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Billboard reports that last week was the best week for vinyl record sales in three decades. Adele's 30 was the top-selling vinyl album of the year. Taylor Swift's Red also broke vinyl sale records.

Forty years ago, Allan Sherman topped the pop charts by replacing the lyrics of folk songs with satires of Jewish American life. And in doing that, he offered a perfect snapshot of what it meant to assimilate.

The Black Eyed Peas are on a roll. They are out on tour supporting a CD that is near the top of the Billboard Album Charts. Monkey Business is the group's second release to win them fans nationwide.

In 1959, jazz pianist Dave Brubeck topped the pop charts and shook up the notion of rhythm in jazz with an odd-metered song called "Take Five." On the occasion of its golden anniversary and a new reissue of Time Out, Brubeck explains why it was such a hit.

For all its success, Death Cab for Cutie hasn't lost track of the accessible emotions that first attracted a devoted following. Ben Gibbard's vocals, always faintly familiar in a boy-next-door way, observe love and life with a resigned delicacy, and the band's songs are poetic and yearning but never over-the-top. Hear the band perform a session on World Cafe.

The Donkeys' lazy, country-tinged Americana sound is a perfect match for the band's San Diego home. The group's second album, Living on the Other Side, is a simple and soothing summer set — music for driving with the top down, sunbathing in the sand and napping in a hammock.

The chart-topping Washington, D.C., rapper brings his songs to life at the Tiny Desk with the help of a six-piece go-go band.

Judi Dench has won major acting awards on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Oscar, the Tony and six Oliviers (England's top theatrical honor). The British actress is famous for Shakespearean roles, but she's also played spy chief M in James Bond films and currently appears in the Vin Diesel science fiction action flick The Chronicles of Riddick. NPR's Susan Stamberg interviews Dench about the art of acting.

Sharon Van Etten shares music from new artists that both moves her to tears and fills her with joy.

Folk artist Mose Tolliver's subjects were nature, people and animals. His medium was house paint. His canvasses were cabinet doors and discarded table tops. His paintings put him at the forefront of the Outsider Art movement.