Spotify
Previously:
100-91,
90-81,
80-71,
70-61
60. Sleater-Kinney - No Anthems
For those who like their rock with a bit of a sinister bent to it, Sleater-Kinney present "No Anthems," with lyrics that certainly
sound threatening. The verses are sneered, the pre-chorus feels distraught and apocalyptic and the choruses get righteous. The S-K comeback album is pretty readily agreed upon as a success, with this track serving as a personal standout. Its combination of messiness and imposing attitude make for a song that's got character on top of its chops.
59. Death Cab for Cutie - The Ghosts of Beverly Drive
Kintsugi felt like the most vintage DCFC thing I'd heard in years. "Ghosts," one of the album's lead singles, has those heartbroken, bitter lyrics that were heard but hadn't really been
felt since
Plans.
As twisted as it is, there's something to be said for musicians and the music they make when they're sad or enduring some sort of personal trauma. Music history is littered with backstories for songs and albums fueled by death or breakups or other loss - Arcade Fire to Adele - that produce emotional and, dare we say it, relatable music. So it goes here, with Ben Gibbard's DCFC outfit producing its first album in the post-Zooey Deschanel era. And you know what? After a couple albums of hit-or-miss stuff,
58. EL VY - I'm the Man to Be
It's a bit of a degenerate's anthem, a rallying cry for the greased hairdos of the world. Matt Berninger's lyrics celebrate something akin to laziness, or maybe just a toast to the ones who live their lives in a constant state of hangover. The images of of a dick in sunlight held up by kites - anybody's not just Berninger's - is, uh, unsettling. But there's a humor to it here that makes us able to shrug it off (kind of) and laugh with him more than at him, even if only slightly.
57. City And Colour - Woman
Much like Punch Brothers in the previous group of 10, Dallas Green ambitiously decides to kick an album off with nine minutes of a single song. In this case, there isn't a lot of evolution or thematic changes, and that's just fine. Breaking away from a more folky song, Green goes harder for more of a jam band sound, punching some distorted electric guitar out (a rare appearance) as he wails over sounds that almost totally buck the trend set by his earlier albums. It's something of a refreshing reboot, but it also works just fine independent of any knowledge of his past discography.
56. The Fratellis - Impostors (Little By Little)
The Fratellis hadn't really captured my attention in the wake of
Costello Music, but returned this year with a few interesting tracks on a new album, this one counted among those. A down-home country twang takes over the normally punchy punky aggression that dominated their earlier sound. The lyrics are sobered in their own right, talking about facades in friendships and relationships that lots of people seem to put up, or feel the need to maintain. There's an inherent sadness to that, because normalcy and authenticity should always be the goal, but every relationship can't be Utopian.
55. The Lone Bellow - If You Don't Love Me
The "if you love/don't love something, set it free" (the classic duh/no duh paradox) sentiment is a well-traveled theme, most memorable in my mind in the Decemberists' "The Engine Driver." Whether you buy into it or don't, the feeling behind it always comes off painfully bittersweet if done right. This song chugs along dutifully, gradually adding layers of harmony and instrumentation until finally ripping its seams in the final act.
54. El Ten Eleven - Three Sides of a Coin
Instrumental tracks remove lyrics from the songwriting equation entirely, but that doesn't mean an instrumental track can be without some narrative or feeling. In fact, it might actually lend itself better toward the creation of just such a story or collection of images and feelings: without a story pre-written for you, the canvas is blank. So goes this, one of the latest from post-rockers El Ten Eleven, with a track that conjures up images of flying, of looking over some landscape from a great height as the sun sets and casts more yellows and oranges across your view.
53. Grimes - Pin
A song that's guaranteed to play up when performed live, "Pin" is, lyrically, another pop song about finding a better half and the trepidation that sometimes comes along after you think you've found it. But nothing about Grimes's style of pop is "another" of anything; there's always an edge to her music, and even as this could conceivably be labeled one of the most radio-ready songs on
Art Angels, it still feels tinged with that signature sound that remains inimitable and even a bit mystical.
52. Eternal Summers - Together or Alone
The breathy vocal style of shoegaze combined with punky guitars and drums are a fun mix, even if they're a bit iconoclastic. Normally, that kind of vocal style is reserved for music that doesn't sound like it might want to fight you, or that it wants to have fun and won't let you stand in its way. There's a moment where singer Nicole Yun lets her voice burn a little, and it's from there that the two styles finally blend together, and the cohesiveness of the two styles ultimately makes all the sense in the world.
51. Meg Myers - Sorry
Myers is small in stature, but I have absolutely zero doubt in the world that she could kick my ass. There's a sort of built-in mean streak in her music that is put so plainly, you don't really have any choice but to recognize it and deal with it. Watching the video for this song, it all feels authentic, like these are stories being told to us by a woman who has lived them and internalized them and is just not happy with it all. Really: Watch the video and tell me you don't believe every syllable of this is authentic. The song is called "Sorry," and she says it a few times during the song, and part of her seems to mean it, but other times it just sounds like a shrug of the shoulders in resignation. She is sorry she lost feelings for whoever she's singing to - hey, it happens - but she also seems to be pushing back against against this other person, who clearly doesn't seem satisfied with that explanation. What do you want her to say? Sometimes, there just isn't anything else
to say.
