The LH song with a life of its own
Daughter Caitlin was listening to a New Yorker magazine podcast - a conversation between music critics Naomi Fry and Kelefa Sanneh about how social media - TikTok, in particular - has reshaped the popular-music landscape,
They discussed all the usual players - Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, Katy Perry, Chappell Roan, etc.
Then, about 40 minutes into the interview, the conversation between the two music critics took a radical turn - toward a song that's practically an oldie:
Sanneh: "One of the biggest songs of 2024 is 'The Night We Met' - the 2015 song by Lord Huron. (Cue a short clip of the song).
Fry: "Wait, really?'
Kalefa: "Yes, that (song) has ... gone more viral than ever. It's over 2 billion streams on Spotify.
Fry: "Wait .... How did this happen (with) a 2015 song?"
Kalefa: "It's gotten a bunch of music placements over the years. It's gotten some TikTok activit; people seem to keep finding it. It's huge on the chart. It's being consumed at an incredible level.
"And ... obviously Lord Huron are not pop girlies, right? This is a kind of like retro rock indie song. Yeah. but to a lot of people's experience of 2024, while we're talking about all this stuff, they're talking about that."
Obviously "TNWM" got a big boost from its placement, in 2017, in an iconic scene in the TV series "13 Reasons Why." But that doesn't totally explain its staying power.
Maybe it's just a damn fine tune.
