How did David Byrne go from being a twitchy art-rock frontman to one of our most beloved artists? At age 74, he’s got a new book, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, plus associated live events; an ongoing immersive experience with Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Theater of the Mind; the new Sirius XM pop-up channel Talking Heads Radio; an upcoming Talking Heads Fear of Music deluxe package; and a recently completed, dazzling live tour spotlighting his latest album, Who Is the Sky? Byrne discusses all this and more, including whether music needs movement; what he’s learned from Theater of the Mind; how Jonathan Demme and Spike Lee treated point-of-view while directing Stop Making Sense and American Utopia, respectively; what everyday people don’t understand about band dynamics; how involved he is in the Talking Heads-related projects; whether he would enjoy playing music with his ex-bandmates in an empty room; and which song of his is the biggest Sleeping Beauty of them all.

Smithereens guitarist Jim Babjak shared a love of the British Invasion and Beach Boys with classmate and drummer (and previous Caropop guest) Dennis Diken when they teamed up with bassist Mike Mesaros and signed on singer-songwriter-guitarist Pat DiNizio. Babjak describes this New Jersey power-pop group’s rise, fall and current resurgence as a live band featuring a rotating roster of lead singers substituting for the late DiNizio, including previous Caropop guests Marshall Crenshaw, John Cowsill and Wesley Stace. Who wrote the indelible riffs for songs such as “Only a Memory” and “A Girl Like You”? How did Babjak gain confidence in his own songwriting? He explores the thorny issue of publishing royalties and explains why he took a job with a bank for 20 years. He also describes DiNizio’s last years and what prompted the band to resume playing after he was gone. How did 2026 become the Smithereens’ busiest year since 1994? What’s happening with that prospective new Smithereens album?

Song-ranking articles can be annoying clickbait, but those written by longtime journalist Bill Wyman are endlessly provocative, entertaining and informative, with individual entries becoming deep-diving, mind-opening essays. For Vulture, Wyman ranked every song by the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, the Clash and Pink Floyd, as well as every Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee. Now Wyman has added Nirvana and the Eagles songs to the mix and compiled it all in Bill Wyman’s Rock & Roll Lists. Here we bat around his ridiculous choice for the Beatles’ worst song; dissect how publishing royalties muddied the Pink Floyd waters; discuss why he ranked songs by the Eagles rather than, say, R.E.M., U2 or Prince; and weigh the Hall of Fame worthiness of Pat Benatar and Stevie Nicks vs. Aimee Mann and PJ Harvey. Wyman also reflects on Poptimism and Chicago’s early ‘90s glory days featuring sometimes-feuding Steve Albini, Urge Overkill and Liz Phair.

After making widely loved music as a solo artist and, beforehand, with 10,000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant is focusing on children with her latest project, Cabinet of Wonder. Spurred by her work with Head Start preschoolers in upstate New York, Merchant set Mother Goose verses to music and collaborated with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Children’s Theatre to bring the recordings and videos to life. In this wide-ranging conversation, Merchant speaks of the allure and legend of Mother Goose; describes why working with children is bringing her more joy than pursuing another solo project; and reflects on joining 10,000 Maniacs at age 17, co-writing with band members, working with various producers and feeling compelled to leave after 1992’s hit-filled Our Time in Eden. Did she have any inkling that her first solo album, Tigerlily (1997), would propel her to new artistic and commercial heights? (Photo by Joe Mazza)

Susan Orlean has a brilliant talent for crafting compelling narratives from idiosyncratic topics that have piqued her interest: orchid poachers in Florida for The Orchid Thief, a movie star dog for Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend and the Los Angeles Central Library for The Library Book, among others. Last year she shifted the focus to herself for a revealing, inspirational memoir, Joyride, that celebrates pursuing one’s curiosity into odd corners. Here Orlean, who preceded me at the Boston Phoenix by a few years, discusses when she knows a topic has reached critical mass to become a book, whether she does all of her reporting before she begins writing, how she decides how much of herself to put into a story, whether she can write whatever she wants now and how her life was affected by Meryl Streep portraying a fictionalized version of her in Adaptation. (Photo by Chloe Aftel.)

Laura Benanti is a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical star who noticed some things while looking back on her life and career. She has channeled these observations—about being a perpetual people-pleaser and evolving from The Sound of Music-starring ingenue to a fortysomething singer, actor and mother—into a one-woman comedy-musical show Laura Benanti: Nobody Cares (which plays at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Aug. 6-9). Here she talks about how she created the material and co-wrote the songs, how different cities and audiences affect her performances, whether she grew up preferring singer-songwriters or musical soundtracks, how she connected with Stephen Colbert and crafted her Melania Trump impersonation on The Late Show, how she’d like to keep scratching her comedy itch, how television factors into her plans and what it might take to get her back onto a Broadway stage. (Photo by Heather Gershonowitz)

Michael Hampton earned the nickname Kidd Funkadelic as the hotshot guitarist who at age 17 joined the Funkadelic/Parliament universe after wowing P-Funk leader George Clinton with his rendition of Eddie Hazel’s epic “Maggot Brain” solo. Hampton eventually made “Maggot Brain” his own and turned in much more head-spinning guitar work, including on Funkadelic’s relentlessly funky “(Not Just) Knee Deep.” Hampton takes us along for the concurrent run of classic 1970s Parliament and Funkadelic albums, such as Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome and One Nation Under a Groove. When he entered the studio, did he know which band's session it was? Was the scene as much of a party as it sounded like? Did that atmosphere help or get in the way or both? Hampton also discusses his new mini concept album, King Kong, and how, with and without P-Funk, he continues to make his guitar sizzle and sing. (Photo by Philip Samuel Smith)

Urge Overkill appeared to be riding high after the critical triumph of its 1993 album, Saturation, and the prominent appearance of its Neil Diamond cover, “Girl, You’ll Be a Woman Soon,” in Pulp Fiction in 1994. But by the time the alt-rock trio reunited with producers the Butcher Bros. to record the follow-up album, expectations and circumstances had changed. As singer-songwriter-guitarists Nash Kato and Eddie “King” Roeser recall here in stark detail, the two of them were in different places personally and musically, drummer Blackie Onassis was fighting his own demons, and an unhealthy environment developed around the Butcher Bros.’ new studio outside Philadelphia. Exit the Dragon, the resultant album that recently marked its 30th anniversary, is a dark, slithery, ragged work that has achieved a lasting power amid its tattered nerve endings. What happened here, and why did Exit the Dragon turn out to be the final Urge Overkill album featuring Kato, Roeser and the late Onassis? (Photo: Jerod Herzog)