NPR Music - Fever Ray, The Beaches, Patrick Watson, more: The Contenders, Vol. 13

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

The latest additions to our list of the year's best songs include a joyful new banger from The Beaches, a wondrous tapestry of sounds from singer Patrick Watson, twisted pop from Fever Ray and more.Featured artists and songs:1. The Beaches: "Last Girls At The Party," from 'No Hard Feelings'2. Patrick Watson: "Peter And The Wolf," from 'Uh Oh'3. Deb Talan: "A Glimmer In The Grass," from 'I Thought I Saw You'4. Fever Ray: "I'm Not Done (Therapy Session)" (single)5. Ethel Cain: "Nettles," from 'Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You''All Songs Considered' 25th anniversary segment: Our No. 1 songs from 2016Weekly reset: A day at the beachEnjoy 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

Did you see that news about the aha singer, the lead singer? Yeah. A-ha. What is? He's got Parkinson's. Morton Harkin. Which, I mean, that's awful. But it's actually what he said about it that really hit me.

And I've been thinking about it ever since I read this quote from him about it. He said that he's totally fine accepting the diagnosis. And he said that he takes inspiration from his dad, who it's like it does 90s. And he said that his dad's whole thing is that. like as you get older, he said, you just use what still works. Right. Use what still works. I don't know.

I found that really, really inspired. It made my shoulders kind of lower in a way, you know. I think we spend a lot of our lives sort of fearing horrible things and fighting against them. And if you just sort of like think, okay, I'm going to roll with this even though it's awful and I'm just going to use what I can. I don't know. I found that super inspiring. Yeah. I mean, I think controlling what you can control.

is a really useful mantra for getting through life. And if you think about just the accumulation of just time and energy that we waste in our lives worrying about things. Oh, my God. So this is a theme, I think, in this week's show. Every time we pick these songs for a contenders episode, all these questions come up and sort of recurring themes. And I think one of the things that ties a lot of the songs together

that we're going to talk about today is, like, how do you manage fear? how is it present in your life? What do you do with it? What do you do when life pulls the rug out from under you? You know, like, what do you do when, you know, you come up against some sort of personal crisis, especially if it's so bad it feels like it's sort of an extinction level event?

Like, what do you do with that? Right. And then sort of related to both of those, I think, is how do you make sense of your life when things don't turn out the way you expect them to? But before we get into all that heavy stuff, I thought. Let's experience joy. Let's experience some joy. Because there's this album coming out this year that I know you've been, it feels like you've been excited about it, basically all year.

And I know you want to play something from it this week. Yeah, it's the wonderful Canadian rock band The Beaches put out one of my favorite albums of 2023. It was called Blame My X. And they had this killer song called Blame Brett. It's Brett. Like, it's Brett. The problem is Brett. The chorus says it's like, I'm probably going to let you down.

I'm probably going to sleep around. You know, but don't blame me. Blame Brett. It's Brett. Everyone knows it's Brett. Anyway, so the beaches have a new record coming out in late August. It's called No Hard Feelings. And one of the singles from it is this just dynamite jam.

It's called Last Girls at the Party. I got to be honest. I wasn't sure what I thought about the beaches. before. I hadn't had a moment with them yet like you did with that last record. This song, it's impossible to ignore. It's impossible to not absolutely love that song. It's so joyful. And you're always looking for themes, right? You're always looking for themes. I don't look for a man. They just pop up. No, I understand. I understand. I find this hosting New Music Friday where it's like, I've noticed that the overarching theme is all these songs are about grief.

Most, most weeks. Almost every week. Most weeks. And, and, but it was like, oh, we're going to start out with some joy. And then we'll get to the meaning. But there's so much meaning in the joy, Robin. Well, I agree. I actually felt like listening to this that it's like we're starting with the answer to all of those questions. Right. Yeah.

And if you ask the beaches, like, how do you deal with fear and anxiety and certainty and all that sort of stuff? It's, well, just go to the party, have some fun. Do not leave. Right. Or be the last ones to leave. Right. Like squeeze out every hour. Of the amount of joy you can.

Exactly. Get the absolute most out of life. Yeah. You know, I cover, you know, I cover the billboard charts. I cover the unofficial quest to be Song of the Summer. What's the Song of the Summer, Robin? You know, every year we have this conversation. What's the song of the summer?

Last year, the songs of the summer were like espresso by Sabrina Carpenter. You know, I had some help by Post Malone and Morgan Wall. Just these, like, big, rowdy, catchy, fun songs, the entirety of Brat. You know, by Charlie X, CX. Big joyful stuff. This year, where's Brett? Give me my, give me Brat 2025. Is this the song of the summer for you then?

Is it already? So far, this is maybe my song of the summer, yeah. Am I getting a little bit of Pat Benatar? Totally. On this, do you think, are you hearing that too? Absolutely. I think especially kind of in the vocal delivery. Yeah.

Big anthemic, you're singing into a microphone, but you're also singing to the back of the room. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I need that right now. Counterpoint. Counterpoint. Sadness. No, I agree with all of that.

And it's hard not to enjoy that. The song Last Girls at the Party from No Hard Feelings in the Beaches that, again, is out August 29th. I have to say counterpoint because I've got a new cut from Patrick Watson that could not feel more different than that song. And this is kind of on that question of what do you do when you're faced with a personal crisis? Right. A really big one, not the stupid stuff that I know has defined most of your life, Stephen, but Patrick Watson, the singer Patrick Watson, he recently faced this profound personal crisis. And I'll say, he is okay. He has come through it. But there was a time when he thought he wouldn't come through it. And what happened was he lost his voice, you know, which you're a singer, you're a musician that's terrifying. Couldn't sing, couldn't speak. So what happened was he had, he did a show. He said while he was singing and performing the show, his voice felt kind of funny.

And the next morning, you woke up, couldn't speak. Couldn't make a sound. And he had a vocal chord hemorrhage and it had paralyzed his vocal cords, couldn't speak. Wasn't sure if he would ever recover. His doctors weren't sure if he would ever recover. It took about a year and a half, but he did fully recover. And he says it's just basically dumb luck. He just got lucky that his voice came back.

And you can hear his voice on this incredible new song. It is very Patrick Watsony song from him. It's called Peter and the Wolf. It's from a new album he has coming out called, uh-oh. I said this was a very Patrick Watsony song because just the tapestry of sounds that he weaves together. It's always mind-blowing to me. Yeah, when you talk about somebody like that losing their voice,

I mean, he has a special voice. He has a gorgeous, gorgeous instrument. And first of all, so relieved that he got it back. But, you know, hearing this and kind of hearing that story reminds me of. You just reminded me of something I used to, of a joke I used to tell my friends all the time. I always said, you know, the good Lord doesn't give you anything that you can't handle. And because I'm incapable of handling anything, nothing bad can ever happen to me. That's your solution.

That's my solution. Make sure nothing bad happens. It's the only way I can get through it. Now, the downside of being so blessed is that I can never create something that beautiful. Do you think that great art comes from suffering? No, I mean, it can. Sure. But I don't want it to.

Well, I think the way that Patrick Watson answers the question of like, what do you do when life pulls the rug out from under you? Like what happened with him is it's kind of that you use what. still works. You find the light where you can. I think when you listen to the song, there's so much anxiety in it. You know, there's the line, I see two bright eyes shining in the night, something in the street staring back at me. You know, then he's out in the woods and, you know, he says, I guess you're the wolf and Peter is me like something's chasing after him. And then it sort of brightens up a little bit at the end. It's still very, you know, sort of washed in all this sort of dreaminess. You know, it kind of glitters and flickers,

but there's a hint that there might actually be something very lovely and peaceful in those deep dark woods. And that's that finding light where you can. Yeah. Stephen, this album from Patrick Watson again is called Uh-oh, which is in fact inspired by just those moments in life when, oh, no, things don't quite turn out the way you think they're going to turn out. It is not out until the end of September. We are now talking about fall releases. September 26th is when that album is out.

I'll write a reminder that we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the show by looking back at our number one songs from across the years. This is something Stephen, you and I've been doing at the end of each episode. It's been going on for a while now because it's the 25th anniversary, 25 years we've got to get through. We're going to do the year 2016 later on this episode, and we're going to have that along with your weekly reset. All that's coming up. But let's go to what I think is maybe one of your... all-time favorite singers? Oh my gosh. Remember Robin when we talked about holiday music and I brought in

the weepies all that I want and said that it was basically my favorite Christmas song. Yeah, I do remember that of all time. And I described her voice, Deb Tallinn, the lead singer who sings in the weepies or sang in the weepies. And I described her voice as a balm. Right. And, you know, I did that and like the year, you know, wound to a close. And then I completely blew past in February when, you know, Deb Tallon released a new album, a new solo album, called I Thought I Saw You. And, you know, if you recall, Robin, I host New Music Friday. Well, I mean, this is, again, it's a reminder, and this is, I know this comes up every time we do a show of just how terrible you are at your job.

No, I really genuinely thought you were going in a different direction with that. I appreciate this. No, this is, someone just mentioned somebody to me recently. It was just last week they mentioned some artist and I said, now is that a band or who is that? You know, and they have someone who already has a billion streams. And I told them, I have never listened to more music and also simultaneously been more behind than at any point in my life. It's just. There was an article that went by a while back that I don't know exactly how they did the math on this.

This would be a pretty hard thing to do the math on. But their theory at least was that more music is released every day than was released. in the entirety of 1989. I believe it. So here I am, this is one of my favorite singers, Deb Tallon. She put out this new record, missed it. And the album opens with this beautiful song I've gone back to again and again. It's called A Glimmer in the Grass.

A glimmer in the grass. A lover's only friend. Alone again. Time is past. Since you checked your fault, You didn't know yourself The sun is in his eyes that way This is some classic Stephen Thompson core

Right here Little Folky You know a classic voice that's kind of sturdy But a little frayed You know, very reflective I mean it's definitely Stephen Corps It's interesting You know, to play this song after the Patrick Watson record

Where you talked about that story About you know kind of coming out the other side of an existential crisis. Deb Talon's music is reflecting on a lot of that sort of thing. You know, and she's written openly about surviving childhood abuse. You know, she's a cancer survivor. She and her partner in the Weepie's Steve Tannen got divorced in 2020. There's a lot of loss and a lot of survival in her personal story that she manages to weave into her music in ways that never feel didactic, in ways that never feel too,

literal or on the nose. It makes her music so relatable and so approachable. Well, it's interesting. I heard some overlap with some of the themes that come up in the Patrick Watson's song as well, especially the question of what do you do, you know, when you've been absolutely flattened by something. And I think in the case of this song and Deb Tallon, she seems to be saying, basically, you pick yourself up and you start all over again and you just keep picking yourself up and you keep starting over again as much as you have to and you soldier on. It's also a song that I think seems to be asking what matters most in life. She invokes the idea of home and the people that you find there and them sort of being there for you and how important that is. Again, the song is

a glimmer in the grass from Deb Tallinn from the album. I thought I saw you. That came out in February. So I want to come back to that topic of fear. You know, this is something that I have been thinking a lot about after spending some time with this new Fever Ray song that's out called I'm Not Done in parentheses therapy session. Actually, it's not an entirely new song. It's actually a remake of a song that they did back in 2009 from a self-titled album that they did. But this is one that, you know, I guess on the one hand, it reflects on just how you stay inspired as an artist as you get older and kind of what keeps you going. how you stay relevant. But really, I think this is a song about fear and remaining defiant in the face of fear. Have you seen the video for this song? No. Oh, it is incredible. And it's absolutely

horrified. It is, well, it's funny as I was talking into the song about fever ray and we're talking about fear and the theme of fear. I thought, and we're going to go now to what I often find is one of the most terrifying artists in the hands of all time fever ray. So much of what they do is so unnerving, but I think it's also very ironic. And I feel like that's fever-raise answer to the question of fear, which is basically they laugh in the face of it. It's almost mocking fear in a way. And if you watch the video, it's basically the most terrifying group therapy session you can imagine. Everyone in the group looks deranged and kind of monstrous. I don't know how else to describe it, but they all just like kind of hideous, though, with all the makeup.

one of them has a axe that they've brought to the therapy session, which, you know, it's always sort of since a powerful message to the rest of the group, I guess. But it's also very funny. It's just very, very funny. And, you know, I feel like fear is sort of at the root of a lot of fever-raised stuff. Exploring fear and sort of the ways that it seeps into our lives and shapes our views and our behavior. And then I think, again, their answer is just laugh at. Yeah, I think Fever Rafe kind of fits into a tradition of a lot of, like, great horror filmmakers, right? Where, like, a great horror movie isn't just, like, watching people get splattered. It's facing your fear head on, watching it.

And my favorite horror movies are punctuated with humor. Yeah. They're also always about something other than what is obvious. Like, it's not the action. It's, you know, some troubled relationship or childhood, trauma, or something. You know, there's some bigger question that they're tackling. Exactly. Using horror or using fear as ways of getting through those emotions. But Fever-Ray, the song, I'm Not Done Therapy Session, again, this is a remake of their 2009 song that was on their self-titled album.

No word on a new record or anything from Fever-A at this point, just this one-off single, but definitely check out the video. All right, Stephen, I know we're going to talk about the year 2016 here shortly, but you've got one more song that you want to play. Yeah, just an absolute. Stunner. Ethel Cain put out a debut record in 2022 called Preacher's Daughter, followed it with a long and weird kind of experimental drone record called Perverts. On August 8th, she's going to release like the official follow-up to Preacher's Daughter. It's technically a prequel. Now we're talking about prequels with albums. Okay, fine. It's called Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You. It's about Ethel Cane's First Love. And the song Nettles is a pretty straightforward,

love song for Ethel Cain pretty straightforward. It's eight minutes long. And it just unfurls like smoke. So much going on in this song. So many just memories and feelings and moments that unfold and she reflects on. But again, I think the question I kept coming back to is what do you do when your life doesn't turn out the way you thought it would, especially if it's been derailed by some sort of trauma. Right. Yeah. And at the same time, I was reading Ethel Cane's press statement about this song because, you know, obviously this is about a doomed romance. Yeah. And she said, Nettles became a dream of losing the one you love, asking them to reassure you

that it won't come true, and to dream instead of all the time you'll have together as you grow old side by side. Every once in a blue moon, it feels good to slough off the macabre and to simply let love be. Yeah. What did you take from that? Because I read that of like several different ways. I kept reading that and thinking about it. And every time I read it, I thought, wow, it's just, it's just like nesting dolls here.

I just kept finding. Right. Of like perspective, sadness, grief, joy, love. All of those things swirl together. And I think that's part of what a great reflection on first love is, right? It's, you're not necessarily going to live out, you know, like your entire life in that love, but you're going to get something out of it. And you're going to learn from it.

You're going to grow from it. you're going to, you know, figure out what mistakes you made and hopefully adjust accordingly. Well, I think that part of where she finds solace is simply in acceptance, accepting what has happened, accepting that life isn't what you wanted it to be or thought it would be, you know, holding on to dreams and the comfort that they bring, but recognizing that they're just dreams, and it's great to carry these dreams with you, but accepting everything else. you know, kind of bringing it full circle to Morton Harkett of, aha. I mean, one of the reasons it seems like he's able to continue after getting such, you know,

for many people would be a terrifying diagnosis is just through acceptance. Right. And recognizing, you know what, I'll find light where it is. I will use what works. This is life. It's okay. I can continue from here. And, yeah, beautiful stuff.

So this album from Ethel King, Willoughby Tucker, I'll always love you. not out until August 8th and this song Nettles. It's the only cut we have from the album so far, but man, so good. It's a knockout. So good. All right, Stephen,

we've been going through the years talking about our number one songs from the show. Songs that define the show, have defined the show over the years, and that take us back to different times and places. We're up to 2016. You know, the whole time we've been doing this series, looking back at each year,

I've let you go first every single time, but I'm going to go first this time. Wow. Wow. Okay, fine. Yeah, because there was nothing greater from 2016 than basically... There's only one correct answer. So you're probably stealing my pick because there is only one correct answer. Well, okay, let's just hit it, and you're going to know it immediately, I think.

Nope, not the correct answer. Come on, you know what this is, though. Is this Beyonce? Yeah. Oh, is this Don't hurt yourself with Jack White? This isn't one of my go-toes from this record. I mean, this is a great record. Got a way for the...

Well, here's the thing. So don't hurt yourself from Lemonade. Yeah. To me, a once-in-a-generation album. Such a great record. Incredible. I'd have gone with freedom. Okay, I was going to say,

there are maybe better songs on this album, and there may be more important songs on this album. There are. But what I loved about this one is it was Beyonce stepping into the rock space and absolutely destroying it. This whole man, I know you want. I'm not broken. I'm not crying.

I'm not crying. You ain't trying hard enough. You ain't loving hard enough. You don't love me deep enough. We're not reaching big to enough. This whole album blew my mind. And then the film, I read it too. I remember watching it.

Next day came into work. Everyone's talking about it. And somebody said, everyone will remember where they were when they saw that. And then someone else said, yeah, they're living right. I was going to say, watching TV. You were watching television when that aired. But I thought that this was a monumental, like I said, once in a generation achievement, this whole record. Like, I don't know how anything could ever top it when I heard it.

It's a superb record, and it's a superb record across many genres. Yeah. You know, when she ended up putting out Cowboy Carter and finally winning the album of the year Grammy and everything, It was like, wow, look, she showed that she can operate in this space. It's like, of course she could operate in this space. I mean, there have been so many. The proof of concept has existed for album after album. Her self-titled record is maybe my favorite of her.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, it's neck and neck between that and lemonade. But, I mean, you don't win album of the year for a record like this. I mean, that's just like, that's it. I am out. I'm done. I know I've said that every year with the Grammys.

literally every year with the Grammys, but this is what I think of when I think of 2016. Yeah, for albums, I think that makes all the sense in the world. But the reason I was like, well, there is only one correct answer. I bet I know. I bet I know what you're going to pick. So song-wise, to me, this is, if you just said, Stephen Thompson, what is the best song of the 2010s? Like, what is the best song of that decade? My immediate thought would be the following. Your best American girl by Mitzki.

You might be right, man. Every time I hear this song, when that drop comes in, it is just the anthem of our lifetime. I mean, it's incredible. I mean, not for nothing. It's also a song that speaks to identity and speaks to the songwriter's place in the world and how she sees herself and how she feels she fits into a relationship

and her identity, like the song is, the song has big ideas around it. But it also has this moment where that guitar kicks in. And look, the landscape of rock and roll is strewn with killer riffs. Yeah.

Right? Like, that is the engine that drives the rock and roll economy is, you know, as big riffs. But, like, I don't know if, I don't know how your brain works. I can't know the inside of your mom. mind. For me, when that guitar kicks in, there is an animation that my brain manufacturers of

Mitzki standing astride, like a stack of amplifiers. And when that chorus kicks in, the camera pans back to reveal that what she is standing on is a mountain made of amplifier. There is so much heft and power and just force behind the way that guitar comes in, I really sometimes have the feeling when I hear that song of like, why doesn't every song kick ass as hard as this song kicks ass? Yeah. You know, let me tell you, as someone who records a lot of music and plays a lot of music, and there are so many ways to get guitar fuzz and distortion. there's any number of combination of pedals and effects and things like that. And I can't tell you how many times I,

and I know every other guitarist and musician out there, has tried all these different combinations, trying to come up with just the perfect fuzz, the perfect distortion. What will rule just a little bit harder? Can you just make it rule? And there have been a handful of guitarists and albums and songs over the years where you hear it and you think, they found it.

They found the perfect guitar noise, guitar distortion and fuzz, and you hear that on that. Like, when that core, that power cord kicks in, it couldn't be more perfect. Like, please show me your effects chain. How did you come up with that sound? It is such a perfect sound. But we'll go out on your Best American Girl by Mitzky because what a jam from 2016. But until next time, thanks, Stephen. Thank you, Robin.

And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.