NPR Music - Our no. 1 songs: 2013

Episode Date: October 13, 2025

A country music makeover, an electro-pop crooner inspired by Sam Cooke, the stomp-clap era continues, and more.Note: This is a recurring feature in celebration of All Songs Considered’s 25th anniversary. A shorter version of this episode ran earlier in the year.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

Please note that this episode contains explicit language. All right, all songs considered, NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. I'm here with Stephen Thompson. Welcome, Stephen. Hello, Robin. We're looking back at our number one songs from each year of the past 25 years as we celebrate the show's 25th anniversary this year. We are up to 2013.

Let's get right to it. I'm going to go right here. Well, I know it's Casey Musgraves, and I remember the song very well, but I cannot for the life when we come up with the name. Follow your error. Follow your error. Second before she said it. I got it.

Really, that's incredible, Robin. Your powers of recognition. It's encyclopedic. One of the reasons why I hate playing this name that tune game is because it just... It exposes all the cobwebs. I've forgotten so much and I'm so terrible with name. But yeah, Casey Musgraves and this, you know, and obviously an artist who's gone on to be very near and dear to our hearts. Yeah, this was one of the first singles from same trailer, different park, her, you know, her big breakthrough record.

She went on to win album of the year at the Grammys. She went on to basically become an A-Lister put out a great record called Deeper Well just last year. But this was the record that put her on the map. And, I mean, having a country singer singing a song where it's basically, you know, kiss lots of boys. Kiss lots of girls. I don't care. Right, yeah, yeah. Felt, you know, in 2013 was a fairly revolutionary sentiment coming from a, you know, from a mainstream country singer kind of trying to make a breakthrough as a country artist.

And I remember a couple years later when Oberfell, the Supreme Court decision, legalized same-sex marriage, that decision came down the day Casey Musgraves was playing the tiny desk. Wow. And she played that song with her band and we kind of put it out as a freestanding, here's what we were listening to, you know, as that decision. was handed down. And so this was my favorite album of 2013. I completely loved it. What, you know, what a song. Well, I want to pick something that is also from what I think ended up being a breakout album for an artist who had already had one self-titled album out before this one, but this is the one that I think really sort of solidified their position as a sort of a mega talent. This is James Blake. Yes, this is retrograde.

So be the gold So he had had that self-titled album out Whatever a couple years before this one But yeah overgrown to me is the is peak James Blake His voice could not be more perfect More it's like crystalline it's warm it's resonant He's just crooning But with real emotion

Yeah Yeah yeah it's not just a perfect voice It's a perfect voice that is taking me And this was a song I remember when it came out, I could go very deep in talking about all the things happening in this song. You know, like, you know, thematically and sonically, retrograde is when an object appears to be moving in the opposite direction of the other objects around it. And, you know, in this song, when he goes high on the chorus, the music has this falling thing. So they're moving in opposite directions. But this song, and it's an incredible video for this song, too, that people should check out.

So again, James Blake retrograde from the album Overgrown. Let's just take a quick break here, and then we can talk about some of the other stuff that takes us back to 2013. So, Stephen, I want to start the second half of the show off with my backup song that I was going to pick for 2013. It's a song that I loved so much when it came out, and you gave me no end of grief for it. So this is, look, the sun is rising from the flaming. lips from their album, The Terror.

The Terror was 2013. Because you gave me so much greed for how much I love that, that song. You were obsessed. I absolutely obsessed with that song at the time. And I still love it. Yeah, the other things that I really considered picking for 2013

was Young Fathers by Typhoon. I was born in September. I'm like everything else. I can't remember. I replaced it with scenes from the film that I will never made. And I blinked it was over. I was thinking my life would get slower.

That I would sort this shit out when I'm sober. If you get better now that you're older. I read the scares on the front page. It says we're waiting around for an ice age. It says our comforts, they come with a prostate. They can't catch and get to the sky with a new plague. They say, just think of the children. and imagine the world that we've wielded

it's populated with weirdos to kill them Yeah, this is a great pick I hadn't thought of Typhoon but I was really, really loving Typhoon in 2013 That was one of those great like a booming chorus of just like voices singing in unison Deep emotion

Yeah, the whole album it's from White Lider The whole album's great Great Tiny Desk from 2013 as well Yeah But what else were you thinking for 2013? I also thought about the song Twin Size Mattress by the front bottoms. This is for the lions living in the wiry, broke down frames of my friend's bodies.

When the floodwater comes, it ain't going to be clear. It's going to look like mud. But I will help you swim. I will help you swim. I'm going to help you swim. This is for the snakes in the, people they bite for the friends I've made for the sleepless nights for the warning signs I've completely ignored there's an amount to take reasons to take more it's no big surprise you turned out this way when they closed their eyes and prayed you would change and they cut your hair and sent you away

this the night you escaped with tears in my eyes I begged you to stay you said hey man I love you but no fucking Sure that we could find something for you to do on stage. Maybe shake a tambourineer when I sing you sing harmony. Another one with, it's definitely a sucker for like the chorus of, you know, 20 different voices all kind of screaming at the same time. Yeah, I mean, we talked about entering the stomp-clap era with Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeros in like 2009. But we were still very much in that era in 2013. Oh, sure.

You know, especially with bands like Typhoon and the front bottoms. But one of the better divorce songs of the 21st century. Well, Sunlux had the song Easy. Do you remember that song? That was one of their bigger hits from the album, Lanterns came out that year. Oh, sure. And, you know, Telekinesis was a band that we used to absolutely love, and they had the song Power Lines. We used to love them before.

Well, we still love. We still love Telekinesis, but they're a band that hasn't, you know, they also haven't, put out a record in a long, long time. Power lines. That was a great song from the album, Dormarian. And there was this band called Nightbeds that had this really gorgeous song called Even If We Try. You remember that one?

I do. I remember really liking that one. I don't remember. I couldn't pull up a tune in my head, though. Yeah. Dessa put out a great record that year. She had a song called Fighting Fish that was one of my favorite song.

of 2013. 2014. Thanks as always, Stephen. Thank you, Robin. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered. I didn't come looking for love. I didn't come to pick a fight. I didn't come to wave or take pictures.

Panned it to some end upactor. Ring on every broken finger. I don't extend my wings to be clenched. I know the closer hair is to stay humble with shit. If we all go around, proud heads, but minutes.