NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 14: The songs we can't stop playing this week

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

We update our running tally of the year's best songs with a return from Moses Sumney, 2022 Tiny Desk Contest winner Alisa Amador, Orville Peck's collaboration with Beck and more.Featured songs and artists:1. Orville Peck and Beck: "Death Valley High," from Stampede2. Nilüfer Yanya: "Call It Love," from My Method Actor3. Alisa Amador: "Woke Up Today," from Multitudes4. Moses Sumney: "Gold Coast," from Sophcore5. Neil Young and Crazy Horse: "Helpless," from Early Daze6. Rema: "YAYO," from HEISLike the show? Tell a friend and leave us a review in Apple podcasts or wherever you listen.Questions, comments, suggestions and 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

Wasn't really sure how to start this week's show. So I thought, let's just kind of dig into the election a little bit, you know, talk about. We don't talk about current events enough. So maybe let's work that in a little bit, you know, and then we'll get around to me. No, that is like absolutely the last thing that we want to do. Take a break from it all. If anyone is like me, you've all got to be suffering from news fatigue. And so we're just going to hang out here and just share some stuff that we love,

Sheldon Pierce here with me. Hey, Robin. You know, something I've actually been wondering about off and on this year is what's been up with Beck? Honestly, I really have, because we did this show on Slack or Rock back at the beginning of the year because it was the 30th anniversary of a song, Loser. And I started thinking, oh, my God, it's so good. And, you know, it's been like five years since he put out an album. And so I kind of wondered, like, I wonder if we're going to get something new from him. And he's actually been popping up a little bit more lately, doing it.

some projects here and there. He's got a little orchestral tour that he's doing right now. And he just appeared on a new track from the artist Orville Peck. I'm kind of backing in here. All of this is to say, actually, that there's a new song from Orville Peck. That he did. Beck is also on this song, by the way, in case you didn't know that. And Beck is on this song, yes. It's from Orville Peck's upcoming album. It's called Stampede. Stampede is the album. And the two of them just sounds so good together on this song that I want to play. It's called Death Valley High.

There's a manager hanging from any machine like an ass car Uncle Lodrome on the town's A-oblee by 4 a.m. We're an ugly blade son of ever want to bed. I'm a lonely place. So drink a risk in the car well. There's a destination a little at the road. The habitations in the towns we know.

They sound so good together on this. It's like, you know, I'm not sure I would have ever in a million years thought. Back an Orville Peck collaboration, make it happen right now. but it couldn't be more perfect. Yeah, you know, I mean, it is pretty clearly like an homage to Vegas Elvis. And I also think there's like, it takes on almost like a Tom Jones splendor as well. But like, you know, there's a twisted fun that they seem to be having playing these demented, terrorizing characters that are just like, they're here in the big, in the city of lights in Sin City to try their luck.

And if they lose, so what? Like, they're having a good time regardless. Yeah. And I think the fun of that really comes through. There's, like, this dynamic chemistry that manifests as a result of this, like, shared whimsy almost. Well, that's it, the shared whimsy. I mean, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Orville Peck and Beck have an awful lot in common. You know, they kind of share similar sort of creative visions, you know, that playful subversiveness.

Yeah. They both love those deep groups. moves you hear on the song. Yeah. But they also, both of them also love country and, you know, finding ways to reimagine country and sort of turn it inside out. And then lyrically, too, you know, the lyrics are kind of almost nonsensical in the way that Bex are, or maybe more like just stream of consciousness, you know, or almost

freestyled in a way. I wouldn't call them nonsensical. I do think there is a goofy sort of non-sequitur energy that, like, courses through it. Yeah, yeah. But I will say, I think of the Beckverse sort of, like, tying the whole thing together for me. It's got a lot of imagery that it feels like pulled right from a hangover script. Like, the casino zombies and the two-way mirror branch manager hanging on the chandelier,

wearing Oakley blades on a velvet waterbed, like throwing ninja stars at a birthday balloon. Right, right. This pure antics, like sheer stunts being pulled throughout this. verse. Yeah. But it is that sort of high wire sense of horseplay that I think brings a real levity and joy to their performances. Yeah. Oh, so good. Anyway, Orville Peck, this new album called Stampede. It's out August 2nd. He collaborates with a whole bunch of other artists on it. Willie Nelson, Elton John, Kylie Minogue, Margot Price, Mickey Guyton. What a cast. Yeah, and a whole bunch of others. Can't wait. So our next artist, not

playful in the same way, to say the least. But still great in a very different way, the British alt-rock musician Nilliferyanya, who rose up in 2019, seemingly fully formed after escaping the clutches of a One Direction member who wanted to sign her to a pop girl group on the strength of one of her demos. How did I not know that?

I didn't know that. That's her backstory. I had no idea. I don't know why. I had never heard that before. But she chose to go her own way, and we are all sort of better off for it. She really broke through on her last album, Painless, named one of NPR's Best of 2022. Right.

Friend of the show, our colleague Hazel Sills, wrote that the album drags her listener into a maximalist swirl of insecurity and existential dread, which is just a great encapsulation of what it feels to be sucked into the vortex of her music. I thought you were going to say she. had me at existential drag. Who can't relate to that? But I think that self-doubt does not extend to the performing itself, which is guided by the confidence of a husky smoldering voice, which is something that I think you can hear on a single, Call It Love, from her new album, My Method actor. I've lost track of how many times I've listened to this song and it's been driving me

crazy trying to think of what it is it reminds me of and listening to it you have to bear with me because i i think i know what it is now uh just a second here this air song yeah it's got the same loop yeah uh alone in kioto is the song from the lost in translation soundtrack but it's interesting interesting you mention loop because when i was also listening to this song just now from nila for yanya i thought man she is trapped in this loop in her brain yeah and she She cannot get out of it. Yeah, it's funny you say that. She has said that call it love is all about allowing your calling to lead you to let it guide you somewhere, let that consume you and destroy you.

And I feel like letting things consume and destroy you as a hallmark of her music, how something truly terrible can draw you in and feel good before you realize that it's even damaging you. And that feels to be like the repetition of that, something that she repeats a lot. some call it love, I call it shame. Right. The pull of that keeps repeating over and over and over, but it does feel like the calling of it keeps bringing her back into it. Right. She can't escape the thrust of it. And I think you really get a sense of both the beauty and the tragedy of that.

Her voice is so good about navigating that subtle tension. between something being too good to be true. Yeah. And manifesting as something that in the long run is probably toxic, but getting a sort of immediate gratification from it that is maybe needed. Yeah. It's becoming a little clearer to me now talking with you about it. It was a, I found it a bit cryptic, you know,

when I first started listening to this song. You know, all I could say is that it seemed to exist in this in-between state, right? And that makes sense when you think about that loop. she's stuck in. You know, I get the sense of someone who is very unsettled, not restless in a twitchy kind of way, but just wavering, you know, wavering a lot. And I will also say, though, and I don't know if you've picked up on this or if you felt this as well, but there seemed to be kind of a quiet confidence in it despite that circle that she's trapped in, like a kind of certainty that she will figure it out. Yeah. She just had to be a little bit of.

hasn't figured it out yet. Yeah, I think that's a hallmark of her music as well, this understanding that it will eventually pass, that she is capable of overcoming it. She can see her way through it, but she is very clearly in the throes of it right now, and that's the angst that you feel underneath everything. It's kind of funny, because I feel like the song measures that very carefully.

It's sort of that guitar is, It's more low-key than her normal stuff, which tends to be a bit grungier. But there's also in spots this sort of buzzing synth or something that zips like a nat in your ear in between this like loop. That is like, it comes in as a disruption at very key moments. Yeah. And then she sort of sinks back into the pattern. But I think it's very clever that it doesn't resolve until the third act. and then the beat drops out entirely

and it's just her voice. And that feels like such a powerful revelation and also a resolution to this pattern that she is clearly stuck in but knows that it will end eventually. Yeah, and that comes right after that great guitar noise is building up and then just disappears too. So good, so good.

We've got to take a quick break, but we will have more music right after this. I was talking with some friends about songs that make you weep instantly, instantly. And we all had many. You know, but the songs like you hit play and really quite literally seconds in, you're tearing up. And then, you know, within a few more seconds, you're just full on weeping. I mean, and that's not usually the very first time you hear the song, right? I mean, you build a relationship up with the song.

You know where it's going. And then that's what it ends up doing to you every time you hear it. One that I told them that does that for me is the song from Alisa Amador called Together. It is a song that she sent in for the Tiny Desk Contest back in 2020. If you have not seen Elisa Amador perform the song together, the video that she submitted in 2020, stop everything. You can walk away from the show and come back later. Go watch Elisa Amador's video for Together. It is incredible and you have to watch it all the way to the end.

But that song, Together, actually wasn't even the song of hers that she had interested. won the contest with. She entered the contest five times and she won it in 2022 with her song, Malanga Accidental, all of which is to say, Elisa Amador just released her debut album. It's her first album since winning the contest. It's called Multitudes. And it's got this song on it that, I don't know. I think it just came to me at the right time. It's called Woke Up Today. Try to shake the nightmare as it echoed through my mind. I like my record of trying not to cry. Try to recognize myself in the looking glass of love.

I look up today feeling like maybe I just let I care. I like ambiguity. You know, I like stories and narratives that don't end in triumph. I like them to end in possibility. And that's what she does in this song. You know, she's struggling. And by the end of the song, as she's kind of been working through everything

that's going on in her life, she gets to a point where she thinks, maybe, maybe I'll be okay. Maybe I can do this. You know, it's not winning the championship. It's possibility. And I love that. Yeah.

You know, despite the fact that I am a critic, I'm generally a glass half-full kind of person. But it is very easy to resists. with the dejection expressed so plainly and dutifully at the beginning of this. Dutifully. It's like, it can be overwhelming. You can feel everything pressing up against her at the start of this song. But to your point, I think what works about it is the turn at the end.

It's, she doesn't let the hopeless feelings swallow her up. She keeps pushing and it's like, there's no proof that that'll make things better. Right. She's not saying, I'm definitely going to get her up. get through this, but she's making the effort. I'm struck by all the trying, not just how many times she utters the word, but the way that she sings it, the way that she holds onto it for dear life every time.

Yeah, you know, I think we were talking on an episode earlier in the year, I think I was mentioning how I've been finding myself drawn more lately to these very plain spoken songs. Songs that come at you very directly, you know, often with a pretty simple message, very often often though that message is one of hope or love. And yeah, this one just really resonated with me in that way. Yeah, Elisa Amador woke up today from her debut album.

Her first since winning the Tiny Desk Contest is called Multitudes. And go watch her do her song together that she did in 2020 on YouTube. It's awesome. If you're looking for another reason to wake up, consider that Moses Sumney is back. Yes. Another artist who hasn't put out music, I mentioned back at the top of the show. Yeah, but I think it's been like five years or more. Oh, how much I've missed this soulful singer-songwriter who is just a visionary musician with a truly captivating voice.

He's taken some time away to focus on other creative pursuits, among them, the short-lived HBO series The Idol, and the Ty West horror film Maxine, which is in the movie. Yeah, I didn't, I hadn't clocked that he was doing acting. And then I said, oh, wait, he's in this new 824 movie. A man of many talents. And then he was also in the idol. Yeah. Yeah. But he is returning this summer with a six-song EP called Softcore, which he says explores

the meeting points between sensuality and intuition, esoterism and populism, deep feeling and fun, making music for the hips as well as the heart. And you can hear that in a single from the EP called Gold Coast. He does Crew in the cut Now we're waiting on me Locks like leaves bouncing in the breeze

Don't hesitate Like can we leave? Light brown Blueberry hill Fly by you And by the blue by you Speak no fear Now we're here

She's such a holding up traffic Don't hesitate I'm my skin Color of clay My skin Six thick He does it So seamlessly

And beautifully and brilliantly that it's easy to lose track of just how much he has going on sonically. In that song. It's like after that first chorus, I was trying to count just how many new little sounds kind of came in and popped in and out and disappeared. I mean, it's dozens, all just in a few bars. But it never feels like they're competing with each other, right? It's insane what he is capable of.

Incredible. That this is what you get when Moses somebody wants to make a dance song. And it's like, what can he do? Like, this is so deeply in his wheelhouse, but still, so, I mean, there's an indelible pulse to it, but it still sounds so otherworldly and bewitching. I mean, towards the end, you get that glitchy little breakbeat that just is then smudged with these out of focus vocals that seem to warp in and out of the frame. The way that he is able to manipulate his voice both naturally and in engineering sessions, he has such a clear vision for what he wants his music to do. And in this case, it seems to be capturing the all-night party sensations of just being in the throes of a complete haze.

It's like you wake up the next day and you can't quite piece everything that happened together, but you know that it was powerful. I don't know. I heard a sweetness in this song, too, that I was kind of not expecting. Because when it starts off, you know, he invokes being at a club. There's a kind of breathlessness to the beat. Yeah. And I really thought the song was going to go in a totally different direction.

But it's your 20 seconds into it and it makes a sort of subtle turn. And then, yeah, it ends up being kind of a. a sweet song. Yeah, I think it reveals itself to be about connection. Yeah, yeah. But trying to leave the club with someone and get somewhere else because you want to be with them. You want to feel that intimacy. Right. And I think it is constantly trying to make sense of that state of mind, which is like, it can be a very disorienting feeling to sort of like be in the throes of romance. in that way, especially when things seem to be moving very fast and you can't control your feelings. They're rushing up on you.

I think it's trying to capture that. It's trying to channel the essence of like being in the whirlwind of it all. Yeah. I mean, that's something he's, you know, if sonic exploration is one of the staples of Moses Sumney's sound, I think that another staple of his sort of sonic world and, you know, the art that he makes is he raises a lot of questions. around love, you know, like how we come to define it, the meaning of love, the ways we receive and give it. In his description, the themes that stand out to me in this song are sensuality and intuition and deep feeling and fun. It does feel like the song is pulling between those poles in a very specific way.

It is not abstract in the way that some of his older stuff can be. And I think that has to do with him thinking about the distinction between the hips and the heart and trying to meld them together. Doing so requires a certain intention. And I think you can hear that play out in this song. Well, Gold Coast is out as a single right now. But as you mentioned, it's from that EP. He's got coming out. That is on August 2nd.

Again, it's called Softcore. And that's S-O-P-H-C-O-R-E. We've got to take a quick break here. but we'll have more music after this, and you're listening to All Songs Considered from NPR Music. It's All Songs Considered from NPR Music. I'm Robin Hilton. I'm here with Sheldon Piers,

and we're checking back in on our running list of the year's best songs. Sheldon, are you a Neil Young fan? I have not been deep in the Neil Young weeds. Yeah. It's a good place to be in the Neil Young weeds. And the weeds are very deep. Yes, that's the thing. It's like it feels like it takes a whole lifetime to deal with.

And they're only getting deeper because, you know, for several years now, he has been just releasing a massive amount of music from his personal archives and personal recordings and stuff like that. Lots of demos and previously unreleased tracks and things like that. Honestly, it's been impossible, even for a diehard Neil Young fan like me, it's been nearly impossible to keep up with all of it. But he recently put out a collection called Early Days, and that's D-A-Z-E, early days. The covers, for me, what is maybe my favorite period of Neil Young music, and that is the late 60s, early 70s. These are songs that ended up on albums like Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, my personal favorite, or the album after the Gold Rush. And the kind I want to play from this early days compilation is a version of the song, Helpless. And anyone who knows this song

knows that this is a cut he did eventually with Crosby, Stills, and Nash. It was on their album Deja Vu that came out in 1970. But this version is one that Neil Young recorded very early on with the band Crazy Horse. So anyone who's

familiar with this, the Crosby Stills, Nash and Young version of the song will notice you're right off the bat, that one of the things that's missing are all those harmonies on the chorus. Yeah. I wanted to ask you because, I mean, fans have been waiting for the vaulted version of this song for a long, long time. Yeah.

That's my understanding. Did it live up to the hype for you as a long time, Neil Young fan? You know, you get so married to the version that you know, but I love his voice so much. And there's just so much emotion and fragility and beauty in it. I love just hearing his voice, you know. And that was, you know, how he imagined it early on. So in a way, I kind of feel like I'm hearing it the way he wanted to hear it. Right.

At least, you know, initially, I think he's a remarkable lyricist. And that is one thing that this version gets me to do is to really focus on those lyrics come through so much more to me. I think it's about many things. But he's reflecting on his early childhood, growing up in a small town in Ontario. It's a very bittersweet, which is sort of his whole thing. You know, a mix of hope and possibility. but there's this also, as they keep saying, this helplessness in it,

and this sense of inevitability. And I think that he's kind of playing around with the idea of how in the end, you really can't escape who you are and where you come from. No matter how much you might romanticize that past. Yeah, the way you're hearing it sort of aligns with the way that I've heard this.

It's got an entirely different character than the version that was released in 1970. It feels a little rar, a little less produced than the version that ended up coming out with Crosby Stills, Nash, and Young. Yeah, for sure. But I think it also, to your point, more effectively embodies the vulnerability of the title.

Yeah, I think there's a loneliness that comes through more in this. I think the moment those harmonies come in on the original version, there's community and companionship And everything's going to be okay. We're all in this together. Right.

This is a very, very different vibe. I would invite you into the weeds to really get into Kno Young's music. And if you want a starting point or anyone else out there who's not, you know, doesn't really know much about Neil Young or doesn't listen to him much, if you want a starting point, my personal recommendation is the album. Everybody knows this is nowhere. Number one album on my Desert Island Five, without a doubt,

Different Neil Young fans will tell you, oh, no, it's after the gold rush. Oh, no, it's Zuma. Start with Zuma. But no. For me, it's no question. It's everybody knows this is nowhere. But again, this new collection called Early Days, D-A-ZE, is out now. From the old to the new, in a year of Afropop evolution, the most striking turn has been made by Nigerians Rama.

I think the log drum, which has just... We've talked about your love of the logger. It's just taken over my life. And also it's taken over African pop. It's so effective in the hands of a performer who can really use its rubberiness as a trampoline to sort of spring off of. And I think Rameh is sort of the ideal performer

because of his elasticity. He moves in so many directions so seamlessly. He is so fluid and his voice, it has its own sort of, lifeness to it that allows him to like fit in and out of crevices very cleanly. It's something I think you can hear on the he is single, Yayo. This song is all about sort of like bold face flexing in a very transparent way.

And I think the like in your face bombast of it really comes through. So we'll go out on this. Raymond, that's R E.M-A, the song Yayo from the album, He is. And that's spelled all one word. H-E-I-S, he is. And thanks so much, Sheldon, for just hanging out and bringing some great music. Thanks so much for having me.

It's always a great time. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered. Don't know I keep a glory to God Bro can I less