Songs of 2016: 50-21

So to up my game a bit from yesterday's brain dump, today I'm going to, in as few words as possible, describe my relationship with each song and why it has cracked my top 50 of the year (remembering of course that I listened to anywhere from 5000-10000 individual songs this year, so this is a big deal for me).

Of course, for me, 'as few words as possible' often means 'lots and lots of words. Have some fucking WORDS in your face'. So of course you can just skim the song titles and ignore the fucking words in your face. And remember that after I post my top 20 tomorrow, my whole song of the year longlist will be made public so you can have at least a preview listen to some of the more baffling entries, should you so desire.

50.  “Hot Coals” by Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros (Indie Folk)

I have an odd relationship with ES&TMZ. Or rather a relationship ‘at odds’ with everybody else’s, in that I fucking hate the fucking fuck out of that facile garbage song “Home”, apparently the only song everybody else knows is by them (if they could even name the artist), but really enjoy almost everything else they’ve done. This song is no exception; epic musical storytelling with great lounge jazz influences.

49.  “I Have Been to the Mountain” by Kevin Morby (Folk Rock)

This was a big highlight of a mediocre album that I had really high hopes for; great rootsy rock sound with gospel tinges around the edges.

48.  “Politics of Free” by Woods (Indie Rock)

Here we are, the first of many mentions to come of Woods, possibly my discovery of the music project (given that ‘City Sun Eater in the River of Light’ was their ninth album and I’d never heard of them before). This is one of many great tracks on that album that prominently features one of my favourite lyrics and relevant mantras for 2016: “In a world of shit, let’s tune out tonight” (more relevant 2016 mantras to come).

47.  “Pentecost” by Kyle Craft (Glam Rock)

And as a big one-two, also my first mention of Kyle Craft whose debut album “Dolls of Highland” was a discovery to me and probably many others this year. His particular brand of theatrical, thoughtful, intelligent glam rock is at full show here; this was also my first hearing of Kyle Craft on All Songs Considered but strangely enough, I forgot about that until I separately picked this album for a listen and heard it again.

46.  “Love & Hate” by Michael Kiwanuka (RnB)

This is one of many tracks on my top 50 that I’d describe as “start low, grow big” and when songs manage this it is very, very effective. This one could be higher except it takes a good 7 minutes to get where it’s going and sometimes I do forget during the start how good it gets.

45.  “Good Morning” by Grouplove (Indie Pop)

Fun, upbeat sing-along pop, with a good beat. Very entertaining; I don’t need to say more about this.

44.  “We Were Ready” by Mooryc (Folk)

Low-key Polish folk, you say? Yes indeed. This guy has a curious, quirky sound that at its best (i.e. here) reminds me of Sufjan Stevens in low-key but inventive mode.

43.  “Lay Low” by Cafuné (House)

There was a distinct lack of good pure commercial dance music this year, and it’s highlighted by the fact that the best stuff came from Cafuné in like, the first or second week of the project, and it was all downhill from there. This one stuck around in my memory.

42.  “Lay You Down Easy” by MAGIC! Feat. Sean Paul (Pop Reggae)

There genuinely wasn’t a lack of good reggae music this year, but I did find even when I enjoyed the good reggae (check out Fantan Mojah’s “Soul Rasta”, probably the best overall album), it didn’t stick around. Really popped up reggae like this song though, just has that extra something that cuts through to me.

41.  “Je perds mes mots” by Mr Yéyé (Electrorock)

Hard to believe that this is my first mention of Mr Yéyé. One of Jez’s picks from early in the project, this French electro-rocker made a huge impression on me, and this is one of his most successful, harder-hitting rock tracks that has a great electro drive underlying it. You will hear more about him.

40.  “Katie I Know” by Marissa Nadler (Ambient Pop)

One rule that determines how much I like some songs: if Jez hates something I like, it tends to intensify my liking. So is the case with Marissa Nadler’s whole album, although to be honest I’m only lukewarm on most of it. This track though, has the right build and the right level of beautiful stirring strings to get to me. But mainly, Jez hates it.

39.  “Yonder Blue” by Tortoise (Post Rock)

This is a big surprise, that I arbitrarily threw a song of the week award during my ‘catch-up’ from my two weeks spent cruising, but that massively swelled in my good opinion upon relistening. This has the vibe of am unearthed Velvet Underground song (specifically one featuring Nico) but with Tortoise’s trademark dreamy post-rock underlying it. It’s the best Tortoise song since The Suspension Bridge at Iguazu Falls.

38.  “The Ballad of the Costa Concordia” by Car Seat Headrest (Indie Rock)

Car Seat Headrest and I have a very, very interesting relationship. Basically I was very ‘meh’ on his song “Vincent” when I heard it on All Songs Considered (and then hated it due to how much liquid love the hosts sprayed on it) but I picked his album to listen to, basically caveating it to Jez with “This is shit and I hate it but listen to it anyway” and as I listened to it, and quite specifically this epic 11-minute musical saga, I completely came around on it and on him (Yes, I came on him). This is one of the wittiest and most plaintive songs I’ve ever heard, shifting moods on a dime and taking a savage lampooning swipe (even by way of a Dido parody) at the captain of the doomed cruise ship. It’s really the only piece of catharsis you could ever need regarding the tragedy and is a masterful piece of rock composition.

37.  “TNT” by Netsky feat. Dave 1 (Electronica)

I called the week that this song was part of “feel good week” and this is one of the feel-good-iest of the lot. Driving breakbeat underneath a big RnB-tinged pop track, it’s pretty much right in my sweet spot for fun music.

36.  “Je ne suis pas une erreur” by Mr Yéyé (Electrorock)

Yep, more Mr Yéyé, more great gutsy French electrorock. This is probably the track from him that has been the most played on my GPM account; it starts good and gets better.

35.  “Starboy” by The Weeknd feat. Daft Punk (RnB)

Late entry despite this song getting all the airplay when it was released as a lead single – I didn’t catch up with it until the album was released in late November and a big impression it obviously made. If there’s one belief I’ve had confirmed this year, it’s that RnB music and I just don’t get along. So when it does work, with good beats and a great poppy tune, you know that I’m going to consider it a cut above the rest.

34.  “Philosopher King” by Dance Gavin Dance (Post Hardcore)

This was another great surprise to me. All the way through listening to the ‘Mothership’ album, I couldn’t work out why Jon Mess (the 'unclean' vocalist of DGD) was so angry. Yet somehow a lot of this music just clicked with me, even though it took a long time. It’s just really well composed hardcore music, that’s as hard-hitting as it is interesting and affecting.

33.  “Your Temporary Custodian” by John Congleton and the Nighty Nite (Experimental Rock)

I’m not usually a big fan of, or attender to, lyrics in songs, but Congleton’s existential, nihilistic poetry here is irresistible – “What an extraordinary thing it is to be this ordinary thing / a phenomenal nominal nominal nominal nothing”. The music here is distinctly weird and kind of unsettling but there’s just a magic to it as well.

32.  “You Are Mine” by the Avett Brothers (Folk Country)

Wow, first mention of the Avett Brothers as well. When an artist that one could feasibly describe as “country” has three songs on my song of the year longlist, you know there’s something going on. I don’t even know what it is, but there’s just a simple catchiness and a great emotional heft to this song that has always just made it stick around.

31.  “Jungle” by Tash Sultana (Indie Rock)

This was the big hit of my ‘J Awards’ week, where I picked music based entirely on its nomination for J Awards, which was always a risky proposition given my general ennui with Australian indie music. But this song grows into a big, idiosyncratic masterpiece, somehow blending reggae, blues, pop and a great catchy riff with minimal effort.

30.  “Psychotubes” by Moon Hooch (Psychojazz)

One thing I generally enjoy, and particularly enjoyed this year, is when it’s obvious through the music that a band is enjoying themselves. This crazy psychotic jazz track, that’s just a big fuckoff melange of filthy sax, is one of the best examples. Mindless fun from start to finish. Listen in particular to the way the lead sax player has to take a really obvious breath during one of the motifs because it’s just too full-on even to carry on. It’s the most amusing breath I’ve ever heard taken in a song.

29.  “I Am Behind You” by Montaigne (Indie Pop)

This is a great bit of (Australian) pop music – good sound, good build, very catchy and excellent feels. Honestly, and this is a weird one, this could have been higher on this list, except that it’s only available in album form, and on the album it’s the final track that has a hidden bonus track following it. So every time it comes up on my playlist I have to skip it to avoid the five minutes of silence and then one minute of pointless gibberish at the end. Put it in digestible form and you have a winner.

28.  “Secret Stash” by Dragonette (Synthpop)

Not the first mention of Dragonette, who also got #99 in the previous post, but will it be the last? Not much to say about this; I think when you have good perky electro-piano sounds wrapped up in a fun, upbeat pop tune, you’re speaking my language. This was a high point on a great album.

27.  “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” by Britta Phillips (Pop)

I’m not entirely sure, in the end, why this song has broken into my top 30, but it just gave me all the right feels every time during my relistening phase. I like Britta Phillips’ voice, there’s an underlying groove and soul to all of her otherwise standard pop songs, and I particularly enjoy this one.

26.  “Re-arrange” by Biffy Clyro (Indie Pop Rock)

One thing that I’ve always liked, particularly in my pop and Europop music, is people singing either in a native language, or with a distinctive accent. So this sweet, catchy pop song is mostly elevated above other sweet, catchy pop by Simon Neil’s lyrical Scottish brogue. But I also think it’s a remarkably well-put-together tune.

25.  “Can’t See At All” by Woods (Indie Rock)

More Woods, you say? Why not indeed. This is another of the many tracks from City Sun Eater in the River of Light to crack my longlist, and in a big way. The slightly funk-infused guitar riff to this draws me in every time, and even though this tune is probably the most repetitive on the album, it’s still great enjoyable pop rock.

24.  “Dagger only Run” by Sound of Ceres (Dreampop)

So the debut album “Nostalgia for Infinity” from Sound of Ceres was one of Jez’s and my big disagreements earlier in the year (see above for what disagreeing with Jez does to things I like). This final track from the album is definitely the best stand-alone song on the ethereal concept dreamscape that comprises the full album. This also has the best structure; a good beat, a good build, it becomes at once a catchy electropop tune and a surreal bit of musical art. It’s undeniably pretentious if it doesn’t work for you, but so am I.

23.  “The Heart of Me” by Miike Snow (Indie Pop)

I have a great deal of trouble, actually, putting Miike Snow so high on my list, because they just have that really affected ‘Indie’ vibe all over them, with their nonsense lyrics, rendered vocals and reliance on catchy riffs. It just feels like so much artifice, but I can’t deny that this song has occupied a place on top of my hitlist all year. It has all of the afore-mentioned downsides, but the combination is ultimately just catchy, upbeat pop at its best.

22.  “Our Puram” by Pfarmers (Indie Rock)

Ha. Funnily enough, we’re not yet out of the mire of ‘things that seem overly pretentious and Indie that Sam usually hates’ with this track at 22. This is another great example of epic musical storytelling, that starts very low-key and just builds and builds. It’s also, like Sound of Ceres, like Miike Snow, full of pretentious artsy – probably nonsense – lyrical flourishes, and yet there’s something really very profound and fascinating about this song as well. It also ticks another one of the boxes of things I quite like, which is ‘strange noises made musical’. And we’re staying on that theme for…

21.  “Anti-Gravity” by Lotus feat. Oriel Poole (Nu-Disco)

‘Eat the Light’ by Lotus was an album I cued up on Monday morning of the shittiest week I’ve ever spent at work, and halfway through listening to it, I was pulled into a team WIP meeting where I used the word ‘cluster fuck’ no fewer than 10 times and was later told off by my manager for my liberal use of the word Cluster Fuck in front of our newish team member who he thinks is pure and innocent (basically everything I'm not). And in spite of all that, this album brought me right out of my shitty cluster fuck-dropping mood, with this great nu-disco-ish track the big standout for me. Its combination of soul and funk with electropop (and again, some ‘strange noises made musical’) just has this really bouncy, chewy kind of flavour to it that I couldn’t resist at the time and haven’t been able to shake since.

So, with all of these covered, tomorrow I will delve into my top 20 songs of the year, and while I had hoped to write just a few words on each individual song, I’ve already broken that in a big way, so expect full essays for the next write-up. You can obviously ignore everything I write and just go listen to the titles on my playlist – which of course will be made public following tomorrow’s write-up.