Natalia Lafourcade, Chris Staples, more: The Contenders, Vol. 10

All Songs Considered

NPR

Music

4.4 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We update our running list of the year's best songs with a plainspoken but moving story from Chris Staples, a wildly unpredictable piece from soprano Barbara Hannigan, Natalia Lafourcade and more.

Featured artists and songs:
1. Third Coast Percussion: "Please Be Still," from 'Standard Stoppages'
2. Chris Staples: "Two Carat Diamond," from 'Don't Worry'
3. Barbara Hannigan, David Chalmin: "Che t'ho fatt'io?," from 'Electric Fields'
4. Natalia Lafourcade: "Cocos en la playa," from 'Cancionera'
5. Brooklyn Rider: "Tenebrae," from 'The Four Elements'

'All Songs Considered' 25th anniversary segment: Our No. 1 songs from 2012

Weekly reset: Airing out and beating futons on a Saturday morning in Toyohashi, Japan

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Questions, comments, suggestions or feedback of any kind always welcome: [email protected]

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.
0:16.5	Tom, you've got a birthday coming up, don't you? True. And don't tell me when it is because I want to, this is a great chance for me to do my little parlor trick.
0:24.1	Oh.
0:24.5	I know everybody's birthday.
0:25.6	But, you know, it happens every year.
0:28.0	I have one a year.
0:29.0	But do you know when my birthday is?
0:32.3	May something.
0:35.9	You are correct.
0:36.9	It is.
0:37.3	Yours is May 17th, think this is correct yeah you know
0:40.9	who else has a birthday on may 17 yes i do eric satee and the iatola okay not where i was going i was
0:47.7	going to say nprs hazel sills her birthday is also on that's right yeah yeah that is right i forgot
0:54.0	all about that mine's may 28th oh okay so file that away i'll find this birthday is also on May 7th. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
0:55.0	Mine's May 28th.
0:56.0	Okay.
0:57.0	So file that away.
0:58.0	I'll file that away.
0:59.0	I don't know where I got this superpower, but I can tell you people's birthdays.
1:03.0	I will follow that away and I'll be certain to forget it.
1:06.0	All right.
	...

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