NPR Music - Beck’s ‘Odelay’ at 30, Mitski covers One Direction, more

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

We share our picks for the best new tracks of the week, including Mitski’s surprising cover of One Direction’s “Fireproof.” But first, we remember Beck’s still mind-blowing Odelay, which just celebrated its 30th anniversary. NPR Music’s Lars Gotrich joins host Robin Hilton.Featured artists and songs:(00:00) Beck’s Odelay at 30(03:39) Perennial: “What’s New On The Beat Scene” (08:55) Mitski: “Fireproof”(13:50) Sarah Davachi: “Songs of the Smile’s Fig: III. Follies” (21:56) Shearwater: “Daydream Unbeliever” (32:33) Sleep: “Have Spacesuit Will Travel”(41:39) L’Rain: “soulless cycle”Reviews help!  Leave us one on Apple or Spotify wherever you listen to podcasts. Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail] 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

This episode of All Songs Considered comes to you from the NPR Music Podcast. I'm Robin Hilton. We've got new episodes of this show, new episodes of All Songs Considered in the NPR Music feed every Tuesday. You get Alt Latino every Wednesday and New Music Friday at the end of every week. Inpeer Music also, where you will find Tiny Desk editor, Lars Gottridge. Oh, wow. Yeah. What do you think of this?

Liking what you're hearing here? I mean, I wasn't expecting that kind of introduction. Well, listen, we're going to talk about our picks for the best new tracks of the week on this episode. But I had to start the show off with this. Okay. Why? So this past week was the 30th anniversary of Odelae. Okay. Yeah, I feel like there are a lot of crucial albums in my teenage years that are turning 30 this year, and I'm just like, oh, man.

Yeah. So this is the first single where it's at from O'Dale, the Beck album, came out on, June 18th, 1996. What were you doing, Lars? I would have been in middle school. Yeah, probably would have been in sixth grade, maybe seventh grade, something like that. Were you remotely aware of this? Not until maybe like a year or two later, because that's the way radio kind of worked those days,

where songs could be on the radio for like two or three years and it wasn't a big deal. Yeah. Were you listening to 99X? 1,000%. Yeah. So that's where I heard this song. So it came out on my birthday, May 28, 1996. I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing.

I was in my car. I was driving down, what was the street, Westlake Drive in Athens, Georgia. Yeah, you know it. You probably know. I was listening to 99X. This song came on, and I just thought, what is this? Oh, my God. For those who don't know Odelae, this album, it was unlike any of it.

thing that was out at the time that anybody had heard. And no small part because of the production of the Dust Brothers. Yeah. It was so chopped up, had all these amazing killer grooves on it. It rocked. It screamed. And it was goofy as I'll get out. Wildly unpredictable.

You never knew what was going to happen at any moment in any song. I was on a road trip maybe sometime last year. And I like to buy dollar CDs from the thrift store and Odela was there one time. Oh, wow. And wait a minute, for a dollar? Yeah, for a dollar. I'd buy that for a dollar. Come on, man.

That's blasphemy. But I was listening to it and I was like, this both sounds of its time and out of time completely. Because like this is, the sound of this album is very 90s because I think Dust Brothers kind of created that sound. Yeah, for sure. But it sounded out of time at the same time. No, I know what you mean.

You know what, yeah. Yeah, no, because it's definitely steep in these sort of classic backbeats and bass lines. but yeah, no, it holds up. I binged all weekend on this album and other Beck releases. I was blasting this in the car. The kids were begging me to turn it off. I was like, no, it's Father's Day. You don't like it, get out and walk.

It's my deal here. I get to listen to whatever I want. Yeah, on my birthday and on Father's Day, I get to listen to my music. That's it. Well, anyway, I couldn't let the moment pass without acknowledging 30-year anniversary for Beck's Odelais. Not my first pick for the show. I don't know if you got something.

You want to... I think I got something that sort of works with this, because if we're talking about Beck, who was sort of making music that was nostalgic, but current at the same time, here's a band called Perennial. They've been making music for a few years, and they do a version of mod punk

that is an homage to the early 2000s dance punk scene that itself was an homage. to the 60s mod scene. You're threading so many needles there. I am, but a lot. I'm not sure I've tracked all that, but keep going. 60s mod. Think of, like, Great Britain in the 60s, lots of loud patterns.

Okay. Went out of fashion for quite a while. And in the early 2000s, a whole bunch of punk bands were like, hey, you know, it was cool. That? That. And so here's a fan who's like several steps removed. Okay. But I still think that they do their own thing with them.

it. And they have a new album called Modernism that's coming out. And this song, What's New on the Beat, Sine, is so fun. That's fun. That is exactly what I was looking for. Oh, good. That is so good. And it, is this a new song? Or I mean, because it's a brand new song. Because even the recording sounds kind of old. Yeah. They thread that line between, like I said, a vintage sound, but with like some modern twists inside. So, like, they got the fuzzy guitar, the fuzzy Farfisa or whatever kind of organ that happens to be. But the guy just shouts at one specific pitch in the entire time. But it's like he's hyping you up.

And I've seen this band a couple of times. And it is so much fun. Their sets are always like 20 minutes long because their songs are so short. I mean, a minute 45. As I was listening to this and then suddenly it was over, I thought, what's the perfect length for a song? I mean, you get it in under two minutes, you're always going to be wanting more, especially with a jam like that. It even changes.

I felt like it was kind of shifting or morphing ever so slightly through different eras just from the beginning. And it starts off, I'm like, oh, this is 1967 or 66 or something. And then it's like the Beastie Boys. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. I mean, when I first heard them, the thing that I clocked with them was the Blood Brothers. Did you ever listen to the Brud Brothers?

I know that name, but no, I never did. Early 2000s, screaming punk band that kind of did a similar thing, but was just way more intense and chaotic. Perennial kind of makes it more fun. They make it like more include. It doesn't feel like you're about to get bashed in the face. Yeah. Well, tell me more about the band, though. They're from Connecticut, and they have toured with bands, like they've toured with our friends and bad moves.

Oh, okay. And this kind of like brightly lit, but like really splashy kind of punk music feels, feels very summery to me in a way that I kind of need that kick in the pants right now. So Perennial is working hard for me. Yeah, no, I like that it kind of rages, but it's like fun rage. Yeah. It feels good. So this album Modernism, it's from, is that out now or? Modernism is out September 18th.

September 18th. Yeah. It's not out for. a little while. The whole album, I think, it's like 10 songs in 17 minutes. Wow. Well, I swear I do have some totally new stuff that I want to play. I mean, I started with the Beck, which is 30 years old. But I want to play something from Mitzky that's actually been floating around out in the ether for a number of years now. But it just got a proper

release in the States. It's a cover song, Mitzki's cover of a song by the band. Wait for it. One Direction. Okay. Yes, the boy band One Direction. Sure. The song is called Fireproof. She just included it on this 10th anniversary edition of the album. I believe it's pronounced Puberty.

Puberty, too. Yeah, puberty. That's a joke that you've never let go. I'm pretty sure it's poverty. It's not my job to figure these things out for you, Lars. Do your homework. Pretty sure it's poverty. Puberty, too.

came out, that album came out in 2016, notable for, among many other things, the song, Your Best American Girl, one of the greatest songs of this century, I think. Anyway, Fireproof, her cover of the song, Fireproof. It's a song she's played live a handful of times. It was on the Japanese release of Puberty 2, but now out on the deluxe version of Puberty 2. Check it out. Now, be honest. If I didn't tell you that was a One Direction song, you don't know it.

Wouldn't you think that was a Mitzky song? I just think it was just especially from this era, I would have been like, yeah, this is a Mitzky, Mitzie song. I didn't know it. Do you know Fireproof? Did you know that song? You're asking somebody who. All right, that's fine. Fair enough.

I didn't know the original at all probably should have, but when I first heard this, I thought, classic Mitzky. Oh, this is such a great Mitzky song. Why didn't she include this in the original? Yeah, yeah. Put the album. And then I realized it was a cover song. The original version of this, so different.

It's almost like yacht rock or something. Oh, okay. Now I listen to. Now you're in. I mean, a little poppy, a little breezy, you know. It came out in 2014, so just a couple of years before the Mitzky release of Puberty 2. But man, I always love it when an artist can take a song that by a band that I otherwise assume I just, I don't like or I know I don't like. Yeah.

And they get me to like it. Like they find a way to repackage it or retool it. or retool it in a way that it suddenly clicks with me. I mean, it makes me curious about Mitzki's pop influences. I happen to know that she's a Mariah Carey fan. Yeah. That made me think there's probably some stuff in her music that I've been completely missing.

Yeah. There's some ties to that whole pop world. Well, I think this would make a good show. Covers songs that are better than the original. Oh, I've got, I got five. I can ride off. Right off. Right off the top of your head. Me too. We should do that. We should do that. We should do cover songs that were better than the originals. I can also think of many right off the top of my head. Anyway, Mitzki, having a great year. She released Nothing's About to Happen to me. That was back in February at the end of February. We featured the song, Where's My Phone from it? And now the 10th anniversary of Puberty, too.

There's this great minimalist composer from Los Angeles. Her name is Sarah Devachi. Our colleague Tom Heisnika and I love to talk about her work. And she's mostly known for playing the pipe organ and writing for pipe organ, and also kind of like electronics and tapes and things like that. But she's been delving more into brass and core works lately. So she just announced a two-hour album called The Will, of tongues. It's all one cut, right? No, it's several different pieces that have been commissioned over

the years. The first song that she decided to release from the album was a choral work and not one of the pipe organ pieces. And as soon as I hit play, I was like, this is one of the most beautiful things that I've heard so far this year. It's called Songs of the Smiles Fig Part 3, Follies, and it is sung by the Chamber Choir, Ireland. Songs of the Smiles Fig, three, Follies. Follies, yes. Well, so I had to fly back home to Atlanta last week for a funeral. And when I was on the plane, I listened to this music, you know, 35,000 feet.

Yeah. And I felt like that's where you're supposed to listen to this music. There's such incredible. In the heavens. Yeah. Yeah, it's such a beautiful exercise in attention and release and how they don't always have to go one after the other. Sometimes they can coexist. Yeah, that's an interesting way to put it.

I thought you said attention in release, not tension in release, because I was thinking my attention, it kept wanting to drift, you know, as I was listening. I just sat here with my eyes closed, listening to it, kind of meditating. And every time I started to drift away, it kind of pulled me back. It kind of reminded me of a friend of mine who once took a six-week vacation. And I remember saying to him at the time, six weeks, who takes a six-week vacation? Yeah, what are you going to do? I mean, like, and he said, he's like, oh, man, it takes the first three weeks or so just to forget your life that you had before you took vacation. And then you get your three weeks of actual vacation.

And I thought, it's appropriate that this is a two-hour piece because, It takes like the first 15 minutes or whatever just to get you to let go of whatever you've been holding on to, all that tension, whatever's been happening throughout the day, whatever's on your mind, to let go of all of that and finally just let the music take you away. Just give in. This piece comes towards the end of the record. It's not the very end, but pretty close. And it's a series of three choral pieces that are interspersed with other works. So songs of the smiles fig number three follies from Serra Devachi, and that's from the album, The Will of Tongues. Very ancient, gorgeous.

Yeah. So for upcoming show ideas, we've got the one we just mentioned, cover songs that were better than the originals. That's one. Here's another one, another show idea. Okay. Criminally underrated bands. Okay. Or bands, maybe they're much beloved bands, but bands that should be bigger.

than they are. That's pretty much every band that you listen to. Thanks, brother. I think sometimes that's the case, but in other times, I'm trying to remember there's this great piece that I've read or listened to about the plight of the C-List Pop Star and how some scene-list pop stars like where they are. Because it affords them their creative life that they enjoy. More control. More control. A lot of them go Patreon. Go Patreon. or something like that. Yeah. And, but also there isn't extreme level of scrutiny on, like, their personal lives.

Yeah. And so while I hear you, I think about that argument that I listened to recently, I was like, oh, that actually makes a lot of sense. So there are some bands where I'm like, they're probably happy where they are. Maybe they wish they made a little bit more money, but maybe they don't want to be the big, huge thing that everybody thinks that they should be. Well, that's a good point, and one that we can discuss when we do our show on. Bands that should be much bigger than they are.

I think somewhere in my top 10 would be the band Shearwater. Okay, yeah. You were probably Sherwater. I remember them yet. They haven't been around for a minute. Or maybe they haven't. I didn't know. Well, you know, I have sort of lost the threat of that band off and on over the years, too.

They were consistently releasing albums for a while there in the beginning. We're talking like 15 years or so ago. and now definitely more time between albums, but they've got a new one coming up called The New World. I mean, plenty of people love this band, but they're also a band that when I listen to, I think, man, they should be fill in stadiums. Most of the work, I think, is from singer Jonathan Meiberg,

who has one of the most gorgeous voices. Oh, yeah, I remember when I did listen to, I remember, thinking he has an incredibly beautiful voice. Sonorous, it's sonorous. And Shearwater, as I said, They've got a new album coming out later this year, New World. This song I want to play from it is stunning. It's called Daydream Unbeliever.

Nothing is ordinary. Elefineal. Coyote in an older language to the light. Wander around. Never decide what strength is. I'm a day. Oh, who's the little doggy? at the end.

Well, so Jonathan Meiberg, he's an ornithologist. I mean, obviously the name of the band, Shearwater, it's a bird. He loves nature. So any way he can work in nature, animals, he's going to find a way to do that. I mean, this song, well, I reached out to him and said, tell me a little bit about kind of how you came to write the song and what it means for you. And he said it's the first one he wrote for the album. And he was thinking about what he calls the weird fantasies.

that we're taught to believe in, and I'm quoting him here, like the idea that humans are the most beautiful and important animals ever to live on Earth. Also, the perverse, and again, I'm still quoting them, the perverse conflation of violence and courage, that violence is courage. You know, it's about how important it is to let go of those false ideas, to let go of the illusion that we're the most important creatures on Earth.

And again, I'm quoting them here. it's about how liberating it feels when you realize even for a moment that you've broken free of them of those ideas. But if you know the music of Shearwater, this is a very sheerwatery song. I mean, it rises and falls and heaves and sighs. You know, there's a lot of push and pull. And it can be really epic and cinematic. I love those strings at the end. But also, you know, very intimate and quiet.

Well, you know what? I hadn't listened to Shearwater in probably a very long time. Well, so I wasn't actually sure about how long it'd been between albums. It's been four years since the last one, but this is only the second album in the last decade. Yeah, so, I mean, it might have been maybe over a decade ago that I listened to them. And what struck me about this, do you know, so Jeremy Enoch from Sunny Day Real Estate, his first old album is called Return of the Frog Queen. And this song that you just played gives me that quality because the strings swept

circus quality to it where it feels like everything's a little topsy-turvy. I hear that in this, yeah. And the arrangements are just a little bit off. Well, so the time signature keeps shifting. I think it's between

the song's either in 5-4 or he goes from 3-4 to 2-4 or something like that, but you can't find a consistent beat. And Jonathan Meiberg said that was intentional to sort of reflect how different it is to let go of these illusions that we live with.

Ah. Yeah. Wow. What a smarty. Isn't that genius? You know, I love stuff like that, and I love when an artist is willing to share something like that because I wouldn't have clocked that. I mean, I could feel something was off.

Yeah. But that he was willing to sort of pull the curtain back a little bit and reveal what he was thinking. I love that. And it's a great idea, too, because it's the sort of thing that you don't exactly realize this happening. but something is throwing you off balance. Yeah, and you can't figure out what it is. Yeah.

Yeah, we don't get enough of that these days where the music and the words are actually speaking to each other in significant ways. Well, that's because you've got 10 different people writing the same song, working on the same song. Oh, we're going to get into this, Robert? Man, I could go so long. I remember a friend of mine who loves Taylor Swift saying, I mean, she writes all her own songs. And I thought, you're supposed to write your own songs. songs. But I know in the pop world, that's just not how it works more often.

No, okay. I don't want to be that guy. I mean, I am that guy. It's okay. Lean into it, Robin. Let's make some people. I'm about to make some people mad with what I'm about to play. So let's go.

Okay, well, let's do this. I'll just say that the new world from Shearwater, it is out at the end of July, July 31st. Okay, Lars, you said that you were about to make everyone angry with your next pick. So the stoner metal band Sleep. Are you familiar with Sleep? I do know Sleep, yeah. I can't say that it's a band that I reach for and put on very often, but I know Sleep. So they stopped being a band for a while.

They got back together, you know, the whole spiel. Right. And the main person who writes all the music and sings, his name's Alces and Arrows, But, like, his right-hand man on guitar was Matt Pike. If the name Matt Pike rings a bell. It does. Yep. I'll get to that in a second, though.

So there's a new sleep song. It's called Have Space Suit Will Travel. They cheekily released a 420 edit. So it's four minutes, 20 seconds long. And it is the first sleep song to not feature Matt Pike on guitar. But because Matt Pike is not. on this song, the metal world is losing its damn mind. Lots of screams of no pike, no sleep, or some people are calling this nap,

which is a good joke. I'll allow it. Yeah, that's a good one. I can talk more about the drama and what I think about this song personally, but let's listen to it. This is have space suit will travel. I'm not sure I've ever clocked the stoner metal side of your music tastes. I didn't know that this was kind of your jam. I don't

partake. No, I know. I mean, I think of you as like straight edge. Yeah, yeah. But like a friend of mine put it really great once is like, you know, with the kind of music we list to, we don't really need weed, man. Yeah, man. No, I listen to lots of stoner bands growing up in high school, and I never did anything.

I was squeaky clean, and but all my friends and everyone else just thought, yeah, sure. You're like, they just knew I must be a stoner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just like the music. I just like the music, man. So here's the thing about sleep in this song.

As I said, the metal internet kind of lost its mind because it's without Matt Pike. And like I said, it could be because Matt's busy. Well, I mean, come on. He's said some very controversial things over the years. So here's what it is. And, you know, NPR actually had an impact, I think, on. the way a lot of people have viewed that Matt Pike, I edited a story on Matt Pike that came out in 2022 by Grayson Curran. Yeah. Great freelance writer. And in short, the piece is about how Matt Pike

had kind of like gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories, and I'd use that as inspiration for a lot of the lyrics for High on Fire songs. And some of those conspiracy theories that he was interested in that he was using influence come from David Ike, who is a known anti-Semite. So it was a story about how do we reconcile this tangential influence on Matt Pike's art. And Grayson basically asked himself, can I still consider myself a fan? There are a good chunk of people who thought we did a good job of, like, weighing Matt Pike's importance to the metal scene, because he very much is, oh my God. Nobody has a guitar tone like that man.

And, you know, it's noticeable on this song because it doesn't come roaring out of the gate like a dinosaur on a motorcycle, because that's what Matt Pike's guitar tone sounds like. Bubba Dupree's does it. It's different. Yeah. But I listen to this and I hear an evolution of sleep. Like a very natural one. The use of Moog, I think, is really cool. That's never been in sleep before.

I really think it comes down to when you first come to a band and what version you experience first. I mean, I remember when Pink Floyd continued back in the late 80s without Roger Waters, and I just couldn't really get into it at all. But there were friends of mine who started listening when those last couple of albums came out without Roger Waters. They're like, they loved it. And they didn't know any other version of that band. Yeah. It's just whatever you come to first.

and, you know, I don't know sleep's work as well as you do. So I'm hearing this song kind of without any baggage or anything, and it's working for me. I think it lives in that great medium space where it's kind of heavy, but it's not thrashing around. You kind of float along with it, even as heavy as it is. It's very, and this is another thing about Bubba's guitar solo, it's very modal. Have space suit will travel. That's the four minute and 22nd. version of that song by Sleep that's out now.

Well, I got one more that I want to play. And I think this is, I keep struggling to come up with the perfect word to describe what this song is. And the only word I can come up with is impressive. Okay. It's just an impressive song. One of the most impressive cuts I've heard this year. One of the most adventurous, surprising cuts I've heard this year.

You know the artist Lorraine. Oh, yeah. You know, okay. Tosh-a-cheek. I was going to play this song. Oh, so. Sola cycle. I was going to play this song.

Backstory for folks. I was supposed to tape this show last week. Yeah, we're a week behind here. But I completely lost my voice. Yeah. Like Robin got the voice memo that I sent him and I sounded like a demonic teenager. You sounded like that kid in The Simpsons. Like, hey, hi.

I was going to play this song. So is this the song that I said, did you keep the songs you were going to play a week ago and you said you dropped one? This was it? This was the song that I tried. up just because I was like I wanted to play the sleep song. So I'm glad you're playing Lorraine because I think this song is so cool. It is so cool. It's called Solace Cycle. For people who don't know Lorraine, Taja Cheek, she's from Brooklyn. Her music is just... There's not a word for it. There is no single word for it. It's broken beats and sung and spoken word, lots of electronics,

a little bit of jazz, a little bit of ambient, a little bit of R&B. This song has got a man. metallic crunch to it. There's a crunch to this. The song gets a grab. It's probably the boldest thing. I mean, it sounds like Lorraine. It's not like wildly out of her lane or anything. No.

But I would say it's certainly one of the boldest songs I've ever heard from her. It just grabs you by the throat. It is from an album called Fata Morgana, which is an incredible title. I don't know if you know what, do you know Fata Morgana? No, what is it? So it's this wild optical illusion that happens the way the light is sort of been through the air, especially if you're looking out over water, where it'll look like a boat is floating in the air over the water or sometimes you see mountains that aren't there. It's a great

optical illusion. Fata Morgana from Lorraine, and the song again is called Solar Cycle. This is from an album that's not out until August 14th. And we'll go out on this. Lars Gottrich, always a great hang. Yeah, thanks for having you, Robin. It's all songs considered. from NPR music I'm so tired of being so tired I'm sicker cycle

and cycle cycle and cycle cycle