TouKang16 || All done <3 - Page 20

Kang.

15. Chairlift - "Crying in Public"

A song about losing yourself so hard in your feelings for someone else that all it takes it one stray thought on the subway to bring out the waterworks full-force. So an oddly specific captured moment but also a deeply rich and colorful one, one that wouldn't be possible without that soaring vocal. We've known they could go weird and they've never been anything but catchy, but this was something new for them & it's too bad we might not get to see what their next step would have been.

14. A Tribe Called Quest (f/ Busta Rhymes) - "Dis Generation"

Well if FDT became the most important song in the world on November 8th, this is the one that managed to overtake it for a period starting that coming Friday. The sound of every Tribe member (and Busta) casually trading verses like nothing had changed since the start was something I never thought I would hear again for the first time, but here we were – no politics, no ****-talking, just four guys thrilled to be making rap music. At least on a surface level the song is meant to be some kind of torch-passing to today's class of rappers, but as long as these veterans are still this hungry, I think it's safe to say they got it from here.

13. Car Seat Headrest - "Vincent"

The Car Seat Headrest starter pack right here: an instantly memorable building guitar line, about as good an
approximation of the anxious-young-person mindset that someone in that demographic is going to get on paper,
roughly 3 cumulative minutes of jamming TF out and with a slim 5 still remaining to tell the rest of the story.

12. Gucci Mane - "1st Day Out tha Feds"

He's home free at least, but what does Gucci really have out here: invisible enemies circling like vultures, a lingering sense of paranoia, the distrust of his own mother. On the other hand though – the biggest audience he's ever had, a newly muscled-up and sober delivery style to greet em with, and the most powerful ally in the universe in Mike Will Made-It. It's not a completely one sided battle but it was absolutely enough to chalk the last 7 months of 2016 down as an unqualified W.

11. Rihanna - "Needed Me"

Cold to the touch – in lyrics, in delivery, and trust there is not a leaner DJ Mustard beat.
Hard to imagine how it became the world-conquering summer anthem that it slowly blossomed
into, but then it's also hard to envision any other personality in the world selling it better as such.

MP2K

You know I'm feeling your lists overall. But good writeups

Now see FDT isn't as great as it should be as far as a song itself but that chorus IS 2016 tbh.

Good to see VV Violence, How Does It Feel, War Ready, Greedy and Crying in Public getting appreciation.

AshleeSimpsonFan

1st Day Out tha Feds sounds nice

I like Rihanna and I love most of ANTI but never got into Needed Me

AlexisNeiers

ahh, Slaying In Public

Better Than Me was lowkey the second worst song on Freetown, don't @ me

madonnas

Moth to a Flame >>> Crying in Public.

Kang.

Zamn zaddy, but who really out here deleting posts like that?

Quote:

Originally posted by Kang.

30. PJ Harvey - "The Wheel"

29. EXO - "Monster"

28. Frank Ocean - "Self Control"

27. James Blake f/ Bon Iver - "I Need a Forest Fire"

26. Lady Gaga - "A-YO"

Quote:

Originally posted by Kang.

25. Future f/ The Weeknd - "Low Life"

24. Blood Orange (f/ Carly Rae Jepsen) - "Better Than Me"

23. PUP - "If This Tour Doesn't Kill You, I Will"

22. Zara Larsson - "Lush Life"

21. Angel Olsen - "Not Gonna Kill You"

Quote:

Originally posted by Kang.

20. YG - "FDT"

19. KING - "The Greatest"

18. Parquet Courts - "Berlin Got Blurry"

17. Tegan and Sara - "U-Turn"

16. Ariana Grande - "Greedy"

Let me get the full recap up/in the OP in a bit, grand finale between 6~~8 EST?

Remmy

Lush Life

Needed Me

A-YO is great but the live version is eeeeeeeasily superior.
Greedy

My 2nd favorite from DW. Every play grabs my wig and leaves me scalped.

Kang.

so(far)ngz

Who's born ready, waaar ready?

Kang.

lol kk

10. Fat Joe & Remy Ma f/ French Montana & Infared - "All the Way Up"

If you're from the tri-state area and this song didn't make you feel like the proudest most triumphant mother****er alive, the only thing I have to say is: wyd? Maybe the most catchphrase-able joint of the year if only for that one hook, but what a hook it is. I think my #6 might have them beat for comeback of the year just thanks to sheer quantity, but this feels like nothing if not a re-crowning on a very major scale. Regardless of whether it's further up or down from here for Fat Joe & Remy Ma, any artist should be proud to have peaked so high.

Kang.

9. Solange - "Cranes in the Sky"

Took me a listen or two to catch that Solange wasn't singing about cranes the animal, but this song certainly carries itself with all the grace of one. She opens ASATT declaring herself weary of the ways of the world, but it's not until track 4 rolls around that she fully opens up and shows us – not with a flashy display of protest but more a long-held quiet sigh. It's kind of like Miranda's Vice in how it treats the question of how best to cope with the ****ed-up world around you, one that rarely seems to be looking out for your best interests. But it also seems a bit further on in the process; past the point of self-destruction, little Knowles seems to have arrived at the realization that external solutions just don't do the job – the healing has to come from within. And what do you know through the course of her self analysis, she comes out at the song's end with inner strength to spare.

Kang.

8. Radiohead - "True Love Waits"

Not sure honestly whether my prior ignorance of this song + its position in the Radiohead lore made me appreciate it more or less upon hearing for it the first time as AMSP's closer (I couldn't find the album version on YouTube so enjoy their debut performance of it from 1995 above). I now know the band struggled for years to come up with an arrangement they deemed suitable for a full studio project, but in the wake of Thom Yorke's separation from his partner of 20-plus years, it's hard to argue against this bare-bones piano working as its most affecting version. This one's come full circle to sounding totally un-acoustic, un-electric, un-live – as if it's playing as a memory in the back of your mind and nowhere else. It's a fitting representation of the narrator's scrambling to carry out these ridiculous, nonsensical tasks in a last-ditch attempt to get his loved one to stay. He cries out "don't leave" upwards of a dozen times, but everyone involved knows she's long gone.

Kang.

7. A. K. Paul - "Landcruisin'"

And just when I thought the Paul brothers were down for the count – chained up in Miguel's basement or something even worse – here comes A.K. (or...."Eli") to swag off with the Super Bowl MVP in his very first game. Musically. Landcruisin' doesn't try to be a 'Jasmine,' but it does come wrapped in that trademark Jai Paul aura of mystery that so few songs on this earth manage to come near attaining. What's inside? Something that hits that Sign 'O' the Times sweet spot harder than probably anything I've heard released in my lifetime, chugging through the Grand Canyon at a respectable speed and capped off with the most delicious self-harmonizing in a while. Some gene pools have all the luck god damn.

M A R N ✮

needed me

comment mine x

Kang.

6. The Avalanches - "Because I'm Me"

The rapping here is much better than it had to be, does everything it needs to etc., but is there another recent musical moment more JOYOUS than the loop of the child singing up against the Honey Cone sample? Just pure elation – uncorrupted, infectious, happy to be alive. And it's ironic what with the lyrics concerning rejection, asking 'what's wrong with me?' and so on, but then not much else here makes much sense either. It's a brand new world, one in which the Avalanches are making beautiful music again, and even if we can't fully understand it, best thing to do is nod along and keep smiling anyway.

Kang.

5. Danny Brown - "When It Rain"

Just off-the-wall brazy, bonkers, bananas and the moment I knew that something truly special was on the horizon. Whatever you think of the man, can't say he doesn't follow his heart when he picks a lead single that makes you wait 82 seconds for the beat to first drop all while having a Kendrick feature on deck. But not like there's room to get bored in the space before the drop does hit, not when there's so much else going on. Surprisingly the most menacing song I know to make such prominent use of the rattlesnake shaker noise, and the biggest club banger at least this decade to drop the 'best friend gets shot in the head' troof bomb. And of course the squawk is out in full effect. It is pouring hard somewhere in the world right now, so get your ass on the floor.

Kang.

4. Beyoncé - "Formation"

(yo just peep the vid ok

)

With all things considered this is probably the biggest/only consensus song of the year pick, right, but luckily all that ubiquity didn't make it any less ****ing good. There's no way around it, "Formation" just goes off on the radio, in a club setting, at the Super Bowl, through headphones on public transit, dabbing along in your room, you name it. But its layers go beyond just sounding great; it's quotable AF, well sung, richly produced (more on that in a few), great video obv. and comes with a very relevant social message provided you're not a dumbass, it basically ticks all the boxes. It may not fit super neatly into the Lemonade storyline, but that's fine too. As a post-relationship-drama steam blowoff/epilogue, it would be hard to do better.

Kang.

3. Rae Sremmurd f/ Gucci Mane - "Black Beatles"

Mike Will Made-It WON!!!
Well to be fair his most hypnotic beat yet in a career extremely full of them is a big contributor to the greatness on display here, but it's not the only one. The 'sent flowers' bit in the intro giving the whole song a bizarre romantic subtext, the "I'm a ****in Black Beatle" verse being the best put to tape in rap history, the extremely high and low pitched adlibs underneath the verses that I didn't even notice until my 70th listen, having Gucci on display to build the bridge between two generations of southern rap weirdos, a full 40 seconds at the end just to gape in awe at those dueling... synth and chime lines, the line "me and Paul McCartney related!" It adds up to the weirdest and best Hot 100 topper in a long ass time, and though I was stanning for it before I even knew it was a single, I'll always be thankful to the mannequin challenge for letting so many others share my joy.

Kang.

2. Kanye West - "Ultralight Beam"

It was a messy year for Kanye and everyone else, but for 5 golden minutes early on there – with some help from The-Dream, Kelly Price, Kirk Franklin, an inconsistent drum beat, some well placed horns, a preaching 4-year-old, a gospel choir with seemingly nothing to lose, Chance the Rapper's best verse ever, a whole whole lot of silence, and not much else at all – he found salvation. May we all be so lucky going forward.

Kang.

1. Mitski - "Your Best American Girl"

It's a song that tells a story, and the story's a good one. You have your dynamic character action; notably that change-up between "I think I do" / "I finally do," and then back again. And just as importantly, there's all these important messages about embracing our differences and honoring where we come from, but moreover knowing when to put those differences aside and trust your gut to lead you to do what's best for yourself. But above all of that, there's a moment 2 minutes in – when the distortion starts up after Mitski sings "...I'll regret this" – that I just have to listen to and think: well everybody else might as well stop now, because nothing is ever going to sound better than this.

And that is why we listen to music after all, yes? To get that feeling? In a year full of great music and some sketchy external happenings I always knew I had one glorious burst of noise – and the beautiful song surrounding it – at my disposal to make everything else seem small and obsolete for at least the three and a half minutes it lasted. Which is pretty ****ing swag if you ask me, now good night and God bless America. <3

MP2K

Great top 17, with some surprises, especially Fat Joe and Remy

Landcrusin' too which is slept on.