Most of the blurbs on this first page were written within the week after the 2018 Grammys.
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| #200 - 166 || #165 - 131 || #130 - 101 || #100 -71 || #70 - 41 || #40 - 21 || #20 - 1 |
| All 200 Songs |
200. Bruno Mars “That’s What I Like” / “Versace On The Floor”
Entitled fans on Twitter need to drop this imaginary idea that Grammy voters are obligated to acknowledge the previous year's best music. Grammy voters don't read your thinkpieces and give zero fucks about live tweets. This is the same organization that once named Starlight Vocal Band their Best New Artist. Their first ever Best Metal award went to Jethro Tull (who won against Metallica). They claimed that a Steely Dan reunion album from 2000 was more deserving of Best Album than Radiohead or Eminem. So why in the world would anyone think that anyone other than Bruno Mars was going to walk away with Album, Record and Song of the Year? And why is it worth complaining about publicly? Are people really that bored? How embarrassing does our culture need to get before Twitter stops giving more power to awards show committees? Wasn't it great in the '90s when bands like Soundgarden or Beck or Fiona Apple did not thank God or the fans but instead would accept their award by saying how meaningless it was? (P.S. We kept hearing a version of "That's What I Like It" with Gucci Mane thinking this was the version that got played on the iHeartRadio but forgetting that this was probably the version that got played on Hot 97. And we were ready to say "So the Grammy voters will actually award a song that includes rapping," but it didn't actually include any rap so that sucks.)"That's What I Like":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMivT7MJ41M
"Versace On The Floor":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FyjEnoIgTM
199. Childish Gambino “Redbone”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp7eSUU9oy8
198. Fergie f/ Nicki Minaj “You Already Know”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ifnaxi2LQg
197. Queens of the Stone Age “The Evil Has Landed”
Queens and Desert Sessions had a consistently outstanding run of dopeness between 1997 and 2008. With over a full decade since their last essential recordings, their graceful coast through "legacy band" stature received its first truly major speed bump in December when Josh Homme instinctively assaulted a concert photographer mid-set. Josh has gotten away with being a fucking asshole for long enough. Perhaps he should consider avoiding stupid fucking mistakes like this in the future. As for "The Evil Has Landed," it's probably the weakest standout track from any QOTSA album, but a standout nonetheless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exa0CzlCb3Y
196. Body Count “No Lives Matter”
We very incorrectly predicted this would win the "Best Metal" Grammy based on how the elderly, senior citizen Grammy voters typically support what feels most familiar. As Fin Tutuola would say, "That's messed up." The award ultimately went to Mastodon, although Body Count's had a Rolling Stone cover story while Code Orange, Mastodon, August Burns Red & Meshuggah have not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlk7o5T56iw
195. Tyler, The Creator “Glitter” / Tyler The Creator “November”
Is November a month when things happen? What happened to Tyler in November? Why are people in the song saying "My November was last summer?" and the like? November only counts as summer when you live in like Brazil. Also, what's "Track 7?" Which Track 7 is he referring to? No, we don't want to consult Rap Genius. We crave and enjoy the mystery.
Glitter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNP8_xtq8YU
November: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaXoDWSQQrk
194. Margo Price & Willie Nelson “Learning to Lose”
Is it possible for radio-country to return to the dopeness of the shit kickin' '70s and further from power-country? We were ready to call Willie "The last living Highwayman," but it turns out that Kris Kristofferson is still alive. Whoops. Margo needs a few more hits, and country radio will likely oblige if given enough time. We know he has new music out almost every year, but Willie's voice feels like a revelation in this song. It makes you wanna shout "YES."193. Andrea Pensado “Rondo con Andreita”
Some weird stuff from the Feeding Tube label. Unavailable for legal streaming on traditional services, although it's streaming at some website called Juno that we've never heard of: https://www.junodownload.com/products/andrea-pensado-without-knowing-why/2942206-02/?track_number=1
192. Weezer “La Mancha Screwjob”
They don’t care. They gave up. Why didn’t they wait longer and put out a stronger record? They did it again. They should have waited and combined the highlights from this album with the highlights from the next two. They were in such a good spot. RIP to that little brief dope era when Weezer was actually decent again 2013-2016. Done. They will never be good ever again. We no longer care. “Oh cool maybe they’ll get good again.”
191. Alex G “Sportstar”
190. Freddie Gibbs “Phone Lit”
189. Cloakroom “Gone But Not Entirely”
188. DiCaprio “Pink Noise”
187. Weaves “Walkaway”
186. Leikeli47 “Elian’s Revenge”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ97tRfG95A
185. Tera Melos “Warpless Run”
Extreme mathiness noise jam. Rob Crow, where you at?
184. TLC “Way Back”
As an album preview, "Way Back" felt like false advertising. It's the record's only moment that resembles classic LaFace. We suspected that Organized Noize may have been responsible for the song's production, but two millennial-age writers and producers threw this one together instead. Snoop's verse may have kept the song off of some R&B stations, not unlike "Waterfalls" - 22 years later, R&B stations still insist on playing the rapless edit. Why should "Way Back" be any different? Some things never change.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reRfOzIVo0o
183. Ty Dolla $ign “Droptop in the Rain”
Ty Dolla refuses to get pigeon-holed into one sliver of the R&B spectrum. He's not a trap artist; he's not associating himself with the mid-2010s. He's big picture, and he'll survive past this era of bleak radio hits just in time for a large early-'20s radio takeover which he will achieve with dope, classic sounding R&B along the lines of "Straight Up" and "Solid" from Free TC or 2016's "Zaddy." And he should work with Kanye when he makes this happen. Maybe TC will be free by then. The future looks good.
182. The Underachievers “Crescendo”
181. Nelly Furtado “Pipe Dreams”
Her first album in 5 years was previewed with a video shot on VHS for a low key and uncharacteristically chill pop song that had pretty much no shot at chart success. After some soul searching, she realized that conforming to 2017 chart pop was not in her best interests. Plus, she's Nelly Furtado so she can do whatever the hell she wants either way. There are 4 or 5 other songs that would have been more immediately catchy lead singles, but she deliberately moved in the opposite direction. No push to radio. Released in Q1. No end of year lists. Fuck the charts. She got exactly what she wanted.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dardmy1eNw
180. Jesca Hoop “The Lost Sky”
The influence from PJ Harvey and especially Tori Amos push the subtleties and darkness past anything from Mitski's last album.
179. Shinichi Atobe “Regret”
We're all sorted out for E's & Wizz. "Nice one," "Geezer," and that's as far as the conversation went. I seem to have left an important part of my brain somewhere in a field in Hampshire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQbdzjacxWI
178. David Nance “More Than Enough (Reprise)”
Reprisals are sometimes more wild than the original versions, and it's often a shame that they get pushed towards the end of their respective albums. Appropriately, Nance kicks off Negative Boogie with a messy reprisal of a track from his previous album. Bowie nailed a similar sales tactic in 1980 opting to open Scary Monsters with the abrasive "It's No Game (Part 2)."
177. Midnight “Melting Brain”
176. Now Now “Yours”
More post-E•MO•TION dopeness.
175. Big Freedia & Mannie Fresh “Dive”
Huge announcement: Big Freedia receives our official nomination for top 20 artists of the decade. *GIANT APPLAUSE* "Dive" updates booty-bounce twerk to its logical slow-motion extreme. Throw in some trills while we're at it. Is this an album preview? We hope so.
174. The Darkness “All The Pretty Girls” / The Darkness “Solid Gold”
"I Believe In A Thing Called Love" charted and was played on MTV during an era that does not feel especially distant, although most music fans seem unaware that The Darkness still exists. The lack of adventure inherent within current programming all but guarantees that The Darkness will never chart with another single. But for fans of Permission To Land and One Way Ticket who might be interested, these two songs are probably the best singles they've released in over 10 years. "All The Pretty Girls": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_QqAb47tYQ
"Solid Gold": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGoh-drn2iQ
173. Maneka “Tiger Baby (feat. Jordyn Blakely)”
RIYL Failure's Golden LP.
172. Strange Relations “Say You”
171. Jason Loewenstein "Navigate"
170. Citris “Little Scars”
169. Rae Sremmurd “Perplexing Pegasus”
Not a joke: It was recently announced that "Perplexing Pegasus" was not only an album preview, but a triple-album preview. So now that "Black Beatles" has cemented Sremm's legacy as "no longer one-album-wonders," one would think they might want to generate a less obnoxious jump to "career artist" status. All Things Must Pass was the only time this worked (although weirdly Speakerboxxx/The Love Below would probably have been more palatable as a triple-album, with 45-50 minutes per disc instead of 2 dauntingly giant 79 minute CDs, which still wasn't enough to fit the album's final song). The average millennial attention span will likely not be able to hold up for three LPs worth of Rae Sremmurd. P.S. This will probably also be the 1st triple-album in the history of pop music to include zero odd "Revolution 9" experiments or crazy jam sessions. Prove us wrong please.168. Radioactivity “Infected”
167. Ravyn Lenae “Sticky”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEvv2PR0ZeI
166. Chicago Afrobeat Project “No Bad News”
The vocalist on "No Bad News" kinda sounds like Beyonce or a similarly soulful diva-type. If Beyonce did an album like this, the fans would follow. They'll follow her anywhere. It would be a positive thing for the world. This is the future Grammy voters want. This is what Pitchfork writers want. Let's be real: Fuck Bon Iver; Fuck Fleet Foxes; Fuck Beach House; Fuck Vampy Weeks. Something new please.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoaGsn5epuA
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| All 200 Songs |
Where can we buy those "DO YOUR CHORES / SMOKE BEER" shirts? Odd Future figured out how to rip off Earth Wind & Fire. One sweep of the Fender Rhodes from "Dapper" is like an instant time machine back to the breezy frustrations of Summer 2016 - a bummer summer for sure, but the music was dope, and at least Bojack S3 and Stranger Things were sick. Coulda been a lot worse. "I could turn a pussy to a kiddie pool" might be our guilty pleasure lyric of the year.
The journey through Carly Rae's various hair excursions began early in the promo-cycle for E•MO•TION. The red hair from her album cover was dyed black early enough to not appear in any videos. But these adventures wouldn't have grabbed our attention had it not been for our official 2016 "Mullet Of The Year" award. We're having trouble remembering when the mullet debuted, but it appeared on her socials in a round of photos that were intended to showcase things that were not her mullet. Unless we're mistaken, she never attempted to engage fans with a mullet announcement, almost as if she didn't give a shit and was like "yea, I dunno. I guess I have a mullet. Who the fuck cares" and then just continued on with her life. This made both Carly Rae and her possibly accidental mullet even more endearing. And also, "Higher" is a really good song.
The devil is on one shoulder growling, "La Croix is the best. Buy lots of La Croix right now. Fuck all that other shit." Devil tempts you to think with your dick only. The angel is on the other shoulder gently whispering, "Dude, go for Schweppes. It's a good choice, and it's on sale." The angel wants you to think with your heart and do the right thing. At the last minute, you impulsively choose some weird brand like IZZE. Devil and Angel are both facepalming like "omg you idiot" and are very disappointed in you.
Spotlight on Andy Cherv. The phrase "Progress Report" and the song title "At Risk Student" incorrectly places our heads in a high school setting throughout most of the Personal Life LP. No, it's not a concept album. But our heads always envision high school music videos anyway because it feels like an experience when human dignity is at its most vulnerable. "Andy's" sounds like disillusionment and isolation while watching the slow dances at senior prom. After crushing on some babe for four years, you get to see whoever it is making out with someone else from the other side of the room and you're just like "oh cool" and knock over some tables on your way out. "Done learning my lesson."
"Oui" was technically 2015 but we saw it show up on many 2016 lists, so it's fair game. And we tied it to "Zaddy" because both songs are great examples of why we should never hope to live in a world without smooth R&B crooners charismatically boasting their natural heat. We're pretty sure that 107.5 WBLS has yet to fully embrace Ty Dolla $ign, but we remain hopeful for his eventual dominance over R&B airwaves. WBLS is gonna get renamed WBL$ by the time this is over.
Joey & Chance went for the tongue-in-cheek approach: "Where the girls at with the credit cards?" Seriously. It's 2017. Musicians are broke and can't afford luxurious dates (although Chance probably still has some leftover Kitkat money). Pitchfork sneakily snuck this song into the curiously high #43 position on their end-of-year feature - a surprising choice since they usually don't rep for fake-Neptunes summer party jams. The differences between this song and 
We recently read through the chapter in Klosterman's I Wear The Black Hat about how fun it might be to witness Kanye failing at something just one time: "I believe a cataclysmic Kanye West collapse might be the most dramatic thing he'd ever create. It would be the musical event of the decade."
A lot of what we wanted to say about "Yeah I Said It" was relying on "I want you to homicide it" being a misheard lyric, which it is not. Those are the real words. However, we did just discover a huge shocker: The producer responsible for the introspective-sounding beat is none other than Timbaland, who has been sadly absent from our Hot/Lit Mixes since at least 5 years ago, if not longer. But this is also kinda sad since Timbaland now just immediately makes us wonder about what Aaliyah might have been up to in 2016/2017. It's very likely she would be pumping out hit records that sound like Anti.
Kanye's last-minute extra credit assignment totally suckered people like us who want a hotass beat and the type of energy that only stream-of-consciousness can deliver. The dopeness establishes itself within seconds, allowing Kanye to ride it out and speak his mind about whatever was happening that day."Check it out. This the bonus track. My favorite albums used to have bonus joints like this." In the first 2 minutes, it sounds like he's building to a point. "You had me drivin' far enough to switch the time zone / You was the best of all time at the time tho / You wasn't mine tho / But I still drove 30 hours." Relating to "common people" emotion is beneath Kanye West, although it seems like he's oddly shooting for this within a few lyrical passages.
While searching for the Bandcamp stream of "The Paradox Of Thrift," we came across 
We're as shocked as anyone. Failure and Autolux released mid-2010s LPs only nine months apart from each other. Many people would have lost that bet. 
There aren't nearly as many songs with crazy drums anymore. Bowie's Earthling LP from '97 stretched into this a bit with the drum-and-bass freak-outs on "Little Wonder," but a song like "Killing A Little Time" required similar frantic, maddening urgency to a pair of late '90s jams: Nine Inch Nails "The Perfect Drug" and Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can." He knows it's a losing battle no matter what, and it's tough to hear him cope: "I'm falling, man ... I'm fading, man..." But he wants it to end on his terms. By maintaining desperation to keep his momentum as wild as possible, he then maximizes as much stolen borrowed time as he's capable of collecting. It's also remarkable how great his voice sounds - arguably among the very best voices of any recent legacy artist, since so many of them experienced drastic vocal changes after years of abuse from cigarette smoke or worse. Bowie's voice is among the great treasures of rock history.
There are ONLY two ways to interpret the lyric "Put your sweats on for me."
"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).