14 . Against The Current - Wasteland

13 . Kyla La Grange - Hummingbird

 

 

Wasteland is really quite a wonderful track and one of two absolutely incredible new songs I discovered upon adding In Our Bones to my collection, it's a pop song that makes heavy use of its synths and rock backing to create a really swish and modern atmosphere, I honestly think it's just an incredibly produced piece of music which is the main reason it's up this high, it withstood the test of time very well and has been a regular play for me in the second half of this year. More than anything but one, this was the track I was waiting them to play live, and it really delivered, the place went wild for it.

 

Proving that she's ahead of the curve by more than one way, Kyla La Grange released a panoramic video for Hummingbird that you can drag around. The future, everybody. That's not a reason it's up this high of course. Kyla's been one of my favourite singers for an absolute age, her wispy voice and ability to put exciting, indieepic melodies in her music proving to be unmatched by anyone except perhaps Susanne Sundfor last year (this is even at the same position that I put Delirious last year and it fulfils pretty much the same role) and even then I think Kyla has more of a proven track record. Though you might associate her with slow songs, Hummingbird is absolutely not slow, beating as fast as the bird it's named after does to produce an incredible chorus of 'like a hummingbird I'll hover, but never taste the fruit, like a memory of a lover that flickers into view'. It's an undeniable tune and yet again one I thought would break her, but I guess she's just going to have to be someone I stan near alone (along with other synth-pop connoisseurs) forever. Absolute banger.

 

12 . Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence

11 . Alan Walker - Faded

 

 

Two chart hits outside of my top 10 and I can actually report that the way it's panned out, they are the two highest UK chart hits, meaning the top 10 is completely hit-free, as far as my home country is concerned anyway. Hurrah. Or not hurrah, as you may choose. But it's no coincidence that these two are by far and away my favourite things about popular music this year. First is Disturbed, doing the unthinkable and as a metal band, getting a hit. I'd only started hearing the name Disturbed for the first time a few months before this broke out, some of my flatmates discussing how good they were and I had resolved to check them out but didn't until The Sound Of Silence came along. I like the original Simon and Garfunkel but never really had it as a regular play of mine, but this, with its bombastic and beautiful anti-silence anthem, being a very accessible metal song, I loved it to pieces and was always checking how it was doing. And it got an official UK top 10 hit out of it (and that is the story I stick to because this was exactly the sort of different hit the UK chart needed before f***ing streaming ruined it), I compared it to the early 00s, a herald of a new rock wave starting to become popular and I hope I'm still right on that because more hits of this sort of calibre would be wonderful.

 

To contrast the heavy gruffness of The Sound Of Silence, my other favourite thing about the chart was it recognising true talent as new EDM god Alan Walker showed up at the beginning of the year and over time and exposure, Faded became one of the most enduring hits of the year. I'd discovered his instrumentals and was loving them but the addition of vocals to Fade, it was a good choice. Because what they did is they added an extra epic feeling ESPECIALLY on the 'the monsters running wild inside of me' line and solidified it as one I'd come back to over and over. It was something I'd always check to see how was doing, would get excited if I heard it out in any context, and managed to play that role of the rare hit I'd cheer on because it felt so pure and incredible as a hit, getting there solely on quality and winning people over by appealing to them that way. And it made me follow Alan Walker's output from then on as it turned out I would be addicted to that sort of addictive EDM + wispy female vocals for quite a long time... (as if I wasn't already but this provided a solid excuse for this year).

 

10. 3-Nen E-Gumi Utatan - Jiriki Hongan Revolution

 

I got so beautifully, some might say worryingly, obsessed with Jiriki Hongan Revolution in the summer because it represented everything fun about music and specifically the music I was drawing from this exciting world of anime I was jumping headfirst into. Far more of an inviting prospect than the summer tunes on the charts, ahem. Yet it also spoke to my love of seeing people come one after the other and sing together as a group to overcome the odds. I think this is why I like musicals. Jiriki Hongan Revolution means 'self-reliant revolution' and comes to Assassination Classroom at a time when the class, the characters have to come together and think of ways to defeat their teacher and save the earth after it's clear no one else will come in and do it for them. This results in the lyrics being a little cheesy, hell, the chorus line is 'Mr. Teacher how can we shoot through the perfect target that is you' but, um, the chorus is my least favourite part. It fits with the story the song is telling but the verses are so much better. First off, the absolute best thing about Jiriki is the crowd rousing chant of 'Kiritsu! Rei! Lock On!' which is a corruption of the traditional call (Kiritsu! Rei! Chakuseki!) that the student class representative of a Japanese class calls to make sure the rest of the class greet the teacher properly, literally meaning 'Stand! Bow! Sit down!'. Instead here, it's stand! bow! lock on! (as in a target), showing the class's new priorities as assassins by twisting the traditions they're expected to follow.

 

And that's just the first line. The rest of the translated lyrics are about how you would not expect these students to be put in charge of saving the Earth even with the rule of 'it's anime', you have 'the more the potential the bigger the hassle' which is why many of them ended up where they are, in the bottom class, because they have a 'dropout mentality', and they end up looking like they're nodding off but have knives in their hands - and this is all as the opening introduces each student and by this point in the show you should know at least half of their stories. And then it drops into the chorus by summing up the bystander effect that the class had mostly been banking on for the first part of the season, 'let it go and someone will take care of it, we thought it was someone else's problem'. An anime that uses its in-house actors to produce a song that so perfectly speaks to the point of where the show is at (and this isn't a one off thing, each of the other three openings is also perfectly placed based on its lyrics and content).

 

But more than that, Jiriki is a bright and happy upbeat summer tune that gave me plenty of chills due to its association with the show and gave me lots of enjoyment listening to it as a song outside of it. The middle eight, not played in the show as the opening only does the first verse and chorus, is a wonderful sequential of each of the five students who get singing roles saying the chant one after the other, the perfect build to bring the song out for one more rousing chorus. Which is still rousing even if the lyrical part of the chorus is not as stellar as the verses. An anthem I associate very much with a show I love but has been an incredible music track outside of that.

 

(good grief I wrote three paragraphs about that, I don't know if I can do that for all of the top 10 although I certainly have a lot of stuff to say about them)

 

9 . Kitten - Fall On Me

Kitten are a band that I have known to do good things before and I have been following them on and off for years, I first heard, when they didn't yet have an identity to me, the slightly hard-edged Cut It Out, and then fell completely in love with the wondrous G#. They were like a Metric or Paramore hidden behind production back then, and G# especially was very heavy on production as it deliberately meandered through 'these were the days' but it sounded pretty glorious.

Then I didn't really hear a lot about them, I thought Like A Stranger was alright but didn't seem to be going into much new territory and like with many bands, I thought my first initial impression would be the strongest and they wouldn't make anything as great again. Turns out that wasn't the case.

 

Fall On Me shows a changed Kitten, literally as there's only one member left now, less production-focused and more like an out and out rock band, and wearing their allegiance to the 90s right on their sleeve with 'Trash' (which I'm reliably informed through hearing of twitter stories to find it out that it is indeed a reference to a Suede song), and the whole track carries a powerful nostalgic feel (with 'who am I to reminisce', it seems that's the subject matter). When it gets to the chorus and gets the production to beef up just enough rather than drowning out the track, that's when I fell in love with it. The title line of 'fall on me' has so much beautiful emotion contained within that I immediately want it to last forever. This only gets more concentrated on the last chorus. Building songs are incredible, keep doing those because then adds that magic to every single lyric Chloe sings. Incredible discovery, I'm very glad Dandy* pulled Kitten out of the archives of older bands to give them another chance with their newest material because this is by miles their zenith and I spent a lot of the late summer/early autumn beholden to its beauty and have never really stopped loving it since.

 

8 . Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Let Me Hear

 

Even though I am a fan of metal, and a fan of anime, to have said that a harsh metal anime OP would be in my top 10 of the year at the start of this year, I would not have believed you simply because I never tend to rate screamo quite THAT highly. I like it as a concept because it enhances a track and makes it more exciting, but there's a real limit, it can't be all a track is or it suffers just as a track that's all a dull beat suffers. Yet Let Me Hear is in on the strength of both being great when I was watching Parasyte, but that isn't just why I like this track. Yes it was good while I was watching the anime but I only heard the first minute and a half of it and the track changes completely after that minute and a half.

 

It was later in the year, when Parasyte was but a distant memory, I got into the full version of this song in a huge way. I'm not even sure how I did it. While the first part, the part you hear in the theme tune is mostly clean with some lovely autotuned vocals carrying the day and the screams in the background, as soon as you get past the first chorus, they switch roles. The harsh stuff comes to the fore and barrels the song along a low line for most of the rest of the song. Most songs I switch off when they do this but not Let Me Hear, the growling sounded gruff, it fit with the beat, it was engaging, it was pumping me up, it takes you on a journey. And then to complete the magic, at the end of the track it comes back into the rising autotuned chorus that made up the hugely catchy theme tune, full circle. Addictive metal track that crept up on me with hidden beauty and insane energy swirling inside it. You'd all hate it.

 

7 . Ortiga - Ilumbarada

 

Germany-Chile is a place where they hide incredible world music tracks from the turn of the millennium is it? Okay then, off to there we go. I had no experience with these guys so my love for Ilumbarada is completely pure and is just me latching on to some music so incredible it almost defies description.

 

There's something very perfect and all-encompassing about Ilumbarada, it's the same feeling I got from Baba Yetu, that it's meant to talk about all of humanity and bring them all together, even if the chanting is not about that, because of the lifting riff that brings forth images of circling up to blue skies beyond lush forests and landscapes and whatever, that coupled with the vocals that initially seem to let the music do the talking but come further forward on the track until they break out into a chant of 'ilumbarada AY' and complete the track in a glorious cacophony of sound.

 

An incredible addition to my collection of world music life anthems and I should really check to see if Ortiga have anything more like this.

 

6 . Against The Current - In Our Bones

 

This is now my favourite Against The Current track. It's not a wild rock track like most of their stuff at all, it's not what I came to the Against The Current party for, it's a sit down on the guitar stool and strum out to the audience moment (as Chrissy did when I saw them live). But what hits me most strongly sometimes is just a bit of an emotional singing and In Our Bones strips things back to the, well, bare bones.

 

It's a force you shouldn't mess with, because you and me we're glowing bright radioactive', 'we are not invincible but we're both stronger than we know', with a bit of gorgeous instrumental fall following these lyrics, some unusual, some lyrics you'd expect to find. It's a simple song but a beautiful one, I get why Against The Current named their album after this one, it's a song that should be at the very core of a band's discography, buffing up the power anthems that surround it with a bit of tenderness and a bit of humanity. Although Wasteland, Paralyzed, Outsiders, Young & Relentless, Blood Like Gasoline, Running With The Wild Things stand out for being huge fun and make the band what I like for the most part, all have to bow to the core of what's in the bones of a stripped back Against The Current can do with just a little bit of caring potential.

Fantastic songs just outside the top 10! Brilliant to see them both become hits here especially Disturbed, just a stunning piece of music.

 

2 great BJSC entries there from Kitten & Ortiga, so much love for Ilumbarada & rightly so!

Oh my :o That's a place higher than Ilumbarada finished in my EOY even! What a result, will comment on the top 20 when you're done but safe to say there are some incredible tracks in here.

Nice to see Fall On Me so high! :D

Fantastic songs just outside the top 10! Brilliant to see them both become hits here especially Disturbed, just a stunning piece of music.

 

2 great BJSC entries there from Kitten & Ortiga, so much love for Ilumbarada & rightly so!

 

 

Oh my :o That's a place higher than Ilumbarada finished in my EOY even! What a result, will comment on the top 20 when you're done but safe to say there are some incredible tracks in here.

 

Oh wow indeed! It really hit me so well, the same sort of feeling I had from Miracles last year.

 

Nice to see Fall On Me so high! :D

 

Of course, it's unusual I've put tracks I've discovered from BJSC in my top 10 (I only did that for the first time last year) but these two were both so great I felt it was worth it.

 

 

5. Kalafina - To The Beginning

 

Perhaps it was fate (it's a funny because this is from Fate/Zero) that the top end of my End Of Year would be completely dominated by Japanese music and anime-adjacent tracks, there's already two gone past in the top 10, the highest track I'd call 'rock' is at #6 and four out of five of my top 5 have resonated with me because of where my interests have directed themselves this year into another medium. I almost don't know myself. Almost. Because the basis for why I enjoy the music is still right at the core of all of these tracks and that's why they've managed to stay so high, it's not that I've changed tastes, it's that because of this context I've spent time getting attached to a track I'd have liked even without the context.

 

Except I probably, in the case of Kalafina, wouldn't have gotten into it at all had I not been such a huge fan of Fate/Zero. I thought it was a pretty weak opening when I first heard it, unusual in structure, stopping and starting all over the place, for a pop song, it seemed a bit too far gone, a bit crazy and experimental in not really having a good structure. It was only after repeated listens, after declaring the anime to be the best thing ever, that I even came round to it as a song I liked. And then, even after I'd finished the anime, I kept listening to it, because it reminded me of the anime. And I started to notice more things about it. The gorgeous string flourishes that open and close the track became my route into loving it, then I noticed the awesome vocal harmonies that the three members of the band play off each other with, then I noticed how the instrumental line remained constant, how the structure seemed much better put together than I remembered and close to the string flourishes that I loved so much, and there was no going back, To The Beginning had become one of my favourite tracks of the year, it soundtracked so much of it. Helping with my exams, my dissertation, all through the summer, and then finally, as that came to a close, I swallowed the risk that it'd do nothing and tried it for BJSC and seeing it qualify against the odds was hands-down my favourite BJSC moment this year.

 

A beautiful, unique, pop track that wormed its way into my head by being persistently good that I overcame an average first impression of to become basically my favourite anime OP ever (possibly, it has to challenge Super Driver and I'm not ready to make that life-choice yet) - the anime tracks ahead of it aren't openings but tracks played at special, poignant moments.

 

4 . Alan Walker - Sing Me To Sleep

 

Sing Me To Sleep was very instant. Building on what I expected from Alan Walker from Faded, when Sing Me To Sleep was announced, I spent an entire weekend absolutely obsessed with the sound of this wonderful new EDM tune for being even more tender and sweet than Faded. The sentiment instantly hit through for me so I would listen to it hanging onto every lyric, dissecting how the song felt so caring and pure, two people who would do anything for each other, it just told the most beautiful story and I got just into it enough to fall in love, right in time for the emotional drop into the instrumental chorus. It kept me coming back because that feeling never faded. Pun made by accident and so I'm saying it was completely intended.

 

What also happened (and here is where the only non-anime related song in the top 5 gets infected) is that at the time I was watching Re:Zero and although the plot there is different to the plot in this song, there were similar enough themes and Iselin has a high enough voice that I started projecting images of that into my mind when hearing this song. Pro-tip: I absolutely recommend doing this with anything you love, if you can find a good (or even tenuous) connection between two different pieces of media and have it so when you hear one you think of the other it feels wonderful. I even made

of Alan Walker with Sing Me To Sleep as the leadoff track because of the connection. I spent the entire summer loving this, I thought it might have been my EOY #1 at several stages, three songs managed to sneak ahead of it, it's still an absolutely incredible song and a testament to Alan Walker's ability to make excellent heartfelt and tender music.

 

(rock/Yui version)

 

 

(piano/Kanade version)

 

3. Girls Dead Monster - Ichiban No Takaramono (feat. LiSa)/ Karuta - Ichiban No Takaramono

 

All aboard the heavy feels train.

 

When I watched Angel Beats in the summer, after hearing good things about it for quite a while from anime boards, I was rather blown away by the beautiful song that ended the anime. It had been used a couple of times in the anime before that but it closing out the anime, I won't say what happened but the way I talk about it you will clearly figure out it was emotional so I can't really hide that. That was the piano version, the 'original' version by Karuta. I love that for basically all the same reasons I'm outlining below but because of the direct association with the end of the anime I haven't listened to it as much, to preserve the moment as it were for any subsequent rewatch I do in the future.

 

But in the aftermath of processing what happened and wanting more of the song, I found a brilliant compromise. A more rocky, driven version of the song existed, being sung by LiSa on behalf of the anime's fictional in-story band Girls Dead Monster, led by the character Yui. She also has a pretty emotional arc in the anime, but it's not as devastating, but more beautiful, and it was there that I began to pay real attention to the lyrics of Ichiban No Takaramono. The rock, the strings, the piano plunking, the rising and falling, the last verses sounding more and more desperate, was good enough to keep me coming back but I started looking at the lyrics to this song and they are, with no unintentional hyperbole, the lyrics to one of the best love stories I've ever seen. The singer is singing about someone she truly loves. It starts with the good memories of a relationship, to the singer being unafraid because her love has taught her how to overcome her impairments and be happy. It then has her losing him, but even though she's alone she'll strive to make her life like the idealised one she had with him. One lyric (translated) that really strikes me is 'I don't regret that I was born anymore' and I don't think I need to say why. Similarly for 'I can hear your voice saying that I shouldn't die'. The rock climaxes keep getting bigger until 'Megutte Nagarete' (going round and flowing) and then it's a big race to the end, to get to the big lyric, 'Nazeka sore ga ima, ichiban no takaramono' or 'somehow, right now, you're my most precious treasure'. I want to cry.

 

Basically this song hit me about as hard as I ever want an emotional song to hit me and because it was so good both musically and lyrically I kept coming back to it and even though I watched Angel Beats back in July, few days have gone by since when I haven't loaded this one up to have a good emotional feel.

 

2 . Porter Robinson & Madeon - Shelter

So it turns out Porter Robinson is a massive weeb. I am now about 200% more interested in his music because of this. No, but really, I sort of liked him for a while and Language was a massive tune that I underrated a lot back in 2012 but has turned out to be one of the best dance tracks of the last few years. I would have been interested in a new song of his but I don't think I'd have listened to it as readily were it not for the humongous coup he pulled by getting a major anime studio, A-1 Pictures, producers of the huge hits Sword Art Online, Your Lie In April and Erased among other series. A good, solid studio with a huge pedigree who aren't going to be messing about with just anybody to create what most anime fans with a youtube channel can only dream of, a true, official anime music video.

 

Shelter tells the story of a young girl named Rin, whose father sent her away from Earth when Earth was being destroyed by Jupiter (because of reasons) and she now lives her life in a virtual world where she could have everything she ever wanted, but she still gets lonely. I found it incredibly moving and emotional and I really recommend you watch the video to get the most out of this song, if only because the way they pack emotion into a short 6-minute story that is nearly all wordless and mostly just accompanied by Porter and Madeon (let's not forget him) doing their sweeping dance music across the top of it.

 

Make no mistake though, if I didn't really love the song as well, it wouldn't be up here. Shelter sounds completely perfect. Like, as a dance track, divorced from all of the anime aspects that drew me to listen to it, it's a huge banger of an emotional dance tune, outpacing Language and everything else in Porter and Madeon's already respectable catalogues. The chopped up sound effects that start it reinforce that, as it draws back into an instrumental filled with interesting sound effects, and then some beautiful full vocals carry the song. With lyrics like 'it's a long way forward, so trust in me, I'll give them shelter, like you've done for me, And I know, I'm not alone, you'll be watching over us, until you're gone', it does exactly the right job of minimalistic but meaningful dance lyrics that give me huge chills as I feel the song's sound wash over me.

 

1 . Nao Hiragi - Requiem (Stygia Bootleg)

 

Comprising what is basically my #2 and #3 combined, with the emotional ending feelings generated by Ichiban No Takaromono apparent in Requiem's roots as an anime ending, while taking forward some heavy dance motifs and chopped vocals like in Shelter, Requiem is a towering triumph of a song, or indeed an artistic work, that I don't think was ever intended to be a towering triumph. But never underestimate my love for a hardcore track, if I find a good one I'll be all over it.

 

I found Requiem at the tail-end of last year, I'm a follower of Maikel6311, a high quality nightcore and hard dance youtuber who occasionally puts out some real tunes to promote. He hadn't put out anything quite like this before though, a remix done by an obscure Finnish guy called Stygia, who, well, I'd like to shake his hand for producing such a beauty out of nowhere. On listening I noticed that he said that this song had a melody that made it pleasurable to listen to numerous times and how right he was. I initially just earmarked this for BJSC (incidentally, the previous height I put a BJSC entry was at #4, how's that for self-promotion), but it soon became apparent that it was going to mean a lot more than that to me. Pretty much throughout the entirety of January last year, when I wasn't slowly finishing off my EOY from 2015 and putting off uni work, I was listening to this over and over again. I would get CRAVINGS to listen to it when I was out and didn't have any music player with me. I don't think I've ever had that with a track before.

 

The original of Requiem is quite something too, an emotional number sung beautifully by Nao Hiiragi to soundtrack an anime from 2012, but this hard dance remix makes it come alive by chopping up the vocals, adding a lot of heavy synths, and most importantly making it feel like it's been going on for far longer than it has. So many times I'd think the track was nearly over only to look and see I still had four minutes of this rising and falling bliss left. It left a real effect on me and it's for that reason I make it my EOY #1, an epic track I feel I wasn't supposed to find but managed to anyway and wore out the repeat button something fierce. It also continues the time-honoured tradition of me calling myself a rock buff but mainly putting strong dancey/soundtrack numbers at my EOY #1. Still, this is so brilliantly epic, I don't feel I could have discovered a better #1.

Top 100 recap:

 

1 . Nao Hiragi - Requiem (Stygia Bootleg)

2 . Porter Robinson & Madeon - Shelter

3 . LiSA - Ichiban no Takaramono

4 . Alan Walker - Sing Me To Sleep

5 . Kalafina - To The Beginning

6 . Against The Current - In Our Bones

7 . Ortiga - Ilumbarada

8 . Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas - Let Me Hear

9 . Kitten - Fall On Me

10 . 3-nen E-gumi Utatan - Jiriki Hongan Revolution

11 . Alan Walker - Faded

12 . Disturbed - The Sound Of Silence

13 . Kyla La Grange - Hummingbird

14 . Against The Current - Wasteland

15 . FAUN - Tanz Mit Mir

16 . TheFatRat - Monody (feat. Laura Brehm)

17 . Minus One - Alter Ego

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

19 . Beautiful Bodies - Capture & Release

20 . Grimes - Kill Vs Maim

21 . Clean Bandit - Rockabye

22 . BOOTS - CURE

23 . MO - Final Song

24 . Aimer - Brave Shine

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

26 . Jamala - 1944

27 . Greta Salome - Hear Them Calling

28 . Eir Aoi - Memoria

29 . Yeasayer - I Am The Chemistry

30 . The Chainsmokers - Roses

31 . The 1975 - The Sound

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

33 . SaRaHa - Kizunguzungu

34 . Kungs vs Cookin On 3 Burners - This Girl

35 . Poli Genova - If Love Was A Crime

36 . Twenty One Pilots - The Judge

37 . LITTLE BIG - Hateful Love

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

39 . Lindsey Stirling - Prism

40 . Alan Walker - Spectre

41 . TheFatRat - Epic

42 . Stupeflip - Stupeflip Vite

43 . Kygo (feat. Kodaline) - Raging

44 . Arion - At The Break Of Dawn

45 . Against The Current - Running With The Wild Things

46 . Aoi Tada - Brave Song

47 . The Chainsmokers - Closer

48 . Otto Knows/Lindsey Stirling - Dying For You

49 . BABYMETAL - Karate

50 . Ken Arai - Next To You

51 . Sigala - Sweet Lovin'

52 . Avantasia - Mystery Of A Blood Red Rose

53 . Ovidiu Anton - Moment Of Silence

54 . Soeur - Pass Out

55 . Lil Wayne - Sucker For Pain

56 . Christine & The Queens - Tilted

57 . LP - Lost On You

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

59 . Coldplay - Hymn For The Weekend

60 . Visions Of Atlantis - Winternight

61 . GARNiDELia - Yakusoku

62 . Baracuda - Where Is The Love

63 . Thomas Bergersen - Children Of The Sun

64 . Wardruna - Odal

65 . Grimes - Flesh Without Blood

66 . Henrik The Artist - Perfect Workout

67 . Crystal Fighters - All Night

68 . ZOE - Loin D'Ici

69 . Twenty One Pilots - Heathens

70 . Ultra Tower - Kibou No Uta

71 . Sia - Cheap Thrills

72 . Jeff Williams - I May Fall

73 . Christopher Tin - Temen Oblak (Dark Clouds)

74 . FAUN - Federkleid

75 . Philter - Revolver

76 . Icon For Hire - Now You Know

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

78 . Blossoms - Charlemagne

79 . Galantis - No Money

80 . Lao Ra - Bang Boom

81 . Kishi Bashi - Ode To My Next Life

82 . Tegan & Sara - Boyfriend

83 . Ramin Djawadi - Light Of The Seven

84 . Christopher Tin - Walayo Omoni (We Overcome The Wind)

85 . Eluveitie - Call Of The Mountain

86 . Ignea - Alga

87 . DJ Snake - Middle

88 . Gfriend - Rough

89 . OVERWERK - Toccata

90 . Thomas D/Franka Potente - Wish (Komm Zu Mir)

91 . OneRepublic - Kids

92 . Jeff Williams & Casey Lee Williams - Caffeine (feat. Lamar Hall)

93 . Aelyn - Give Love A Try

94 . Animal Collective - FloriDada

95 . Blackbriar - Until Eternity

96 . Twenty One Pilots - Stressed Out

97 . Myth & Roid - Styx Helix

98 . Shpongle - Around The World In A Tea Daze

99 . Big Black Delta - RCVR

100 . Different Heaven - OMG

 

Thank you everyone who's commented along the way and read even a little bit of my overblown EOY again, I'm quite glad it's finally over but also very glad I got all those thoughts on the songs out. :D

You weren't lying when you said there was a lot anime lol, I don't know a lot of that top 10 :mellow: I love your passion for it though, and I have been meaning to explore it more given how much I like the films I've seen, any particular recommendations where to start? ;o

 

Fantastic top 2, Requiem is definitely my favourite BJSC discovery of the year (and after Miracles last year, this feels a nice exchange between us), it's so epic and I definitely agree it never really runs out of steam despite the length. Shelter was a fairly recent discovery, but I love it now. The video certainly sold it to me, but the song itself is wonderful too, has the same dreamy feel as a lot of Porter's work. Illumbarada and Fall on Me are very good picks from BJSC, don't remember how many points I gave the latter but it should've been more, tis definitely how you do a dark ballad right.

 

Great job with this as always, think you've comfortably out-essayed me this year, I must try harder next time x

 

 

You weren't lying when you said there was a lot anime lol, I don't know a lot of that top 10 :mellow: I love your passion for it though, and I have been meaning to explore it more given how much I like the films I've seen, any particular recommendations where to start? ;o

 

Fantastic top 2, Requiem is definitely my favourite BJSC discovery of the year (and after Miracles last year, this feels a nice exchange between us), it's so epic and I definitely agree it never really runs out of steam despite the length. Shelter was a fairly recent discovery, but I love it now. The video certainly sold it to me, but the song itself is wonderful too, has the same dreamy feel as a lot of Porter's work. Illumbarada and Fall on Me are very good picks from BJSC, don't remember how many points I gave the latter but it should've been more, tis definitely how you do a dark ballad right.

 

Great job with this as always, think you've comfortably out-essayed me this year, I must try harder next time x

 

Haha yes I figured it'd be best to warn people ahead of time :kink: I just had them on repeat for so much of this year so it seemed useless to put most other songs ahead of them. Even so I didn't really think it'd be quite that much but that's how it panned out.

 

Would be very happy to recommend you some, I'd definitely recommend something like Psycho Pass (for a dystopian cop show) or Parasyte (for horror), both are fairly sensible mature things I think you might like. Or actually there's Attack On Titan for something really gripping. And bonus, I think all three of those are legally available on Crunchyroll (although Psycho Pass requires a subscription but the other two are freely available) which is very easy to access. Beyond that, there's a ton of audacious, weird and wonderful stuff that keeps me interested in the medium (for example: I'm watching No Game No Life right now and it's both questionable if anyone catches you watching it but also an abnormally clever and funny show), I'll give you this flowchart, it's useful for finding exactly what you want out of shows even if I don't agree with all the comments because otherwise anime can be a minefield.

 

Thank you, I'm very glad I could return something after Miracles, and excellent you are getting into Shelter too, definitely got me right back into Porter! And thank you, I'm honoured, I thought you did an excellent job with your essays and I wasn't thinking I was quite matching that (although I might have been trying to write a little extra to match you :kink: ) but thanks very much for commenting on it.

Great to see Shelter so high! It was certainly a grower for me, didn't really notice it at first but it is a really catchy song!

Fantastic to see Sing Me To Sleep at #4, I MUCH prefer that to Faded (that's still great of course) & it proved to be a huge slow burner for me, absolutely euphoric perfection :wub:

 

And just noticed your recent BJSC entry at #3, amazing discovery & not normally my sort of thing but something about this one just had me hooked. Can't believe no one else loved it to the same degree :/

 

Will have to have a listen to some others on your list too!