| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
80. Nilufer Yanya “Baby Luv” / Phoebe Bridgers “Motion Sickness”
79. Kash Doll "Here I Go"
This is here because of TikTok. Duh.
78. Robyn “Human Being”
77. Satan’s Satyrs “Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby”
If only it were 1991 again -- back when it was common for The Black Crowes' cover of Otis Redding's "Hard To Handle" and Ugly Kid Joe's "I Hate Everything About You" commonly bumped on MTV and Z100 transitioning in and out of jams from the likes of Janet Jackson and MC Hammer. (We're assuming Top 40 stations used to play "Once Bitten Twice Shy" in the late '80s, but that was before our time.) This long forgotten sub-subgenre is what Satan's Satyrs has sonically achieved with their update on a '50s R&B standard. Needless to say, we're all for it. It's hilarious and a lot more fun than it has any right to be. And it should never have disappeared in the first place. Why was there only one of these in 2018? We need more.76. Night Birds “My Dad Is The BTK”
Yeah sure, and my landlord is John Wayne Gacy.
75. Rosalia “Pienso En Tu Mira”
74. Courtney Barnett “Need a Little Time”
"I'm Obama and I say we turn this shit the fuck up." - Barack Obama, closing his eyes, nodding on the downbeats
73. Terminator 2 “Negative Reinforcement”
Terminator 2 is back??? We wish. The Dallas two-piece recorded this enormously brutal jam in 2014-2015, keeping it unreleased until mid-2018. It's huge though.
72. Mariah Carey “Caution”
71. Natalie Prass “Short Court Style”
70. Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats “I See Through You”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfKBfq75_7E
69. Freddie Gibbs f/ 03 Greedo “Death Row”
68. Andrew WK “Music Is Worth Living For”
67. Ovlov “Short Morgan” / Ovlov "Baby Alligator"
66. Thingy “Not to Follow” / Goblin Cock "Hammond Song"
Mad respect to Rob Crow for even considering the immense creative challenge tackled through his 2018 Joyful Noise residency. But also respect is due for welcoming the breakneck release schedule as an opportunity to revisit Optiganally Yours and Thingy, two bands who hadn't released any new music since 2000. As far as we can tell, neither of these bands had ever split up, but the enormous success of Pinback (originally intended a a side project) resulted in the unexpected stretch between releases. We have not yet heard the entire box, but a random sampling indicates a lack of throwaways, performed entirely to precision, meticulously recorded and mixed, carefully sequenced -- especially Anal Trump's outstanding The First 100 Songs LP.Goblin Cock's curious all-covers entry marks a sonic departure from the group's previous releases. A loud, demonic, and refreshingly cloaked version of The Monkees' "Porpoise Song" obscures its psychedelic affiliation. Our personal highlight goes to an exciting thrash take of The Roches' "Hammond Song." We're not sure why we chose "Not To Follow" as the Thingy stand-out, but it's definitely a strong one-song representation of their record as a whole.
"Not To Follow" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBtxTVXeQog&t=497s
"Hammond Song" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tM65kpHzz0
65. Connan Mockasin “Charlotte’s Thong”
64. Flasher “Material”
63. Hailu Mergia “Lala Belu”
62. Red Velvet “Bad Boy”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_CFBjAyPWE
61. Kacey Musgraves “Lonely Weekend”
"Slow Burn" is fine, but we don't really get why it turned into the critical favorite of this record. Same goes for "Rainbow" -- a very strange choice for the post-Grammy-hype radio single. "Butterflies" and "Space Cowboy" were also fine choices for album previews. But all of the above don't feel hooky enough to stand-out within pop-country radio. (Modern country fans still listen to old-fashioned regular-ass radio, by the way.) "Lonely Weekend" and "High Horse" are clearly the two songs that are easiest to remember after one listen. They are the obvious pop hits, and should have been treated as such. Another enormous blunder in the world of modern radio programming, further proof that "the biz" collectively has no idea what the fuck they are doing. | 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
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. 
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 
Lots of awesome bands do this thing where, somewhere in the first half of their third album, there's one song that somewhat stands out, representing some unexpected atypical formula deviation. In this respect, "Common Heat" shares sonic parallels with 
A brief Twitter thread sparked the creation of Kanye’s most unheralded triumph of 2010, combining elements of mash-ups and remixes in one huge summery badass package of fun. Somewhere between RZA’s drum sampling and Kanye’s new piano section (a somewhat ingenious improvement from the original “Runaway Love”) surfaces a return to the same sunshine heard in early 90’s pop hits like 
The common critique regarding "Alejandro" confuses plagiarism with inspiration. Granted, it really does sound like the three big singles from Ace Of Base's The Sign combined with Madonna's (somewhat annoying) "La Isla Bonita." The big difference lies in "Ale-Alejandro's" intricately complex song structure, which is probably LGG's most underrated talent. After hitting such an enormous artistic and commercial homerun with last year's "Bad Romance," her momentum has only increased. Now waiting for the leak of Born This Way with eager anticipation...
This band was co-formed last year by one of the members of Portishead, and they're now prolly the best Krautrock band of the past 2 decades, if not longer. Their record came out last November, and while it still kicked ass throughout 2010, mindfuck moments such as the apocalyptic brick-wall-explosion bass-guitar attack on "Ham Green" unfortunately missed out due to being released in late-'09. A similar but more groove-oriented bass attack appears in their only new song of 2010, the A-side “Wulfstan,” along with generous amounts of balls-tripping chants. Here’s hoping BEAK> sticks around long enough to release more original stuff at some point soon. P.S. This is def not a popular opinion, but we’re kinda loving this way more than the last Portishead record.
If "Be Mine" and "Dancing On My Own" were both about watching a love interest from afar, "Hang With Me" might be considered the prequel to these, in which she gets some action from her desired love interest (double score!), although it sounds like she has to lie in order to make it happen, telling him it's ok for them to be just friends, and "don't fall recklessly headlessly in love with me" even though that's exactly what she wants to happen. Also, the "single" version of "Hang With Me" is the one referred to here.. The one from Body Talk Part 2 with the lovely synths (as opposed to the sorta-ok "acoustic" version on Part 1). The newer version is somehow reminiscent of 
Disassociating this song from its retardedly brilliantly outstandingly NSFW-defining promo video has become somewhat of a challenge. But here goes nothing: El Guincho figured out how to beat Panda Bear at his own game. The beachy-fun summer-pop vibe is there, and the "weed" aspects are there, but the reverb is turned down (as opposed to Panda Bear who is drenched in reverb) so it sounds initially less "weed" and more "beach," which is way cool. Also since many Americans are lazy and stupid and have little-to-no time or desire to learn whatever language he's speaking, it becomes enjoyable to imagine he's singing about the same amount of lovely summeriness that the music conveys. Or maybe he's singing about titties and guns, like in the video.. Yeah, see right there.. it's a challenge. Fuck it. I just spent 10 minutes Google-image searching for a picture of the girl from the video who holds the sparklers. I'm thinking about asking her to bear my children. If anyone can help out with this, please leave a comment with the info.
Fun facts regarding The-Dream: He writes songs for Bieber. He hails from the Hotlanta. He worships Prince, to the extent that most of his best songs are Prince homages, such as “Yamaha,” yet another one of these epic future-classics with multiple choruses and refrains, as opposed to a strict verse/chorus structure, with each new section better than the one before it. Also, more sick drums... The-Dream's interests veer towards the artistic and monetary aspects of the music biz, and not so much superstardom (or else there would probably be a video for "Yamaha"), which is good for those of us who enjoy our R&B talent shining brilliantly under the radar. Oh, and also he stole my wife away from me. He's a right bastard, that Dream...
“Not In Love” will probably not be signaling a new direction for The Cure in the same way that “Wrong Number” incorrectly suggested in the late 90’s, although it’s probably the best song Robert Smith has sung since then, if not earlier. As for Crystal Castles, congratulations on justifying your career past hipster cred. Also, what's up with all the outstanding covers in 2010? It was that kind of year... (as opposed to a shitstorm of godawful covers, which usually happens every year...)
Once upon a time, The Pixies also started a song with "HEY!" The Pixies years were a very strong period for music, when it wasn't uncommon for outstanding rock bands to follow a near-perfect album with even more brilliant non-album tracks. Remember those crazy pre-internet days (lmao) when quality control meant something? Obviously, the ways music gets released has changed, and by today's standards, Japandroids aren't (yet) quite huge enough for their B-sides to be heard. So in the interest of maximum exposure, three apparent throwaways from the Post-Nothing sessions emerged as A-Sides in 2010, with "Heavenward" displaying their most breathtaking dynamic changes, and an intro build-up that almost forces the listeners to close their eyes. Perhaps "thrill of living" music is finally back, nicely demonstrated by this song along with "Crazy/Forever" and "Sovereignty." With due respect to The Cure and Smashing Pumpkins, these are the new makeout jams.
Most of our feelings for "Sun" echo our assessment of 
Liars are the only modern band I can think of who reference both Can and The Jesus Lizard on nearly every release, any yet every album is so different. They're also like the David Lynch of rock, in that their songs are often the types that would probably be playing at some crazy warped concert in someone’s dream. How can you tell if you're dreaming or not? Are you dreaming right now? Wake the fuck up and turn this shit up LOUD.
’06 had Chicken Noodle Soup. ’07 had Soulja Boy. ’09 was all about jerkin. But ’10 was The Year Of Dougie. And I personally know zero people who can accurately perform any of these dances. That’s how white I am, people. P.S. Did you know the drums in this song are fucking ridiculous? P.P.S. Here's one of those rare jams with something to look forward to in both the dirty AND clean versions.. Dirty starts out with "You know why? Cuz all the bitches love me," while the Clean (posted below) has "errbody love me err errbody love me" in the chorus. It's WIN/WIN with Dougie.
Some truth regarding Of Montreal: 
I’d have to guess this is probably the first time since at least 2002 that a single Weezer track appeared in the top 100, let alone three tracks, all of which were (unsurprisingly) recorded between 1995 and 1998. 
Poor Robyn. When she’s not tortured by her love interest, she’s getting fucked over by her managers and fans pushing her around, or “killing” her, as it were. I understand; my job sucks too. I might feel more empathy if the beat of this song wasn’t so distractingly hot, or if it weren’t so fun to sing along with “my penis is killin’ me.”
DJ Drama & Pill wisely re-released this summer's outstanding mixtape 1140: The Overdose without the excessive and annoyingly loud DJ tags. The Youtube files below are unfortunately from the scarred 1st version. Word on the street is that Pill has been "taking his time" with the debut full-length, a very good reason why he did not blow the fuck up in 2010. The streets are ready for some real fire spittin' shit. As long as he keeps up with hooks like these, he’s set to become the next Ludacris or Big Boi. Pretty sure he's already signed to Warner Brothers, so yeah... Get fuckin' ready...
Ho Out:
Action:
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In these parts, the idea of the great JPNDRDS covering PJ Harvey can generate some serious chubbs action.* Luckily, they killed it, and the chubbs were justified.
This album just came out not even two months ago, and there’s already a huge disclaimer at their label's website under the album cover stating “SOLD OUT” in huge capital letters!? I'm not kidding here, I was all damn good and ready to make a $9 purchase with actual money to have this unit shipped to my doorstep so that I could own a physical copy and won’t have to feel like I’m stealing from an asskicking new rock band. But nope; "SOLD OUT." This is what it's come to. This is why illegal downloads exist. The good shit is not sold at Best Buy. However, the good shit is usually downloadable from blogs such as 
It’s 100% No Age, but it’s also 50% Ramones, 63% “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter,” 26% The Fall, and 19% Nuggets boxed set, which adds up to 158%, which is 58% more than the average song. I’m not sure what this means. Read Pitchfork’s review instead. It's equally nonsense, but 
There’s a few Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown tracks that you can totally tell would sound that much better performed by Wolf Parade, for example when they took the Sunset track 
Hooray For Earth toured this year with Surfer Blood, which is really the only reason they're being compared here. When Surfer Blood was discussed back at #84, it was noted that their music suffers from wussy-production, whereas Hooray For Earth, with their spacey/dreamy synths, received a correct balance of wuss/rock ratio, one that serves their music adaquately. “Surrounded By Your Friends” is their best song yet, and there's a good vibe going around that there's more where that came from. New LP in 2011 hopefully...
Big Boi was clearly not choosing his guest-vocalists based on how "cool" they look. "Bewildered" might be an adequate term to describe a first viewing of the videos from Chico Dusty and realizing the extreme lack of "cool" exuded by the likes of Vonnegut and Yelawolf. In the case of "You Ain't No DJ," the beat was luckily so blazing hot (courtesy of none ofter than that genius mofo Andre 3000 himself!) that it pretty much made 0% of difference. Also of note: I thought the skit at the end of this one might have been the "David Blaine" one, but sadly that was from a different song. Sursly tho.. David Blaine: Skit of the year.
No one is really sure if she’s actually the heartbroken introvert she so convincingly plays on her albums, but Robyn’s brilliant Letterman performance of this song touched our hearts like almost no other TV performance this year. A few weeks later, someone decided to try and recreate this magic on the VMA’s, a program which hasn’t made a single correct decision in 6 or 7 years, so of course it was a bit frustrating to witness her 15 seconds of lipsynching and dancing like a crazy girl... as they segwayed into more Kia and Taco Bell commercials. Thanks for nothing, MTV. Stick to what you’re good at, a.k.a. sucking Snooki’s dick.
“Using great big words that they don’t understand.” The American Suburbs is not exactly uncharted lyrical or musical territory, which may have come to an alltime peak somewhere between The Monkees’ “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane” single. In this case, Arcade Fire have invoked musical elements from all three of these, most noteably the “chaotic outro” motif, signified in “Rococo” with some lovely, ferocious guitar feedback.