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The Austin 100: Pillow Queens

Pillow Queens.
Vanessa Ifedoria
/
Courtesy of the artist
Pillow Queens.

Hometown: Dublin, Ireland

Genre:Rock

Why We're Excited: The four women in Pillow Queens write queer punk and pop songs with sharp, anxious edges — imagine a gnarlier Cranberries, maybe? — and endearingly thick Irish accents. They're especially good at showcasing their languid and emotive side, as songs like "Brothers" and "Gay Girls" extol the virtues of familial bonds and, well, gay girls, respectively.

Listen to Pillow Queens' "Brothers"

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Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)