Our no. 1 songs: 2017

Summary

All Songs Considered: Our No. 1 Songs – 2017

Host: Robin Hilton (NPR) with Stephen Thompson
Date: November 10, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson continue their retrospective journey, highlighting their picks for the best song of each year from the past quarter-century. This week, 2017 takes center stage. The hosts enthusiastically trade notes, not only sharing their number one, but diving deep into the year’s unforgettable music—from mainstream cultural touchstones like Kendrick Lamar and Lorde, to deeply affecting indie releases and personal picks. The episode offers both critical reflection and warm music-nerd camaraderie.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Unanimous Song of 2017: Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA.” (00:46–02:11)

• Both hosts instantly agree that Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN. dominates 2017, particularly the track “DNA.”
• Robin describes his instant infatuation:

  “I remember when this record first came out. I listened to it and then I just started it all over again. … I listened to this four times all the way through … it just blew my mind apart.” (01:27)

• Stephen calls “DNA” a “perfect jam,” but also acknowledges the album is packed with replayable tracks: “You could play that one. You could play ‘Loyalty.’ You could play so many songs…” (01:59)

2. “Once-in-a-Generation” Albums (02:22–02:49)

• Robin compares DAMN. to Beyoncé’s Lemonade (2016), labeling both as singular artistic achievements:

  “Once in a generation album.” (02:22)

• Stephen, with wry humor, contends:

  “Many years have once in a generation albums.” (02:28)

• They discuss DAMN.’s landmark status, including its Pulitzer Prize win.

3. Stephen’s Deep Cut: Close Talker – “Afterthought” (03:06–05:39)

• For a more personal pick, Stephen highlights “Afterthought” by Close Talker—a song he loves intensely but believes is overlooked.
• He introduces it as:

  “A song that I cannot believe more people are not as obsessed with as I am.” (03:46)

• After playing a snippet, Robin admits he’s unfamiliar with the band.
• Stephen gushes:

  “It gives me goosebumps. … There is something so sly that just like slides under your skin … I cannot get enough of this song.” (05:02)

• They compare Close Talker’s sound to Sylvan Esso.

4. Other Notable Songs & Albums from 2017 (08:15–16:35)

a. Mount Eerie – “Real Death” (Album: A Crow Looked at Me) (08:15–10:38)

• Robin highlights the album’s opener, “Real Death,” describing it as “devastating.”
• Stephen provides moving context:

  “Not just songs about death, but songs about a death. Phil Elverum from Mount Eerie lost his wife … and then wrote these albums reflecting on just these deeply vivid details of her life, her death, and her absence in some of the most vivid and haunting and beautiful ways.” (09:50)

b. Feist – “Pleasure”

• Robin recalls Feist’s major comeback after six years with the album’s title track.
• He notes:

  “It was a big one for 2017.” (11:43)

c. Kesha – “Praying”

• Stephen notes 2017 as the year of Kesha’s comeback:

  “Everybody had to stop and kind of redefine Ke$ha in their minds … was able to make a grand statement that felt really big and important in 2017.” (12:50)

d. Phoebe Bridgers – “Motion Sickness” (Album: Stranger in the Alps)

• Both hosts celebrate the impact of Bridgers’ debut, with Robin calling out “Motion Sickness” as a highlight. (13:18–14:35)

e. Lorde – “Green Light” (Album: Melodrama)

• Robin sets up Lorde’s “Green Light” as the near-miss for his song of the year:

  “If not for Kendrick … I would have picked [this].” (14:40)

• Stephen exclaims,

  “Oh Lord, this song is so good.” (14:58)

• Robin explains its lasting power:

  “She showed a real gift for turning anxiety and turmoil and loss into a complete celebration. And I was so there for it.” (16:35)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Robin (on DAMN.):
  “I listened to this four times all the way through without … before I took a break from it … it just blew my mind apart.” (01:54)

• Stephen (on Close Talker):
  “I feel like, doesn’t everybody love this song?” (05:19)
  Robin: “I don’t think anybody else knows this song the way that you know this song.” (05:29)

• Robin (on Mount Eerie):
  “One of the greatest works of art about grief, I think of all time.” (10:38)

• Stephen (on Kesha):
  “Everybody kind of knew her from TikTok and these kind of delightful, silly, stupid songs … but also was able to make a grand statement that felt really big and important in 2017.” (12:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:46–02:11 — Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA.” and the impact of DAMN.
• 02:22–02:49 — “Once-in-a-generation” albums: comparing DAMN. and Lemonade
• 03:06–05:39 — Stephen’s deep cut: Close Talker – “Afterthought”
• 08:15–10:38 — Mount Eerie – “Real Death” and exploring grief in music
• 10:53–11:59 — Feist – “Pleasure” and her return
• 12:03–12:50 — Kesha – “Praying” and redefinition as an artist
• 13:18–14:35 — Phoebe Bridgers – “Motion Sickness” and her debut
• 14:40–16:35 — Lorde – “Green Light” and celebration through turmoil

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Overall Tone & Vibe

• Warm, enthusiastic, music-obsessed banter: Hosts trade memories and favorite tracks with genuine excitement, mixing critical appreciation and personal stories.
• Deep and vulnerable at moments: Especially discussing Mount Eerie and music about grief.
• Inclusive and inviting: Even when referencing lesser-known artists, there’s an open invitation for listeners to explore along with the hosts.

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Summary

This episode of All Songs Considered honors 2017 as a powerhouse year for music, led indisputably by Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., but also filled with a diverse array of emotionally potent and stylistically varied works. Robin Hilton and Stephen Thompson offer a blend of universally acclaimed singles and hidden gems, from the cathartic poetry of Mount Eerie to the exuberant pop of Lorde and the career redefining return of Kesha. The show stands as a celebration of both shared favorites and the thrill of personal discovery—reminding listeners that, for music-lovers, every year is rich with revelations and resonance.

Transcript

[Stephen Thompson]

This Message comes from NPR sponsor 1Password. Secure access to your online world, from emails to banking, so you can protect what matters most with 1Password. For a free 2 week trial, go to 1Password.com NPR A quick note before the show. This episode contains explicit language.

[Robin Hilton]

It's All Songs Considered. I'm Robin Hilton here with Stephen Thompson talking about our number one songs of the past 25 years. We're doing a different year each week and. Hey, Stephen.

[Stephen Thompson]

Hello, Robin.

[Robin Hilton]

So we're up to 2017 and we've been trying to sort of play a little bit of Stump the Chump playing something for each other. Like, here's my pick. Do you even dig through the cobwebs of your mind?

[Stephen Thompson]

They're gonna get less cobwebby as we get closer and closer to the present. At least I hope so.

[Robin Hilton]

Do you remember this one? This deep cut? I think for 2017 we're 100% in agreement certainly on the album, if not the song we would pick. And we'll just go with this one.

[Stephen Thompson]

I got, I got, I got, I.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

Got loyalty got royalty inside my DNA Cocaine, quarter piece got war and peace inside my DNA I got power, poison, pain and joy inside my DNA I got hustle though ambition flow inside my DNA I was born like this it's born like this Immaculate conception not transform like this Perform like this Was yu a new weapon? I don't contemplate, I meditate they're off your head this that put the kids to bed this that I got, I.

[Robin Hilton]

Got, I got, I got DNA from Kendrick Lamar, obviously. Obviously from the album. Damn. I remember when this record first came out. I listened to it and then I just started it all over again. Right then in the same sitting, listened to it all over again, second time. And I literally put a do not disturb sign up and I listened to this four times all the way through without.

[Stephen Thompson]

Before you even took a break?

[Robin Hilton]

Before I took a break from it walked away and it just blew my mind apart.

[Stephen Thompson]

Yeah. I mean, DNA is a. DNA is a perfect jam. You could play that one. You could play loyalty. You could play so many songs for me. One of the ones that I have just kept going back to over and over again is love.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

She's love. I wanna be with you Hey I wanna be with I wanna be with you Hey I wanna be with.

[Robin Hilton]

I said this about Lemonade for 2016 and I remember thinking it again when Dam came out once in a generation album.

[Stephen Thompson]

I'm like, Bo, I mean, the fact of the matter is many years have once In a generation albums.

[Robin Hilton]

I don't know, man. I don't stuff that stands up to Damn Lemonade.

[Stephen Thompson]

I mean, yeah, that's a really good pair of ears for music, for sure. But I mean, it was also, like, such an undeniable record that it was like. It won a Pulitzer Prize.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, I was gonna say.

[Stephen Thompson]

Pulitzer Prize, and everybody was like, oh, yeah, that checks out.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

Yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

No, that was good.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, this year's pretty good album. Well, since I know that you were gonna pick Kendrick Lamar as well, what was sort of your backup for what would be your number two pick?

[Stephen Thompson]

Well, 2017 was a great year for music. Kendrick Lamar definitely looms, you know, kind of largest over that year. There are a number of directions I could go. I mean, I certainly could go with that. SZA record Control came out that year. And it's so funny. Cause Kendrick and Sza, now they're touring together. They've been so, you know, they had Luther, which is, you know, the biggest song of this year so far. You know, they've become sort of inextricably tied to each other. And so I want to go in a direction completely. I'm gonna pick a song from 2017 that I have listened to hundreds of times. I think very, very, very few people, even people who listen to this show, are gonna know this song.

[Robin Hilton]

One or two people will know.

[Stephen Thompson]

Gonna know this band. I've certainly talked about them on this show before. But a song that I cannot believe more people are not as obsessed with as I am.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

Read my heart and say you'll make it all right if you follow along Head enough throw it away oh, keeping it all we said that we won't show it off to some dismay Battle wounds in the heat of the night Feeling soft, I hate to say Shake it off and it'll be all right Come on, baby, won't you stay? I've said it like a hundred times. I feel my life's entire to overdrive Keep it in the tight bouquet so nobody can recognize and by the way, I'd hope that I'm more than was advertised.

[Robin Hilton]

You know, the only thing I can come up with is Silvanesso, because it sounds a little like. But it's not. I'm drawing a blank.

[Stephen Thompson]

So the song is called Afterthought by the band Close Talker.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, no, I don't know. Close Talker.

[Stephen Thompson]

And they're terrific, and they've got a bunch of great songs. That song, to me, kind of towers over everything because it is, to me, perfect. It gives me goosebumps. I'm sitting here with Goosebumps. There is something so sly that just like slides under your skin. Listening to this record, I just cannot get enough of this song. And I feel like, doesn't everybody love this song?

[Robin Hilton]

I don't think anybody else knows this song the way that you know this song. I mean, it's new to me. I like this a lot. Do you, do you hear what I'm saying, though? The similarities to Silvanessa, certainly in the voice.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh yeah. And the voice in some of the chord progressions. It definitely feels of a piece. And maybe that was just a vibe that really worked for me in 2017. But I gotta say, in the years since I've gone back and revisited that song again and again and again, and I have never gotten tired of it.

[Robin Hilton]

All right, let's just take a quick break and then talk about some of the other songs that take us back to 2017.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Stephen Thompson]

We only have one time to do this and to get it right. Even like the little small details. That stuff matters to the families that we deal with. They may not remember all the words that are shared, but they're always going to remember how you made them feel.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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[Robin Hilton]

Well, I wrote down quite a few things for 2017. A crow looked at me by Mount Erie. Yeah, Mount Erie.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, my God.

[Robin Hilton]

Just a devastating album full of devastating songs. But I'd go with the opener called Real Death.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

Death is real. Someone's there and then they're not. And it's not for singing about. It's not making into art. When real death enters the house, all poetry is dumb. When I walk into the room where you were and look.

[Robin Hilton]

Into.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

The emptiness and stone dead all fails. My knees fail. My brain fails. Words fail.

[Robin Hilton]

You know, we talked about with the Sufjan Stevens record, Carrie and Lowell, I think you said that flattened me. I thought, that's a great way to put it. Boy, did a crow look at me flatten me. It still does.

[Stephen Thompson]

This record and its sequel now only from just like a year or so later. Not just songs about death, but songs about a death. Phil Elverum from Mount Erie lost his wife, Genevieve Castray, to cancer and then wrote these albums reflecting on just these deeply vivid details of her life, her death, and her absence in some of the most vivid and haunting and beautiful ways. And it, like, it took. I waited months and months to really sit down with this record because I was like, oh, God, that is like emotional homework that I am not ready to handle. And yet I ended up just falling in love with those records and actually come back to them as just beautiful works of art.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. One of the greatest works of art about grief, I think of all time, but on the complete opposite end of the emotional spectrum. I also wrote down the song Pleasure from Feist.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, yeah.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

Get what I want and still isn't mysteriously that I want so when I get it I make sense of a mysterious there Cause I think and fly on such a serious way I and you are the same man either fiction or dream it we know enough to admit we know enough to admit we know enough to remit it's my pleasure.

[Robin Hilton]

We talked about Vice a good bit already as we've gone through the years. But, you know, by the time she dropped this album, this is the title cut Pleasure. It had been about six years since she'd released anything, so it was a big one for 2017. Yeah, but what else takes you back?

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, man. I mean, 2017 was the year of the Ke do comeback.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, yeah.

[Stephen Thompson]

Where all of a sudden, Ke$ha had that song.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

Praying I can thank you for how strong I have become Cause you brought the flames and you put me through Hell, I had to learn how to fight for myself and we both know all the truth I could tell I'll just say this as I wish you farewell I hope you're somewhere PR Praying I hope your soul is changing, changing I hope you find your peace Falling on your knees Praying.

[Stephen Thompson]

And everybody had to stop and kind of redefine Ke$ha in their minds, as you know, because everybody kind of knew her from TikTok and these kind of delightful, silly, stupid songs, which she still does brilliantly, but also was able to make a grand statement that felt really big and important in 2017. That was a great song and a great record.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

Well, you were wrong. And now the best is yet to come.

[Robin Hilton]

What else you got for 2017, though? What a great year.

[Stephen Thompson]

Phoebe Bridgers dropped her first record in 2017, Stranger in the Alps.

[Robin Hilton]

We were just talking about that one on the Halloween episode because of the song. Killer, right? But we should. If we're gonna do it, we should do something else. Let's do Motion Sickness. I think this is the one.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

I hate you for what you did, and I miss you like a little kid. I faked it every time, but that's all right. I can hardly feel anything. I hardly feel anything at all. You gave me 1500 to see your hypnotherapist. I only went one time. You let it slide. Fell on hard times a year ago. Was hoping you would let it go.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

And you.

[Stephen Thompson]

I think when we get to her next record, we'll certainly be talking about that.

[Robin Hilton]

But, you know, there's one monumental album from 2017 I think that we haven't talked about with a monumental song on it that I would have picked if not for Kendrick. And I think you're gonna know exactly what this is the second I hit it.

[Stephen Thompson]

Oh, Lord, this song is so good.

[Guest Singer/Artist]

We ordered different drinks at the same bars. I know about what you did and I wanna scream the truth. She thinks you love the beach. You're such a damn liar. Oh, those great whites they have big teeth. Oh, they bite you. Thought you said that you went be in love but you're not in love no more did it frighten you how we kissed when we danced? On the light of floor on the light of floor But I hear sounds in my mind Brand new sounds in my mind But I On the aisle Be seeing you ever I go but on the aisle Be seeing you down every road I waited for it that green light cause on the aisle Come get my things But I can't let go I'm waiting for it that green light I always try could get my things and just let go I'm waiting for it that green light I want it.

[Robin Hilton]

Steven, you just want to hang out and listen to music. Listening to music with a friend is fun.

[Stephen Thompson]

Music's so good.

[Robin Hilton]

It really is. Oh, this song, green Light, Lord, from the album Melodrama, I just found it so life giving, the piano, I'm just I'm always a sucker for a great piano line like that. But, you know, she, at least on this album, I think showed a real gift for turning anxiety and turmoil and loss into a complete celebration. And I was so there for it. I still am. Love this, but this is a perfect one to go out on. And until next week, when we look back at 2018, thanks as always, Stephen.

[Stephen Thompson]

Thank you, Robin.

[Robin Hilton]

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

[Guest Singer/Artist]

But on the aisle be seeing you down every road I'm waiting for it that green light. Girls on the aisle come get my things but I can't let go I'm waiting for it that green light oh, on the aisle come get my things but I can't let go I'm waiting for it that green light yeah, honey, I'll come get my thing.

[Sponsor/Announcer]

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