you can listen to the full playlist here.
honorable mention:
oso oso - "wake up next to god"
gender roles - "hey with two whys"
niall horan - "nice to meet ya"
PUP - "morbid stuff"
19. battles - "fort greene park"
somehow, in seven years, this is the first totally instrumental song i've ever had on the list! kinda crazy. "fort greene park" came into my life at the 11th hour and i was absolutely captivated. in nearly six minutes, we've got math rock, we've got prog rock, we've got groovy riffs, we've got electronica, we've got melancholy moments, sinister moments, happy moments, and sonic combinations that make you want to run a marathon. and there's not a single lyric. what a time to be alive.
18. the drums - "626 bedford avenue"
that melody, tho. and the subtly hilarious lyrics: "i should have left when you laughed at my shoes," "take your head out of your ass/and take a good look at yourself," "you might be a psychopath/you might wanna check that." ha!
17. the drew thomson foundation - "a little more time"
i swear that everyone is sleeping on this man. i hadn't really been paying too much attention myself until he kept appearing on my discover weekly playlists and i thought "hey, i like this song!" "wait, i like this one too!" in fact, his entire self-titled debut album is excellent, but this one stood out in particular as *the* jam of all the jams. it's such an earworm.
16. washington social club - "first things first"
the fact that this absolutely perfect power-pop nugget has less than 1,000 plays on spotify is criminal, so i'm doing my very small part to change that. for context, i'll set the stage: it's july of 2004 and my friends and i are enjoying our final very carefree summer in new hampshire before we leave for college. we drive down to boston to see phantom planet at a tiny club called axis (RIP). the opener, a band we'd never heard of from d.c. called washington social club, take the stage. we were instantly and totally obsessed. the songs were insanely catchy, the lead singer was charismatic and weeeeird as hell, making dramatic orgasm faces and (i think) writhing on the stage at one point. we wandered over to the merch table after the show and each bought a copy of their album catching looks. it provided the perfect soundtrack to the rest of the summer, and we even trekked to see them at warped tour a month later.
i still listen to the album at least a few times every year, so i recently decided to see what they were up to. after a long hiatus, they're back with new music, and this is my favorite of the bunch. from marty's distinctively casual delivery in the verses to the wisdom-filled chorus ("we all should get a lot more fucked up/we all should be a lot less fucked up"), it's been in very heavy rotation for me the past few months.
15. lil nas x f/ billy ray cyrus - "old town road (remix)"
okay, so it's less of a favorite song and more of a favorite pop culture moment, but what's not to love? young rapper gets kicked off the country charts for not being country enough, washed-up country singer billy ray cyrus comes to the rescue to return the song to the charts, and all is right in the world again.
hating "old town road" is equivalent to hating dancing at weddings. both represent unfettered, goofy joy and everything good and pure in life, so if you dislike either, we have a fundamental difference in philosophy (and yours is wrong :)). i mean, the goddamn grinch could watch that viral video of the elementary school kids going HAM to this song and his heart would grow three sizes, am i right?
14. beabadoobee - "apple cider"
there's just so much going on here that i love. the twinkly, jangly early '90s indie vibe, the very juliana hatfield quality of bea's voice, the extremely cute and earnest lyrics, and that playful little solo. it's totally the sound of having a crush on someone.
13. the rocket summer - "morning light"
i've truly lost count of how many times i thought i'd ~outgrown~ the rocket summer, and then came crawling back because of his uncanny knack for wonderful melodies that make my brain tingle with happiness. dare i say that this one even gets a little math-rocky in spots? bold, bryce. bold. and that sassy ending, too.
12. billie eilish - "bad guy"
i'll admit that it took me a little while to arrive at the billie eilish party, and many of her songs still make me feel too old to be listening to them, if that makes any sense. that being said, "bad guy" is so strange and compelling that you can't help but be intrigued by it. the contrasts are fascinating: in the video, she hands a guy her invisalign, then proceeds to whisper about seducing your dad, then reminds us that she's 17 by going "DUH," then goes back to whispering about wearing some dude's cologne. it's a reeeal journey...and an excellent little pop song to boot.
11. column - "I"
the chill, hippie jam of my dreams. i was very grateful for column this year (the project of cadien from twin peaks and all the dudes from post animal) because i'm not into the new twin peaks album at aaaall. like, they sound like a band that smoked too much weed in the bad, steely dan way, and column sounds like a band that smoked too much weed in the good, brian jonestown massacre way. ya dig?
10. clairo - "bags"
i *almost* missed this one, which would have been totally tragic. it's the sonic equivalent of a moody tumblr post, and i mean that in the absolute best way. it's like, the song you turn on when you're on a long train ride and it's raining and you're like "i'm going to pretend i'm in the protagonist in a dramatic teen movie." just me?
9. muskets - "violent paradise"
when i wrote about this song earlier in the year, i said that it made me want to smoke it and play it loud and stage dive onto my bed and skateboard off my roof, and i still very much feel this way. one really nice night this summer, i had drinks on a patio with a friend, then got banana-cinnamon ice cream at christina's in cambridge and i took a super long walk from inman square to harvard square at sunset with this blasting through my headphones and it felt so right.
8. jonas brothers - "sucker"
i'm lukewarm on approximately 90% of jobros songs, but when i'm in, i'm aaaall in, baby. while "burning up" remains my fave, "sucker" is so undeniable. like, it's almost at "cake by the ocean" status in terms of the hook, which is no small feat. if your toe isn't tapping when it comes strutting in, you're probably dead. i also had the privilege of watching the reaction of all of the fabulous gay men at the provincetown tea dance this summer when it came on and it was absolutely JOYOUS. p.s. how adorable is it that they had their wives star in the video?! is it weird that i sort of want to be a jonas wife now?
7. beast coast - "left hand"
beast coast's sound completely embodies how walking through new york city feels to me (much like the lemonheads are the sound of walking through boston). it's gritty, cinematic, aggressive, and a little mischievous. which, y'know, makes sense, since it's a collab between a bunch of new york rap groups: my faves flatbush zombies, pro era, and the underachievers. their album escape from new york was definitely one of my favorites this year, but this track stood out. i mean, who else besides meech can utter the words "i think LSD be my best friend/dick so big, use it as a kickstand" completely unironically and sound badass as hell doing it? anyway, my favorite thing to do is pick whose verse is my favorite in each song since it changes with every one. here, i'm partial to CJ fly's at :47. "got the tech, i stay connected like it's best buy!"
6. cherry glazerr - "ohio"
now this is how you start an album. CG's first single from stuffed and ready, "juicy socks," made my list last year, but i was totally hooked within the first 10 seconds of this tune. it starts off tame enough—she's quietly humming the melody and you're like "oh, this is nice"—then those drums come in and kick you square in the face. then you're headbanging to the drums, and that massive, gnarly '90s riff drops and sets you completely on fire. ayyy! i always replay it before the song's over to hear that part again.
5. lizzo - "juice"
confession: i....don't like "truth hurts" at all and find it super grating, tbh. but i LOVE "juice" and i'm absolutely obsessed with lizzo's confidence, energy, and message! we all needed her bad bitch presence in our lives this year.
4. SWMRS - "trashbag baby"
garagey power-pop that just makes you wanna dance, man. SWMRS, a quartet of gen-z berkeley punks (two of whom are brothers, and one of whom is billie joe armstrong's son) topped my 2016 list with "figuring it out." that's still my favorite, but "trashbag baby" is a rifftastic bop that plays off of the becker brothers' unique voices.
3. the paranoyds - "girlfriend degree"
"girlfriend degree" really crept up on me this year. i loved it, but i didn't realize just how much i really loved it until i was putting together this list. i'm here for all of it: the kinks-esque melody, the spooky-sounding '60s horror movie synth, and the cheeky lyrics ("trust me, i know i'm happy/i'm not just a girl with low self-esteem").
this also has to be my favorite music video of the year (the dream with the ken doll had me roooolling!) and i've absolutely been trying to bite this style lately when it comes to my wardrobe.
2. christelle bofale - "origami dreams"
dreamy, dreamy, dreamy. i first heard this song in a semi-unlikely place: while waiting for pete holmes to take the stage at WBUR cityspace. shazam came to my rescue and i fell completely and deeply in love immediately. my song of the summer fo' sho. it's one of those tracks that make you feel nostalgic, contented, and sad all at once.
1. djo - "personal lies"
i typically start thinking about my favorite songs of the year toward the end of the summer, and i was getting a little nervous when september rolled around because i wasn't *quite* sold on anything as my #1 yet. that is, until i decided to check out twenty twenty, the album joe keery aka steve harrington from stranger things casually dropped under the pseudonym djo.
the first, ohhh, five times i listened to it, every song gave me chills and i kept actually mouthing/saying aloud "why is this so fucking good???!" it's the first album in such a long time—probably since kurt vile's wakin on a pretty daze in 2013—that i just wanted to LIVE in, y'know; grab a blanket and curl up and indulge in a jazz cigarette and drink some hot cocoa and browse etsy and stay for a few days.
the production is warm and lush, the instrumentation takes all these delightfully surprising turns, and the melodies are fun, psychedelic, and ever-so-slightly familiar without falling too far into trope territory (even if they did, i honestly wouldn't care in the slightest). long story short, i went from "yeah, ooookay, let's check out this album that steve from stranger things did" to "holy shit, this is my favorite album of 2019" in approximately 10 minutes.
while there are several standout tunes ("just along for the ride," "flash mountain," and "tentpole shangrila" are up there for me), this one just gets me going, man. i cue it up and the beatles-meets-tame impala vibe jumps out, my hair automatically extends to cher-in-the-'70s length, daisy dukes appear on my body as if by magic, and i'm roller skating under a blacklight. at 2:10, when i tell you i SCREAMED! joe keery might just be the first person whom i'd actually encourage to quit their day job because i need more of his music immediately.
