Rhiannon Giddens's "At The Purchaser's Option," from her 2017 album, Freedom Highway, has made NPR Music's list of The 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women+. The song comes in at No. 30 on list, part of NPR Music's Turning the Tables project. "The songs are by artists whose major musical contributions ... have shifted attitudes, defied categories and pushed sound in new directions," says NPR. "Giddens has become a leader in the Americana world by foregrounding her talent for telling black Americans' stories, as she does on her 2017 LP Freedom Highway."
Rhiannon Giddens's song "At The Purchaser's Option," from her 2017 album, Freedom Highway, has made NPR Music's list of The 200 Greatest Songs By 21st Century Women+. The song comes in at No. 30 (just behind Lady Gaga) on the newly published list, which is part of NPR Music's ongoing Turning the Tables project. "The songs are by artists whose major musical contributions came on or after Jan. 1, 2000," says NPR, "and have shifted attitudes, defied categories and pushed sound in new directions since then." (Last year, the project published a list of The 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women that included Emmylou Harris, Laurie Anderson, and k.d. lang.)
"Rhiannon Giddens has become a leader in the Americana world by foregrounding her talent for telling black Americans' stories, as she does on her 2017 LP Freedom Highway," writes Folk Alley and WYEP's Cindy Howes on the new list. "In the emotional opening track, Giddens creates a vivid picture of a slave woman in colonial America who is about to be sold and is trying decide whether to fall in love with her child ... In Giddens' determined lyrics and melody, this haunting song portrays a strong narrator who has nearly met her breaking point, but claims her soul as her own."
You can read more and see the complete list now at npr.org/music.
To pick up a copy of Freedom Highway , head to iTunes, Amazon, and the Nonesuch Store, and listen on Spotify and Apple Music.
Rhiannon Giddens is the guest curator at the Cambridge Folk Festival in Cambridge, England, where she will also perform this coming weekend. She returns to the States to perform at Wolf Trap outside of Washington, DC, and Chautauqua Amphitheater in Chautauqua, New York, the following weeks. For all the latest, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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