Let's shake off the camp, and get back to songs that are legitimately good! (although, a day later, I'm still dying at No Future in the Past! AND WHAT'S YO NAME.) Below, Columbia grads, the woman who released the best album of the decade, my two favorite pop stars of all time and the only solo British female to make my list await!
50. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
Why would you lie about something dumb like that?
Why would you lie about anything at all?
Remove everything else from the lyrics, and just concentrate on those two lines. Devastating.
49. Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened
Ryan, this is a track Pitchfork hipped me to! It's punk-meets shoegaze-meets pop! And the last three minutes are purely instrumental! I LOVE IT.
48. T.I. featuring Rihanna - Live Your Life
What really gets me about this track is not the use of the sample, or T.I.'s flow, or Rihanna's bridge, but the exquisite marriage of perseverance and melancholy that gives the song it's "oomph."
47. Anathallo - The River
Comfy, like your favorite pair of slippers. Sometimes class is all that's needed.
46. Emiliana Torrini - Me & Armani
In which Emiliana Torrini finally steps out of Bjork's shadow and comes into her own. The production follows in the shadows of most of the music that has been produced in the Age of Winehouse, but what's really impressive is Emiliana's simmer - how she deeply controls pain, want, delusion, and rage, and she lets everything almost topple over - but pulls it back.
45. Asobi Seksu - Me & Mary
Awesome! It's like a teen from Okinawa covering their favorite Go-Gos tune! And I mean that as a complete compliment.
44. Robyn - Cobrastyle
Quote:
I press trigger, I don't press people button
Nobody chat come face me with somethin
Like how I have twenty-two in'a me somethin
Ten is for you so who gon' get the next dozen, fool
(repeat 4x)
Anytime they ready punahussy start war
Mess around and see who get it spread on th' tar
My style is the bom-diddi-bom di-dang di-dang diggi-diggi
This rude girl don't play with the bom di-dang di-dang diggi-diggi
(2x)
Punahussy sit around and a watch a girl live
Watch a girl roll, now you know I roll big
You sit around and plan to put girl in fridge
Rememba when you dig a hole, it's two you gon' dig
Certain little boys I just stop deal with
Tell you they're your friend and then badmouth again
My style is the bom-diddi-bom di-dang di-dang diggi-diggi
This rude girl don't play with the bom di-dang di-dang diggi-diggi
(2x)
I press trigger, I don't press people button
Nobody chat come face me with somethin
Like how I have twenty two and I'm miss somethin
Ten is for you so who gon' get the next dozen, fool
Anytime they ready punahussy start war
Mess around and see who get it spread on th' tar
My style is the bom-diddi-bom di-dang di-dang diggi-diggi
This rude girl don't play with the bom di-dang di-dang diggi-diggi
(4x)
Certain little boys I just stop deal with
Tell you they're your friend and then badmouth again
|
I don't think anything more needs to be said. Except, SEE HER DO THIS LIVE!!!!
43. Estelle featuring Kanye West - American Boy
Perhaps the most charming song of the year? What's brilliant about this song is how it reveals itself upon repeated listens - one really gets to enjoy the massive craft at work, from the deceptively simple house beat to the impressively structured craftsmanship at work. It also features what is probably the liveliest Kanye rap of the year! Suggestive, sly and sweet - the year round crush.
42. Kylie Minogue - In My Arms
How do you describe a feeling? I've .... never felt this way before.
The only good single off of X. (2 Hearts, while great, was lazy and demanded a remix; while The One's remix killed it. The less said about the other two, the better.) The refurbished opening here cuts out all of the charm of the demo version, when Kylie declares that "[she's] listening..." she's really declaring you not to fall in love with her all over again.
41. Mariah Carey - I Stay in Love
I Stay in Love, the floppiest flop Mariah's had since the crazy days, presents an interesting conundrum. It offers almost nothing new; it shows Mimi sticking wholeheartedly to her wheelbarrow of romantic cliches and ill-advised ghetto malapropisms (seriously,
Quote:
Ride shotgun next to you
With the top down like we used to
Hit the block
Proud in the SUV
|
?1??!?!) In fact, the only new thing that ISIL presents is the present state of Mariah's voice - a lot smaller, more nasal and more tinny than it ever was before. But somehow, somewhere, she picked up something she never had - a sense of urgency in her delivery. It takes a lot nowadays for Mariah to sustain a note for more than three bars, and with the passion she summons, it know sounds like she knows it. She's determined to make every note count.
[/irrelevant artists]
