Big Thief’s Buck Meek, Joji and more of the week's best songs

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4.3 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

NPR’s classical critic Tom Huizenga joins host Robin Hilton for our first spin of the best songs we’re hearing in 2026, including new ones from Big Thief’s Buck Meek, the genre-hopping artist Joji, “fragile hope” from composer Daníel Bjarnason and more.

Featured artists and songs:

1. Buck Meek: “Gasoline,” from ‘The Mirror’

2. Pekka Kuusisto & Sam Amidon: "Way Go, Lily" (Arr. by Nico Muhly / Adapted for orchestra by Bernard Rofe), from ‘Willows’

3. Joji: “Love You Less,” from ‘P*** In The Wind’

4. Joyce DiDonato & Time for Three: “Because I could not stop for Death," from ‘Emily - No Prisoner Be’

5. Jana Horn: “Don’t think,” from ‘Jana Horn’

6. Daniel Bjarnason & The Iceland Symphony Orchestra: “Fragile Hope,” from ‘The Grotesque and the Sublime’

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Transcript

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0:00.0	If you want to record a show, pro tip.
0:04.3	Microphone on.
0:05.2	Turn the microphone.
0:06.5	Microphone on.
0:11.4	Tom, I feel like I've been trying to get some time to hang out with you and play and talk about new music for a while now.
0:19.9	It's been a minute.
0:20.9	Well, you know, the holidays kind of got in the way. The holidays? Do you know when the last time was that you were on the show?
0:28.9	Several months. August. Oh, wow. August. Haven't had you in the hot seat since August.
0:35.6	That is proof of how time flies.
0:38.8	It really does.
0:40.2	Get away from you.
0:41.5	Yeah.
0:41.7	If you're not paying attention.
0:43.8	Sorry about that, but you just got to keep calling through.
0:47.9	You know, the lines are always busy.
0:50.3	Well, we start off every year with a blank sheet.
0:53.7	Yeah.
0:54.0	Clean slate. And we start adding every year with a blank sheet. Yeah. Clean slate.
0:55.3	And we start adding songs to this virtual list.
0:58.5	It's a running list of all the new tracks that we're loving.
1:02.1	As the year marches on, we'll update it and add to it.
1:06.0	It's all songs considered.
	...

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