This song is fantastic, but the chorus really, REALLY reminds me of No Doubt’s version of “It’s My Life.” I’m actually watching that music video for the first time since probably 5th grade when it was on MTV almost every day. Such memories.
I’m gonna listen to some No Doubt now.
Been getting more into Slint’s first record Tweez which is a lot better than I thought it was initially. Sure, Spiderland is almost completely different, but this has its own redeeming qualities, such as the signature Steve Albini production that makes the guitars extremely tinny and the drums real huge. These are just a bunch of teenagers messing around in the studio and the results are something really cool. This is the first track off the album.
One of my favorite songs of 2010 & one of my favorite songs of all time. This album came out in my senior year of high school and I remember listening to it and freaking a lot of my friends out because they had never heard music like this anywhere. Neither had I, but I was the one actively seeking this out, unlike my friends who were just being put through it. There are other tracks on the album that are a lot more “out there” than this, but this one is by far the most satisfying. There’s a wild chord that gets me every time at around 3:08.
Love this track off of an upcoming EP from Russian electronic pop musician Kedr Livanskiy. The name translates to Lebanese Cedar and the track name translates to “Destructive Cycle.” Instrumental definitely has strains of early Aphex Twin and maybe some lighter Crystal Castles. Can’t wait to hear more.
Very little can beat that synth texture. Extremely bouncy and luxurious. I started listening to this song right after I moved to Connecticut. Played a lot of Portal to this album.
Holy shit, summer 2012.
Shout out to Ryan, if he’s reading.
This is from Four Tet’s album Pink. I didn’t really get into it as much as There Is Love In You, until about a year or two later. This track slaps. Four Tet has slowly grown into being one of my all-time favorite electronic musicians, which isn’t too much of a surprise, based on his giant and loyal fanbase, as well as the consistent quality of his work.
I remember obsessively listening to this song back in 2010. I remember going out and buying the vinyl because I got a record player for Christmas in 2009 and that song alone was enough justification to buy an entire record I hadn’t heard, sans this song. I didn’t really get into Heartland until college, but this song and a few others left a real nice taste on the last year of my high school experience.
Currently listening to my “Best of 2010” playlist. You might be seeing more of that on here soon.
This is a 100-song playlist of songs that made 2015 unique from other years. Songs that I listened to a ton, songs I discovered for the first time, songs that hold immense emotional weight, and other assorted sonic ephemera. My usual haunts like Avalanches, Burial, Smiths & Slowdive I did listen to a lot, but what’s new? I listen to those bands almost every day. It’s listed chronologically, so the first song marks January 1st, 2015 and the last for December 31st, 2015.
A lot of these are sadsack songs because I was a big old sadman for the last third of the year. However, I made a lot of essential musical discoveries this year: The Sundays, Mulatu Astatqe, Midlake, Stereolab, Neil Young’s On The Beach, the mystical world of American Primitive guitar music, Casino Versus Japan, Kanye West’s 808’s & Heartbreaks… So many good things. A lot of these, however, are songs from this year. I tried to make them different from the songs in my Top 100 of 2015 but some are just so good that I couldn’t choose any others.
Here’s another Spotify playlist as well. The songs that aren’t on there are linked here with Youtube clips on the song name. I hope you enjoy, Spotify users.
I did one of these last year too.
Here are 100 of my favorite songs of 2015. When I was first making this list I wanted to narrow it down to 50, which was a difficult task – music was abnormally good this year. I then realized that I hate ranking songs against others; they’re the individual parts that make albums a whole. It’s so much more difficult to narrow down individual songs rather than albums. It’s like sorting splinters!
I’d rather go with a number of songs that could accurately paint my music taste in 2015, since to me it was pretty all over the place, but after compiling the tracks together on Spotify and seeing the play counts for all these songs, I take it back. Although, here are some trends:
It’s mostly indie rock on here, to be honest. No real shocking choices on my part. Songs that appear on my favorite records of the year. No big smash singles, however there are a few pop hits, “Trap Queen” and “Back Up” being two standouts. 2015 was really the first year that I let a lot of major pop into my life. I listened to a lot of that Rae Sremmurd record, the Fetty Wap record, and hell I listened to a good bit of Justin Bieber too. The big pop hit that sledgehammered everyone, though, was Carly Rae Jepsen. Didn’t think that that was gonna clobber me as much as it did but man oh man, did that really light up my summer. Hopefully this trend of ultra-mainstream pop that appeals to me will continue into 2016.
In terms of ABSOLUTE favorite song of 2015, I’m not sure if I could accurately rate all of these or even create an honest to goodness Top 10, but five absolute favorites that come to mind from this list include Hop Along‘s “Texas Funeral,” Kelela‘s “A Message,” Chastity Belt‘s “Joke,” Björk‘s “Family” and Holly Herndon‘s “An Exit.” All of those songs came out in the first half of the year – pretty interesting!
Be sure to listen to all of these via my Spotify playlist! I saw all your Year In Review posts – you use Spotify a lot and I know it. Hope you find some of your new favorite songs from this year or agree with some of my picks!
