035 - 031

 

 

035 Ariana Grande feat. Zedd - Break Free

034 Betablock3r feat. Vic & Gab - Don’t Take Me Home

033 Ace Wilder - Busy Doin’ Nothin’

032 Emerson Jay - Fghting Finding

031 Jungle - Busy Earnin’

 

 

We near the top thirty with a couple of strutting anthems. Zedd's empathic production on 'Break Free' is matched by the often incomprehensible cry of Ariana's vocals, making for a hosanna that is just deliriously empowering. Jungle, meanwhile, top a strong debut album with the bold as brass 'Busy Earnin'', a tune for anyone who has ever hated their job as much as I have this year. Those trumpets that sound almost like the group imitating them with their vocal chords, that swirling noise in the background - it all makes for a triumphant ode to the downtrodden.

 

On a totally contrary note is Ace Wilder's slacker celebration 'Busy Doin' Nothin'', unfortunate loser in the Melodifestivalen battle (sorry, fans, Sanna is nowhere to be seen in these parts this year) and somehow inexplicably never released in this country. The mashing of lazy honky tonk production in the verses and booming modernist chorus means the song goes by in a flash, all presided over by Ace's caustic vocals.

 

And finally we turn to Buzzjack and its occasionally appalling taste. Emerson Jay's oddly spelt 'Fghting Finding' was another of my disastrous flops in Unknown Pleasures, despite bright, melodic production and gorgeous male vocals. Oh, wait - male vocals. Hmph. As the guitars strum and the rest of the song swirls into a frenzy, I'll always be caught up. Lastly we come to mysterious BJSC flop 'Don't Take Me Home', which I'm glad wasn't my own entry because the heartbreak of its failure is already too great. The ethereal, flighty gorgeousness of this triumph is just absolutely magical, but it seems I was the only one under its spell.

030 - 026

 

 

030 James Wolf - Can’t Get Enough

029 George Ezra - Song 6

028 Becky Hill - Losing

027 Josef Salvat - Shoot and Run

026 Broods - Never Gonna Change

 

 

Some undersung gems as we enter the top thirty. George Ezra album track 'Song 6' is probably the least well known, and it starts so unassumingly that when the plaintive chorus hits - "We are only dreaming / And I'm dreaming only of you" - it's a truly unexpected wallop in the face. His vocals aren't even overly emotional, just at a slightly higher pitch than the moribund verses, his inimitable, rather unlikely deep tones a genuine intoxicant. Not unlike the rich, reedier voice of Josef Salvat, who really does sound that good live, and when matched with the brooding production of 'Shoot and Run', a menacing title matched with the bubbling synths, it really sings.

 

Speaking of brooding (har har), here are Broods, who certainly live up to their name on their desolate debut album. 'Never Gonna Change', the hangover highlight from their initial EP, lets Georgia Nott's cool voice pitch the song at a level of low despair, the chorus a rumble of futility, before that truly inspired blitz of blaring synths, the song's sadness abundantly clear in their round pitch.

 

Becky Hill won't take this shit, though - she's through with 'Losing', a song that sounded more like a hit than most songs this year and so, of course, wasn't one. From the first blared repeat of "Hold on", this song announces itself as something special. Hill's vocals sound lost themselves, slightly, as if she's singing from the depths of a cave, but the words are one of resistance, rebellion. Truth be told it's just a f***ing good dance tune and it carries me away on its tearful tinged dancefloor production.

 

For true joy, we can stop by James Wolf, whose Balearic toe-tapper didn't serve me too well in BJSC, but continues to serve me well on a daily basis as the kind of song you want to do this to:

 

http://37.media.tumblr.com/da1c0519a1e86ba5be55cf4b79a93af6/tumblr_mive13SMtv1rdutw3o1_400.gif

 

And sometimes that's all you need. (Plus, he's real cute.)

025 - 021

 

 

025 Ella Eyre - Comeback

024 Tove Lo - Not on Drugs

023 Bright Light Bright Light - I Believe

022 S O H N - Artifice

021 Oscar and the Wolf - Princes

 

 

All unlucky enough to end up just outside the vaunted top twenty are this motley lot. Ella Eyre wouldn't take this shit, you sense; both of her singles this year have been powered by a raucous anger, particularly the jangling outrage of 'Comeback', in which she drawls to her fellow girls about the pathetic nature of men. It's delicious, it's euphoric, it's empowering - why isn't she a star? Same goes for Tove Lo, whose release strategy seemed to fall apart after the surprise success of 'Stay High'. Abandoned follow-up 'Not on Drugs' might be her crowning moment - that blasting paean of a chorus is a short, sharp shock, the delirium ringing clear through her sublime vocals.

 

The euphoria is matched in 'I Believe', the latest pop smash by Bright Light Bright Light, who may just be the best male popstar around at the moment. This is, from the clanging synth to the drums to the cymbal smashes to the triumphant cry of Rod's vocals, an absolute triumph. There are a couple of other males here, though - Berlin-based London-born S O H N won BJSC and my affections with this rhythmic jam, which really peaks with that jazzy line that marks the vocal pauses of the chorus. The instrumentation of the whole thing is just a delight to let ripple through your body. And then, from Belgium, we have D'yermak'er flop Oscar and the Wolf, with the haunting 'Princes', all delivered in a sort of limpid, creepy vocal that is sodden with despair and emptiness. It's just a divinely powerful song.

Losing/Artifice/Comeback/Busy Earnin’/Break Free/Not On Drugs :wub:

i honestly thought james wolf would've been a surefire for top 10 in its contest, the hit that nvr was! gorgeous

20

 

Make Me Feel Better

Alex Adair

 

 

From the first ripples of that percussion, this feels like something magical. Few other songs this year have matched the direct, open joy ensconsed within the repeated trills, alternating male and female, and then that absolutely divine percussion riff that seems like the instrument dancing on its own. Within the track's very simple lyrics is a hosanna to the bond of romantic love and partnership, the balming power of having someone by your side who can help when maybe these delirious rhythms aren't what's in your head. Ultimately, though, 'Make Me Feel Better' is a real showcase for the tuneful power of an often undersung and definitely underused section of the orchestral line-up, and the instant connotations of freedom and happiness it conjures up.

19

 

Ugly Heart

G.R.L.

 

 

The tragic passing of Simone Battle might have been a bittersweet boon to the chart success of 'Ugly Heart', but in any case, this anthemic pop song is a great legacy for her to leave behind. Sisterhood goes beyond the divide between life and death, and even as the lyrics to the song are a stonewalling kiss-off to an ugly man with a gorgeous visage, the song offers the camaraderie of friendship as an alternative, a response, and a support system. The girls chant that glorious chorus as one, boots stomping in the background, some winsome strumming making the experience one of victory, a battle statement in the face of an increasingly vicious world. The tinge of sadness, regret that this is what the girls have come to, rings through the glorious cry that smashes us into the last chorus, and it's this lingering melancholy, underlined by the hidden pain of the now absent member, that will ensure this diamond of a pop song endures.

Ugly Heart is amazing.

Loved 'Can't Get Enough' in BJSC and it's only grown since so cheers for the discovery! Just missed out on my own EOY actually.

 

Also a big fan of 'Shoot and Run', 'Not On Drugs', 'Make Me Feel Better' and 'Ugly Heart' - great commentary on that last one.

19

 

Ugly Heart

G.R.L.

 

 

The tragic passing of Simone Battle might have been a bittersweet boon to the chart success of 'Ugly Heart', but in any case, this anthemic pop song is a great legacy for her to leave behind. Sisterhood goes beyond the divide between life and death, and even as the lyrics to the song are a stonewalling kiss-off to an ugly man with a gorgeous visage, the song offers the camaraderie of friendship as an alternative, a response, and a support system. The girls chant that glorious chorus as one, boots stomping in the background, some winsome strumming making the experience one of victory, a battle statement in the face of an increasingly vicious world. The tinge of sadness, regret that this is what the girls have come to, rings through the glorious cry that smashes us into the last chorus, and it's this lingering melancholy, underlined by the hidden pain of the now absent member, that will ensure this diamond of a pop song endures.

Reading passively I thought I'd just interject to say this write-up is amazing. CONTINUE *.*

18

 

Beggin for Thread

BANKS

 

 

BANKS' debut album Goddess betrays its feminism from the off, but the construction of it within the music is more intriguing than some sort of gung-ho kiss-off. The entire tracklist is alive with the empowering force of sexuality, and perhaps nowhere more so than on 'Beggin for Thread', which comes equipped with deliciously inscrutable refrains that make the chorus something so teasingly macabre you know Bjork or Kate Bush would be proud. BANKS' vocals manage the elusive feat of being confidently sexual and vulnerably open at once, leaving the listener in a state of utter confusion as they're forced to simply succumb to the twilight treacle of the production and her wildly oscillating tones. While the majority of the song is a deeply evocative and playful construction, the highlight may well be the late middle-8, as BANKS suddenly pitches up the disdain and intones "my tracks are better", which suddenly takes the song into the realms of professional rivalry and sexism - a surprise revealing the depths that Goddess proves to have hidden within itself on closer inspection. Not that BANKS herself ever hid the goddess from us.

17

 

Kicks

FKA twigs

 

 

The clever thing about twigs' music is that it's incredibly simple. The subject matter of 'Kicks' is not dressed up in long, complex, cagey words; instead, twigs uses simple phrases in an almost conversational way to construct the finest ode to masturbation since Britney's 'Touch of My Hand'. The production of 'Kicks' pitches it within a sort of desolate soundscape akin to Burial or the classics of Portishead and Tricky, bursts of computer sound exploding like little orgasms as her voice trills its almost sardonic loneliness. 'Kicks' is a rebuff to a world that often encloses sexuality in a binary lock, insisting that solitude can augur the purest of engagements with the body and the spiritual effervescence of eroticism. This is one of the simplest, most elegant and most emotionally clear cuts on LP1, showcasing an artist who is unafraid to be openly expressive about her humanity and sexuality, and who understands how intricately they are tied up within ourselves.

16

 

Bassically

Tei Shi

 

 

Drums rumble ceaselessly as the track's bassline, an unsettlingly repetitive rhythm that's like a morbid heartbeat. It's the basic at the bottom of 'Bassically' - an intriguing title that sets the track a little off-centre before it even begins. Tei Shi builds the rest of the track on top of this beat, a mournful vocal and eerie effects swathed across the track until it devolves into a fevered wall of wailing, and one of the purest expressions of despair music heard all year. There's a great deal of release in those animalistic sounds, something for the listener to hold within themselves as the track barrels along on those increasingly manic, droning synths, before the crescendo as it all crashes together, halfway between a headbanging exhaltation and un petit mort, with the tangle of retribution and exhaustion that goes with it. You don't really need to listen to the lyrics to understand that this is a cry from within oppression, but what puts 'Bassically' above most tracks of its kind is its complete fearlessness: there's true wildness in those cries, a real sort of mania, and it's that edge of danger, insanity even, that makes this expertly constructed track so perpetually compulsive.

15

 

Run-Time

Imogen Heap

 

 

Imogen Heap got a little lost, for me at least, in all her technical wizardry; the method of production started becoming more important than the songs, which seemed to be awkward expressions of machines still not completely grasped in their usefulness. So I approached Sparks with trepidation, and while the compilation of several years' work bore the evidence of its production, 'Run-Time' stuck out for returning Imogen to the frenzied energy she harnessed so majestically on Speak for Yourself ten years ago. Heap's voice works best when doing similar acrobatics to her manic, unpredictable production, and the speedy synth bleeps of 'Run-Time' allows for her voice to freewheel across them, her breath seeming to elude her as she pushes herself into each verse with her trademark gusto. The feeling of motion in her work always makes it a somewhat exhilirating experience; here, seemingly fleeing from a dying relationship, she doesn't stop, instead fading into the distance as the listener stops, out of breath, and she goes on, never out of energy.

Hey hey heeey,

 

All caught up, so here are my favourites:

 

093 Tinashe - Wildfire

091 iamamiwhoami - Hunting for Pearls

089 Oliver $ & Jimi Jules - Pushing On

085 Taylor Swift - How You Get the Girl

084 George Ezra - Budapest

077 Katy B - Everything

068 Taylor Swift - Style :heart:

065 Ella Eyre - If I Go :heart:

058 Jessie Ware - Tough Love

057 Kiesza - Hideaway

054 Ariana Grande & The Weeknd - Love Me Harder :heart:

051 Ella Henderson - Ghost

038 Calvin Harris feat. Haim - Pray to God

035 Ariana Grande feat. Zedd - Break Free :heart:

031 Jungle - Busy Earnin’

025 Ella Eyre - Comeback

019 G.R.L. - Ugly Heart :heart:

 

Some great stuff so far, 'Ugly Heart' in particular is gorgeous, your summary was spot on. :wub:

14

 

Sensibility

Elizabeth Rose

 

 

'Sensibility' whirls into life, not just with the tentative crash of the drum machine and those frantic synths, but with Rose's wild, nervous cries, an intriguing way to introduce herself. But even during her smoother vocalisation of the verses, there's a shivering timbre to the way she realises the song's uncertain mania, one that effortlessly matches delicately dramatic electronic production with the soft wail of her voice. By the end, she's totally broken down, only echoed phrases of the lyrics swirling around as the song devolves into a desolate fade out, the purveyor of the song lost, perhaps forever. 'Sensibility' is a song about feeling utterly confused by the world around her, a woman completely destabilised, reaching out to someone - a lover, a friend, but either way someone who doesn't seem to hear her - but Rose wisely restrains herself from letting things become too weird, for to keep the song within the realms of melodic and earworm-y is to make it bed itself inside the listener without them even realising.

13

 

OctaHate

Ryn Weaver

 

 

Ryn Weaver arrived fully formed, it seemed - not many singers arrive with a song co-created by Passion Pit frontman Michael Angelakos, Benny Blanco, Cashmere Cat, and Charli XCX. 'OctaHate' endures, though, in large part because it's an ingeniously constructed and divinely catchy pop song, but also because it blends mood so poignantly. The percussive refrain that seems so light and flirty becomes contorted into a melancholic lament, while the absolute blast of a chorus disguises earth shaking heartbreak, anger and sorrow conflating over a euphoric conflagration of instruments. The song is a great introduction to the dexterity of Weaver's voice, working at a wild variety of speeds throughout the song, often having to keep pace with the production at almost breathless pace. The lyrics are playful and evocative without venturing into the kind of poetry that might seem typical of someone of Weaver's type. But most of all, 'OctaHate' is a dynamic rush of a pop song, adjacent to current trends but just oddball enough to stick firmly in the memory.

12

 

Untrue (Extended Mix)

Tchami

 

 

I can't write about the lyrics of 'Untrue', because there aren't any. Not really. There's a person, making noises, and maybe, if you contort your ears, you might hear a word or two, or a sentence might make some sort of vague sense. But you'd still be unsure if you'd heard it correctly, and that's all intentional. It certainly doesn't mean there's no emotion within the song, because those noises, oh!, those noises. The utter sorrow and desolation in those noises gets me right down in my stomach, because that's where they seem to be coming from - guttural cries of absolute despair. They drop out just after halfway through and only return for a few muted seconds, the death throes as the ruthless dance beat finally destroys them completely. 'Untrue' is a great dance song in the tradition of something like 'Dancing On My Own', only here, the upset is so great that it's incoherent, and thus tragically beyond redemption.

13

 

OctaHate

Ryn Weaver

 

 

Ryn Weaver arrived fully formed, it seemed - not many singers arrive with a song co-created by Passion Pit frontman Michael Angelakos, Benny Blanco, Cashmere Cat, and Charli XCX. 'OctaHate' endures, though, in large part because it's an ingeniously constructed and divinely catchy pop song, but also because it blends mood so poignantly. The percussive refrain that seems so light and flirty becomes contorted into a melancholic lament, while the absolute blast of a chorus disguises earth shaking heartbreak, anger and sorrow conflating over a euphoric conflagration of instruments. The song is a great introduction to the dexterity of Weaver's voice, working at a wild variety of speeds throughout the song, often having to keep pace with the production at almost breathless pace. The lyrics are playful and evocative without venturing into the kind of poetry that might seem typical of someone of Weaver's type. But most of all, 'OctaHate' is a dynamic rush of a pop song, adjacent to current trends but just oddball enough to stick firmly in the memory.

puke2~

 

how could u

positives coming soon (promise)