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60. Crying - The Curve
There's something to be said for not wasting anybody's time declaring what your song's gonna be like. The first thing we hear is a cascading keyboard, joined in short order by more keys, fuzzed out and shooting for all of those high heights that synthrock can take us to. Everything about this song almost comes off ridiculous with how far out it puffs its chest. All of those synths and power chords and distortion; you really can't help but respect how hard this song
goes for it.
59. Ages and Ages - Something to Ruin
Introducing itself purely as an installment of Ages and Ages' signature group folk-rock, "Something to Ruin" is something of a wolf in sheep's clothing. Past the first verse, a dark and foreboding guitar chimes in, hovering around the periphery of the next verse like a threat. It barges in like a thunderclap, the dark storm cloud at the city limits. Really, once the vocals end and the piano cuts in, it begins to sound like rainfall, as if this phase of the song is introducing the shower that's been lurking on the outskirts. It's more meatheaded than malicious, the "rainstorm" sort of announcing its presence but not really doing any damage. All that's to say the song never devolves into anything metal or overly industrial, and I'm sure many people would interpret the evolution of the song's sounds differently, but it certainly seems like the song's final act fulfills Tim Perry's wish that "something ugly would happen."
58. Lewis Del Mar - Such Small Scenes
The bull-in-a-china-shop entrance of this song, stumbling all over its formless self of blown out drums and drunken lullaby cooing, belies a mathematical precision that a lot of people hear on albums like Grizzly Bear's
Veckatimest. The comparison ends there, as Lewis Del Mar are more alt-J than Droste, the vocals almost sneered more than they're sung. As album introductions go, it's messy, but it's a controlled mess. It was hard to expect less after the release of last year's "Memories," a hydraulic grease puddle of a song that ended up on an EP the band released before their self-titled debut this year. Lewis Del Mar are a one-two guitar/drum punch in the Japandroids vein
57. Chairlift - Crying In Public
Two different tracks the involve crying in the same set of 10! Wheee! But where the name of the band at No. 60 told a completely different story from the song attached, here, the song's title pretty aptly precedes the style within. It bears repeating every time Chairlift comes up: Caroline Polachek just has an awesome voice. It may not be the belting force of someone like an Adele or hold the wild, improvisational ability of some of the more prominent pop stars going, but it holds some serious range and glistening smoothness all its own. As far as Chairlift songs go, it's pretty straightforward both lyrically and musically, which successfully avoids undermining the song's emotionally genuine lyrics. It comes across as one of the sweeter songs you'll hear in this list, to its complete benefit.
56. Billie Marten - Milk & Honey
Marten's hushed whisper of a voice is, and I hope this makes sense, fragile but forged from steel, its softer edges buttressed both by her disaffected stance on people and their material greed, as well as a brass accompaniment not unlike something out of a
High Violet-era National song. That disaffect is pretty comfortably seated within Marten, and
her own Genius annotation for the first lines of the chorus spells it all out pretty plainly: "Sometimes it's nice to sit and read and yawn and eat lemon drizzle you know?" This song would soundtrack a scene like pretty nicely.
55. Haley Bonar - Called You Queen
I don't imagine this song was written for me - my type - but I see lines like "Passed out in a bathroom stall / You still looked better than them all" and take heart from them. I mean it! Think of it this way: We've all got our dings and dents and flaws, and sometimes you A) just have to own it and B) still realize that you're cool as hell in your own way, even at your low points. It doesn't matter whether other people think that's true; you should! To hell with the haters.
54. Blossoms - Cut Me And I'll Bleed
This song's presence here is kind of weird, I'll admit: The single was released in February...2015. It then lay dormant, an island unto itself, until it was re-released largely unchanged on the band's self-titled, full length debut LP this past August. It's had a pretty prolonged shelf life, and missed being included on 2015's list mostly to delay until this album actually hit shelves. Hey, my list, my rules. The song is clean-cut, modern Brit rock with that "smoking on a corner at night in leather jackets" edge to it that can only be explained that poorly in words and felt that clearly in sound.
53. Balance and Composure - Loam
Is post-emo a thing? Is that a genre yet? I think B&C tend to lean more post-hardcore than that usually, but "Loam" is something that captures that emo-leaning vocal sound like The Hotelier with the industrial, machine-like depth and layers found within the grander tracks of bands like Touché Amoré. The interesting thing about the "emo" lifecycle is that the genre today is something completely unlike what it was near the turn of the century; vocals that sound whining and melodramatic have been replaced with more serious words and sounds, reinventing the whole term. "Loam" is at the forefront of that movement, a churner that never induces an eyeroll from its sound or words like the emo term used to suggest it might. It might be safe to use that word again.
52. Radiohead - Identikit
A pretty song on an album of pretty songs, "Identikit" stands out mostly for the flourishing guitar solo that rounds it out. Having left most of their rock aesthetic behind on the past few albums, the group finds a bit of that jam instinct to tap into here. Even if the lyrics aren't the most poetic things Thom Yorke has ever written ("Broken hearts make it rain" feels familiar for a band I'm so used to hearing completely new things from), the sound is tight and effortless as ever.
51. Wye Oak - Better (For Esther)
Gather 'round and let Jenn Wasner tell you a ghost story or, if you prefer, what it's like to live in the shadow of a predecessor. The lyrics, to me, read like the tale of someone with large shoes to fill. What type and shape of shoe isn't known or really all that relevant; just by the sound of her voice - airy and ethereal - it feels clear that Wasner is preoccupied with something incorporeal. The atmosphere created by the shuffling drums and ambling guitar seep into the words, permeating the track with a spectral feel that's both haunting and engrossing.
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