If making a great album is one unique combination of skills, making a great song is another – sometimes complementary, sometimes not – skillset. Below is a look at the top five songs that defined our editor’s year. Let us know if you agree!
5. “Tokyo Drifting (with Denzel Curry)” by Glass Animals
“Tokyo Drifting”, an unlikely collaboration between British psych rockers Glass Animals and Southern rapper Denzel Curry, is – even more improbably – the best trap song this year. Hazy beats and Curry’s swaggering verse make this the perfect soundtrack to a nighttime chase through a city that never sleeps – just as the title suggests.
With its slightly off-kilter beats and the lead singer’s enigmatic vocals, “Exits” casts a hypnotic spell on the listener’s mind. This lead single from Foals’ Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Pt 1 also offers a trippy synth solo, cryptic music video, and much more. Don’t miss out!
Much like Travis Scott’s “SICKO MODE” last year, this opening track from British band Elbow’s eighth studio album is actually several songs in one, stitched together by impeccable production quality. Over six minutes, “Dexter & Sinister” skips from bass-heavy alt-rock, to ethereal pop, to meditative guitar – apparently as a musical metaphor to Brexit.
If there is a zeitgeist for the political minefield that is today’s United Kingdom, it is slowthai’s debut album, Nothing Great About Britain. And the core of that album – the zeitgeist of the zeitgeist – is this track, featuring another UK man-of-the-moment, Skepta. “Inglorious” is about what it means to be poor and overlooked, and how that feeling sticks with you whether your fortunes change or not. This is the essence that informs and guides the rest of the album, which sees slowthai peeling apart the layers to Brexit with snark and irreverence. Rap with the spirit of punk.
“The Runner” is Foals at their finest: cryptic lyrics, heavy-hitting riffs and sharp production turned up to the max. It’s also just great music: endlessly listenable in all moods, whether it’s on the radio or on a superfan’s 500th spin. Foals have had a great year, but this song may be their best work ever.
We are back with another edition of our Monthly Playlist. Read on for a list of five songs that caught our fancy this month, from old favorites to newer entries.
5. “Hit Me Where It Hurts” by Caroline Polachek
Caroline Polachek is one half of Chairlift, an erstwhile two-piece synth pop from the early 00s. They toured with the decade’s darlings – the likes of Phoenix and The Killers – but ultimately called it quits. And just as well, because Polachek’s own music stands out more than most of the stuff she made with her band.
From her new album Pang, “Hit Me Where It Hurts” is somewhat of a modern pop classic. It boasts all the key elements of any pop song worth its salt – a hurtful yet magnetic relationship, occasionally sultry vocals and so on – but Caroline’s synth pop history gives the tune an unusual edge. The best part of the song is the hypnotic opening couplet – “I’m feeling like a butterfly trapped inside a plane / Maybe there’s something going on, I’m not insane” – and she takes a good call in peppering it throughout the song. “Hit Me Where It Hurts” may underscore the vulnerability of loneliness, but it looks like Polachek is doing just fine on her own.
4. “Professor X” by Dave
UK rapper Dave is having a really good year. In March, he released his debut album Psychodrama, a sharp, autobiographical look at growing up black and poor in the United Kingdom. A mere six months later, Psychodrama won the Mercury Prize, the biggest music award a British artist could receive. Like his compatriot slowthai, whose debut album was also nominated for the prize, Dave captures the zeitgeist of the UK today: rifted and divided in every sphere of life.
“Professor X”, his first song since the Mercury Prize win, is part of the soundtrack for Top Boy, a grungy UK Netflix show where Dave incidentally made his acting debut this year (we told you he was having a good year). It’s as sharp as anything on Psychodrama, and his flow meshes perfectly with the layered beats. If you need an intro to Dave, this song is probably it.
3. “Dexter & Sinister” by Elbow
To say Elbow is underrated would be an understatement. The English rockers have been around for quite a while. Over their two-decade-plus career, they’ve won prestigious awards like the Mercury Prize (for 2008’s TheSeldom Seen King) and Best British Group (2009’s Brit Awards). They’ve even soundtracked their home country’s Olympics in 2012. Yet they are hardly a household name, at least outside of the UK.
Therefore, we consider it our obligation to showcase “Dexter & Sinister”, the opening track from their eighth (!) studio album, Giants of All Sizes. A heavy bass-and-drums riff leads into heady, vaguely apocalyptic vocals. About halfway through, the song suddenly takes a dreamy, melancholic turn – complete with elven female vocals – before segueing into a meditative guitar outro. These twists may seem abrupt on paper, but the high production value makes them seamless.
The fine print to the song’s ethos, apparently, is Brexit,
per lead singer Guy Garvey. He described the song as “a great, big, bewildered
question dealing with my feelings on Brexit, the loss of family and
friends and the general sense of disaffection you see all around at the
moment,” and we do see what he means.
2. “Orphans” by Coldplay
British mainstays Coldplay were in the news a fair bit this month with the announcement of their new album, Everyday Life, out next month. The beloved band released two singles in anticipation: “Orphans” and “Arabesque”. While both are as emotive as one may expect from Coldplay, it’s “Orphans” that has wormed its way into our heads.
Centered around jangly guitar riffs and Chris Martin’s trademark head-cold vocals, “Orphans” seems to be a sad paean to the continuing unrest in Syria. As with many Coldplay songs, the lyrics are moving and meaningful. In this case, the story revolves around Rosalene, a young girl raised by her father in a Damascus orchard. The “missile monsoons” of the Syrian bombings are implied to have killed her father and later, her, too.
It’s a lovely song that speaks tenderly about an ongoing horror in our world – with a good melody to boot. The music video, released last week, is definitely worth a spin, too, for a peek into how Coldplay built out this song. Watch below:
1. “Wash Off” by Foals
As our readers are well aware, Foals have blessed us this year with not one, but two, fantastic full-length albums. Fans hardly had time to absorb Everything Not Saved Will be Lost, Pt. 1in the first half of the year before the Oxford fourpiece announced a quick follow-up. Two great singles – “Black Bull” and “The Runner” – primed listeners for Pt. 2, which officially released on October 18th. “Wash Off”, the third track off the new release, is a deserving addition to the list of great Foals songs from 2019 (of which, happily, there are many).
Foals’ longevity over the past decade rests on their ability
to evolve their sound while keeping their essence intact. In our opinion, nowhere
on the new album is that more apparent than on “Wash Off”. The song starts off
with an agile guitar riff that is quickly met by timely drums. Whereas the old
Foals would have kept dialing up the frenzy, the Foals of today wisely move the
song along into a catchy chorus. The good part, though, is that they do dial it
up when they need to – for example, just before the final chorus where all the pieces
of the song finally come together in an exhilarating 30-second solo.
Another Monthly Playlist, another Foals song at #1. But can you really blame us?
Top Five Records 