NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 1: The songs we can't stop playing this week

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

A new year means a new running list of our favorite songs, from the transfixing voice of Anna B Savage and FKA Twigs' moody club beats to the '80s-influenced rock and pop of Sharon Van Etten and more.Featured artists and songs:1. Ela Minus: "Broken," from DIA2. Anna B Savage: "Lighthouse," from You & i are Earth3. Horsegirl: "2468," from Phonetics On and On4. Miya Folick: "This Time Around," from Erotica Veronica5. FKA Twigs: "Perfect Stranger," from EUSEXUA6. Sharon Van Etten & The Attachment Theory: "Afterlife," from S/TEnjoy the show? Tell a friend and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [e-mail] the songs in our Apple and Spotify playlists.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

Hazel, is there no sign of snow in New York? Did you have any trouble getting in? I got in just fine. There were little flakes, little flurries when I got in, but nothing crazy. When I moved here from the Midwest, anytime there was a flurry, schools were canceled, roads closed, and I just thought, oh, this is ridiculous. But this is legit. It took me a while to get in. It was very treacherous. This is a legit storm. I'll give it that. Are you ready to lash yourself to the mast and ride out whatever 20, 25 has in store for us? I think I have no choice. I think I have no choice, but I'm ready. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, who knows what wondrous things await us, we can't really say, but we do know that we've got music to help us and to guide us and to be a companion with us this year. And since it's a whole new year, we get to hit reset on our list of contenders, songs that we love so much. They're in the running for the best of the year, which seems kind of silly to say at this point where it checks watch a week into January. You know, way too early to have much of a list yet. In fact, I think everything that we're playing actually came out late this past year. But they're all from albums coming out this year. Yeah, there's a new album.

It's out January 17th by the electronic artist Ella Minus. It's an album called Dia. and I really am just obsessed with this one song on it called Broken. Man, you talk about dancing all your worries away. Oh, my God, what a killer drop on this song. And it has sort of a fake out drop just before it, right? Yeah. It starts to build and you're like, oh, here it comes.

And then everything just disappears. And then boom. This song is so good and it's so huge. Like this whole album is so huge and intense. And you know, Ella Minus has been on my radar for a bit. She put out her debut album called Acts of Rebellion a few years ago. And it was definitely in this vein. It was kind of like bordering, you know, electronic music and pop music.

But it was much more muted and her vocals were airy and like embedded in the mix. And it was very kind of. chilly and I heard this song and I was like, whoa. She has exploded her sound and her style into something really incredible and new for her. And yeah, this song, like when you really listen to the lyrics, it's quite intense. You know, it's like I'm on my knees. I'm bending everything till it breaks. There's this real kind of dramatic intensity to it.

And I think just the way that she builds this song, it just supports that intense emotion so well. Yeah, you know that whole idea of being both intimate and expansive at the same time, it seems like such a simple thing to do. But I don't think, I think it's pretty hard to pull off as well as she does. You know, you've got to capture this whole vibe. And it's a hard needle to thread. You can't just put sad words to four on the floor. No. You know.

No, no, you can. She actually gave a little interview to this website that I love called Hearing Things a few months ago. And she talked about how every decision that she made. in her music, every decision that she makes when she plays live, taps into the nostalgia that she has for being a teenage girl and going to shows and feeling that magical feeling of like going to a really good show and knowing that that music was going to change her life forever. And that quote stuck with me because I feel like I feel that quote in this song.

There's this really kind of magical, powerful quality to a song like this, that takes me back to being a teenage girl and going to an incredible show. But it is. It's a really difficult power to conjure and thing to create in a song. Have you heard the whole album yet? I have heard the whole album. And this is definitely one of my favorite songs on it, but the whole album is like this.

And it's really great. Well, that is again out on January 17th, Dia is the name of the album. And the song was broken from Ella. You know, I was looking at all of the stuff that's coming out in 2025, and I was like, like, well, what do I highlight? You know, what is, what's something that would be good to point out so early in the year? And then I saw that Anna B. Savage has this new record coming out. And I had this little gasp.

And I thought, well, that's probably a pretty good sign if I'm reacting that way. And then I heard this, this most recent single from it. And I was just immediately transfixed. The name of the album from Anna B. Savage is called, You and I are Earth, and this song is Lighthouse. And from a line of Lighthousekeepers, we're happy alone. Lord, I'd be on my own. I've a bit of the lighthouse in me.

Suddenly there he was. And I'm happy with him by the sea. Each other I see. It's all so perfect. This song is just so perfect. Not too busy. not too, you know, it's not cluttered, but just enough little things going on below the surface

to keep it from being too familiar. Yeah. And her voice just absolutely sends me. And the imagery, everything. Just love it. Yeah, that note about it being not too familiar, I think is really important about this song because, I don't know, the idea of someone being your lighthouse.

Like that feels like an image that people often reach for when they're talking about, you know, romantic love and someone to guide them. But what I really like about this song and her writing in this song is that she kind of starts out by saying, like, well, I'm a lighthouse too. Like, I thought I would just be my own lighthouse. And then someone comes along and shows me that they can be a lighthouse for me. And it sort of complicates that image a bit for me in a really beautiful way. Yeah, I think it's an interesting story.

sort of motif or whatever literary device here because a lighthouse is something that ties us to the earth, right? And the name of the album is, you and I are Earth. And so it's sort of playing on the album title, but as you say, it's also something that sort of guides us and protects us. So the idea that it's keeping us connected to the land, but, you know, it's getting us home sort of safe and sound. I don't know. It's interesting. Anna B. Savage said that she was worried that music like this can't find an audience anymore because, you know, she notes that we live in this sort of, you know, an attention economy, you know, where people crave anything that's shiny or flashy or whatever can hold our attention just for a few seconds. And this, this music is not that

at all. It's very cozy, very earthy. I don't know, it kind of broke my heart a little bit when I read that from her. And, but you know what, this music, I don't know, it's just sort of forever. for me is just so beautiful. I mean, that's the harder thing to do, right? Is to create something long-lasting. And I think to create a song that can really kind of stand on its own two legs and doesn't rely on flashy trends and algorithmic influences and things like that. Like, it is heartbreaking to hear an artist say that.

And yet, I feel like they're almost on a better path. Like, they're on the writer path to not be. so easily swayed by what's kind of on trend at the moment, which doesn't seem to be something that Anna B. Savage is inclined to do. Yeah. The song, again, is called Lighthouse from the album You and I Are Earth, and it is out January 24th. So I want to play a song from an album that's coming out this year

that I can honestly say is one of my favorite albums of 2025. Already? Yes. I can say that. Confidently, it is a new album from the band Horse Girl. And it's called Phenetics On and On. And I want to play a song from it called 24-6-8. How many times did you hit the back button and play that song all over again after hearing it for the first time?

It's so addictive. It's so fun and playful. Yeah, I feel, you know, listen, I feel like there are people who might hear this song and be like, okay, what? Yeah. Because it, you know, Horse Girl is a very young band formed when the members were in their teens. They're like college age now at this point. They put out their debut album versions of modern performance in 2022, which I loved. And for this album, they got into the studio with the Welsh artist Kate LaBahn.

Are you a Kate LaBahn fan? Oh, yeah, definitely. Yes, yeah. Super, like, fun and quirky and like irreverent. Like, she just is kind of this. like weirdo genius. And so she gets into the studio with Horse Girl and they make this album that is just so playful and simple and like intuitive.

And you know, you were talking about Anna B. Savage making earthy music. And I feel like this album and this song in particular are earthy to me. It's just like in this song 24668, I feel like I can hear a band having fun and really being in the moment and discovering, you know, what their voice sounds like, what their instruments sound like together and in a way that's just really intoxicating. Yeah, no, I mean, it just feels like friends hanging out, you know, throwing these songs together in their living room. I love how loose it is, just kind of ragged.

Yeah. You know, when I was listening to the songs that were playing this week, very often themes start to emerge. And there's a theme that started to emerge for me this week. And that is the idea of euphoria. Yes. And all the different ways that euphoria can look and feel, you know, there's a kind of gentle euphoria and letting go in this song that works so well. And I think that's partly borne out of everything that you were just talking about kind of, well, I don't know what else to call it, but just kind of a realness, an honesty.

Yeah. Yeah, it's like this, like when we're in the room together. And this song, I'll say the song 24668, they wrote it entirely in the studio. It's just kind of like taking things, adding things, building the song. you know, up it together. And, yeah, that feeling of like, we're going to get together and we're going to make this little magic together. I have this image in my head as you're talking about this, like,

that horse girl is like on a sidewalk somewhere playing jump rope. And I want to, like, jump in the jump. I want to, like, jump in with them. Like, that's what listening to this song feels like to me. There's something fun happening. happening over there. And I want to join it. I want to get in it. It's funny you say that because as I was listening to the song, I thought,

just give me the address. And I am there. This is the party that I want to be at. So phonetics On and On is the name of that one? Yes. Yeah. And the album out February 14th on Valentine's Day. Cute.

There is another album coming out this year that I'm really excited about. And it's from the singer Mia Fulik. She's an artist we've been following for about a decade or so now, but her new album, it's out at the end of February. It's just her third full-length release. It's called Erotica Veronica. And the song I want to play is called This Time Around. The way she just takes us to the way she just takes us to the way she just takes us to the the stratosphere on this song and then brings us back down to earth. Could not be better. Oh, I love

this song so much. You know, you might glean from the title of the album Erotica, Veronica, that it is an album about desire and sex, but really, you know, especially when you listen to this song, I think, this time around, it's a much broader definition of desire and what it can look like. You know, more, I think anyway, for me anyway, more just sort of the richness of what life can be. You know, when we sort of allow ourselves to be who we want to be and, you know, and let pleasure into our lives. I don't know. If that makes, does that make sense? No, it does make sense.

Yeah. Yeah, I think, I'll be real with you. This song kind of broke my heart a little bit. Like, the imagery in this song is intense at times. Like, just, you know, some of the places that she takes you. I mean, this song is so kind of darkly ambiguous about what that means. I mean, she even says it. She's like, I have this pulsing in my chest.

I feel like I'm on fire. It sort of feels like desire. It's that kind of like, well, what actually is this that not quite knowing what's happening is really what pulls me into this song? What is this moisture from my eyes? It's very, it's salty. Very strange feeling. I actually didn't know how you were going to end that sentence. And I was like, is there a leak in the studio?

No, is something wrong? It's very, very potent song. It made me very emotional, too, listening to it. I hadn't thought that it was breaking my heart until you said that, and I thought it was just how really great art makes me feel sometimes, but it is kind of heartbreaking. But, you know, I think that part of the idea that she's playing into here is that it's just so easy to be very closed off,

not only from the world around you, but from yourself. and, you know, to shut down every part of you that is desiring something because it makes you afraid of how it will play out or what it reveals about yourself. And, you know, kind of going back to this, again, the recurring theme of euphoria and letting go and following your desires. I think that's all in this song. Yeah, it's excellent. So Mia Follick, the song this time around is from the album Erotica Veronica. And that is out at the end of February on February. 28th. Well, we've been talking about euphoria and the different ways artists are expressing feelings of euphoria or those intense desires in music. And, you know, I am definitely looking forward to one artist's expression of euphoria this year, which is the artist FK Twigs. She has a new album coming out this year called Usexual, which is kind of a new word that she's coined. And I will explain.

what that word means after we listen to one song from it. But there's one song on this album that I really love called Perfect Stranger. FK.A Twigs, I love her work so much and I'll kind of follow her down any path that she goes down. And something about this song that's new for her is that it just feels very to the point and clubby. And I don't know. We've been talking about euphoria in different ways. and, you know, FK Twigs, this album, Usexuala, is inspired by the feelings that she's had, dancing all night, going to clubs, losing herself in music.

I totally know what that's like. Yeah. And, you know, I get the sense that she really just wanted to make an album that just, like, cuts to the heart of those feelings and kind of bottles that emotion. And, you know, this song Perfect Stranger, something that I love about this song Perfect Stranger is that on its surface, it feels like this kind of sexy song about meeting someone in a club. But it's actually quite dark when you listen to it more closely because she's like, you know, you're perfect to me because I don't know anything about you. Yeah. And there's something quite heartbreaking to me in that idea of like you don't know anything about this person so they can't hurt you yet or they can't.

Yeah. I don't know. It's a really interesting song to me. Well, it's funny because when I was listening to it this time, I don't know how many times I listened to it before coming in to record the show with you, but I only just clocked that she was saying, you're perfect because you're a stranger. Yeah. And it's just that idea of someone who doesn't know like any of your baggage, you know, and can kind of come to you with a clean slate or no obligations. I like how you explain what she's doing here because, you know, FCA Twigs is someone who's gotten very weird and warped in the past. And this felt very much like a pitch sort of straight down the middle to me. Yeah.

Yeah. She's a very brainy artist, like definitely like a daughter of Bjork, you know, in her music. And, you know, it's interesting. Like I think this song, Perfect Stranger is at the end of the day, not. doing something that's not that dissimilar than what horse girl was doing on that song, where it's just like kind of getting to the root of like what you want music to feel like in your body and what music can do to kind of create a moment of pleasure and surprise. But yeah, this is definitely one of the straighter songs that she has done in recent years.

I think she has often let her freak flag fly in a way that I love. I love a musical freak, but it's exciting to me to hear her in this mode. Yeah. You were going to say what Usexua is. Yeah, Usexuala is. She's described it in a few ways, but it's basically just like that feeling when you kind of lose time because you're dancing, you're experiencing music, you're, you know, you meet someone that you really like in this setting, and you kind of just like lose yourself to, you know, the euphoria.

of the night. God bless her. Well, you know, will that word enter our lexicon? I don't know. But I appreciate an artist who, you know, they're branding, they're putting their stamp on that. This year's brat. This would be...

Maybe. Use sexia season. Use sexua. Yeah. It sounds like a medication. Ask your doctor if you're sexually. It's right for you. I saw that she had held a couple of raves and I saw photos from one held in Brooklyn

back in October. I don't suppose you went to that, did you? No, I didn't. And FK.K.A. Twigs, if your publicist is listening to this, please invite me. Yeah, what gives? The photos I saw looked pretty wild. You know, all these sort of, you know, otherworldly futuristic costumes. She apparently had encouraged a nude dress code for the rave. All right, so Usexuala, the album from FKAXAW. out on January 24th. I've got one more that I want to play before we go. And it's maybe the album that I'm at least at this point in the year, most excited for in 2025. A new one from Sharon Van Etton. This time she's back with a new band. It's called The Attachment Theory. So Sharon Van Etton

and The Attachment Theory. The album they've got coming out is self-titled. Have you heard this one yet? I have heard this one. Yeah. Yeah. You know the trajectory of Sharon Vanettin's career and sort of the evolution of her sound. I think it's been pretty remarkable going from her, you know, those very quiet acoustic folk and guitar songs of the very first recordings that she did. Her sound's gotten bigger, more polished. That happens. But, you know, the thing that I think is most interesting is she's gotten very deep into analog sense in 80s pop and rock. Yes. Her music is, has always been so powerful to me with the quiet, fulky stuff, stuff that she's making now. But especially the stuff that she's making now. I just feel like her power as not just a songwriter, but like as a front

woman. Like as someone like leading a rock band is just been like remarkable to see grow. Yeah. This album again is self-titled from Sharon Van Etton and The Attachment Theory. It is out in February on February 7th. And the song I want to go out on is called Afterlife. All right, Hazel, thanks so much for hanging out with me on this snowy January morning and just sharing some great tunes. for having me yet again. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.