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Song Premiere: Haley Bonar, 'Bad Reputation'

Haley Bonar.
Courtesy of the artist
Haley Bonar.

Haley Bonar has been crafting gorgeous, stately pop and wounded ballads for more than a decade now, and her fans still often find themselves explaining, "It's pronounced Bonner." At this point, Bonar deserves to have people pronounce her name correctly and then some, because she's a remarkable performer, with a terrific ear for detail and a gift for masking melancholy observations with hooks that stick.

A Twin Cities singer-songwriter who's worked and toured with Low and Andrew Bird, among others, Bonar will release her as-yet-untitled sixth album in early 2013, but is leading off with a 7" single for the darkly sparkling "Bad Reputation." Though its title hints at a note of defiance, the song is shot through with doubt — "I feel stupid and confused on anything that has to do with you," she sings — but it's dispensed with a poppy brightness that's virtually impossible to resist.

The "Bad Reputation" / "Down Sunny Roads" 7" is out Nov. 6, and available digitally.

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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.)