A half-dozen cool things in music, from two points of view:
Chuck Laszewski of Falcon Heights:
1 Tove Lo, Palace Theatre. Top 40 radio may have turned its back on Lo since her 2014 hits "Talking Body" and "Habits," but she continues to release albums and her strong voice and electro-pop songs had a packed Palace Theatre crowd singing along and dancing for 90 minutes.
2 "Blood in the Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians Behind Dylan's Masterpiece" by Paul Metsa and Rick Shefchik. Written by two Minnesotans, this is a fascinating tale of Bob Dylan and the Minnesota boys who recorded half of the songs for the 1975 album "Blood on the Tracks" in Minneapolis but didn't get any official credit until five years ago.
3 Steve 'n' Seagulls, Turf Club. The Finnish band seemed infected by all things American, entering to "Bonanza" theme song and ripping through "Paradise City" and "My Sharona" before playing some of their originals.
Jon Bream, Star Tribune critic:
1 Olivia Rodrigo. The new album is pretty great, the Rolling Stone cover story is pretty insightful, the tour poster is pretty cool, the performance on MTV Music Video Awards, complete with a faux malfunction, was pretty exciting. We've pretty much got Olivia Rodrigo fever right now.
2 Bob Boilen to retire from NPR on Oct. 2. The creator of NPR's Tiny Desk Concert and "All Songs Considered" has been an invaluable contributor/gatekeeper to introducing and exposing good music and good musicianship. The intimate concerts are gimmick-free displays of real music by real musicians, whether big names like Taylor Swift and Post Malone or little-knowns like Minnesota's Gaelynn Lea. For 35 years, Boilen has been a gift to music lovers.
