The year’s best songs (so far)
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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This episode of All Songs Considered comes to you from the NPR Music Podcast. We've got new drops, new episodes of the show for you in the feed every Tuesday. You will also find Alt Latino every Wednesday and we close out every week with New Music Friday. NPR Music also where you will find Sheldon Pierce. Hello. Sheldon, are you ready to say what the definitive unimpeachable message Best songs of the year are so far. I'm ready to do something like that, I guess. Maybe something a little less definitive, perhaps? A little less definitive. That's what we're going to attempt to do anyway. Well, maybe not so definitive. We're going to at least share what our picks are. We're doing the best we can. It's a deep field.
It is a very deep field. Have you...
Which songs kick off the show and how do hosts set up the mid‑year best‑of conversation?
seen other lists? Have you been spending any time with like all the others? I've browsed some. I generally don't like to look at mid-year lists. I like to go to end of year lists to really see what like stuck with people over the course of the year. I find that historically a lot of stuff that ends up on mid-year lists will fall off towards the end of the year. Maybe some of that is like recency bias. Should we not do this? Was this a mistake? No, I think the real point of mid-year lists is to get the conversation going and Yeah, yeah, I just think it's good to stop, hit the stop button for a minute. Yeah. Just stop down. Try to appraise. Yeah, where are we? I've gone through lots of lists, and I will say the one thing I have noticed is zero consensus.
Yeah. Literally, like everyone's got a different top ten, different number one. And that's true for us here, too. We're not ranking these. We each brought some stuff, and we'll share what we're loving. But I think that's why I'm not going to sweat starting with a band that very few people have even heard of, probably. Yeah. It's a band called Mandy Indiana, and they dropped an album that, one of my favorite albums of the year so far. It's called Erg. Mandy Indiana, not a real place. This is a band from the UK. Super noisy, almost industrial kind of sound that, I don't know, it's the kind of sonic thrill ride I'm always happy to take. The song that I wanna play is called Try Saying.
Honey, is that you?
J'avais juste envie de quelque chose de simple De quelque chose de beau
When that bass hits and that backbeat hits, this song is so cool. This is one that Dora Levitt at NPR Music turned me on to. Played it on the show back in February when it came out. This is actually one of the tamer songs on the whole album. They love dissonance, obliterated noise, very twitchy. Love it. I was going to ask, is the clarity the reason that this one has stuck with you of the other songs on this record? Yeah, it's the most infectious to me. Okay. I mean, it's kind of hooky. I mean, and I think that's one thing that I really love. When a band can take noise like this and somehow make it feel really hooked, like really get its hooks into you. And you're just grooving and you want to move. I think Sleigh Bells, the band Sleigh Bells, 100 Gecs, Death Grips, somewhat, you know, a little bit of Death Grips, like Model Actress, those kinds of bands.
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because I was curious to hear why this song in particular. The album is one of the defining albums of the year for me. Oh, okay. And I wouldn't have thought to grab a particular song from it. It sounds like such. a crazy soundscape that is constantly shifting. It feels like everything is of a larger piece. But now hearing you talk about it, honestly, it rips. I think everything on this record rips. But to the point of accessibility, if you were going to try to play something from this record to try to draw somebody into it, it would be this song.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:08
2
Which songs kick off the show and how do hosts set up the mid‑year best‑of conversation?
1:08–9:42
3
Why is Mandy Indiana’s “try saying” an accessible entry to the album Erg?
9:42–30:13
4
How does Aldous Harding’s “Coats” use surreal shifts to create emotional impact?
30:13–48:26
5
What makes Vince Staples’ “White Flag” a standout on Crybaby and a new artistic direction?
48:26–49:28