This is a deeper listen from KEXP, the show where we talk with musicians about the thoughts and experiences that shape their music. I'm Emily Fox. And as we start to wrap up 2024, I wanted to highlight some of the interviews that have appeared on this podcast from artists who ended up having one of the top five most played songs on KEXP in 2024. Let's start with the fifth most played song on KEXP this year. It was Seattle's Brittany Davis with the song Sepircon.
This song comes from Davis' album she released earlier this year called Image Issues. Davis calls the album an audio movie. It's a sonic journey that weaves in many musical genres and incorporates multiple spoken word vignettes backed by soundscapes. A part of my yesterday that impacts my today. Davis is blind, and audio is a heightened sense for her.
She even has synesthesia in which she hears music from smells. What it is for me is that textures and smells create sounds. If I smell something really strong... I get all of the notes, like a melody. If it's a weak smell, maybe I'll get a note or two, but the song is not complete. I interviewed Davis earlier this year, and she talked about raising her voice in the face of adversity on this album. Being an overweight, black, blind female from the wrong side of the tracks.
That has no physical capital, no cultural capital. But I do have a message. And I had to make a choice to raise my voice despite all of the things that I didn't have. I had to use the one thing I did have. She talked about finding a strong musical community in Seattle after finding herself homeless when her family first moved here more than a decade ago. She also shared the stories behind three important tracks on this album, songs dedicated to her late father.
brother and her experience with sexual abuse. I want people to understand that I'm complex as a person. I'm not just a blind girl who has an inspirational story to tell. I'm a person who wants to be loved, who wants to be remembered, who wants to be understood, just like everybody else. It's like everybody else. You can listen to the full conversation with Brittany Davis in this podcast feed.
Go back to the episode that dropped on March 5th of 2024. Here's her song Sepircon, which was the fifth most played song on KEXP this year. That was Seprecon by Brittany Davis, the fifth most played song on KEXP in 2024. And now we're going to hop to the third most played song at the station this year because the artist who had the fourth most played song in KEXP in 2024 also had the top most played song of the year on the station. So we'll save those two tracks for last.
So coming in at number three, the third most played song on KEXP in 2024 was Suki Waterhouse with her song, My Fun. I caught up with Suki Waterhouse in September to talk about her album she released this fall. She talked about her career as starting off as a model, then an actress, where one of her roles included playing a musician in the Amazon series Daisy Jones and the Six. and how it was from being in that show that inspired her to pursue her own music more seriously.
There was something about doing that show where I was in a studio for three months. We were rehearsing. We were all together as a band. You know, I've got piano teacher and I'm obviously like, you know, we're working on the Daisy Jones songs. And then I'm like, can we work on my stuff? in the interview waterhouse talked about the freedom of diving into a music career and not having to wait for a casting call for the next job opportunity it was up to her to make her own destiny on her own terms
And she did. She finished her latest album in the final weeks of her pregnancy. She gave birth to her first child just weeks after delivering the album. She then played Coachella six weeks postpartum and did photo shoots with Vogue shortly after. birth. We shot the album cover, I think, in the middle of the two Coachella weekends. So it was, I mean, look, it's never the most ideal thing to have to be shooting covers and doing, you know, festivals and stuff.
after you've had a baby obviously but but actually I don't know it's yeah it's one of those things where yeah you are the it was all my choice and yeah I wanted to get the record out by September it's like I had to have an album cover i had to have uh you know you know i had to have like the album finish and all the and all these things and i guess i didn't want to yeah i just didn't want to stop for anything but you know yeah so i would kind of like
panic well you know before and think oh my god i can't believe and you know people would say you don't have to do you know you don't have to do you don't but you know it's like i don't know it's so like It's so special to me. I'm just filled with so much gratitude to be able to get to do something like that. And I kind of just had this, I think so much of it is about following instinct. And I had some deep instinct, like, I really want to do that show. And, you know, I kind of planned it.
where i was like guys no one can talk to me for for a month after you know i want to just have like i'm going to be full but fully like you know that didn't end up happening but like you know but actually but actually I really wanted to two things can exist at the same time you can be at home with the baby and be absolutely in love and bonding and just like And also you can be...
on the phone planning your outfit for Coachella and doing you know it's like two things can happen at the same time it was like life and it was it was like life change like huge life-changing things happening for me in my private life and in my professional life And I was just really, yeah, just super grateful and really wanted to be able to have both those moments coexist.
That was a portion of my interview with Suki Waterhouse. The full conversation is available in the September 17th episode of A Deeper Listen. Her song, My Fun, was a third most played song on KEXP in 2024. Wait so long to find some peace Now coming in at number two, the second most played song on KEXP in 2024 is Nilla Freyanya with the track Like I Say. This was the lead single offer album this year titled My Method Actor. I caught up with Yanya earlier this year to talk about the record.
yeah so method acting is well the theory behind it is that you are no longer acting essentially because you have embodied the character that you're studying and you've like done a lot of work with like your own memory with understanding the character on like a deeper level so that you kind of
It's like a seamlessness. You kind of become the character and you don't have to act anymore. You just react as a normal person would. And I called one of the songs this earlier on in the process of writing the album.
and it kind of just stuck with me i think so when it came to naming the album i kept coming back to method actor i just felt a kind of affinity with that description with My relationship with music, performing, I don't necessarily have like an alter ego or character to become, but it's more like I'm learning how to be myself through the music. In the conversation with Niloufar Yanya, she talked about identity.
Her parents are artists, and her dad is from Turkey, and her mom is of Irish and Barbadian descent. She also talked about a project she and her sister run called Artists in Transit, which offers creative workshops and support for refugees. Yeah, so we started this in 2016. Really, my sister kind of started it and I was just like helping her out because I was around. But we went to Greece for the first time then and started working in like camps.
squats which are like unofficial camps um where like lots of displaced people were coming through from syria afghanistan um lots of different countries traveling via turkey to greece and then kind of getting stuck there because it was like the last place in europe i mean the first place in europe they'd managed to enter but
then you're kind of stopped and really not allowed to carry on your journey so you kind of people get stuck um in camps or they spend a lot of time waiting for the documents to be processed some people can be stuck there like 17 years because i think that's the average for spending time in a refugee camp basically um so it's this idea that it's like oh you're only there like temporarily but really people are there for a really long time so
Yeah, she wanted to bring art workshops to children and anybody that wanted to take part basically as a way of connecting and showing solidarity and also giving people... a space and maybe even a voice for documenting or just making whatever they want to make. You can hear the full conversation with Mila Freyanya in the November 19th episode of A Deeper Listen. She had the second most played song on KEXP this year called Like I Say.
She run away So I won't cross this line I could really lose you in time to turn on It's coming through my speakers Then, coming in with both the fourth and top played song on KEXP is from the Irish band Fontaines DC. The fourth most played song on KEXP in 2024 was their track Favorite. And the top played song on KEXP in 2024 was their song Starburster.
I caught up with KXP morning show DJ John Richards to talk about the song Starburster. It was written about a panic attack frontman Grian Chatton experienced. And I know they've had to cancel shows in the past, and I know he has struggled with that. And I think if you know that or not, when you hear the song, the, I don't know, the emotional weight.
of that song jumps out right away. And it's just weird. It's just this cool, weird song. I've realized while I was playing it, and I tend to like songs with just... I don't know, like these random noises and unique sounds in them. And this one sounded like no other song this year. I want to talk with a guy if it's That was Starburster, the top played song on KEXP this year.
We'll hear more from John Richards along with KXP DJs Evie Stokes and Troy Nelson as they discuss the top played albums of KEXP in 2024. That's coming up on a future episode of the KEXP podcast in our headphones. And that was a Deeper Listen.
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