Give Love A Try, Toccata & Middle all brilliant, it was great seeing Middle finally taking off after seemingly going nowhere for months.

I seem to have the same faves as Dobbo here, I do like reading about the obscure stuff as well though.

Give Love A Try, Toccata & Middle all brilliant, it was great seeing Middle finally taking off after seemingly going nowhere for months.

 

I seem to have the same faves as Dobbo here, I do like reading about the obscure stuff as well though.

 

Well good because there's plenty of obscure stuff to come (at least people are reading my ramblings *.), I mean of course there's plenty of dance to come which I'm sure both of you will like a lot more. Actually, there's quite a lot of both.

 

 

80 . Lao Ra - Bang Boom

79 . Galantis - No Money

78 . Blossoms - Charlemagne

77 . CHVRCHES - Bury It (feat. Hayley Williams)

76 . Icon For Hire - Now You Know/Bam Bam Pop

75 . Philter - Revolver

74 . FAUN - Federkleid

73 . Christopher Tin - Temen Oblak (Dark Clouds)

72 . Jeff Williams - I May Fall

71 . Sia - Cheap Thrills

 

I loved Lao Ra last year with Jesus Made Me Bad but Bang Boom improves on that by bringing Lao Ra's latino Kyla La Grange abilities more in line with an indie Shakira and just going for something that's upbeat and really fun to listen to as she bang booms out almost as fast as M.I.A. With a bit of Naomi Pilgrim. Okay, basically the point is that Bang Boom combines the sounds and gist of so many great female singers that it couldn't be not amazing in its end result.

 

No Money was the crucial third big hit for Galantis that's solidified them as a name and it's not really much of a step down in quality from their first two, only a little. It's incredible because of the instrumental chorus that follows every instance of the high-pitched heart-leaping cry of 'THIS TIME/NOT THIS TIME', as well as a surprisingly tight verse that gets right to the point about having fun while broke.

 

I did try to follow Blossoms a lot more than I did, really I did. But still their best track and the one I listened to most during 2016, as well of the biggest proponents for modern British indie-rock in that year is their ode to one of my favourite historical figures, the first Holy Roman Emperor and king of Francia and all of the Lombards and Germans, Charlemagne. Like with Pompeii, it's only vaguely alluding to its historical anchor but that the anchor is there is enough for me to take notice and lyrics like 'a kingdom reigned' help. They're using the image of hero worship that people used to have for Charlemagne in the Middle Ages long after his death to mean that the song is talking about something that is an idol of the band. And that's fine, they don't need to sing a truly historical song, they're not Sabaton. The metaphor is appreciated.

 

Bury It is notable for its wonderful animated video (because everything ever animated that doesn't look like shit is amazing for me but the video is legitimately wonderful what with its demonstrations of telekinesis). The song is a rather lovely holdover from last year's Every Open Eye that I didn't give a focus to as a single so it can have a moment here as it rises above all the ones I chose to highlight last year (except Empty Threat because nothing beats Empty Threat). I love the addition of Hayley to this track too of course. A huge anthem.

 

I had been waiting for a while for something great to come out of Icon For Hire because as a female-fronted band from Decatur, Illinois with the lead woman singer having pink hair (yes I'm doing this deliberately) and previously sounding exactly like Hayley Williams. Well, maybe that's exaggerating but they were basically a slightly heavier Paramore with a few Christian and metal influences before this turnaround. Make A Move was rather great. Now You Know is an out and out rapping feminist anthem and the fiery attitude of the lyrics shows that this is more than a song ('oh your band's got a chick, must be some kind of trick, there's no way she got this far without sucking somebody's'), it's a statement about sexism in the music industry and is rather inspiring. Effectively the B-side, it was accompanied by a similarly great track called Bam Bam Pop which is a huge pop record featuring fast epic rapping about how generic pop music songs are. Huge props for finding an identity Icon For Hire, please continue with message rap-rock, I enjoy it immensely.

 

Philter's Revolver features a ton of beautiful distorted sounds and an instrumental bassline that speaks to me almost directly. It's gentle in the best way, like it's caressing your ears. Seriously, I love this sound and its subtle build. This is how you do subtle songs, you make the music and the voice sound like they're inside your head massaging you. As opposed to droning on.

 

While I knew of German pagan folk band FAUN before this year I really got into their music this year, with songs like Walpurgisnacht and of course Tanz Mit Mir, but one of their best songs they put out new this year, Federkleid, meaning 'Feather dress'. It's a jolly upbeat tune that sounds very much like it's coming from the alpine hills of the Black Forest, it's also rather gentle and though I have described it as upbeat, it's not as much a call to dance as Tanz Mit Mir but more a way for them to show off much more of their German folk mojo. Rather than medieval like Tanz Mit Mir or out and out pagan like Walpurgisnacht, it feels almost Sound Of Music and inter-war in origin. Same setting as Izetta: The Last Witch then but it shows off the diversity they can evoke in background feelings.

 

Temen Oblak is of course my other huge highlight from The Drop That Contained The Sea, hitting me hugely in October this year with the striking calls of Le Mystere De Voix Bulgares (proud winners of 'first noted inspiring female artist to Gorillaz' lately). And that sort of choral sound is something I love so often in all my tracks but here they feel almost otherworldly and inhuman as they build up the tenseness of dark clouds sweeping in. From something that already sounds urgent and tense as you start the track it locks you into something that demands your attention even more as the track comes to an end after a rollercoaster of Bulgarian sounds. I love Christopher Tin so much for creating these sorts of genius arrangements.

 

I May Fall is a song that has given me many chills when listening to it all. Unlike many of the other RWBY songs, it was never an opening nor was it originally tied to a character, but having been around since volume 1, it got its dues in a climactic scene in volume 3 when a character previously unused in epic ways for the entire show, like this song, gets her transcendent moment of glory attached to it. A midtempo with a sense of danger and foreboding attached to it, 'There's a day when all hearts shall be broken, when a shadow shall cast out the light, when our eyes cry a million tears, help won't arrive' and 'as the skies rain blood, and the end draws near'. It's a song that turns out to have been foreshadowing the direction of the show and the sense of loss that's palpable throughout this song really speaks to one of my favourite tropes in fiction no matter how overused it may get, the act of a noble, heroic, sacrifice, especially when the sacrificial hero is doing so by showing some previously hidden strength. But there is hope in it as the tag line is 'I may fall, but not like this, it won't be by your hand', indicating that things will get better eventually. RWBY is rarely subtle in its song lyrics but to be honest that just impresses me more that it has the balls to directly address issues going on in the show with terrific tunes without worrying that the songs will seem uncool. Too little of that now.

 

Finally a hit. I won't bore you by saying how brilliant Cheap Thrills was as a pop song and how it overstayed its welcome or anything like that. I'm just really glad Sia is continuing to get hits and Cheap Thrills is the sort of generational anthem I can get behind even if expensive thrills are far better if you can afford them. Because I have class and things.

 

 

 

 

 

70 . Ultra Tower - Kibou No Uta

69 . Twenty One Pilots - Heathens

68 . ZOE - Loin D'Ici

67 . Crystal Fighters - All Night

66 . Henrik The Artist - Perfect Workout

65 . Grimes - Flesh Without Blood

64 . Wardruna - Odal

63 . Thomas Bergersen - Children Of The Sun (feat. Merethe Soltvedt)

62 . Baracuda - Where Is The Love (Nightcore)

61 . GARNiDELia - Yakusoku

 

One of the things I immediately noticed about Food Wars was, apart from the embarassing reactions to eating food that is, the strength of its opening song. It's a towering triumph of a pop song with a slightly imperfect voice, a killer riff, a great build, it's just everything you could want in a male guitar-pop song. Now now, don't leave quite yet, it's really quite exciting. No Ed Sheeran or the Vamps here, the East does exciting things when they put boys with guitars and this could put many pop songs in the West to shame. This is why they're better x

 

Actually, it's not all that disimilar to an upbeat Heathens, which is one of the West's few notable triumphs at putting boys with guitars to sing a soundtrack for visual entertainment. I hear this visual entertainment was awful and I'm not going to find out. But the soundtrack to Suicide Squad, as often seems to be the case with awful big box office movies (the cynical part of me says that these big names coming in to produce quality music is a way for the producers to make their money back because they know the film is too shit to truly make what a good film could), is actually rather incredible. But Heathens is great, probably the closest thing we have to Emo for the generation growing up in the 10s, using one of my favourite insult words (because of its historical and religious connotations), heathens. It seems to be a song about loneliness and withdrawing from the outside because it's hostile and abusive out there. The ballad style with the guitar backing just sounds incredible.

 

On the OTHER end of the spectrum of happiness, Zoe's Loin d'ici qualifying for the Eurovision final was one of the better moments of last year's Eurovision, because who would otherwise expect a twee-pop in French (major props for sending something not in English Austria) from a country that historically has not done the best and also could have suffered the previous host's curse this year. Everything seemed to go against Loin d'ici but the happy performance won people over and it sailed through against my expectations. As it's probably the happiest and cutest thing Eurovision's done for ages I couldn't help but love it.

 

I'd never really given much time to Crystal Fighters before although I knew their name was hanging around the Radio 1 scene. Something I'm not into much these days, as much as I'd like to be cool. But as fate would have it, on one of the few times I listened to it, this song was playing and I instantly fell in love. The title's good too, it has a good history with Icona Pop although The Vamps seem determined to ruin it (HI JOSEPH). Crystal Fighter's All Night is an upbeat song that sounds like a rock-less Smallpools' Dreaming. A bit. I may be exaggerating with the amount of songs I say sound like this song, it's probably more like an indie-pop band that I can't quite think of right now. Empire Of The Sun perhaps?. But it's in that area of synth-indie anthem and for a song that is about nothing but partying all night it's lovely.

 

A couple of songs really stuck with me from the Reinvention spinoff this year. The best was a huge beat happy hardcore version of Perfect (Exceeder), called Perfect Workout, that had me falling in love with that song all over again in this new version. It's basically nightcore really. We all know how much I love that because of how it so simply reinvents a song and this does exactly the same but for a song that a) needed an updating, and b) hadn't had a great nightcore version that I'd heard before. The energy with which it dives into that bragging chorus we all know and love is just undeniable.

 

Flesh Without Blood was huge for the people who were actually on top of Grimes at the end of last year. I only got into her Art Angels era about exactly a year ago and even then Flesh Without Blood was a song that needed time to grow on me into the huge pop anthem it is, her vocals are so dreamy and enticing on this (particularly on 'now you'll never know' and other similar lines where she goes impossibly high). Such a top-notch track, I hope it becomes a modern classic in years to come.

 

Wardruna, okay, metal, worldly, folk, nothing needed to say about this, let's move on. Well, I do want to talk about this a bit, it's so heavy, it's got an awesome undercurrent swelling through its backing, it sounds like ancient Nordic chants, it has such a huge presence that I was never not going to love this. And I do, it sounds like Valhalla is coming down upon someone who's wronged the gods in the form of Ragnarok and nothing can ever sound bad with that image in your mind.

 

Thomas Bergersen's Children Of The Sun is by the composer who wrote my #1 song of last year, Compass, featuring the vocals of the same singer who sang on that beautiful track. Children Of The Sun is still absolutely epic but it's not quite at that level. Although, it goes for a very interesting angle to make me interesting, rather than tear-jerking and pointing you in the right direction in life (not kidding), it's like a triumphal statement of confidence in that we are children of the sun and that's a wonderful thing, as a rippling almost metal instrumental (like a dance 2015 Nightwish, I'm not having the best night with these comparisons am I) runs all around the track, before ending with a slow shining sun-like drop. I like to think it's aimed at some sun-god or other or just that the Sun has a personality. It's definitely something I've listened to and enjoyed many a time.

 

Oh look, it wasn't coincidental that I mentioned Nightwish (yes it was), because up next is the closest representation they have in my songs list this year by virtue of not doing anything this year. But I still will force them in if I can, and because I entered Baracuda's Where Is The Love to a BJSC spinoff this year, it counts as I spent quite a long time listening to this. The track, made by a Eurodance band, steals samples the bassline of Nightwish's Amaranth note for note and creates an entirely different set of lyrics and song sound over it. Which, as my second major music genre love after rock is actually dance, particularly eurodance, particularly nightcored eurodance, this specific combination sounds completely amazing. Not better than the original, but one of the best reworkings, everything coming together, the non-nightcore version isn't that good, I could have hoped for. Incidentally, the result of it is actually, by position and if we include spinoffs which I don't normally do, my most successful BJSC entry from 2016 and my second-best ever so I value it quite highly for that, as it also finally redeemed Amaranth in the eyes of that contest. Almost. Just Reloaded XIV to go, boys. Make it count.

 

And we come to an end tonight with GARNiDELia, a J-rock artist I'd heard a few songs from before but nothing had really impressed me, until Yakusoku showed up and just really wowed me with its great beat and wonderful singing. It's an anime opening but I haven't watched the one it's associated with and confusingly, in the video, it seems to want to do a homage to Unlimited Blade Works instead (a much better anime than Qualidea Code in all likelihood, I say this tentatively of course). But the rock sound, regardless of anime, is utterly awesome. I just love Japanese as a sung language and the riffs they put in their songs just make me even more determined to spread the word. A very great discovery (and of course, great fun pretending to be the one who'd obviously sent this in the Nuggets it was entered to). And look, we top-tailed this section with Japanese. Er... get used to that.

 

60 . Visions Of Atlantis - Winternight

59 . Coldplay - Hymn For The Weekend

58 . Jeff Williams - I Burn (feat. Casey Lee Williams & Lamar Hall)

57 . LP - Lost On You

56 . Christine & The Queens - Tilted

55 . Lil Wayne - Sucker For Pain (feat. Imagine Dragons et al)

54 . Soeur - Pass Out

53 . Ovidiu Anton - Moment Of Silence

52 . Avantasia - Mystery Of A Blood Red Rose

51 . Sigala - Sweet Lovin'

 

One of the highlights of the symphonic metal scene this year was from a band I'd previously overlooked called Visions Of Atlantis, who put their emotional game up to deliver a slow, gentle metal piano ballad about the dark winter nights (and how the singer is trapped in her dark mood with no one to save her). It's kind of like Nightwish's Eva, it does build throughout the track but it's subtle and you only realise it later. The singer delivers all her notes with an encapturing tune and I had a couple of weeks... in the summer... ironically... because the song's name is winternight and I was listening to it in the summer... it's funny because it's ironic guys. It's lovely, really.

 

Hymn For The Weekend is the highest Coldplay song for this year, the other half of the era dealt with in 2015. I saw them live this year and Hymn For The Weekend was probably the highlight out of the songs done from the newest album, such a great experience being in Wembley when they have lighters lighting up the stadium and they're singing an anthem like this. That sort of thing is why I continue to enjoy them even though they are a pretty basic band and this one even adds in another popular singer and talks about drinking to fulfil the basicness. Of course, that doesn't make it sound worse, it sounds pretty awesome because it's an uplifting tune with two good singers playing off each other and those beautiful synths that accompany most latter-day Coldplay songs are to die for.

 

I Burn is the fourth of the four character songs for the main RWBY characters, the third, From Shadows, already gone in this list, the other two, still to come. About blonde no-nonsense fighter Yang Xiao Long, who gets more likely to explode into a punching inferno the more you do damage to her. So I Burn is a pop song that honestly sounds the most Buzzjack-fodder pop song out of the entire RWBY canon, even though it still has some pretty sweet guitar bits, it's lyrics like 'You are standing too close to a flame that's burning hotter than the sun in the middle of July' and 'Listen up silly boy because I'm going to tell you why I BURN' that make me think of something the gays might go 'yaassss' over. When it's used in the fourth trailer for the show, it bobs along in the background as a mix of the previous three themes plays until right at the climactic moment (complete with a sped up Mirror Mirror transition) it transforms into a belting chorus of I Burn to properly introduce Yang to the audience.

 

LP has been an interesting singer to discover and I'm still hoping she blows up big with Lost On You because it could be huge and indeed has been huge in many other countries around the globe. Her androgynous voice was the first thing that struck me about this and this got me coming back for more to properly work out which gender she was. Once I'd figured that out, the song had grown on me to the point where I just loved her voice, which does carry this. A very talented singer with a huge hit in waiting of a song. *it's going to miss the UK completely now isn't it, I don't know what charts do any more*

 

Shall we move onto a couple of hits that amazingly did make the charts? It's kind of weird seeing everyone suddenly be after Christine and the Queens as a classy pop singer in England, especially when she before now was so rooted in French culture. I mean, Tilted still is, but she's about where Paloma Faith was 4 years ago or something in our eyes. At least from what I've seen. Tilted is of course the English translation of the first song I heard from her, Christine, and embarassingly, I never particularly thought much of Christine until Tilted emerged. Then I loved Tilted, and went back to Christine and also loved it. I don't know what was going on but at least they've both grown on me now.

 

The other song from Suicide Squad that everyone noticed was Sucker For Pain. On here, it really got slammed, I remember. For me, the addition of Imagine Dragons alone made this the best Lil Wayne song ever (look, that wasn't exactly a hard achievement), but the chorus they came out with is inspiring. And some of the raps in between are good. It's mostly in here for the glorious rise that that chorus brings out in me and how that made it for a while about the only song I was listening to from the charts. I'M JUST A SUCKER FOR PAIN.

 

Pass Out's ferociousness made me gasp. Like seriously, it goes right to your heart, that sort of unabashed guitar and vocal slam. And it's not like it's a surprise, you can feel it coming from the first note, there's a tort tenseness to the song from the beginning, which it unloads hugely in the chorus. One of the best rock songs of the year and a band who I need to remind myself to keep an eye on because if they're capable of producing a literally breathtaking song like this then they're capable of anything.

 

There was a moment in Eurovision this year that was possibly the worst I've ever had ever since following the show. Out of seemingly nowhere, the EBU broke precedent and disqualified Romania from the contest months after the national selection had finished. At the time, Ovidiu Anton's Moment Of Silence was my favourite song of the contest that year - it's been overtaken by 4 others since, probably due to not getting contest exposure. To make matters worse, I normally don't like Romania, so I was enjoying supporting them, it was Ovidiu's third or fourth time trying for Eurovision so the Romanian Sanna-esque story was getting to me, other people were saying it'd be their first non-qualifier, I was adamant that it wouldn't be and I was looking forward to seeing who was right. Turns out I was, but not in the way I'd like. It really kind of felt horrible to see a song you'd already gotten invested in and loved be out of the contest through no fault of its own. Why did I love it in the first place then? Because it's a huge, audacious rock ballad that consists of Ovidiu singing his lungs out in an incredibly epic way, with lyrics that are very deep for Eurovision. What does 'take a moment of silence and fight for the truth' mean? We'll never find out as we were denied a moment of silence on the Eurovision stage this year, instead we had Dami Im honking it out.

 

PART 2 in Eurovision injustices this year, I don't need to spend as long on what actually happened, but basically, for once, anime was the wrong option as German's otaku singer girl was cool but had no real spark, but power metal band Avantasia did with a camp song that would have captured Europe's attention and left the UK last. SEE WHAT YOU DID JAMIE-LEE. We missed an opportunity to make the UK last again. Anyway, Avantasia were a band whose name I knew but hadn't really gotten into but Mystery Of A Blood Rose definitely got me into that particular song from them, feeling very much like a dramatic operatic 80s song (so kind of similar to Ovidiu as it happens, except slightly better), it carries you along so well, it makes contemplating love with roses exciting as they can kill you and poison you and set you on fire and that would have been something incredible to bring to the Eurovision stage.

 

Sigala's Sweet Lovin' I think made this list last year but it carried on very well into this year and I didn't want it gone from the charts (this was back when I still listened to them on occasion). Bryn Christopher's soulful vocals carry the bright happy track so well that despite it's unoriginal video it feels like a song you have to put on repeat, those stabbing synths and backing makes it feel like a song you can really wrap around you and dance yourself into. Aside: I can sometimes get amused by 'keep me coming because you're all that I need'. I am a very mature person.

 

50 . Ken Arai - Next To You

49 . BABYMETAL - Karate

48 . Otto Knows/Lindsey Stirling - Dying For You (feat. Alex Aris)

47 . The Chainsmokers - Closer

46 . Aoi Tada - Brave Song

45 . Against The Current - Running With The Wild Things

44 . Arion - At The Break Of Dawn

43 . Kygo (feat. Kodaline) - Raging

42 . Stupeflip - Stupeflip Vite

41 . TheFatRat - Epic

 

Next To You has that sort of tune that demands you put it on over and over again as you listen to an instrumental that traps you in time and emotion to paint a picture of someone who wants to be close but can't quite get there. The music from Parasyte is icy and cold in feeling but warm in emotion, I think that makes sense, it fits with the dark nature of the anime, its staccato and crisp notes, but there's a lot of human soul in it too.

 

Unlike many other Babymetal anthems, I took a lot of time to come around to Karate. It's not because it's particularly unusual but because it was initially such typical Babymetal fare that it didn't really stick in the mind. But as the months wore on, I got into its own brand of cute idol voices yelling and the chorus melody line is actually a really great set of musical bars that feels pretty swish descending down through it.

 

Lindsey Stirling is normally guaranteed a good reception with me, except when she works with someone like Jessie J. So even though I wasn't the hugest fan of Million Voices, it reminding me a bit too much about the shit club parts of being a first-year student, Otto Knows created a pretty great song with the vocal talents of Alex Aris who's quite a compelling dance vocalist, and enlisting the talents of everyone's favourite dubstep violinist, who leads off a most wonderful spinning and alive instrumental chorus. Not so much dying for you, rather living for your violin talents.

 

Closer was one of the few absolutely monstrous hits of the year I really got into, mainly because of its duet status, it grew on me very quickly. The intricacies of some messed up relationship are okay but it just sounds really wholesome. As the first really great #1 this year, I also held onto it far longer than I would have normally because it was a song I liked that was popular and everyone else was loving it and that's recently been quite unusual for me.

 

Brave Song brings it back to anime. I had thought about sending it to BJSC just for the irony of it literally being a brave song to send, being a slow, meandering, quiet piano ballad that doubles as the ending of Angel Beats. The animation to go with this has each of the characters appearing against a background and there's a lot of them, and based on their circumstances I find it really emotional so at the end of every episode I would just drift off into watching the ending go by. To this song, this beautiful, beautiful tear-jerking song. Not the most tear-jerking Angel Beats inflicted on me though, there's one even more pronounced than this.

 

Against The Current started off their 2016 strong with the announcement of their album and this song, Running With The Wild Things, to go with it, which actually made a splash on a few iTunes charts and got a bit of outside interest for the youtube cover band turned amazing pop-paramore band. With 'they can't keep us down forever', Against The Current make their mark 'down as the day that we started something'. If you've never heard any of their songs, it's the perfect one to start with, they have a few better songs but this gives you the perfect idea of what they're about while starting you off with a strong pop-rock banger. One of the best new bands of the decade, and they're not done yet.

 

Amaranthe has been one of the biggest bands for me of the past few years, and I've come to slightly worship their singer Elize Ryd, such that I kind of think I've started my own cult around her. A little. Meanwhile, Arion were a very exciting young metal band with good potential that emerged in 2013 doing Finland's Eurovision selection. I was so impressed by their entry Lost that I've followed them ever since and so this collaboration is kind of a Scandi-rock dream collaboration for me. Thankfully, it turned out as good as the names on it advertised, it's huge, it's energetic, Elize and Arion share the stage equally, and the song, all filled with images about running and flying across Earth to run away from the break of dawn, so basically escaping from the weather, that's the sort of subject matter that turns me towards metal and away from pop.

 

For a popular indie-rock band, I've never really rated Kodaline that highly, they've been a little dull all told with only a few songs making any mark at all on me and even then most Coldplay tracks beat them for excitement. But when collaborating with tropical house master Kygo, Kodaline's singing potential is really unlocked to the fullest and Raging is a typically great Kygo track (those wonderful synths), but added to that is a convincing and interesting voice that I don't remember at all from Kodaline's other tracks, it's very heavy on the demand to go back and listen to it. Probably Kygo's second-best now, he definitely does better with male vocals.

 

Something not so accessible to the ears is Stupeflip Vite, the incredibly aggressive French rap track featuring actors dressed up in chainmail and attacking you. The song certainly does a good job of making you think you are under attack from angry French men, which is... you might guess what I'm going to say... one of it's strengths. Really, it made me take notice and come back because I couldn't believe something quite this epic actually exists. Definitely one of my highlights of the contest this year.

 

And Epic gives TheFatRat a second song in this top 50 as he released a new EP in the twilight of the year. Fortunately, Epic is as good as its word with the title and thanks to that picture posted on it by suicidesheep, I'm always imagining it serving as the ear-catching intro track to a pan over a huge fantasy world, complete with farmers and sheep and elves and dwarves.

Glad to see someone stanning Raging you have been the first I think :lol:

 

Coldplay, LP, Christine & The Queens and of course Sigala all in one section :heart:

 

Gatlantis, CHVRHCES, Blossoms, Icon For Hire, Sia, twenty one pilots, Grimes and Crystal Fighters all brill too :music:

 

Love the use of UP/Nuggets/BJSC entries too!

Nice to see Dying For You, those three musicians seem to work really well together!

 

40 . Alan Walker - Spectre

39 . Lindsey Stirling - Prism

38 . 3-nen E-gumi Utatan - Bye Bye Yesterday

37 . LITTLE BIG - Hateful Love

36 . Twenty One Pilots - The Judge

35 . Poli Genova - If Love Was A Crime

34 . Kungs vs Cookin On 3 Burners - This Girl

33 . SaRaHa - Kizunguzungu

32 . Phantogram - You Don’t Get Me High Anymore

31 . The 1975 - The Sound

 

Alan Walker has been a dance artist who's revolutionised modern dance for me this year through producing some frankly amazing riffs and nowhere is that more pronounced than on Spectre, the first track I really got into from him, as the track is almost entirely made up of catchy riffs. Unfortunately the title is just another word for... Ghost, please all groan along with me. But it's a huge upbeat dancing tune that is well worth its length despite just repeating the main sounds it makes, because those sounds contain wonderful drops.

 

Two instrumentals in a row, and in fact three if we go back to Epic at #41, Prism was the tune from Lindsey Stirling's album that I got into most this year, because of its cheery rhythmic attitude and a bit of warm tropical sounds that make it almost seem like Lindsey's reinventing her sound a bit. Even so, it's another great one to add to the canon alongside Electric Daisy Violin and songs of that quality. Not quite a year to stand up to 2014 with me and Lindsey but still a fab effort.

 

Bye Bye Yesterday was the final of the four openings of Assassination Classroom, showing up in the back half of Season 2 as the show drew ever more towards an inevitably emotional conclusion (both graduation of the students and resolving of the show's plot that must end). To couple with that, Bye Bye Yesterday is wistful in its very sound, and the lyrics, set very much in the past and talking about something that the singers accept will soon be over. Translating: "we laughed and fretted over silly things", "once that final bell has rung, the fun times will be over", are all about leaving education, or leaving a regular thing, no matter what it is - I was leaving uni at the time. So it hit me hard. "365 days worth of lessons packed into bags, as we always do, as if saying "see you tomorrow"". Especially as I often saw it accompanied with the visuals of the characters running and because I was heavily emotionally invested in the characters at the time I got emotionally invested in the song. It's the perfect song to break down crying to as you think about times gone by. Ahem.

 

There is really not enough rave music in the world. Die Antwoord and Little Big seem to be about the only major proponents of new music of it right now which is frustrating because we deserve more than two talented bands producing it. But if we had any, I'm glad it was those two as they add a healthy dose of weird to any song, and Hateful Love is the best I've seen from Little Big's side of things, as they pen a song about wanting to see the person you love dead, complete with slightly unnerving video. I'd describe this as yandere. Which is a phrase, a Japanese combination of the words 'mentally ill' and 'loving' to describe someone who expresses their love through violence born through overprotectiveness. It's an anime term (and fortunately I haven't come across any true yandere in my experience as those motherf***ers I hear are frightening) but it seems to mostly apply to the sort of love that Little Big want to express here. And, lyrics aside it's a huge hardcore tune that I've gotten very much into.

 

I'm putting The Judge as the highest Twenty One Pilots song in my chart this year. Although I don't think Tear In My Heart ever got its full dues in an EOY of me and I added in the whole of Vessel in here so that's not an accurate picture of my favourite 21P songs just from here. But The Judge is one of my favourite of theirs nevertheless, mainly for the musical progression which is very pleasing, one of the more beautiful twenty one pilots, and I mean that in the classy sense, so often their songs are a bit depressive, The Judge is clean and upbeat and features some lovely ukelele, and lyrics like 'I know my soul's freezing, hell's hot for good reason' both come across wonderfully and are something that make you stop and think as all good 21P songs do. In this case, they're trying to make it sound obscure with 'I don't know if this one is about me or the devil', but it comes across as a plea for salvation. So if it's about the devil, it's about him pleading to be let back into heaven, where God is the judge. If it's about a normal person it's about a mistake they've made that they want to be freed - and you're not necessarily supposed to sympathise with the one pleading with the judge either as the song is focused instead on 'the leader of the bad guys'.

 

If 21P are willing to judge someone for their crimes, the next song seems ready to declare freedom from the law as Poli Genova's If Love Was A Crime goes for the angle of, well then we'd be criminals because we're so awesomely in love. And of course, with being a Eurovision entry and the recent social revolution that is proper acceptance of LGBT people, it's obviously been interpreted as a bit of an anthem for that. That wasn't what originally drew me to it though. Poli Genova was singer on one of Bulgaria's many underrated entries and possibly the best of those, Na Inat, a huge Pink-esque anthem in Bulgarian that fell out in 2011. With Bulgaria still only on one qualification ever, back in 2007, If Love Was A Crime brought a huge banger out of a country that no one were expecting it to and the reason I first noticed this was the huge attention-grabbing instrumental that plays along very loud in the verses but only properly hits you on the chorus. Poli's vocals add hugely to this and it translated on stage in Stockholm to give Bulgaria their best result ever and best of all, keeping their top 10 or bust streak. I hope they keep that up for a while actually. I'd like more anthems like this from one of the most maligned Eurovision countries, one of the highlights of the contest, both in song and in journey.

 

Kungs' This Girl became one of the most inescapable tracks of the year pretty soon after it surfaced in France and like with Robin Schulz' brief domination of our dance charts, I accepted the European summer tune with excitement, it sounds like an updated tropical house version of The Avener's Fade Out Lines and with copious trumpets and it all sounds so wonderful and full that, once it properly grew on me after an average start, I counted it as my summer track. One of them at least. The one that everyone else was also getting into because it was pretty popular on Spotify and I needed something to distract me from the dull summer that everyone playing One Dance must surely have been having.

 

On Eurovision songs where the performance fills you with joy, just two places above Poli we have my favourite from this year's Melodifestivalen selection. With very little rock options for me, I guessed my favourite would come from me finding a pop track to stan and a perfect one arose from Tanzanian-Swedish-if-you're-from-Africa-why-are-you-white artist SaRaHa, whose actual name, Sara Larsson, is probably far too close to a certain other Swedish singer to be used. And Saraha is like Sahara so it's a cool name. It was actually really cool seeing a local Tanzanian star come to try her hand at Melfest but it was the joy that emanated from Kizunguzungu (and the African sounds backing it up helped a lot) that led to me loving it, a performance that was just so perfect and happy, I had it on repeat for February. I seem to be graduating to the 'ethniq music' from Melfest more. But it is tempered with Scandipop sensibilities and the sounds from both cultures unite to create something that's pretty wonderful. Like if Abba were African. And just one person.

 

I've been sort of following electro-rock outfit Phantogram's route to stardom and it's a pretty interesting one, from an act shrouded in mystery, You Don't Get Me High Anymore's video looks like a typical popstar video, and while the synths aren't as present as on Fall In Love, the vocals have improved a lot. Not that they were bad but the quiet pathos on the title line is really good. It's derivative, sure, but not enough people are doing this sort of thing and it got me listening to it a lot more than I ever did Fall In Love or Black Out Days.

 

One of the best rock sounds of the year, and one of the few that people seemed to notice, has been the 1975's complete turnaround from weird vocal indie band to creating a singalong crowd anthem in The Sound. They're using their popularity well I see. I mean, I eventually came round to Chocolate and their earlier tracks like this but honestly, like with alt-J before them, I prefer their more melodic and production-heavy songs. And, even though most of the lyrics are generic, it has this beauty

It's not about reciprocation, it's just all about me

A sycophantic, prophetic, socratic junkie wannabe

There's so much skin to see

A simple epicurean philosophy

 

Yeah, the mention of different philosophical schools has me excited, I'm cool. But also they're just rather wonderful words, particularly 'epicurean', to be heard singing. And the fact they are going full Epicurean means that they're about seeking pleasure above all else and the sound of this song is very pleasurable indeed. That works.

 

All these TØP songs make me happy :D :D :D :D

 

30 . The Chainsmokers - Roses (feat. ROZES)

29 . Yeasayer - I Am Chemistry

28 . Eir Aoi - Memoria

27 . Greta Salome - Hear Them Calling

26 . Jamala - 1944

25 . Jeff Williams - Red Like Roses (feat. Casey Lee Williams)

24 . Aimer - Brave Shine

23 . MO - Final Song

22 . BOOTS - CURE

21 . Clean Bandit - Rockabye (feat. Sean Paul & Anne Marie)

 

Two songs about Roses, let's start off with the first, the highest from The Chainsmokers, who've already gotten a lot of love from me in their countdown. But it was their first tune this year that really showed how far they'd come and thus it was the one I stuck with. It starts off 'take it slow but it's not typical', which is a good description of this song, I don't think it's typical at all, certainly not in the structure of a club banger, using a singer who's already shown herself to be good in creating pleasing song melodies and using a lot of vocal distortion on the chorus. I also kind of always think that she's talking about Haddaway rather than Hideaway so it also gets me thinking what love has to do with this song. A pretty great dance hit that's almost indie in its structure and outlook. Future Chainsmokers songs would sound more typically mainstream and use more known singers hence bigger hits but this song, named after the singer they chose for it and in a pretty different sound-base for The Chainsmokers, it was a pleasure seeing this one get slightly big.

 

I started this year off, in my indie song discovery January, by picking up Yeasayer as an act I really liked. I did this by getting into Ambling Alp and 2080 as well as O.N.E from their older stuff just in time for their newest single, and in my opinion is their best. Choirs, little geeky chemistry lyrics, mostly referencing poisons as it happens, a beautiful warbling from Chris Keating, it's a brilliant musical construct, all leading up to the glorious 'My mother told me not to fool with oleander', which I can mishear as Old Leander, an ancient Greek hero, but it's the perfect climax to a very interesting and experimental song.

 

Eir Aoi's Memoria was her debut hit and career move into the anime industry, as it doubled as the first ending to Fate/Zero. I don't talk as much about endings as I do openings as you tend to skip them a lot more because of where they are in the episode, openings are to get you psyched up for the show while by the time you get to the end of an episode you either want to switch off or go to the next episode, not much in between. But Memoria is the biggest exception to that, I never skipped it. It shows the historical background of the main historical figures taking part in the story of Fate/Zero, back in their old lives, which is a recipe to giving me chills each time I watch it. Some are anime versions of famous paintings, like this one for Rider, going through Archer in his throne room, Lancer with his forbidden lover, Caster being dragged to the stake, Assassin looking upon a landscape, Berserker, identity hidden, looking over a lake, and ending with a very emotional painting for main character Saber. Memoria is a haunting midtempo that goes along behind this one in a super emotional song. Probably even more than Kalafina, this is the soundtrack of Fate/Zero for me. It is really glorious. Eir Aoi is probably my most reliable Japanese singer at this stage.

 

Up ahead of Poli is my third-favourite Eurovision song of the year and the one where clearly people couldn't understand how it all went so wrong as Greta Salome's Hear Them Calling was a huge anthem, an improvement on even the wonderful Never Forget (which also should have done much better and maybe that was an indication that this one was in trouble). It's a pop song that kind of demands you listen over all the way to the chorus and beyond that, so I don't know how it failed. Iceland need some love, and deserve to beat the Brits in something as penance. I can't think what though.

 

And just edging ahead of it is the eventual winner, and possibly the weirdest winner of Eurovision in the modern age, but that just made it all the more amazing as Jamala's 1944 came out of absolutely nowhere (proving the new voting system was a huge improvement to exciting proceedings), an addictive yet tearful eastern ballad with weird vocal styles that might lead some to call it an indie winner, and when the options were practically competent but dated pop songs I think it was definitely the right winner. It's also just an indication of how strong Ukraine's music scene has gotten, a few years ago Jamala was making throwaway pop, now she's the hero of a country still going through some tough times but looks to come out of it with a huge musical cultural heritage and Eurovision 2017 to boot. Plus it has meaning by talking about a historical event, about a tragedy that Jamala's ancestors were involved in, so it feels even more weighty because of that. Best winner since Loreen for me, in being the first one I've really ended up enjoying and playing tons after the contest.

 

Red Like Roses is the song by which most people get introduced to RWBY, by watching the first trailer, the Red Trailer, which shows off first main character Ruby using her scythe-sniper rifle on a group of wolves, with Red Riding Hood parallels invited and encouraged. It's a mostly instrumental song but it has some very important lyrics, hinting at all of the arcs of the main characters.

 

They are:

Red like roses fills my dreams and brings me to the place you rest

White is cold and always yearning, burdened by a royal test

Black the beast descends from shadows (I always start to get chills at this part)

Yellow beauty burns gold

 

And then it descends into a bubbly epic instrumental designed to sink in the meaning of those words, which don't mean anything to you as you start the series but once you get to know the characters each sentence makes sense for each one. There was also a part 2 of Red Like Roses which adds in a few more extra verses. Wonderful song and almost the best of RWBY but not quite, there's one more song from there. Just one more.

 

Brave Shine is the third anime song in this section omg iz you're such a weeb, this time the second opening, not for Fate/Zero, but for Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works. And it's a really unusual pop song, it's had a high-budget non-anime music video as well, so there's an attempt to market it outside of Fate. But like with Memoria, it gives me serious chills on the 'if you save my life' bit and just most parts of the chorus, a song that I instantly noticed from watching the show and would look forward to as it showed the characters fighting to it, one of the best anime songs I can think of.

 

MO + scandinavian cross is one of the most unlikely pop stars to have crossed over lately, I think. Out of the ones that are big. From a lucky feature on Lean On, she's now inflicting her perfect pop Scandinavian credentials on us all and Final Song was a pretty amazing example of that. I mean, it's pretty good to have a pop song, even one talking about the night, to talk about the end:

"So hear me out before you say the night is over

I want you to know that we gotta, gotta carry on

So don't let this be our final song"

 

Like that's not amazing lyrics but they really sound good on the song. One of the best hits of the year anyway.

 

I've been missing Gorillaz-esque hip-hop. And what I mean by that is cool, swish sounding hip hop that doesn't rely on the rappers image and indeed preferably hides it behinds a load of relevant images. And is not talking about any sort of party rap. Could be considered indie enough for Pitchfork to write about it. That sort of thing. C.U.R.E fits the bill for that, having some really cool swish opening lyrics and just generally making a really lovely listen through, an upbeat romp. He's got some great writing credits on him and they show through here, it's such a beautifully polished track.

 

Finally, the last #1 of 2016 for the UK, and a song that took me quite a while to listen to, as I'd near completely given up on the charts by then, even for an act I liked like Clean Bandit. Fortunately Rockabye proved to be worth the wait for me as it nearly soundtracked me out of 2016, with an epic instrumental chorus, Sean Paul shouting surprisingly epic things over the beat of the track, an unusual lyrical subject for a hit but one that's proved to be quite familiar to Clean Bandit's style, talking about the common worker and their life and glorifying what they do to manage. You'd have to be made of stone to not feel for the single mother in this song. And that's a strength alone, making a hit about such a specific subject. That it sounds so good besides that is the icing on the cake as it brings you back to listen to it over and over again. At times I considered if this could overtake Rather Be, and I don't think it's quite there but they've done an excellent job here of keeping themselves in my affections.

 

wow, I've cleared so much in just a few days, we'll get this done before January ends, always my goal :D

oh no you're not gonna finish yours before mine dammit!

 

but that inevitability aside there's some glorious inclusions so far; specifically Touch-Tone Telephone, I Am Chemistry (glad to hear you like 2080 as well, what a song), and 1944 *.*

good to see Kungs here, wasn't expecting that to be so high for some reason.

 

Roses, Final Song and Rockabye too. :dance:

Roses is sublime :heart: I doubt they'll ever top that song.

 

Hateful Love is a hella tune, really love that aggressive dance sound.

 

Some Dying For You praise too :cheer: a song that didn't deserve so under the radar.

Roses is immense - that'll be appearing somewhere inside my top 20. I think, although I've enjoyed all of their recent output they'll never top Roses - not unless they make something REALLY special.

Love Kungs!!

 

Also love Roses - before it became so famous I wanted to send it to BJSC!

 

Also Vanessa Carlton best be on this list!!

oh no you're not gonna finish yours before mine dammit!

 

but that inevitability aside there's some glorious inclusions so far; specifically Touch-Tone Telephone, I Am Chemistry (glad to hear you like 2080 as well, what a song), and 1944 *.*

 

well seeing as I stopped for a few days you have a chance! I'm going to try and get my rhythm back and finish this over the weekend though.

 

I was getting into Yeasayer quite a bit at the beginning of the year, they have many tunes.

 

good to see Kungs here, wasn't expecting that to be so high for some reason.

 

Roses, Final Song and Rockabye too. :dance:

 

I underrate Kungs in a BJSC context because I only really got into it in a 'hit' context if you know what I mean, but it served as an amazing HUGE summer dance hit of the year.

 

Roses is sublime :heart: I doubt they'll ever top that song.

 

Hateful Love is a hella tune, really love that aggressive dance sound.

 

Some Dying For You praise too :cheer: a song that didn't deserve so under the radar.

Roses is immense - that'll be appearing somewhere inside my top 20. I think, although I've enjoyed all of their recent output they'll never top Roses - not unless they make something REALLY special.

 

 

I've got a lot of Dying For You praise from you, Dobbo and Pete, I guess it's getting its dues.

 

And Roses

 

Love Kungs!!

 

Also love Roses - before it became so famous I wanted to send it to BJSC!

 

Also Vanessa Carlton best be on this list!!

 

yay more kungs and roses love cheers meekul

 

Lol as if. For Vanessa that is. She's cool but I didn't really listen to her this year.

 

20 . Grimes - Kill Vs Maim

19 . Beautiful Bodies - Capture & Release

 

 

A big new obsession of the year, just under 12 months ago now, was Grimes and Art Angels and on no track was this stronger than Kill Vs Maim. The beautiful synthpop stormer of a track easily made its way to the top of my favourite Grimes tracks, mainly because of her excitable shrieks that carry the bubbling undercurrent of this track to full fruition. I don't think many synth tracks are this strange yet beautiful. Also features bonus Tei Shi in the video as a demon. I'd normally try and attempt a dissection of the lyrics but I've got no idea where to start as the title seems irrelevant to everything else. The music on here and each individual line is amazing enough to let me forego deeper meaning.

 

The big highlight of what turned out to be Beautiful Bodies' only album (I'm sad having just found that out, so much potential here) is another synth stormer, but more in the synth-rock sound. It's such a huge, epic sound that goes through the whole track, helped by powerful 'woah-oh-ohs' and a vocal style that's not too dissimilar from Halestorm but a bit softer with all the synths to cushion it, Capture & Release is one of the best modern rock tracks of the last few years and an anthem that deserves to be a hell of a lot more than a footnote in rock music history. That instrumental and the vocalist's voice go together quite perfectly.

 

18 . Jeff Williams - Mirror Mirror (feat. Casey Lee Williams)

17 . Minus One - Alter Ego

 

 

I actually don't really remember whether I found RWBY or Mirror Mirror first. Whichever I did though, was brilliant enough that it encouraged me to get into the other. Mirror Mirror is a pop song that is brilliant by feeling weighty and classical with huge ripping piano riffs and a building and dropping bassline, such that it whips you along on its ride. I love the extended version that adds an extra verse making the entire experience better but the link I'm putting here gives the context behind this track. As the soundtrack to the second trailer for RWBY and therefore the second song that RWBY creators intend you to hear after Red Like Roses, it zeroes in on the character of Weiss Schnee in a scene that shows off her fighting skills against a faceless suit of armour. As she's burdened by expectations from her family that she'll never be good enough, this shell is her mirror, she sings but she's trapped, her singing (emphasised by her incredible wordless octave singing) is merely a performance act she puts on for her father to be proud of to his rich friends, she wants to have feelings and act on them but is ultimately lonely, and Mirror Mirror captures all of that. I hang onto every word, as my favourite main character from RWBY, this song helped to make her that way but it turned out I love her anyway, it becomes just that more powerful for me. So many great songs from RWBY but I'm still very certain I made the right choice when it comes to BJSC.

 

And there's Alter Ego, my favourite track from Eurovision this year, (UK really has the BEST juries) for being both an incredibly written track (basically it's a pop song masquerading as a rock track and a lot of the time those are the best), something everyone would have been all over if it was sung by a girl on her own, and for introducing proper rock, even a bit of alternative metal, back into Eurovision, because that had been really been missed over the previous few years. 2014 and 2015 definitely had a track like Alter Ego missing from their lineup, just think of Wig Wam, Lordi, even The Ark, that sort of token thing is needed and after all the 'Iz band' stuff at least one was guaranteed to be in from the start. I don't think I was quite ready for how great Alter Ego would be though, when it came out, the pure anthemic quality of it shone through and I was hooked. And wolf howls, let's not forget the wolf howls. By SOME DISTANCE the best Cypriot entry and probably the best Eurovision entry since O Mie and although it deserved far better in the final, at least it qualified and got through to final night, which for a rock entry of its quality it really deserved. O Mie I still really love despite my shift in music tastes, but this was something I could really stan and get excited over. And that's what Eurovision needs, songs to stan and get excited over. Please take notes UK, because the day that the UK lays down a rock band like this I will die of happiness/sheer patriotism.

 

16 . TheFatRat - Monody (feat. Laura Brehm)

15 . FAUN & Santiano - Tanz Mit Mir

 

 

The picture on MrSuicideSheep's channel accompanying Monody came out just as I'd finished watching and enjoying Sword Art Online (if any serious anime critics ever read this I am honor-bound to let them know I did not enjoy it one bit and hated every minute of it but that's not true at all). But it really looks like the World Tree from the Alfheim Online arc from that show so that was what was going through my mind when I first heard Monody. And therefore it comes with a permanent association with a fantasy world which is honestly one of the best associations a new song can have on me. Monody is so light and airy that it sounds fantastical, especially in the flourishing of strings but also in the glitchy parts, somehow. And elvish. But a monody is a poem about lamenting someone else's death. You can hear that in the horn that announces the start of the track (which is one of the best ways to start a mix I've found). But otherwise it adds a bit of musical dissonance and adds a lot more emotion to the Porter Robinson-esque vocal part, coming in at an unexpected part of the song to produce emotions anyway, so that moment feels powerful and drops perfectly back into the main instrumental sound of the song. A really amazing construct of a track and one I've played over and over and over again this year because it hits that sweet spot of always sounding 'nice' but also always sounding 'epic' so you can play it in a casual or 'music appreciative setting'. Still a bit salty it didn't break TheFatRat to a mainstream audience, Windfall was excellent, this was even better than that.

 

For Faun, this was the year I really got into them and so my favourite from their catalogue has ended up being their huge party track with Santiano, Tanz Mit Mir, a folk romp that harkens back to olden times with a medieval feel and the first track I've heard that really espoused those virtues since left behind NF song Saule Riet from Latvia. And it's even better than that. Santiano's deep voice contrasts perfectly with the lead singer of Faun, the German language of the track (and pretty simple German at that) means I can pretty much understand the entire gist of the track (essentially just a call to dance and party the night away). There's so many unique whistling instruments, the track feels alive with positivity, the far too short video captures the mood of the performers perfectly, as with Monody, it even feels slightly fantastical (that the album is called Von Den Elben - 'of the elves', helps that image) but the unusual instruments are what solidify that image, it's something I've listened to over and over again. I'm glad this and Monody are in the same section, despite being completely different genres, there's so many noticeable similarities between them and both make me feel incredibly happy.