All Songs Considered: Olivia Rodrigo covers The Magnetic Fields, Noah Kahan channels his mom, and more

Each episode will speak with a special guest, listen to musical gems, play music inspired games and answer questions from our listeners, the first episode drops March 4th.

Listen on the NPR app. This episode of all songs considered comes to you from the NPR music podcast. We've got new episodes of this show every Tuesday, alt Latino on Wednesday, and we close out every week in the NPR music podcast with new music Friday, NPR music. Also, of course, your home for tiny desks and the tiny desks contest door love it. I do love the tiny desks contest.

And you have been, you're one of the producers, and you've been going through all of the entries.

“We're like, where are we with that? We're close to wrap in it up, aren't we?”

I hope. I hope. What could it happen?

Well, right now, you included.

Our judges are picking their very favorite entries. We call it our top shelf series. Yeah, I've already found. I haven't seen one yet that I think this could be the winner, but... I actually, I found one that I did think could definitely be the winner today.

I said to El Manion, the other producer of the contest, to look at our desk of the day series, which is on NPR music's Instagram Stories, where we highlight another great entry every week day from now until when top shelf starts. But one of those entries, I was like, this could be the winner in my eyes. I loved it so much.

Oh, wow. Well, I'm going to have to check that out. You're going to have to show it to me because the artist who won last year, Ruby of R,

that was the first video I watched out of all of them.

And I thought, did I just see the winner, but... Yeah. Well, in this episode of All Songs, consider where you are talking best new songs of the week. It's actually been a minute since we did a show where we update our running list of the year's best songs. I thought we would start with this new cut that we just got from Noicon.

And I'm just going to say it right now. He's going to have a year. I mean, he's already pretty big deal. Things really blew up form back in 2022 when he released the album. Stick season.

“I didn't know there was like another level for him, but I think he's found it on this new album that we know is coming now.”

It's called The Great Divide. I've already heard a handful of singles. I got an advance in some of the music, and it is so good. This new single that he just dropped is called Porch Light, and we'll talk a little bit more about it after we're here. You're looking for an autopsy.

You're a half-assed, half-pocket. And I think you picked their own time to make this call. It is not an elephant. She stopped thinking you're missing, but I'm giving you the benefit. Because it's raining.

I'll tell you how the weather is. You'll step into some other quit that you're ambling. Mixed messaging, I should shut you down. But it's cold and it's cold and it's cold and it's cold and it's cold. I don't know, I'm alone, alone, alone, alone, alone.

I hope you tell me that you found it down, that you lost a taste of face to crown, but it ever made you famous, made you sick. But you can only do it, tell you the lies that ain't up to you to make it out, and there ain't no shame and calmness, thing ques. But you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't. You're in the ghost, you're in the ghost, you're in the ghost, you're in the ghost, you're in the ghost, you're in the ghost, you're in the ghost and you're. What is this man?

It's in the world. I hate old and everything, old and everything, they don't. I know, praise you, and praise you, and praise you, and praise you, and praise you, and praise the forst that on. All wrong games, all wills need, turns it off. So it goes, so it goes, so it goes.

You act like we're to sit up here and make real, real, real, but maybe there are bills to pay.

“No, that's what'll be so, now try to drown out all the talk.”

The eyeballs in the parking lots tell people that they meet you all, but I guess you're my fault. It goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes.

So it goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes.

“So it goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes.”

It doesn't need just sound like this unstoppable force, so it goes, so it goes, so it goes. It doesn't need just sound like this unstoppable force. He really does, to be completely honest, I never felt connected to stick season and it was so popular and it is music that I feel like, I would like, I really like folk and country music, but yeah, hearing porch light and hearing these new singles, he really sounds like

he feels locked into the music that he really wants to make, and yeah, it's really

amazing, which is why I never felt connected to stick season because it didn't feel totally

authentic to him.

“Oh, really, yeah, because I feel like he's really poured himself into all of these songs,”

which is partly what this song, porch light is all about, because he has opened up his life so much in his music, in ways that he feels like maybe, I don't know, like he feels a little guilty about, revealing so much of his family life and whatnot in these songs, and in this song, porch light is sung from the perspective of his mom, he's imagining his mom singing to him, you know, at one point he sings, I'd ask how you've been, but

it's all over the internet, right, you know, or there's another moment when he sings, it's not irrelevant that you stop taking your medicine and I'm giving you the benefit

“because it's raining out, like all these very clear references to a lot of the struggle”

she's had with anxiety and depression, and you know, he's a real advocate for mental health, all of that comes through, and I felt like that was in stick season too, but yeah, this

new batch of songs really powerful.

Yeah, he really has such a strong sense of place and memory in the lyrics and also just like sonically as a whole, and with all the imagery that's coming out with the album, too, that picture of the window with the kids playing. Yeah, well, even porch light is lost, like porch light says, I'm waiting for you, porch light says we're home, this is home, and all of the comforts and safety and familiarity that

that implies the idea of home, and it's like we're leaving a light on for you, you're welcome anytime, it's such a simple little image, porch light, a porch light, but it says so much. It really does. So the album is called Great Divide that song, again, was called porch light, this album

is coming out in April at the end of April on April 24th. You know, one thing that's interesting about Noah Khan's music is he takes this folk music form, and he blows it up into the sort of fist in the air, anthems, and it works so well. Yeah, I feel like that ability to kind of build upon something that we know so well, like

this folk sea sound that Noah Khan has is really what sets apart these big name pop stars and stars from each other, and another person that did that recently in a way that really

spoke to me was Olivia Rodrigo, what she did was so incredible.

It's a cover of the book of love by the magnetic fields, and it was released on the most recent compilation from War Child Recordings called Help to. The book of love is long and boring, though one can lift the damn thing, it's full

I love it when you read to me, you can read me anything.

“The book of love has music in it, in fact it's where music comes from, some of it is just”

just read down, but I love it when you sing to me, you can sing me anything. The book of love is long and boring, and written very long ago, it's full of

flowers and heart-shaped boxes and things were all too young to know, and I love it

when you give me things, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are, you are you. You all it gives me what it means.

“I am the biggest sucker for a cover song in the world.”

There is nothing that I love more than I cover, recorded cover, I just, it's my favorite

thing in the world, because it's so clear when an artist does a cover that this is something that they love and it's such a nice way to be in conversation with a song and an artist that you respect and are influenced by and the thing that makes a cover so great and that Olivia Rodrigo does so well here is keeping the same feeling of the song but making something that feels very different and in the original magnetic fields, book of love, the instrumental

in the guitar is so plucky and sharp, and the vocals are very washed out and very large. And I feel like here, Olivia Rodrigo flips that and has this very, very washed out instrumental and her vocals are so sharp. It's such an unexpected cover for so many reasons, one being what you were saying going into it, like she's this massive pop and rock star selling out stadiums and which could

not be more opposite than the magnetic fields which is sort of the quintessential indie rock

“and pop band and also totally different generations but she really, I think she just really,”

really sticks the landing with this cover to your point, a really, really great cover makes you appreciate the artist who's doing the cover in new ways but also then makes you appreciate the artist that's being covered in new ways and you hear both of them in completely

I think she finds a little bit of sadness in this song, a little bit of loneliness and in a song that to me is one of the greatest love songs ever written, period and I have only heard joy and laughter and it's a very funny song, the book of love, nobody can lift the

“damn thing, it's the book of love is so big and heavy, right?”

But hearing Olivia's version here, yeah, it kind of finds this little, it's sort of like the ending of the graduate where they found true love finally and they run off together and they're sitting in the back of the bus and then this sort of sadness kind of comes over and I don't know, it's brilliant cover. Yeah, I really like the way that you said that because there is when I, when I listened to this cover and then I went back to the book of love,

the original one, I was like, oh, this, this isn't as sad as I remember it being because I listened to Olivia's first. She also, I mean, she's so brave for covering just a quintessential

right, that's been heard a million times. Yeah, and she's so good at paying homage to these like

classic hits, she does the same with Paramore. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this compilation, it's called Help to, bunch of other great artists and songs on it too, Arlo Parks is on a Rouge Off top,

“Cameron Winters, Cameron Winters, I think Arctic monkeys like first song in a bunch of years,”

new song is on it, totally worth checking out. What leg, what that was for us, yeah, is on there as well. Yeah, I'm so glad you picked this one. From WQXR and Carnegie All comes classical music happy out, a new podcast hosted by me, pianist Maniacs. Each episode will speak with a special guest, listen to musical gems, play music inspired games and answer questions from our listeners, the first episode drops March 4th. Listen on the NPR app.

You know, door before the show, we were sitting in here just kind of going off on all the awful things in the world. And we thought, I could just be the show, just as talking about all the things that are in the news right now. But I've been thinking a lot lately about AI. It's kind of hard not to given how much it's been in the news lately. But you know, just the whole debate about what is real, what is not real, what does that even mean? You know, there's a lot more

going on in the AI debate than just that. But that's the part that's really been on my mind.

“And I've been struggling with what this means for my kids. I mean, honestly, for everybody like,”

you know, what does it mean when we're not only living our lives through our screens, but when everything that's coming to us through our screens isn't even real, right? So there's this great new song from the band, Ages and Ages, this is a Portland band that I've loved for years, ages and ages. Great new song I want to play that kind of reflects on all of this on how empty the current age can feel and the idea of sort of, I don't know, like desperately wanting something tangible and

real and authentic to hold on to. The song is called, "Feel Amazing."

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and I wanted to feel amazing. And I'm watching the free way on the weekday and the lights, they've been so crazy, I'm the rails, life can not dance, I can almost hold in my hand. Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and I wanted to feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and I wanted to feel amazing.

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand. Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.

“Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.”

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand.

Feel amazing, don't know what I said, I wanted to be real and authentic to hold in my hand. Feel amazing, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said, don't know what I said. I just love ages and ages so much.

They're the kind of band, like when I listen, do you know ages and ages and ages? I do, yeah, so, but they're the kind of band when I listen to them, I think why isn't this one of the biggest bands in the world because their music is so infectious, so catchy, like this whole song, feel amazing, it's like such a breezy playful take on what is essentially existential fatigue, right, like why are we even here, like I don't know what I want, I just know that I want it to feel real and I want it to feel amazing.

“I mean, halfway through the song when it breaks, the chorus just keeps looping and looping, which I really love and they just keep repeating, I just want to feel amazing and it feels like even they're catching on to their own songs.”

Yeah, do you think like he's starting to believe it? Yeah, yeah. So that's Tim Perry is the lead singer, main guy in the band. I hit him up and said, so like where was this coming from and he says that he was thinking about and I'm quoting him here about the search for authentic experience in a world where so many of these experiences had been repackaged and sold back as more sanitized and curated versions of their original selves, which I thought was really interesting. And then Tim goes on to say, when we search for meaning or satisfaction, what we're really aching for is a real experience, the waterfall without the gift shop.

I love how he put that, I'm just, I just want the waterfall, I don't want the gift shop with the waterfall. I love that, that's so, I really like the way that he put that. When I was first listening to this song, I was like, it's so cool how when they sing feel amazing that cuts through the kind of hypnotic looping instrumental in the back and I was like, oh, maybe the feel amazing is the most authentic part of that and that's why it cuts through, but now almost listening to you read kind of the intention behind the song that feel amazing feels more synthetic.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I love this band, ages and ages. If you don't know the band or maybe it sounds familiar, you can't remember. They had this incredible album called "Divisionary" a number of years ago that I really felt for it, had the song "Divisionary" do the right thing, which has become my anthem for life, do the right thing.

Totally should check that out. They did a tiny desk back in 2014, everyone should check it out. The new album from ages and ages is called "Findance" and you, and that song was called "Feel Amazing."

“You're going to totally bring us down now or where we go on here. Yeah, I'm going to just bring everyone down to like self-conscious mania. I know that that's what.”

Self-aware mania maybe is better. Wow, you're, you're really selling that. Yeah, yeah, so stop it. I could, you know what? I could really go for some painfully self-aware mania. Yeah, so, and I feel like I'm, I'm making it sound more manic than it actually is by calling it manic, but I really do think that this new track, one stop by Aldys Harding, is one of the most self-reflective. And, honest, pieces of music I've heard in a really long time in a way that's incredibly refreshing. Wow, all right, so Aldys Harding the song, one stop.

I'm gonna ride what I know. Things I know for a long time. I'm at the real junk here. He had no words, but I don't mind. I packed the stage while he ate rice.

“I'll bring myself home. I'll bring myself home. Imagine it from the block. Imagine it.”

Why would I know I want to meet ya? Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to meet ya? I'm on the right one and all. Keep going around in the big ground,

So the lies I tell.

Send me up and I can't get down.

I'm wearing big grass to town. I'm from a cell phone. I'm from a cell phone. Imagineing. Imagineing from the park.

Why would I know I want to meet ya? Why would I know I want to hold?

Why would I know I want to meet ya?

Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to meet ya? Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to meet ya? Why would I know I want to hold you?

Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to meet ya?

Why would I know I want to meet ya? Why would I know I want to hold? Why would I know I want to hold? I really love how this feels like such a true inner monologue of self like affirmations and exploration and how sparse it is. Yeah.

I'm really curious to hear what it is that speaks to you in this song. I mean, I really love holding a lot. This song kind of surprised me because a lot of her stuff can be just crushingly said. And this is sort of one of the biggest or boldest sounding things that I've heard or do.

“I think the thing to me, because I do agree it's a pretty big departure from what she normally does.”

And I feel like why I was so drawn to it is because the lyrics feel like such a free association into her mind and into what it is to go throughout your life in a self-conscious way. But still in a confident way. Yeah, I was having a hard time teasing out exactly what the song is about. It seems like she's revisiting her past a little bit. I'm not sure if she's addressing somebody that she had a maybe somewhere she had a complicated relationship with or even a falling out.

And she's saying like, enough time has passed on willing to reconnect. If you are, I don't know, it wasn't entirely sure. To me, it feels like the thoughts that you have right as you're falling asleep when you're at your most alone when you think back on to just awkward and strange moments that you've experienced that you might have like really prepared for. The line that, of course, like pops out to me is I met the real John Cale.

“That's true. It's like, oh, I've thought of this thing.”

Yeah, like this, this random thing just is coming into my mind and I'm going to fix it on it. The line is I met the real John Cale. He didn't have any words, but I don't mind. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, like that's cool. This is like maybe someone that I've been idolizing my whole life and it was kind of awkward and not everything that it was made out to be.

Where it feels like these are just all these random thoughts that are popping in her head.

Maybe as she's trying to get to sleep or something, or maybe while she's randomly just trying to find where she left her phone.

“But yeah, well, that, yeah, that gives it some good context for me. My favorite moment in the whole song, honestly, with that back third when the guitar comes into the strumming guitar.”

And then it starts to fade. I'm like, no, no, keep going. It's just so good, but I love the fade because that kind of implies there's no resolution here. And this is just the beginning of a journey maybe. Yeah, I read it in the same way of like, I can have all of these thoughts and feelings and anxiety swirling around, but when the guitar comes in, it's just like, and then on to the next thing. Did you watch the music video by the way?

I haven't seen the video yet. It's just her doing like an interpretive dance in an open space.

I definitely need to check it out. I have a running list of my old time favorite dance videos I've dancing in them. And I'll pull it up every now and then show the kids and stuff. Yeah, maybe that's one to add to it. Um, so this is the first single off of all this heartings new album, Train on the Island, which is going to be released May 8th of this year.

“Do I don't imagine you're much of a video game player or are you? Do you gamer?”

I, as you can probably imagine, am a very obsessive person. So if I find a game, I will do nothing but that, and I used to play only Minecraft and creative mode for like hours on end and Sims 4. So, you know, your limits and you just don't even. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not much of one partly for the same reason.

I just don't have time like I really enjoy them. But I did, I bought a playstation 5 solely to play the last of us part 1 and 2, which were incredible.

That was like a year or two ago, and I've not touched it since. I just played those games and that was it. Did you watch the TV show first and were you like, I want to play this game? No, actually, I wanted to play the video game first, and then I watched the show and it was really pretty like the sets. I thought, wow, who have, there was a moment in the first season where they come up on this big building. And I thought, oh my god, that's the building from the game. They matched it so perfectly.

“That's what I heard that it was just like almost a shot for shot, especially like the first episode of the video game.”

Yeah, yeah. Well, I asked because there's this new game out now that I might actually play solely because of the music that I heard from the video game. The video game is called Marathon, and one of my all time favorite musicians Ryan Lot did the music for the video game. It just came out. I don't know a lot about the game. I did read some reviews that said that the action in it is relentless. That's what I read too. Yeah, like relentless. And if you listen to the soundtrack that Ryan did, it is also relentless.

In fact, most of the tracks all run together. He's released it in two volumes. I want to play a bit of a song called disc content from volume one of the marathon soundtrack. And because they run together, we're going to hear just a little bit of the song that comes after it called planetary relocation psychosis. So disc content from Ryan Lot and the album Marathon. [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

[Music] [Music] [Music]

So when it goes into that part there with the panting, the breathless panting, which could not be more appropriate, that's the beginning of the next song.

“What even is that? I'm listening to that. How is he making these beats? How is he distorting them like that?”

Maybe to other musicians, maybe it's not as complicated as it sounds to me, but it blows my mind. The layering of all of the different sounds is so wild every time I listen to this again. I feel like I hear a new piece of it. I can only imagine this totally blew me out of the water in terms of what I consider like a video game soundtrack. Right, same. Yeah, I didn't really, and maybe this is like, because I don't play a lot of video games, but I didn't realize they could be this specific. Yeah, there's so much going on, so many quick turns and change ups and things bouncing around and like you say, one little sound that will just sort of

Google up in one little moment and then it's gone, but this is the thing that I love so much about Ryan Lott's music and Sunluck.

So if you don't know Ryan, I guess I didn't mention this Ryan Lott, also of the band Sunluck's. He makes music that I just don't understand. Like, I listen to it and I think I don't know what instrument that is. I don't know how he's making that sound. I don't know how he's doing that effect.

“I don't know how he's pieced up all this together. Most music I listen to and this is no shade against more obvious music because there's a lot of it I really love.”

Most music I listen to is like, I can hear the seams of it. I can hear where it's all stitched together. I can hear the different elements and how they work together. His is just madness to me. I totally agree. And the madness that he uses isn't overwhelming.

Right. Yeah. It's so... I don't know. It feels like just like an incredibly layered painting. It's so incredible.

So impressive. So that was two songs discontent and then a little bit of planetary relocation psychosis from volume one of the marathon soundtrack from Ryan Lott. But Dora, I know you've got one more you want to play and I actually think this is a good companion piece to the marathon soundtrack. Completely, especially since we ended with that kind of like breathy outro and this begins with a breathy instrument.

“Oh, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. They fade nicely into each other.”

So this is an artist called Under Scores and she has an album coming out March 20th this Friday called You. And this is one of the singles off the album. Tell me and then in parentheses you want it. And it's one of the the most exciting pop songs I've heard in a really long time. And it's because Under Scores really gets at the need to like dramaticize your life. She explains the album as it's music for malls, airports, hotels and supermarkets, which this kind of music is my favorite type to listen to in those settings.

Because it makes you really feel like the main character of the situation. And in the music video for this single, you see her kind of being chased and running around malls and airports and hotel rooms and kind of weaving this like action movie style montage against something just completely mundane. Yeah. This definitely has a little bit more of a pop scene to it than the marathon soundtrack. But it gets a little garble that feels very digital, little glitchy.

There's a great vibe shift near the end of the song that I really really love gets a little weird and dark. We'll go out on this. The song again. Tell me you want it from the album you and that's the letter you and the artist underscores. Thanks, Dora. This is some good stuff. Thanks Robin. Glad you like it. Alright, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered from NPR music.

You've got it to me. You want it to me. You want it to me. You want it to me.

♪ 'Cause later on, there's good ♪

♪ Be it ♪ ♪ Be it for me ♪ ♪ You got it to make you want it to make you want it ♪ ♪ You got it to make you want it to make you want it ♪ ♪ You got it to make you want it to make you want it ♪

♪ You got it to make you want it to make you want it ♪ ♪ You got it to make you want it to make you want it to make you want it ♪

“♪ Down the stairs, I think it's too big ♪”

♪ We all will be big ♪ ♪ But that's the limit ♪

♪ The age that's going to look like a food to ♪

♪ See something in the face ♪ ♪ So be what it is ♪ ♪ Yeah yeah ♪ ♪ The looks of the truth ♪ ♪ You want me to be the only baby ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ I'll be so lucky ♪ ♪ I can't see ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪

♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪ ♪ You got it so made to call me ♪