randomfurlong

28 | BITE | Troye Sivan | fLuWMOF6vOU An expert balance between tentative sexual expression and fearless lasciviousness, just like a youthful vampire, encompassing the freshness of body and the cruelty of age. Like this? Try... ‘Giving It Up‘, Aiden Grimshaw - for more boypop that's eerily enticing.

29 | Perfume | Ji Nilsson | So beautifully evokes the remembrance of a cherished time, with an exquisite sense of longing and affection. All five senses feel like they're activated when listening to this song. Like this? Try... ‘begin again’, Purity Ring - for more songcraft infused with cherry blossom.

30 | You Don't Own Me | Grace feat. G-Eazy | 8SeRU_ZPDkE Yes, with the rap: it's such a good compliment to her speak-singing near the start. If they are verses; I think what makes this song work so well is how it sounds like it keeps resettting itself, circling backwards and forwards, as if it could exist forever on an infinite loop, with the glorious crashes of the chorus blaring at irregular intervals, whenever Grace needs to tell you to fuck off. Like this? Try... , Marina & the Diamonds - because fuck men, that's why.

31 | Can't Feel My Face | The Weeknd | KEI4qSrkPAs Rightfully a huge pop number. Swoops in and gets right down to business: he almost races through the first verse, as if he can't wait to unleash that chorus on the world. Like this? Try... , Zella Day - for more drug-infused music that becomes truly addictive.

32 | Hopscotch | Emmelie de Forest | b6PvIZX_QDw Weirdest mainstream pop song I heard all year. But inspired. Jangles with joyous spirit and percussive invention. Like this? Try... , Selena Gomez - for another chorus that seems to defy traditional expectations of catchiness.

33 | Savages | Marina & the Diamonds | rxaTAFXgykU Marina is one of the few artists who can consistently combine acrid social commentary with superbly catchy music. And she's at her best on 'Savages', which practically runs through its clever lyrical puns and places a wild Marina at the centre of the global crisis of mankind. Like this? Try... , Theodora - for more personal, unpredictably dynamic music that runs at hyper-speed.

34 | Sorry | Justin Bieber | 8ELbX5CMomE It's not too late, Justin. Songs this good will make me forgive you for most things. A song of the generation: naive, hopeful, direct. Like this? Try... , Nick Jonas feat. Tinashe - for more sharp, modern boypop. Albeit with the important addition of a great female here.

35 | Pyramids | Noonie Bao | wGlHaYE0boI As dynamic a pop song as you're likely to find. A triumphant kiss-off. Like this? Try... , Monakr - for more glorious songcraft that rings clear with confidence throughout.

36 | Apart | Kasper Bjørke feat. Sísy Ey | naL-eZZr2qk A crying in the discotheque anthem, with a chorus of defiance. An emotional crisis writ as large as can be. Like this? Try... 'Nocturnal', Disclosure feat. The Weeknd - for another howl from the nightclub.

37 | Hula Hoop | Brenmar feat. UNiiQU3 | lRRBeGRTpdc A symphony of modern noises, making bizarre but beautiful music together. A strut anthem, if strutting can incorporate hula hooping. Which it should, always. Like this? Try... , Mura Masa - for more clanging modernity and uncompromising attitude.

38 | One Last Night | Vaults | NDfrS-uvI0Q Ellie Goulding's prolific number one was one of the final cuts from this countdown, but for my money, the finest track from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack was this lithe, delicate number; swirling in orchestral passion and with a lingering whisper of a vocal, it's far sexier than anything in the (underrated) film. Like this? Try... 'Good for You', Selena Gomez feat. A$AP Rocky - for more horny songcraft no one should shame you into not enjoying.

39 | Baby Love | Petite Meller | XDBJVgIVPcs Makes me want to stick my arms out and twirl around like a wild thing when that chorus rises up so suddenly. A joyous sprite of a song - with exceptional use of saxophone. Like this? Try... 'Kill V. Maim', Grimes - for more frantic noises and a BIG chorus.

40 | I'm In It With You | Loreen | NDdI5hZiPa0 Alright, alright, so she really needs to work on her diction. But as ever with Loreen, the emotive quality of both her vocalisation and her lyricism is exceptional - the pained cries really get me, every time, as does the echoing soundscape. Like this? Try... , Hellberg feat. Cozi Zuehlsdorff - for more emphatic Swedish girlpop. Albeit with a bit more of a donk on it.

41 | My Gun | Tove Lo | 1ftTte3YYew The first track proper of Tove Lo's poptastic debut really sets out the stall for what's to come: it's fast, playful, effortlessly catchy, unconventional, and sung with an lightness and charm that makes the whole thing a blast to listen to. She's the popstar we really need: she feels grounded, but immensely talented, and is able to make everyday life and the currency of youthful life into songs that really connect. Like this? Try... , Sam Dew - for more offbeat rhythms inside triumphantly catchy pop.

Okay, need to start zooming through this! 42 | in time | FKA twigs | bYU3j-22360 (skip to 7:11) I didn't really feel twigs' M3LL155X EP as much as I did LP1, but it's slowly working its eerie charms on me. Highlight is definitely 'in time', where she merges her usual soft, sensual vocals with the sharp, staccato talk-singing that sounds like the song's dominant rhythms - but then that gorgeous echoey wave of synths comes in, and I'm all at sea again. Typically stimulating wildness from her. Like this? Try... , TÃLÃ & Sylas - for more diffuse sounds and a vocalist making sex at your ears.

FINALLY. Can move on to Frozen now.

Grimes should be MUCH higher but I'll forgive if you're not rly a fan~ KDA is my other fave so far, Katy B on top as she deserves to be

43 | 'Drive' | Halsey | 2oI-BsWbIg4 I promise this countdown will cheer up soon. For now, though, buckle in for my favoured moment on Halsey’s somewhat blackbirded debut album, another tale of being adrift in America, albeit one that seems more disaffected than rejected as in XYLØ’s. Halsey’s play with vocal effects is at its subtlest and most beautiful here, and the sound effects, if obvious, create a real narrative to a standard length of song, the eerie keyboard refrain immediately conjuring images of a dark American desert highway, Halsey’s vocals rising and falling with the momentum of forward motion as she moves along the open road. It’s atmospheric songs like these - songs that can transport you to a very specific time and place no matter what mundane space you occupy - that so often capture my heart. Like this? Try... , Solomon Grey - for more downbeat momentum.

Sleeping Beauty is possibly the most beautifully animated of all Disney films! The backgrounds are lush. :heart: Went for Robin Hood. Haven't voted in a while and am SHOCKED AND APPALLED at the lowly placings for Fantasia, Emperor's New Groove and Hercules. AH WELL.

44 | 'America' | XYLØ | 4qRkm70vHMY Newcomers XYLØ have specialised in a kind of precious despair this year, and the best of the lot is still their debut ‘America’, a perfectly pitched swirl of limpid sorrow from the moment the low drum beats kick in. The American Dream is implicitly skewered, an iconic ideal stripped back to its contorted illusory status, the solitude of the vocalist apparent in the constancy of her tone, a soft, smooth sadness that doesn’t even lilt for her cries of “oh”. The soundscape behind her is a spare emptiness, drum beats barely bothering to keep their time, synths in the chorus dripping like useless tears. The echo almost makes the song a hollow shape for the listener to climb inside, a sinking liferaft to cling onto. Like this? Try... , Oh Wonder - for more beautiful desolation with no answers.

45 | 'Warrior' | Laura Marling | AGltZC5ep_0 I absolutely adored Laura Marling through her first two albums; her youthful precocity made her soft but passionate songcraft sing with honesty and freshness. She lost me, somewhere, but a chance listen of ‘Warrior’ - thanks, Spotify Discover! - has reunited us. I’ll always be drawn in by echoing vocals and floridly dramatic instrumentation, and Marling nails those basics here, her voice surer and more distant than I remember it, the type of a seasoned folk singer who picks up their guitar for an impromptu tune on a train, or something. The ghostly folk tale seems like that of a wizened storyteller, a narrator, until Marling’s voice suddenly lifts, taken away with the wind of the reverb gusting behind her. The unanswered question of the title is the tactic of the finest storytelling - a thought, always lingering, the music ever present. Like this? Try... , Cilia - for more swirling tales of the outdoors (skip to the last minute tbh)

TCHAMI 4EVA

46 | 'No Words' | Erik Hassle | 3O2qp-uKWlI As nimble and sprightly a pop song as you’re likely to come across. Erik Hassle has always felt underappreciated as a singer - you’d hesitate to call him a popstar - but few of his songs have rung with such emotional clarity and vibrant musicality as this one. All this from a song that mentions a funeral in its opening lines. The internal tension of a song about having no words - a woman making Erik speechless, dazzled by love - makes itself apparent when he breaks down into staccato sounds at one point, actually tripping over his own vocals. It’s a neat trick in a song that is mostly just a clean, straightforward but joyously direct pop song. Like this? Try... , MNEK & Zara Larsson - for more simple and energetic Swedish pop (sort of).

47 | 'Make Me A Bird' | Arcane Station feat. Marianne Hekkilæ JLip1UCsFBY This song makes me want to clear a room and sit hunched on the floor, staring balefully out of the window at an empty sky. It is a song full of so much sorrow and regret that it burrows straight to the darkest recesses of your heart. Marianne Hekkilæ’s despairing vocals reverberate hauntingly, ghostlike, as she cries out, helpless, guitar notes and indistinct synths swooping at her like the bird she wishes to be, drums beating against the walls around her. Halfway through already and she declares that “this is the end of this sad song”, but she can’t halt one last violent cry for help, before the songs just ends, falls away, as suddenly as it had begun. Like this? Try... , Kacey Musgraves - for more spare, reflective simplicity.

Thanks guys!