NPR Music - Our No. 1 songs: 2019

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

We bury a friend, visit the School of Design, and gather around a crowded table to remember the songs that take us back to 2019.Note: This is a recurring series 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

A quick note before the show, this episode contains explicit language. Stephen Thompson, as I live and breathe. Hello, Robin. Welcome. It's all songs considered. I'm Robin Hilton. This is our ongoing weekly look back at the past 25 years of the show. Remembering number one songs from a different year each week. We're up to 2019. And I don't know.

When I went through all of my picks for 2019, not a ton of really big obvious stuff that I think everyone will immediately think of. But I don't know. What do you got? Well, yeah, 2019 was the year of this. Billy. Huh. That name sounded familiar.

What do you want for me? Why don't you run for me? Why do you know? Why aren't you scared of me? Why do you care for me? When we all fall asleep, where do we go? I actually played this on all songs considered when it came out. So I should have thought of this, but Barry a Friend is the song from Billy Olish when we all fall asleep.

Where do we go? Yeah, this album felt like it came out of nowhere to go. I mean, my favorite little data point about this record, a time the Grammys got something right. Yes. So in the 2020 Grammys, the category of producer of the year, the nominees were Jack Antonoff, Dan Hourback, John Hill, Phineas and Ricky Reed. And you would look at like Jack Antonoff's credits. And it would be like, I don't even, I'm going to be wrong because I'm pulling this out of thin air.

But let's say it's 15 albums. Right. You know, Jack Antonoff, first of all, works with everybody and is an enormously decorated and successful producer. But you would go through and be like, Dan Are We're Back. Here's the nine albums he produced. Ricky Reed. He produced, you know, all the following. Phineas produced When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go, by Billy Eilish.

and won. And when he won, it was like, of course he won. Of course he won Best Producer. Of course he won producer of the year for the one album that he produced. Now, he's gone on to produce tons and tons of stuff. And Billy Eilish has gone on to be, you know,

I hear she's pretty big. She's pretty big. She's won two Oscars. Yeah. Yeah. In the aftermath of this record. But this album is so good. It is immaculately produced.

Yeah, I remember being so struck by the whole world of sound and just the clarity in the mix and just how perfectly placed everything was. And, yeah, it struck a chord with me and I think a lot of people that felt very right for the times. You know, there was this thread of an ease. Yeah, this unsettled quality. But also, it's not necessarily often that a gigantic pop juggernaut record is also a headphone record.

Yeah. Well, I have something that could not be more different than that, and I just don't think you stand a chance to get it, but maybe you will. I found a school of design. It was in a wealthy town. I river ran by. It was empty holidays.

Who knows? But I went to. I was killing time Through the holes There was fresh pain On the wall Everything was white And all the clocks

You're going to bail you out The song is School of Design By a band called Tiny Ruins Oh Do you remember Tiny Roos? Absolutely And I was Struck

To describe The urge to burst Through the ceiling raise glass to the sky raise glass to the sky they have a song called Me at the Museum You in the Winter Gardens

that is one of my favorite songs of the decade that decade. Yeah. And honestly that song is so perfect that I don't usually listen to their other songs. Well, I think both songs do well what I think this one is which is they really put you in a very

specific place and time. They're transporting. This is a band. They're from New Zealand. They actually just had an album out a couple years ago called Ceremony. The album, this one, is from,

is called Olympic Girls. And it was on my top ten list of that year. But just so beautiful, so transporting. Love the imagery. Yeah, I could live in that voice. Yeah. Turning pages frail.

shape and makeup of things written like words divine. And I was struck my feeling to describe the urge to pass through the ceiling. Glass to the sky. Okay, we need to take a quick break here, but we'll talk about some of the other songs we loved from 2019 right after this. Stephen, Billy Elish was your number one pick for 2019, but what else takes you back to that year? I know we usually just kind of do one each. Yeah, you've heard it. Thanks, buddy.

There are so many to choose from. But God, this is a perfect country song. Is this Ashley McRide? Sure is. I can't get the song, though. Oh, you will. about my it's just a room like I'm using here I don't know one night standards

let's just stick to the one night standards one night standards my partner had a great line when it when she first heard this song where she's like like a thousand professional songwriters in Nashville heard this song and simultaneously slapped their foreheads so angry that they hadn't thought of that play on words yeah oh it's perfect but like yeah Every line of this record is so smartly crafted. To me, this should have been the biggest country hit of the 21st century. It is a perfect three-minute countryside.

I was thinking of also Andromeda by Wise Blood came out that year. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Nothing is up to the heart that's lazy Running for my own life now I'm really turning some time Looking up to the sky for Something I may never

I'm just pulling from my top ten list that I made In 2019, like Sharon Vanettin Her album Remind Me Tomorrow came out We've already talked about her and played some of her stuff in this series. Lana Del Rey. Lana Del Rey had the song It's a long title,

but Hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have. I was reading some errands and I got to thinking that I thought maybe I'd get less dressed if I was tested less like all of these

debutants smiling for miles in pink dresses and high heels and white yards. This I'm not, baby, I'm not. No, that I'm not. I've been tearing 24-7 Sylvia Platt,

writing in a note pad. Don't ask if I'm happy. The best I can say I'm not sad. This is from the album Norman. I'll say effing, Norman Effing Rockwell, which you mentioned Jack Antonoff at the top of the show. He produced this one. Yeah. But an epic album from her, absolutely epic, sprawling, ambitious, really big swing, I think showcasing her range.

And kind of the direction that she was headed in and that there was a lot more going on in her music than I think some people gave her credit for. There was a song, again, I don't know a lot of people are going to know some of these. but there's a song called Leather Daddy by the band Microwave. That takes me back to 2019. We're going to mention microwave, but not Lizzo. Lizzo. Lizzo was a big one. I don't know why.

I guess a lot of the stuff that I listened to back then had a much smaller, more intimate sound. The song Mercury by Ada Lee. Yeah, I don't know. I think School of Design by Tiny Roons is a very good example of what was going on in my music group. But it was also a year that Big Thief. kind of leveled up. They had a song called Not. With it closed with like a three-minute guitar solo that everyone on the music team was obsessed with. My favorite, we even got into my favorite album of 2019, High Women.

This country supergroup of like Marin Morris and Amanda Shire's and Brandy Carlyle, you know, Natalie Hemby. Like, please make another high women record. Yeah, that's their only album so far. Self-titled, and I think the song that maybe stands out the most, at least for me, is crowded table. You can hold my head when you need to let go. I can be a mountain when you're feeling valley low. I can be a street. You need to let.

That is a gorgeous collection of songs. Often with supergroups, you get all these writers and stars together, and they're not necessarily bringing their A material because they want their A material for themselves. And yet, this was all A material. What else? Thank you next by Ariana Grande, her best song, in my opinion. Thought I'd end up with Sean, but he wasn't a match. Brought some songs about Ricky. Now I listen and laugh.

Even almost got married. And for beat, I'm so thankful. Wish I could say thank you to Malcolm, because he was an angel. One taught me love. One taught me patience and one taught me pain. Now I'm so amazing. I've loved and I've seen.

Look why. Yeah, for that I say, thank you. I have to say, this was only six years ago, and everything that you're bringing up just feels like a century ago to me. I don't know what happened these last few years. Yeah, exactly. 2019, just on a steady upward climb that would continue unabated. Don't show me.

It's like you're watching the stock ticker. It's like, I don't know, September 1928's looking pretty good. But we'll go out on this. And until next time, thanks, Stephen. Thank you, Robin. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's All Songs Consider.