Our no. 1 songs: 2015

Summary

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All Songs Considered: Our No. 1 Songs – 2015

Episode Date: October 27, 2025
Hosts: Robin Hilton, Stephen Thompson (NPR Music)

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Overview

In this episode, Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson continue their retrospective journey through 21st-century music, spotlighting their most defining songs of 2015—not by charts, but songs that captured the spirit of All Songs Considered and resonated personally. The hosts play a friendly game of “Name That Tune,” share their picks, and reflect on the musical landscape of 2015, ranging from Courtney Barnett’s guitar-driven rock to the emotional depths of Sufjan Stevens, the cultural weight of Kendrick Lamar, and the phenomenon of Hamilton.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Criteria for Song Selection

• (00:22) The hosts clarify these aren’t Billboard or mainstream picks. “These are songs that define the show,” Robin notes.
• (00:45) Stephen: “There’s absolutely no way to be definitive in summing up any year.”
  The selection is subjective, focused on songs significant to the hosts and the show’s audience.

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2. Courtney Barnett — “Pedestrian at Best”

• (01:13-03:37)
  • Stephen’s first choice. He describes being struck instantly:
    "This opening rift is the first thing that goes immediately to mind." (01:19)
  • The album: Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.
  • Robin celebrates Barnett’s breakout: “Oh, she just... burst out with this album, and it just rips.” (02:33)
  • Stephen likens the song to a generational anthem:
    "The immediate thought is like, this is her Smells Like Teen Spirit." (03:05)
  • They hail Barnett’s storytelling and the song’s energy, calling the title “the most inaccurately named song of 2015.” (02:26)

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3. Sufjan Stevens — “John My Beloved” (from Carrie & Lowell)

• (04:29-07:17)
  • Robin’s pick, described as “an album full of songs that I like. Any one of them I could have picked and played and loved.” (04:07)
  • Stephen speaks about the emotional gravity:
    "This record knocked me flat... The intimacy of this record, how deep he’s willing to go in this album.” (05:27)
  • They discuss Sufjan’s own conflicted feelings about the project. Robin clarifies the nuance behind headlines calling Sufjan “embarrassed” by the album:
    “It’s so much more complicated than that...” (06:37)
  • Themes of loss, memory, and Sufjan’s attempt to process his mother’s death are central.

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4. Honorable Mention Highlights from 2015

• After the break, the hosts run through standout tracks and trends:

Kendrick Lamar — “Alright”

• (09:31-11:03)
  • Stephen: “That was an extremely eye-opening record.” (10:42)
  • Robin: “The song ‘Alright’ has become a bigger one, and a more important song, and a more impactful song from the album.” (11:03)
  • The hosts acknowledge Kendrick’s expanding vision and cultural influence.

Torres — “Strange Hellos” (from Sprinter)

• (11:14-12:00)
  • Robin: “Talk about guitar rock... this song and the album, it’s from Sprinter. Rock so hard.” (11:58)
  • Stephen reflects on initial hopes that Torres would become “the next big guitar rock God.” (12:00)

Joan Shelley — “Over and Even”

• (12:14-13:32)
  • Stephen highlights this as his “anxiety medicine.” (13:18)
  • He chooses music that soothes and heals, not only what is critically acclaimed:
    “When I do my year end best lists, I just pick my favorites... Joan Shelley’s Over and Even is my anxiety medicine.” (12:54)

Adele — “Hello”

• (13:32-16:32)
  • Acknowledgement of Adele’s 25 as a landmark release.
  • Robin: “I think this is an undeniably great song." (15:35)
  • Stephen provides a critical view of the album:
    "I found the record as a whole very monochromatic and glum—not glum in the way that I love so much glum music." (15:46)

Hamilton (Original Cast Recording)

• (16:32-18:44)
  • Robin discusses the multi-genre, cross-audience phenomenon of Hamilton:
    “Such a weird mix of things that were happening with this musical and all these different worlds coming together.” (17:13)
  • Stephen shares how even NPR colleagues found themselves newly loving musicals through Hamilton (17:37).

Iconic Returns and Other Highlights

• Missy Elliott: Single “WTF (Where They From)”—her first release in several years.
• Sleater-Kinney: Returned after a decade with No Cities to Love.
• Joanna Newsom: Released Divers.
• The hosts declare 2015 “a great year” for comebacks and surprises.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “It’s so fun every once in a while when you hear a song and you’re like, oh, it’s my song of the year. There it is. You don’t have to even live with it for more than three minutes to know.”
  – Stephen Thompson (03:23)

• “Guitar rock is back.”
  – Robin Hilton, reflecting on Courtney Barnett’s impact and contemporaries (03:37)

• “Songs can’t speak for her, she’s not there to speak for herself... These thoughts are incomplete because they have to be... but it doesn’t detract from how beautiful they are.”
  – Stephen Thompson on Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell (05:45)

• “Joan Shelley’s Over and Even is my anxiety medicine.”
  – Stephen Thompson (12:54)

• “Hamilton…such a weird mix of things happening with this musical and all these different worlds coming together…”
  – Robin Hilton (17:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Segment/Event | Timestamp | |--------------------------------------|-------------| | Start & episode premise | 00:16 | | Courtney Barnett – “Pedestrian…” | 01:13–04:07 | | Sufjan Stevens – “John My Beloved” | 04:29–07:17 | | Kendrick Lamar – “Alright” | 09:31–11:03 | | Torres – “Strange Hellos” | 11:14–12:00 | | Joan Shelley – “Over and Even” | 12:14–13:32 | | Adele – “Hello” | 13:43–16:32 | | Hamilton Soundtrack discussion | 16:32–18:45 | | Reflections & roundup | 18:45–end |

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Tone and Flow

The episode balances playful “Name That Tune” banter (“You’re gonna hit it, and then I’m gonna try to guess what it is” – Robin Hilton, 01:10) with personal reflection and cultural critique. Robin and Stephen’s rapport is warm and insightful, giving space to both their own connections to the music and larger cultural shifts of 2015.

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This episode stands as a loving, opinionated snapshot of 2015’s music—full of surprises, returns, and songs that linger in personal and collective memory.

Transcript

[Announcer]

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[Robin Hilton]

All right, it's All Songs Considered. I'm Robin Hilton. Here is Stephen Thompson. Hey, Stephen.

[Stephen Thompson]

Hello, Robin.

[Robin Hilton]

So we have clawed our way to the year 2015 in this March through the bank. Best songs, the songs that take us back to those years. And if you haven't been following along, just a reminder that these are not the Billboard Hot 100 songs from those years or necessarily even the biggest songs of the year that maybe will take people back. These are songs that define the show. And that.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, there's absolutely no way to be definitive in summing up any year. Where's the folk music, Robin? Where's the.

[Robin Hilton]

I see no mention of band A, but lots of mention of band B. But what's the first thing that you think of when you think of 2015? And a reminder also that we're not telling each other what the songs are. We're kind of playing Name that Tune.

[Stephen Thompson]

Playing a little bit of Name that tune.

[Robin Hilton]

You're gonna hit it, and then I'm gonna try to guess what it is.

[Stephen Thompson]

All right, Robin. The first song that jumped to mind when I think of 2015. First of all, pretty good year for music.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

Second of all, this opening rift is the first thing that goes immediately to mind.

[Robin Hilton]

Courtney Barne.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

I love you, I hate you I'm on the fence it all depends whether I'm up or down I'm on the men transcending all reality. I like you, despise you, admire you what are we gonna do when everything all falls through? I must confess I've made a mess of what should be a small success. But I digress. At least I've tried my very best. I guess this, that, the other why even bother? It won't be with me on my deathbed But I'll still be in your hands Put me on a pe and I'll only disappoint you Tell me I'm exceptional I promise to exploit you.

[Robin Hilton]

So the album is like sometimes I.

[Stephen Thompson]

Sit and think and sometimes I just sit, sit.

[Robin Hilton]

But I'm blanking on the name.

[Stephen Thompson]

Pedestrian at best.

[Robin Hilton]

Pedestrian at best. Oh, my God, what a great song.

[Stephen Thompson]

Such a great song. Most inaccurately named song. Yeah. Certainly the most inaccurately named song of 2015. Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, she just came burst out with this album, and it just rips. Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

And part of what's great about it is. Talk about zigging when people think you're gonna zag. Courtney Barnett came up. You know, she comes out of Australia, and her stuff is very conversational. Her songs are these ambles, you know, where she's kind of telling you about how she went out into the garden and got stung by a bee, whatever, These kind of story songs. And then comes out with this album. And it. The immediate thought is like, this is her. Smells Like Teen Spirit.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. Like, that's a great. That's a great example.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

And. And you know where it's. Where it's just so lyrically dense. It has this build. It slams into the choruses with such. With such grandeur and majesty. I love this record, but this particular song was just like, oh, well, I know exactly what I'm kicking off my year end mix with. I know what is basically my favorite song of the year. It's so fun every once in a while when you hear a song and you're like, oh, it's my song of the year. There it is. You don't have to even live with it for more than three minutes to know.

[Robin Hilton]

I remember thinking when she dropped this album, that man, Guitar rock is back. And, you know, car seat headrest was starting to drop stuff around then, too, that was really popping. Like, I remember. I think, well, it might have been the next year, maybe 2016, when he did the Vincent. Drunk Drivers, Killer Whales. Those songs all came out. But this. Yeah, this was very high on my list of favorite albums. And this song, too. Pedestrian at best. Great pick. As soon as you hit play on this, I thought, oh, I could have easily picked this one, too.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

But I'm gonna go with this song from an album full of songs that I like. Any one of them I could have picked and played and loved. But I'll go with this. Okay.

[Stephen Thompson]

Sufjan Stevens.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

Carrion Lowell is the album.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Are we to speak first day of the week? Stumbling Words at the Bar. Beauty, Blue Eyes, My order of Fries, Long Island Kindness and Wine Beloved of John. I get it all wrong. I read you for some kind of poem.

[Robin Hilton]

All right. If you don't have it now, you're not gonna.

[Stephen Thompson]

I don't.

[Sponsor or Additional Guest]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Beloved my John Beloved my John.

[Stephen Thompson]

Okay. Okay. This record knocked me flat.

[Sponsor or Additional Guest]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

When it came out. It's one of my favorite albums of the year. It's one of my favorite albums he's ever done. Just the intimacy of this record, how deep he's willing to go in this album. And I know he interviewed. You did an interview with him where he kind of rejected this album.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, in a way.

[Stephen Thompson]

In a way. Like, really, it's clear that he hasn't been able to fully untangle what he was trying to untangle with this record. The death of his mother, from whom he had been estranged. And the way that he spoke about it was really articulate and really thoughtful. And I really understood how you could come to feel that way where realizing these songs can't speak for her, she's not there to speak for herself. And I think that interview is a really useful way to look at this record as like, these thoughts are incomplete because they have to be. And what it doesn't do is it just doesn't detract from how beautiful they are and how thoughtful they are and how much love and unmet need are kind of swirling together in these songs. I think this is a breathtaking record.

[Robin Hilton]

You know, I think it's important to note in that conversation I had with Sufian, a lot of sites picked up. At one point in it, he says, I'm kind of embarrassed by this album. And that became a headline for a lot of other sites that picked it up. But it's so much more complicated than that. It's not that he thinks this is a terrible album or that he did a bad job. You know, the songs are embarrassed. It's because he was trying to get at something that he just couldn't get at. And then he felt bad for trying to even speak for his mom. And it's just way more complicated than that. But this song and whole album really from 2015, was super huge for me.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

There's only a shadow of me in the matter of speaking.

[Stephen Thompson]

I'm dead.

[Robin Hilton]

Okay, we do need to take a quick break here, but when we come back, we'll talk about some of the other stuff that stands out to us. From 2015.

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[Stephen Thompson]

Think interior design is about responsibility. It's not just the way a space looks or the way a space photographs. To me, better design means functional, safe, accessible and inclusive design.

[Announcer]

Learn [e-mail] NPR we're celebrating the 25th.

[Robin Hilton]

Anniversary of all Songs Considered by looking back at our favorite songs from across the years. We're up to 2015. Stephen, what are some of the other things that you remember about well Kendrick.

[Stephen Thompson]

Lamar put out to Butterfly we gon.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Be all right we gon be all right we gonna be all right we gonna be all right. Do you hear me?

[Robin Hilton]

Do you feel me?

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

We gonna be all right we gonna be all right huh we gonna be all right we gonna be all right. Do you hear me? Do you feel me? We gonna be all right and when I wake up I recognize you're looking at me for the pay cut Bahamas I be looking at you from the face down womack11 if you're boom with the face down skimming and let me tell you about my life Painkillers only put me in a twilight where pretty Benjamin is the highlight now tell my mama I love her but this what I like come and get me reaping everything I sold so my karma come and heaven no preliminary hearings on my record I'm a can't stand silence for the record tell the world I know it's too late boys and girls I think I've gone crazy trying to s my face this all day Won't you please believe when I say when you know we've been down before we're trying.

[Stephen Thompson]

Not to overload Kendrick Lamar cuz he's got a record coming up that we're that we absolutely have to that we absolutely have to talk about. But that was an extremely Eye opening record. It was not his first great album, but it's one that really demonstrated the expansiveness of his vision. We could have played King Kunta, which was the pick from your kind of 2016 anniversary show, right?

[Sponsor or Additional Guest]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

But I think the song all right has become a bigger one and a more important song and a more impactful song from the album. Another one I'd pick for 2015 is the Taurus album.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, my gosh, talk about guitar rock.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, Strangelows came out then.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

I was all for being real but if I don't believe then no one will what's mine isn't really yours But I hope you find what you're looking for Beggar blue in the face for change you never take with you I deflate I love you all the same.

[Robin Hilton]

And this song and the album, it's from Sprinter. Rock so hard.

[Stephen Thompson]

I mean, I really thought.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, I think we all thought that Taurus was going to be like the next big guitar rock God, you know? But they ended up taking their music in so many different and totally surprising directions. But what else?

[Stephen Thompson]

Also, this was the year that Joan Shelley put out her album. Over an even we sight the morning.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Softly take to them easy the scent of the wooden coffee our cup is filling Outside the river flow its course unfolding a strip.

[Stephen Thompson]

When I do my year end best lists, I just pick my favorites. I'm not necessarily trying to like what is the grandest artistic statement? What is the most sonically expansive? What was my favorite? What was the album that I went back to over and over again to receive some boost in an emotion. I'm trying to clarify. And Joan Shelley's over and Even is my anxiety medicine.

[Sponsor or Additional Guest]

Yeah.

[Announcer]

Gorgeous.

[Stephen Thompson]

And, you know, I come back to that record again and again whenever we do these, like, songs to settle the nerves, songs to calm your frazzled mind or whatever, I talk about that record, which is my Go To Feel Better, one of my Go to feel better Records.

[Robin Hilton]

So 2015. We also got a new Adele album that year. We already talked about her on an earlier episode, but she dropped 25 in. But she dropped 25 with the song. Hello?

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Hello, it's me. I was wondering if after all these years, you'd like to meet to go over everything. They say the time supposed to heal you But I ain't done much healing hello, can you hear me? I'm in California Dreaming about who we used to be when we were younger and free I forgotten how it felt before the world fell at our feet There's a. There's Such a difference between us and A million miles hello from the other side I must have called a thousand times to tell you how sorry for everything that I've done But when I call you never seem to be home hello from the outside at least I can say that I'm trying to turn you I'm sorry for breaking your heart but it don't matter it clearly.

[Robin Hilton]

I mean, I think this is an undeniably great song. And that's what we're talking about. Songs that take us back to different years. But the reviews overall for this album from Adele, they were kind of mixed.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah, I agree completely. And. And I think I really, really like the song hello. But I found the. The record as a whole very monochromatic and glum and not glum in the way that I love so much glum music. I found it. You know, it's like. It's like several takes on her ballad, her huge hit ballad, Someone like youe, but nothing of like rolling in the Deep.

[Robin Hilton]

So.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Hello from the other side I must have called a thousand times to tell you I'm sorry for everybody everything that I've done But when I call you.

[Robin Hilton]

Never seem to behold but you know what else came out in 2015 is the Hamilton soundtrack.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

How does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore and a Scotsman dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished and squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar? The ten dollar founding father without a father got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self starter. By 14, they placed him in charge of a trading charter.

[Robin Hilton]

We just played this back in August on our episode about the perfect song for road trips. But 2015 was the year and such a weird mix of things that were happening with this musical and all these different worlds coming together. You know, like new fans coming to hip hop, new fans even to like history. New fans to just musicals in general.

[Stephen Thompson]

Our pal Gene Demby, who works on the Code Switch blog here at npr, was live tweeting his discovery of this cast recording on our site. And his whole thing was like, do I love musicals? Like, have I loved musicals all along?

[Robin Hilton]

Alexander Hamilton My name is Alexander Hamilton and there's a million things I haven't done but just you wait Just you wait so much more we could play. 2015 was a big year for returns. Missy Elliott, who hasn't put an album out in 20 years. Now in 2015, she dropped the single WTF? Where They From? You know, at that point it had been like six or seven years since she'd put out anything at all. So it was really huge having her back. Slater Kenny returned after a 10 year break with the album no Cities to Love. There was a Joanna Newsome record, her first new one in like five years, an album called Divers. Great year, but we'll go out on this from Hamilton. And until next time, Stephen, when we talk about 2016, thanks so much.

[Stephen Thompson]

Thank you, Robin.

[Robin Hilton]

And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's All Songs considered.

[Guest or Music Artist (performing or quoted lyrics)]

Sugar Cane and Roman, all the things he can afford standing for every book he can get his hands on. Planet for the Future. See him now as he stands on the bow of a ship headed for a new land. In New York you can be a new man. New York, you can chance to win In New York you can show just two men. New York, you can be a new man. New York, New York, just you. Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton, we are waiting in the wings for you. Waiting in the wings. You never back down, you never learn to take your time. Oh, Alexander Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton, America.

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