Thank you all for the comments so far :3

 

Silhouettes is great and bury a friend is the clear highlight of that section for me!

 

Also lol at eight of the ten being songs that peaked at #9 or #10 :D

 

That is most definitely a coincidence that all the #9s/#10s are bunching up at the bottom of the list :lol:

 

bury a friend is a really good track, I still prefer it to bad guy :magic:

 

See I thought I did as well but the way I put this list together 'bad guy' actually ended up being higher and I didn't dispute that enough to meddle with the order. 'bury a friend' is probably a better song but I'm more likely to go back to 'bad guy' anyway (despite having heard it far more xx). 'bury a friend' just doesn't stick to the memory too well for whatever reason.

 

(Guessing that may be the only song in that section that you know/remember lel)

 

Igor's Theme is pretty cool at setting the tone of the album but it's the track I find myself least likely to listen to outside of the album.

Igor was actually my 3rd favourite album of the year so snap at having it in the top 3 :D

 

Fair take there! I'd normally agree about intro tracks just being tone setters rather than highlights independently of the album but 'IGOR'S THEME' is different somehow idk ~ I think the album is probably my 3rd fave of the year as well so snap, but it's super close between that, James Blake's 'Assume Form' and BROCKHAMPTON's 'GINGER'.

 

My fave of those has to be 'Luminous Spaces', as I commented in your PC it will be entering my chart now that Christmas is over and done with.

'Bury a Friend' was a rather good effort from Billie too although 'When the Party's Over' is still my fave of hers.

 

Hooray :magic: x 'when the party's over' is still my fave from Billie too, would likely have been pretty high up a 2018 EOY for me if I had one.

 

Going to commence with a lot of EOY spam now, starting here! These songs are very good:

 

#200 Flame 2 - Dive

I'm happy that you recommended this to me at some point last year! Burial can always be relied on to provide the goods. However, if it was to come on shuffle while I was in the bath and my mum overheard, then she'd definitely say something along the lines of "what is that noise? are you okay?" :kink:

 

#198 Friendly Fires - Silhouettes

'Lack Of Love' was of course my favourite Friendly Fires release of last year, being a personal chart #1 and all, but this was also really good! I agree that the chorus melody is very uplifting. Okay this is going to be stuck in my head now. :kink:

 

#197 Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens - Luminous Spaces

I'm so pleased that this is growing on you more and more! Jon Hopkins has a couple of great songs on my chill-out playlist ('Breathe This Air' and 'Abandon Widow') so I was excited to hear this and it did not disappoint. Perhaps a new addition to the chill-out playlist actually :o

 

#196 Grimes - 4ÆM

Oh is this actually going to be on Grimes' new album? :o I was under the impression that it was a gaming soundtrack thing. Well, a wise decision then, because it's very good! She trolled in the best kind of way with that ethereal intro to D&B banger transition.

 

#195 Billie Eilish - bury a friend

One of three #1s for Billie on my personal chart :heart: it was such a breath of fresh air to hear something so strange on the chart! I do get what you mean though in your commentary, it definitely feels like it's been overshadowed by 'bad guy', also a great song tbf.

 

#192 Hatari - Klámstrákur

Another good'un from Hatari, both them and zalagasper have emerged as solid Eurovision faves out of last year's finalists!

 

#191 Weyes Blood - Movies

Yesss this was such an excellent BJSC discovery! Only blocked from my 18 by none other than Deandria :kink: definite Lana vibes.

 

~~~

 

I'm usually a ROSALÍA stan also but 'Yo X Ti, Tu X Mi' was a rare misfire :'( at least I could get into 'Con Altura' in a big way from her reggaeton sellout stuff :heart:

 

Oh my, the spam is real!! x

 

Lol at that comment about 'Dive' *_* it was Aphex Twin who she actually said that about before right? x 'Lack Of Love' is still good for me but definitely overshadowed by the two following singles. 'Luminous Spaces' is defo a good shout for a chillout playlist inclusion for sure :heart: And yes '4ÆM' is on Grimes' album as well although you're right that it's also on a video game soundtrack (the music video is on the YouTube channel for the game (Cyberpunk 2077)). zalagasper ofc still to come twice over ~

Okay let me write one more comment before bed :kink: (btw yes it was Aphex Twin that my mum mentioned before *_*)

 

More favourites:

 

#190 Coldplay - Church

A brilliant highlight from 'Everyday Life'! I agree that the 2-step esque drum pattern (coupled with strings of course) really enhances this. As do the female foreign language vocals, which I presume are Hindi. Lots of lovely touches. I'm so pleased that we got another album too as it definitely didn't disappoint. It's fairly experimental but not so much that the Coldplay stamp was lost, natural progress for sure.

 

#186 Marshmello - Here With Me (feat. CHVRCHES)

A song that features in both yours and Pete's countdowns! It's fun when those worlds collide. I agree that the lyrics of this are cute, t'was a grower for sure.

 

#185 Trentemøller - Sleeper

Woo, we swiftly have another song fit for the chill-out playlist! This really is very soothing and pretty <3

 

#183 Ariana Grande - bad idea

Ariana count: 1 *.* I feel like a fool for not thinking that 'bad idea' was a fave immediately. Both this and 'in my head' turned out to be the biggest growers from 'thank u, next' for me - absolutely love it now, what a banger and missed opportunity as a single indeed! The outro is a cool experimental moment also.

 

#182 Travis Scott - HIGHEST IN THE ROOM

Yes yes yes, you already know how much of a favourite this is for me :heart: I agree that Travis has a great vibe both sonically and aesthetically in general. This one unexpectedly hit me in the feels too due to the personal lyrics. But yeah, keep Lil Baby away ty x

:hi: I didn't massively keep up with 2019 music (though my Apple Music subscription helped me not fall behind totally) but I feel if any chart's gonna have songs I know, it'll be this one.

 

Favourites so far are bury a friend (I actually prefer this to bad guy! Though it is fairly close, but I love the horror vibes of this) & Movies (great BJSC choice <3). I actually came across that Altin Gun song on a playlist at some point last year, but for some reason didn't go back to it, I'm not sure why, listening to it now, it is indeed very danceable and great. Gonna keep this one.

 

No Terra Avium representation here though :'( (an artist we used aside x)

Hi Bré!

Time to comment on your Year-End list so far.

So far from your top 200, I like "Silhouettes", "Bury A Friend", "Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi", "Church", "Here With Me" and "HIGHEST IN THE ROOM", I still need to hear the rest of your top 200 so far.

But, it is a really great start!

Can't wait for the rest!

British Bombs was a decent one from Declan although not his best, thought it might signal some more new material from him but alas no. Really enjoyed Here With Me as well so glad to see that make your list also.

 

Giving Gelin Halayı a listen now, it's certainly sounding interesting (reminding me of Myrtle Flower actually :kink: ) although I think I still prefer the one sent to BJSC!

Squeezing in one section today after all, will aim to drop 2 tomorrow to bring us to the top 150 x (I am writing too much for some of these songs oop)

 

#180 070 Shake -

Modus Vivendi

17-28-9-28-x

 

As an award-nominated 'best R&B fan' of t seet I have to include some actual R&B in here somewhere right B-) this track from 070 Shake (a singer signed to GOOD Music who's best known for her contributions to Kanye West's 'ye' album and a couple of the other albums dropped in Kanye's manic period of producing 5 short albums in 5 weeks) was a little bit of a slow-burner for me, nothing crazy standout about it but it's just a really moody little song with some simple but powerful lyricism, I particularly like the version in the music video where the vocals are slowed and pitched down when they hit a sudden downbeat note, accompanied by some fantastic visuals depicting a freezeframe moment of a car accident.

 

#179 Buddy -

(feat. Kent Jamz, Bas, Guapdad 4000, J.I.D and Ari Lennox)

Harlan & Alondra

22-14-23-29-x

 

Here we have the first of 5 appearances for up and coming rap talent J.I.D, who is really overdue having a proper breakthrough by now (he did grab a couple of Hot 100 entries from tracks off Dreamville's 'Revenge Of The Dreamers III' compilation but more more more please), he's super talented and very reminiscent of the likes of Kendrick Lamar and Anderson .Paak. I should mention there's a bunch more people on this song who also make pretty good contributions in their own right but I'm only here for J.I.D really who has easily the standout verse (Bas has one more appearance on this countdown which is also a J.I.D collab). This jazzy posse cut, which I believe is actually a reject from the recording sessions of the aforementioned Dreamville album (yet is better than nearly everything that made it on there oops) just sounds super smooth and feel good - as much as a song seemingly about waiting to be reunited with friends in prison can be I guess. Despite the relatively low peak and short run it's one that's stuck with me a lot through the year as Spotify loves picking this on shuffle.

 

#178 Gleb -

Gauč Storytelling

5-22-x

 

Another BJSC song here and the first of two discoveries from our closely allied nation Jadakissnia, here's the sort of song I'd really only ever discover through BJSC and that's why it's a beautiful thing xx It's a very heavily accented Slovak man rapping over a frantic flute-infused and at times, as the title implies, drum n bass flavoured banger instrumental. What's not to love? We'll ignore that it comes from the same label that brought 6ix9ine to the world. x (I should point out that almost all BJSC songs have much shorter chart runs than they deserve in my chart this year, blame the fact I wait until after the contests are over for them to appear in my chart because gotta keep those votes confidential :P)

 

#177 Floating Points -

Crush

29-23-13-14-21-x

 

Bleepy bloopy instrumental merchant Floating Points has been a revelation for me this year, I knew of him from an Ethan (IIRC) entry to Unknown Pleasures back in the day which I thought was pretty good so I checked this out when it dropped and it grew into quite the fave, though this is one I don't really think of too much any more as it'd turn out he had several better songs to come from his excellent second album 'Crush', this is his first of 4 songs in this countdown. A few weeks after the normal length version of this came out he dropped an extended version which was over 10 minutes long - I usually prefer longer versions of dance/electronic songs but this is actually a rare case where I think the melody starts to slightly overstay its welcome and I'm happy to just stick to the short version (which is thankfully the version on the album).

 

#176 TR/ST -

The Destroyer - 1

40-17-6-15-31-x

 

And now the first of 3 songs from the dark and moody synthpop act TR/ST, another one who I can attribute my familiarity with to a song contest on here, in this case another one of Aeroche's many BJSC winners (the contest immediately after Trentemøller in fact). I actually didn't really care much for that song 'Sulk' at the time (it's grown a bit since) but I could tell he had potential and I did enjoy later song 'Bicep' a bit more, and I'm glad as it led to me checking out both of the two full albums he dropped this year which were packed with great songs (moreso part 1 than 2, he has 3 songs in my top 200 here and all are from part 1). This was the lead single - ignoring 'Bicep' which was also on the album but released years earlier - and has a slightly lighter and poppier sound than his songs that are still to come although still very much downbeat lyrics. It's all about that production though. <3 As seen from the chart run this song did actually take a little while to grow on me but grow on me it did ~ (aside: I did not know until now this had a music video oops, I blame it being posted on the Dazed channel instead of TR/ST's own channel)

 

#175 DaBaby -

Baby On Baby

20-5-12-19-17-36-x

 

Something a little more mainstream here although bizarrely despite being an absolutely huge top 10 hit over in the States this actually never cracked even the top 100 in the UK, DaBaby only now starting to make some waves with his Camila collab and to some extent his rising solo hit 'BOP'. 'Suge' is essentially the blueprint for most of the North Carolina native's songs, he's often criticised for not really switching up his flow much and just trying to make 'Suge' over and over, and it is true (with a couple of notable exceptions, one of which will be coming later in this countdown), but there could certainly be much worse songs to keep trying to replicate. It's a very addictive flow, a strong hook, banging instrumental and a hilarious music video, the guy is just dripping with charisma so no wonder he blew up so fast. At least in the US x First of 3 appearances for him on this list.

 

#174 Shygirl -

non-album single

26-16-22-30-x

 

Another BJSC song, this one from Aeroche, although it's another one that I already knew and charted before the contest (having known Shygirl from her previous similarly briefly titled 'O' which was also in BJSC). The main appeal here is definitely the fantastic and super infectious production from Sega Bodega although Shygirl's rather lewd lyrics delivered in a very PC Music esque style definitely do add to it as well, plus the warped high pitched sample from Spice Girls' 'Viva Forever' (not that I realised that was a sample until Rich pointed it out in the BJSC forum... :ph34r:)

 

#173 Sho Madjozi -

Limpopo Champions League

5-21-x

 

And BJSC strikes again, with an almost identical chart run to the Gleb track, this one came from Espen and I think this song is actually from early 2018 but there's absolutely zero chance I'd have ever checked out a song from such an obscure South African singer in my own right at the time so it's very much a 2019 discovery for me. I'm almost always a sucker for an African bop and this hook packed Swahili language toe-tapper (with an addictive flow in the verses as well) is no exception.

 

#172 A$AP Rocky -

All Smiles {?}

18-11-20-27-x

 

First of two appearances in the top 200 for Rocky, he had a pretty quiet year in musical terms with his 2019 being much more dominated by other things going on in his life, here was the one new track he dropped as his big comeback following his release from Swedish prison. It's a bit of a weird song as you may gleam from the title and certainly not very commercial (surprising that it managed to chart in the top 100 in the UK at all tbh) but it's one that really wormed its way into my affections after a while, not really having an obvious hook to speak of but there were little bits from it that did get stuck in my head at times, and I do wish I'd given it a top 10 peak.

 

#171 The Chemical Brothers -

No Geography

14-5-15-24-x

 

Finally for tonight it's the first of 3 songs from dance music legends The Chemical Brothers who may not be getting hit singles these days but they continue to drop banger after banger, delivering a brilliant album with 'No Geography' in 2019. And they've even got a few Grammy nominations out of it including one for best music video for this (which I have to agree with even though it features a dog in its leading role x). This song has some pretty clear The Prodigy influences which can never go amiss for me. Maybe the one thing holding it back a bit in this countdown - landing behind the lower-peaking 'Got To Keep On' for example - is that for some reason despite their live show showcasing their music video visuals, they actually didn't perform this song for whatever reason when me and Jade went to see them which was a bit of a shame!

Okay let me write one more comment before bed :kink: (btw yes it was Aphex Twin that my mum mentioned before *_*)

 

More favourites:

 

#190 Coldplay - Church

A brilliant highlight from 'Everyday Life'! I agree that the 2-step esque drum pattern (coupled with strings of course) really enhances this. As do the female foreign language vocals, which I presume are Hindi. Lots of lovely touches. I'm so pleased that we got another album too as it definitely didn't disappoint. It's fairly experimental but not so much that the Coldplay stamp was lost, natural progress for sure.

 

#186 Marshmello - Here With Me (feat. CHVRCHES)

A song that features in both yours and Pete's countdowns! It's fun when those worlds collide. I agree that the lyrics of this are cute, t'was a grower for sure.

 

#185 Trentemøller - Sleeper

Woo, we swiftly have another song fit for the chill-out playlist! This really is very soothing and pretty <3

 

#183 Ariana Grande - bad idea

Ariana count: 1 *.* I feel like a fool for not thinking that 'bad idea' was a fave immediately. Both this and 'in my head' turned out to be the biggest growers from 'thank u, next' for me - absolutely love it now, what a banger and missed opportunity as a single indeed! The outro is a cool experimental moment also.

 

#182 Travis Scott - HIGHEST IN THE ROOM

Yes yes yes, you already know how much of a favourite this is for me :heart: I agree that Travis has a great vibe both sonically and aesthetically in general. This one unexpectedly hit me in the feels too due to the personal lyrics. But yeah, keep Lil Baby away ty x

 

Ooh thanks for reminding me there are some little non English bits on 'Church', I totally forgot that when typing up the OP stats! They are in fact Arabic apparently, now added a '1 partly Arabic' in there :magic: x happy that 'bad idea' did grow on you more later after the first impressions as it was always a clear standout to me right from when I first heard the clips in those Hot 100 recap videos ~ forgot to mention the outro in my lil commentary as well *.*

 

:hi: I didn't massively keep up with 2019 music (though my Apple Music subscription helped me not fall behind totally) but I feel if any chart's gonna have songs I know, it'll be this one.

 

Favourites so far are bury a friend (I actually prefer this to bad guy! Though it is fairly close, but I love the horror vibes of this) & Movies (great BJSC choice <3). I actually came across that Altin Gun song on a playlist at some point last year, but for some reason didn't go back to it, I'm not sure why, listening to it now, it is indeed very danceable and great. Gonna keep this one.

 

No Terra Avium representation here though :'( (an artist we used aside x)

 

I was hoping you'd see this thread as I wondered if you'd heard this other Altın Gün song :magic: Apols at the lack of Terra Avium representation (I think because I've listened to more music this year outside BuzzJack contests than I usually do my EOY is less flooded with BJSC songs than it may have been in previous years, Anoice wouldn't have been suuuuper far off my EOY I think, would perhaps be... top 300 somewhere? x I also charted 'Süpürgesi Yoncadan'. I would still count the presence of 'Gelin Halayı' as totally your influence anyway :magic: glad that you have revisited it and liked it more this time, it did take a few listens to properly click for me as well tbf. Hope this list may point you in the direction of some other good tunes that you might have missed through the year as well maybe ~

 

Hi Bré!

Time to comment on your Year-End list so far.

So far from your top 200, I like "Silhouettes", "Bury A Friend", "Yo x Ti, Tu x Mi", "Church", "Here With Me" and "HIGHEST IN THE ROOM", I still need to hear the rest of your top 200 so far.

But, it is a really great start!

Can't wait for the rest!

 

Hallo, thanks for the comment! All songs are linked so if anything looks of interest to you feel free to click and check some songs out B-) I know a lot of this list is not going to be super familiar to a lot of people on here.

 

British Bombs was a decent one from Declan although not his best, thought it might signal some more new material from him but alas no. Really enjoyed Here With Me as well so glad to see that make your list also.

 

Giving Gelin Halayı a listen now, it's certainly sounding interesting (reminding me of Myrtle Flower actually :kink: ) although I think I still prefer the one sent to BJSC!

 

I think it probably is my fave from Declan but 'Humongous' a close-ish second - apparently he does still have a new album coming out in 2020 so I'm sure we'll hear something from him again soon! And haha I can kind of see the 'Myrtle Flower' comparison, that was a tune tbf x

Okay so I came across 'Blood Of The Fang' quite recently and was really impressed, don't come across enough good rap like that.

 

also a nice surprise to see 'Klámstrákur' in here, and a lot more that is either good quality or I have confidence is good quality x

Been a bit too lazy to do 2 sections today oops but I'll try and make sure I keep up at least doing one per day ~

 

#170 J Balvin -

non-album single / TBA 6th album?

31-12-6-11-23-37-...

 

I have been keeping up with all of the songs to enter the US Billboard Hot 100 throughout 2019, which has included quite a number of reggaeton hits including a couple from J Balvin, one of the biggest names in the genre. Most of them have been about the same level of decent but ultimately pretty samey and forgettable. 'Blanco' on the other hand stood out to me a lot more, still having your fairly standard reggaeton beat (with the obligatory ch-boom-chk drums) but the melody just seems a little more inventive and catchy than the usual for the genre. So... of course this is actually a song that didn't chart at all, it's just one I randomly decided to listen to when it was posted on Reddit. The lack of taste jumped out! The music video is full of white kittens which may have also helped it stick to my memory a little more xx Balvin has one more song to come (which also didn't chart on the Hot 100, but its YouTube views laugh in the face of this).

 

#169 100 gecs -

1000 gecs

6-8-13-36-x

 

The first of the Persephonia BJSC entries to show up in the top 200 (although only for a spinoff, having appeared in BJSC Pride II) and also the first of two appearances for premier Internet weirdo music act 100 gecs. Like their entire discography this track spits in the face of the concept of genres, kicking off with some pop-punk esque vox, partly over drum n bass production, from Dylan Brady before Laura Les takes over to deliver some cutesy lyrics and pitched up vocals in true PC Music adjacent fashion, and I don't know why I'm even talking about either of these parts of the song because we all know the reason this is here is the absolutely INSANE final minute of the song where it transforms into an increasingly intense and pounding distorted hardstyle dance section, murdering all of our ears in the most glorious way possible *.* gecgecgecgecgec

 

#168 Ross From Friends -

Epiphany EP

6-17-28-x

 

The second and last of the Jadakissnia BJSC discoveries in the countdown - this one actually receiving my 18, Gleb having been blocked by a certain song that will be coming up a fair bit later - I knew of Ross From Friends before the contest but hadn't been particularly enthused by what I'd heard from him prior, very much a different story with this one though as he delivered a wonderful chilled out electronic track with a plucky and vaguely ethnic sounding riff throughout and some sparing but effective vocals, pretty reminiscent of Bicep's 'Just'. This is super in line with my taste in a year where I also stanned the likes of Four Tet, Floating Points and Dusky, so nailed it x

 

#167 Squarepusher -

Be Up A Hello

6-18-33-x

 

Here's yet another artist who I have Leww's song contest entries to thank for pointing me in their direction (Squarepusher being in this case one of his Club Bizarre entrants). Squarepusher seems to be a pretty legendary name in the world of 'intelligent dance music' up there with the likes of Aphex Twin but I am shamefully ignorant of his back catalogue, luckily I was awoken to him in time for his sudden comeback with this song after a lengthy hiatus as this is quite the mind-melting banger. Forget any concept you have of melody and just enjoy the chaos of synths and drum machines flying off in every direction creating this glorious cacophony x

 

#166 slowthai and Mura Masa -

Nothing Great About Britain

4-5-14-30-x

 

This song was my introduction to Northampton rapper slowthai who turned out to be one of my standout artists of the year - I have actually still not got around to hearing his album in full oops (I'll get around to it one day xx) but between the singles from it and a few collabs he released outside of it through the year he's managed to place 6 songs in this top 200 (the joint 2nd most of any artist), or 7 including one uncredited appearance. The sound of this song was definitely surprising as I was expecting something a bit more electronic based on the previous work from Mura Masa that I know but it seems he's evolved his production style a bit as this is pretty much a straight up punk song. Great energy from slowthai on this, his voice is a bit of an acquired taste probably but I'm on board with it ~ the two artists linked up again later in the year for the song 'Deal Wiv It' which I also liked, sounded like a more aggressive version of The Streets, but found it pretty disappointing compared to this.

 

#165 Trippie Redd - TIME TO DIE (feat. FreeMoney800)

unreleased song

4-8-17-25-34-x

 

Here's the first of 3 appearances for rapper Trippie Redd - he had 3 relatively long running top 10 hits in my chart in 2019 but I still hesitate to say I actually like him as an artist, his lyrics are pretty much always totally forgettable at best and actively bad at worst which often ruins his songs, and his voice has a weird raw yelpy quality to it which sometimes can sound awful but it equally works really well on some other songs. Here we have a song that... actually never got a proper release on either of his album/mixtape releases of the year even though it's better than most of the songs that did make it on there (and it even has a music video). It's pretty much a carbon copy of his earlier song 'Topanga', produced by the same guy and even sharing some pretty similar lyrics at points - but that's not a bad thing as 'Topanga' is his best song and would be somewhere up there with my favourite songs of 2018, I just really like the laidback production and Trippie flows on it well delivering a pretty catchy hook. We'll ignore the lyrics, that's not the point of any of his songs (also ignore the weirdly incendiary title which has no relation to anything in the song). There's also a pretty decent feature on here from who I can only assume is just one of his friends as there's little sign of anything else noteworthy about "FreeMoney800" - he provides a bit more lyrical prowess to the song at least x

 

#164 Hawa Boussim -

Mingoureza

7-33-x

 

Another BJSC track drops out, this one providing both the most obscure nationality (Burkina Faso) and the most obscure language (Bissa) mentioned in the first post, because of course those had to have come from BJSC hits. This one was provided by Lotunia and like Gleb it was a little unlucky to only get my 15 in its contest as I like it more than most of my 18s. Here's another example of me being a sucker for anything African, although this one is a little different as it combines indigenous vocals and melody with a distinctly western plinky dance instrumental. I think it works really well (similar to Disclosure's 'Ultimatium' with Fatoumata Diawara) and I really like the tone of Hawa's voice. It's a tad repetitive but the song is over before it has a chance to get annoying.

 

#163 LUNA -

Trans

12-10-15-21-x

 

The first of three appearances from Ukrainian singer and former Persephonia (and Jadakissnia!) BJSC artist LUNA (or ЛУНА), who was the standout artist in a year where I've really come to appreciate that Russia and Ukraine are producing a lot of pretty great pop music, their languages are pretty easy on the ear ~ The four pre-release singles from LUNA's album 'Trans' and its one post-album single all charted in my top 15, and they're all along similar lines of entrancing and vaguely melancholic synthpop tracks with really lovely and dreamy vocals, this song in particular has some pretty angelic vocalisations in the hook. Based on that 'Trans' could have been one of my favourite albums of the year but unfortunately the rest of the songs on the album were stylistically pretty different (more folk-leaning), I still enjoyed them but not nearly as much - at least half of the album was great though!

 

#162 J.I.D -

DiCaprio 2

27-18-17-20-31-39-x

 

Finally we get to an artist making their second appearance on the list. This song is actually even older than 'Off Deez' which I decided to exclude from the list due to being a 2018 song - this one was the lead single to his second album 'DiCaprio 2', dropping all the way back in September 2018. My justification for keeping this one in the list is that my immense laziness in keeping up with music in 2018 was so much that despite how exciting an artist I think J.I.D is (going back to when I discovered him early in 2017 and sent his song 'NEVER' to BJSC) I actually never got around to listening to this song when it dropped, so my introduction to it was when it finally got a music video in May 2019. Glad that that happened to finally prompt me to listen to this because it's another song from him with a relentless and hypnotising rappity-rap flow, a banging beat, some solid lyrical content and effective sparing use of vocal pitching at one point. Issa banger. Deserved a far higher peak but at least it did stick around for a decent number of weeks ~

 

#161 Solange -

When I Get Home

16-24-10-15-17-x

 

And ending the section with a total energy level whiplash from '151 Rum', another song that I find pretty hypnotising but for very different reasons, this track from Solange is pretty trippy, sleepy and slow-paced. I haven't been able to get into much else of the other Knowles' music of late but this one song really clicked with me for whatever reason. The lyrics from Solange are very sparing and repetitive, primarily consisting of just rattling off a list of brown and black objects - it's a simple idea but it does the job as an ode to black pride. Topping off the track is an uncredited appearance from Playboi Carti - not his only one in this top 200 - delivering a characteristically lyrically deficient but vibey guest verse in his baby voice which I have grown to appreciate.

Okay so I came across 'Blood Of The Fang' quite recently and was really impressed, don't come across enough good rap like that.

 

also a nice surprise to see 'Klámstrákur' in here, and a lot more that is either good quality or I have confidence is good quality x

 

Ooh yay, this pleases me that they're slowly reaching more people xx (idk why I never considered sending 'Blood Of The Fang' to BJSC tbh, I suppose I still could but I've given it away now so I probably won't).

Catching up on the past couple of sections:

 

#178 Gleb - Gauč N Bass

Ahh brilliant to have some Jadakissnia representation here! A large Jadaphonia 2019 headline may have been that we snubbed each other for the first time, but away from that there was still plenty of support from both ends as per usual. I remember hearing a short clip of 'Gauč N Bass' in a video and immediately having the urge to hear the full thing, then checked it out and was super impressed with what I was hearing, what a riot. Definitely a good example of sending something to BJSC that doesn't exactly set the final on fire, but does have a small group of huge fans. I'm very pleased that you liked it so much, although I was definitely hoping that would be the case - foreign, rap + D&B, c'mon :kink:

 

#177 Floating Points - LesAlpx

Bleeps n bloops - we have to stan. I did not know of Floating Points until this year and he's been a marvellous discovery! I really should check out the album.

 

#176 TR/ST - Gone

It was fun to listen to both of TR/ST's new albums with you! I was hoping he'd bring the goods this year after I loved 'Capitol' so much and he certainly did. 'Gone' is actually my favourite of everything he put out in 2019 so I'm very pleased that it showed up here <3

 

#174 Shygirl - BB

So glad this was sent to BJSC as I definitely underrated it initially! 'Viva Forever' is in my top 10 songs of all-time and I didn't hear it at first either, dw :')

 

#173 Sho Madjozi - Huku

Issa bop B-) I think I've nearly gotten over this majorly outperforming DJ Maphorisa in its contest :kink:

 

#171 The Chemical Brothers - We've Got To Try

Ughhh yes why did they have to go and snub this on tour -_- really cool song, reminds me of Kanye's early stuff but soundtracked to ravey beats

 

#170 J Balvin - Blanco

Yes I have taken to this one too (although in more of a top 30 in my chart way rather than top 10 x) - so infectious! Would be here for this smashing. Also, kittens <3

 

#169 100 gecs - gec 2 Ü

These guys seem insane and I'm totally here for it *.* 'gec 2 Ü' was a wild ride with a very satisfying climax!

 

#168 Ross From Friends - Epiphany

Ooh some more Jadakissnia <3 I was the same as you, came across Ross From Friends in the past but never quite found anything to get massively excited about. Spotify Discover Weekly played a blinder giving me this one and changing my mind :heart:

 

#167 Squarepusher - Vortrack

Yassss absolutely living for this at the moment *.* like an acid house song but with the beats and drums sped up to the high heavens. Bonkers!

 

#163 LUNA - Sirenevyy Ray

LUNA has been killing it this year, I'm a little sad that I didn't hold off sending her for a few months with one of her newies, as much as I like 'Dumala'.

 

Woo the taste continues ~ <3

Koregore was an absolutely brilliant BJSC entry, if I remember correctly my votes pushed it into the Final (knocking my own entry out of it in the process oops). Giving Blanco a listen now, it's not doing too much for me but I know that if it was on my playlist it would be in my head all the time as has happened with other reggaeton songs, I really should give the genre some more time (but I won't).

YAY for British Bombs appearing here! I don't know if it's going to be on his 2nd album or not, it certainly seems to have been a promo single after all as he's promised the start of the campaign to be soon, hoping he keeps the quality high!

Dangerously slowing down at announcing these oops. Must make sure to return to posting at least one of these per day. 25% done after this one B-)

 

#160 DJ Shadow -

(feat. Run The Jewels)

Our Pathetic Age

23-18-16-31-x¹-17-...

 

Another electronic music legend DJ Shadow (formerly of UNKLE), he had a couple of low placing hits with the singles from his 2019 album 'Our Pathetic Age' for me but the easy highlight of what I've heard from the era is this album track (possibly now a single? it has been given a lyric video at least) featuring my one time BJSC vetoed act / spinoff entrant, hip-hop duo Run The Jewels. A great instrumental (complete with glorious strings), a memorable gospel-esque chorus and 2 fantastic storytelling verses from each of the members of RTJ, El-P really manages to stretch an anecdote about a starving dog jumping off a balcony to its death into a whole verse and actually make it sound super compelling. This is another one that may possibly also feature in a prospective 2020 EOY as it hit a new peak for me in the new year.

 

#159 MJ Cole and Freya Ridings -

Waking Up EP

11-10-13-21-27-x

 

Freya may have missed out on the list with her higher charting solo track 'Castles' (that song ended up tiring on me just a little bit but it's still good), but she does still manage a placing here courtesy of this collab with... yet another legend of the dance world, MJ Cole. Was a pleasant surprise to find that he's still around and still making some great music. Mind this sounds absolutely nothing like his UK garage classics (and isn't really a dance song at all) but of course that isn't knocking it, this is a really beautiful and cinematic song and Freya's vocal style complements it wonderfully, would love to hear her voice over more songs in this style. Shame this never did anything commercially.

 

#158 Rex Orange County -

Pony

40-21-14-33-x

 

Now this one was a real surprise that kind of snuck up on me out of nowhere - I'd never cared for Rex Orange County before this song and honestly I still don't (all his other songs I've heard have gone completely over my head, I don't quite get his appeal in general), when I first listened to this I passed it off as slightly better than his other songs but still nothing special, I didn't intend to ever listen to it again after that but it ended up falling back into my lap by hearing it on the Chillest Show on Radio 1 and that's when the absolutely gorgeous string section at the back end of the song really hit me. That's still the main bit I love this song for but the rest wormed its way up on me too, Rex's boyish vocals sound pretty good here and it has some very sweet and poetic lyrics (that 'this right here still feels like the honeymoon / when you say my name' part hits me in the feels every time and I kind of wish that was actually used as a chorus so I get to hear it more than once). It's a very flawed song that could have been a huge favourite of mine if it was restructured a bit (more of the strings, give it an actual chorus, drop the momentum-killing outro) but as it is I'm still on board with it, at least he has one gem in his largely forgettable discography.

 

#157 Two Door Cinema Club -

False Alarm

20-3-2-6-16-34-x

 

The sole appearance both in this list and indeed among my weekly top 40s for indie pop titans Two Door Cinema Club, a band who once upon a time dropped classic single after classic single but I'm less enthused about their more recent stuff unfortunately, I guess their formula may have got a bit old. Thankfully I still did really enjoy one of their singles from their 2019 album, I think this one was actually pretty widely disliked (or at least called worse than the other singles) by their fanbase so I'm being a bit contrarian saying it was by far the best - it just has a really charming dorkiness to it, the music video fits it perfectly as I definitely picture the song as being from a cheesy space drama. For how big a hit this was, hitting my top 2 and spending three weeks in the top 10, it's ended up fairly low down here as it's one I don't really feel the need to go back to much but it's still very worthy of a spot.

 

#156 MIRÈLE -

Renaissance

8-28-x

 

The first Persephonia BJSC entry proper to show up on the countdown (although beating Sampa The Great's 'Final Form' which missed the top 200). This was one of my two DNQs during the year and as much as I don't like to let those pesky other people dictate my opinions on my own entries, DNQing does kind of mute my enthusiasm for my entries sometimes hence this rocketing out of my chart so quickly, and to be fair this wasn't really one of the better songs I sent this year. But it's still higher in this countdown than some songs I've written very nice commentaries about so don't get it twisted, I still love this and it was robbed (it to make the TBO semis xx). MIRÈLE is not a great vocalist but she sounds decent enough with her understated delivery over a nice dreamy and carefree instrumental, and it's all about the melody on this one (not that any of the people who complain about BJSC hits lacking melody actually liked it when I gave it to them xxxx), so infectious. The music video is super cute and charming for its 50p budget too. Also it's another Cyrillic song, yay!

 

#155 IDLES -

Joy As An Act Of Resistance

38-10-25-x

 

And going from a light, pretty and melodic bit of dream-pop to pretty much the polar opposite with one of the harshest and ugliest sounding songs in my top 200. Variety is the name of the Bré Forté I tells thee! IDLES are a band I have long felt like I should be really into (they're basically punk rock's version of slowthai) but most of their stuff hasn't done much for me. This song however is an absolute stormer, I can definitely get down to some headbanging while screaming out 'concrete to leather' at the top of my voice *.* also have to mention that this song has absolutely absurd lyrics (but in a good way - you look like a walking thyroid!), even working in an interpolation of 'These Boots Are Made For Walkin'', and the arcade fighting game aesthetic music video is utterly grotesque but also amazing.

 

#154 Billie Eilish -

WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?

22-8-13-21-30-28-x

 

Billie popping along again to give y'all another song you actually know, her 2nd of 5 - I don't really have too much to say about this one, we all know it's a great song, we've all heard it a billion times. It might have been a little higher if not for a) having heard it just a few too many times and b) her torpedoing her own song by inflicting upon the world the absolute horror that was the ill-fated Justin Bieber remix (thank GOD that didn't actually replace the original in the public consciousness) but at the end of the day no matter how huge and unavoidable a song gets, if it's a good song it's a good song. And this is one. Shoutout to the outro which is easily the best part of the song and thus of course got cut off when it's played on the radio.

 

#153 Injury Reserve -

(feat. Aminé)

Injury Reserve

12-7-13-23-x

 

Another in the clipping. category of slightly eccentric experimental hip-hop acts that I checked out in 2019 due to /r/hiphopheads hyping them up, this one featuring an artist who actually had a legitimate hit single (at least in the US). This would have been great just as an instrumental, sounding very plinky plonky and mechanical, but the rap verses are entertaining as well (with the first being about, yes, hacking a Tesla car). Aminé has a great flow on his verse and has some funny one liners (about Elon Musk and Grimes, and one part where the beat cuts out as a punchline about Tesla engines being silent, very clever). The only slightly annoying thing about this is the song abruptly ends mere seconds after Aminé starts going in with a faster flow. I wanted to hear more of that!!1

 

#152 Tame Impala -

The Slow Rush

35-26-15-...

 

Now this is a song that will definitely be on my 2020 EOY if I do one as well, honestly this is probably a little bit too high on the list for basing it solely on how I felt about it in 2019 as it was a very late inclusion similar to the Jon Hopkins track which scraped the top 200, and in fact that and this entered my chart on the same week and this was behind it for all 3 of those weeks. It only appears so much higher here because it was due to overtake Jon Hopkins on my chart in the new year (which it has, so far going as high as #4). But I digress. Easily the standout so far of the various singles that indie faves Tame Impala dropped throughout the year, this song goes from psych-y introspection to a banging synth instrumental section to a catchy melodic outro, it's like 3 great songs for the price of one and it just gets better as it goes along, definitely feels much shorter than its 6 minute runtime. Very much looking forward to hearing the new album in 2020.

 

#151 21 Savage -

non-album single

29-10-15-28-x

 

And lastly we have a track from Sir Savage the 21st (funny cos he's British amirite), his first of three appearances here. This song originally showed up in an advert for Mortal Kombat 11 many months before its official release on Halloween, I'm very glad it did eventually properly surface because... issa banger x As much as I appreciate the more mature, introspective and lyrical 21 Savage that we saw on his 'i am > i was' album, I am also partial to his older songs just lazily spitting ignorant bars about killing people and whatnot over dark trap banger beats and this is pretty much a return to that formula (although a little less sleepy sounding). A fun throwaway moment.

 

151-200 RECAP

151 21 Savage - Immortal

152 Tame Impala - Posthumous Forgiveness

153 Injury Reserve - Jailbreak The Tesla (feat. Aminé)

154 Billie Eilish - bad guy

155 IDLES - Never Fight A Man With A Perm

156 MIRÈLE - Yesli By Lyubov'

157 Two Door Cinema Club - Satellite

158 Rex Orange County - Pluto Projector

159 MJ Cole and Freya Ridings - Waking Up

160 DJ Shadow - Kings & Queens (feat. Run The Jewels)

161 Solange - Almeda

162 J.I.D - 151 Rum

163 LUNA - Sirenevyy Ray

164 Hawa Boussim - Koregore

165 Trippie Redd - TIME TO DIE (feat. FreeMoney800)

166 slowthai and Mura Masa - Doorman

167 Squarepusher - Vortrack

168 Ross From Friends - Epiphany

169 100 gecs - gec 2 Ü

170 J Balvin - Blanco

171 The Chemical Brothers - We've Got To Try

172 A$AP Rocky - Babushka Boi

173 Sho Madjozi - Huku

174 Shygirl - BB

175 DaBaby - Suge

176 TR/ST - Gone

177 Floating Points - LesAlpx

178 Gleb - Gauč N Bass

179 Buddy - Link Up (feat. Kent Jamz, Bas, Guapdad 4000, J.I.D and Ari Lennox)

180 070 Shake - Nice To Have

181 clipping. - Blood Of The Fang

182 Travis Scott - HIGHEST IN THE ROOM

183 Ariana Grande - bad idea

184 Altın Gün - Gelin Halayı

185 Trentemøller - Sleeper

186 Marshmello - Here With Me (feat. CHVRCHES)

187 Bladee - Trash Star

188 Juice WRLD - Fast

189 Declan McKenna - British Bombs

190 Coldplay - Church

191 Weyes Blood - Movies

192 Hatari - Klámstrákur

193 Tyler, The Creator - IGOR'S THEME

194 ROSALÍA and Ozuna - Yo X Ti, Tu X Mi

195 Billie Eilish - bury a friend

196 Grimes - 4ÆM

197 Jon Hopkins and Kelly Lee Owens - Luminous Spaces

198 Friendly Fires - Silhouettes

199 Prospa - Prayer

200 Flame 2 - Dive

Replying to comments to bump this thread rather than finishing the commentary for the next section because I am too tired to atm :magic: (coming tomorrow xox this countdown will be finished!!! maybe)

 

Catching up on the past couple of sections:

 

#178 Gleb - Gauč N Bass

Ahh brilliant to have some Jadakissnia representation here! A large Jadaphonia 2019 headline may have been that we snubbed each other for the first time, but away from that there was still plenty of support from both ends as per usual. I remember hearing a short clip of 'Gauč N Bass' in a video and immediately having the urge to hear the full thing, then checked it out and was super impressed with what I was hearing, what a riot. Definitely a good example of sending something to BJSC that doesn't exactly set the final on fire, but does have a small group of huge fans. I'm very pleased that you liked it so much, although I was definitely hoping that would be the case - foreign, rap + D&B, c'mon :kink:

 

#177 Floating Points - LesAlpx

Bleeps n bloops - we have to stan. I did not know of Floating Points until this year and he's been a marvellous discovery! I really should check out the album.

 

#176 TR/ST - Gone

It was fun to listen to both of TR/ST's new albums with you! I was hoping he'd bring the goods this year after I loved 'Capitol' so much and he certainly did. 'Gone' is actually my favourite of everything he put out in 2019 so I'm very pleased that it showed up here <3

 

#174 Shygirl - BB

So glad this was sent to BJSC as I definitely underrated it initially! 'Viva Forever' is in my top 10 songs of all-time and I didn't hear it at first either, dw :')

 

#173 Sho Madjozi - Huku

Issa bop B-) I think I've nearly gotten over this majorly outperforming DJ Maphorisa in its contest :kink:

 

#171 The Chemical Brothers - We've Got To Try

Ughhh yes why did they have to go and snub this on tour -_- really cool song, reminds me of Kanye's early stuff but soundtracked to ravey beats

 

#170 J Balvin - Blanco

Yes I have taken to this one too (although in more of a top 30 in my chart way rather than top 10 x) - so infectious! Would be here for this smashing. Also, kittens <3

 

#169 100 gecs - gec 2 Ü

These guys seem insane and I'm totally here for it *.* 'gec 2 Ü' was a wild ride with a very satisfying climax!

 

#168 Ross From Friends - Epiphany

Ooh some more Jadakissnia <3 I was the same as you, came across Ross From Friends in the past but never quite found anything to get massively excited about. Spotify Discover Weekly played a blinder giving me this one and changing my mind :heart:

 

#167 Squarepusher - Vortrack

Yassss absolutely living for this at the moment *.* like an acid house song but with the beats and drums sped up to the high heavens. Bonkers!

 

#163 LUNA - Sirenevyy Ray

LUNA has been killing it this year, I'm a little sad that I didn't hold off sending her for a few months with one of her newies, as much as I like 'Dumala'.

 

Woo the taste continues ~ <3

 

Woo for both of the Jadakissnia entries showing up here :magic: Active Child was not too far off featuring as well. The Gleb song was definitely one of the most me bait entries you have ever sent :magic: but yay for enough other people liking it that it at least qualified eh xx Yes you defo should check out the rest of the Floating Points album if you ever feel like it ~ That is an interesting comparison for 'We've Got To Try', I guess the vocals do sound a bit like the retro soul samples in Kanye's old songs! And oh yeah as much as I did like 'Dumala' if only you had held off to send one of the songs from her new album, I'd be tempted to send one of them myself if I didn't ban myself from recycling x

 

Koregore was an absolutely brilliant BJSC entry, if I remember correctly my votes pushed it into the Final (knocking my own entry out of it in the process oops). Giving Blanco a listen now, it's not doing too much for me but I know that if it was on my playlist it would be in my head all the time as has happened with other reggaeton songs, I really should give the genre some more time (but I won't).

 

Yeah I think you're right about that, but it was a noble sacrifice tbh :magic: :kink: and lol tbf if you've heard one reggaeton song you've more or less heard all reggaeton songs ~

 

YAY for British Bombs appearing here! I don't know if it's going to be on his 2nd album or not, it certainly seems to have been a promo single after all as he's promised the start of the campaign to be soon, hoping he keeps the quality high!

 

Oh really? I didn't know about that, that'll be a shame if it ends up just being a loose track - looking forward to hearing more stuff from him anyway.

Hi Bré!

Here are the songs that I like from your list since my last comment:

152 Tame Impala - Posthumous Forgiveness Can't wait for the new album!

154 Billie Eilish - bad guy Will appear on my top 100 year-end list

157 Two Door Cinema Club - Satellite

159 MJ Cole and Freya Ridings - Waking Up What a beautiful, lovely song

170 J Balvin - Blanco Been listening to it since on an italian radio

Waking Up and bad guy are my favourites there, the former is really stunningly haunting, the production and vocals work so well together! bad guy was good for about a week before I got over it oops x

Here With Me, Sleeper, Epiphany, Waking Up and Yesli By Lyubov' (which deserved better than it got from me at the time!) are all great tracks posted since I last commented here, glad to see them all in there!

 

But special mentions go to bad guy, which is one of my favourite big hits of the year, and Gauč N Bass, which is one of my favourite discoveries from BJSC this year, and even spent two weeks at #3 on my chart!

The sudden commentary fatigue is real oops (I should have stuck to not allowing myself to write so much about these lower down songs x). But here's the next section at last (trigger warning: 9/10 of these are rap songs), and hopefully the next will be quicker. x

 

#150 Rico Nasty -

non-album single

1-10-24-x

 

And now we already come to the lowest ranked of the 30 #1s that appear in this countdown (out of 32 #1s in total that I had in 2019, see the OP to explain the absence of the other two). The chart run kind of speaks for itself why this ended up as the first #1 to drop whoops xx although what that run hides is that it would actually have most likely had 2 weeks at #1 if not for the fact it was hidden from my chart on the previous week due to being a yet to be announced Persephonia BJSC entry! But yeah, despite being one of only two of my BJSC entries in 2019 to actually get to #1 in my chart it is only the 8th highest ranked one in this countdown, partly because its complete failure in the contest abruptly blunted my enthusiasm for it similar to MIRÈLE (my only other DNQ of the year) but also it's just a song that wore off on me quite quickly anyway, Rico Nasty has a second song coming later in the countdown and I wish I'd held off until that came out to send her to BJSC. Not saying I don't like the song any more of course or it wouldn't still be this high - it's still a banger, with a great industrial-y trap beat from Kenny Beats and characteristically gritty delivery from Rico, the video remains aesthetically awesome too - but it didn't really deserve to be a #1 in retrospect.

 

#149 slowthai -

Nothing Great About Britain

16-16-10-10-22-x

 

Second appearance for Northampton's finest and the title track from his debut album, as you can guess from the title this is a pretty provocative song about the state of the country in these times, calling out EDL types and ending with a bang dropping the c-word on the Queen. What's Lizzie done to you slowthai eh x There's something a bit throwback sounding about this track, probably the closest thing to a grime instrumental out of slowthai's singles giving it shades of early Dizzee Rascal (who is shouted out in the lyrics along with the title of his seminal 'Boy In Da Corner' album), slowthai's spoken word esque delivery also sounding a little like The Streets as it often does.

 

#148 Boogie -

(feat. J.I.D)

Everythings For Sale

36-9-8-15-25-x

 

J.I.D shows up for the third of his five songs, although unlike the others I don't actually think he has the best part of this song (though his appearance was the reason I originally listened to it) - his very brief feature is still enjoyable especially as he kicks into a faster flow over a subtle beat change, but the star here is definitely the actual main artist Boogie, an artist signed to Eminem's label and not to be confused with the significantly more well-known but less lyrically talented A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. He delivers a short but punchy hook, then flows nicely over the low key trap-ish beat in the first verse but really shines the most in the last 30 seconds of the song where the beat is switched out for an even more minimal jazzy sound and Boogie gives a fast paced second mini-verse calling out police brutality, with dense rhyme patterns a little reminiscent of Eminem himself. A very interesting artist (with a pretty distinctive lispy voice) who I'll definitely keep an eye on in the future ~

 

#147 BROCKHAMPTON -

GINGER

17-16-27-33-x

 

Finally we get the first song from the act who have the most (credited) appearances in this countdown, with a whole 7 songs from biggest boyband in the world™ BROCKHAMPTON's fifth album 'GINGER' ranking in this top 200, as well as 2 other songs by or featuring solo members of the group. Notably that doesn't include the song 'SUGAR' which is currently turning into an actual hit single for them as that was only my 8th favourite song on the album. The title track here is one that proved to be quite a strong grower for me, actually managing to just about climb to a new peak beyond its entry position when the album came out, and I think it's perhaps the song that best encapsulates the overall feel of the album, rather melancholic and downbeat but with a tinge of hopefulness to it (the instrumental sounds a little weirdly upbeat considering the pretty depressing lyrical content, and it ends with a pretty uplifting sounding chorus of oh-ohs). My highlight here is Bearface's pitched-up refrain at the end of the song which sounds ripped straight out of some classic mid 00s emo.

 

#146 Ed Sheeran and Travis Scott -

No.6 Collaborations Project

11-8-19-30-x

 

Well I lasted this long in the countdown before totally killing my countdown's musical credibility by acknowledging it contains not one but two songs from Ed Sheeran's focus group tastic 'No.6 Collaborations Project' album. I thought the album was largely pretty mediocre and definitely a step down from his previous albums but with so many big name collabs on there (and, for my sins, I still consider myself to be generally a fan of Ed Sheeran #edsheerandefenceforce) he was bound to hit a strong note at least a few times and this is the first of the two that really stood head and shoulders above the rest for me. It has a super catchy chorus (the line 'won't let nothing come in between me and the night' sounds great), a boppy bleepy instrumental, Ed Sheeran's pseudo-rapping sounds pretty good on his verse too (and there's some relatable lyrics there as an introvert, oh my god Ed Sheeran is just so down to Earth, he's just like us!!! etc.), and of course Travis Scott does his thing as ever and it's hard for a generic Travis Scott feature to ever really go wrong. Oh and the music video is hilarious too. I like it, sue me. It's a real shame this one never got to see any actual UK chart action due to that pesky... Ed Sheeran himself forcing the OCC to change their rules, oops. I'll just pretend it is the UK top 10 hit that it would have been if not for the 3 track rule. x

 

#145 Tyler, The Creator -

IGOR

10-17-26-x

 

Second track from Tyler, this one stands out a lot on the album as one of the most explicitly rap-oriented tracks, no sign of the pitch-shifted singing that appears on a lot of the rest of the album, it's just straight bars delivered in an aggressive fashion which is a little reminiscent of early Tyler tracks (although not quite as overtly ~edgy~). It's also matched with a more aggressive banger-y instrumental with some awesome bass and distorted synths. The first two verses do have an effect on the vocals making it sound a little lo-fi adding to the gritty sound. This song also has an uncredited and pretty minor but welcome vocal feature from none other than slowthai, who also turned up uncredited on BROCKHAMPTON's album, to tie together a few of the songs in this section. Listening back to this song now it feels a little too low on this list. Issa banger x

 

#144 Lil Tecca -

We Love You Tecca

33-8-15-20-35-x

 

Here's a song that y'all should know although I don't anticipate too many other people reading this will care much for it - there's not really much of even the surface level musical analysis in my other commentaries that I can do for this song as there's not really much to it, it's just another ten-a-penny generic melodic trap song really. But I think this is just easily one of the best executed examples of that formula, basically entirely robbing A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie's sound and doing it 10 times better than he ever could, it stood out to me quite a bit from the first listen much more than these type of songs usually do for whatever reason and it's a hell of an earworm. Maybe the novelty of it coming out of a geeky looking kid who openly admits that basically everything he says in the song is a lie helps a bit x As it were, Lil Tecca looks set to be pretty much a one hit wonder and it's understandable why as his other songs definitely don't quite hit the same way this does (he had one other minor hit in my chart with 'Did It Again' but I haven't had much interest in anything else he's released).

 

#143 ionnalee -

REMEMBER THE FUTURE

26-10-18-30-x

 

It feels like the massive Internet hype for ionnalee/iamamiwhoami has subsided quite a bit from what it was a few years ago but she's still trucking along releasing music and this is the one from 2019 that really grabbed me, may actually be my favourite song to date from her, or at least in the top 2 with 'play' (not that I was ever really that big a follower of her to begin with, I've only heard a few songs here and there x). Just an expertly crafted pop song with a massive sounding chorus, some artsy and poetic lyrics and some pleasing bleeps and bloops in the background for good measure. I like. Unfortunately subsequent singles from the new album didn't really do much for me.

 

#142 Stormzy -

non-album single

9-7-22-x

 

Here's the first of two appearances by the artist currently sitting pretty at #1 on both charts in the UK, one of the most unavoidable voices of the year, Mr Skeng himself, Stormzy. Now I was super happy to see him becoming bigger than ever commercially in 2019 (and going into 2020) but as far as his actual music goes I was left feeling a little lukewarm on his second album 'Heavy Is The Head', in retrospect the fact this song didn't even make it onto the album (despite having a music video that seemed to have as much of a budget as the excellent video for 'Vossi Bop' and not performing much worse commercially than the following single 'Wiley Flow' which was on the album) was a bit of a bad omen. Unfortunately there wasn't really much on the album that could really be called grime and a good half of the album tracks are snoozers and easy skips for me (mostly the slower and less rap-oriented songs but even a couple of the 'bangers' were underwhelming). Respect to him for at least dropping a proper grime banger in this one, produced by grime legend Sir Spyro who he also worked with on a remix of his Ed Sheeran collab 'Take Me Back To London', as a single during the year though even if unfortunately even Stormzy can't get the UK public to make a real grime song a big hit. Deserved a much longer chart run for me.

 

#141 MoStack -

Stacko

13-4-12-16-32-x

 

Finally for today and until the next time I find the energy to type up 10 commentaries we have my favourite song from 'generic GRM Daily rapper #514' MoStack, sadly one that fell just short of the UK top 40 while the other two distinctly mediocre singles from this album (including one with Stormzy which was probably worse than anything on Stormzy's own album) both charted higher, as did two album tracks although those were at least both decent. I actually didn't really care for this one at all on first listen either, but there was something about it that enticed me enough to want to come back to it and after a couple of weeks it did click with me a bit more and managed to rise as high as the top 5 on my chart. I think the main thing that initially put me off was his rather ridiculous sounding falsetto on the hook but I've grown to find it kind of endearing. The song as a whole just has a fun laidback summery sound to it which just makes it a good one to ~vibe out~ to, the music video clearly isn't taking itself too seriously either. It's best not to pay too much attention to the lyrics here though (making him I guess the UK's answer to Trippie Redd in a way). x

Hi Bré!

Here are the songs that I like from your list since my last comment:

152 Tame Impala - Posthumous Forgiveness Can't wait for the new album!

154 Billie Eilish - bad guy Will appear on my top 100 year-end list

157 Two Door Cinema Club - Satellite

159 MJ Cole and Freya Ridings - Waking Up What a beautiful, lovely song

170 J Balvin - Blanco Been listening to it since on an italian radio

 

Tame Impala's is definitely one of my most anticipated albums for 2020! And ooh that's cool that 'Blanco' is getting some airplay at least somewhere, as it seems to be for the most part a fairly overlooked single from him ~

 

Waking Up and bad guy are my favourites there, the former is really stunningly haunting, the production and vocals work so well together! bad guy was good for about a week before I got over it oops x

 

:lol: it lasted a little longer than a week for me, I am actually getting into it a little bit more again now. The Bieber remix on the other hand I was over before I'd even finished listening to it x

 

Here With Me, Sleeper, Epiphany, Waking Up and Yesli By Lyubov' (which deserved better than it got from me at the time!) are all great tracks posted since I last commented here, glad to see them all in there!

 

But special mentions go to bad guy, which is one of my favourite big hits of the year, and Gauč N Bass, which is one of my favourite discoveries from BJSC this year, and even spent two weeks at #3 on my chart!

 

Ooh hooray for another person who is aware of 'Sleeper' :magic: x and haha you seem to be more than making up for underrated MIRÈLE at the time helping here get through to the semis of TBO ~