| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
[Edit: We fixed it.]
We're not sure if a big end-of-year list will happen here ever again. It's possible this was the last one. We've been wanting to wrap up this blog for a while. We'll continue the blog throughout 2020; if humanity still exists by the year's end, we'll strongly consider it.
We technically embedded to every possible Bandcamp link for every song, and we expect these artists to receive some serious ass cash flow. Support the artists! Buy all of their merch!!! Literally all of it!!!
With that said, please also follow the Spotify playlist. It sounds great at the gym:
100. Lil Nas X “Old Town Road” / Billie Eilish “Bad Guy”
99. Tool “Pneuma”
98. Otoboke Beaver “6 Day Working Week Is A Pain”
97. Palehound “Your Boyfriend’s Gun”
96. Zig Zags “Fallout”
95. 2 Player “Retro South”
94. Spice Boys “Dream Vendor” / Spice Boys f/ Boys “Think About You A Lot”
93. Slipknot “Unsainted”
92. Stephen Malkmus “Rushing The Acid Frat”
91. Saweetie “My Type” / Haroinfather f/ Savagegasp “Tunnel Of Love” / Willow "Wait A Minute"
90. Green Druid “The End of Men”
89. Ex Hex “Rainbow Shiner”
88. Neil Young + Crazy Horse “Help Me Lose My Mind”
87. Purple Mountains “Margaritas at the Mall”
86. Rammstein “Sex”
85. (Sandy) Alex G “Walk Away”
84. Denzel Curry f/ Rick Ross “Birdz”
83. Tropical Fuck Storm “Paradise”
82. Pendant “Through a Coil”
81. David Nance “Meanwhile”
80. Thee Oh Sees “Scutum & Scorpius”
79. Devil Master “Black Flame Candle”
78. YG “Bottle Service” / YG “In The Dark”
77. Sean Henry “Surf Song”
76. Big Bite “Blue Nine”
75. Georgia “Started Out”
74. Earl Sweatshirt “4N (Feat. Mach-Hommy)”
73. Lizzo f/ Missy Elliott “Tempo”
72. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib “Flat Tummy Tea”
71. Young Guv “Can I Luv U In My Own Way”
70. The Boyboy West Coast “U Was At The Club (Bottoms Up)”
69. Fuming Mouth “Visions of Purgatory”
68. Lil B “Task Force Let Us In”
67. Slipknot “Spiders”
66. Whitney “Valleys (My Love)”
65. (Sandy) Alex G “Hope”
64. Supermilk “Lycanthrope”
63. Glitterer “1001”
62. Wolf Whistle “Your Dog Lives (In Pomerania)”
61. Drake f/ Rick Ross “Money In The Grave”
60. Wicca Phase Springs Eternal “I Fell” / Code Orange “Let Me In”
59. Blood Incantation “Inner Paths (To Outer Space)”
58. Young Guv “Patterns Prevail”
57. Maren Morris “Girl”
56. Jute Gyte “Dissected Grace”
55. Ariana Grande f/ Social House “Boyfriend”
54. (Sandy) Alex G “Gretel”
53. Purple Mountains “All My Happiness Is Gone”
52. Carly Rae Jepsen “I’ll Be Your Girl”
51. CZ Wang and Neo Image f/ Separated At Birth “Just Off Wave”
50. MGMT “In The Afternoon”
49. Vertical Scratchers “Song of Earth”
48. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib “Crime Pays”
47. Nudie Mag “Please Be The One”
46. Palehound “Urban Drip”
45. Fury “Angels Over Berlin”
44. Desert Sessions “Something You Can’t See”
43. Maneka “Time In the Barrel”
42. DaBaby “BOP”
41. Hatchie “Without A Blush” / Hatchie “Unwanted Guest”
40. Spellling “Under The Sun”
39. Davila 666 “Huesos Viejos”
38. Curse Word “Pivot”
37. Carly Rae Jepsen “Automatically In Love”
36. Tyler The Creator “New Magic Wand”
35. Riot City “Livin’ Fast”
34. Kim Gordon "Air Bnb"
33. The Good Ones featuring Nels Cline "Where Did You Go Wrong, My Love"
32. Big Cheese “Write-Off”
31. Sikka Rymes "Shake Ya Body (Pumpy Riddim)"
30. Lil B “Get That Money Based Freestyle”
29. Cement Shoes “Unite the Right in Hell”
28. DaBaby “VIBEZ"
27. Wolf Whistle “Lawnmower Man”
26. ShittyBoyz “Game Breaker”
25. Grimes “My Name Is Dark (Art Mix)”
24. Steve Lacy "Playground"
23. Fury “Vacation”
22. Palehound “Bullshit”
21. Big Thief “Not”
20. Otoboke Beaver “Datsu. Hikage No Onna”
19. The Chats “Identity Theft”
18. Curse Word “Big Fingers”
17. Maneka “Never Nowhere”
16. Glitterer “Destiny”
15. DaBaby f/ Offset “Baby Sitter”
14. Three Knee Deep “Devil’s Playground”
13. Tyler The Creator “What’s Good”
12. Nilufer Yanya “In Your Head”
11. Nudie Mag “She’s A Star”
10. Holy Serpent “Marijuana Trench”
09. Hatchie “Obsessed”
08. Danny Brown “Combat”
07. Young Guv “Every Flower I See”
06. Denzel Curry “Ricky”
05. Big Thief “UFOF”
04. Sedona “More Love”
03. Kevin Krauter “Pretty Boy”
02. DaBaby “Suge”
01. Beak> “Life Goes On” / Beak> "We Can Go"
| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
We've been told that 2019 lists are meaningless boomer-fests without these two songs, so we tied them at #100. We've been waiting for the next MC Hammer for a while, and hey it finally happened. "Old Town Road" was the "U Can't Touch This" of 2019, and so that basically makes Billie Eilish the Sinead O'Connor of 2019; "Bad Guy" was her "Nothing Compares 2 U." "Panini" was basically "Pray" because it will be forgotten within 3 years even though it charted decently and scored some radio spins. (This is a stretch, but "Pray" and "Nothing Compares 2 U" share the Prince connection, while "Panini" and Eilish's aesthetic generated inadvertent Cobain comparisons.) To take it a step further, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? was the I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got of 2019; both hit #1 for several weeks and received massive acclaim including Grammy recognition. Of course, this entails a strong contextual examination of label consolidation's affect on drastically shrunken rotation playlists and longevity of chart hits that don't receive radio spins; for example, "Bury A Friend" was a minor hit on modern rock stations, peaking at #26. Z100 didn't play it, nor did they play "The Emperor's New Clothes" back in 1990. Speaking of Grammys, "Old Town Road" and "U Can't Touch This" were both nominated for Record Of The Year. The main thread connecting all four artists is that they're all largely remembered for peaking with their immensely popular signature songs despite a multitude of false indications that these songs were about to spark much larger careers. 
It didn't take long for TikTok to start heading in the same direction as Facebook -- overtaken by moms and boomers and bad memes. But from January through August 2019, it almost felt like the second coming of Vine, combined with a new "alternative pop" radio format with several meme-ing hits that weren't really popular elsewhere. By the end of the year, "My Type" charted pretty well, but "Tunnel Of Love" never trended any higher than TikTok. The meme-ing 
As Bray Wyatt seized responsibility to turn up the horrorcore to 11 and usher his re-brand as The Fiend, he realized his previous entrance from The Jesus and Mary Chain would not be easy to follow. Wisely selected, Code Orange surpassed all expectations with bludgeoning grace. But our favorite between these two might be Darby Allin's "I Fell," arguably the best Marilyn Manson jam of the 2010s (fake Manson or otherwise). In the highly unlikely event of Darby and Fiend facing each other in the ring, we'd sadly place 4 to 5 odds in favor of The Fiend, although an upset would not disappoint.
Blood Incantation's "Great Gig In The Sky," the growing meditative mid-LP noise crusher. In Jayson Greene's review, he quotes the band saying it was “improvised 'on psychedelics over a period of several months' [evolving] entirely in unexpected leaps, dissolving into synthesizer washes and backmasked guitars and then plunging ahead, again, stirring up the primordial ooze."
Without hyperbole, our hopes for the Hero follow up were higher than Obama's cocaine blunts on a sunny Sunday 4:20. This means the hopes were very high. Criminally underrated (as was the case with far too many 2010s LPs), Hero is a rare "11 songs 11 singles" record that happened maybe once-per-year in the 2010s. In the meantime, we pretended "The Middle" didn't suck and maintained optimism. Now that she has an actual hit, this could potentially lead to huge crossover jams. We're gonna give Maren benefit of the doubt here. She's talented enough to write another Hero, so it must be the label's fault. "Can you make these songs suck more?" The power ballad title track sadly ended up as Girl's best song, eventually spinning on a 2-3 day loop in our brain-chemical-controlled playlist, so that should count for something. ("The Bones" is also fine and would have placed in the 101-200 range.)
Time once again to reiterate how many years since summer radio drives didn't suck. Since we recall Summer 2013 so fondly, we're guessing it might have been the last decent summer for Top 40. It was the summer of "#Beautiful" and "The Way," Mariah Carey's final summer song and Ariana Grande's breakthrough single. We're guessing Mariah's diva/narcissist tendencies might prevent any officially cosigned "passing of the torch" moment, but Ariana Grande's singles have filled the void ever since, peaking in 2018 with "No Tears Left To Cry." Thank U Next dropped so quickly afterwards, leaving the summer radio landscape wide open. Social House saw their opportunity to capitalize with an obvious "Thank U Next" ripoff, and thank the good lord they did. We needed it.
Hot challenge: Locate the true 3/4 waltzes of chart hits. Apparently, Ed Sheeran had a huge hit about two years ago with a song called "Perfect" that was the 15th biggest song of the decade. We love "Kiss From A Rose" and "Iris." We do not love Edwin McCain or Lifehouse. An old Paramore single called "The Only Exception" came up. 
Fun game: Sing 
Scissor Sisters dude sings this one. We forget which one he is. Pretty sure we liked this better than Like Clockwork or Villians. We're curious to know, what exactly are the 11 or 12 people involved in this project so busy with? What was preventing them from carving out an extra week or two so that the first Desert Sessions record since 2003 didn't have to be 7-and-a-half songs long? Where's the love? Can they do another one of these ASAP?
Maneka has played "Time In The Barrel" live only once, at their album release show last July. Can they bring it back? No one minds that the one little part sounds like "Drain You." In fact, the jam holds up, especially the free noise section in the middle. A Rick and Morty reference regarding cancel-culture may or may not have influenced the song title and lyrics, although we had trouble locating a more specific origin. No disrespect to Jim Croce. Meanwhile, Bojack (the character, not the show) got sentenced to some literal-ass barrel time, with Princess Carolyn erroneously theorizing that "people forget." [Kobe rant redacted.] Yeah anyway... Maneka! Great band! Serious bangers! Open up the pit!
2019 will be remembered as the only year when rap/country hybrids didn't make eardrums bleed. [The] latest and possibly final submission to this narrow 5-6 song canon arrived a few weeks ago from none other than Lil B The Based God, deep in his Hunchback of BasedGod mixtape. 
The hot takes are in. Mostly plagiarized from the pod. 
This would've been a lock for Top 20 had Steve Lacy remembered to write and record an ending. The bridge builds some nice momentum, and then the song just ends? That's it? Anyway, let's talk about the positive side to crack. What about the good side? We're making this up as we go: The four points on the funk-spectrum are Cocaine, Weed, Satan, and Jesus. 
No big surprise: The #1 rock radio song of the 2010s was not by Imagine Dragons nor Portugal The Man, but in fact 
We had a lot of fun this past Fall seeing so many "guitar solos are bad" poptimists publicly losing their shit over the long version of "Not." Now THAT'S how you play an anti-solo, arranged to arrive at the correct moment for the perfect length with all the dopeness one should expect from all those "wrong" notes. It's one of those infrequent moments from the past few years of music that zoomers and millennials didn't realize they wanted or needed, arguably expressing just as much without lyrics as Adrienne Lenker could gather throughout the song's first section, and securing a lock for the highest placement just outside our Top 20. (Yes, there's a 4-minute edit with no solo. Maybe their management suggested this to ensure more scrobbles, but otherwise it's unclear why this exists.)