Tag Archives: aoty

Top Five Songs of 2020 – Neeharika’s List

31 Dec

As a complement to my Top Five Albums of 2020 list, here are the songs whose endless replays helped me get through this year.

Honorable mentions

And now for my top five songs of the year:

5. “Your Love (Déjà vu)” by Glass Animals

Clocking in at #5 is this early single from British pop band Glass Animals’ Dreamland album that was released this year. As we talked about in our review of the album, the singles from Dreamland were really good and everything else was so-so. Well, “Your Love (Déjà vu)” is one of those ridiculously good songs in the first category, featuring crisp hip-hop like beats, electric vocals from singer Dave Bayley and an all-around fun vibe. This is as catchy as the Glass Animals get – don’t miss this one.

Read our full song review in the Monthly Playlist: Feb. 2020 edition.

4. “The Adults Are Talking” by the Strokes

Over the year, we’ve highlighted “Bad Decisions” and “Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus” from the Strokes’ The New Abnormal (2020) album on our Monthly Playlists; but as we come to the close of the year, it’s the album opener “The Adults Are Talking” that most stands out to me. The Strokes get your feet tapping and your head bopping along from the first seconds of the classic, clean drum line, and it only gets better from there. The icing on the cake is a particularly good vocal effort from Julian Casablancas, especially in the sky-high falsetto at the end. As the first sound you hear on The New Abnormal, “The Adults Are Talking” provided a symbolic sigh of relief to Strokes fans everywhere that the band is alive, well and perhaps better than ever.

Read our full album review here.

3. “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year (which, let’s admit, not a bad plan for 2020), you would have heard Dua Lipa’s mega-hit “Don’t Start Now” at some point. The irrepressible dance-pop number has graced radio stations, talk shows, award shows and all other COVID-ready media; in any other year, it would have likely been on the playlist of every club in the world. Dua Lipa’s entire Future Nostalgia album is an homage to the fun and vivacity of 1970s and 1980s music. And “Don’t Start Now” is the album’s shining disco ball of a crown jewel, with its pulsing bass line, Dua’s staccato vocals, random cowbell, handclaps and so on.

Read our full album review here.

2. “WAP” by Cardi B feat. Megan Thee Stallion

Perhaps the most talked-about song of the year – for one reason or the other – is “WAP” by Cardi B featuring Megan Thee Stallion. The powerhouse song by the two reigning queens of rap instantly shot to fame with its sexually-explicit lyrics, inciting the wrath of right-wing ghouls everywhere. I consider “WAP” to be iconic, unapologetic and more feminist than most things that claim to be. Cardi and Megan spend the entire song detailing exactly what men should do to please them. The reverse has been covered in songs by men about women ad infinitum; so why should boys have all the fun?

Read our full song review in the Monthly Playlist: Aug. 2020 edition.

1. “XS” by Rina Sawayama

As I mentioned on my AOTY list, Rina Sawayama’s SAWAYAMA was undoubtedly the best debut album of the year, and the brightest star on the tracklist is the gaudy, poppy “XS”. Rina’s whole vibe is a cool mixture of 90s / early 00s music across all genres, and this song follows that make-up too. Her breathy, slightly nasal vocals – reminiscent of Christina Aguilera or Britney Spears – sync perfectly with the rock-tinged instrumentals brings to mind the early 00s pop-rock acts (Good Charlotte, Simple Plan) which were all the rage back in the day. Lyrically, too, “XS” does well. As the name cleverly suggests, is a critique on the excesses of capitalism (“Cartiers and Tesla X’s, Calabasas, I deserve it / Call me crazy, call me selfish, I’m the baddest and I’m worth it”) – to which Rina cleverly alludes in the song’s music video. All in all, a great effort and – for me – the song of the year.

Read our full song review in the Monthly Playlist: Apr. 2020 edition.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Top Five Albums of 2019 – Nikhil’s List

31 Dec

There was a lot of music in 2019 that caught my ear, but surprisingly for me, when it came to putting together a list, things came together quite easily. There are just some albums in particular that I want you to hear.

5. Ariana Grande – thank u, next

This album is my choice for the biggest surprise of the year. For someone as big, as established and as much of a star as Ariana Grande to take so large a step forward is startling but that is just what she did.

Key to this is the title track. “thank u, next” could have easily come off poorly, but she handles it with a grace and maturity that really mark the growth that we see here. Her voice was always strong, but here it’s sincere as well and that lets her keep a powerful song fully under control.

For all of the headlines of that centerpiece, the rest of the album is just chock-full of ideas and well-executed ones at that. She’s kittenish in “make up” and sneering in “bloodline”, fun in “NASA” and imperial in “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored.” The music goes from hard to soft and back again and does it with flair. Her voice is nothing short of stellar.

Ariana has done a lot over her career to reinvent pop, but this is the album that guns for the top. It’s fun, it’s exciting and it looks effortless doing so, just like Ariana Grande herself.

Read our full review here.

4. Jamilia Woods – LEGACY! LEGACY!

From a no-caps album, now we pick up a full caps one and the difference is clear. Where Ariana was free-flowing and so honest, this album is clearly the product of immense thought, but is no less sincere for that.

Jamilia Woods takes a panorama of black excellence and uses it as a lens through which to examine current events and herself and makes spectacular music in the process.

It’s just such a smart album. There are some arrestingly clever lines here. I love the starkness of “Are you mad? / Yes, I’m mad” and the cleverness with which it is twisted in the magnificent “BASQUIAT.” It’s even preceded by the equally noteworthy “MUDDY,” which has a beautifully dirty blues-rock riff reminiscent of its namesake.

LEGACY! LEGACY! does a lot and does it all with awe-inspiring levels of quality and an astonishing coherence as well. This is an unquestionably ambitious album and one that pulls off that ambition dazzlingly.

Read our full review here.

3. Tyler, the Creator – IGOR

Continuing the theme of all-caps records, we have Tyler, the Creator with IGOR. With 2017’s Flower Boy, it seemed like Tyler had found his voice and IGOR continues that clarity. He has matured and that maturity has brought focus to his always prodigious talent.

The uniqueness that defined him is as strong as ever, but he’s somehow more versatile now as well. He can go hard in “NEW MAGIC WAND” or soft in “GONE GONE / THANK YOU” with equal ease and he’s still able to drop thought-provoking beats and unexpected sounds in at every point.

This is the best version of Tyler, the Creator that we could have hoped for and the realization of all of his promise. This is scintillating, singular music and quite easily one of the best albums of the year.

Read our full review here.

4. Kanye West – JESUS IS KING

There are some Kanye albums, like Yeezus or MBDTF where you know that they will be the album of the year as soon as they come out. JESUS IS KING isn’t that kind of album. I would have been shocked to see it place this high when I reviewed it.

And yet, on coming back to it, it’s just better than the other albums on this list. Listening to “Closed On Sunday” after a while, it just hits you that this is really strong music. It’s no surprise that going back to gospel would work well for Kanye, but to his credit, he’s done a lot more than just the gospel beats of his early work or even the heavy gospel of “Ultralight Beam.”

He committed here to the idea of Christian music. This is not the most sophisticated take on religion, but it is honest and personal and true and so manages more real commentary than any amount of sophistry. Talking about fighting with his father or the quickness of Christian disdain for who he is are topics that many would avoid, but that’s not what a Kanye album does.

It’s in the music that the most interesting ideas emerge though. The choir playing against hard bars in “Use This Gospel” and then the following Kenny G solo that goes back into the beat is the kind of thing that you would just never see anywhere else. The military-grade choir in “Selah” is undeniable. Even in terms of rapping, Kanye has taken a step forward. Something like “Follow God” showcases things that he just could not do before.

JESUS IS KING is a new stage in Kanye’s career and while it may not be as immediately promising as his first set of albums or as groundbreaking as 808s or Yeezus, it’s still fascinating music and some of the best of the year.

Read our full review here.

1. FKA Twigs – MAGDALENE

With MAGDALENE, one finds oneself immediately reaching for superlatives. Gorgeous, intricate, a masterpiece all come to mind and are all apt. There’s just so much of note here.

First of all, the production is stellar. There are just so many small details here. There are little sounds everywhere, little evocative fragments that build out a cathedral for her voice to fill. It’s ethereal as always, but so very strong. There’s an intensity here that almost scalds as it enervates.

FKA Twigs was always one of those talented artists, one of those who seems an effortless polyglot in musical languages and even in dance. She does so many things so well, it just feels unfair when it all comes together this well. This is the greatest work yet of an extraordinary artist and a comfortable pick for the album of this year.

Read our full review here.

Tags: ,

%d bloggers like this: