The Austin 100: Shana Falana

NPR | By Stephen Thompson

Published March 17, 2020 at 5:00 AM EDT

Hometown: Kingston, New York

Genre: Pop

Why We're Excited: The dreamy psych-pop band Shana Falana throws a lot at the wall — it stuffs its live shows with bright lights and visuals, a perfect complement to an ambitious sound marked by busily churning guitars and ethereal vocals — but it also knows when and how to keep it simple. In "Everyone Is Gonna Be Okay," the song's title is repeated like a mantra, at the exact moment we as a society need assurance the most.

Listen to Shana Falana's "Everyone Is Gonna Be Okay"

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Stephen Thompson

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.)

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