Quote:
Originally posted by supaspaz
Waiting, anticipating.
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nnn
20. Taylor Swift - Shake It Off
Pop identikit as young woman's renewal - a practical spiritual how-to for any upper middle class girl/gay. What makes this her are all the small details: the slightly self-satisified yet nervous laugh at the end, the downright erotic twist of the vocal in the bridge. No wonder it's stuck around so long.
19. FKA twigs - Two Weeks
Passed right over me for most of the year, until I realized how boundlessly, fearlessly, fearfully, overwhelmingly dirty it is. Twenty years after That's The Way Love Goes/If, it just feels right.
18. Kimbra - 90s Music
Skips right pass pointless nostalgia and hits the personal - how songs on the radio directly frame the moments of our lives. Boyhood as less than four minute pop song, and all the better for it.
17. Sky Ferreira - I Blame Myself
Self-discovery, more reflected in the music (the verses wander), than in the plaintively broken lyric. Of course pop radio said no.
16. Sia - Chandelier
Surprised that pop radio did eventually take to this, as lyrics this exposed don't usually get play in a Fancy/Rude kind of world. Would be better with an actual producer behind the boards tho.
15. Beyoncé and Others - ***Flawless
Exhibit A: Chimimandia her whole speech.
Exhibit B: "We a-listers/we paid sisters."
Why choose? Best of all, Bey taking a song that was downright scornful of lesser girls enying her territory, and turning it into THE anthem for the oppressed (but meme obsessed) of the past fifteen months.
14. Azealia Banks - Chasing Time
Almost like the track Neneh Cherry and Queen Latifah should have made in 1991, albeit a little cheaper. Never thought Ms. Banks would ever have another single come together this well. #meltthoseigloos
13. Nicki Minaj - Lookin' Ass
Towards the end, Onika gets exasperated. Bated breath, all due to the low down brothers - of all colors - that society propagates. The daughter of Doo Wop (That Thing), still righteously angry.
12. Spoon - Do You
Not even the best Spoon single of 2014, as I discovered Inside Out too late! But man, in the right moments, this hits. Still the second best power pop band of the century though.
11. 2NE1 - Come Back Home
Best chorus of the year? Quite possibly. (well, at least not aided by Max Martin and Shellback!) Still not sure who does what, but with the drug smuggling troubles of the surgicized one, does it matter? Two years ago, if you had told me that my highest ranking girl group single would have been by a K-pop entity, I would have cried - it would have meant that MKS had not released anything yet. We would have both been right.