Previously:
120-101,
100-91,
90-81,
80-71,
70-61,
60-51,
50-41,
40-31,
30-21,
20-11
Spotify Playlist
10. LCD Soundsystem - Call the Police
LCD's "All My Friends" is one of the very best songs I've ever heard. It builds at a restless pace, from disjointed piano to rolling waves of drums to the full-bodied anthem for aging I continue to relate to more and more as I do my own aging. And if "All My Friends" was an existential struggle to cope with the fallout of growing older, "Call the Police" feels like a paean to the next step: Not giving a shit.
9. Charly Bliss - Glitter
I'm not sure I heard a refrain better sum up the anxiety and self-doubt so many of us live with these days than "Am I the best, or just the first person to say 'yes?'" And it's delivered in such a wonderfully light, hooky way that you can't help but feel a little better about it all. In reading about what Eva Hendricks had to say about the song, it sounds like a song initially meant to be a jab at an ex-partner that eventually turned introspective, and in that way it feels more universal and accessible.
8. Yumi Zouma - December
Much in the way I enjoyed Roosevelt last year, I found Yumi Zouma's
Willowbank to be a delightfully easygoing jaunt, treading the waters of yacht rock while keeping some pop sensibility. "December," the album's best track, plucks along at a measured pace, rhythmically supported by swaddled hand claps and snare hits. The gentle rise and fall of its synths and singer Christie Simpson's voice call to mind images of riding a ferry across the water, the craft's yawing and pitching muted by its size, a sensation blending into the background as you take in the scenery gliding gently by.
7. Algiers - The Underside of Power
The pure grit and emotion that goes into singing a song like this is undeniably attractive. The progression from the doomsday lullaby at the start to the war march in verse two is an energetic jolt, and the verse-to-chorus shift from minor to major chords is mesmerizing. It's political and ferocious, and necessary for today's world. It rages against the machine and the sinister edge that lines everything that lords over us.
6. White Reaper - Party Next Door
On first listen, it might be hard to identify five words in this song. Like, it's difficult. Part of that's by design for White Reaper, which has always lived in the realm of down-and-dirty basement punk, carrying those values over now into songs that bring to mind things you might hear at a midnight drag race. It's a song that sounds like what it's about: A house party spills over into the street, rowdy and boisterous and loud and unhinged, with people firing guns into the air from their car while presumably doing donuts. And it all rushes past in just over two minutes, a condensed adrenaline rush. It, like everything else on
The World's Best American Band, is caffeinated and fun and easy to slap on repeat; just as it finally fades out after its frantic conclusion, you're ready to get ramped up by the intro all over again.
5. Everything Everything - Desire
One thing you can never dock EE points for is a lack of big ideas. You can't say that these dudes don't
go for it, album after album. In the wake of last year's one-off single "I Believe It Now," the art pop quartet pumps out another massive cut, blending their signature multi-part harmonies in a cascading chorus with Jon Higgs's typically robust falsetto. It goes straight to the rafter and hangs there, blowing out the bass as the guitar gets plucked further and further up the neck. It's just
big, damn it. It feels close to the apex of some of the best moments from their previous album,
Get to Heaven, which is quickly ascending my list of all-time favorites. If you're a Big & Bold kind of person, I have the group for you, right here.
4. Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - French Press
How do we bridge the gaps between ourselves? How do we stay connected to everything all at once? Well, we can't, and the struggle of accepting that reality - and the strain it puts on our relationships as an effect - is something that weighs heavy on the conscience of RBCF in this blissfully jam-y alt-rocker from the Australians' EP of the same name. It reminds me of the ending of Real Estate's "All the Same," which builds from a more minimalist, dreamy jam into a community effort of loop-de-loops. Here, the same basic principle can be heard, but with 100 percent more
rawk, from crashing cymbals to extra riffs and solos over two minutes of joyous jam session material.
3. The National - Day I Die
One of the finest tracks this group has released in the last 10 years is one that takes relationship uncertainty head on, grappling with its ugliness. This territory has been trod by this group, oh, once or twice before; what feels fresh and new here is an urgency that hasn't been felt since "Bloodbuzz Ohio," a desperate energy that soars above all of the staid, wallowing overtones of
Trouble Will Find Me (which, to be fair, is a great album for when you're feeling staid and wallowy). "The day I die, where will we be?" Matt Berninger implores in the face of the cloudy future before him. He reflects on his shortcomings ("I get a little punchy with the vodka") before seeking comfort in running from what's before him ("Let's just get high enough to see our problems"), all the while seeming to acknowledge that this is an obstacle he'll have to surmount before too long. This is a song written from the crossroads, where the next step will either set you on the path to redemption or to desecration; so take stock in what you have, and make sure you're prepared for the trip you decide to take.
2. Slowdive - Star Roving
A song whose mood reflects that of its title, I often feel adrift in some faraway galaxy when this song begins. Admittedly, for a long time, I considered this my No. 1 song of the year. Its ambiance and scope and feeling of floating as it powers through some uncharacteristically rough-and-tumble guitar and drums on out to some far-flung reaches of the universe. It's a song that, at the same time, is relaxed in its aggression, sort of like how you could fly through space at the speed of light and still take years to go from point A to point B. It's a song I almost never skip, as its intro feels regal and heralded, announcing the beginning of something wondrous and expansive that I can't help but provide five minutes of my time to, again and again.
1. Julien Baker - Claws In Your Back
To truly grasp the monumental, unbelievably cathartic ending to this song, you have to try and understand where Baker came from.
Sprained Ankle, her debut full-length, was an album written from the depths, rarely full of hope and instead mired in the worst moments of Baker's memory. The tales were and still remain gripping, but finding a silver lining or ray of hope often required some logical leaps. But now, the tides are turning, and enter
Turn Out the Lights, which finds Baker not bound by her past problems but educated by them. She's still fully cognizant of what her detractions appear to be and the missteps she's taken, but those things are now part of the bigger of her self, rather than what exclusively defines her. And so, enter the final words of the song, which start (fittingly) around the time the arrangement of the song, musically, opens up: "I'm better off learning how to be / Living with demons I've mistaken for saints / If you keep it between us, I think they're the same / I think I can love the sickness you made / 'Cause I take it all back, I changed my mind / I want it to
stay," and it's that last phrase that overpowers my soul, igniting it, setting it awash in what can only be a fraction of the enlightenment Baker herself must have felt upon truly realizing that all is not, in fact, lost. The trip back from the edge is, I'm confident, more harrowing than anything I've yet experienced, but I can almost feel everything that went into that struggle and ultimate triumph when I listen to the song's closing. There are few moments like it that I've ever heard, and its combination of beauty and emotion make it ultimately deserving of the highest personal accolade I can give it.
