Can't think of shit to say.
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| #200 - 166 || #165 - 131 || #130 - 101 || #100 -71 || #70 - 41 || #40 - 21 || #20 - 1 |
| All 200 Songs |
130. Paramore "Hard Times" / New Found Glory “The Sound Of Two Voices”
They'll be no accusations; just friendly crustaceans. It wasn't until after hearing the NFG song that we realized "Hard Times" was the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" of the long overdue "Under The Sea"-core alt-genre. This might help explain why someone is currently selling used copies of Sebastian The Crab's CD on Amazon for $49.99 plus shipping. Grab 'em while they're hot. ("Emo Island adventures" had already been applied to 2009's Where The Wild Things Are film.) "Hard Times":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEB6ibtdPZc
"The Sound Of Two Voices":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiwkQ7GsCP4
129. Carly Rae Jepsen “Cut To The Feeling”
After this appeared at #1 on SPIN's "Best of 2017 so far" list back in June 2017, the FOMO vibes were strong. We love CRJ and wanted to cut to that feeling that apparently affected every one of her fans except for us. After subsequent scrobbles between July and December, it still sounds like an E•MO•TION non-album track that went under the knife, conforming to board-room notes and dozens of mixing revisions determined by data analysis. The soul in Carly Rae's music has a lot to do with her production decisions, which are largely absent here. It's a fine enough song, and it probably could have been the lead single of E•MO•TION: Side B. But fans likely would have pushed it out of any best of 2015 or 2016 lists due to vote splitting. (That's not to say that iHeartRadio didn't fail by ignoring it, which they did.)NOTE: We would have tied this with her "It Takes Two" cover with Lil Yachty had it been recorded just for fun and not for the purpose of a literal Target commercial.
128. Jay-Z “Marcy Me”
The most dependable setting for Jay-Z's eternal GOAT status might be Nets games at Barclay Center. For an entire season of hoops, you're guaranteed to hear "Brooklyn's Finest" into "99 Problems" into "I Just Wanna Love You" night after night. The 2nd most played artist at Barclay is Beyonce (duh), although in both instances, you're not likely to hear any hits from either artists' most recent supposedly classic LPs. "Marcy Me" is the one track on 4:44 that maybe/possibly could have been on Reasonable Doubt (with different lyrics), but even this album standout would sound awkward played between "Single Ladies" and "Can I Get A." Both artists are cool with us, but the standom has gotten a little out of hand. Lemonade is not album of the decade and is not the 6th best album ever made by women. It's not even among Beyonce's 3 best albums, and was barely among the 10 best R&B albums of 2016. Its stans are attracted to the idea of Lemonade. Both this record and 4:44 (Jay-Z's 7th best by our count) sound like albums from beloved aging/legacy artists who run their own streaming service and don't need support from radio to be successful. Has anyone else grown suspicious that Tidal exclusives have been nominated for "Album Of The Year" Grammys two years in a row?? 127. Gnarwhal “Marathon Ripper”
126. Julia Michael “Uh Huh”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5X-8hcTwJ40
125. Kendrick Lamar f/ U2 “XXX. FEAT. U2.”
Why doesn't it just say "Featuring Bono?" Does it make sense to feature U2 as a group when 3 of the 4 members probably didn't even know this song was ever recorded until a month after the album dropped? (When this song was performed at the Grammys with both U2 as a band alongside Dave Chappelle, this might have been a good opportunity for Dave to reprise Black Gallagher and ask the crowd "Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Where are the other members of U2??" And then have Larry Mullen Jr and The Edge just randomly show up behind Dave. Sounds like a viral moment to us. Seems like everyone involved had a funny feeling this TV event would justify the song title. We also accept that it's way more badass for Kendrick to drop a new record with a "featuring U2" tag as opposed to a "featuring Bono." Granted, one of those just looks way cooler than the other.) DAMN. is not a dance record or a hiphop record or a "Rap" record in the classic sense. DAMN. is art-rap. No one was throwing on DAMN. at the summer 2017 BBQ, whereas summer 2016 you could have taken your pick from TLOP, YG, Schoolboy Q, Anti or like 7 others that we're forgetting about. We ended up scrobbling "XXX. FEAT. U2." a lot more than the rest of DAMN., so we included it here.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKVZqKVJgJ4
124. Palehound “Flowing Over”
Air guitar competitions are back.
123. Maneka “Dracula (feat. Katie Capri)”
122. Omar Souleyman “Behdemi Nami”
Psychedelic as fuck. Mad drugs. Fuck Phish. Jerry’s dead. Omar is life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jlu1XyPexn8
121. Mac Demarco “My Old Man”
120. Nelly Furtado “Cold Hard Truth”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebt0AQfrB7k
119. Palberta “Trick Ya” / Palberta "Jaws"
The Palberta experience bubbles and blobs itself even further through the murk. The creature from the black lagoon has no reason to be afraid of Jaws. Search: Destroy All Monsters, Captain Beefhart, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Destroy: Early '70s supergroups like Emerson Lake & Palmer or whatever.
118. Lil B “Global (feat. Ilovemakonnen)”
Lil B is usually most brilliant on his own. His infrequent collaborations (with artists like Soulja Boy and Chance) are typically not as buzzed as his solo material. (He's reportedly been cooking up some hits with Lil Wayne, and and we have our hopes up for a Lil Yachty collab mixtape). So when we spotted a collaboration with novelty/one-hit-wonder artist Ilovemakonnen among the seven preview tracks leaked back in July 2017, we were rightfully concerned. But rest assured, "Global" is a true album and career highlight for both artists. No worries over here. Keep that party alive.117. Ride “Charm Assault”
Nu-gaze doesn't sound as enormous as classic shoegaze. We have lots of notes on this song that don't make any sense, so we'll just stop there.
116. Quicksand “Illuminant”
115. Thundercat f/ Michael McDonald & Kenny Loggins “Show You The Way”
In the hypothetical universe where MTV still hosts semi-annual "Top 100" or "Top 200" or "Top 500" all-time countdown marathons, would unexplained millennial love of random '80s hits make any major splashes? Back in 1995, the top 20 would typically include stuff like "Sledgehammer," "Vogue," "Take On Me," "Jeremy," "November Rain" and "Thriller." But would "Don't Stop Believing" crash the top 20 in 2007? Would "Never Gonna Give You Up" sneak in around #95 in 2009? Would a more recent countdown make room for "Africa" awkwardly between Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Beyonce's "Single Ladies?"And would these lists reflect Pitchfork's recent half-admirable half-bizarre attempt at re-writing the canon with newfound love for Michael McDonald's "I Keep Forgetting?" How intensely would the re-purposing of uncool hipster irony shake up the MTV canon?
We'll probably never know. Demand from investors is too intense. Capitalism destroyed everything. Is there no bigger waste of airtime in the past decade than the months (and possibly years) worth of Ridiculousness marathons (a show that literally no one watches)? Considering the strong Twitter and social media reaction to events like The Grammys and the VMAs, one would think a marathon MTV event hosted live with an all time top 500 would generate some major trends. Wouldn't this be ideal programming for MTV Classic? Somewhere, some major investor in MTV must REALLY hate the concept of music television.
Literally zero people would complain if MTV started airing a Top 20 Video Countdown every Friday from 8PM to 10PM. Viewers would engage in a TRL countdown every weekday from 3PM to 5PM. Music exposure needs a comeback. The return of minor hits would create shifts in the Spotify algorithm. Many of the artists on Straight Fire Mix 2017 probably would have had videos on regular-ass MTV by now. Festival line-ups would get stronger. The gradual homogenization of every radio genre might shift towards more unfamiliar territory.
MTV knows how powerful they are. Their behavior is deliberate. They want to piss us off. They don't want to break smaller bands. Burn the fucking place down already. Fight the real enemy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF4_ExlwLgc
114. Mount Eerie “Real Death”
113. Charly Bliss “Black Hole”
112. Yo Gotti f/ Nicki Minaj “Rake It Up”
111. Charlotte Gainsbourg “Deadly Valentine”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkyIVKbCfG8
110. Ovlov “Halfway Fine (Live at Little Elephant)”
Ovlov is back yo. New album June 2018. Catch it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFcSwMnQHig
109. Broken Social Scene “Halfway Home”
2007-revival: an era no one wants to hear again remembering an era that sucked. Standard normy late 2000s indie will occasionally sneak in here though. Like, who remembers The Morning Benders or Here We Go Magic or Hooray For Earth? Anyone? We used to place these around #48, but now we know better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGxERK4clw4
108. Alex G “Powerful Man”
107. Lil Yachty “FYI (Know Now)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS0LIC2ON_w
106. Kamasi Washington “Truth”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtW1S5EbHgU
105. Brockhampton “Boogie”
The first two editions of SATURATION didn't especially impress us, so perhaps our expectations were low when Brockhampton (a.k.a. "The other Odd Future" if Odd Future were made up of 14 indistinguishably bland rap personalities) dropped Saturation III during yet another musically rich December. The lead single "Boogie" was almost good enough to sneak into our Top 100, if only the beat didn't remind us of some goofy fake-edgy mid-'90s sitcom a la Sinbad or Mad TV or Hangin' With Mr. Cooper or like The Edge or something. It sounds like "Fox Thursday Night." [EDIT: Goddamnit.]104. Homeshake “Every Single Thing”
103. Yaeji "Drink I'm Sippin' On"
Whoops. Pretend this one was like #35.
102. Grandaddy “That’s What You Get for Gettin’ Outta Bed”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECIuz_WHCZA
101. Real Estate “Darling”
This was a tough call. Had circumstances been less upsetting, the strength of "Darling" would likely have placed it within our Top 40. But even on shitty unremembered blogs like this one, it's illegal to place this in any "top 100 of 2017" list. As a compromise, even #101 feels very wrong. Real Estate def need to call it a day. If they continue without sex offender bro, they not only risk angering people even more, but clickbait-opportunist "music journalists" won't hesitate for a second to capitalize on other people's trauma even more than they already have. St*r**g*m has essentially evolved into TMZ for indie-music bros. Attempts to rebrand using the same name with or without problematic band mates will definitely not go unnoticed. Choose your next move wisely.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdJlikg8roU
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| All 200 Songs |
"Back in the days / When I was young / I'm not a kid anymore / But somedays, you know / I wish I was a kid again." - Ahmad, 1994
Corporal punishment disciplinarian stares down every kid making sure their spinal cords are uncurved and uncomfortable. No one is allowed to utilize this time wisely. The detention hall is sealed. No exiting. No one can use the bathroom. Just shut the fuck up and sit up in your shitty wooden $6 desk/chair combination. A clock above the door ticks very fucking loudly. TICK!! TICK!! After an eternal 45 minutes of pressure, one poor kid in the back finally loses his shit and starts screaming bloody murder. "BLOODY MURDER!" This kid screams out the actual words. Disciplinary man approaches the station slowly as everyone else holds their breath in anticipation. This dreadful, slow approach is the crunchy part about 3 minutes into the song "Meet Where We Are," the largest departure from Big Ups' earlier capital-P "Punk" albums. Perhaps now they are "Post-Ups."
The song's title comes from the release year of Loverboy's signature song, "A pig and an elephant DNA just won't splice." Kvelertak cares not for the laws of science, unnaturally crossing the protons and electrons of classic deathmetal with AOR riffage. The vortex should collapse onto itself, yet they're probably the most oddly seamless metal-fusion since the days of Andrew WK and The Darkness.
Young Thug's 2015 album title was changed after Lil Wayne's lawyers threatened him, but Barter 6 is actually a way better title. A year later, YG indulged the Bool, Balm and Bollective on "Still Brazy." YG knows as well as anyone else that privileged suburban kids love Urban Dictionary and Rap Genius, so there's no point in hiding the "switching C's to B's" thing. As a whole, the album and most of its beats feel largely influenced by late-era 2Pac jams like "Me Against The World," "All Eyez On Me" or "Death Around The Corner." Still Brazy's sequencing seems to tell a story with the title track acting as a "before and after" moment of sorts. The songs that follow (including "FDT" and "Police Get Away With Murder") could have been from an entirely different album as the prior 2/3's.
"I want two oceans. Give me two oceans tonight." It's not like they're asking for all four oceans, and they did a favor by not asking for any of the seven continents. Just any two oceans will nicely suffice, although it would be cool if either the Pacific or Atlantic could be included. But if you can't make that happen, it's all good. They'll gladly accept the Arctic and Indian, because that's still two entire oceans; however, this does raise a problem because those are the two oceans that don't share a border. It would just be a lot more convenient if you could include either the Pacific or Atlantic. If this task seems "impossible" for whatever reason, they would also accept Frank Ocean and Billy Ocean as a consolation so that the two might collaborate on a 2017 remix of "Get Outta My Dreams (And Into My Car)." Hit me back when this happens. Thanks.
Out of the current ubiquitous pop superstars whose discographies appear largely market-tested, Ariana is arguably the most widely beloved. No one hates her, and anyone who does is probably an especially sad shitsack of a human. God, TMZ is so pathetic: They tried to trash her good name by digging up a donut licking video that no one cared about. And that was the worst they could find. We really have nothing interesting to say here. We forgot where we were going with this.
During a lonely sweltering evening in Hell, The Dark Lord (Bill Zebub) starts getting immersed in math-rock and decides he wants to learn how to get super mathy in a way that's still totally Satanic. He becomes especially impressed with They Mean Us - the standalone 2006 LP from The Ladies - and spontaneously appears later that night in San Diego at the doorstep of Rob Crow, whom Satan has deduced as the world's finest purveyor of math-rock. Rob answers the door, and Satan's all like "dude, I wanna get way into math." Rob says, "that's cool, but I don't really have time right now. I have like kids n stuff." Satan is like "but dude, I'm Satan. I'll make it worth your while." Eventually Rob gives in half-way and says he'll do another Goblin Cock album just for Satan, who responds, "Well that's mighty kind of you my good sir." True story.
Sumerlands is an "Unchain The Night" type of band. They understand a hugely essential and frequently misunderstood aspect of '80s hair metal, more musically fulfilling moments of sadness that didn't necessarily reveal themselves in sappy monster ballads. It's the '80s metal that plays loudly at night while en route (always in a car, sometimes driving, sometimes as a passenger, bonus points if you're stuffed in the backseat with 1 or 2 others) to a destination and late weekend evening that might change your entire life. It also might not (and probably won't) but you never know until the journey's over and done with. Dokken's "Unchain The Night" fits, as well as Ozzy's "Shot In The Dark," Sabbath's "Children Of The Sea," Def Leppard's "Armageddon It."
So what's the deal with Stealy, the interdimensional cable character from Rick & Morty? Does he have any relation to "Steely Dan III from Yokohama," the dildo from Naked Lunch whose name was borrowed by a multiplatinum jazz-rock collective? And most importantly, is he a fan of the song "Stealing" by Ty Dolla $ign? We would like to think he is, since the song is about the activity that Stealy loves the most (which would be stealing). 
It's tough to remember what the hotties of Instagram did with their lives before Instagram. But "Do U Like Me?" could still exist outside of that context. It could refer to a straight up dude like Special Agent Dale Cooper, a friendly open-minded eccentric who does everything within his power to ignore his pant fulla bone when Audrey gets all up in his shit. But this isn't a simple story of lust and temptation. The iPhone notifications sounded gratuitously absurd until realizing they're pulling the context into present day: A loss of oneself down a sexting rabbit hole; the emotional extremes as social media feeds into FOMO-induced anxiety; the race to be the first creepy "like" or vapid compliment on a hot pic; addicting endorphin rushes and ensuing jolts of self-worth; the CEOs and upper management of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat who rely on this cycle to keep their businesses hotter than everyone else's. The song's 2nd half reflects the dark underbelly of social media in a frustratingly confusing dreamy haze of thick muck. Very Mulholland Drive. Very Twin Peaks.
Are we remembering wrong, or was Grandaddy's "The Crystal Lake" included as one of two free mp3s that came with every copy of MS-Windows 2000? Google reveals no answers. Grandaddy called it quits in 2006 - six years after Bill Gates awarded them their break into the big time - but reformed in 2012. In between, a Pixar movie called WALL-E felt like an unofficial void filler: Vast, barron, post-apocalyptic, lonely, artificial intelligence, cleaning up the messes of the past, remarkably low-key for its scope, minimal. WALL-E was also around the time Jason Lytle released solo jams like "It's The Weekend" - arguably the most depressingly pensive mid-tempo major key song about the weekend of all time - and the brilliant "Your Final Setting Sun," which felt like it deserved a full band arrangement. "Way We Won't" is undeniably Grandaddy, bringing us full circle back to the enormously grand anticlimax that surrounded "The Crystal Lake" in Y2K-America.
It's an event anytime Andre 3000 contributes guest vocals to anything. His last album was in 2006, and he appears on this list at least four times. Maybe more. We lost count. The '90s was a decade when hiphop might have been viewed like a local sports team; if their home base was closer to where you live, the music meant that much more. And so to oblige with their local pride, NYC rappers rarely collaborated elsewhere. Just the same, ATL collaborated with other ATL rappers. Houston stuck with Houston. Chicago stuck with Chicago. Even Bay Area rappers rarely mixed with LA rappers. So it felt like a historical revelation hearing Andre 3000 and Q-Tip playfully trading bars on "Kids..." like they had been rehearsing for this moment for years.
If you're anything like us and you loved Chutes Too Narrow but haven't enjoyed much else from The Shins ever since, you may have been in luck upon discovering "Dead Alive" last October. It's ironic (or maybe on purpose) that the song is named after a zombie movie since it sounds like they applied electro-shocks to a long dead songwriting method. It follows the same classic formula as 14 years ago, but their more modern (post-Wincing) recording style was applied too heavily. It still rules (especially the subtle free-jazz piano in the song's outro) but something about it feels like a dead Shins song that got buried in the pet sematary. What come out ain't what ya put in. Don't bury your boy in that graveyard. It's still their coolest song in years though. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the new album dropped earlier in 2017 with no other songs that were nearly as interesting as "Dead Alive." Congrats to Sub Pop (or The Shins or whoever it was) on choosing the dopest possible album preview tracks for grabbing the attention of basic jerks like us.
Kanye usually gets enough star power crammed into his albums to satisfy at least one-and-a-half of those embarrassingly shitty charity singles: "Hands Across America," "Voices That Care," "Stars," "Do They Know It's Christmas," "What's Going On." There haven't been as many in the past decade, (although at least one of them - "We Are The World 25" - was crowned our worst song of 2010).
Is this ridiculous or genius or both? Similar to Ariel Pink in sonically paralleling the intricacies of AM Gold singer-songwriters, Ryan Power structurally ups the ante, approaching from more of a theme-and-variation standpoint than verse-chorus. His A section is followed by a B section, but the next time A and B appear they arrive with unexpected appendages and attachments, transforming into alternate C, D, E and F sections before returning back to the original intro run…. If that makes any sense. So yeah, I guess THIS could technically be considered “progressive” (a term often misused in 2012 rock journalism) although what makes it interesting has more to do with delicate tone and texture, as well as a string of surprisingly catchy vocal melodies that could just as easily have filled an entire album’s worth of songs in the hands of a different writer. 
Earl Sweatshirt’s first appearance in nearly two years still generates smiles. We don’t think it would be out of the question to label “Oldie” as an “event” type of song, coupling the context of Earl’s exhumation with the largeness of the song itself, which somehow actually sustains itself as exciting over the course of its nearly 11 minutes. Playfulness wasn’t normally as prevalent in noteworthy hiphop prior to 2012, although Action Bronson and Joey Bada$$ have been lending a hand in this area. “Oldie” fits into this category as well, which is both its strongest and most perplexing attribute – perplexing because of the lyrical contrast with Tyler The Creator’s curiously ominous choice of beat. While we were prepared to label Jasper Dolphin’s unfortunate insertion (between two relatively giant names, Frank Ocean and Earl Sweatshirt of all people) as a low-point, it’s actually the song’s most obviously playful and “who gives a fuck” moment. This is the real Odd Future: the Wolf Gang we’ve been waiting for. 
We seem to recall last Spring when web-announcements of a Grandaddy reunion album were floating around. Perhaps these were rumors? Maybe they’re just taking their time... If it’s not happening, then we’re assuming Jason Lytle’s Dept. of Disappearance was intended for new Grandaddy. But if it’s simply taking longer than expected, then tracks like the outstanding “Your Final Setting Sun” (his best since 2003’s Sumday) are a very good indication that they’ve been up to no good, brewing some serious-ass Sophtware Slump-style awesomeness. We miss the weirdo robot noises and bizarro arrangements. Hoping these guys come back very soon. 
Tagged by millions as the most colossal megaton chorus since “Since U Been Gone,” which is possibly accurate. But what about the verses? Does “Call Me Maybe” have verses? Upon relistening, the answer seems to be “yes,” although they are largely forgotten by 99% of the people who know of this song’s existence. This is because the writers discovered an awesome hook and then formed the other song-related elements entirely around it, instead of crafting it into something that sounds complete, an unfortunately wasted opportunity to create some magic because the music-biz CEO’s were all like “this needs to be released now, we need a hit so I can get my kids on My Super Sweet 16.” But while it’s a still hugely overrated as a whole, the chorus is too perfect to not be recognized among the year’s best. 
As the market for “nostalgia” increases in largeness with every passing year, it becomes more inevitable to notice a few borrowed ideas getting used to create something that’s actually fresh, instead of simply repackaging the same shit with a glossier exterior. When we saw Bruno Mars’ recent album described as “10 songs that sound like 10 different 80’s bands,” we were mostly skeptical since this same guy was responsible for our worst song of 2011, as well as three other appearances in our “worst songs” list since the start of this decade. We’ll be the first to admit when a shit artist surprisingly steps up their game; we just had no idea that it would be Bruno Fucking Mars of all people. But it happened! Unorthodox Jukebox is shockingly not horrible! In fact, it’s actually somewhat listenable as a whole, with his “X-Factor contestant” vocal-style as the album’s only true turn-off. However, within the context of “Treasure,” his singing style actually fits. We doubt “Treasure” has any chance of getting radio airplay, although we might have thought the same about “Locked Out of Heaven” which has turned into somewhat of a mega-hit in the past 3 months, so who knows? “Treasure” pulls more directly from the late-90’s and early-2000’s version of disco-nostalgia. More than half of Jamiroquai’s catalog is based around this idea. Britney Spears also tried this out in 2001 on one of our favorites of hers, the album track “Anticipating.” So yeah, somehow Bruno Mars actually put out a bunch of songs that don’t completely suck. No one’s more surprised than we are. 
Eat dem drugs all day err day. “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” That moment when the simple experience of enjoyment ascends into “balls tripping holy fucking shit” territory, a.k.a. when “Elephant” switches from the vocal section to the psychedelic guitar jam, a.k.a. when baby Dumbo gets drunk by accident with the mouse dude and they see all the purple elephants dancing around. Afterwards, the outro section includes the final drum fill and “yeah!” followed by the abrupt cold ending, when you suddenly come down with no memory of what just transpired. 
Thanks to meticulous attention to detail in the mixing, mastering and songwriting-structure on Mr. Dream’s “Fatherland” EP, it wouldn’t be entirely difficult to confuse this record with an authentic lost 1979 punk relic buried deep within John Peel’s vast collection. We’re psyched as hell that any NYC bands are still interested in playing this kind of music while still writing songs that are entirely worthy of attention. Taking cues from PiL, Stooges and Big Black with a hint of Wolfy Mozart in the song’s title, well-paced side 2 opener “Believing and Shitting” packs the same urgency as that which is normally associated with late-decade or pre-millennial or pre-apocalypse tension (“everyone knows it’s the end”) concluding with a mysterious open-ended coda section. 
“Lost” might be more of a continuation of nostalgia,ULTRA than the rest of Frank’s newer stuff, both in sound and theme, creating a trifecta of sorts with “Novacane” and “Swim Good” which we believe to be among his most drug-influenced and earwormy singles to date. All three express a desire to break away, or in this case, “get lost” in the moment. We’re not sure if Channel Orange was meant to express a flowing narrative in the same way as good kid, M.A.A.D. city, but it raises our suspicions when it appears after "Pyramids," which already appeared after two songs about class separation, “Sweet Life” and “Super Rich Kids.” 
Sometimes the long-distance runner is on a shit-ton of speed pills. Dripping’s sequencing suggests meticulous planning, starting and finishing strongly. An intense momentum especially builds during one of the most ass-kicking 4-song middle sections in recent memory, with “Prom Song” as its crowning moment. After “Grunt like a Pig” concludes the intense chase sequence, “Prom Song” starts with the “peaceful sunrise” intro segueing into a pummeling guitar riff, complimented perfectly by the sparse rhythm section. Pile’s signature tension-building leads them to one of the year’s best and most soulful guitar solos, played from atop an especially gigantic mountain. From up above, long-bearded God obliges, throwing up the devil-horns as he rides his chopper across the sky desert. 
“Drinking songs” have a surprisingly wide spectrum of categories, a fact that only occurred to us after hearing “Swimming Pools.” Kendrick’s meditation might appear alongside Hank Williams jams or Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down,” exploring the psychological aspects of self-medication. On the opposite side of this spectrum, one might find soulless frat-douchiness such as Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup,” or songs exploring freedom from stress and enjoyment-of-life, an effort to forget problems with fun instead of depressingly drowning out our sorrows, in songs such as Andrew WK’s “Party Til You Puke.” Kendrick’s sped-up soliloquy in the second verse (which we didn’t realize was him at first) pushes this exploration to an even deeper level.