NPR Music - 2025's best songs (so far)

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

This week we share our wildly incomplete list of the year's best tracks so far, including bangers from PinkPantheress and HAIM, a slow-burner from Lana Del Rey, dystopian rap from clipping and more.Featured artists and songs:1. PinkPantheress: "Stateside," from 'Fancy That'2. HAIM: "Relationships," from 'I quit'3. clipping.: "Keep Pushing," from 'Dead Channel Sky'4. Lana Del Rey: "Henry, come on" (single)5. Oklou: "Blade Bird," from 'choke enough'6. Miya Folick: "This Time Around," from 'Erotica Veronica'7. Perfume Genius: "It's A Mirror," from 'Glory'8. FKA twigs: "Room Of Fools," from 'EUSEXUA'9. Lucius: "Gold Rush," from 'Lucius''All Songs Considered' 25th anniversary segment: Our No. 1 songs from 2018Weekly reset: Summer afternoon at the poolEnjoy the show? Share it with a friend and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you listen to podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail] Hear new songs from past episodes in the All Songs Considered playlists in Apple Music and Spotify.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You know, Stephen Thompson and I were talking on a recent show about how impossible it is to keep up with everything that's coming out. This is something, you guys, you experience this, right? Don't you? No, I keep up with everything. Yeah, Hazel doesn't. Yeah, Hazel is on top of everything. Yeah, I actually know everything that's coming out. And I just come to her and she just tells me. No, it's hard. It's really hard to keep it up. It is.

Sheldon, that's like that joke. Between me and Hazel, we know everything. And if I ask you something, you say, that's one. that Hazel knows. Yeah, that's when you've got to ask her about. But otherwise, between the two of us, yeah, we know everything. Well, one of the small ways that we try to make sense of it all, you know, sort of whittled down that impossibly long list of releases is by hitting pause on everything around the mid-year point. You know, we pool our collective brain power, which is quite something. I mean, it's sizable.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. This is like, this is big-time stuff. It's definitely more than nothing I can get. aren't you that. Okay. Not by much.

But what we end up doing is we come up with this absurdly incomplete list of the year's best songs so far. And that's what we're doing this week on the show. We all brought stuff that, you know, we've still got in heavy rotation after six months of 2025 releases. Sheldon Pierce and Hazel Seals here. Yeah. Can we start off with one of my favorite songs of the year?

And I know Hazel is into this song as well. It's by the UK dance artist, and in my opinion, a voice of her generation, Pink Panthers, it's state-side. I'm freezing outside. I feel my skin tight. My car is inside, but I look up at you. I tracked your paint right. The one you're in tonight. Tell me when is the next time I'm so glad you picked this to kick everything off.

I, full disclosure, I haven't really listened much to this album at all this year. I've really got no excuse other than that whole, you know, impossible to keep up with everything. What I like about it is that it's just that perfect cross between sort of low stakes, kind of bubble gum pop and something much, much deeper and darker going on. You know, like there's a real, I don't know, there's an undercurrent in here, especially when that bass kicks in. There's something almost like if you follow the lyrics, it kind of feels like she's stalking this guy and like staging interactions.

She's tracking his plane ride. She's like, when is the next time I'll run into you? There's almost something like voyeuristic, like broaching an impenetrable barrier to try to get this guy into her life by any beans necessary. Yeah, I'm a huge Pink Panther's fan. I actually profiled her for Empire Music a few years ago. And she has this incredible ability to make, you know,

kind of cutesy at the surface, like sugary pop music. But she's a creepy girl. She loves horror films. Like if you listen more closely to her work, like there is something kind of twisted to it. And the reason that I love this song so much is, you know, Pink Panther is obviously a young British artist. And she has such an affinity for like early 2000s British pop music and dance music. And it just sounds like a song that could have come out in the UK in like 2003. Yeah, my note here says a bop, but kind of creepy.

Kind of creepy. I mean, because of what you said, Sheldon, it's like, it's not exactly clear what's happening or why in this story. I don't think that she's sort of unspooling. I mean, it could just be about hooking up with somebody. But, yeah, it feels like obsession. Yeah. This is a song. I think when Pink Panther's first came out and her songs were only like a minute long or less.

Like they were literally designed for TikTok. And I was defending her and I was like, it's music, they're songs. It doesn't matter if it's only 40 seconds long. But this is a full-blown song. Stateside was the song from Pink Panther's and the album that was from Fancy That. That came out May 9th. May 9th was that one. Well, I would like to play a song that I love this year that is also about desire and relationships.

It's not about stalking. But it is about figuring out, you know, like what's the same. going on with dating and being in love, being out of love. And I want to play a song by the band Heim. Their track relationships. So we featured this one on our spring preview. Now that we've heard the whole thing, Hazel, this is still your favorite cut from it?

It is still my favorite cut from it. I mean, you know, I quit the album that this track is off of. It goes in so many different directions for Heim. But this track in particular really, really just stands out to me because I feel like it's almost like a world of its own. And obviously they're referencing early 2000s R&B on this track, but I just hear kind of like a sense of play to this song, you know, just the way that Danielle is sort of like, you know, when you, something is like a mistake and then it lasts more days than you think and just like, what's going on and like, what does it

mean to be in love? Really kind of loose sense of questioning that I don't really associate with Hym as songwriters. I think of them as this really great rock band that can just make super tight, concise pop songs. And I guess you could say relationships is a tight pop song, but to me, as someone who's loved this band for a while, I hear something really fresh for them in this song. Yeah, it just feels almost so far out of their wheelhouse.

I don't think this is a song you would have expected from this band coming in. And to Hazel's point, it doesn't sound like anything else on the record either. It really is sort of this one-off R&B jam. I guess I need to go back and spend more time at the record because I didn't feel like it was as much of an outlier as you all did. And maybe that's because when I read about the album before I eventually heard it,

I had read that they were going to really lean into rock. And they don't really. I mean, it's here and there a little bit on the record. There's actually a little bit of country and a little bit of blues, I think, in it. But I don't know. I kind of thought relationships sound. sounded a little more like the rest of the record than at least what I was expecting. My favorite cuts to the opener, gone.

And that is one that, yeah, I love how they sort of crib from, they don't sort of. They sample. They completely sampled, yeah, George Michael's freedom. So the song Relationships from Hime. That album came out on June 20th. I quit from Hime. Let's go to the band clipping. This is something that I had on the show back in February that I'm totally still reaching for.

It's a song called Keep Pushing. from an album that Clipping released in March called Dead Channel Sky. You kind of need to listen to the whole song Keep Pushing to, I think, appreciate the arc of it. But we'll hear just a bit of it and we can talk more about why I think it's one of the best songs of the year so far.

Again, it's called Keep Pushing. When it all fell down, God bless the weight, inflation went ounce, must have just eight because then became pounds, didn't hesitate them break themselves down. Like them was late, couldn't wait to get out. them spread all around the world the fiends found them hop in the pot them beg to get drowned them wanna be sick them bidsch' out's in so let it whip living at the top of the syndrome

placebo get you repoin the thin gold ain't worse shit when the skin gone and it been cold and making money off of the impose ain't nothin but that need faith in where they do that at the world is a wasteland the state is a rat trap cheese and load the hood of the hatchback before you get snatched back uh and everywhere you could Rob, just keep on pushing dope. However hard is been, get up and push again. Robin, I'm going to need you to sell this one to me a bit. Really? Oh, my God.

I'm not sold. I mean, you know, I am historically a Hamilton hater, and I think everything. Okay, so DeVee Diggs is in this. Yes, this is fruit from the poisonous tree. There's something about the clipping stuff, specifically his rapping, that feels very stage-ready, very theatrical, very almost hammy to me. Wow. And so his stuff has never really worked for me.

So this is a song that takes a pretty grim view of the state of the world, very dystopian. You know, everything is falling apart. But if you listen to the whole song, it's essentially, it has three acts. The first act is when he says it all fell down. And then the second act starts when he says it all went numb. And then the third act and the final act is where, he says, it all got killed. And, you know, I was thinking that this is probably a song

that would feel relevant in any decade, but it really resonates with me right now. So I had never heard of clipping. I am also not a Hamilton fan. I hadn't really heard of them. And there's something really kind of fascinating to be about DeVie Diggs's flow in this song because I kind of similarly to Sheldon was like,

I don't know, Hammy, is the word? that I would use, but there was something kind of like very kind of measured about the way that he wraps in this song. It's almost like he's kind of reading the lyrics rather than just like, I don't know. But then I was like, well, maybe that's purposeful because so much of the song is about being numb and sort of taking a backseat and, you know, expressing what's happening in the world about you. But there's just something about his delivery in this song that I felt like, felt a little, like, stilted to me. Huh, I would almost go the opposite direction and say it's almost melodic to me.

But, well, I'm surprised to hear that, Sheldon, because, yeah, I think he's one of the greats. I don't know. He's just, like, blazingly fast. And I think I've always liked how crisp and, you know, I wanted to say articulated in the way that, like, a piano, piano notes are articulated. You know, like, when I hear someone who does, like, a piano run or something, I'll hear, it can kind of all run together, like they've got the pedal down. You know, or it can be super crisp and tight in a way. And I don't know. I kind of feel like that's what I hear in his flow.

And clipping, I love how bent their sound is. It's just really warped and wobbly. This is maybe one of their more accessible songs, I think. It's definitely more grounded than a lot of their stuff. Yeah, I will say one thing I do appreciate generally about is they always take big swings with the stuff that they're doing. It's very experimental, very forward-looking. In this instance, I think Hazel is right. Like, the measuredness of it, it's almost too in the pockets for me.

Speed doesn't do it for me. Yeah, well, I get that. I think calling him stage-ready rap is pretty big blow. That's, I mean. Well, he is a, he did rap on stage. It's his job. That's what he comes from. And it's like, I understand the appeal of that.

But for someone like me, if that kind of thing didn't work for me with Hamilton, it's not going to work for me. Is it too sanitized or something? There's something very sort of sanded down about it. Well, I think we'll have to devote an entire other episode to why you both don't like Hamilton, which... Oh, that's easy. I mean, that certainly makes me grab my pearls. We'll save that for another day. So clipping, the song Keep Pushing from the album, Dead Channel, Skull.

that came out in March on March 14th. Okay, coming up on the show, we will continue our 25th anniversary celebration of all songs considered by looking back at our number one songs from 2018. Stephen Thompson will join us for that. Plus your weekly reset, that's all coming up. And as always, if you enjoy the show,

tell a friend, share it with a friend, leave us a glowing review in Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Sheldon, we've come back around to you. Yeah, I'm going to take us in a, very different direction with the lead single from a hopefully TBD album by the Mercurial Lana Del Rey. The song is called Henry Come On. We can use it.

about the song in a minute, but can we just get it out here right now, Sheldon? There is no album coming. Don't see that. Why would you do this to me? They don't even know what it's called or when it's coming. I was actually trying to think, like, is there any other artists? Like, what other artists on the planet can tease an album out for as long as Lana Del Rey? Like, it feels like we've been hearing about this album.

And every time an album eventually comes, it feels like we've been hearing about it for months or years. Yeah. And there are all these false release dates like, oh, it'll be it's June or oh, it'll be August, or oh, it's whenever. It already has its own narrative, too. I mean, because this song was co-produced with Luke Laird, who is best known for his works in country with Casey Musgraves and others, people are calling this sort of a turn toward country. I mean, I'm listening to this song and it feels like it could be in conversation with the stuff on like blue banisters or like chem trails over the country club. It's still, if it is country, it's folk country.

And I mean, with her, there's always a blend of Americana. Yeah, it's that Laurel Canyon sort of hazy. The pull of roots music is just over the horizon with so much of her stuff. So it always feels disingenuous to me to be like, this is the country record. Yeah. Well, also, oh, go ahead. No, go ahead. I just think it's funny that this song or just like the upcoming project is getting billed as a country thing

because, you know, yes, you're right. worked with Luke Laird, who's like, has this storied career in country songwriting. But I felt like listening to this, I was like, okay, even when she works with someone who knows how to write a country banger, it still just sounds like Lana. Yeah, it comes out a Lana Del Rey song for sure. It's such a Lana Del Rey song. And I will say, I don't know, this song, I like this song. But I feel like Lana is not editing herself as much as she could.

And I think what I mean by that is like, I have. I have loved the direction that Lana has gone in over the course of her career. I think her music has gotten weirder and like wilder and like less married to kind of the, you know, Marilyn Monroe bubble gum pop that she was making at the beginning. Those are all reasons to love her more in my mind. I mean, I love it all. But listening to this, I was like, there is this quality to it where I'm like, girl, did you just record yourself singing into your iPhone? Like are these vocals master? Like, I'm saying this as someone who loves her so deeply.

And I do, like, this song does make me excited for, you know, the direction of this album that may or may not come out. But there is something kind of half-formed about it, and I tend to like music that has, that isn't so perfect and pristine. But I don't know. It's just, like, there's that line in it where she's like, it's last call, hey, y'all, hang his hat up on the wall. Tell him that is cowgirl gone. And I think in any other song, like in any other artist's hands who's trying to make a country song,

like that would be played so much differently. And she just kind of like wimpers it and prospers it. Which is her thing. I don't know. I'm saying a lot of contradictory things. I was going to say everything you're saying is like exactly why I love this song so much. Me too.

I think I just listened to it and I'm like, I think that there's just a slightly stronger version of this song. I like it when she stretches out, goes epic, and like her song sprawl, her narratives, everything, her sonic exploration. I am totally team Lana Del Rey and always have been. I never understood the haters.

I think she's next level artists. Next level when it comes to not only like songcraft and production and just how incredibly outsized her ideas are, but just very big, deep, thinky pieces. two and stories that I can get lost in. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree, Hazel, that it sounds like she recorded this as a voice memo on her phone, but I like that quality about it in, like, in the context of this song, it feels very like tour diaries, very like on the road.

All of that feels like so rich and endearing to me. So Lana Del Rey, the song Henry Come On from an album that may or may not come at some point. may or may not be country may or may not be may or may not have a title it'd be great if it was just called TBD but certainly I'll go along

with you on this one Sheldon certainly one of the best songs of the year so far I want to play a song next that kind of surprised me in terms of just how much I kept going back to it this year like really just kept

pressing play on it It's a song called Blade Bird by the French kind of alt-pop artist Okaloo. And yeah, it's really stuck with me. So we featured Oketlu on the show back in February when the album came out. came out on February 7th. This is from the album, Choke Enough. The song I went for was family and friends, which had kind of, I guess, more of a almost like contemporary classical feel to it,

kind of like Steve Reich or like systems music or process music, you know, like minimalist sort of stuff. But the whole album has such a great range to it. Yeah, I, this song in particular, like I, from the moment I heard it, it really just, there's something kind of mysterious about it. You know, the lyrics are a little hard for me to decipher where it's like there's this idea that she has her blade on the bird. And this idea that like her baby is a bird, that they are what they are and she feels like a cage and I'm like, oh, you know, is this a song about having to let go of someone in a

situation where you feel like you're doing more harm than good and that image of a blade being on the bird is just so haunting to me like what is happening like a blade being like held up to like the neck of the bird or something like the birds that's what i think like that's what i'm curious what you guys think like that's kind of what i heard it as the first time and it's like i don't know if i don't yeah i just i'm not saying this well i'm not conveying why this song is good. I don't know. For Blade Bird, I was thinking the blade was like the wings of the bird, and I was looking at it a little more optimistically, but I don't know. Oh, interesting. I was like, there's a knife on this bird's neck. Maybe I'm totally wrong. This bird is going to fly away and be free.

That kind of does track. Honestly, like the bird itself is like the blade and she's trying to hold it. And that's why she's the one getting hurt. We should do a show. We should have like a music show. where we talk about stuff. Man, man. That's interesting. That's crazy. They'll never let us do that. Really?

They'll never let us do that. That's pretty deep stuff. So, OK, Lou, Blade Bird from Chokinuf that came out in early February. I'm kind of, I'm a little reluctant to play anything now, now that I, I thought clipping was my home run of the show, and neither of you liked it very much. I know. I like your other, spoiler alert. I like the other songs. I mean, we've already talked about it.

Yeah, yeah, we've talked about some of the stuff before. Well, let's go to Mia Follick. This was something I featured on the very, very, very, very first contenders episode of the year in January. Hazel, you did that show with me. That was the first contenders in January. And this is one that I also, this song is one that I also added pretty quickly to my short list of songs that wreck you. Because there's something in this one that always makes me tear up. Something in maybe the way, something in her voice.

Something in her voice in the way that both her voice and the melody rise up in the chorus that kind of just makes my heart swell in a way. I don't know. See what you think. The song is called This Time Around. Poor with hope. I don't want to stop bleaching my hair in the bathroom. Poor Sheldon has to sit here in the studio watching me get old blubbery. Hazel, you're safe in New York.

You know, I think when I first listened to the song, I kind of honed in on what felt like this ambivalence in it. You know, like how she says she's feeling that something that's like, well, it's kind of like desire. Yeah. You know, like how uncommitted it is. But I realize, you know, the more I've set with this over the past six months, that it's like Mia Fulik is really struggling in this song, I think. It's someone who is, it's someone who's trying to hang on and trying to understand a world that simply does not make sense. And I do think that the meaning of songs and how we receive them evolve and change, depending on where we are in our lives and depending on what's going on in the world. And maybe this one just hits a little differently after six months of 2025.

Yeah, I didn't hear ambivalence in this song when I first heard it. I think, in fact, Robin, when we first talked about it, I was like, this song kind of broke my heart. And it's still kind of breaking my heart. But yeah, I hear struggle. I hear the sound of someone trying to deal with circumstances that make life really hard for them. And this kind of push and pull of, you know, wanting something that's bad for you, trying to get out of it. And I just think that line, you know, in the chorus when she's like, hey, babe, it's okay. It's so weighted.

It's not okay. Like, it's not okay. And, yeah, I just think that. the way that she sings the song is so beautiful, the way that her voice drops in certain spots, and there's kind of this like weepiness and weariness to it. And it is a really beautiful song. Yeah, it's her voice that sells it. I mean, there's something, it's almost like resignation.

She has sort of, she knows that this thing can't work. She's feeling the pressure of it. She's weighted down by it. Yeah. But she keeps yearning for it. keeps moving toward it. And being caught between that rock and the hard place is what you feel in those harmonies in the chorus, the way they're layered so gently.

They kind of ease out like a sigh. Yeah, yeah. This is a thing that I have to accept, but I don't want to accept it. Yeah. This time around from the album Erotica of Veronica that came out on February 28th. All right, we still have that 25th anniversary look back at the year of 2018 and also your weekly reset coming up

but I think we all have one more song that we want to play. Yeah, on our 2025 preview show, I brought the perfume genius album, Glory. Right. And the lead single off that record has stuck with me throughout the year. I want to play it again. It's called It's a Mirror.

So the album, this is from Glory, has since come out, since we played it on the preview show. This is still your, you think, the standout cut from it? Yeah, this is the one that really grabbed me. I mean, it's, the whole record is supposed to be the most confessional perfume genius record. I mean, he's been kind of doing it this whole time, but I, I kind of get at what he's saying, and I think this song to me really sort of sold that idea of introspection, of looking

within. It's so clearly about like self-isolating habits and how they can be self-defeating, how sometimes you are your own worst enemy. Sometimes the actions that you take become the person that you are. And I think that's the idea of it being a mirror. I took the whole mirror thing as him not looking in the mirror, but two mirrors facing each other. That he sees the struggle as very circular, kind of like it's like, it's like, changing. facing your own tail, this trap that you can't get out of. He says something at the top of the song about like a horizon stretching off into the distance. And that made me think of these two mirrors that are held up to each other and how they create that infinity effect.

The infinity mirror, yeah. Yeah, infinity mirror, you know, like just duplicates. Yeah, like endlessly stretching out. And that's how, which is what I thought was so genius about. Yeah, yeah. No, I think that that feels like a really accurate reading of what is happening to me because there's this tension of self- awareness, this tension of the outside world, but sort of realizing that no matter what happens, you are stuck with being yourself over and over and over again. You're looking out off into the

past, you're looking out up into the future, which to the infinity mirror effect is like everything is drawn out in both directions forever, but it's all the same, right? It never changes. There's something very nervy about this song. I think struggle is a really good word for what's happening in this song to me. And, you know, like you said, Sheldon, he's kind of rattling off all of these kind of anxious tendencies and things that he's going through that are making his life difficult. And then you just get to that image of like, it's a mirror down. Like, it's just some, that image is just like, you know, he's, like facing what's happening

to him. But there's also this sense of, like, if he looks at it too closely, if he, like, is faced too much with that mirror image of himself. It's like staring at the sun or something. But yeah, I think his delivery in this song and the instrumentals that he's using, I was like, it feels like this kind of like rollicking like cowboy song. Like he's just like out on his own sort of taking stock of who he is at the moment, what he wants to see what he doesn't want to see.

And yeah, it's a really strong track. So perfume genius, it's a mirror from the album, Glory, that, let's see, the single came out in January. The album came out in March, March 28th. So I want to play a song that I love this year that is about the opposite of being trapped. It is about being completely free. And in your body, in yourself, it is a song by FK. Twigs called Room of Fools. I, listening to it, I'm like, oh, is this going to be my favorite song of the year? Yeah, I think it's fine.

Yeah, I love this song because, you know, FK.A Twigs is a very thinky artist. And her relationship to her body is very interesting because she's a musician, but she also is a professional dancer. She started her career as a dancer. You know, she is always thinking about how she can sort of expand her body and her art. and use it in interesting ways. And, you know, the album that she put out this year that the song is from Usexua was really her making her version of a dance album, like inspired by her experiences,

just like dancing in clubs. And I hear a completely different side to her in this song. I hear someone who is experiencing dancing in their body with such freedom and, like, physicality. And, like, that lyric, it feels nice. Like, Twigs is, she's always thinking. And I love her in that mode. But I'm like, oh, this is her, like, really feeling the effects of the music that she makes.

And feeling the effects of experiencing that music with other people. You know, not as an artist, but, like, as someone on the dance floor who is creating the experience with other people in that setting. And so, yeah, it is, it's really incredible. work from her and I just, I feel free listening to this song. It really is about the body in conversation with other bodies, right? There's the lyric, we make something together. Yeah, for sure. I'm getting a little Kate Bush and Bjork. Yeah. Like, I was thinking, there's moments that really sounded like that Bjork song on her debut album. There's more to life than this. Do you know that song where she's in? It's recorded in a bar, I think, and like she goes into a bathroom or something and it's still,

the song, it gets muffled. It really reminded me of that. I mean, that's all a good thing. Yeah. So Room of Fools from You, Sexua, that came out on January 24th. All right, one more for you. And it's from the band Lucius. Another one we had on that same spring preview show, Sheldon.

The song is from their self-titled album that they released at the top of May. It's called Gold Rush. This is one that I immediately loved when I first heard it and have only come to love it more in the months since. Yes, I can confirm. Definitely one of the best songs of the year for me so far. And, you know, I think it will be on my list at the end of the year as well. It's just, I said this last time we talked about them.

This band is so cool. I don't know how it was to say it. You know, just Jess Wolf and Holly Lessig, you know, just the right amount of swagger. Their voices are always so good together. Great grooves. Everything perfectly picked and placed in the mix. Just the right amount of everything. Love it. It's very addictive.

It's a very addictive song. Well, they talk about sugar rushes on this song. And maybe that, I mean, and that's sort of what the song is to me. It's sweet. It's like sticky and sweet. Yeah, yeah. And there's something to be said as thinky as I tend to get with a lot of the music I listen to. Sometimes it's okay to just feel good. And this song just feels so good.

Yeah, I was just going to say, feel good is the word, are the words to describe. of this. Lucius is one of those bands that I want to say I feel like they should be bigger than they are but I don't know maybe they are big you know they it's so hard you know they don't dominate the charts or anything. It can be difficult to say like what what constitutes a big artist these days. Yeah. I don't know it's they're not like you know they don't have millions and millions and millions of followers or anything like that but they've certainly been on all kinds of projects like from Harry Styles and John Legend and Cheryl Crow you know they were on the New Ringo Star album.

I mean, they're recognized as, oh, if you want to take this song to another level, let's get Lucius to sing on it. Yeah, I think that's one of the clear things that I hear not just in this song, but on that record that they released a self-titled album from May. You can hear that practice. You can hear the work that they've put in.

And especially as collaborators, they really do feel like two halves of a whole when they perform together. Musically, vocally, the way they perform. put their songs together. They are almost perfectly matched, it feels like. I mean, to your point about maybe them not being as big as they should be, this does feel like the kind of music you would anticipate, like,

really ringing off in like an amphitheater. Yeah, it's a lighter's up moment. With a lot of people. I'm sorry, cell phone's up moment. It's a real cell phone's up moment. Robin, don't date yourself, man. It's a lighter. All right. A lighter is a device that we used to create a flame.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. A-plus song from Lucius from an A-plus album, No Notes, self-titled album from Lucius, the song Gold Rush, came out in May at the top of May. All right, that'll do it for our absurdly incomplete list, the year's best songs so far. And I feel like we really crushed it on this show. Actually, pack it up. We don't need any more songs this year. I think we got it. Yeah. No more music. We got it. We got it. We're done. Sheldon Pierce, Hazel Sills. Thanks to you both, as always. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you. All right, as I mentioned, it's the 25th anniversary of all songs considered this year. And Stephen Thompson and I have been looking back at our number one songs from each of the past 25 years of the show. Doing a new year on each episode. We are up to 2018. And Stephen back here now to talk about it. Hello, Robin. So we are up to 2018, and we've been playing a little bit of name that tune. We each play a song for each other, and we see if the other person can remember it. I think you mentioned at some point along the way here. Hopefully, it will be recent enough that it won't be that hard for us to guess what it is. We are up to 2018. I think I might know what you're going to play, but why don't you go ahead and tee it up and hit it, and I'll see if I've got it right.

Oh, man, there's a lot to choose from this year. I'm going to go with this one. All right, it's Prince. Yeah, right. Janelle Monet. Correct. But I can't get the song. You'll definitely get it.

You'll get it before the chorus. You'll get it before the chorus. Yeah, baby, don't make me spell it out for you. You keep on asking me the same questions. Why? And taking gas in all my intentions Should know by the way I use my compression That you got the answers to my confessions

Make me feel Yeah, make me feel What a great pick Oh my gosh, this record And remember, this album came out In the first half of 2018 Prince died in 2016 and I think it was able to tap into not only

this great leveling up and this great mission statement for Janelle Monet as this remarkably inventive, versatile kind of polymath actor, singer, shape-shifting musical superstar but it also tapped into a little bit of the huge reservoir of love for Prince that everyone was still feeling in the aftermath of his death.

It hadn't even been like, what, like a year and a half or something. And so I think in many ways this was like the perfect album at the perfect time. I thought you might go with the one that I'm going to end up playing now since you didn't do it. Oh, I think I know where you might go with this.

Okay, let's see. Childish Gambino, this is America. The other song I was considering for this moment. Yeah, go go. I'm just beautiful We just want to I'm just beautiful Oh

Don't get you slipping on Don't catch you slipping on Look what I'm whipping up This is America Don't get you slipping up Don't catch you slipping up Look what I'm whipping up This is America

Don't got you slipping up Look how I'm living up Holy speak tripping up Yeah this is America I got this trap. We've been talking along the way as we've been going through each year about how impossible it is for us to be remotely comprehensive about all the great stuff that's coming out

and all the important stuff. I would say that it is impossible for us to really have an adequate conversation about this one song in just a couple of minute exchange about it because it to me is just a staggering important work of art. on so many different levels. But I remember when this came out, you know, Donald Glover, who's childish Gambino,

I had just spent however many years watching him. I'm on community. On the TV show community. Yeah, and just hilarious, right? He's so funny. A lot of the rap and stuff that he had done was always full of all these jokes. It was like, I never really took him very seriously

as a musician or an artist in that way. He was just a comedian to me in a very sharp, sharp wit, very funny, smart guy. And then this comes out and you realize, oh, these waters go very, very deep. Yeah, and it's another song kind of like the Janelle Monet where the timing of it. Yeah.

That came out in 2018, you know, amid very turbulent times in America. And that song, I think, really spoke to a lot of people and spoke to the moment in ways that I think, I think a lot of people right now are looking for music that is speaking to this moment in maybe the same way, and it's hard to find, at least in what passes for the monoculture.

Yeah, and well, in the vision that he had in this song, there are so many different things that he sort of takes on in this one song from, you know, poverty to violence to guns and everything, all those really big, massive topics that he takes on

and just the clarity of vision that he has through this whole thing. I think it's safe to say that everyone was really surprised by this, and I have seen online videos of people watching the video for this and reacting. Like, people are going like, yeah, yeah. What? Oh, my God.

Yeah, reaction videos. Oh, boy. But we'll go out on this. And until next time, thanks as always, Stephen. Thank you, Robin. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.