Previously:
120-101,
100-91,
90-81
Spotify Playlist
80. Julie Byrne - Natural Blue
This might be a case of context informing my subconscious, but every time I hear this song, I picture a hike in the mountains. Byrne is, somewhat famously, a park ranger by day. It's a cool story in and of itself, but tack it onto the music she writes by night, and the world laid out before our ears gain that much more depth. "Natural Blue" glides along as easily and gracefully as just about any other song released this year, with Byrne's beautifully polished voice adds just the right amount of layering to an intentionally bare track. You need headphones to really feel immersed in her world, but there's still somehow enough texture to feel like this song could fill up a room on speakers. That kind of utility is rare.
79. Sylvan Esso - Die Young
Synthpop doesn't always have to blow out the speakers. Sure, you could be CHVRCHES and go massive with every song, but you could also be Amelia Meath and apply restraint to your voice until the moment is just right. For a moment later in "Die Young," the waves of synths part just so, allowing Meath enough room to flex just a little extra. It's a track full of subtleties, never resorting to beating you over the head with lyrical messages or bombastic swells - and in that way, it's kind of a genre outlier - but the song is better served because of that.
78. Portugal. The Man - Feel It Still
Sometimes, crossover hits are allowed to feel good. It's perfectly logical to keep your indie cred intact and still enjoy the hell out of something like "Uptown Funk." You are totally okay if you enjoy Cold War Kids both at their rough-and-ragged early stage and stadium pop late stage. Same goes for Portugal. The Man who, despite their persistently weird name punctuation choice, have finally broken through with a pretty ubiquitous single of their own. "Feel It Still" is a groove, pure and simple. And I like listening to it! Feels good man.
77. Pale Honey - Someone's Devotion
You can't always get a great feel for a song in its first few notes or bars, and then sometimes you listen to this song. From the first four bass notes, you know exactly what you're getting: A smoky, sultry jam that feels both sinister and alluring, trapping your ears in some strange underworld open mic. Sweden strikes again.
76. Torres - Three Futures
When
Three Futures was released, I spent a bit too much time lamenting the departure of Torres as I first knew her. And that wasn't fair. Now, part of me still does miss the songwriter who only needed a looped guitar and gentle bass to make an impact as strong as the one "Waterfall" made; the woman who could wail just right in order to make "Honey" the devastating truck of a song it was and remains to this day. When I finally got out of my own way, I began to appreciate "Three Futures" for what it is, not what I once hoped it would be. Maybe it helps that "Three Futures" is paced pretty closely to the methodical, deliberate way almost all of her self-titled debut was, but that's neither here nor there. What we have here is what sounds like an "it's not you, it's me" breakup song: "You didn't know I saw three futures / One alone and one with you / And one with the love I knew I'd choose" sounds like it puts its audience in the worst spot of all parties involved here, but at least Mackenzie Scott is delivering the hard truth straight-up without prancing around it. She only spends a moment reflecting on what was, but her delivery sounds cold and unaffected, clearly detached from any meaning deeper than simple fact. "I hope that's what you'll remember / Not how I left, but how I entered" she sings, coming as close to showing a crack in her armor as she gets at any other point in the song. She's gone, but allows for some remembrance of the past, if it'll help who she's drifted apart from. It's magnanimous in its own crushing way.
75. Strand of Oaks - Rest Of It
Complete with sliding-on-knees guitar solos and backwoods wails, "Rest Of It" feels like a festival set closer, a righteous jam with all the right ingredients and just enough showboating and 1970s panache. You can almost see the flowing headbands coming off the tambourine as it's vigorously whacked against a hip, while Timothy Showalter finishes a crowdsurf. It's a little fun.
74. The Horrors - Press Enter To Exit
The Horrors have found a way to carve out their own nook in modern rock music. It's a little goth, a little kraut, a little emo, a little punk. It's almost always weighted and foreboding, with rhythm sections pretty far up in the mix, casting clouds over everything else happening in the tracks. And the same holds true for "Press Enter To Exit," even as the chorus strains to find some sun between the clouds. All of the percussion feels like it's padded by 100 pillows, something like the musical equivalent of a massive raincloud, and the opening up of those skies for the instrumental interlude conclusion around the 5:00 mark feels like a summer shower; it's still kinda sticky outside, but there's relief in the raindrops.
73. Grizzly Bear - Cut-Out
The best Grizz songs have a singular, defining part of them: the clinking piano in "Two Weeks," the ethereal howl in "While You Wait For the Others," the manic drums in "On a Neck, On a Spit," and on and on. This song's moment comes when Chris Bear's drumming pattern turns into a war march, pounding barely connected bass/snare combos with half-beat cymbal interjections. The whole track, for me, is carried by that bridge, as those drums and Daniel Rossen's turn at the mic manages to mold two seemingly disparate tracks into one. For a moment, it's mildly dizzying...like most of their best stuff. Go figure.
72. Dirty Projectors - Up In Hudson
Dave Longstreth has said this album is not totally biographical, and more of a narrator telling a new story than Longstreth himself telling a story about he and former partner and bandmate Amber Coffman. Sure, whatever. Whether biographical or not (it is), "Up In Hudson" feels authentic - specific New York venue references and all - and packs a lot of that emotional punch of a relationship's beginning, blossoming and ending into its double-length (7:30) runtime. It's a testament to Longstreth's songwriting that the song never feels overlong or repetitive, despite its formidable length.
71. Cayetana - Am I Dead Yet?
The Philly rock scene is so alive. It makes me so happy. This three-piece, whose
New Kind Of Normal dropped earlier this spring, mixes in bits of shoegaze, punk and dance rock to produce this track, which yanks you in many different directions in under four minutes. I'm a pretty big fan of the dance rock interludes, personally, but there's something here for just about anyone. And that slight snarl in Augusta Koch's delivery might call to mind some Waxahatchee (coincidentally, another Philly original). "Is there a way out of this?" Koch wonders aloud, shortly before one of those dance breaks arrives to set us all free. It's one of those rock grooves I can easily see myself bopping awkwardly to. Hell yeah.
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70-61
