time before Neil Young was a household name. In November 1968, all alone with just his acoustic guitar, Young stepped on stage at a small club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and mesmerized the crowd with his sincere and shaky tenor and his poetic and innocent songs. It was a time just after his band Buffalo Springfield had imploded and just before his first solo recording was to be released. Now, 40 years later, the 2-disc Sugar Mountain, out next month and on NPR Music the week prior, features previously unreleased recordings from these two transformative performances. Hear the entire album or individual tracks starting on Monday at 11:59PM (ET):

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Electric Arguments is the third from The Fireman, the eclectic pairing of Paul McCartney with the bassist and producer known as Youth. The album is the duo’s first in a decade, and the only of the three to feature vocals: McCartney entered the studio, without any material, and recorded 13 songs over 13 days. Hear the entire album or individual tracks exclusively at NPR Music:

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Complete track listings and information about both albums are available at NPR Music, where there is also an extensive archive of past interviews with, and music by, two of the biggest names in music history.

NPR Music introduced its “First Listen” series in September when the site offered its first pre-release album stream: Bob Dylan’s Tell Tale Signs. The impact was tremendous, with hundreds of thousands of webcasts of the album and individual songs.

NPR Music, marking its one year anniversary, features content from NPR and 12 NPR Member public radio stations, as well as original-to-NPR Music features such as live performances, studio sessions, first listens to forthcoming albums, interviews, reviews and blogs. “First Listen” joins NPR Music’s continuously expanding sections dedicated to rock/pop/folk, classical, jazz/blues, world and urban music. The site culls from NPR’s and the stations’ extensive music archives to present thousands of features; more than 240 new features are added to the site every month.