Stole the Show never hit me sadly, just pales in comparison to the glorious Firestone for me, not sure Kygo will ever top that but I've liked Here For You and Stay too.

 

Big Girls Cry is a highlight for sure on the last Sia album, I wish it did better in the chart but I'm glad it got a single push still!

QT - Hey QT

76 - Best Coast - Heaven Sent can this actually be the Ferreck Dawn BJSC smash that never was plz :kink: :wub:

75 - Kygo - Stole The Show (feat. Parson James)

74 - Avicii - The Nights

73 - Shaun Frank & KSHMR - Heaven

No it can't Spadam. Best Coast is far superior.

 

 

60 - Goodbye Tomorrow - Jay-Z

59 - Nightwish - Élan

58 - Art vs Science - In This Together

57 - Hozier - Take Me To Church

56 - Rihanna & Kanye West & Paul McCartney - FourFiveSeconds

55 - Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me

54 - Electro Velvet - Still In Love With You

53 - Fall Out Boy - Novocaine

52 - Marina & The Diamonds - Savages

51 - Muse - Mercy

 

Pigeonsandplanes is a purported Hip-Hop and Indie Rock blog that features a great deal of the former and not a whole lot of the latter. I tend to skip a lot of the hip-hop when I read it as it's not really my thing. Most of the time. I was however, in one of my visits to this blog, really drawn in by the credible looking visuals that surrounded Goodbye Tomorrow, a mysterious artist or group of artists still at this writing, using an aesthetic reminiscent of 90s computer architecture. Their music is also quite glitchy and 90s sounding, with a guy rapping with a similar flow to Kendrick or Kanye. And their best is a song about Jay Z. Funny how that figures. Coming with a beautiful video showing, in a glitchy computer sense, quite an amount of black history up to the present day where everyone is partying all day every day. I get the feeling it's sarcastic about where that fits in. It's also so very very enjoyable. This sort of clever rap and instrumental combination is the other perfect sweet spot for me with hip-hop, where as Hendersin's great lyrics and nightcorey catchiness was one end, this isn't as catchy but so very much more powerful. The rest of Goodbye Tomorrow's stuff that I've heard, particularly 100K, an eponymous track and The Way are also great examples of innovative hip-hop. Best rap group this year.

 

Like I said in my Nightwish essay towards the beginning of this thread, Élan was the track I had been waiting nearly 4 years for. It felt like a LONG LONG time. So coming up to it, with the pretty artwork out there (seriously, how beautiful is this, the image of jumping off into the great unknown: http://www.knac.com/images/covers/nightwish_elan.jpg

), teasers abounding, I was very very hyped for this. Then it came and actually, initially, I was slightly disappointed. It was good but this was NIGHTWISH. I had built up so much hope in this that it actually felt a little bit flat and not as exciting as I'd hoped a Nightwish comeback single would be. Certainly it was no Storytime. So I listened to it over and over again in the hope it would grow on me. Eventually, after many many listens that have inflated it greatly in my year-end list, it grew on me as one of Nightwish's quieter, more serene songs, which I suppose does go with the title of Élan, one should expect a track called that to be a bit more graceful. And it's so wonderfully Celtic and wistful. I think the initial disappointment only made my excitement for the era greater in the end as there was far better to come on Endless Forms Most Beautiful, I was just going to have to wait another month for it.

 

In This Together is what I like to imagine an extremely good indie-dance-rock track sounds like, the restless vocals, the bubbling instrumental, the tagline of 'in this together', it all comes together in one very exciting rhythmic package. It's one of my favourite discoveries from BJSC this year, I've had so many great great listens from it. As it sounds like nothing else I can think of, I've had to in order to get my fill of this very upbeat and invigorating electro-indie-dance-rock subsubgenre. So many genres I've listed there, that normally means something good in most cases and it's so very true here.

 

It's been in my 2013 and 2014 End of Year and yet this is the highest it's ever come (on its final appearance of course), it's a track I have loved ever since October 2013 when I first heard it, so it was so satisfying to see Hozier finally smash in such a big way towards the beginning of the year. I started to watch the video more than I ever had before, I had it on repeat, because when one of your favourite underground songs you've been willing to become a hit finally smashes, there are surprisingly few feelings of 'it's no longer a song for me' (although I of course still owe the discovery to Rich), and so many more feelings of 'finally! Everyone's finally gotten it right. Hooray for the charts'. That's why I follow them, to see these underground beauties smash against the odds and the established acts. And Hozier's voice is still as beautiful and haunting as it originally was. Obviously I've now heard more from him than this track but I think this will always be my favourite. To have stuck with me listening to it fairly regularly for over 2 years, not many tracks can do that.

 

Also from near the beginning of the year, it was another of my favourite artist's returning with a song. Well, I say that, but I have felt like I've been losing interest in Rihanna for a while now. She must have known this was the case, I like that theory far more than she was bored of doing the same thing all the time, as FourFiveSeconds was exactly the right song to keep me in the fold. For now. If it had been another Calvin-produced banger, I'd have lost interest instantly. I may have liked it, but I wouldn't be following her in the same sense I don't follow Katy Perry and whoever else, I'd listen to their big singles on occasion and nothing else. The thing is with FFS, it's a beautiful duet, you can feel the emotion in Rihanna and Kanye's voices, some fantastic guitar strumming from Sir Paul McCartney, I don't really know what they're singing about but it sounds brilliant. And most importantly, it shows a willingness to evolve and show an artistic direction. That's so important for me in music, to feel like the artists are trying different things or at least liking what they put out too. I'd say, without knowing if this information exists, this is most probably something Rihanna's far more proud of than most of Talk That Talk and Unapologetic. Because it really does feel that way. Now I'd just like to see if the rest of the (upcoming soon) album sounds more like this or whether it's going to sound like American Oxygen (which was good for a couple of listens then became boring). That's the next step, Ri. Get it right and I'll still be on board.

 

Pop songs don't really come more high class than Run Away With Me. Carly's first attempt at recapturing her initial hold over the public this year, I Really Like You was rather cute but didn't grab me the way this one has. It has a good rhythm that demands you don't turn it off, a gorgeous siren backing that adds a nostalgic feel to the track, and of course a pretty brilliant chorus. It took a while for this to fully get my attention, I first heard it on holiday in Tenerife and I thought it was rather great, great enough that I'd keep it around in my chart for ages after that but not actually listen to it much. Then in September, it suddenly really hit me and I was head-over-heels in love with something I thought had been ever so slightly overhyped at first. It was not in the slightest. That's my chart run for it, I don't normally share those but it shows what a slow burner it was for me: 35-31-34-34-21-28-30-34-27-31-OUT-12-4-5-8-etc If other people have had a similar experience as me with that, that might explain its unusual lack of success. It really didn't deserve that.

 

Ahh, Electro Velvet. I think I can claim to have been this forum's first fan of it. Maybe me and James. On the launch night, listen #1 was very much 'okay what the actual frick was that, it sounded quite fun though, let's go back for another listen'... 10 minutes and 3 more listens later, my opinion was very much 'okay why on earth is everyone saying this is awful, for once the UK entry is properly amazing'! Because it really is. That opinion only served to become more pronounced through the weeks. I look forward to something similar happening this Eurovision season with at least ONE entry, even if it isn't the UK one (as that'll probably be awful now we have a NF). Electro-swing, as one later entry proves, is a very fruitful genre in the limited greatness I've been able to find of it, you can really feel a lot from the songs and they're hella catchy almost by default. The back-and-forth of a couple worrying about each other is a decent lyrical concept, but I just love the 'just dance' bits, as well as the descent into the SCAT. That just makes it come alive. It had been a rough old time for me with the UK, and even though we didn't do very well again, at least I could claim to be liking our entry on more justification than some vague patriotic hopes. Probably half of why I enjoyed this Eurovision so much.

 

Like much of Fall Out Boy's album, I saw Novocaine as another potential to be a huge rock classic. And then they never even released it. I suppose it wouldn't have done as well as some others even if Fall Out Boy but back in the mid-00s indie-rock heyday this would have perhaps been a cool top 30 hit? It's harder than a lot of Fall Out Boy's material, and what sets it aside from nearly every other Fall Out Boy is a really big rise and fall into the chorus, which is so invigorating to listen to. That's why it's come up ahead of so many singles, it's Fall Out Boy at their most terrific, and a nice diversion from the rest of the rather dancey album. Although, an even more abrasive one of theirs is yet to come :kink: :kink:

 

Another standout album track; I barely pay attention to what's a single if I get the album early, what are the important tracks are those I initially get obsessed with. That track for FROOT was Savages, an intelligent lyrical masterpiece with some really catchy singing to combine 'I'm not afraid of God, I'm afraid of Man' being one of the more brilliant lyrical lead-ins. See, that's what makes a great track, the combination of it all. Savages gets the balance of speed, message and music just right. That message is 'underneath it all, we're just savages, hidden behind shirts, ties and marriages', a brilliant constructivist point, that we are just animals and the bad we do is that instinct (that obviously we should learn to control, yet if we do, that will be under just another construct). It's the human condition, you don't get a more powerful matter than that.

 

Finally, for this section, one of the two Muse tracks from Mercy (bar The Globalist, which isn't in here because.. I don't know, I wanted to save space) that hit me in a huge way off Drones. Mercy is one of the most epic Muse have ever gotten, it's one of their ballads, with a big belting out chorus but yet it doesn't feel like one, it starts fast and the instrumentation continues fast, like you've leaped off a huge slope and are racing downhill as you're going through the verses, you can't stop it and it'll race towards the ski jump whether you like it or not but then the chorus comes and you're floating through the air. The song itself is clearly a part of the dystopia-concept, someone running away from it, that's pretty obvious. Being so early on, it's also revealing part of what's behind this culture of drones. In any case, it's an absolutely huge tune and one I was unsure if Muse were still capable of, but it's exciting in the same manner that Starlight and Knights Of Cydonia were exciting and in time will surely become one of their classics. Albeit a really underrated one.

 

Into the top 50, I think I'll put down links and lyrics and do it in groups of 5 now, means I'll get out more than one a day.

 

 

inside I'm burning up in flames

 

deep wide-eyed wonder

 

I see the dawn of a new beginning

 

 

and I don't really care if nobody else believes

 

Perhaps the first song I got obsessed with this year, Porcelain was a sound I never expected to come from Rachel Taylor, former frontwoman of He Is We. They were known for delicate little indie-pop tunes veering on the side of folksiness and one collaboration with Owl City aside had never stood out hugely for me. Even a couple of years later as Rachel attempted to relaunch them as a solo act it didn't stand out. The point is that Porcelain was the best representative of an EP that had completely changed its direction. In terms of pop subgenres, suddenly Porcelain is up in your face using some pretty heartbreaking lyrics if you listen to them right, the lyrics about a bad relationship that she just can't escape from. It's one of the strongest pop songs I've come across this year and what made it better was this surprise. Rachel Taylor is now very much on my radar for the future (although she's now performing under She Is We, with some similarly decent pop songs).

 

Two of my entries in a row, and actually, Flutterwonder is sitting at the top of my last 12 months chart on last.fm currently. The very top. I think it's only not up at the very top of my EOY chart (evidence of how close together this all is, oh yes it gets slightly better in quality as we rise but we entered my 10/10 section back at about #68) is because it's too short, it's over too quickly. And that's why I've played it so much because it should be a 6-minute wonder that reels you in and keeps going. The happy little distorted vocal and rolling instrumental take me to another world, a world filled with beautiful, natural wonders, a world that you might have only discovered by chance but are really glad you did. That's the magic of such an emotional song, I mean, it is mainly the backing that does it but it couldn't do it without the vaguely incomprehensible 'deep wide-eyed wonder' refrain. A rare gem that came from the brony phenomenon and one I'm very glad has amassed a small fanbase on here ever since I entered it.

 

Like Sun Is Shining, Something New is uplifting, filled with the same sort of Scandi Eurodance vibes that got me loving Don't You Worry Child (well obviously), and is a brilliant continuation of that Swedish House Mafia legacy. Unlike Sun Is Shining though, which is all about the singing in the chorus, Something New has the most brilliant instrumental chorus, filled with feelings of looking towards the future, optimism and sun. And that's all you really need in your dance songs. It gets really great towards the end, after going through a couple of choruses, it could have tired on you, but with 'kisses over Babylon', it starts a march up to the final chorus, the final leap into the great unknown and the best of the SHM drops. That's exquisite.

 

I like saying that I love music from all different cultures, as that's cool. Unfortunately it often seems, aside from the boring steadfasts of USA, UK, Australia, Sweden that the only countries with a musical legacy worth anything are the rest of the Scandinavian nations + South Korea and Japan. So when I get a banger with a heritage that is quite the opposite of it, I tend to treasure it even more. As it happens, Rıyzamın is the Kazakh anthem that everyone always wanted and if they haven't heard it, they will want it. Filled with ethnic vibes but a lot of familiar pop sensibilities, it's euphoric and just sweeps one away in its fervour to unleash Kesh You's vocals upon the world. Give it a try if you haven't heard it, it is quite the experience listening to it first time even if this sort of ethno-pop isn't your thing. Definitely one of the songs that I was easily taken in by in BJSC this year.

 

A second Rachel in a group of 5? Yeah, that's happened. And Fight Song doesn't really need any introduction. It's one of my favourite UK #1s this year and for good reason. While it obviously owes some debt to the big pop-rock hits of the 2000s, we've been really missing some of that in the chart, so that's not a problem. We've also been really missing some beautiful unabashed belters for making people feel good about themselves. Those are always necessary. To top it all off, it's from a girl who I've been following for what seems like ages and I was really hoping she'd some day make it big, so its made all the better for that as I've already said, that's the sort of thing I love seeing. The one thing I have a slight issue is that the lyrics aren't exactly what I might have wanted her to smash with, I still really like them however I may not have gone with the 'fight song' angle had I been writing it, '1000 Ships' is still a better song lyrically. But, that said, it's very true to her artistry and who she is as a person based off her former songs, as I said down at Stand By You, so I bet this smashing was one of the happiest moments of her life. Her joy is so apparent in this track, I find it impossible to say anything negative about it without feeling bad, it's fortunate I don't have to.

 

Excellent write-up for FourFiveSeconds! Indeed the 90s-esque acoustic track turned out to be a welcome surprise, and to put such unexpected artists/sounds together and make such a gem is a huge testament to Rihanna's artistry, more so than nearly all of her previous output surely?

 

Mercy is the best that I've heard off of Drones as well, nothing against the previous Muse album but this one is more of what I like to hear from them. It's great that they're still capable of such big, melodic anthems and still keeping them interesting without sounding 'samey'.

Lol at there being no lyrics for Rıyzamın

Excellent write-up for FourFiveSeconds! Indeed the 90s-esque acoustic track turned out to be a welcome surprise, and to put such unexpected artists/sounds together and make such a gem is a huge testament to Rihanna's artistry, more so than nearly all of her previous output surely?

 

Mercy is the best that I've heard off of Drones as well, nothing against the previous Muse album but this one is more of what I like to hear from them. It's great that they're still capable of such big, melodic anthems and still keeping them interesting without sounding 'samey'.

 

I would say so, certainly it's one of the most left-field entries from her, a brave choice to make into a hit and we're all the better for it.

 

Yeah, I thought Drones might initially be a bit more of the same but it's more like a modern update of their sound, still true to it but sounding fresh.

 

Lol at there being no lyrics for Rıyzamın

 

Mmm, I don't put lyrics for certain songs, this includes songs in most foreign languages as I can derive no meaning from them. It's either that or some Kazakh picked at random. German, Finnish and Japanese songs and certain other foreign languages I do, because I either know the language or I listen to the pop of that country enough that certain parts seem familiar, but I haven't done it as much this year as it takes extra time.

 

 

Takanatteku kodou itomete yo you know?

 

I feel the light...

 

But simply calling out sins don't bring you closer to God

 

Divide me down to the smallest I can be, put your, put your venom in me

 

I need to breathe before I turn the world to grey

 

LURVATORRRY, the song whose title I can never remember to spell right, is one of the most crazy Japanese songs I've ever come across. Not the most crazy, there are a few moreso than this but it's certainly up there. And that's no mean feat when it comes to Japan and in particularly songs using anime imagery and vocaloids. I question what it's about lyrically, it's almost certainly not something to be examined seriously and critically, but it's a huge bundle of fun and it found its way into my heart incredibly easily. Largely because of its breathtaking speed and cute little vocaloid voices. Sometimes that's all you need, for a song to be unashamedly fun.

 

On the other hand, when songs make you feel something, they can often do it beautifully. I will always hold to the notion that dance is the genre most reliant on making its songs emotional, without this, they're just dry. And the subgenre of dance most designed to make you feel things, trance, is so often a hit with me for that very reason. 7even is a song with very few lyrics but what lyrics it has are punctuated by a powerful melancholy feeling and an undercurrent of instrumentation yearning to break out into the light. That it's obviously about the last vestiges of life makes it even more tear-jerking so that even before I looked up why it was written (for a young cancer patient), I felt swept over by emotion listening to it. Each listen is so beautifully powerful, and just when you think it's reached its zenith, it crashes down again to bring another great instrumental. A towering example of why trance can be the most wonderful genre.

 

My second-favourite PVRIS song of the year is Holy, mainly for the refrain 'you poor unfortunate soul' that gets more anguished every time Lynn sings it. A take that anthem against those who claim to be religious (or in any cause) for their own self-worth and therefore aren't true to their word, I found this the first song from White Noise after getting it that kept with me. It shows a slightly darker and warier side to PVRIS that is seen a lot less in their other songs in here. That Lynn seems to have regret for this character is even more intriguing, but it does really hit home with me, that it's so easy to be misguided and as humans we're such flawed creatures that people can fall while thinking they're holy, it's something we should not forget as so many of the problems in the world are caused by those this song talks about. In a very wide sense.

 

Uma Thurman is far more of a fun song than those last two (that must be the 8th time I've switched tack in song mood, just bear in mind I believe in total balance in all things), reminiscent of Fall Out Boy's joyful emo anthems of yesteryear like Thnks Fr Th Mmrs. And Centuries from last year actually. The little Monster Mash sample serves to add to Fall Out Boy's thing this era of taking inspiration and samples from all over the place in particularly the backdrop of American pop culture. And the lyrics are still emo-emotional to a sense but the whole thing feels so very light, helped by a very light-hearted 'funny' video. It's a strange beast of a song really. Is Uma Thurman supposed to be good at dancing? All this talk about burying and blood, is that just to keep rock cred in this very dance-influenced single? Does the Monster Mash sample have any relevance? I have questions but mostly they can be solved by just saying that it is, as far as music goes, one of the most fun songs I have seen Fall Out Boy do and it kept in my affections for a long time and was quite instrumental in rekindling my Fall Out Boy fandom.

 

Tonight Alive I've often seen as a rock band that I could only get around listening away with listening to a few singles from. I don't think that'll be possible any more after listening to Human Interaction. Building on The Ocean, The Edge, Lonely Girl, it's something quite different from all of those, a beautiful, tortured ode to being alone and introverted and how that makes you recoil into an even worse spiral without any human interaction, even the tiniest of contact, to help you out of it. At times it feels like Christina Perri, at times it feel more rock ballad. It's certainly the first time I've felt they're completely distinct from Paramore, I could never see Hayley doing a song quite as dark as this now, at least not without a cheeky wink to the side. For Jenna, this feels totally natural given what I've heard from her in the past, it's not too far off a slower The Ocean, and there was plenty of emotion in that. I hope there's more Tonight Alive loving in my future because this is a great start for me to see them as a band worth the love for more than one or two songs.

 

Fall Out Boy :heart: So underrated here :(

 

what will you do when we get old

 

Dimmi che mai, che non mi lascerai mai

 

38 - Lo-Fi-Fnk - Nightclub Nirvana

We go where we wanna, missed you last summer

 

We hear the one! two! three! four! five! six! seven! You ain't going to heaven

 

There is no light to pray for, cold and dim are the skies

 

Thankfully, and quite amazingly, if you consider the positions Major Lazer and MØ were in before this shock long-runner, perennial critical hit dance producer whose song got used as the bassline for that awful Beyoncé song we shouldn't speak of and Scandinavian blog darling, Lean On needs no introduction as one of the biggest hits of the year. I'm still not bored of it even after it's been forever transformed from the little underdog hit that was lucky to make the top 40 to a giant of streaming and longevity, and that's because it's just so good as a quirky left-field dance hit. MØ's vocals are slick and laid-back as they always are on her songs, with some production that demands attention. You can see why it became a hit, I love it because it's laid-back and that production is on fire. So very likeable with pleasant if obvious lyrics.

 

I was initially really struck with Italy's Eurovision entry. And I continued to be, all the way until they gave their winning performance (that then got summarily denied by the juries for a far inferior song). I'm still slightly salty about that, it would have been fantastic to see Italy have a win and they're not far off one I'm sure. The term of popera is marginally well applied here, it's certainly moreso that than Sognu was, and it's also so much more an interesting song than Sognu was. The three voices work with and around each other to create a sense of urgency in this otherwise serene ballad, the lyrics are beautiful and easy to understand even if you don't speak Italian, and all three guys are pretty excellent singers. A pretty perfect package of a song and I'm sorry to every single pop lover who thought Heroes was a great winner but this was, in my opinion, such a huge misstep for Eurovision on quality to not having this win, especially with such a clear televoting mandate. Something I'm going to be enjoying for years to come. Oh, and the video, with Back To The Future references (among two other films), that's the sort of thing I like to see from Eurovision entries.

 

Nightclub Nirvana starts with a huge piano intro dropping into an encapturing verse right out the gate. The track barely slows down until it gets to the chorus, a whirlwind of excellent production and singing. Based off the only other Lo-Fi-Fnk song I know, Marchin' In, this is like that, but on speed. Or nightcore. As it were. The whole pace of Marchin' In was built around the slow synths and the repeating lyrics. Nightclub Nirvana has fast synths and repeating lyrics. And it's quite a huge blast of energy. I have really played this quite a lot. A lot. One of the absolute best Scandi-pop songs I've heard this year, and I thought that part of the world could no longer surprise me.

 

You're A Germ is my favourite Wolf Alice track, I didn't quite see this coming after Giant Peach, because like I said down there, I thought the heavy guitar chords would be enough to secure that as my favourite. The thing is, You're A Germ is just as heavy in places, but it's also so much darker and filled with pathos and with a band like Wolf Alice, who meander in the shades of grey between lovely female pop voice and grungey guitar chords, that's exactly what you want from them. The descent into the chorus 'You're ain't going to heaven' is every bit as exhilarating as it should be, despite the darkness of the lyrics. It's pretty beautiful and I keep coming back to it because I just get attracted by that chorus and because I want to have a good think about how the lyrics work, how poisonous some people can be no matter what.

 

My other Eurovision injustice this year fortunately comes in the same section as Grande Amore :D The performance by Vaclav and Marta of 'Hope Never Dies' in the Eurovision semi-final absolutely took my breath away. I voted for them several times that evening. Unfortunately, as a continent, Europe are sometimes complete shit when it comes to picking the right qualifiers. Or again, it's the juries fucking everything up (I can't even pin the blame on a certain song as I wouldn't have wanted Hour Of The Wolf to not qualify either, I suppose that's fortunate). By all rights, this beautiful power rock song (with vague traces of symphonia and the best of Central-North European rock voices) should have been the Czech Republic's first qualifier. The title of 'hope never dies' is a plaintive cry out to be accepted into Europe's pantheon of successful nations and it was the first song they'd sent which honestly deserved such an honour. For a long time it was my favourite song of Eurovision 2015 and it very nearly was in this too. It does have to settle for second best but this duet will remain one of the best Eurovision songs of the last few years, no questions asked. And not ONLY because it happened to be my sort of rock. It's GOOD 'my sort of rock'. Very good. Like, emotionally good.

 

Jay Z was a very good BJSC entry. how did it pass the veto though :basil:

 

ew FourFiveSeconds but you've got Carly to save that section :wub:

 

Axwell /\ Fight Song Lean On all fab and Nightclub was also a decent entry in the contest. Oh and the MLP track was good but Archie >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Lean On and You're a Germ :heart:

 

I wanna dance by water 'neath the Mexican sky

Just go, to find the prince you thought you found in me

 

The music of this awe, deep silence between the notes

 

Have you ever felt the warm embrace of a leather seat between your legs

But it's making me stronger, fight a little longer, I'm gonna bring me back to life

 

All five of these songs I adore the lyrics too so much. I'll start with the one for which that's probably the most surprising, Lost Frequencies' Are You With Me, the greatest example of chilled Schulz-esque dance that got produced this year. And that's because it's so minimalist, but the few lyrics that there are conjure up a warm summer night feeling that few other songs that I've ever encountered could match. If I ever want a track for playing as the sun goes down and night lights begin to come out, it'll be this song. I love night vistas, I've put plenty in my signature over the years and Are You With Me is a brilliant song to be playing alongside that. It's just far too short to go any higher. If it was 4 minutes or 6 minutes, I'd be able to put it on and not feel like it's ended as soon as it's begun. And all this for a song I thought was complete rubbish on first listen. Maybe it's because I first heard it in winter because this is so very much a summer song. A glorious, chilled summer song.

 

Merely two places above Hope Never Dies comes my favourite song from this year's Eurovision. It's been a couple of years since one of those songs got right to the top of my EOY, Calm After The Storm had to settle for #40 and A Monster Like Me doesn't do much better. However three songs in my top 40 shows this has been an improvement of an year. So that's hopeful, even if they've all gone rather quickly. Now, why did A Monster Like Me hit me so much more than the other duets and ballads there were this year? Because it certainly wasn't alone in that regard and it is probably lucky for it that it got into the top 10. Except I don't think it was luck at all. The lyrics stand out so powerfully, in that they're obviously dark but the way the song is, the monster telling their love to go and find a better person, thereby redeeming themselves a little, that tugs at my emotional heartstrings, particularly as the chorus descends from the nice solo vocals into a confluence of belting voices. That the song sounds polished, credible and classy is just another bonus (and fits in with the classy vibe Norway have got going recently, long may that continue). There's little better than a dark ballad in Eurovision for me. Most of the time.

 

Shudder Before The Beautiful was the first song from Endless Forms Most Beautiful I felt really meant Nightwish were back. Élan had readied me to expect perhaps a quieter Nightwish, but fortunately Shudder... dispelled any notions of that by leaping right into the sound that I know and love them for. Tinges of Ghost River in it, although obviously a lot softer than that. It actually sounds like so many Nightwish songs that it doesn't actually stand out much except when they leap into 'WE ARE SHUDDERING'. But as the opener of the album it needs to sound familiar, and it's the lyrical content that makes this great again. It's a lot more abstract here than on most of the album but it's clear to me that it's meant to be equating music with the creation of things, throughout the album they refer to everything as being beautiful, and this is the great 'shudder' before that all happens. The middle 8, 'the nebulae curtain falls, imagination, evolution, creatures from the vale' hammers this point home and it's at that point that everything starts to come together for one final shout. And then the rest of the album. A great Nightwish song and an easy one to get into if anyone's wanting to see what they're about (if you've missed me mentioning them at every conceivable opportunity).

 

The thing about Downtown that really makes it special is that all in all it's one of a few pop songs that I can really feel things and get chills from. I'm not exactly sure WHY except that it takes so long to get to the chorus and the lyrics in that chorus are sung so well and bring a feeling of everything coming together for all the numerous artists on this track that it gives me the most happy feeling. It's surprising because I never counted on Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for good choruses, I relied more on the clever lyrics in the verses. And these are still good, callbacks to previous songs, still cheeky and humorous for rap, still very much about having fun, but they're outshone by the truly phenomenal performances in the chorus. 'Better follow me', 'what you see is what you get girl, don't ever forget girl, ain't seen nothing yet', those are excellent for tying everything together. Though I do love from the verses the part where Macklemore chews out a guy for telling him to slow down. Because this track doesn't ever slow down, it keeps going until it's reached the most glorious climax and that's such a satisfying feeling.

 

Paralyzed instantly reminded me not of Paramore, but more Kelly Clarkson. In that perhaps it's a more hard-edged Kelly C, but obviously back in her glory days in 2005. It's actually quite Behind Your Hazel Eyes updated for 2015. I had listened to a few Against The Current songs before this, most notably Gravity, but while I thought they were a good band, none had stuck with me to the point where I could feel the personality of the singer or what the band was about. Paralyzed unlocked Against The Current for me with some lyrics that get sung out so well by Chrissy, and a tune that's pretty banging I was so instantly excited that I had to try and share them as a band, and I've done that. I'm surprised at this point how little they seem to have done when they're consistently getting such high Youtube views and seem to have everything, catchy songs, likeable personalities and lots of fans going for them, but we'll see how that goes when they release their album. I've heard lots of Against The Current songs since then, the more indie-pop Outsiders, the slower Dreaming Alone, Brighter, Talk, Fireproof, but the greatest will always (or at least, for a while) remain for me the 'bring me back to life' upbeat, no-holds-barred attitude of this song. Oh, and it did give me my most exciting BJSC experience of this year as those final results had it second almost the whole way. Smashing records and all.

 

 

And I'm as sane as I ever was

 

but my heart don't understand

 

and I could treat you better but I'm not that smart

 

if you sexy then flaunt it

 

you give me something to talk about, that's not the SHIT in my head

 

Leave A Trace took a little longer to get into my head than Never Ending Circles did, I initially thought the latter was far better. It's Leave A Trace that has stuck with me much harder though, and it was the song mainly responsible for me getting incredibly hyped for Every Open Eye back in September. It's not quite as brash as Never Ending Circles but there's a more subtle beauty to it, about adversity and breaking through that. And it just sounds totally beautiful, Lauren gives a stunning vocal performance here, and while it isn't quite my favourite CHVRCHES track this year, it's come pretty close for successfully making me even more excited for an act on their second album than I was for their first (which seems to be unusual in my attempts to find someone new to obsess over every year).

 

On My Mind is located in a similar brand of electropop actually. I'd be the first to say that Ellie Goulding has gone a bit 'less good' ever since Burn turned her from aspiring pop indie darling similar to where Marina is currently residing (is it a law of the universe that these two must always be compared?) but On My Mind has TEMPORARILY brought me back into the fold. I still haven't heard Army so I can't say if that's continued or not but the little vocal sounds on it and the breathy zig-zagging Ellie does with her vocals makes this appeal to me far more than Love Me Like You Do does, it starts and stops and it is a little bit all over the place for a pop hit but that just makes it far more interesting to listen to.

 

I swear I didn't plan this but Marina's highest track is one above Ellie's. They've definitely diverged paths now but they're still sitting at being CAPABLE of producing the same level of awesome electropop, but with the adage that Marina must always be slightly better. Because she is. But Froot was a weird era for me, I was all over Electra Heart and a couple of years after the fact, I'm totally happy with naming The Family Jewels as one of the finest pop albums if not of the current decade, then ever. Froot only hit me with half the songs though. But Marina's ballads, because of the inherent emotion in her voice, are pretty much always hits with me no matter what, and I'm A Ruin is one of the most powerful she's ever done. Numb and Buy The Stars might be a bit slower (and I'm not sure what is better yet) but I'm A Ruin takes a kind of joy in announcing how bad she is, and that joy kind of shines through to make me like this. It's strange when you say a track like this makes you feel happy but it does.

 

Uptown Funk needs no introduction and scarcely any commentary from me to explain why it's here. It's just a phenomenon of a pop hit. It's far too energetic to ever be boring, it has enough charm about it, and it avoids being about sex and love, it's just about having a very fun time... with your uptown funk (and it helps that funk is a pretty wonderful genre as it is, the good side of RnB for me). It really was a trailblazer for a kind of pop that's not going to be imitated all that often because I don't think many people have it in them to make something just as exciting as this. This being so successful was a victory for the taste of all humanity, that just goes to show you can never keep a genius song down. 2016, produce something as unique and unquestionably amazing as this and I might get back into the charts again. Could still listen to it over and over and over again.

 

I'm always looking out for new bands that give out a philosophy like PVRIS, and when I discovered St Patrick just over 12 months ago I was so very very excited because actually, to me, it looked like we had found a pop-punk band with a singer whose voice is the next... Florence. Like, that comparison comes to me not because Lynn sings like Florence, she doesn't, at all but she has a voice that's similarly strong and easily filled with feeling, that could be played on radio and get people actually excited about what's playing. Instead of being background, it would be something that gets people interested and search this out and then St. Patrick would become a hit. Because it really did sound like one to me at the start. The whole song is tight and well done, the backing, the guitars and the drums, the extra touches to the instrumental (the sort that enable you to reflect back on the whole song, almost essential in dance hits but not so often applied to rock, it works so well here), the emotion in Lynn's voice, especially as she smashes down 'that's not the shit in my head' or 'you're a miracle'. While I've since become a huge fan of PVRIS and have gotten their album, they are certainly yet to top this for me. It's a song sitting in a perfect position between Paramore and 'indie-cred' rock and it's a joy all the way through.

 

And then of course there was that whole BJSC thing with it and what was in effect the stupidest decision of my LIFE to not go for it, I think I only really saw how big its appeal could really be after that, I knew it'd be big, but I didn't think that big of a song. Still waiting for that worldwide #1 because it really deserves this.

 

 

Sometimes I'm feeling like I'm going insane

 

I'm the best worst thing that hasn't happened to you yet

 

my internal monologue is saturated analog it's scratched and drifting I've become attached to the idea it's all a shifting dream bittersweet philosophy

 

Thank the stars it's Friday, I'm burning like a fire gone wild on Saturday

 

We are a special speck of dust, a fleeting moment on an ark

 

One of the most major problems with the chart at the moment is that it is real SLIM PICKINGS for anything in my preferred genre. So I end up taking what I can get. In this case it means attaching to myself to 5 Seconds Of Summer, who have undergone an evolution this year from the new McFly to an accursed hybrid between them and My Chemical Romance. It shows a sign of improvement I guess. And when I say I guess it means 'thank god I can like them unironically now'. Because while I loved She Looks So Perfect to pretty weird levels, I feel no reservations about fully declaring my love for She's Kinda Hot, it brings back some pretty amazing memories of hits like Teenagers and certain blink-182 songs and with its brashness and ability to sound different from everything else, it was a welcome break. Also I dare you to deny that towering chorus. Seriously. WE ARE THE KINGS AND THE QUEENS OF THE NEW BROKEN SCENE (and with that lyric it looks like they have a handle on where they're fitting into the new music order)

 

*takes deep breath*

 

I'm not kidding. I think American Beauty/American Psycho might now even be my favourite track from this new Fall Out Boy album, the one that I think is now perhaps their strongest album overall. Firstly, it's one of the most energetic rock tracks out this year, so that's a point to it right away. It does the Fall Out Boy thing of some hard whirlwind verses perhaps at the best they've ever done it. Or at least since 'This Ain't A Scene..'. It has some references to films and American Psycho is actually one of my favourite films so having a track that espouses the same sort of philosophies as that crazy film is very lovely. It took a while, I think I was initially influenced by everyone saying it was awful but late this year it really hit me that everyone was completely WRONG about that. It's a romp of a track and I will not hear otherwise.

 

Pedestrian At Best was pretty much exactly the sort of track I wanted to discover from BJSC. I'd heard of Courtney Barnett once before and I wasn't too into Avant Gardener, but Pedestrian At Best is quite a different beast. The guitar chords are adorably heavy and really, knowing me, that is pretty much all you need to make a track sound good. In fact, they're very similar guitar chords to a certain track yet to come. But what makes this stand out is the force of Courtney's personality, the way she races through the verses while singing them out well, with some lyrics that at least SOUND clever or at least pleasingly abstract. And, trying to decipher them, it becomes apparent that this really is one of the louder ways to be humble (or at least that most people are just pedestrian). Okay, every song up here is a perfect package, I should stop inferring that but yeah, this is another one of those.

 

Waiting For Love is the only dance track in a section overwhelmed by rock otherwise. It's also my favourite Avicii track this year and it goes straight into my list of his classics. I mean, I know I like Avicii's folk-dance thing, enough that I probably wouldn't get bored of it for quite a while, but with a completely different singer to Wake Me Up and Hey Brother and The Nights, Waiting For Love maintains a distinct identity, and Simon Aldred is a strong singer. What really works for me is the 7 days lyrical concept. I know it has been done before but I think the way it's done here is really nice. Each day is a further lead up into the drop, such that I start getting chills at Friday and Saturday. And I'm quite a fan of 'waiting for love' as a lyrical concept, it's something I can relate to a lot more than being in love, such is life. And Avicii's production skills are still top-notch on here. One of my favourite chart hits this year.

 

The third-highest Nightwish track now, the title track from Endless Forms Most Beautiful, released as the second single halfway through the year (as if singles mean anything to Nightwish, outside of Finland at least, where this was their first single not to get to the top 5, and indeed, apparently, not to chart at all, for 7 years, not sure what happened there). Endless Forms Most Beautiful has a pretty simple structure as far as Nightwish songs go, which is why it was one of the first from the album to really hit me, and at one time I was obsessing over Shudder Before The Beautiful and Endless Forms Most Beautiful at the same time, that's not confusing in the slightest no. The chorus is pretty brilliant here, again it's fast-paced verses, leading into this and then an emotional rendition of the title, and lyrics like 'before the grandeur of it all'. It is a song about all life, and that makes it very chill-worthy. Slightly stronger than Shudder... it nearly alone sold me on the album being my #1 but there's still two better that stuck with me ever so slightly more.

 

I love Waiting for love and Uptown Funk. Are You With Me.

 

St. Patrick was an axcellent BJSC winner but I didn't like it that much during the contest.

Caravan Palace still to come? :o

 

Also a MASSIVE fan of these essays! So many are reigniting my love for certain songs :heart:

All I can say is thank GOD 5SOS are embracing their punk influences and starting another revolution of that genre.

I'd completely agree but they don't seem to be having the best of luck as of yet. Let's hope it spreads.

 

Caravan Palace still to come? :o

 

Also a MASSIVE fan of these essays! So many are reigniting my love for certain songs :heart:

 

:o (yes)

 

And I'm very glad you're enjoying reading them, that's excellent to hear ^_^

 

 

Somebody pull me from the dark

 

I've learnt to expect big things from M83. They're a current act, one that people are getting excited about that is still making awesome cinematic music and so when I saw this was a soundtrack song, with HAIM attached, with that title (what a poetic beauty of a title) I went in hoping that it would be one of the best songs I'd heard all year. That got fulfilled because, although it wasn't quite what I'd expect from a HAIM feature, M83 have really made their sound their own, it exudes a stunning beauty because of that. The lyrics are slow, deliberate, and fill well with the burgeoning instrumental, so the whole thing takes on a slightly dark beauty. And then there's the little synths that I've learnt to be more M83's trademark than anything, slowly appearing in the background and coming up to the point where they don't take over the more full instrumental but are working on a par with it. It's a stunning beauty and one I thought for a long time would be in my top 10 of the year, I just hadn't counted on several things coming up in the latter half of the year to move ahead of it.

 

Your mind is just a program, and I'm a virus, I'm changing the station

 

Now most probably Muse were going to pull something out of their hat when they came back that would really hit me in a big way, I just didn't expect it to be the slightly controversial buzz single. Well, that's a lie, I liked Psycho from the minute I heard it but I thought it wouldn't stand up so well to repeated listens. I was quite wrong. Seeing it performed live (on the tour it gave its name to) in a very energetic setting lodged it properly into my consciousness as one of the best Muse tracks since Uprising. I think overall, I do like their stadium upbeat anthems the most as you can feel the most from them. And Psycho fits into that, and it's also very dark lyrically. Not even the 'your ass belongs to me' bit, but the way it introduces the whole Drones concept, and the sergeant bellowing, with some very grindy chords even for them, they're more often into the cleaner cinematic type, it's a very exciting experience from beginning to end. I'm always up for exciting. It may have not been to everyone's taste but I very much appreciate this direction into the daring, that's what bands at this stage of life need to be doing. Well on its way to becoming one of my favourite Muse songs.

 

 

 

 

Liar liar on the wall, give the world to me, a wasteland or a monarchy?

 

Two songs here, both are solid rock tracks, albeit of completely different hardness levels, and both deserve a lot more appreciation than they originally got. Because for me, they're two of the finest examples of the genre that I've seen this year. Particularly as far as male-led tracks (with a featured female!) go. So, Wasteland Monarchy. Or Liar Liar. Whatever you want to call it. I've always had a bit of an eye on Kamelot as some people call them the male-led Nightwish. The thing is, nothing I'd heard yet had really stood out so I wasn't really much of a fan. Until I gave Liar Liar a few listens and let it in. And I'm glad I did that because the chorus is so strong, the cinematic sound so beautiful with the hard rock chords, the little bits of harsh vocals work just as well as they do on many Amaranthe songs, Alissa is actually doing clean singing (she normally does harsh vocals for Arch Enemy and I've been never been able to quite get into that), her bit works as a solid reprise of the emotional chorus done by the Kamelot lead singer. It's an amazing power metal song through and through and I'm glad I let it into my life because it's not strayed far away from my most favourite songs of the moment (read: done well in my chart) since then. It has amazing longevity powers which is why it's up so high despite being so recent. It's also by SOME WAY my favourite song I've ever entered into an indie forum contest - as such I was quite disappointed that it was yet another Nuggets flop for me, it sounded so much like the most awesome winner to these ears. I wonder how it'd have done in BJSC. Basically, my pick of the non-Nightwish metal scene this year, and it's a most excellent one if you're in any way open to that genre.

 

 

Okay, this one did get SOME appreciation as it was number one in the most populated country on Earth. Or at least a very big hit, I don't have the Chinese charts to hand. But the magic of Love Doesn't Need To Pretend for me comes from the chorus which rises in conjunction with a slamming chord, a vocal raise, a little musical transition you want to happen over and over again as Diana Wang takes the reins from R-Chord doing the verses. His rapping in the verses, his little inflections in the middle of the singing, Diana being a pretty awesome rock chick making a good first impression on me, in fact both of them making a great first impression on me, this is easily the second-best Asian rock song I've heard this year because it's so well put together and makes for a very invigorating listen. I would have definitely sent it if Yu hadn't, would have been one occasion where I'd have been proud to take a DNQ for this track, I have so much love for it, I think I played it more than everything else from that contest combined, even including my entry. (and yet it's only the third highest BJSC track in here haha) Injustice of the highest order that not enough people saw the brilliance of it but I'm pleased to be a fan of it because it will forever be one of my songs of summer 2015 now.

 

 

 

 

I'll scream it until my heart comes out of my chest, and leave it to the music to transcend the rest

 

Just over a year ago now, I got recommended this band called I See Stars. I knew they were a bit hard-edged, so I thought I'd search them out, see if I liked them. Honestly, I found them a bit hit and miss, not much was sticking with me and it was a bit too hardcore for my tastes. Then I stumbled across a reworking of one of their songs, Electric Forest, this one called The Hardest Mistakes. It completely cut out the harsh bits that I felt weren't for me with this band, and added some pretty nifty distorted bits and a dancey sound (also a sound that's begging to be nightcored but that's another story). It was one of my prime candidates for my first BJSC entry of the year, but I managed to put it off for almost the whole year because I had a couple of other priorities at the time. Come the end of the year though, and I'm so very glad I did enter it as it's ended up higher than both PVRIS and Porcelain, the songs that originally beat it. I think it was a continual growing process throughout the year, and that's why, it gives me so many strong feelings now, the lyrics are beautiful in a 'perfect love' sort of way, screaming until my heart comes out of my chest, this life is just a perfect fit, that's exactly the sort of thing someone with harsh regret for the mistakes they've made in the past would say and I love that. The grindy instrumental also adds a pretty great nostalgic feel, I associate it very much with gaming, procrastination and all the memories of overcoming my struggles this year. All in all, a very unique track, one I'm glad I've found and was able to share to such a warm reception. On a side note, it's also so very nice to hear more of Cassadee in the era when she was still the leader of that awesome band Hey Monday rather than the white bread country-pop singer she has become now. I feel so much from her in this song. And the I See Stars guy also. Brilliant duet.

 

Man, he took his time in the sun, had a dream to understand a single grain of sand

 

You know, The Poet And The Pendulum and Ghost Love Score, both the longest Nightwish tracks on those respective albums are among my favourite of my favourite band. They're 14 and 10 minutes long each. So when I heard that this new album would top that length of 14 minutes by an extra 10, I was definitely very excited to see what lay in store. And with a title like 'The Greatest Show On Earth', how could it be anything BUT amazing. And it is. The thing is, that even with its length, when you put it on, it's got so much going on that you need to commit to doing little else for the next 24 minutes as you get swept up in its wonder. Over the course of the year, I've done that 16 times. I think that says it all, that I'm still very ready to spend half an hour with this behemoth. And I'm still getting chills off of it. It's split into a few parts. The first part, Four Point Six, a reference to the age of the Earth, is a continuation on from The Eyes of Sharbat Gula, few lyrics, a constant repeating piano chord that gives the feeling of reaching towards something, and about halfway through it, Floor comes in sounding not unlike Tarja, slowly breathing her way through what lyrics they are as the track gets more urgent beneath her. Then the first of three monologues, all sampled from speeches by Richard Dawkins (who is a clear presence on this album, and I don't mind him surprisingly, as what he's saying is so beautiful), comes along, this time talking about the beauty of the Earth and how great it is to spend time understanding the universe. That's a theme that'll be built upon. The second part, Life, is the first of the proper Nightwish sections, it flows much like a harder Nightwish track, some parts of it reminiscent of the time Anette was with the band, lyrics talking about the first years of the universe as the Earth is created and life begins to form, 'a day-to-day new opening of the greatest show on earth'. Throughout, the instrumental sections are going strong. The third part, The Toolmaker, talks about the growth of man on Earth, how he went from crude tools to nuclear weapons, still with that desire to understand everything, and this part sounds very much at home with the rest of EFMB, callbacks to Alpenglow in particular. The thing is, it all sounds so Nightwish, even in this long track they keep their identity so well as it flows from section to section, and as well as it telling a history of Earth, it's also telling a history of the band to me (the part 'fantasy to idolatry to self destructive weaponry' sells that theory to me). This section closes out with the closest thing the whole song has to a chorus, Man taking his time in the sun, holding onto life as long as he can to know all, and this is the bit I think sounds best of all. The final parts, The Understanding and Sea-Worn Driftwood, are much more subdued as they close out the album, but the former has a long, full of chills, speech to make you think from Dawkins, all about life and death, 'we are going to die and that makes us the lucky ones, most people are never going to die because they're never going to be born', that we are living our Greatest Show On Earth and now is our time to make of that what we will.

 

Beast of a track, I couldn't put this anywhere else really, it's wonderful and it's so rare that I find a track that encapsulates everything I ever wanted in it from the moment I heard of its existence, but here it is.