| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
40. D'Angelo “May I? Standing Unshaken”
D'Angelo loves Red Dead Redemption 2 so much that he refused to leave RockStar's offices until 5AM each night, playing the game until very late for weeks straight. Eventually the game creators were just like, "you know, if you love the game so much, why don't you go get married to it, or go write a song for it or something." Figuring D'Angelo would be like "lol, good one," he instead responds "well, that's quite a fine idea you got there, and I think I might do just that!" And the game creators said back, "Which one, get married to the game or write a song for it?" And then D'Angelo responds, "Both ideas are quite sharp. I'll get back to you on that." This is all verbatim and true, by the way. There is a 2019 version of this song floating around on streaming services that is not the original version posted to Youtube back in November 2018. The song feels a lot less complete without the long intro, similar to what usually would happen when radio stations would butcher the intro of "Really Love" (on the few R&B stations that bothered to play it early in 2015). Speaking of that, we have not forgotten D'Angelo saying Black Messiah was intended as a double-album, and that there's another LP of unreleased jams ready to drop at any given moment. Perhaps more videogame creators should give D'Angelo free shit in exchange for new songs since this is now officially the only thing left that motivates him. S.O.S. Plz halp. We need you D. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RajRfIG0mwo
39. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “Bedouin”
Unkie Sid dishes out another dope TRACK 7 for your spaced out enjoyment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8jI9Uxlts
38. Kids See Ghosts f/ Louis Prima “4th Dimension”
Most artists stick to the same lane when considering guest attributions, although Kanye is not most artists. His name appears alone throughout his very collaborative Yeezus LP. A few years earlier, MBDTF's metadata wisely omitted the exhaustive list of guests on "All Of The Lights."Despite Kanye's further notoriety for lifting samples without clearing licensing rights, the metadata applied to Billboard's chart stats list "4th Dimension" with an unusual guest-spot from Louis Prima. His Christmas song from 1936 supplies the song's haunting, jazzy foundation, and Kanye's guest-tag secured Louis Prima's current world record for the longest stretch of weeks between chart placements on the Hot 100.
"4th Dimension" also marks the return of Kanye's trademark "Jesus Walks" drums, long absent from his music since around the time of Man on the Moon: The End of Day. Without any other proof, we suspect "4th Dimension" experienced its creative genesis around the same era, possibly intended (alongside 2010's "Christmas In Harlem") as part of an abandoned Kanye holiday LP.
37. Charly Bliss “Heaven”
36. Dilly Dally “Sober Motel”
35. Doe “My Friends”
34. Jo Passed “MDM”
33. Swearin’ “Future Hell”
Whoever they get to curate Side A of the Angus 2 soundtrack now owes us several thousand dollars. We accept Western Union or Traveler's Checks ONLY. Four of these were released within a 3 week span at the start of the 2018-2019 academic school year. The kids really want this; they just don't know it yet.
32. Stove “Safe Guy”
NSFW
31. Unknown Mortal Orchestra “American Guilt”
30. Negative Scanner “Shoplifter”
29. Bali Baby “Backseat”
Q: Should "Baby Shark" be in this list?
A: Yeah probably.
28. No Age “Popper”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUy3oVM1Fzw
27. Ovlov “Grab It From The Garden”
Joining "The Great Alligator" and "Dumboy" in the Stovlov epics canon.
26. Rae Sremmurd f/ Pharrell “Chanel”
25. Robyn “Ever Again”
24. Windhand “Diablerie”
23. Stefflon Don “Lil Bitch (Intro)”
22. Beak> “King of the Castle” / Beak> “Harvester”
21. Sleep “Marijuanaut’s Theme”
| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
Hashtags and clickbait and ad revenue are literally everything. Content is nothing. Is the world prepared for technological armaggedon? 
"How's it goin' ya little shit?" Grandpa bugs the whippersnappers at 1AM, all dazed and woozy for a drunken "good night, kids." They're all like, "oh god, not this shit again." The long-distance marathon runner gets a brief moment of sunshine in between two passing storms. Basically, we're trying to suggest something about how "Pretend U Are Free" fits into Vertical Scratchers' Daughter of Everything, a record that was probably one of the most underrated of 2014 and should be considered worthy of reevaluation. For one thing, its sequencing kinda rules. "Pretend U Are Free" is one of the 3 or 4 calming, breezy, refreshing changes of atmosphere strategically inserted among the rest of the album's 11 or 12 quirky, melodic garage jams. It's the cool down moment. Let the pores breathe in some Fender Rhodes blissfulness. 
There's one moment towards the end of "1000 Deaths" when D'Angelo lets out an impassioned howl, not unlike the great classic howls in 
Summer drivin'. Watch the sun set. We were drivin' uber cars way before we got paid to drive uber cars. 
On the surface, it's a great summer song that didn't seem like it was going to matter much a few months down the line. But in the moments when ephemeral hits start to sound tired, Rae Sremmurd were only getting started. And out come the subtleties. "Damn." "Yup." "Uhh." "Ho!" All those little call-and-response things are almost their own separate song. And for a while, we didn't think much of its remix until just recently, after realizing that Sremmurd's victory lap verse might actually surpass the original. "When I slide down the ave I'm fuckin' trippin' (damn) / Maserati black bat, all I wanna know where the cash at / TNT tucked in my 'rillo, hundred racks under my pillow / Different styles I'm so versatile nigga you know like I know." The same goes for Nicki Minaj's guest freestyle. By the time she's done, the thought of flexing in their zone seems laughably ridiculous. 
Sign o' the times. Who else is stoked as hell that D'Angelo may have single-handedly escorted the return of smooth, dope R&B guitar? The past 30 years of R&B placed so much emphasis on keyboards, organs and (especially) piano that it seems like everyone just forgot. But not D'Angelo. He knew all along. Bonus points for anyone who can actually make out all the lyrics of "Prayer" without resorting to Rap Genius. Either way, you don't need to know. It's all feeling. The bell. The handclaps. The eerie drunken warpiness. The backwards vocals? The backwards drums? Are those actually in there or did we imagine it? Even after hearing it for the 20th time we're still not sure. Part of us hopes we never know.
Based on 
This might be as good a spot as anywhere else to talk about Iggy Izalea and the common misconception that rapping only exists within the spectrum of hiphop. Is the vitriol towards Iggy a result of how she's marketed? She's no more a hiphop artist than Rage Against the Machine or Linkin Park, two hard-rock bands with rapping that aren't exactly eligible for spins on Hot 97. "Shake it Off" has rapping. Is it a hiphop song? No way. And in the same respect, Macklemore and M.I.A. never really felt like bonafide rappers either. So why is Iggy so widely considered a rap artist if she's clearly making (bland and mediocre) pop music? And if she was largely viewed as a pop artist, would more people be able to calm down about what she supposedly represents? Should we also pretend that 
From Lil B's November 2014 
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." Sometimes it's better to just release control and just let everything happen around you. And perhaps the anti-solo in "Baby in the Backroom" is where you'll be led, into a kaleidoscope of multiplying soda cans leaning into single guitar strings suspended in the air, getting plucked by twenty different hands that are now possibly surrounding all 360 degrees around you. It's strangely the moment of zen within PC Worship's Social Rust - the center of that album's see-saw. The off-pitch vocals on either side of this solo represent the human element, so flawed and mesmerizing and genuine. 
Rare breed: An experimental rock band with three vocalist-songwriters who not only all switch off guitar, bass, and drums (in addition to whatever other odd sounds they might be throwing into their records) but who also present themselves as a true singular unit. Granted, thousands of high school bands can say the same. But there's 2 key differences: #1, Palberta is deliberate and self-aware - lofi, but NOT outsider-music. And #2, most importantly, they fucking slay. As noted earlier, they also insert recurring themes into their songs, like when the first minute-and-change of "Susan" reprises 
Bieber, Tay Sway, 1D, Selena G. They've recently been joined by Ariana in that special millennial category of "perpetual teens." When 
"Swiftly 'bout to stick a sweet dick in your sweetheart / Then get some groceries off my geeker EBT card." Okay, so we're actually confused by this one line because the only dinner groceries Gibbs could buy with a junkie's stolen EBT card would be like a box of Mac & Cheese, or something that can be cooked on the stove, unless the girlfriend just wants like some Reece's Eggs and Pringles, in which case he's all set. "And it feels so good, and it feels so right." We thought he might be expressing sarcasm here, as if he's been in the game so long and knows thug-life backwards but also "getting too old for this shit" like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon. Either way, Gibbs remains on-point all throughout Piñata, rivaling the finest 
A recent 
You know when the fuse on a stick of dynamite is long enough that you can watch the sparks as they make their way up to the explosive kaboom? That's basically the first 15 seconds of this song. Dope vocal effects and nicely toned distorted bass ride out the verses as they lead in and out of the noisefuck choruses. We spoke briefly with Devin and Andy from "The GIG" to discuss arguably the most immediate moment on Vacation Vinny.
Face the portal. An entry into the unknown. Step inside. Stand still if you'd like; the conveyor belt will do the walking for you. As chain smoking Sam-Well Jackson in Jurassic Park would say, "hold onto your butts." If the walls start moving around, stare at them longer. Shit gets darker and darker until it's pitch black, and then the chorus hits. Suddenly, the surrounding tunnel turns neon dark-green with pink and yellow flying everywhere. Don't go in too deep though. It's possible that this whole time you were driving in the summer rain at 3AM. Or maybe that's the only part of this that ISN'T real. Whatever you do, don't wake up.
Remembering the first time we saw the album cover of Al Green's Greatest Hits (reissued on CD, over 20 years after its release date). We couldn't help but ask outloud, "What the fuck ever happened to guys like this?" D'Angelo seems to have agreed with this sentiment. It wouldn't be untrue to call Black Messiah a handbook of soul music history written by D'Angelo himself, taking each of those giants and expanding on their sounds - sometimes combining two giants into one song, but also presented in a fresh light that's entirely starring D'Angelo. "The Charade" and "Really Love" are the calm after the storm closing Side A (along with "Sugah Daddy"). It's the section of the album that feels most similar to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On or Al Green's Call Me. "Charade's" closing harmonies are the second coming of Prince and the Revolution. (Or it's the closest we've come ever since.) After years of floating around online, the final version of "Really Love" came out gorgeous enough that it was completely worth all the wait, without a single wasted moment in its 2-minute solo-guitar intro.
The car's facing the edge of the cliff. Does he shift to drive? Does he hit the gas? "Rice and Bones" is Disco Doom's finest exercise in restraint, slowly and painfully building into a Mogwai-style wall of blazing chaos. It's a 5-minute structural palindrome of sorts. Starting quietly pensive, it slowly builds without revealing too much, with appropriately few lyrics sung quietly from Gabriele De Mario, until it reaches the inevitable devastatingly crushing center. There's some more lyrics here also, but the blaze is so high that his voice is lost among the wreckage. It grows, it peaks, and then it fades again, returning to normalcy, never deviating from its 5-bar chord structure. It's so strange how simplicity can sometimes transmit universal emotion so effectively. The picture speaks a thousand words.
In case there was any doubt, Skateboard P wins this contest. "Frequency high, like a spaceship." Pharrell, don't you dare ever hold back on those references to aliens and outer space. His verse is so good that it's almost unfair, making the surrounding verses seem comparatively embarrassing. Casino takes a distant 2nd place, closing out the song with some amusing hype-man insanity. Future's verse is basically all feeling and rhythm. It might take the average listener MANY attempts before deciphering what mush-mouth might be attempting to articulate. Pusha T enunciates well enough, but by the time he's done it starts to feel phoned-in. (No worries though. Pharrell steers us back on course mere seconds later.) Had it not been for the glaringly uneven vocal performances, "Move That Dope" would have been a safe bet for our Top 3, despite that it's very easy to overlook this flaw thanks to Mike Will Made It's ferocious beat (possibly the sickest of 2014) and that brilliantly contagious hook. Shit's unstoppable.
We were pretty psyched after we saw T.Scene burnouts 
While Kevin Smith was compiling the Mallrats soundtrack, Doc Brown paid him a visit from the year 1985 (after returning from 2015) and he was like "Morty! I mean Marty! I mean Kevin Smith. Come back to 1985 with me." So Kevin Smith went back to 1985 because who the fuck wouldn't, but all that Doc Brown wanted to talk about was the vinyl resurgence of the 2010s and Flagland's Love Hard LP. Kevin Smith was like "Oh cool, I guess I'll just be on my way then. Hey what's that over there?" and that was his way of distracting Doc Brown while he stole the time machine and went to 2015. Doc Brown was like "cool, well like don't die or anything because I kinda need that thing." And Kevin Smith was like "no worries, I'm just gonna real quick just check out the Flagland album on Bandcamp and then I'll go to the Silent Barn and buy the Flagland LP on vinyl." And so he went to 2015 and did all of that and returned the time machine to Doc Brown who was pissed at him, and he didn't say anything. He just dropped off Kevin Smith back to 1995 and peaced. But then Kevin Smith was all like "oh fuck, I guess I can't put 'Not A Joke' on the Mallrats soundtrack because I totally forgot that vinyl isn't cool yet and none of my friends have turntables and they don't know how to use download codes. So I guess I'm gonna have to wait a few years until I can buy a turntable from Amazon.Com. I also find it strange that snotty vocals and mid-tempo songs with loud guitars are basically all it takes to get 2015-era interviewer blogger dudes to think that all you listen to is Last Splash and Siamese Dream. I wonder if the Mallrats soundtrack will ever be pressed to vinyl for Record Store Day." 
Janet Jackson's 
The surprisingly solid NBA-themed concept mixtape Hoop Life not only turned out to be Lil B's most #BASED since God's Father but also represents the culmination of Lil B's most notorious Twitter feud.
Black Messiah was introduced to the world with a jam that was meticulously planned to sound completely unplanned, spontaneous and unlabored. When those hasty first-pass write-ups started arriving in the hundreds during the AM of 12/15/14 (It's really only been one month?), many early reviewers immediately cited 
The Biggie sample introduces the first hit, right before Madlib's beat kicks in. "High" is about the following moment, the euphoria that seems infinite even though IRL it might only last 3 minutes (as long as the song itself). Danny Brown enters the room with confidence during verse three, only moments before the "wtf just happened" crash and burn within the last 25 seconds. Smoking the dipper only makes matters worse as everything comes down (a strange turn not usually taken within hiphop). There isn't even time for a victorious third chorus before reality settles in. Some people's faces hover overhead. "Are you ok? God bless, man."
Who exactly does Taylor Swift subtweet when she debates 
Like Ween's Pure Guava or Dark Side of the Moon or your favorite mixtape, Daughter of Everything is one of those perfectly sequenced records where the segues and transitions get just as ingrained as the songs themselves. You'll be minding your business one day and realize Track 1 is stuck in your head. But not long afterwards you'll realize that Track 4 is stuck only seconds before also realizing that the entire album has been playing in your brain for the past 10 minutes. (The quick intro song "Wait No Longer" came onto a mix the other day, and it was def unsettling hearing it lead into anything other than Track 2.) So yeah anyway, the moral of the story is that "Way Out" is dope enough that it actually works on its own. It's also the one that probably sounds most like The Kinks.
Enormous and minimal. After one of the most impressive solo guitar intros we've ever heard (lasting almost 4 minutes - almost as if it's a separate song), the groove locks and the whole thing just dives head-first into a head-nodding, meditative trance. Everything sounds so exposed and live and one-take. #RARE #Magic There's a couple verses, some bridges, and choruses, so its structure actually isn't that strange except for the fact that it's a 16 minute song that feels closer to 6 minutes. 
