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Auris | Songs 60-51 | Best of 2016 | LU: 2:00 AZ Dec. 24
Member Since: 2/16/2010
Posts: 69,775
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Desperado and Yeah, I Said It mentions 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 15,668
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SONGS
It's very good to love. twigs sings about the plea to allow one to love. If you could just drop your concerns and try to love - for the first time or all over again - this belief that things can work out exists. We don't want to be "wasting time," we want to feel good while loving. It does "hurt too much" and I do indeed "pray to get it back." Please.... let others love you. Don't close yourself off from those who want the best for you. Genuine humans exist, they're just hard to find.
Production is simple and nice, Olivia's voice is absolutely beautiful, and the flow is perfect in her parts. Then gnash comes in and just... it's the opposite. It's a pretty song that doesn't hold anything back. It's raw. Feels like life. I relate to a lot of the lines despite gnash's weird lyricism at times.
Woo when this came out I knew it would hit #1  What a ****in BOP. It's one of the most well-crafted hits in recent memory. The producers actually knew what to do when going for a hit unlike Max and Luke in recent years.
dvsn was a king of double entendres in his music this year. "Too Deep" is a sexy yet bittersweet song that contains amazing pitched samples, an 80s-influenced RnB beat, and the soaring vocals of Daley alongside a beautiful choir.
Resorting Kendrick to ad-libs and having some beautiful alt-RnB guitars sets the soundscape for "Skyline To" pretty well. The song has a somewhat sinister and sad tone towards adultism and the loss of childhood. It's heartbreaking yet pleasant to listen to. Frank has synthesizers and guitar meld together perfectly.
Blake slayed it this year. He's becoming less of a post-dubstep artist and more of an experimental RnB/pop artist akin to Bon Iver or Frank Ocean. His sound on "Radio Silence" is a combination of all his former sounds alongside his newer influences. The glitched piano, melancholic production, heavy usage of synthesizers, and depressing lyrics are all present. The difference is that now Blake is focusing a lot more on melodic beauty and creating soundscapes that take one out of the digital world and more into the real world. The hook's refrain of "I can't believe this, you don't want to see me. We've been in love with each other so long" is so heartbreaking and hits close to home. How can one spend years with someone then over the smallest issue decide to leave and change their entire person? Putting reliance upon another for love and trusting that they'll stay true to themselves and to you just can't work sometimes. People change and not always for the better. The hardest thing to do is watch someone you loved and grew with change suddenly. To watch them change and become something they would have hated months prior.
Rihanna's new album contains her best ballads by far. "Never Ending" is a sad recounting of a lost relationship. Songs like these don't make sense until you've experienced them firsthand and can understand the emotion of the songwriters - where they were coming from and what types of terrible things must have happened for this song to exist. Sometimes we really will
never understand, and always want to hold on longer to be in love again.
This song has some wild production changes and kinda reminds me of a more laid-back Tame Impala style-wise. I thought it had great lyricism, production, and innovation.
Some songs are dope when you first hear them then take on new meanings later on. "Gazi" is one of those songs. The themes of drug enterprise, loss of love, fulfilling that loss of love and desire with meaningless sex, the integration of drugs with daily life, etc. are all wild themes that a year ago meant nothing to me yet today are more relatable than anything Katy's ever put out.
Radiohead is very hit-or-miss for me. I respect their contributions to rock and music in general, but sometimes their songs are just "oh, that was interesting." "Burn The Witch" has amazing strings, a weird bass, great symbolism, and actual replay value! The song makes for one of Radiohead's best singles in a decade.
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Member Since: 3/14/2013
Posts: 37,294
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Never Ending 
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Member Since: 8/7/2015
Posts: 2,512
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One Dance is a bop.
Radio Silence is one of my favorites from his album.
Never Ending is a really nice ballad.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 43,973
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Good To Love
Burn The Witxh
Radio Silence
Skyline To
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ATRL Senior Member
Member Since: 7/23/2007
Posts: 35,994
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Member Since: 8/17/2013
Posts: 15,103
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Never Ending and Burn The Witch 
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Member Since: 12/1/2011
Posts: 24,324
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Skyline To and BTW are my favs, and yes its one of their best in quite a BIT
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Member Since: 10/5/2009
Posts: 137,162
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One Dance is cute  His first good single in quite a while. Never Ending  Very pretty song.
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Member Since: 5/23/2007
Posts: 65,087
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Never Ending and Burn The Witch are great! and I love One Dance! too bad he never released a music video and the song didn't chart on my weekly countdown 
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 37,384
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Never Ending, One Dance, Skyline Too The latter is in my Blonde trinity
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 19,167
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i hate u, i love u.
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Member Since: 1/1/2014
Posts: 2,409
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FKA twigs 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 3/15/2013
Posts: 39,618
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Never Ending is so beautiful
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Member Since: 5/23/2007
Posts: 65,087
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Update 
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ATRL Contributor
Member Since: 8/1/2012
Posts: 15,668
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SONGS
I love Tame Impala, and so this cover is a pleasant surprise. It extends the ending of the song by another 30 seconds and basically serves as an updated version of Tame Impala's "New Person, Same Old Mistakes." Rihanna's vocals are beautiful in this song and go surprisingly well with Kevin Parker's remaining bg vox. The song is a journey that Parker has created and Rihanna guides you on.
I think this is the shortest song on my countdown. Frank's lyricism is as always on point, but it's the composition of this song that is truly amazing. The instrumental is complex while seeming simple and ambient while Frank's vocal harmonies and lines are all done in different styles so that every part of this short piece bring about different feelings.
Feelings of limbo feel like time freezes. When life suddenly erupts into a **** ton of problems, we just want to "turn back the time to make it all alright." Past times were so happy and carefree. Our entire adult lives seem to be a quest to return to carefreeness, a return to normalcy and happiness. So we fake our way through life, settling for that which we know we do not deserve and that we can maintain only in the desire to have stability - whether or not that stability is natural or artificial. In the end, relationship wise, we just want to build a whole new world for us and our loved ones where we're truly happy and content.
"Future Being" for some reason was on the alt-rnb playlists this year. To me, it sounds like an EDM song akin to "Middle." The song's instrumental is amazing and gives tons of valuable room to RKCB's vox. I never connected lyrically to this song but it's just such a pleasant listen that I don't care.
Drake just slayed this year. ****ing album cuts like "Controlla" hit the T20 and remained there for a while. The song is a one-man rehash of "Work," but that doesn't make it any less of a bop. Plus that sample is straight 
Honestly I don't know why I put this song so high on my list. It's a fun damn song that kinda was the zenith of tropical pop. It did it without being boring and actually brought the song somewhere. Plus, Sean Paul's voice is always pleasant to hear, especially in a year when his style was jacked by Canadians.
So deadmau5 hasn't released a really solid project in a while. This song is a return to the style of deadmau5 that he used nearly a decade ago and takes the listener on a journey akin to that of "Some Chords" or "Strobe" but with updated synthesizers. Someone teach this man how to use drums though because I swear he's gotten way too complacent with his drums.
The opener to the weirdest mainstream album of the year is also one of the weirdest songs of the year. The glitched-out vox, the master distortion, and the slightly off-putting composition all contribute to "22" being quite the experience. It's a great album opener and really sets up the themes and feelings to be found in the rest of the album.
deadmau5's vocal cuts this year were sparse. Only "Beneath With Me" and "Let Go" had any sort of relevance (might be the only ones released actually). This song actually has meaningful lyrics (sorry, Skylar) and a "drop" section that isn't obnoxious. It feels pleasant, which is what deadmau5 excels at (see "Monday," "The Veldt").
This song has beautiful verses, a catchy chorus, and absolutely incredible production. The glitched out stops and changes in the beat throughout the chorus of the song are masterful and show an insane attention to detail. The remix is nearly unrecognizable from the original, and that's a good thing. The original was a kinda basic edm song while the remix takes it to new heights.
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Member Since: 10/5/2009
Posts: 137,162
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Cheap Thrills + Middle  Great bops!
Same Ol' Mistakes Both versions are awesome
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Member Since: 8/19/2013
Posts: 19,167
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3/10
Cheap Thrills. 
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Member Since: 3/14/2013
Posts: 37,294
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Cheap Thrills 
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Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 5,091
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One Dance, Never Ending, Controlla and Cheap Thrills
Same Ol' Mistakes is Rihanna's best album track
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