NPR Music - The Contenders, Vol. 21: Tame Impala, Dominic Fike, Amber Mark, more

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

We update our running list of the year’s best songs with club beats from Tame Impala, the fractured pop of Dominik Fike, good vibes from singer Amber Mark and more.Featured artists and tracks:1. Tame Impala: “Dracula,” from ‘Deadbeat’2. Gabriel Jacoby: “The One” (single)3. Dominic Fike: “Quite The Opposite,” from ‘Rocket’4. NewDad: “Misery,” from ‘Altar’5. Madi Diaz: “Heavy Metal,” from ‘Fatal Optimist’6. Amber Mark: “Too Much,” from ‘Pretty Idea’Weekly reset:  A flamenco performance in Barcelona, circa 1999.Enjoy the show? Share it with a friend and leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 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

I haven't been outside in a minute. Is it still dreary as ever? It is, very much so. It's so dreary today. It's just been pouring rain. Good time to stay inside and listen to music. Yeah. This is one of our contenders episodes, you know, where we update that long-running list of the year's best songs.

It's a list we start every January, and we keep adding to it throughout the year with the songs that we love so much. They could end up on our best of 2025 lists when we wind the year down. should we start with something that I know that we're both excited about? Yes. Yes, please. This is Tame Impala. Tame Impala. Tame Impala has a new album coming called Deadbeat.

And we just got a new single from it. It's the third one that dropped so far. It's a song called Dracula. I've listened to this song so many times. So good. And I'm not entirely sure what to even make of it. Because, I mean, on the one hand, it's super. cool. Yeah. But it's also, it's completely absurd. It's to me. It's so absurd. It's such an outlier

in the Tame Impala discography. Like, I mean, there's groovy stuff across his discog, funk and disco, but nothing as club-oriented as this. I mean, the lead single end of summer is Acid House. It sort of, it feels, that felt like a shock to the system, right? He's very clearly, like, moving in a specific direction and he's talked about this record being inspired by rave culture in Australia. Yeah. But this one is really euphoric, really fun, so much swelling energy. Those coral, what are those, like, midi synth voices that like surge into the? Yeah, I think it's really, I mean, maybe it's, maybe it's done with sins.

It's got a kind of theatricality to it or something to it that I actually feel some similarities between this and then the third single is. It's called loser from that. I hear some overlap, but regardless, it's got that four on the floor beat. I mean, he's definitely hitting the club, like you said. Yeah, yeah. This, I think this one is a little bit dancier.

I mean, I am so excited to hear an artist who has shifted the zeitgeist before, move so deliberately away from that sound to say, I'm going to do something different. I am going to push in a new direction. It's a really exciting, place to be as a listener? Well, wait until you see the band's Tiny Desk. Okay. So we don't normally like to reveal who plays the desk until we share the full set. We like it to be a surprise.

In fact, for everyone who's lucky enough to be in the room for a performance for a Tiny Desk, we usually tell everyone don't share it on social media or whatever until the set's published. But, Lord, this song, Dracula has been living in my head for quite a while since before it even came out because they played it at the desk. And all I'll say is that it is tame Impala at the desk like you've never seen or heard Tame Impala before. Totally, totally different than what we just heard, all the songs, totally different. I don't want to say anything else. I don't think you need to say anything else.

I'm in there. But I will tell you that after the tiny desk, I turned to Bobby Carter, who brought the band in. Right. And I said that was hands down one of the best tiny desks we've ever had, period, ever. And that is saying a lot. Right, the high phrase. Yeah, I am not kidding. Coming soon, I'll just say, the tiny desk from Tame and Paula.

This song, Dracula from the album Deadbeat, that album, when is that album out? October 17th. Okay, October 17th. So, Robin, I mean, we've talked about the phenomenon of a well-established artist, a game changing artist who has established their style moving dramatically in a new direction. Right. I want to talk about a totally different but equally exciting phenomenon, which is... Staying completely in your lane?

Not. The just like plucking an artist out of thin air and discovering them almost like fully formed, being completely introduced to something new on a whim. and it satisfying an itch that you didn't even know that you needed scratched. Right, yeah. There's a new song from the R&B artist Gabriel Jacoby, who was not on my radar at all. Yeah, I don't know.

I had never heard of anything that he had put out to this point. I listened to this song on a whim and was just completely blown away. The song is called The One. The only thing wrong with that is it's not twice as long. Oh, so good. You have to hit replay right when it ends. Yeah. One more time.

Tell me about Gabriel Jacoby. Yeah. I mean, this incredible. I took a crash course in Gabriel Jacoby this week after hearing this song. I mean, the first video on his YouTube channel from 2022 is an intro that explains his background. He was an audio engineer at a studio by day, artist by night. he's a 26-year-old South Carolina-born artist who learn to play guitar and drums

and produce after he moved to Tampa, Florida. And after listening to his music, it sounds like he really has come into his own this year. His last three songs are his best, but the one is literally the one. He has figured out exactly how to get the most out of his vocal tone, I think. There are hints of like Sly Stone and DiAngelo,

But with Macy Gray. Yes, yes. A little bit of rasp, I was about to say, there's a sound about it that is so, like, distinctly, like, country fried, I think. And when I sent this to you, you noted the sort of stank face inducing nature of it. Oh, it's got my stank face going. Oh, my goodness. The funk that swells to a crescendo with that digified baseline at the end when it erupts. I mean, honestly, it feels like discovering an artist at the precise moment when he discovers himself.

instantly addictive. Yeah. Like you hit play on this, the very first note, you could be sitting on the couch, not feeling anything, and then second that comes on, you're moving.

You got to move. You got to move. So good, and his voice is incredible. I did read that he just wanted to make a song that, like, just to feel good. Yeah.

Like, make people happy, and I thought mission accomplished. Yes. So the song, the one from Gabriel Jacobi, and that it's just a single no word on a album. I hope an album's around the corner the way he's moving. All right, we've got a whole bunch more music coming your way,

plus your weekly reset at the end of the show. So be sure to stay tuned for that. Also, if you enjoy listening to All Songs Considered, let us know in an email, all songs at npr.org. Leave us a review on Apple Music or Spotify, wherever you listen to the show, and share the show with a friend. Just tell people about it. It's the best way to support it.

So, Sheldon, I've been thinking a lot lately about how we live in just the most fragmented age of all time. Yes. Fragmented media, fragmented experiences. You know, there are no more monoculture moments that unify us. You know, certainly fragmented attention spans. And there's so much about all of this that just feels terrible to me. Like, it just doesn't feel to me like it bodes well for the future if nobody can get through a bit. book or an entire movie or whatever it may be. But then, you know, I hear the music of Dominic

Fyke. And I think, well, maybe great things can come out of this because Dominic Fike's music feels very much like it grew out of this fragmented era that we live in and that he's grown up in. He's got a new mixtape, calling it a mixtape. I, honest to God, after all these years, I still don't even know what that is. In 2025. But it's called Rocket And the song I want to play from it I mean there's so many I could pick But let's hear a song called

Quite the opposite I didn't girdle with everybody I didn't take off my clothes in the pool I wasn't singing like Frank Sinatra Not because I was afraid To be sitting a stage It was quite the opposite Because I knew you'd be bummed

If I took all your thunder So I knew the opposite I never thought it would back fire And I'd make it all about me And now you're having a bad time Because I made it all about me Didn't go to the Grammy party invited me And I don't know

So I guess it didn't bother me Then I sat on your couch And proceeded to pout So you would acknowledge me me and if you want it now could you tell me now so we could try it. I know you didn't want a sorry song or a fake party song but it's all that I know how to do. I don't know why I made a sorry song when you never wanted one but it's all because I love you. I never thought it would backfire and I'd make it all about me and now you're having a bad time.

It actually just cuts off. Yep. That's the ending of it. Which is hilarious because the fact that the song just ends like that in mid-sentence, that really doesn't even have anything to do with why I feel like his music is very fragmented. Right. I mean, they're like little vignettes. They're like little pieces of ideas and fragments. I mean, even the music itself feels kind of broken.

The beats. Everything feels cracked and off in a way. It's also fragmented in the sense that it is pulling from very different worlds at many different times. And all of his songs can swing pretty dramatically in sound, in tone, in mood. It's funny that he says on this one, I know you didn't want a sorry song or a fake party song, but that's all I know how to do. I mean, I think you're selling yourself short, Dominic. You know how to do a good many things if you scan his discography. you will find him going a lot of different places with his music.

But to your point, like a lot of them feel like they're just like broken off pieces of something. Yeah. Like he just grabbed a little bit of this or a little bit of that and he's honed in on just that little tiny bit of it. But a lot of his music can be so fascinating because of that. But that's, yeah, I was going to say, that's the thing I just keep coming back though. Right. It's not like it's unsatisfying or whatever for me. You know, like it leaves me feeling like, well, that's kind of half-baked.

Because I feel like I get entire worlds and movies in these like two minutes. I mean, what is? There's something like a dozen songs on this mixtape, and I think the whole thing is 26 minutes, because a lot of them are barely clock in it over a minute. Right. But, you know, I will swing wildly, while I'm listening, I'll swing wildly from thinking, all right, this is ridiculous to he is a genius. And I feel like it's like lyrically too, you know, there are parts of this song, quite the opposite, where I feel like that's pretty cute and clever.

But then I think, actually, this song is, it is like a perfectly rendered picture of what youth in that time is like going out to parties, all of the anxiety and posturing. Yeah. And, you know, you're trying to like, I'll be cool. I'm not going to make this about me, but you are 100% making it about you and all the conflicts that come out of that. I don't know. I think it's kind of brilliant. Yeah, I mean, he clearly contains multitudes. There is a sort of like rawness to the way that he creates music, obviously, that sort of would like you to believe he's not taking this whole thing very seriously.

It's emotional. It's like straight from the heart. there's not much thought going into it. But on the other hand, there is a lot of it that is carefully intentioned, very purposeful. The decisions he's making the way that he's moving in his music are also very considered.

I think about the mixtape distinction, especially in this context, as maybe being like sketches of ideas, being like, hey, these were things that I was working on. I wasn't taking them too seriously, so you also don't. because it's not an album, it's a mixtape. These are good things that I like,

but they're not like my fully fleshed out things. Yeah. Even by his standards. Yeah, I get that. I think as someone, speaking to myself, as someone whose brain goes in a million different directions all at the same time at a million miles an hour, I listen to this and I feel like that's him.

Yeah. He's his creative spirit and like, yeah, it's intentional, but I feel like this is just pouring out of him pretty effortless. Yeah, there's definitely an impulse there. Well, I heard on the armchair expert podcast with Dax Shepard, if anybody listens to that. Dominic Fike was on, and they asked Dominic if he'd ever done a tiny desk. And Dominic said, no, he said he came close, but missed it for reasons that I will say are probably better explained by Dominic. If you want to listen to that podcast, you'll hear him.

explain how and why he missed his tiny desk. But if you're listening, Dominic, I still want to bring you in for one. So you are welcome here anytime. I would love to make it happen. Dominic Fike, quite the opposite is the song from his new mixtape, Rock it. There's something that I was listening to recently that really seemed to encapsulate the way that everything feels. You mean fragmented and terrible? Yes.

Exactly those things. You were saying it in such an understated way. I was trying to be subtle. Okay, all right. But I know you wanted to beat it out of me. It's a song from the Irish band New Dad's new album, Alter, which was released a few weeks ago. It's called Misery. And Altar is altar like the altar at a church or whatever, A-L-T-R, misery.

Like an altar of worship. There you go. the gates of my heart open in hopes yours would be too but with too much wishful thinking bit off more than I could chew I fear my love's been stolen by the city and its thieves feel like I've been spit out in a static state of grief Man, the turn this song takes about a minute in. It kind of starts off. Kind of a little quiet. First time I heard it, I literally yelled, let's go.

It was perfect. It was like, yes. It takes off at just the right moment. Let's do this. It's so satisfying. I mean, this Galway indie band, this is their second go at it. Pretty much every review of the album has said that this record is positive. happier than its predecessor.

And I suppose that's kind of true, depending on your definition of poppy. But, I mean, listening to this straight away, you feel the lo-finess of it, the shoegaisiness of it. And it feels so uneasy. I think that's the great part about the way that it builds.

It's unsettling until it explodes on you. Yeah. And I mean, I just really resonated with the idea of like feel like I've been spit out in a static state of grief. I mean, it's such a great lyric. Do you want to talk about it? It's more a general, like, state of the world kind of malaise than a personal malaise. I mean, to me, this song is all about the music for me.

The production, the guitars, the noise. I love the grit. I'm all in on that. I found the lyrics to be a little, I don't know, the lyrics didn't quite do it for me. It almost felt a little bit at times, almost like a parody of grunge and that era, like lines like resting in the coffin. I let the soil fall or the rotting, the decay, the lust for misery. It almost felt like a playbook for if you want to write a really depressing, dark, sad song. Well, it's intentionally hammy.

Like she has said that there is an intentional dramatism to the lyrics. Yeah. Like she is she is playing up this, what the experience of being in London for the bit. Like that's part of the bit. I mean, and I love that about it. She's having fun with this idea of misery. Yeah. And that to me is part of the draw of the idea.

Like she sees the other end of the spectrum. Like this is not a. a thing that she is still like sinking in. She has found her way to the other side of it. And now the misery doesn't feel as all-consuming and sort of like doom and gloom as it did before. No shade against the band with, you know, what I said about the lyrics. I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't, I'm not opposed to being in a coffin rotting, the soil falling on me.

And I too often lust for misery. No, it's good stuff. New Dad, Misery from Altar, Alter, from the album Alter. Well, Sheldon, I don't want you to think that I was going to let you get out of here without hearing Maddie Diaz one more time. I was anticipating this from the moment we looked this show. I knew this song was coming. Maddie Diaz, oh, let me count the ways. I think we did mention that she has a new album coming when we did the fall preview.

I think we mentioned that she has one coming up. We didn't play anything from it, but the album's called Fatal Optimist. There's a song on it that I want to play for everyone. It's called Heavy Metal. Heavy Metal. I'm starting to look just like my mother. In this photograph we're the same age. Of course I rage.

I'm her daughter. When shit gets hard, I go harder. I wouldn't. Any different. My idealism makes me self-defensive Don't make me take off my gloves I'll show you what I'm made of It's not gold

It's not platinum It's not silver It's not special Running so hard Repetition is spiritual through it's not gold it's not platinum it's not silver

it's not special it's not platinum not silver such a great play on words in this song you know that invoking heavy metal you know it's a good thing my heart is so heavy metal

I mean it could mean I'm tough right I can handle this I'm so heavy metal or it could mean I am so cold and broken because if your heart is literally made of a heavy metal it's probably not going to work very well.

Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure anyone has ever uttered the words. Don't make me take my gloves off. I'll show you what I'm made of more sweetly than Maddie Diaz does on this song. It makes you go, oh, okay, okay, all right, well, maybe. I do think the real sort of brilliance of this song is in this idea of hardness, like what it means to be hard in a certain sense. it can be toughness, but in a certain sense, it can be like stealing yourself because you are so vulnerable, because you are a thing that needs protecting and is sensitive. And there is no object more sensitive than a heart, especially in the emotional context.

I just love the way that she digs into ideas and feelings around family. Yeah. And love and all the baggage that we carry that can come with. family and love and the ways that love can break you. And her voice just sends me too. It's so plain spoken in a way. But also it's like it's reachable. It's like you can connect with it,

but just also so beautiful. The new song, again, is called Heavy Metal. And the album, it's from Fatal Optimist. That is me. Fatal Optimist. Put that on your business card, Robin. That's so perfect. I had frustrated genius on my business,

this card for the longest time. Yeah, fatal optimist is even better. It's out October 10th. Bishelden, you've got one more song that I know you want to play. The artist Amber Mark is releasing Pretty Idea on October 10th, and she shared the lead single. It's called Too Much. Amber Mark's last album, Three Dimensions Deep,

was an MPR music fave. She is so talented. at creating this sort of like omnidirectional sound that moves as far as like Basanova at times, but is very true to her R&B heart, which she's like very clearly a classicist in a lot of ways. This song is emblematic of that. It interpolates Usher and Alicia Keys' classic duet, My Boo.

In recent years, a lot of R&B has been obsessed with the past, some of it to such a great extent that it doesn't really have its own identity, but too much is such an effective microcosm of what Amber Mark is, what her work does. It has such a deep love for R&B history, and yet it is so decidedly pointed forward. Yeah, I'm glad you picked this because I almost picked it to play on an earlier episode. She creates this world that I want to live in when I listen to it. There's so much light and good vibes, even like on this song, too much, even when she's talking about cutting somebody off

because they're driving her crazy. Right. Right. It's still like it just feels so good. So we'll go out on this. And as always, Sheldon Pierce, thanks for the good hang. Thanks so much for having me, Robin. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton.

It's all songs considered. Is it too much if I'm thinking about you daily? It isn't too much. Day night calling me up for waving. Stop playing. There was only one that was tired.