Songs of 2019 Part 2: 50-21
I don't think I need much preamble to this as I'm actually justifying every song here, anyway. But we plunge into the top 50 with...
50) Sugar - Diskopunk (Nu-Disco)
Good bit of funky dance music from earlier in the year; well produced and very catchy.
49) Starting Line - Cory Wong feat. Emily C Browning (Funk Rock)
I think at his best, funk guitarist Cory Wong could be the most charismatic musician working today. His flair is used to great effect here in this quasi-disco rock number.
48) Did What I Did - Jon Bryant (Indie Folk)
I wouldn't usually use this word to describe a song, but I find this song very 'pretty'. Jon Bryant's counter-tenor voice, the backing vocals and the gentle folk instrumentation are just very pleasant.
47) Sunlight Ray - TENTS (Indie Pop)
A very good bit of likeable, affecting pop music with a big dramatic chorus to it. I found myself with the phrase "Oh my God" in my head more than is healthy, thanks to this track.
46) Castles - Freya Ridings (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
Freya Ridings was in the running for a top album award at one stage mainly on the back of this and another song (see five songs ahead) that were really scintillating stuff. This is the more upbeat and optimistic track from her otherwise fairly introspective album.
45) Plutocracy - Redwolves (Hard Rock)
This one came out of the blue, really. It only landed (I think) fourth place in its week of release but it really grew on me on relistening: old school kind of kickass hard rock akin to Zeppelin or Deep Purple.
44) Boy With Luv - BTS feat. Halsey (K-Pop)
There's been a hilarious running gag all year about me being a BTS fanboy, because I keep picking their music to listen to (I'm just fascinated by the phenomenon). But in the case of this track I'm happy to wear the label, because it's just well-made pop music with some interesting harmonies and instrumentation. Halsey's presence also doesn't hurt, but it's mainly just a positive, uplifting boy band track.
43) Wish You Were Here - Marianas Trench (Emo Pop)
This is a bizarre song, on a slightly raucous emo punk album lies this anomalous track that sounds like something NKotB might have produced in the 80s, full of singalong harmonies and upbeat riffs. What's interesting though is that the lyrics here are still quite dark and emo, and I'm always entertained by the contrast.
42) 4500m - Thylacine feat. Mr J Medeiros (Trip-Hop)
Great bit of trip-hop music this, accompanied by some great rhythmic rap from (I presume) Mr J Medeiros (with whom I'm otherwise unfamiliar). Great builds and great beats here, it's as good as Thievery Corporation at their middling level, which is of course pretty damn good.
41) Poison - Freya Ridings (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
Not much more to add to Freya Ridings; she has a great husky voice and here it's put to great dramatic effect in a ballad punctuated by plaintive piano notes.
40) Another Episode - Sticky Fingers (Australio Indie Rock)
This song has one of the most awful starts to a song that ends up as good as this does. Dylan Frost really shouldn't ever try and sing, basically. But when he produces something otherwise this dynamic, powerful and personal, I forgive his off-key warbling to kick this off.
39) Oscar Wilde - The Cat Empire (Australio Jazz Funk)
Wow, two Australio powerhouses in a row. This was another song that really grew on my on relistening, and it's funny because I've never really been that into the Cat Empire, they strike me as somewhat gimmicky. But here everything just comes together in this really great bit of party music.
38) Fire Lily - Sound of Ceres (Dreampop)
Here they are, the makers of my #2 album of 2016, my #11 album of 2017… they put this one out as a single just to keep me salivating, and naturally it's good enough to make my top 50. One of their louder and more upbeat tracks, it still maintains their beguiling mystique and lots of psychedelic vibes.
37) Juice - Lizzo (Hip-Hop)
Another only-third-place getter from the first week of this year (this was released in December where we start the year officially), I daresay everybody has heard this song except for perhaps my blog-reader (Hi, Mother!) but it's bags of fun, very catchy and very zeitgeisty - as is Lizzo generally of course.
36) The Velvet Fog - The Soft Cavalry (Dreampop)
The Soft Cavalry's self-titled album was my main dreampop event of the year and this trippy, eerie number with some great mood shifts has come out as the top-rated track from it.
35) She - dodie (Indie Pop)
Another bit of a climber, this one. I think again only third-placed in its week of release, this adorable and quirky but heartfelt number from Dodie always makes me smile. It's basically "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt, but without the self-pity and more of a pragmatic resignation to the fact that the subject of the song is still a complete stranger to Dodie. I don't want to say women singing about fantasising about women is less creepy than men singing about it, but here we are.
34) World I Share - Swim Deep (Synthpop)
I love a good bit of swirly, dancey synthpop and there really hasn't been much that's really good this year, so this late charge from October or so was a welcome tonic.
33) Penny Rabbit and Summer Bear - Kishi Bashi (Baroque Folk Pop)
Kishi Bashi's album was earmarked for a long time as a potential album of the year for me (no spoilers as to whether it got there or not, you will find out in this bock?), and this cute, playful opening number ended up leapfrogging some of the other, more challenging tracks on the album to end up my highest-ranked at the end of the year.
32) FXMLDR - Thank You Scientist (Progressive Jazz Metal)
You'll be hearing a fair bit more about Thank You Scientist, who really brought a lot of geeky, silly fun to the year of music. This upbeat bit of prog metal (with big band brass) is a great bit of composition with enjoyable alien symbology throughout.
31) Banjo Billy - Fling (Indie Pop)
I was a bit surprised this one landed so high on the list, but I do love it. The main surprise was that I picked this album from Fling only through absolute random chance (no exaggeration, I just used a random number generator to pick albums from a list) and this ended up my song of that week. The abandon in the lyrics and the general silly fun vibes are always enjoyable.
30) Party Clown - Jenny Lewis (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
Jenny Lewis was another surprise revelation for me this year. Never encountered her before but it seems she's had a long and illustrious career in both acting and singing. This was the highlight track from her excellent album, a slightly country-infused (but also tubular bells-featuring) ballad about self-effacement and self-awareness in the face of misfortune.
29) Heavenly - Cigarettes After Sex (Dreampop)
This is Cigarettes After Sex's second appearance in a top 100 for me, after "K" (recently featured in Killing Eve, apparently) hit #82 of 2017. This, I feel, is a better song: more complete and balanced and full of warm, comforting ambient vibes that are very uplifting and sweet.
28) Dose - Ciara (Pop RnB)
I love this track and loved Ciara's album generally, but I'm conscious that what I'm most digging is the fact that this is a very big throwback to late 90s style pop RnB, and this song really has incredibly "Bootylicious" vibes to the point of almost being derivative. That said, it's still well-produced, has a great beat, is catchy and enjoyable and that's both enough to land it pretty high on my year-end list, and something that I would love more of from other dull, tuneless RnB artists *cough SOLANGE cough*
27) Velociraptor Swayze - Ecce Shnak (Avant-Garde Dumb Punk Gregorian Chant Mashup Weirdness What the Fuck Is This Really)
Honestly I have no idea what to do with this. This is the most bonkers bit of music I've heard this year, from an album so completely stupid and crazy and nonsensical it actually makes me kind of angry, as does this song. But I can't really deny that there's a weird mercurial charm to this totally weird smooshing together of pop culture references, funky beats and the repeated harmonic chant "Bring me his head on a birthday cake"
26) Sunless Echo - Taffy (Psychedelic Drone Rock)
For a long time I had in mind that this dark, menacing bit of breakbeat drone rock would push into my top 20 or even top 10 of the year. Sadly my enthusiasm has cooled a bit in line with the fact that the song is ultimately quite cold and desolate and doesn't have much texture or profile to it. There's definitely a power to it but after as many times as I've listened to this, the impressive feat of holding steady to a particular tone and line for six minutes just doesn't have the same personal impact. Still good but not as high as it was fated to be at one point.
25) Friday Night Big Screen - GIRLI (Indie Pop)
Speaking of dumb songs, here is absolutely another. This track is basically just "Let's squeeze as many references to popular film into a song" starting with the lines "Harry met Sally, she came at the table" but more broadly singing about an obsession with pop culture and fantasising about our own place in it. It's a silly song no doubt, but GIRLI are completely aware of that and just have a lot of infectious fun with it.
24) All Said and Done - Sturgill Simpson (Psychedelic Country)
Sturgill Simpson is another artist, with his album "Sound & Fury" you'll be hearing more about in my albums write-up. This is my highlight track but it felt a bit weird to have it up this high because the key power of the album is in its entirety. This track just delivers some of those cool psychedelic vibes and that's the main selling point here.
23) Bulls on Parade (Like a Version) - Denzel Curry (Hip-Hop Rock)
Wow, this ended up high. We listened to the whole double album of "Like a Version" covers this year, and while they were 90% awful (mostly just karaoke versions with no ingenuity at all), Denzel Curry - probably my biggest 'revelation' of this year although I'd heard some stuff of his before - went absolutely nuts with this RatM cover that opens the album. His own volatile, unhinged style clashes in a wonderful way with the original's Tom Morello-driven rock aggression, and the more I've listened to this the more I've loved it.
22) Son of a Serpent - Thank You Scientist (Progressive Jazz Metal)
This is really the most interesting track from Thank You Scientist's album, which is still very long and full of tracks even longer than this. This just has all the right narrative builds and dramatic shifts that make it a great bit of prog metal, even without the weird jazzy brass vibes over the top.
21) All My Ways Always - Pale Ramon (Psychedelic Rock)
Another artist you'll be hearing more from in later posts, this is another very expansive track from newcomers Pale Ramon that has immaculately constructed musical storytelling throughout. It starts out feeling like a standard bit of punkish rock music but the transition almost precisely halfway through (at about 3'56") just draws it into another musical dimension. The only reason it didn't crack my top twenty is due to the long fadeout which is a necessary part of the album's overall aesthetic but just makes for tougher listening in isolation.
So if I can finish all my writeups, you'll get my top 20 songs tomorrow and, again if I can finish all my writeups, my top albums of the year the following day. No promises any more. I could promise this post because I already had it written up.
50) Sugar - Diskopunk (Nu-Disco)
Good bit of funky dance music from earlier in the year; well produced and very catchy.
49) Starting Line - Cory Wong feat. Emily C Browning (Funk Rock)
I think at his best, funk guitarist Cory Wong could be the most charismatic musician working today. His flair is used to great effect here in this quasi-disco rock number.
48) Did What I Did - Jon Bryant (Indie Folk)
I wouldn't usually use this word to describe a song, but I find this song very 'pretty'. Jon Bryant's counter-tenor voice, the backing vocals and the gentle folk instrumentation are just very pleasant.
47) Sunlight Ray - TENTS (Indie Pop)
A very good bit of likeable, affecting pop music with a big dramatic chorus to it. I found myself with the phrase "Oh my God" in my head more than is healthy, thanks to this track.
46) Castles - Freya Ridings (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
Freya Ridings was in the running for a top album award at one stage mainly on the back of this and another song (see five songs ahead) that were really scintillating stuff. This is the more upbeat and optimistic track from her otherwise fairly introspective album.
45) Plutocracy - Redwolves (Hard Rock)
This one came out of the blue, really. It only landed (I think) fourth place in its week of release but it really grew on me on relistening: old school kind of kickass hard rock akin to Zeppelin or Deep Purple.
44) Boy With Luv - BTS feat. Halsey (K-Pop)
There's been a hilarious running gag all year about me being a BTS fanboy, because I keep picking their music to listen to (I'm just fascinated by the phenomenon). But in the case of this track I'm happy to wear the label, because it's just well-made pop music with some interesting harmonies and instrumentation. Halsey's presence also doesn't hurt, but it's mainly just a positive, uplifting boy band track.
43) Wish You Were Here - Marianas Trench (Emo Pop)
This is a bizarre song, on a slightly raucous emo punk album lies this anomalous track that sounds like something NKotB might have produced in the 80s, full of singalong harmonies and upbeat riffs. What's interesting though is that the lyrics here are still quite dark and emo, and I'm always entertained by the contrast.
42) 4500m - Thylacine feat. Mr J Medeiros (Trip-Hop)
Great bit of trip-hop music this, accompanied by some great rhythmic rap from (I presume) Mr J Medeiros (with whom I'm otherwise unfamiliar). Great builds and great beats here, it's as good as Thievery Corporation at their middling level, which is of course pretty damn good.
41) Poison - Freya Ridings (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
Not much more to add to Freya Ridings; she has a great husky voice and here it's put to great dramatic effect in a ballad punctuated by plaintive piano notes.
40) Another Episode - Sticky Fingers (Australio Indie Rock)
This song has one of the most awful starts to a song that ends up as good as this does. Dylan Frost really shouldn't ever try and sing, basically. But when he produces something otherwise this dynamic, powerful and personal, I forgive his off-key warbling to kick this off.
39) Oscar Wilde - The Cat Empire (Australio Jazz Funk)
Wow, two Australio powerhouses in a row. This was another song that really grew on my on relistening, and it's funny because I've never really been that into the Cat Empire, they strike me as somewhat gimmicky. But here everything just comes together in this really great bit of party music.
38) Fire Lily - Sound of Ceres (Dreampop)
Here they are, the makers of my #2 album of 2016, my #11 album of 2017… they put this one out as a single just to keep me salivating, and naturally it's good enough to make my top 50. One of their louder and more upbeat tracks, it still maintains their beguiling mystique and lots of psychedelic vibes.
37) Juice - Lizzo (Hip-Hop)
Another only-third-place getter from the first week of this year (this was released in December where we start the year officially), I daresay everybody has heard this song except for perhaps my blog-reader (Hi, Mother!) but it's bags of fun, very catchy and very zeitgeisty - as is Lizzo generally of course.
36) The Velvet Fog - The Soft Cavalry (Dreampop)
The Soft Cavalry's self-titled album was my main dreampop event of the year and this trippy, eerie number with some great mood shifts has come out as the top-rated track from it.
35) She - dodie (Indie Pop)
Another bit of a climber, this one. I think again only third-placed in its week of release, this adorable and quirky but heartfelt number from Dodie always makes me smile. It's basically "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt, but without the self-pity and more of a pragmatic resignation to the fact that the subject of the song is still a complete stranger to Dodie. I don't want to say women singing about fantasising about women is less creepy than men singing about it, but here we are.
34) World I Share - Swim Deep (Synthpop)
I love a good bit of swirly, dancey synthpop and there really hasn't been much that's really good this year, so this late charge from October or so was a welcome tonic.
33) Penny Rabbit and Summer Bear - Kishi Bashi (Baroque Folk Pop)
Kishi Bashi's album was earmarked for a long time as a potential album of the year for me (no spoilers as to whether it got there or not, you will find out in this bock?), and this cute, playful opening number ended up leapfrogging some of the other, more challenging tracks on the album to end up my highest-ranked at the end of the year.
32) FXMLDR - Thank You Scientist (Progressive Jazz Metal)
You'll be hearing a fair bit more about Thank You Scientist, who really brought a lot of geeky, silly fun to the year of music. This upbeat bit of prog metal (with big band brass) is a great bit of composition with enjoyable alien symbology throughout.
31) Banjo Billy - Fling (Indie Pop)
I was a bit surprised this one landed so high on the list, but I do love it. The main surprise was that I picked this album from Fling only through absolute random chance (no exaggeration, I just used a random number generator to pick albums from a list) and this ended up my song of that week. The abandon in the lyrics and the general silly fun vibes are always enjoyable.
30) Party Clown - Jenny Lewis (Indie Singer-Songwriter)
Jenny Lewis was another surprise revelation for me this year. Never encountered her before but it seems she's had a long and illustrious career in both acting and singing. This was the highlight track from her excellent album, a slightly country-infused (but also tubular bells-featuring) ballad about self-effacement and self-awareness in the face of misfortune.
29) Heavenly - Cigarettes After Sex (Dreampop)
This is Cigarettes After Sex's second appearance in a top 100 for me, after "K" (recently featured in Killing Eve, apparently) hit #82 of 2017. This, I feel, is a better song: more complete and balanced and full of warm, comforting ambient vibes that are very uplifting and sweet.
28) Dose - Ciara (Pop RnB)
I love this track and loved Ciara's album generally, but I'm conscious that what I'm most digging is the fact that this is a very big throwback to late 90s style pop RnB, and this song really has incredibly "Bootylicious" vibes to the point of almost being derivative. That said, it's still well-produced, has a great beat, is catchy and enjoyable and that's both enough to land it pretty high on my year-end list, and something that I would love more of from other dull, tuneless RnB artists *cough SOLANGE cough*
27) Velociraptor Swayze - Ecce Shnak (Avant-Garde Dumb Punk Gregorian Chant Mashup Weirdness What the Fuck Is This Really)
Honestly I have no idea what to do with this. This is the most bonkers bit of music I've heard this year, from an album so completely stupid and crazy and nonsensical it actually makes me kind of angry, as does this song. But I can't really deny that there's a weird mercurial charm to this totally weird smooshing together of pop culture references, funky beats and the repeated harmonic chant "Bring me his head on a birthday cake"
26) Sunless Echo - Taffy (Psychedelic Drone Rock)
For a long time I had in mind that this dark, menacing bit of breakbeat drone rock would push into my top 20 or even top 10 of the year. Sadly my enthusiasm has cooled a bit in line with the fact that the song is ultimately quite cold and desolate and doesn't have much texture or profile to it. There's definitely a power to it but after as many times as I've listened to this, the impressive feat of holding steady to a particular tone and line for six minutes just doesn't have the same personal impact. Still good but not as high as it was fated to be at one point.
25) Friday Night Big Screen - GIRLI (Indie Pop)
Speaking of dumb songs, here is absolutely another. This track is basically just "Let's squeeze as many references to popular film into a song" starting with the lines "Harry met Sally, she came at the table" but more broadly singing about an obsession with pop culture and fantasising about our own place in it. It's a silly song no doubt, but GIRLI are completely aware of that and just have a lot of infectious fun with it.
24) All Said and Done - Sturgill Simpson (Psychedelic Country)
Sturgill Simpson is another artist, with his album "Sound & Fury" you'll be hearing more about in my albums write-up. This is my highlight track but it felt a bit weird to have it up this high because the key power of the album is in its entirety. This track just delivers some of those cool psychedelic vibes and that's the main selling point here.
23) Bulls on Parade (Like a Version) - Denzel Curry (Hip-Hop Rock)
Wow, this ended up high. We listened to the whole double album of "Like a Version" covers this year, and while they were 90% awful (mostly just karaoke versions with no ingenuity at all), Denzel Curry - probably my biggest 'revelation' of this year although I'd heard some stuff of his before - went absolutely nuts with this RatM cover that opens the album. His own volatile, unhinged style clashes in a wonderful way with the original's Tom Morello-driven rock aggression, and the more I've listened to this the more I've loved it.
22) Son of a Serpent - Thank You Scientist (Progressive Jazz Metal)
This is really the most interesting track from Thank You Scientist's album, which is still very long and full of tracks even longer than this. This just has all the right narrative builds and dramatic shifts that make it a great bit of prog metal, even without the weird jazzy brass vibes over the top.
21) All My Ways Always - Pale Ramon (Psychedelic Rock)
Another artist you'll be hearing more from in later posts, this is another very expansive track from newcomers Pale Ramon that has immaculately constructed musical storytelling throughout. It starts out feeling like a standard bit of punkish rock music but the transition almost precisely halfway through (at about 3'56") just draws it into another musical dimension. The only reason it didn't crack my top twenty is due to the long fadeout which is a necessary part of the album's overall aesthetic but just makes for tougher listening in isolation.
So if I can finish all my writeups, you'll get my top 20 songs tomorrow and, again if I can finish all my writeups, my top albums of the year the following day. No promises any more. I could promise this post because I already had it written up.
posted by Sean's Beard at 3:18 AM
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