Previously:
120-101,
100-91,
90-81,
80-71,
70-61,
60-51
Spotify Playlist
50. Alvvays - Hey
There's a sense of whimsy that...pervades?...Alvvays's second full-length album, a lighthearted current on an airier level than their self-titled debut. Everything feels a bit bouncier now, and nowhere on the album is that put on a brighter, clearer perch than here. "Hey" doesn't quite match the foreboding obsessiveness of "Adult Diversion" from LP1, but its evolution from bubblegum to artpop within itself is a fun little journey. It feels like a longer track than its ~2:50 runtime, mostly for all the different masks it wears. There's a lot going on, but it never approaches feeling exhausting.
49. Rainer Maria - Forest Mattress
The first time I listened to this song, I was looking out my window onto the city skyline as a thunderstorm rolled in. I could swear I saw a lightning bolt hit the Empire State Building. There was something so theatrical about the whole scene, and this track fit the mood like a glove. The shift from dissonance with guitars in the verses to this profound swell as Caithlin De Marrais belts out pastoral passages about being one with nature...if you'll pardon the easy pun, it struck a good chord with my ears. There's a little bit of rawness left in the vocal track that adds to the song's authenticity, validating the emotion behind the words. Highly recommended for your next thunderstorm viewing.
48. Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly & James McAlister - Pluto
The gentle haunt of Sufjan's voice floats through this song like Voyager passing through a planet's city limits. The song plays like an extraterrestrial transmission, shot through the boundless black on its way to some far-flung cluster of starstuff. It carries with it the feeling of pure
expanse that any deep thought of space carries with it, especially in the orchestral flourish that bridges Sufjan's verses. The gentle hurt in Sufjan's voice during what could be described as the song's choruses hit squarely, calling to mind some of his more impactful moments on solo work ("Lose our clothes in summertime / lose ourselves to lose our minds" in "Holland" comes to mind for me, for one). There's more production here than your typical Sufjan work outside of
Age of Adz, but the spatial atmospheres created by the Dessner/Muhly composition and the subtle layer of intimidation added by McAlister's percussion creates an entire world unto itself; maybe even an entire
galaxy unto itself. To be sure, the song feels like a journey that takes us past more than one celestial body.
47. Broken Social Scene - Vanity Pail Kids
This song is just badass. I love the rippling drum pattern, the jolts of brass, the insidiously hushed verses that lead into these call-and-response pieces about greed and outsized self-perception. It's the exact kind of song you can imagine a huge ensemble playing on stage; the sheer number of moving parts helps create all the depth on display here. It's splashy and crunchy and choral and comes off like a sonic riot. Me like.
46. Jaws of Love. - Jaws of Love.
Shifting gears entirely from No. 47 - and further emphasizing why this playlist goes the same whether played straight through or on shuffle - we find Local Natives' Kelcey Ayer's debut as a solo artist. Flush with echo and a lilting piano that gently crashes into an adult-alternative wave, Ayer's smooth voice effortlessly slides up his register into falsetto. The piano reminds me of the music from the home-building mode of The Sims, a relaxing suite of compositions that really put me in that
feng shui mood as I built up my pixelated mansion. I swear I mean all of that as a compliment.
45. Wolf Parade - Valley Boy
Maybe the proximity of my writing up this list is too close to the reissue of
Automatic For the People for this to be without influence, but I hear a decent bit of peak R.E.M. in this cut from Wolf Parade's return LP. The Spencer Krug-sung track details the aftermath of a one-time star's fall from grace and their subsequent fleeing from the spotlight. It's sort of fitting that the band's first album in seven years has a song with this theme...but I might be trying a bit too hard to connect some dots there.
44. Waxahatchee - Brass Beam
For my money, Katie Crutchfield's rasp is better suited to music like this: A fuller sound, with more production while still feeling DIY. Having her twin sister Allison chip in with some backing vocals and harmonies is a nice touch, too. There's still a lot of bitterness in Katie's voice and words, but here, she's not overpowered by the things seeking to bring her down; they fuel her.
43. Destroyer - Cover From the Sun
A lot of Dan Bejar's work with Destroyer is occluded, erudite, hazy stuff that often sounds like it's coming from a guy perched on a stool beneath a single spotlight at a club. And then, every once in a while, he busts out something like this: A track barely over two minutes long that plays more like a rock anthem while still being plenty erudite. It wouldn't be a Destroyer song if the lyrics weren't full of wordplay like: "So what's new? The girl thinks you are a blonde Che Guevara / Sleep in cars, theater under stars, Sheakespeare in the park / You've come undone," which Bejar even admits is all smirking puffery and "typical Destroyer bullshit...mocking the singer." Planting a tongue firmly in cheek can still feel plenty fun, even without being super obvious all the time.
42. Elliott Brood - Dig a Little Hole
This quick-hitting, folksy stomp-clap that's actually sad as hell when you listen to the words usually leaves me feeling conflicted after I listen to it. The music is lots of fun and bright and upbeat, and the lyrics are about the singer-character's alcoholic and depressed parents, and broken-hearted revenge gone wrong. I mean, that's a lot to cram into 2:25. All I can say definitively is that the song is super catchy, even given its themes, and it's fun to listen to even in the face of all that goes wrong inside it.
41. Japandroids - Arc of Bar
Most of the impact Japandroids' music makes is immediate stuff. From everything on
Celebration Rock to the lead title track single from
Near to the Wild Heart of Life, it's pretty self-evident that these fellas do good work when the urgency is high and the imperative to kick butt is priority one. But then this song came along and introduced something entirely new to the arsenal: A churning slow-burn of near-epic length (7:25??). The lyrics tune down the "party til we're dead" mentality a bit, and the track's build takes its time; the result is a song that's almost as gratifying as some of the band's best, delivered in almost entirely unexpected way.
Next:
40-31
