| 100 - 81 || 80 - 61 || 60 - 41 || 40 - 21 || 20 - 1 |
| All 100 Songs |
60. The Shifters “Andrew Bolt”
59. Innumerable Forms "Punishment in Flesh" / Creeping Death "Trail of Confusion"
58. Nicki Minaj f/ Ariana Grande “Bed” / Ariana Grande “God Is A Woman” / Khalid f/ 6LACK & Ty Dolla $ign "OTW"
57. Satan’s Satyrs “Take It And Run”
At the final table of the 2018 World Series of Poker’s $1,500 seven-card stud event in June, Albini wasn’t wearing shades or showing off any tacky ink. But he did have on a black T-shirt featuring the name and logo of a Belgian punk band called Cocaine Piss. Albini works with the group. “We actually have a session booked in a couple weeks,” said Albini, the owner of Electrical Audio in Chicago. “They’re coming to record another album.” After he sported the tee, traffic to the Cocaine Piss Bandcamp page quickly jumped. https://www.theringer.com/sports/2018/7/2/17524632/steve-albini-poker-world-series-champion56. Bad Sports “Comes Close”
55. Mason Ramsey “Famous”
Mason Ramsey went to Walmart sometime prior to March 24th, 2018, and he decided to yodel. Someone took a video with their phone -- likely one of his parents. And they wisely tagged the video "Walmart Yodel Boy" to make it seem like the video was not taken by anyone in the yodeller's family. By March 31st, the uploaded video had an entry on knowyourmeme. By April 13th, Mason had been asked to perform at Coachella. Up until this point, the meme felt pretty annoying. However, it all became justified mere weeks later after a songwriting team of four people wrote him the outstandingly dope song "Famous." It was quickly recorded and released to Spotify on April 27th, later debuting at #62 on the Billboard Hot 100. It's not tough to quickly move on from an unremarkable meme-of-the-week, but a dope jam lasts forever. Also he kinda looks like Jordy.54. Three Keep Deep “Kingz Way”
53. Etran de L'Aïr "Etran Hymne"
The No. 1 LP is the winner of what would have been the Grammy for "Wedding Band Album Of The Year" if such a Grammy Award ever existed. A layer of field recording surrounds the atmosphere of this mysterious 2014 artifact, possibly taped with only one or two mics. Liner notes reveal that these distant captured sounds are an actual wedding, and that Etran de L'Air is one of Niger's most successful wedding bands. We would like them to play at every wedding forever, but that is impossible. So instead, just play the CD or vinyl. It'll be great. P.S. Why don't more wedding people get vinyl DJ's to spin at their weddings? Kinda sick of just seeing the one dumbass with the mic spinning the same dumbass songs for 5 hours.52. Stove "Mosquiter" / Stove “Nightwalk”
51. Otoboke Beaver “Anata Watashi Daita Ato Yome No Meshi”
50. David Nance Group “In Her Kingdom” / David Nance “110 Blues (I-80 Version)”
49. Travis Scott f/ Drake “Sicko Mode”
48. Beach House “Lemon Glow”
47. Windhand "Old Evil" / Windhand “Red Cloud”
46. Sleep "Sonic Titan"
For all practical intents and purposes, the fluid track listing of Dopesmoker finally congealed upon the release of its 2012 vinyl and streaming reissue: Track 1: "Dopesmoker (Parts 1, 2 and 3)" Track 2: "Holy Mountain (live in 1994)," Track 3: "Sonic Titan (live in 1992)." After lasting 20 years without any official studio release, "Sonic Titan" seemed destined to go down as a lost fan favorite. Without much warning, 4/20/2018 suddenly arrived with a Beyonce-style surprise drop from perhaps the most mythic stoner-metal band of all time. The Sciences had arrived.The record's two lengthiest jams - "Antarcticans Thawed" and "Sonic Titan" - both survived similarly long journeys from their 1992 genesis, written alongside "Dopesmoker" starting around the close of the Sleep's Holy Mountain sessions. Fully ripened in its official studio version, "Sonic Titan" now stretches well-past the 12-minute mark, fully formed beyond its 9-minute Dopesmoker version. The placement of the bass solo after its gigantic intro justifies every repetition. The Iommi-thirds accompanying its riff ascend straight into one of Matt Pike's wildest shredder solos.
[Incorrectly labelled as "Giza Butler" on Bandcamp.]
45. Kim Petras “Heart To Break”
44. Mister Goblin “Option Vampire”
43. Rolling Blackout Coastal Fever "Talking Straight"
42. Surface To Air Missive “Life is So Sad” / Surface To Air Missive "Phases"
41. 6ix9ine f/ Fetty Wap & A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie “KEKE”
We were bad.
| 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 
Mitski and Angel Olsen (more Mitski tho) have brought the mid-2010s its eagerly anticipated Tori resurgence. Mitski's recent output sounds like the shit that would have been on Lilith Fair had the festival existed in 1992. In that sense, this sounds way more specifically '90s-retro than any of the vaguely '90s sounding Big Muff guitar bands of the past 5 years. 
We never realized Chance is essentially idolized all throughout Chicago, probably more now than any other current rapper. Kanye is global; even back when he felt the most localized, his global ubiquity made true localization seem impossible. Chief Keef always felt localized when profiled in Vice docs and the like, but 2013 was a while ago, and he hasn't truly regained momentum since then. Like many current rappers, Chance is still unsigned and reps locally more than not. Plus, his "Best New Artist" Grammy has brought him one step closer to "beloved" territory - a very exclusive club of extremely famous rappers that include Lauryn Hill, Outkast and a few others. (Kanye is not a beloved rapper. His eligibility disappeared a while ago.) 2017 is Chance's moment, and "All Night" - despite its anti-club anti-label anti-blog subject matter - has been one of Chicago's hottest club bangers of the past year. We've only heard it on NYC's Hot 97 once, but it's a megahit in Chicago, perhaps a sign that a new era of regional hits may be on its way.
This one refreshes. We know it was intended as a throwaway one-off (featuring members of Jackal Onasis, Ian Sweet and Stove messing around with pro-tools), but "Cowboy" felt like it accidentally captured something very specific about last summer. The band name Skatebored suggests a slacker/stoner approach, and the e-drums give it a uniquely hazy, rave quality, but with way more happy strands of weed than ecstasy pills.
Quietly appearing smack in the center of a comp release, this stray track may have gone unnoticed even for Pinback superfans. It's probably a new song and not a throwaway from 2012 or earlier, yet sounding more quintessentially Pinback than almost anything they've released since Autumn Of The Seraphs. When Mom asks "What does Pinback sound like?" you can feel okay playing her this song. Welcome back Rob Crow.
After nearly 25 years of existence, SoCal's finest Spanish-language grindcore band was finally mentioned on prominent music blogs in 2016 thanks to a single they released with the word "Trump" in the title. Go figure. Before instant fact checking was a normal thing, we were skeptical of the kids on the playground who told us that Faith No More's Billy Gould was the bass player for Brujeria throughout the '90s. (To be fair, these were the same kids who started the rumor that Kurt Cobain consumed 4000 calorie breakfasts every day.) However, Wikipedia now confirms it: Billy Gould is responsible for the deeply heavy ass-kicking bass line in the intro of "Mantando Gueros '97" from the Gummo soundtrack CD. '90s grindcore and deathmetal are the true '90s nostalgia bands.
It's time for another exciting edition of "Riffin' on Weezer." *canned applause* (No joke. We're extremely qualified for a weekly talk show where we only discuss Weezer things. Podcast CEOs: Our starting pay rates are very reasonable.) Weezer's 2011-2016 era wasn't so bad compared to the devastatingly grating 2004-2010 era. "King Of The World" could have been a decent Maladroit follow-up single. (A lot of people really love "Beverly Hills" for some reason even though it's just kinda okay. "King Of The World" is objectively better.) // Not sure what else to discuss, but we do enjoy this picture of Weezer (minus Rivers and Pat Wilson) accepting an award for "Buddy Holly" at the VMAs in 1995. (
In 1970, John Lennon wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered "Instant Karma!" with Phil Spector over the course of a single day (January 27th). Its 7-inch was released on vinyl 10 days later, February 6th. It reached #3 on the US charts, went platinum by the year's end, has appeared in Nike commercials and is considered among his most revered hit songs. 
There are fewer charting hits now than at any point since the '60s. Placing blame on playlisting is slowly making more and more sense, as Billboard's own "Hot 100" Spotify playlist contains streams that count toward their own chart results. (How is this not a problem again?) And with so few of those charting hits resembling anything that could be described as "fun," it's incredible that wedding bands and bar bands can still add current charting songs that feel reasonably multi-generational to their repertoires. A few weeks ago at a town fair, we heard a cover band begin their set with "24k Magic" and "Cake By The Ocean" (followed by "Rude," "Locked Out Of Heaven," "Uptown Funk" and 3 hours of '70s/'80s covers). Even Mr. Garrison was feeling DNCE this year. Keep the party alive.
Is this the first time Elton John and Busta Rhymes were on the same song? We should Google this, but we'd rather leave the question open for now.
What's the significance of the recorder?
The most important Twitter moment of 2016 was obviously 
The word "Wormed" keeps reminding us of the word "Marooned," which is also the title of what we thought at the time (age 12) was the most disturbing season 1 episode of Ren & Stimpy or any of the more warped Commander Höek and Cadet Stimpy adventures, like the one when their molecules began to dissipate throughout the atmosphere. We want to believe that John K. is a Wormed fan. We really do.
On September 7, 1977, David Bowie taped a performance of "Heroes" on the sixth and final episode of Marc, a weekly musical variety show hosted by Marc Bolan. (
The origins of "Graduate and Congratulate" begin years before Ovlov in the band Home Movies, when Stove was influenced by the chill, summery beachy-ness of "The Game Of Love" by Santana featuring Michelle Branch (written by Gregg Alexander from The New Radicals). An unrelated aside, we really need to get our hands on a couple of those Boner Pedals we've been hearing so much about. The kids are abuzz; "Nothing Beats A Boner," they say. We've heard nothing but good things, and probably at least 20 of the bands in Lit As Fuck Mix 2016 really do use them. Not kidding. (This is an unpaid advertisement, by the way. Boner didn't ask us to write this. We were running out of steam, and this picture of Boner on Stove's Facebook page felt inspiring.) These peds make every guitar sound like Jesus Christ himself were shredding from the top of the highest mountain. World Class craftsmanship, hand-made, custom pedals built by Boner. Give em a big old phonecall right now today. Your one-stop shop for all the peds. 
Get ready for some nasty air guitar. "Redline" had the catchiest, most exciting, most urgent and probably overall best guitar solo of the year. Geronimo's split in 2014 seemed like a huge bummer at the time. But the split seems to have inspired newfound musical freedom unlocking what's probably been their most prolific era to date. Every 5 or 6 months, it seems they have a new project with names like Milked or Future Biff. Nothing's changed. Everything's changed. 
Demons celebrate from deep in the fiery pits of hell. Belly-laughing for hours on end like they just saw Charlie Murphy's "Rick James" sketch for the first time after a series of heavy bong rips, 100,000 crudely shitty little creatures resembling the Iz's from The Maxx surround souls getting drawn-and-quartered in a coliseum setting, busting their guts as the helpless are sucked into the vortex of infinite purgatory.
On Palberta's previous records, their surrealist elements were an undercurrent. The dreaminess was not as blatant and was only mildly present among their most childlike tendencies, whereas now surrealism seems to have taken over their music completely. They're shooting to unlock the unconscious thoughts of the listener in a hugely conceptual multi-layered blueprint that listeners may partially grasp but can probably only be truly understood by the three songwriters. If their discography (up to this point) represents a linear trajectory aligning with basic human rite-of-passage type moments, "Ode To Honey" is the era when someone might first discover mushrooms - at one with nature and with a renewed sense of perspective.
Boekner's original solo version of "Floating World" never received an official release, but it did appear in 
Return To Cookie Mountain is her favorite album (probably). At this point, her stans are ready and loyal enough to follow her to the edge of Hades or balls deep into a completely avant-garde era that will be best understood 15 years from now. We have our hopes up that Anti was her Low and that her next two albums are Rihanna's equivalent to the Berlin trilogy (preferably with Dave Sitak as her Brian Eno).
