Laufey, Fiona Apple, Lord Huron, more: The Contenders, Vol. 11

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We've got another update to our running list of the year's best songs with the return of Fiona Apple, Laufey, deep reflections from Lord Huron and more.

Featured artists and songs:
1. Fiona Apple: "Pretrial (Let Her Go Home)" (single)
2. Jerskin Fendrix: "SK1" (single)
3. Lord Huron: "Looking Back," from 'The Cosmic Selector, Vol. 1'
4. Eph See: "Malachi The Uber Driver" (Tiny Desk Contest entry)
5. Kacy Hill: "Please Don't Cry" (single)
6. Laufey: "Tough Luck," from 'A Matter Of Time'

'All Songs Considered' 25th anniversary segment: Our No. 1 songs from 2013

Weekly reset: Neighborhood birds on a spring morning

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Hear new songs from past episodes in the All Songs Considered playlists in Apple Music and Spotify.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from Song Exploder, a podcast where artists talk about the making and meaning of one of their songs, taking you layer by layer through the instruments and sounds in the recording.
0:10.9	Find Song Exploder wherever you listen to podcasts. It'll change the way you listen to music.
0:16.3	How are you doing, Sheldon? Let me get a level on you here.
0:19.2	I'm doing, uh, okay, I think.
0:22.1	The enthusiasm is staggering.
0:25.3	That's, uh, that's about, that's about the best I can muster.
0:28.2	Is that the best you can do?
0:29.3	Yeah.
0:30.8	I gotta be honest, it's hard sometimes not to think that we live in just the dumbest time.
0:35.7	Um, I think we think we literally do.
0:38.2	I think there's more an argument for than against at this point.
0:43.3	Facts matter.
0:44.8	I thought this can't just be the grumpy old man syndrome that my wife is certain I suffer from.
0:51.2	Yeah.
0:51.6	I mean, it always seems like there are fresh horrors.
0:54.4	I think that's probably been true through most of history.
0:56.7	I think what we're experiencing now, though, is like fresh horrors that it feels like we don't
1:02.5	need to be experienced.
1:04.0	And as a result, it's like this is really, really, the avoidability of so much of it is
1:10.2	what makes it exceedingly dumb.
1:12.5	It makes me think of that Onion essay, guest essay from, this has been years ago, but the headline was,
1:18.2	you learn something new and depressing every day. Yeah. And the whole angle of it is sort of like,
	...

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