The Best Songs of 2025

Summary

All Songs Considered — The Best Songs of 2025

NPR, hosted by Robin Hilton
Aired: December 9, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this special, in-person edition of NPR’s music discovery mainstay, Robin Hilton, alongside NPR Music’s Hazel Sills and Sheldon Pierce, convene to discuss their personal picks for the best songs of 2025. The conversation, filled with warmth, friendly banter, and deep musical appreciation, highlights standout tracks and albums from a year marked by diversity and unpredictability in music. Each host brings unique perspectives and weaves in broader trends—from dancefloor experimentation to the rawness of indie rock. The episode closes on a note of communal uplift, reflecting on music’s ability to bring people together, even through loss.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

Music in 2025: General Observations

• Diversity & Restlessness:
  The team agrees there’s no clear "number one" song—tastes are more fractured, and consensus is rare.

  • Robin Hilton (01:16): “It's an unranked list…do you all have a number one song, like a personal number one song?”
  • Hazel Sills (01:40): “It's really hard for me to say, like, oh, this one song dominated my year.”
  • Sheldon Pierce (02:08): “I tend to lean towards weirder songs…most people are like, why would you pick that one?"
  • Theme: Music refuses static boundaries—genres and influences constantly shift.

• Trends:

  • Songs are emotionally earnest, genre-fluid, reflecting a world in flux.
  • Restlessness and unpredictability are reflected in song structures and lyrical content.
  • The fracturing of musical monoculture—more individual voices, less consensus.

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Featured Songs & Deep Dives

1. Dijon – “Yamaha”

Album: baby (Aug 15, 2025)
Chosen by: Hazel Sills
Segment: 02:50–06:37

• Description: A sensual, soulful R&B standout blending Prince-esque flair with modern earnestness.
• Why it's special:
  • “It's so soft and earnest…it’s like a song that's about being in love, but it's also a song about how much you love the feeling of being in love.” — Hazel Sills (04:33)
  • Notable for genre-bending, brilliant production, and vocalist-as-hype-man quirkiness.
  • Dijon’s profile is rising—behind-the-scenes success and solo acclaim.
• Trend Insight: Reflects the resurgence of openhearted R&B and breaking free of genre confines.

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2. Nourished By Time – “Max Potential”

Album: The Passionate Ones (Aug 22, 2025)
Chosen by: Sheldon Pierce
Segment: 06:43–09:22

• Description: Post–R&B with themes of searching for passion amid daily grind; blurs lines between romance and existential struggle.
• Panel’s takes:
  • “Trying to find love amid the constant stress of working your 9 to 5…” — Sheldon Pierce (07:42)
  • “...how to live your life and not be crushed by the world that we live in.” — Hazel Sills (08:20)
  • Robin Hilton initially struggles with the unique voice, like he once did with Bob Dylan, but acknowledges its distinctiveness.
• Theme: Music as solace and resistance to modern stress.

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3. Patrick Watson – “Peter and the Wolf”

Album: Oh (Sept 26, 2025)
Chosen by: Robin Hilton
Segment: 09:22–14:04

• Backstory: Watson regained his singing voice after a vocal cord hemorrhage, channeling vulnerability into haunting, layered soundscapes.
• Described as:
  • “Like twisted little fairy tales…the word I keep coming back to is magical.” — Robin Hilton (11:51)
  • “Very spooky. It sounds like I’m in a haunted music box…but there’s so many layers to this song…” — Hazel Sills (12:05)
  • Inspired by nighttime walks, city ghosts—creates an “eerie fog” atmosphere (Sheldon Pierce, 12:26).
• Memorable Moment:
  • “But it’s not just that you’re not alone. It’s that something’s coming for you.” — Robin Hilton (13:06)

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4. FKA Twigs – “Room of Fools”

Album: Usexua (Jan 24, 2025)
Chosen by: Hazel Sills
Segment: 15:28–19:12

• Analysis:
  • Draws comparisons to Björk in both sound and spirit.
  • “I hear such freedom from Twigs in this song...she is down on the dance floor with a crowd of anonymous people…” — Hazel Sills (17:04)
  • “It's significantly less cerebral than a lot of the stuff she’s done…here she is like amongst the crowds.” — Sheldon Pierce (18:02)
• Theme: Celebrating communal experiences and the visceral embrace of dance music.

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5. Pink Pantheress – “Stateside”

Album: Heaven Knows
Chosen by: Sheldon Pierce
Segment: 19:28–21:49

• Significance:
  • Marks Pink Pantheress’ transition from viral "URL pop" to mainstream presence.
  • “The full moment where she is out in the open,” — Sheldon Pierce (20:43)
• Depth: Bright sound with an undercurrent of obsession:
  • “It has that signature Pink Pantheress theme of sounding a little cute and sweet, but…she’s in love with this person, but she also is stalking them.” — Hazel Sills (21:10)
• Broader Insight:
  • Song is a “grower”—surface simplicity gives way to deeper strangeness reflecting the restless mood of the year (Robin Hilton, 21:49).

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6. Asher White – “Beers with My Name on Them”

Album: 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living (Sept 12, 2025)
Chosen by: Robin Hilton
Segment: 21:49–26:43

• Musical Style: Frenetic, unpredictable, genre-blurring—mirrors cultural and mental chaos.
• Host connection:
  • “If there was a soundtrack of my brain at any given moment this year, this was the sound of it.” — Robin Hilton (24:10)
  • “It short circuits right in the middle…” — Sheldon Pierce (24:51)
• Reflection:
  • “It really does feel like a breakdown, like, in the most literal sense, to your point about what it sounds like in your mind.” — Sheldon Pierce (25:56)

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7. Wednesday – “Townies”

Album: Bleeds (Sept 19, 2025)
Chosen by: Hazel Sills
Segment: 28:51–31:44

• Themes:
  • Ghosts of hometowns, the persistence of memory and trauma in small-town life, the inability to escape history.
• Panel Discussion:
  • “This is kind of a song about ghosts…even when they die, their memories are like embedded…” — Hazel Sills (30:13)
  • “I think it's not just about ghosts from your hometown…I think it's about the cruelties and the horrors of small town living…” — Robin Hilton (31:25)
• Meta: Illustrates the difficult task of choosing just one “best” song from an album; albums vs. singles as yardsticks.

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8. Gabriel Jacoby – “The One”

EP: Gutted Child (Nov 14, 2025)
Chosen by: Sheldon Pierce
Segment: 32:16–35:49

• Discovery:
  • “There are not a lot of times where you sort of just stumble onto an artist who has just started, who feels almost fully formed upon arrival.” — Sheldon Pierce (33:15)
• Sound: Funky, retro—evokes 90s R&B and 70s funk, yet feels fresh and generational.
• Hosts’ Reactions:
  • “I didn't realize there were young people making music that sounds like this…not in a cringe way…not in like a silk sonic way…” — Hazel Sills (34:04)
  • “There’s a lot of soul and funk, like pastiche…this is his lived experience.” — Sheldon Pierce (35:15)

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9. Olafur Arnalds & Talos – “We Didn’t Know We Were Ready”

Single Release: Posthumous (2024)
Chosen as closing track
Segment: 36:53–38:16

• Story:
  • Talos died of cancer shortly after the collaboration; the remaining artists completed the song as a tribute.
• Emotional resonance:
  • “It almost feels like they are comforting and consoling one another in the wake of this loss.” — Sheldon Pierce (37:33)
  • “You are ready…you’re stronger than you think…” — Robin Hilton (37:55)
• Closing note:
  • A message of community, resilience, and gentleness in the face of life’s unpredictability.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the difficulty of consensus:
  “If we had done previous lists the way that we did the list this year, we would have had more diffusive lists in the past as well.”
  — Sheldon Pierce (28:04)

• On genre fluidity:
  “So much music we heard this year just sort of refuses to be any one thing.”
  — Robin Hilton (05:50)

• On song vs. album:
  “Sometimes albums is the answer to me. Because Wednesday…this was the best rock album of the year.”
  — Sheldon Pierce (31:12)

• On restlessness in music:
  “We live in a very unsettled age, and the music is really reflecting that.”
  — Robin Hilton (21:49)

• On resilience and community in music:
  “The community, the sense of community, everyone coming together, it's just so angelic and celestial and just really, really beautiful.”
  — Robin Hilton (37:55)

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Major Segment Timestamps

| Time | Segment | Content | |------|---------|---------| | 00:19 | Show Begins | Introductions, 2025 list overview | | 02:50–06:37 | “Yamaha” by Dijon | Hazel’s pick; R&B, Prince influence | | 06:43–09:22 | “Max Potential” by Nourished By Time | Sheldon’s pick; R&B, existential themes | | 09:22–14:04 | “Peter and the Wolf” by Patrick Watson | Robin’s pick; haunting, comeback story | | 15:28–19:12 | “Room of Fools” by FKA Twigs | Hazel’s pick; dancefloor, experimental | | 19:28–21:49 | “Stateside” by Pink Pantheress | Sheldon’s pick; pop star evolution | | 21:49–26:43 | “Beers with My Name on Them” by Asher White | Robin’s pick; hyperactive, genre-fluid | | 28:51–31:44 | “Townies” by Wednesday | Hazel’s pick; indie rock, memory | | 32:16–35:49 | “The One” by Gabriel Jacoby | Sheldon’s pick; funk, R&B discovery | | 36:53–38:16 | “We Didn’t Know We Were Ready” by Olafur Arnalds & Talos | Closing track; tribute, community |

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Tone & Atmosphere

• Playful, self-aware, and affectionate among panelists.
• Deeply passionate about music, open to disagreement.
• Conversational reflections often blend personal stories with analysis.
• Underlying thread: music as both comfort and challenge in turbulent times.

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Summary for Non-Listeners

This 2025 year-end roundup is less about crowning “the best” and more about mapping the musical world’s vibrant, unsettled landscape. From R&B’s return to earnestness, through post-pandemic dancefloor catharsis, indie rock’s haunted memories, and experimental brain-bending tracks, the episode showcases not just excellence, but variety, sincerity, and the search for connection. The stories behind the music—artists’ comebacks, tragic losses, and unexpected debuts—reveal music as a companion through joy, struggle, and everything in between.

Transcript

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

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[Robin Hilton]

This is the first time we've ever done the show in the, in the room where we're all in the same room together.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Hazel Sills down from New York.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

I'm here in the flesh.

[Robin Hilton]

You've docked at the mothership.

[Hazel Sills]

I'm not AI. I know that was a concern.

[Robin Hilton]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Hazel Sills]

But I'm real.

[Robin Hilton]

And then, Sheldon Pierce, you're here.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yes, I am.

[Robin Hilton]

This is the All Songs Considered. Look at the year's best songs, the best songs of 2025. This will be a stunningly incomplete list. If you check out the NPR website, you will find a much more comprehensive picture of everything that we love this year. There are, what are there, 125 songs?

[Sheldon Pierce]

I'd argue there are probably more great songs than and we couldn't even find them one on the list this year.

[Hazel Sills]

Someone sounds a little salty hot take show how many songs I get.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Come on.

[Robin Hilton]

Don't even look at our list.

You won't find what you like on that list.

[Hazel Sills]

It's crazy great advertising.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. It's a mix of stuff picked by the NPR music team, our stations. On this episode, we're just going to share some of our favorites from that big, long list. And it's an unranked list. Right. It's not like there's a very clear number one song on that list. Do you all have a number one song, like a personal number one song?

[Sheldon Pierce]

I don't think so. Songs are always tougher for me. There's just so many.

[Hazel Sills]

There's too much. Yeah. I feel like as the year goes on, there will be certain months or moments where I have one favorite song and then it'll sort of transition out and then I have a new favorite song. So when the year ends, it's really hard for me to say, like, oh, this one song dominated my year. And I feel like there's just a number of songs out this year that I could say, oh, that's, that's top for me.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. But, like, I just didn't feel like there were a lot of obvious standalone singles like, oh, what a year of singles.

[Sheldon Pierce]

See, that's where we disagree. I always feel like that I'm, I'm always.

[Robin Hilton]

Oh, you mean you feel like it's that way every year?

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah, every year. I Don't. I don't think there's. There's probably more in years past than this in terms of, like, consensus singles, especially on our team. But I think generally for me, I tend to lean towards weirder songs in general that most people are like, why would you pick that one?

[Robin Hilton]

Well, I know. I've seen that.

[Hazel Sills]

I was gonna bring that up with you, actually. I wanted to be like, why did you pick?

[Robin Hilton]

Believe me, I know what you're gonna play. And that thought was never far from my mind. I was going through this. Where should we start here? Hazel, why don't you do one of your picks?

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah. So I wanna play a song from one of my favorite albums of the year, the alb, baby. And it's by an artist named Dijon, who I was not super invested in. Feel like I always heard about him and this album really hooked me. But there's one song on it that I think is essentially perfect. And the song is titled Yamaha.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

House.

The way you baby, you touch me hard.

On.

Your.

I strong, baby.

This particular emotion.

Can you see this particular motion? You shouldn't have.

[Robin Hilton]

So much Prince all over this. All over the whole record, really. Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

I think of this song as being like a song for lover boys.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

Like, it is. It's just. It's so soft and earnest and I just. It's like a song that's about being in love, but it's also a song about how much you love the feeling of being in love. And I just feel Dijon's energy so strongly in this track and I just love everything about it. I love that little sample that's like, who?

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

Whoa, whoa.

[Hazel Sills]

It's like he put his own hype man in the song in a way that I love. Yeah. I've just. This song from this album was just like a total standout for me.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Sheldon Pierce]

I mean, there is just such a brightness, a sunniness to this song that honestly, it feels reflective of the direction that R and B is going for a long time. It's been subsumed in the dark rooms in the club. And earnestness does feel like the word. This is like old school. Like bare chested. Like professionals.

[Robin Hilton]

Yes.

[Hazel Sills]

I love you, baby Like I love you very much.

[Sheldon Pierce]

And to your point about Prince, it's like. It's kind of like a power pop ballad wrapped in Prince, like swag and sensuality.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, I'm sorry. Now I can't get the bare chested Dijon out of my my mind. Like. Or maybe just like a vest, nothing else.

[Hazel Sills]

Or like a very like silk long sleeve shirt from like a 90s R&B video with like a fan with only.

[Robin Hilton]

One button, the bottom button. But yeah, I just. I just like it musically. It's like so much music we heard this year just sort of refuses to be any one thing.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah, yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

And just all the different shifts in it and yeah, it gets really warped and kind of weird at times. And a great record. So. Yamaha Dijon. You think Dijon isn't popping? Like, I kind of thought this was like huge this year, but I think.

[Hazel Sills]

Dijon has had a really incredible year. He was. He worked on Justin Bieber's most recent album, Swag. He worked on the Bon Iver album this year and he was just nominated for a Grammy for, you know, best producer non classical and so. But I think his solo stuff, more people need to come round to it. But I feel like he's on the come up for sure as an artist and as a producer for other people.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, that album baby came out August 15th and that was the song Yamaha. Sheldon, where do you want to go from there?

[Sheldon Pierce]

I want to go to an artist that I know Hazel and I are really into. It feels like even in the moment when this song came out, Hazel and I, we were like, this is the first step to something great. And then we heard the album. Hazel, I know it's your favorite of the year. It's like my second pick. It's by the artist nourished by Time and it's called Max Potential. We don't talk as much as we.

[Robin Hilton]

Used to.

[Sheldon Pierce]

I've been a witness to what you've been through.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

I know you're constantly.

[Sheldon Pierce]

If I'm gonna go ins. Feel it stop Love by you if my heart shall burst all.

Of you if I'm going to go inside.

It's kind of funny that we're playing this after Dijon because they're both very similar in a lot of ways. Both from Maryland, both kind of post R and B sensations, and both like very earnest lover boy types. I think the key difference is Marcus Brown, who is the artist behind Nourish By Time, is very much focused on trying to find love amid the constant stress of working your 9 to 5 job. And this song is. He's like sort of swept back into it. The outside world is falling away. He talks about her being paranoid. He's going insane. But he's like, at least if I go insane, I'll be loved by you.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah. I mean, so much of this album and it's why it's my favorite Album of the year is. It's really a record about how to live your life and not be crushed by the world that we live in. Your job, your wage, work, the state of the world, which can feel chaotic and overwhelming at times. And his argument on this album and also in this song a little bit is like, passion is really all that you have.

[Robin Hilton]

I think for me, I just haven't gotten past his voice yet.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Okay.

[Robin Hilton]

It's such a distinctive voice, and I think you either love it or you don't. And Pace Magazine's number one album of the year, too. Hazel. Yeah, I assume when I start seen this kind of pickup and from the team and elsewhere, I've got to conclude it's a me problem and I just haven't figured it out yet.

[Sheldon Pierce]

No, Robin, you don't have to love everyone.

[Robin Hilton]

Well, here's the thing. I was thinking, you know, like, I used to hate Bob Dylan's voice. I used to. Like, I could not listen to Dylan. And then like, something just clicked at one point.

[Sheldon Pierce]

And then, you know, it just takes some time, so it'll be worn down and there.

[Robin Hilton]

And there's a lot. I mean, there's a lot of really interesting things going on in nourished by times music. It's not like, you know, I've completely, completely dismiss it, but. So the Passionate Ones. That was another August release, came out a week after the Dijon one. It came out on August 22nd. Well, I want to go to Patrick Watson. Patrick Watson had an absolutely stunning record this year called oh, and it's got an incredible story behind it. If you don't know it or if you haven't listened to his music much. His voice is very much at the center of his music. It's one of the reasons why his songs sound as magical and wondrous as they do. He has the most beautiful falsetto. A few years ago, at the end of 2022, right after he did this live show, he suffered a vocal cord hemorrhage. And he was told that he may never speak again, let alone sing. And for months he couldn't. And he started working on this new album called oh, collaborating with a bunch of other singers. But along the way, his voice, just by sheer luck, came back. And I think when you listen to this new album, I mean, you can't believe that he ever lost it to begin with because he sounds so good. The whole album is stunning. But my favorite song, and the one that really features his voice is called Peter and the Wolf.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

I could hear that breeze two blocks Away.

Blowing through the south wind.

Into God Dark in the strangest way Way.

Slowly, slowly came this way.

The.

[Robin Hilton]

I could live in that world of sound for the rest of my life. It's just. They're like twisted little fairy tales to me. Just the way they sound, his voice, the narratives. I don't know. The word I keep coming back to is magical. Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

Very spooky. You know, it sounds like I'm in a haunted music box, which I feel like is a sound. I say I'm like, I love music that sounds like that. But there's so many layers to this song. Just the way the little twinkling synths and the way that he warps his voice is so interesting. Yeah, it really is. This little dark universe.

[Sheldon Pierce]

He said that this song sort of really came together on a nighttime walk in New Orleans. He said that city is surrounded by ghosts when you're out there. And he could hear the bassy low end of this car that was driving in the distance. And it made him think of the car as being the wolf in this situation. And I think when you put that all together, you get sort of like the eerie fog that seems to be hanging over this. There's something off in the distance. You can't clearly make out the darkness is setting in, but there's a sense that you're not alone. There's like a spectral presence on the back of this song.

[Robin Hilton]

But it's not just that you're not alone. It's that something's coming for you.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Something's happening. You can feel the presence of something else. You just can't make sense of what it is.

[Hazel Sills]

It's. It's a song that like literally creeps up on you, like the way that it builds and then suddenly you're like enveloped by this sou.

[Robin Hilton]

I did not think that I would have Patrick Watson this year on my best of the year, but man, this album, the whole album is just breathtaking. It is absolutely stunning. It's called oh and it came out on September 26th.

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[Hazel Sills]

So I want to play a song from another one of my favorite albums of the year, you, Sexua by the artist FK Twigs. I've played this song on the show before. It's called Room of Fools.

[Robin Hilton]

I actually kind of like it. As Hazel we're back to you and we just hear that.

I'm malfunctioning.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

Stranger.

In the dark room.

This room of wolves.

We make something together.

We're open wounds.

Just bleeding out the pressure.

[Robin Hilton]

This is totally Bjork from her debut.

[Hazel Sills]

Yes. I called her a daughter of Bjork. I feel like last time I talked about her on the show.

[Robin Hilton]

What's the Bjork song where she.

[Hazel Sills]

I don't know.

[Robin Hilton]

She's in a club and then she goes into the bathroom and she's still going more to life than this.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, yeah. I love this song so much and I think it's because, and I've said this on the show before, Fk Twigs is such an experimental, you know, cerebral artist. The way that she approaches her music and I hear such freedom from Twigs in this song. Like she is a performer, she's a professional dancer. But in this song, she is down on the dance floor with a crowd of anonymous people dancing and experiencing the music. Just like, you know, the people.

[Sheldon Pierce]

The one that's been drawing me in is we make something together. We were talking recently about people being a bit like too concerned about the way that stuff like systems sound at venues. Like sometimes you just go there to feel the vibrational mass.

[Hazel Sills]

I'm not thinking about the acoustics when I'm.

[Sheldon Pierce]

You're there to be there with people as a community.

[Robin Hilton]

If it's over modulated.

[Sheldon Pierce]

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's about and to Me, like the idea of making something together. The thing that this song sort of encompasses. And to Hazel's point, it is significantly less cerebral than a lot of the stuff that she's done. It's very like. Literally you could think of her as like often like looking into the club in a lot of her songs. And here she is like amongst the crowds.

[Hazel Sills]

It's in the body.

[Sheldon Pierce]

She's roving amongst the crowd. She's feeling the music.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. I mean, everything she does to me is just so wildly inventive. I'm always going to show up for it.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

You know, like, maybe I don't want to go on the dance floor, but she. She makes it sound.

[Hazel Sills]

You don't want to go on the dance floor.

[Sheldon Pierce]

That's. I mean, that's the other thing.

[Robin Hilton]

Tired.

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

Even if.

[Sheldon Pierce]

But even saying that, it's like, this is like, you could listen to this in your headphones too. It's her. Her music is always so outside the box that even her ventures onto the dance floor are still as experimental as totally the stuff that a lot of people work on.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. 100%. So usexua, one of those albums that came out right at the top of the year. It came out on January 24th and it stayed with you, Hazel, through the whole year.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

It really did.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Which is like nearly impossible to do. That's something else we were talking about on the year in review, like how many amazing albums we loved when they came out. And like three weeks later the next thing comes up and like, are we still listening to it right when we get to the end of the year? Sheldon, what do you want to follow that with?

[Sheldon Pierce]

I'm gonna keep it in a sort of dancey space. I'm gonna do another song that we did on the show for the mid year show, bringing it back. It's by Pink Panthers. It's called Stateside.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

I'm freezing outside I feel my skin tight My coat is inside but I look up at you I tracked your plane ride the one you're in tonight Tell me when is the next time I'll run into you it sounds insane but I'll take the wait at your bedside around right next to you I'm going state but I'll see you tonight Tell me how does a girl like me get into you?

[Robin Hilton]

Okay, I take it back. If you go to the club, will you call me? I got you. Let me know.

[Sheldon Pierce]

This song to me feels like such a key crossing of the threshold moment. I wrote about this on our list on npr.org. pink Panther started as a URL pop star.

[Robin Hilton]

Right.

[Sheldon Pierce]

She was very online. She was a TikTok sensation. One of the first to sort of break through. And I think of this song as being like, the full moment where she is out in the open.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah. I feel like the song this year that a lot of people associate with this album is Illegal.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Right.

[Hazel Sills]

Which just got nominated for a Grammy. Stateside is just. It's such a complex song for her catalog, and it has this really, you know, great production by the Dare, who I'm not typically a fan of, but I think he is such a good match for her love and affinity of, like, British dance music and pop music. And it just. It has that signature Pink Pantherist theme of sounding a little cute and sweet, but if you really listen to the lyrics a little bit more, it's kind of sinister. She's in love with this person, but she also is stalking them.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah, she's definitely stalking them.

[Hazel Sills]

So, yeah, it's just. This is a real big song for me this year.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. It was a grower for that very reason that it is like, the. Like, it can just feel good and you can just sort of take it at surface level, but the more you listen to it and the longer you spend time with it. Yeah. The kind of creepier it gets, the stranger it gets. It's very restless. And that was a theme I kept coming back to time and time again throughout this year is just like how restless so much of the music is that we're listening to. We live in a very unsettled age, and the music is really reflecting that. I hear that in particular in the next thing that I want to play, which is the Asher White, A cut from the Asher White record. The album is called 8 Tips for Full Catastrophe Living, which, I mean, short list for album title of the year. 8 tips for full Catastrophe Living. It's like music for generation ADHD or just cultural whiplash. Societal whiplash. Everything that we've been living through the past year, you hear it all on this song called Beers with my name on them.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

There's a surprise waiting in the forest the fool of the marvel.

I did the dishes I do not shake my rights and wait for you to come home. You deserve to be paid.

[Robin Hilton]

So we're only playing partial cuts here. And because this goes through a lot of changes, I want to just skip ahead here to a little breakdown.

And then maybe one more section here. Even a little later.

If there was a soundtrack of my brain at any given moment this year, this was the Sound of it. And it's such a rewarding listen to me, it's just consistently rewarding. It just keeps giving, keeps surprising you. If you're looking for this kind of music, like unsettled music or music that refuses to. To be one thing, this was one of my favorite picks of the year.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah.

[Hazel Sills]

I'll be honest. When the song starts, I was like, I don't know if this is for me, that kind of like twee jaunty opening. This kind of like almost like jazz hands musical theater opening. But, you know, you stay with it and you're like, oh, this is unraveling.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Honestly, it just feels like. Like it short circuits, like, right in the middle. It's like, oh, it has a song that it is. And then it. That song completely breaks down into this other thing that is really, really interesting. It takes you in so many different directions. Such a sort of eclectic listen, Such a surprising listening experience. I think what has really drawn me to this music is too often artists feel sort of compelled to, like, be overly prescriptive about what their music is and what it should mean. And, like, they are compelled to sort of wear that meaning on their sleeves in their songs. This is a song you have to sort of really wrestle with. And even at the end, I don't know what it's supposed to be telling me, I feel like I can project some kind of intrigue onto it. It really does feel like a breakdown, like, in the most literal sense, to your point about what it sounds like in your mind. It's like just a complete unraveling of the psyche that is really sort of enjoyable.

[Robin Hilton]

I'm not saying my psyche is completely unraveling.

[Sheldon Pierce]

You're not, are you? Are you sure?

[Robin Hilton]

Well, I don't know.

[Hazel Sills]

Tell me this is a safe space. No one's gonna hear this.

[Sheldon Pierce]

No. I'm curious. Cause you said that you. This is what the inside of your mind sounds.

[Robin Hilton]

My brain is going in.

[Sheldon Pierce]

What does that mean to you when.

[Robin Hilton]

You'Re like, oh, okay, yeah, sure. Okay. Sincerely, I can't can tell you. It feels all the time for me like my brain is going in 500 different directions all at the same time, and it's doing it at a thousand.

[Sheldon Pierce]

So it's hyperactivity.

[Robin Hilton]

Hyperactivity for sure. Yeah. And, you know, complete lack of focus and just, you know, it's very hard for me to. If I were capable of making music like this, this is the kind of music that would come out of me. So. 8 tips for full catastrophe living came out on September 12th.

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[Robin Hilton]

Well, I know we all have one more song that we want to play, and I was. So that'd be like nine cuts. I was thinking it'd be good if we did A nice even 10, if there was just something we could all agree on. But that sort of is very indicative of the year. I think that, you know, I really thought there would be a lot of unanimous votes across the board for a lot of different things. And I've been seeing people's lists coming in, not just on the NPR music team, but different sites and different number ones, different top tens across the board.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, it's kind of exciting. Like I think we did, there was a chunk of years, you know, four or five years ago where it felt like every music website's list, you know, had the same number one and number one album, number one song. And I feel like we're breaking out of that or maybe that maybe music is just so much better now.

[Sheldon Pierce]

And I don't know, I can't speak for other sites. We have changed processes internally. True that I think have made this kind of thing more likely. I think if we had done previous lists the way that we did the list this year, we would have had more diffusive lists in the past as well.

[Robin Hilton]

But like, I just keep looking at different sites thinking, all right, let's see.

[Sheldon Pierce]

I do think.

[Robin Hilton]

And it's like, no, it's not number one.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Generally, there has been a fracture of taste, I think, and one that I think will continue to happen as we have, like, less sort of monoculture artists.

[Robin Hilton]

What is your final pick here for this episode? Knowing that there are many, many more songs that you could pick. Hazel, what do you want to play as your last song?

[Hazel Sills]

Well, I want to play a little bit of indie rock. Ever heard of that?

[Robin Hilton]

Indie rock, A little something something called indie rock.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Have I ever.

[Hazel Sills]

I want to play a song from an album that, honestly, it was hard to pick a favorite song from it. There were so many great songs from this album that I could have put on this podcast. It's the album Bleeds by the band Wednesday. And the song I want to play from it is Townies Catching up with Townies.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

Some have gone but most still around the ghost them surround me Hang on tight until they drown Met you in the neighborhood, you have connects to get us high and then you sent the nudes around I never yelled at you bout it. Cause you.

[Hazel Sills]

You know, this is kind of a song about ghosts. It's about, you know, people from your hometown that just stick around and. And even when they die, their memories are like embedded into your experiences when you go back. And that is such like a touchstone of Carly Hartsman's songwriting in Wednesday. She is someone who is in her late 20s, but I hear her music and I hear someone who has lived a full life and has stories to tell and is putting all of that into her songwriting. And yeah, this song is just a perfect little Wednesday track.

[Sheldon Pierce]

This sort of highlights the struggle that I have with songs every year. I'm like, is. Is this the best song from this record? I mean, I might have maybe gone with Elderberry Wine. I think you would have gone with a different song than that.

[Hazel Sills]

Well, Wound Up Here by Holden on was my pick from this album. But, you know, we made the list and Townies really came out on top and, you know, I'm just happy to rep any song that's.

[Sheldon Pierce]

And that's why I'm like, you know, sometimes albums is the answer to me. Because Wednesday, I mean, we wrote. Anne Powers, the great Ann Powers wrote about how this was the best rock album of the year.

[Robin Hilton]

But if you only listen to Elderberry Wine, I'm not sure that you would conclude that it was the best rock album of the year. And that was like. I like Townies myself. This is the cut I would go with. I think it's not just about ghosts from your hometown. I think it's about the. The cruelties and the horrors of small town living where everybody, everyone knows your stuff, everyone knows your business.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah. You can't. You can't escape your history.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah. And I feel like that was kind of a theme I heard coming up in a lot of songs that we played on the show this year too. I mean, just most recently we had like Ken Pomeroy's Stranger, SG Goodman, Snapping Turtle, the song that SG Goodman did, where there's songs like, wow, you really start getting into the stories and they're really, really painful. There's of a lot, lot of stuff going on in this Wednesday cut that is pretty disturbing if you sit with it for very long. Yeah. So Bleeds is The album and that came out on September 19th. Sheldon, what do you want to do for your last one?

[Sheldon Pierce]

I'm going to do a song that we played on the show. This was the one out of the blue. Discovery this year for me, that just stuck with me. It's from a new artist named Gabriel Jacoby. It's called the one.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

Hey.

I'm hanging on to you.

Baby can't lie I'm used to letting go baby don't stand too far from it now Come get invasive I need you right here with me to show you my love for you Girl I'm waiting on what you going to say Wait, come tell me something maybe it's how you need so much love you.

To move with me.

[Sheldon Pierce]

There are not a lot of times where you sort of just stumble onto an artist who has just started, who feels almost fully formed upon arrival. I just listened to this song on a whim, then went to this dude's YouTube channel. He had six songs at the time. He has since released a great EP that this song is on. It's called Gutted Child. But this one, to me, it really sort of encapsulates what is great about his music. Distinctly funky, sort of. Hazel and I were talking about it yesterday. Like, representative of a certain kind of 90s R&B sound, but also like sort of pushing forward in a specific direction. It's just so full bodied. It's so smooth, but so raw still. It's just like. It really gets me going every time I hear it.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah, it's such a fun feeling. And I felt this when I saw this song on your list. And I was like, who. I'm sorry, who is this? And I listened and I was like, whoa. I didn't realize there were young people making music that sounds like this anymore. Like truly like funky music. And not in a cringe way. Not in like a silk sonic way. Like a Bruno Mars way. Like, you know. Yeah, we mentioned like late 90s R&B, but I also hear, you know, like 70s funk music. And I. But it also. Yeah, but it also. At the same time, it feels very much like. I don't know. How old is he?

[Sheldon Pierce]

He's 25.

[Hazel Sills]

Okay, so he's baby. But I still feels very much like of his generation. Whereas there's not a big story to this song. You're not listening to this song for the lyrics. You're listening to this song to move.

[Robin Hilton]

Yeah, I don't know what it is. It's a bit of an X factor because in a lot of Ways he is just retreading stuff that's been done many, many times before. But there's. I don't know, there's a depth and authenticity to this that feels, to your point, Sheldon, like we could already be talking about his deep back catalog now.

[Sheldon Pierce]

You know, there's a lot of soul and funk, like Pastiche, a lot of people literally trying to recreate an experience that happened. It just feels like this is his lived experience.

[Hazel Sills]

It's not costume.

[Sheldon Pierce]

It's not like, yes, he is this. This is in him. And it feels like there is, like almost a spiritual thing happening where he's like, channeling funk greats of the past. But he does have a very distinct voice. It's like everything he could be comes into focus when you hear a song like this.

[Robin Hilton]

So Got a Child just came out In November, on November 14, I think that was. We just had that one single when we played it on the show and we were like, what?

[Sheldon Pierce]

Where's he going?

[Robin Hilton]

The Holy Bee's great too. So that came out on November 14th. Like I said, we're just barely even scratching the surface on this episode of even our own personal lists, let alone all the other lists out there. Again, you'll find a much longer, more complete list online. 125 songs picked by the music team and our stations. You can hear full versions of these songs and all the songs on that big, long list in a playlist that we put together. You can find that on Spotify and Apple. Also have a whole bunch more end of the year stuff coming this month, but I want to play one more song to take us out here. It is kind of a total mood shift, but I feel like it's a good one to go out on because it has such a beautiful message. The song itself is so beautiful and very uplifting, I think. It's a song by Olafur Arnolds and Talos called We Didn't Know We Were Ready. Olafur Arnolds, a pianist composer from Iceland. Talos was a singer and electronic artist from Ireland. He and Oliver Arnolds collaborated on this song with Eve Vagabonds and the singer Nev Reagan at a festival that I think was in September of 2023. And then just a few months later, Talos was diagnosed with cancer and he ended up passing away in August of 2024. Then Oliver Arnolds and all of their friends all got together to make this posthumous recording. And it's all particularly moving because the song itself is just about how fleeting life is and how unpredictable it is and fragile it is, but it is also, I think, just so beautiful and uplifting.

[Sheldon Pierce]

What is really moving about this song is there's a moment where the entire sort of choir of voices comes together. They all singing the refrain, we didn't know we were ready. And it almost feels like they are comforting and consoling one another in the wake of this loss.

[Hazel Sills]

Yeah. I just love the simplicity of its message. Like you are ready.

[Robin Hilton]

Another way to say it, I think, is that you're stronger than you think is part of the message here. But yeah, the community, the sense of community, everyone coming together, it's just so angelic and celestial and just really, really beautiful. Again, Olafur Arnolds and Talos we didn't know we were read. Hazel Sills, Sheldon Pierce, thanks always for a great hang and for a great year.

[Hazel Sills]

Thank you for having me.

[Sheldon Pierce]

Yeah, it's so great to be here.

[Robin Hilton]

And for NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered.

[Song Lyric Vocalist]

In the night we sang the stones.

For the peace that breaks it all.

Did we doubt the evening sun?

We didn't know we were ready.

With the answers at our feet.

Will we break the grounds beneath?

What if the dreams are us to keep?

What if the silence setting.

In the night we sang the storms.

For the peace that breaks and.

How did we doubt the evening song.

We didn't know we were ready.

With the answers and the feet.

Will we break the ground beneath?

What if the dreams are us to keep?

What if the silence ended.

Sam.

In the night we say to stars.

For the peace that breaks it all.

How did we dump the the.

Sun.

We didn't know we were ready.

With the answers at our feet with the answers at our feet Will we break the ground?

What if the dreams were ours to keep? What if the dreams arise?

What if the silence setting what if the silence setting.

We didn't know we were ready.

We didn't know we were ready.

What if the silence.

What if the silence said.

We didn't know we were ready.

What if the silence.

We didn't know we were ready.

You.

What if the silence silence.

We didn't know we were ready.

What if the silence.

Day.

We didn't know we were ready.

What if the silence.

We didn't know we were ready.

What if the sailors sitting.

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