NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 20: The songs we can't stop playing this week

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

We update our running list of the year's best songs with more calming sounds from Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, the electronic artist Jon Hopkins, Muno singer Katie Gavin's new solo album and more.Featured artists and songs:1. Jónsi: "Flicker," from First Light2. Katie Gavin: "Aftertaste," from What A Relief3. Jon Hopkins: "part viii - nothing is lost," from RITUAL4. Katie Malco: "Fatal Attraction (feat. Laura Stevenson)" (Single)5. Clairo: "Add Up My Love," from Charm6. Max Richter: "Movement, Before All Flowers," from In A LandscapeEnjoy the show? Tell a friend and leave us a review wherever you listen to podcats.Questions, comments, suggestions or 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

You know, Steve and I've actually had the refrain of a song looping in my head all week, and it's a song that I would not know about if it were not for you. Was it easy now by Joan Shelley? No, but I was going to ask you if you have been listening to lots of Joan Shelley, because you said on last week's show that if you're listening to lots of Joan Shelley, it's sort of a red flag. It's time for a wellness check. It's time for a wellness.

I mean, I don't know, sometimes, you know, if I'm starting out in a steady enough mental state, that can just like bring me down to something. something even more soothed? Right. Yeah, it's the sedative on top of the sedative. Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be like, in case of emergency, break glass. Yeah. It just always helps.

Yeah. Well, the song that I've had looping in my head is Fine Love by Clems Night. And it's specifically the refrain of that song. Fine, then give it all the way. Fine, then give it all the way. That's just that. refrain, find love, give it all the way, find love, and give it all the way, find love, find love, and give it all the way, has just been going on. And it came to me, and it's not always the

song I reach for, but boy, did it come to me at the right time, and that just has been looping in my head, and I don't know how long ago you turned me on to that song, but what a gorgeous song. It came out in 2003, and it is, without exaggeration, hyperbole, It is one of my favorite songs in the history of recorded music. It really is just a song. You know the story. Isn't it? Didn't the lead singer write it for his daughter and it's what he wished for her or something like that?

Eve Barzillet wrote the record that this song comes from, which is called SoftSpot. And it was just about having love in his life and a young family. And, you know, he had very young kids at the time. And he wanted to write a bunch of love songs for his wife. just write something that was really gentle and really personal. And I think, you know, a lot of Clemsonide's music up until that point had been a little bit arch, you know, a little bit sarcastic. To me, it still had deep, deep warmth to it, one of my favorite bands.

But this record was really a hairpin turn leaning really hard into sincerity. And this particular song, just the phrasing of the song, The amount of expression that comes through in these exhortations to just like dig for gold in the parking lot, wrestle bears, you know, steal the honey from killer bees. Like, go out and live your life. And I definitely think, like, this is the song I think about when I think about the kind of people I want to bring into the world. And this is the kind of lives that I want them to lead. You want your kids to love bravely. And the song is just a perfect encapsulation of that.

Yeah. Well, I'm so, we talked a lot about gratitude on last week's show, and I am so grateful for this song. I made my kids listen to it when I had it in my head midweek. Could not have been less interested in what dad had to play for them. But I hope they find it again later in their lives when they do need it. I made it my kid's lullaby record for their entire. early childhoods, they both had CD players in the room, and they would go to bed every night

listening to this record. Wow. And particularly, like, the demo form of this record. And they, to this day, really have that connection to this music. And my daughter, when she went to college, said, can you, she's still like CDs. Can you burn me a CD of the EF record? So I can, so I can listen to it when I fall asleep, you know, in college. Wow. I love that. This is going to seem like a weird thing to bring up, but I was thinking about the OJ trial. And exactly where this was so obviously going to go from there. No, the news coverage was relentless. And I worked at in news at the time.

I worked at a member station. And we were all just so exhausted by the news coverage. I put up a sign on the office door that said, OJ, free zone. And the verdict was about to be read. And I was like, I want to see how long I can go without knowing the verdict. And so I left the building. I went downtown. This is in Athens, Georgia, and I was in a, you know, like some sandwich shop getting lunch, and their TVs are on and everyone's gathering around. I was like, no, no. And I ran out and I ran to the campus. And like every group I ran by, it's not you could hear snippets. People were talking about it. You believe you.

Yeah, right. I just kept going, breathlessly running back to the office. I get in and I shut myself in and somebody comes in and says, well, you know, and they announced the verdict. So I didn't make it very long. But this is going to be an election-free, news-free zone. We just want to play great music and talk about it. When you think about it, who is less qualified to discuss those issues? I know.

What are Stephen and Robin think? I mean, everyone else's weight in, but yeah, what do those guys think? I can't really decide until I hear from them. I don't even care what I know. I think that constantly like, I barely care what I think. I don't know how anyone else possibly could, but I want to start off by playing, well, I wasn't intending on playing the Yves-Barselae or the Clemson-Snide, but I'm so glad we did.

But I want to start by playing this song from Yonzi, the lead singer and guitarist for Sigurose, he has this gorgeous new solo album that came out, actually came out at the end of August that I keep coming back to it. It's called First Light. First Light is the name of the album. This is a batch of songs that he originally conceived of for a video game, for scoring a video game, but it evolved into this, you know, proper solo studio album. And the song that opens it is called Flickr. I mean, I'm a sucker for so many things. But if you put chirping, I mean, you could take speed metal. If you just put some little chirping birds, maybe some wind rustling in the trees in there.

Some little reminders of the natural world. Yeah, exactly. I am all in. One thing I love about that piece, you mentioned the chirping birds right at the top of it. If you listen to his amazing album from 2010 Go, that record is all euphoria. Oh, so good. That record is just, it's almost like a 180 sonically in terms of it's a maximalist record. It's a deeply joyful, but in a very outward way, whereas this is the joy that is in the

composition you just played is inward, right? But there's still these little echoes of his earlier kind of more euphoric work. And so when I heard that little, my voice is a little shot. But otherwise I'd be singing like an angel. That's Stephen Thompson. Boyce of an angel. But you can hear the echoes of a bunch of his other work. And one of the things that I experience,

listening to this song and this whole record, is it's conjuring up these warm memories of other music he's made that I love. Yeah. Well, this whole record, I think, is really lovely. And, you know, euphoria can take many forms. And I think at the heart of euphoria is just joy, right? And he is someone who seeks joy and beauty, I think, in all of his work. Even the darker droney stuff.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think there's a lot of, I don't know, a lot of beauty in that. Again, the record from Yonzi is called First Light and that. That's the opening cut Flickr. Really gorgeous. The only way that I can follow that is with something completely different. Okay. So take that moment of calm that you just experienced.

And imagine the exact opposite. That's over now. No, I have a song that taps into another vein of musical euphoria, this wonderful record that I have just been getting to know over the course of the last month or two by one of my favorite singers, Katie Gavin from the band, Moona. Muna has been such a source of joy in my life, particularly that self-titled record that they put out in 2022 on Phoebe Bridgers' label. where they then just kind of got a chance to really kind of take off to another level of popularity and really become, you know, widely and deeply embraced. In some ways, they sort of walked so Chapel Rhone could run, at least commercially speaking. Yeah, I can hear that. I saw them, I saw them at all things go, this music festival here in the D.C. area a month or two ago.

And Chapel Rhone, that's the one that Chapel Rone had to cancel. And they had Muna fill in for her. Right. And it was like, wow, you just came up. with the one thing that is an acceptable substitute. But anyway, Katie Gavin put out a solo record called What a Relief. And Katie Gavin herself refers to it as Lilith Faircore. Right, yeah.

And she's not entirely wrong. This particular song maybe has a little bit of a Cheryl Crow vibe to it as well. If that's what you're looking for, let's hear Aftertaste. My hair got long. Your hair got cut. You wear the same. sweater it's good to see you we're catching up we're talking about the weather and I'm the empress in my new clothes and I think that you must know and you're

taking pity on me pretending you don't see I feel like you can see long listen closer without you left I got up upset was on my shoulder and you're close and I think that you must know and you're just sticking So stealth one of my favorite lines in the movie, this is Spinal Tap. Oh. And you and I have also not where I thought you were going to go, but go ahead. You and I have, you and I have talked about this, but I think one of the lines in Spinal Tap that I quote the most, not any of the catchphrases, but when they listen, when they hear the

song cups and cakes on the radio. Right. And the like cheesy oldies FM radio DJ just comes out and says, Doesn't it feel good? Cups and Cates. And I always quote the, oh, doesn't it feel good? But coming out of that song, I'm really, all I want to say is, doesn't it feel good? Doesn't that song just feel good?

Yeah, it does. And I, you know, I have to be totally honest. We talked a little bit about the Katie Gavin record on the fall preview. Yeah. I don't listen to this show. I know you don't. But had you, you might have heard me say or admit, I've never been a big Moona fan. I've missed the boat on that band.

It's something about it. It feels, I don't know, too safe or something. I'm not sure what it is about Moona that has not connected with me. Sick with rage. Are we sick with rage? Really, that's not disappointing. Are you ever been triggered? You know, I'm not saying.

I'm disappointed. You know when people say that? No, I'm furious. We should add in fully sound effects here. Just chairs being thrown. But I will say, her stuff, her solo stuff, has been really working for me. And I don't know, maybe it is that Lilith core fair stuff because I was really into the Lilith Fair bands. I don't know if you would technically call them a Lilith Fair band.

But I hear a little bit of the cranberries in this. I think Katie Gavin's solo stuff is. is a little warmer, a little scruffier around the edges maybe. Weird. And I don't know, the themes connect with me a little bit more. Yeah. You know, I appreciate that you're at least getting to acknowledging that you're wrong. I don't know if I'd go that far, but I do like the Katie Gavin Solo stuff.

I'm really glad that you like the Katie Gavin Solo stuff. And I think it may be a gateway drug toward you finally figuring out where you've aired in not embracing. There are so many bands that I know I'm wrong about. Oh, yeah. The Beach Boys. I have never gone into Beach Boys. And, like, how revered are the Beach Boys? How did you even get this job?

I ask myself that every day. But, you know, I think, talk about all the things I'm a sucker for. I am a sucker for anything, but you get a little nostalgic, a little sentimental. It just doesn't take much to sort of hook me in with any kind of wistful reflection. And like this song in particular is a little bit about hanging on to the memory of something, you know, even when whatever it is you're trying to hold on to is long gone and you're never getting it back. But you're still clinging to it. There's a little desperation, I think, in it, you know, and that really resonates with me. Desperation resonates with me. Desperation totally resonates with me.

And you know what? What record really captures a lot of what you're talking about, the self-titled album by Monde. Muna from 2022, my favorite album of that year. All right. I'll go back and listen again. An album whose good name you have tried to besmirch in the course of this conversation. But let's, I mean, just to briefly wrap up what we're talking about with Aftertaste, you listen to that song and you are just immediately transported to a convertible in autumn. And the leaves are just like gold and orange. And it's, you're just sundappled.

Now you're just baiting me. You're trying to paint this in a light, like, here's the way I know he'll enjoy it. I know Robin hates summer and loves fall. Make it, make it the fall. Can you tell it again? But this time, make it fall. And, yeah, yeah, no, I get a lot of light, a lot of joy, a lot of beauty. It really works for me.

Awesome. So for anyone who didn't listen last week, we did this whole episode on more songs to calm the nerves. We'll probably do another episode at some point, even more songs to calm the nerves. because we really can't have too many of those. Who knows, Robin, maybe all the world's problems will just sort themselves out, and we won't need to do one of our episodes. And we all lived happily ever after.

I have another instrumental cut that would have worked really well on last week's show. But it is from another new album that I've also wanted to get on for some time. It's from John Hopkins. Incredible composer, absolutely incredible. Largely an electronic artist, but he's collaborated with so many.

I know you love that. Oh, the record he made with King Creus. It's called Diamond Mine, which is a very appropriately titled record because that thing is just speckled with jewels. Yeah, yeah. It's so good. They did a tiny desk. Oh, gorgeous. I mean, how many years ago was that?

I mean, it was 2011 when that record came out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's over a decade ago. Anyway, John Hopkins' latest album is called Ritual. It's essentially a 45-minute long, just this incredibly meditative piece, but it is divided up into eight different parts. And I want to play the last part. Part 8, it closes out the album. It's called Nothing is Lost.

And I'll just note that there's a part towards the end where it gets really, really quiet, maybe the last minute or so. But if you listen very closely, you're going to hear like cat purring and some different sounds. So here it is. There's so much about this song that it's like it's barely even there, you know. But in the most transfixing way, I think the last two minutes of that, this song is just the echoing reverb of the last note that he plays. Like the reverb, the tail of the reverb is so long that it just keeps holding through all that. And then you hear the little sound of the purring cat in there.

It's not often that an instrumental, a purely instrumental musician can make music that, well, I can think of many examples. It's like that I think about it. It's not, it's totally unique. It is worth treasuring when a purely instrumental musician makes music that always radiates kindness. Yeah. And we talked a little bit about that with the Yasmin Williams. We talked about that with Yasmin Williams last week. We've talked about that a little bit with Arvo Perr.

Yeah. Where I think a lot of Arvo Perth's compositions are clearly made by a kind soul. Yeah. Max Richter. Yeah. We're not done talking about Max Richter. No, always more Max Richter. But John Hopkins, I mean, we mentioned at the top of this segment, we talked about that King Creosote and John Hopkins record, Diamond Mine, is just one of the kindest and most transporting records I've heard in so long.

John Hopkins also has this record called Music for Psychedelic Therapy. Yeah. That I've never dabbled in psychedelics, so I can't speak to that aspect of it. Stephen. You feel about that the way I feel about Moona. Like, what? But there's a piece on that music for psychedelic therapy record called Sit Around the Fire, which is a collaboration with this musician East Forest. And it takes this archival recording by the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, who is, you know, embraced by a lot of deep thinkers. And it's this very beautiful kind, kind of giving you perspective amid music like the music we just heard. And man, I'm all for trying just about anything remotely. healthy at this point to feel good and safe in the world. And if you haven't heard sit around the

fire, the John Hopkins kind of arrangement of it, I really highly urge people to check it out. Well, one of the reasons why I think this works so well is it feels like he's kind of letting you into his own personal world a little bit, the way the piano was recorded with all the mechanical sounds that he lets in. But also then, if you listen really closely, you'll hear someone's voice kind of in the, almost like someone's gently shaking you awake from a deep sleep. It's just the faintest voice in the background. And then the purring cat comes in, which very clearly to me, he recorded that on his phone when his own cat probably was just sitting on his lap. I do that all the time. And I actually have here a recording of my own cat. I got a new kitten. I didn't tell you

this. Robin Hilton, you buried the lead. Who's a bigger cat guy in your life than me? I know. Well, he, and This is his little buddy. His little motor going when he was sitting on. Yeah. Anyway, John Hopkins, that piece was called Part 8. Nothing is Lost from his album ritual. The whole thing worth the listen. I picked a song that I've just been meaning to play.

I heard about it a few months ago. It's a singer. Every time I hear her, I love her. And yet I've never really gone down a rabbit hole. She just will put out a song. And then three years later, she'll put out another song. I'm like, nope, that album, that song's great too.

Yeah. Her name's Katie Malco. She put out a song, kind of just like a freestanding single, with another one of my favorite singer is Laura Stevenson. Yeah. And this song that they recorded together is called Fatal Attraction. Thinking about the words in the song and what must resonate with you, I figured it's the chorus when she says, I can't stand myself.

I don't know how you can stand to hear me. on about nothing. I really, that really spoke to me. Yeah. I thought that's Stephen right there. That's Stephen in a nutshell right there. Now there's actually this song is much more of a journey than I think it might sound like at first blush and I do have some things

that I kind of clicked for me that I thought maybe really resonated with you but I want to hear what you. Yeah, I mean it's just a song about how external forces weigh on the relationships in our lives and how our personal histories are shaped by things that have nothing to do with the people we're interacting with.

And there's just such clarity in the way that she sings about that and such a kind of plain spoken way of acknowledging, you know, I can't believe I once looked up to him and I saw how myself was shaped by men. Just how those experiences would make it impossible or difficult to trust the person who's like begging you to trust them. And songs like this that have this pall of sadness behind them sometimes cheer me up because they're so pretty. Yeah. You know? It is a really pretty song, but there's also, I've thought maybe one of the things that really resonated with you was how it invokes life in a small town. You know, she talks about the small town hero and, you know, trying to reconnect with them. I know you grew up in a town that makes the town I grew up in seem like a megalopolis.

Your town was so small. You know, and you think about all the people you've left behind as someone who got out. And there's quite a bit of that in this song, too. Our lives, most of our lives are not just one thing. You know, they take us through different phases and usually different places and different people. And there are all these different versions of yourself kind of floating around. And there's kind of that sliding doors thing of, like, how things might have been different had you made different choices.

Good choices are bad. You know, we joke all the time about how bad you are at your job and me too. The truth is, I genuinely am very bad at my job. No, I will say, like, as well read as I am about music and as much as I listen to and all the crate digging and all the stuff I'm hearing constantly and emails I'm getting from publicists and artists and how deep I'm in this every day. some band puts out a song that everyone's freaking out about, and I've never heard of who they are, or some artist dies. I'm like, and everyone's like,

oh, my God, so-and-so just passed away. And what a tragedy. And I'm like, oh, my God, I don't know who that is. And the fact of the matter is, and it's worth giving yourself a certain amount of grace here, my dear, dear, dear bestie, Linda Holmes, my Pop Culture Happy Hour co-host, wrote this breathtaking piece for NPR.

I know what it is. NPR a few years back called the sad, beautiful fact that we're all going to miss almost everything. I remember that piece. So I have come back to that piece so many times. For one thing, it's about giving yourself that grace, about understanding that there are literally not enough hours in the day to consume all the music that's being made, certainly not enough to read all the books that are being written, to watch all the movies that are being made, all the TV shows that are being made. there is more beautiful art than we can possibly consume in our lifetimes swirling around us at all times. And even if it's your job to listen to everything, you won't get to everything. Yeah. Well, one of the reasons I was thinking about this is because I want to play this song by Clero.

Oh, love her. Yeah, she's got this new album called Charm. And, you know, in my mind, I've always seen her as sort of this, you know, indie, Little bedroom artists, you know, makes these cozy little intimate songs. Gentle, quiet, bedroom pop. Yeah, small, you know, a little intimate little audience. And I look her up on Spotify. She's got over 20 million followers.

She sure does. Hit the billboard top 10 this summer. Over a billion streams. And I thought, well, I have clearly lost the thread on Clero because she has leapfrogged everything, you know, that I thought about her and her music. Her music still, though, has that intimacy and that sort of bedroom recording feel. And that sense that you're discovering it, even though everybody has already gotten to it first. Even though she has a billion, more than well over a billion streams, the song that I want to play from the record charm is called Add Up My Love. Just so breezy, so sweet.

You talk about being in the car, a convertible, you know, speeding down the road on a sunny day. this song is, it's like everything is going to be just fine. I love Claro. Yeah. And I first heard her, she put out a song a few years back called Bags. And it was when she was, I think, a little bit more of an actual bedroom pop artist, self-recording and self-loading stuff. Yeah, self-recording and uploading these songs. And that intimacy really came through in the song.

And the very subtle, straightforward production mirrored the intimate setting in which those songs were recorded, as she has blown up, as she's become a bigger artist and she's playing these big venues and she's putting out big records, I love the fact that she's managed to build up this production around her to give it this lush, robust quality, and yet the intimacy and directness of the vocal is still the same. And so you still get the sense that somebody is whispering to you from their room. Yeah. I mean, I think that's one of the reasons why I hadn't realized that she had

over a million streams and tens of millions of followers is just because she has stayed so true to that sound. And so often, you know, artists get signed a bigger label or they reach a bigger audience and everything gets really glossy, high-end production and everything. and some of that humanness of it gets sort of sucked out of it a little bit. And that's not the case. Not at all.

So that was Add Up My Love and the album again is called Charm. And we've got one room for one more. We've got one more. We got one more banger to close us out. You know, we played Max Richter on last week's show. Yeah. You know, here we are talking about all these other Max Richter pieces. And Max Richter just dropped at the beginning of September.

Just dropped and dropped. They're moving units. You wouldn't believe. He just put out this record in September called In a Landscape. Yeah. And as we have kept saying on this show, his music is just a font of kindness. And this piece, this record is no different. This is the closing track from the album.

It's called Movement Before All Thirteen. flowers. And we'll go on on this from Max Richter. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. I'm Stephen Thompson. It's all songs considered.