This Is 40

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Fresh Air: In ‘This Is 40,’ Family Life In All Its Glory

Review: ‘This Is 40’: Ambling Into Midlife

From the director of Knocked Up and The 40-Year-Old Virgin comes an unfiltered, comedic look inside the life of an American family. After years of marriage, Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) are approaching a milestone meltdown. As they try to balance romance, careers, parents and children in their own hilarious ways, they must also figure out how to enjoy the rest of their lives. Featuring Melissa McCarthy, Jason Segel, Megan Fox, John Lithgow and Albert Brooks, This Is 40 is a candid and heartwarming comedy about the challenges and rewards of marriage and parenthood in the modern age.

Some Nights by fun.

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2013 Grammy Winner: Song of the Year (We Are Young), Best New Artist

NPR Music: fun. In Concert

World Cafe: fun. On World Cafe

NPR Music: Summer’s Over, But fun.’s Just Getting Started

NPR Music: A Summer With Fun.

All Things Considered: How A Band Called “fun.” Found Its Way To No. 1

What does the success of a record like Some Nights mean in 2012? That it’s finally safe for rock bands to smile on stage again? That the sounds and rhythms once associated with hip-hop have so thoroughly metastasized through pop music that no one genre can claim exclusive domain over them? That young people with guitars can get as excited about their parents’ copy of A Night at the Opera as they can about Nevermind or Loveless or “The Blue Album?” Maybe. But even without all the things that make fun. a conversation piece — the Glee cover, the band’s outspokenness on gay rights, that ridiculous bit of punctuation — Some Nights would be remarkable for its sheer optimism. Rarely does an artist with such plaintive lyrics (“I feel so all alone,” “Why am I the one always packing up my stuff?” and “Everyone I love is gonna leave me”) manage to sound so consistently psyched. (Daoud Tyler-Ameen)

Kisses on the Bottom by Paul McCartney

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Fresh Air: McCartney Blows ‘Kisses’ to his Father’s Era

First Listen: Hear Bye Bye Blackbird

2013 Grammy Winner: Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album

A collection of standards Paul grew up listening to including “My Valentine,” “Only Our Hearts,” “The Glory of Love” and more. The disc was recorded with Diana Krall and her band and features guest appearances from Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder.

El Camino by The Black Keys

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2013 Grammy Winner: Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, Producer of the Year (Dan Auerbach)

World Cafe: The Black Keys On World Cafe

With the hard-rocking El Camino, The Black Keys’ fourth Nonesuch disc, guitarist-singer Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney conjure up an exhilarating, stadium-sized sound in collaboration with producer and friend Danger Mouse.El Camino boasts a no-nonsense brilliance: The pace is fast, the mood is upbeat, and the unfailingly addictive choruses made for shouting along—preferably in a large, sweaty crowd.

A band already at the top of its game has gotten even better. In a time of global austerity, The Black Keys work simply and efficiently, with a minimum of tools and a wealth of ideas, to produce the richest, fattest, coolest music around. Upon the release of Brothers last year, Britain’s Uncut magazine called them one of the best rock ‘n’ roll bands on the planet, and El Camino, confirms that.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin

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The Daily Circuit: Justin Cronin on Vampire Thriller ‘The Twelve’

Weekend Edition: A Novel Reminder that Vampires are Monsters, too

Author Justin Cronin is out with ‘The Twelve ‘- the follow-up to his bestselling vampire thriller, ‘The Passage.’

From the Entertainment Weekly review:

These dracs are a different beast from the pasty-faced blood-draining lovebirds you’re now picturing with some degree of fondness or disgust. They’re vicious and animalistic, armed with limb-ripping teeth and claws and driven by an insatiable thirst. They were born of a military-cultivated virus, which the government injects into 12 (note that number) death-row inmates—turned—test subjects in the first book. Things predictably spiral out of control, and the virus — oops! — destroys modern civilization. But pockets of humanity remain, and Cronin’s novels trace both the onset of the disaster and the efforts of survivors almost 100 years later to fight back…

‘The Twelve’ doesn’t always match ‘The Passage’s’ dexterous storytelling and almost-plausible world creation, but it’s still an unnerving and mostly satisfying tale of existential-threat disaster and its harrowing aftermath.

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The Passage - Vampires are popular these days. But author Justin Cronin, whose previous books have been literary novels, tries to go beyond myth and make his vampires as scientifically plausible as possible.