All week we'll be counting down our favorite songs and albums of the year, and we'll have some more year-end features coming in the two weeks following. We'll return with reviews on January 2. Now, on to our 100 favorite tracks of 2012. You can list to most of them in our Spotify playlist.
100.
"Just"
[Salinas]
Sprung from the ashes of the unsung Alabama rockers P.S. Eliot, Swearin’ quietly emerged this year as one of the Northeast’s most promising young upstarts. “Just”, a standout from their self-titled debut for the tiny Detroit label Salinas, is a 90s indie-punk throwback centered on the ever-popular topic of unrequited love, with gut-wrenching lyrics that put you right in the moment-- from singer Allison Crutchfield recalling a streetlight-illuminated first kiss in her “empty room, dripping wet,” to her other half Kyle Gilbride smashing through his front door, breaking the lock, and going straight to bed, unaffected by the night’s events. The justifier (“Just”) makes clear that what she’s after is only a small thing when the whole world is in her sights. Not bad for under three minutes. --Laura Snapes
99.
[EMI]
"Under the Westway" is another of those grand, reluctant ballads Blur has spent 20 years perfecting-- not the one you play at the bar, but the one that, years later, reminds you of the warmth you felt there and that you haven't felt it since. Blur didn't invent this form; "A Day in the Life" belongs here, and so does "Waterloo Sunset." It’s the kind of rainy-day, dog-eared British pop song that traps the tedium of life in the amber of art. Blur enrich the tradition by acknowledging that it's a tradition to begin with. As the band falls silent after their climax, the spotlight turns on Damon Albarn. "On a permanent basis," he mumbles, "I apologize, but I am going to sing"-- because singing is what you do when you can't express yourself any other way, and apologizing is what you do to show that you know the world is already too cramped for your stupid little song. Still, after a simple, descending chord progression that’s been a popular staple since Pachelbel wrote the "Canon in D" 300 years ago, he sings it: "Hallelujah." --Mike Powell
98.
"Oldie"
[Odd Future]
Though the Odd Future crew stayed busy as ever this year, their near-constant string of half-baked LPs, remixes, and castoff tracks cooled their furious, brand-building hype, making it difficult to feel much excitement over any one release. To consider Odd Future a viable franchise going forward, listeners needed reminding why they demanded such attention in the first place. Answering the call was the full-on crew record, The OF Tape Vol. 2, capped by the 11-minute mission statement "Oldie".
In the song's video, the OF faction horses around in photographer Terry Richardson's studio, like the tight-knit group of kids they are: Domo does his weed raps, Jasper plugs the group's Adult Swim series, even Frank Ocean rhymes ably and without ever sacrificing his kinda-over-it aura. And, most memorably, there was Earl's return: "Look, for contrast here's a pair of lips/ Swallowin' syrup and setting fire to sheriff's whips." Sweatshirt might have spent a year "Ferris-in," but he came back as (adult) Simba. --Corban Goble
97.
"Golden Light"
[4AD]
George Lewis Jr. is no stranger to narcissism-- we're talking about a guy who brings a cardboard cutout of himself on tour. So it makes sense that the first word uttered in "Golden Light", the opening track to Twin Shadow's dark and sleazy sophomore effort Confess, is "I." Whether incidentally or as an act of self-mythologizing, Lewis Jr.'s a vagabond by trade, and vagabonds seldom settle down. Here, his yearning becomes its own reward, a quest that's much bigger than what's actually at stake. So the Eau de Springsteen dreams of "Golden Light" are projected in widescreen, with moon-sized ringing bells and marching band percussion that can hang with Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk". It's the perfect distillation of this singer's enigmatic and morally ambiguous passion. --Larry Fitzmaurice
96.
"Time"
[Katorga Works]
After spending a few years getting their point across with hard and heavy music, Tampa, Fla., punks Carson Cox, David Vassalotti, and Patrick Brady decided that they might as well abandon the genre's stylistic constraints and do whatever moved them. As Merchandise, that involved drum machines, gauzy atmospherics and Smiths-ian crooning. "Time" is among the catchier tracks on their recent LP, Children of Desire, pairing up new wave romance with Kranky-style sonic fog. It's a path that's been trodden before, but there's a distinctive, murky edge to Merchandise's approach, particularly in lyrics like, "I fell in love again, though the kind that's like quicksand." Cox approaches his past relationships with a degree of nostalgia here, but also the awareness that, while there were benefits, it didn't need to last forever. --Aaron Leitko
95.
[Jive]
On 2011's hilarious anti-haters screed "Shut Up", R. Kelly was mad that his music hadn't received due credit for being responsible for the creation of every child born in the last 20 years. Not three months later, on "Share My Love", he seemed more determined than ever to prove that legacy. "Populate!" he cries, in a manner befitting biblical exaltation, to a smooth disco-soul backing that feels slightly more romantic than the sticky club grind of the similarly conception-oriented "Pregnant". Kelly’s big story this year may have been the continuation of his self-aware absurdist saga “Trapped in the Closet”, but "Share My Love" is a fun-loving solid gold homage to Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, in the vein of his classic Chocolate Factory-era steppers anthems. --Laura Snapes
__94. __
"Tonight"
[Universal]
In the seven years since their last album, 2005's stately* Tales From Turnpike House*, Saint Etienne have been easily distracted. There were stints as artists-in-residency, a still-forthcoming book written about the history of pop music, and three film projects. Even the artwork for their latest LP, which embeds 312 (!) song titles within a fictional map of what band member Bob Stanley's referred to as the group's "hometown", comes across as the work of a clever group of detail-obsessed scholars. If these high-minded artistic pursuits paint a stiff academic portrait of Saint Etienne circa 2012, then "Tonight" is the elbow that rips its way through the canvas, so to speak. The song features co-production by Richard X, and his heavenly touch complements the band's sound perfectly as Sarah Cracknell's ageless vocals unspool a series of details and promises. Anyone present for Saint Etienne's recent return to the U.S. might have chalked up the gray hairs in the crowd to nostalgia, but the pleasures of "Tonight" are here and now. --Larry Fitzmaurice
__93. __
"King of Hearts (Richard X Remix Edit)"
[Jive]
Cassandra Ventura's icy-hot single "Me & U" came out of nowhere in 2006 to become an international hit and critical favorite. But after following a series of ill-advised collaborations (Lil Wayne, Diddy, Akon) on what was supposed to be her breakout LP, nowhere is pretty much where Cassie’s singing career has remained. Notwithstanding a steamy Beverly Hills-shot video, a phenomenal "106 & Park" performance, and an uncharacteristically hands-off Kanye West remix, "King of Hearts" has failed to reassert Cassie as commercial royalty. But the song did earn a reputation this year as a powerhouse club staple with the help of this excellent remix edit by Richard X, which amplifies the original's dancefloor potential while retaining Cassie’s uniquely withdrawn seductiveness. --Marc Hogan
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92.
"Val Venis"
[Epic]
Before Chicago drillsmith King Louie named a song after him, I knew nothing of Sean Allen "Val Venis" Morley, the undulating, sexed-up, perpetually Crisco-slick Canadian wrestler. Most of what I know of the musclebound lothario's dance (aka Vallin') I learned from this highlight reel. The way Louie uses it, Vallin' isn't just a move-- it's also an attitude, a kind of existential slinkiness. The 26-year-old Louie's in-the-pocket flow and too-cool persona have made him something of a wizened uncle to Chicago's ascendant drill scene. Unlike Chief Keef and company's point-blank exhortations, Louie comes at you from the front, the side, the top, wherever, delivering each of his laser-guided boasts in a relaxed rapid-fire over a pinprick-sharp track from fellow Chicagoan C-Sick. Between the insider Chicago slang and a description of one very stoned trip to Walgreens, Louie spends most of "Val" sliding syllables around in testament to his personal awesomeness. "I'm the man, little did they know," Louie reminds us. Vallin' transpires; doubts are erased. --Paul Thompson
91.
"Cut The World"
[Secretly Canadian]
Antony Hegarty's voice is a versatile instrument, but it's especially adept at communicating a sense of spiritual yearning. On "Cut the World", he longs for rebirth. "My heart is a record of dangerous scenes/ My skin is a surface to push to extremes/ But when will I turn and cut the world?" The song's video gives this open-ended chorus a violently literal spin, but the hopeful surge behind Antony's delivery can also suggest other interpretations, like severing a connection as one might an umbilical cord or an anchor. The piece's lush accompaniment by the Danish National Chamber Orchestra has an inviting warmth but, as usual, it’s Antony's soaring, weightless voice that owns the stage. --Matt Murphy
90.
[Jiaolong]
Describing his club-inspired passion project Daphni, Dan Snaith-- best-known for his work as Caribou-- said, "I'd fallen back in love with moments in small, dark clubs when a DJ puts on a piece of music that you could not have conceived of existing before you heard it." This crowd-pleasing dance track "Yes, I Know" fits perfectly with Snaith's mission. The producer draws something refreshing and new from the juiciest bits of Buddy Miles' 1971 screamer "The Segment", counteracting the comfort-food goodness of Miles' ripe horns and buttered croons with deep bass and woozy synths. Much like Teengirl Fantasy's "Cheaters", "Yes, I Know" leans heavily on a sample but never seems limited by it. --Zach Kelly
89.
Jeremih
"773 Love"
[self-released]
One interesting byproduct of R&B's recent growth in stranger and sparser new directions has been watching its more traditional practitioners adapt to the new landscape. As a vocalist, "Birthday Sex" hitmaker Jeremih hasn’t moved too far from his origins but his willingness to indulge the more experimental whims of his producers has been crucial to his sustained success. So "773 Love" primarily thrives on the imagination of Future and Gucci Mane beatsmith Mike Will Made It.
The structure of the track isn't all that far from all those stripped-down, pseudo-sensuous post-Drake numbers that bumper the bangers on urban radio-- it's what happens in the empty space that sets it apart. The organs slowly mutate-- first they crackle warmly, then thin into a filter as if someone had sucked all the air out, before finally expanding into something more digital and expansive. Meanwhile, Jeremih's vocals drown in their own layers, clipping and scratching in no discernible pattern. It's nice to think of these effects as intentional sonic metaphors for the crackling cell-phone conversation about panty drawers and stimulation that is about to take place, but they're just as welcome as meaningless flourishes of style. And while 773-779-5683 probably won't touch "867-5309" levels of ubiquity, it very well could become a "777-9311" with time. Which is to say that someone in Chicago has likely been receiving some very salacious texts since this song's release. (C'mon Jeremih, you never include the area code!) --Andrew Nosnitsky
88.
"Goldie"
[RCA]
There's a line in "Goldie" that illustrates why A$AP Rocky is such a success. He raps, "It's just me, myself, and I... and motherfuckers that I came with." As much as Rocky's success can be pinned to his slippery voice and malleability, he's also surrounded himself with a crew of exceptional producers, most notably Clams Casino and, here, Hit-Boy, whose beat twinkles and thumps with clarity. "Goldie" is Rocky's most high profile step away from Clams' primordial ooze and it's a good one: "Cristal go by the cases/ Wait, hold up that was racist/ I would prefer the Aces/ Ain't no different when you taste it," is both a flippant take on Cristal managing director Frederic Rouzaud's unfortunate 2006 statement about his distaste for rappers co-opting his champagne and a good natured jab at Jay-Z's luxury brand. It's an effortless moment that could easily get swallowed by Hit-Boy's production, but Rocky makes it stick, his voice welling in the back of his throat in a gummy half-mumble. --Sam Hockley-Smith
87.
Lotus Plaza
"Monoliths"
[Kranky]
There's no Deerhunter. And no Bradford Cox. And no damn monolith. Just Lockett Pundt. In his day job as the guitarist behind one of semi-underground rock's loudest personalities, the Lotus Plaza leader lets his pedals-- and, increasingly on 2010's Halcyon Digest, his songwriting-- speak for him. Opening with a circular-sounding list of negations that recalls John Lennon in soul-baring Plastic Ono Band mode, this sun-baked dream-pop anthem from Pundt's second solo album is a statement of self-belief so convincing it exhilarates. The geometrically precise guitars and the wide-eyed, stoner-friendly lyrical content stay true to the understated artist, while the passionately delivered vocal harmonies suggest he's realized his truths are communal. --Marc Hogan
86.
Chief Keef
[Interscope]
Chief Keef's first new single since signing with Interscope over the summer is important for what it is, and what it isn't. Though he's one of the most talked about new rappers of the year and the quarterback of Chicago's drill squad, Keef's music is defiantly hard; the only song on his breakout Back From the Dead tape aimed at the opposite sex is called "Save That Shit" and it's about how women should stop falling in love with him because he doesn't care like that. Once again: That was his ladies' track.
A previous iteration of Interscope may have teamed Keef up with one of their up-and-coming R&B starlets and tried to force some sort of bad-boy-makes-good pop megahit. That didn't happen. "Love Sosa" is a testament to artists' power in 2012, even at the highest levels. It's also remarkably, cinematically grim. The ominous intro-- in which we hear Keef come up with the hook, like a meta/mini making-of documentary-- could've awesomely soundtracked several scenes from The Dark Knight. With kindred producer Young Chop once again backing him, the song is like a pristine ripening of Keef's known sound. And while the track's amorous title may read like capitulation on paper, it's actually born of the same electrifying arrogance that got him this far; hate him or love him, he's not going to change. --Ryan Dombal
85.
"Get Free"
[Mad Decent/Downtown]
Major Lazer and Amber Coffman are not artists you look to for subtlety. So much of Diplo's work in his reggae-leaning project is aggrandizing and provocative, reliant on vivid, sparking yowls bursting out of the mix, while Coffman's voice often blares. Yet "Get Free" is a woodsy shoreline lap, dancehall pared down to the slowest, sexiest shimmer, so slinky and melismatic it would've fit (and probably improved) the latest Rihanna album. Coffman's vocals here completely carry this track, and the weight of the world. Get free from what? Government oppression, homophobia, poverty, society, dangerous, displacing weather? They're all there when she bleats, "I just can't believe what they've done to me," the increasingly incredulous external factors that force a person to believe in their own dreams, and dreams alone. - --Laura Snapes
84.
Lower Dens
"Brains"
[Ribbon Music]
"If you consume all the music you want all the time, compulsively, sweatily, you end up having a cheap relationship to the music you listen to." Lower Dens' Jana Hunter didn't mince words when describing her relationship to streaming services, but she may have misapplied them. "Brains", the first single off the band's sophomore album, Nootropics, is something you consume compulsively, sweatily. The ceaseless rhythm conjures images of fingers bleeding, and the murmured verses and creeping background organs oppress with the intensity of a receding fever. "Don't be afraid," Hunter sings low and expressionlessly, downplaying and exacerbating the song's intensity in equal measure. "Brains" holds the listener in its post-apocalyptic clutches like an addiction, only to leave an empty depression behind when the layers dissolve into a single, resolute guitar at the end of everything. --Harley Brown
83.
[Weird World/Acéphale]
How to Dress Well's Tom Krell elegantly merges climatic melody and anti-climatic sentiment on "Cold Nites". Had it been on his lo-fi debut Love Remains, the lyric "cold nights and harder days" would've prefaced a descent into frayed, blurry melancholy. But in amped-up second album mode, Krell fully commits to the joy in the pain. The desire to unburden himself through song is a motif he's long reached for, but on "Cold Nites" his confidence is palpable. His newfound emotional clarity has a lot to do with that. Consider the all-star crew he's rolling with on this Total Loss standout: Krell's no-holds-barred emoting is backed by an original beat from elusive UK producer Forest Swords and sumptuous production by Rodaidh McDonald (the xx, Adele, Gil Scott-Heron). Musically, the real star of the piece-- Clipse-inspired regimented drums aside-- is that offbeat synth croak masquerading as an airhorn. It's almost obscenely inappropriate to the content of "Cold Nites", but that’s precisely why it works. --Ruth Saxelby
82.
[Top Dawg]
"There He Go" doubles as a boast track and a birth announcement: Here I am, it says, and I am awesome. For Q, that means having a house with a decent view and dressing his daughter in style. Over a pretty piano loop sampled from Menomena's "Wet and Rusting", he takes himself to the mall, gets with a girl there, then runs into her boyfriend, who’s not even mad because Q is that great. Later, he loses money betting on a Lakers game but earns some from iTunes royalties-- a minor victory made major by the sheer joy in his voice. Q isn't a mogul or master of the universe here, and ultimately, that's why "There He Go" works: Instead of superhero myth, he builds a daily affirmation for the just-good-enough. --Mike Powell
81.
"No. 1 Against the Rush"
[Mute]
Liars told us the title "No. 1 Against the Rush" was inspired by the San Francisco 49ers. It's a defensive superlative, perhaps about playing not to lose rather than to win. Similarly, the music is low-key and devoid of any obvious crescendos-- it's the mellowest, most introverted Liars single to date. Lyrics about "pushing off" and "want[ing] you out," sung by Angus Andrew in a dejected hum, suggest a desire to repel and withdraw, to self-defend. But for something so reticent, "No. 1 Against the Rush" is pretty attractive. And after a few spins, the final chorus actually does seem to soar, even if it never overtly begs for your attention. It's boldness by way of restraint; offense by way of a good defense. --Marc Masters
80.
"Harlem Shake"
[Jeffree's / Mad Decent]
"Harlem Shake" is easily one of the most obnoxious singles of 2012. Its tempo is harshly overclocked so the drum and hi-hat fills have a twitchy strobe-light quality, and the beat itself frequently goes half- or double-time at seemingly random moments, and then drops out altogether. Repeatedly. The melody is a nagging little three-note riff played with a squelching synth tone that Baauer pans in a way that suggests a tiny, glow stick-twirling insect flying around your head. There's also a sample of what might be a lion growling that doesn't have anything to do with anything. But properly deployed obnoxiousness is a valid route to aesthetic nirvana, especially in the dance music world, where coming up with wiggy synth tones has become a veritable competitive sport. It's impressive that at age 23, Baauer's already contending with the champions. --Miles Raymer
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79.
"My Life" [ft. Waka Flocka Flame]
[self-released]
This is that adrenaline shot straight into your eyeball. To set the scene: "My Life" is where filet mignon is served nightly and exclusively. It's where you have sex with a married woman in front of her boss, simply because you can. Headlight-sized Breitling watches are plentiful in "My Life", and earning upwards of $230,000 an hour is commonplace. It's where drugs take you "higher than Bugatti insurance"-- pretty darn high. If "My Life" was really my life-- or your life, or Rich Kidz's lives-- I would be either dead of a heart attack at age 24, arrested for indecent exposure, murdered by a jealous husband, and/or Charlie Sheen.
Nobody wants to be Charlie Sheen, but everybody wants "My Life", because this young Atlanta hip-hop duo make it sound like what god thinks about when he thinks about heaven. They are amped. Really amped. Like winning the Super Bowl and the Oscars and Powerball at the same damn time amped. And then there's Waka. Jesus. In the song's ecstatic in-studio video, we see this man geek himself up-- "OK! OK!!! OK!$#%! FLEX! FLEX¡!¡!-- and then spring up on those fanfare horns like an atomic jack in the box. Every life needs a little bit of "My Life". --Ryan Dombal
78.
"Bad Thing"
[Sub Pop]
The first 10 seconds of "Bad Thing" are lifted from a million rock songs: It’s AC/DC's "If You Want Blood You Got It", it’s The Replacements' "I.O.U.", it’s the Hold Steady's "Constructive Summer". Some people might argue that this makes King Tuff derivative. Those people are wrong. Rock'n'roll comes out of the blues, and in the blues, it's accepted that certain guitar parts are too good to be used just once, twice, or 1,000 times. Besides, Kyle Thomas is too hung up on the ugliness staring back at him in the mirror to get hung up on being original. After all, he is the "bad thing," and even shredding solos on his Stratocaster can't make him forget it. "All I ever wanted was everything/ And now I'm being haunted by those dreams," he sings in a perfectly rendered loser's whine. For a song about self-abjection, "Bad Thing" sounds pretty celebratory. And by the end, he's totally owning it, screaming "baaaaad thiiing!" like the righteous dirtball he is. --Steven Hyden
77.
"Angels"
[Young Turks]
If the xx’s debut album wasn’t minimal enough, this year’s follow-up, Coexist, chiseled their sound down further, to mixed reactions. For fans who felt they were left grasping at what wasn't there, the disappointment of hearing the band stumble over an aesthetic they once owned completely was compounded by the strength of the album’s lead single. Only on "Angels" did the band’s decision to scale back also manage to amplify what they chose to leave standing.
"Angels" is a simple, beautiful song about days that end too soon melting into a relationship that continues to grow stronger. Like "VCR" before it, it makes the plunge into love feel both momentous and natural, a big moment rendered in real terms: "With words unspoken, a silent devotion/ I know you know what I mean." But there are also the drums, the first live percussion to appear on an xx track. At the time they signaled the band's measured diversification of its sound, but now they resonate purely as an example of how so much can be said with so little. Four thumps of the bass drum and a tap of the hi-hat; four beats of the heart and a ripple. --Jordan Sargent
76.
"Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?"
[Hinge Finger]
If you're looking for more evidence of Europe's advanced cultural standing-- to go along with universal health care, advanced literacy rates, and elBulli-- consider that the continent's club-goers chant along to Blawan's insidious, very not-pop "Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage" when it hits the decks. And it hit the decks a lot in 2012, as European DJs rediscovered a love of hard, concrete-mixer techno. The genius of "Bodies" is that it relies on a presumably schizophrenic and murderous narrator asking why there are so many dead people under his house, and the audience response goes something like: "Wheeeeeeee!" The track is dark like the Misfits are dark: fully committed, but goofy; stupid, but clever. It's "ha ha"-scary and totally engaging. "Bodies" follows last year's incredible Brandy-jacking "Getting Me Down", and has made Blawan cagey about being labeled a "vocal" producer. He shouldn’t be. The song is so punchy and fun that it's difficult to tell if the shrill, horror-movie screams that punctuate it are the narrator's victims or just Blawan's own deranged followers shouting his mania back at him. --Andrew Gaerig
75.
"Werkin' Girls"
[Noizy Cricket!! / Biz 3 / True Panther]
It's never been easier for promising rappers outside of the hip-hop establishment, like Angel Haze, to find an audience. But it's just as easy for them to find themselves in reductive trend pieces. Are you rapping while female? Rapping while queer? Doing either while signing to a major? It's exposure, yes, but it can also set an artist up for dismissal. Haze checks all these boxes, but she's mostly managed to escape being stuffed into them. Partly, it's timing; her first mixtape, King, came out last year and saw her dismantle male-gazing tracks like Lil Wayne's "How to Love" and Jamie Foxx's "Fall for Your Type", not with the expected fierceness but earnest sincerity. "Werkin Girls", by contrast, is all boast, but Haze can back it up. The beat shakes and stalks, but it's got no chance of keeping up with Haze, who roars through like (as she says) Rambo, a tractor, a cheetah; a dervish of polyrhythmic triple-time virtuosity concluding in a couple jaw-dropping lines (most quotable: "like a preteen boy in a church with a pastor"). It'd be a commanding display from anyone, new or not. "I am multifaceted, bitch," Haze says. It should be her rallying cry. --Katherine St. Asaph
74.
"Baby"
[4AD]
Ariel Pink does serious, but he doesn't do it straight. So maybe Donnie & Joe Emerson's "Baby" was the perfect cover choice for him and his Haunted Graffiti, a love song that goes down smooth until you notice the chorus: "Ooh, baby/ You're so baby." Even in the original, it's hard to tell when sincerity ends and when the ear-flicking begins-- the first chorus glides into a verse about moonlit sex on the beach against a splashing tide. Pink's version is still something that you could play for your parents: it's fit for slow dances under the stars and soft smiles. But the singer twists the lovingly delivered boyish sweetness, nudging you in the ribs with a tossed off cackle, backing vocals that nod to the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You”, and a few ad-libs at the end that are obviously just exaggerated sex noises. Hate on the irony if you must, but I like to think the Emersons are somewhere having a laugh. --Jordan Sargent
73.
"Bandz a Make Her Dance (Remix)" [ft. Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz]
[Kemosabe / Columbia]
"Bandz a Make Her Dance" first popped up as a bonus track on the dubiously advertised "deluxe" edition of Juicy J's Blue Dream and Lean mixtape, and the remix appears to be a haphazard consolidation of 2012's most abundant surplus items: Juicy J songs about strip clubs, goofy self-promotion from 2 Chainz, medicated-sounding Lil Wayne guest verses. But the fact that this is a legitimate radio hit is cause for celebration; rap has reached a point where Juicy J can be welcomed as an ignoble elder statesman rather than the guy who was sadly clinging to post-Oscar quasi-celebrity. Mike Will Made It's gorgeously vacant beat serves as a liaison between Three 6 Mafia and their syrup-sipping lineage of the Weeknd and A$AP Rocky; the key is how it avoids the physical conflict of the former and the emotional conflict of the latter as if to remind us throwing stacks of money in a strip club can be fun. "You say no to drugs, Juicy J can't" was the slogan that basically rebooted the guy's career and here, he can't say no to irresistible chants and extravagant spending, either. --Ian Cohen
72.
"Destiny" [ft. Pional]
[Permanent Vacation]
This is what John Talabot does: he releases big tracks about big topics meant to be played during big hours. Like Japandroids or Daft Punk or anyone else who trades in anthems, Talabot understands that simplicity is king. There is no sleight of hand; crystalline production aids "Destiny", never allowing any one element to disappear. Lots of producers use easy structures like this, but Talabot's are so delineated and friendly that it's like having a tour guide, someone who offers perfunctory but helpful commentary. "Destiny"'s every looped vocal refrain, on-the-nose bass drop, and tumbling, glittery climax prop up the song's lyrical conceit. Because when you're attempting to riff on sunshine or destiny, it's best to stash the parlor tricks and allow listeners to get swept away in the big ideas. --Andrew Gaerig
71.
"Lupine Dominus"
[In the Red]
The 25 seconds of treble that open "Lupine Dominus" may sound like a test tone, but it's far from static. Instead, it whirrs and shakes like a horse ready to burst through a starting gate, and once Thee Oh Sees launch into a motorik, Can-on-speed groove, "Lupine Dominus" certainly feels like some kind of race. Unhurried, sinister chants from John Dwyer and Brigid Dawson add moments of eerie calm, but the rest of the song is an exhilarating storm of searing organ, zippering guitar, and caffeinated drums. It's a simple collection of sounds, but together they're almost too big to contain, spilling with enough energy and noise to fill an entire album. It's yet another Thee Oh Sees song that could beat any other band in a sprint, but also has the stamina to finish a marathon. --Marc Masters
70.
Four Tet
"Pyramid"
[Fabric]
With Four Tet's 2008 Ringer EP, Kieran Hebden started making a concerted move toward incorporating techno and house influences into the earthy, free-jazz IDM he perfected on Rounds. It was and is a gradual incorporation, and it made a lot of sense: both styles are rooted in epiphany through rhythm. The new approach came to fruition on 2010's There Is Love in You, and Hebden has continued in this vein since, showing that he's equally at home with 4/4 kicks and vocal loops as he is sifting through gamelan music and Alice Coltrane LPs.
Taken from this year's singles compilation Pink, "Pyramid" finds Hebden pitch-shifting and slowing down the phrase "I remember how you walked away" (grabbed from the 2002 Jennifer Lopez single "Ain't It Funny") until it sounds like the ghost of an old bluesman. Around it, he gradually erects a track inspired by piston-pumping Detroit techno, and the nine-syllable phrase eventually loses context and turns into a hypnotic elegy of lovelorn rumination, like the simple samples driving "Love Cry" and "Angel Echoes". Since his earliest Four Tet experiments more than a decade ago, Hebden has always freely mixed the cerebral with the visceral, and on "Pyramid," in the midst of ecstatic rhythmic movement, he crafts an ode to fixation. --Eric Harvey
69.
"Wut"
[Greedhead / Camp & Street]
"Wut" was the intersection of a ton of Le1f's priceless don't-give-a-fuck attitudes: out-and-proud queerness ("I'm getting light in my loafers/ And I stay getting life 'til life's over"), web-culture weirdness (the video's oiled-up, Pikachu-masked bros begged for Tumblr GIFs, and got them), battle-rap button-pushing ("I make a neo-Nazi kamikaze wanna firebomb"), and styles upon styles upon styles (his second-verse doubletime is berserk). Set it all to one of the most insistent beats of the year-- all morse-code sax blats and handclaps and Suzuki Samurai-overturning bass, indelibly chiseled into your forebrain by the eighth bar-- and that title's implied question turns into a definitive answer. --Nate Patrin
68.
"Goooo"
[Warp / Luckyme]
This summer, Montreal producer Lunice told Interview that one goal for TNGHT, the self-titled EP he'd just released with Glasgow beatmaker Hudson Mohawke, was to emphasize simplicity. Radio hits were too busy, he insisted, and he wanted these five tracks to be clean blasts: direct, discrete, delirious. To that end, "Goooo" uses a half-dozen elemental components, from a soul clap and en masse chants to low-end throb and beginner melodic progressions. By design, you've heard all of this before, maybe even on the FM dial. But the duo stacks these basics with purpose, so that the dogmatic shouts of "go" arrive early in the crests between the quaking bass, or so that the boot-stomps arrive when the handclaps don’t, reminding you that you're responsible for two sets of limbs when you're on their dancefloor. There's nothing extraneous or foreign here, nothing that will thwart a rendezvous with this song's incredible momentum. In a year where many of electronic music's most-buzzed artists re-envisioned the roles of bass, voice, and hooks, "Goooo" works because it so perfectly executes its fundamentals and trusts in them entirely. --Grayson Currin
67.
"How Long Have You Known"
[Captured Tracks]
If you've caught Zachary Cole Smith's band live, you've likely been struck by the frontman's personal styling and on-stage body language, which forms an eerily accurate impersonation of Kurt Cobain circa late 1992, right down to the bleached blonde pageboy cut and the guitar neck throttling. And while DIIV's debut album Oshin doesn't sound anything like Nirvana, its standout track "How Long Have You Known" does sound like something Kurt might have liked. It's songwriting basic and indelible enough that an amateur guitarist could probably figure it out in an afternoon, and its melody resembles those of the Raincoats and Half Japanese: the hook is naively simple, but almost impossible to shake. --Miles Raymer
66.
"Stay Schemin'" [ft. Drake and French Montana]
[Maybach]
No one's ever sung as horribly as French Montana does on the chorus to "Stay Schemin'". It is an insult to the idea of singing, a mockery of the notion that the human voice can be used to produce musical sounds. The hook itself is a decomposed corpse of Kurtis Blow's "Daydreamin," washed up on a city shoreline nearly unrecognizable years after Nas had already defaced it. It’s the most corrupted rap sound of the year, which is also why it made the perfect theme song for the Untouchable Maybach Music Empire in 2012. I'm betting that in years to come, popular memory will confuse "Stay Schemin" as the single off of Ross' God Forgives, I Don't; there’s no way a song this influential and ubiquitous-- the song that unleashed the glorious confusion that was the word "fanute" into the world-- was just given away. But placing "Stay Schemin'" at the tail end of the 20-track-long Rich Forever was in perfect keeping with Ross's Bond-villain economics: Spend it now, there will always be more. --Jayson Greene
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65.
"Wet Blanket"
[Sub Pop]
The descriptors that come to mind when you hear Metz' debut LP are harsh ones: pummeling, loud, ferocious, brutal. A cursory listen to "Wet Blanket" confirms those adjectives ("We try to take everything we do and make it redline," said frontman Alex Edkins earlier this year.) But instead of laying out a continuous and merciless assault over the song's full four minutes, Metz temper their attack here by establishing some calm. More than a minute of the track is dedicated to a repetitive churn, a cool down from the aggression. They gradually pick up energy, and, right at the song's climax, drop a primal scream, launch the volume back into the red, and bash through to the finish, demonstrating a spot-on sense of pacing and a masterful utilization of contrasting elements. --Evan Minsker
64.
"In The Same Room"
[Rvng Intl.]
With its frosty synths and perky drum machine, "In the Same Room" initially sounds like a standard bedroom electronic pop song, but it doesn't behave like one for long. Rather than building verses and choruses, Holter structures her lyric as an oblique dialogue between two unidentified characters, with each sung line knotting back upon itself until it becomes unclear which voice is speaking: "In this very room, we spent the day and looked over antiquities/ Don't you remember? Do I know you?" These multi-layered vocals produce an alluring daydream haze, yet sound slightly unsettling, as though we’re eavesdropping on a whispered conversation between two spirits in a haunted hotel suite. Holter's subtle arrangement effectively mirrors the song's quiet drama as a harpsichord line tiptoes past and then discreetly exits through another door. Through it all, Holter balances the song's pop leanings and her avant-garde atmospherics with a touch as light and measured as the brushstrokes on an heirloom cameo portrait, miniature in size but not in its residual impact. --Matt Murphy
63.
"Constant Conversations"
[Columbia]
If you could manipulate space and time-- maybe nudge the earth slightly off its axis-- "Constant Conversations" would be a fine comeback single for Justin Timberlake. The sultry R&B ballad is the most affectionate and graceful song Passion Pit's Michael Angelakos has recorded yet, the one where he quiets his brain's beehive hum enough to fall into a legitimate groove. But while a perfect match sonically, there's little chance J.T. would offer up his gin-binging insecurities as Angelakos does here: "I never want to hurt you, baby/ I'm just a mess with a name and a price/ And now I'm drunker than before they/ Told me drinking doesn't make me nice."
The song details a guilty plea for forgiveness from Angelakos’ girlfriend after spending too many blurred nights out with the wrong crowd. He even gives these fair-weather hangers-on a voice: When fans sing the track's seemingly optimistic "oh oh oh" hook back to him in concert, they're playing the part of the villain-- the casually destructive forces who only "love you when they need you." So what appears at first to be a moment of respite is more like an exorcism, an endless reminder of mistakes made. --Ryan Dombal
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62.
"73 - 78 (Beck Remix)"
[Kora / Ernest Jenning / Orange Mountain]
During the period Beck covers in this lively extended fantasy on Philip Glass' mid-70s music, the composer had survived finishing the minimalist monument Music in Twelve Parts and was starting to loosen his harmonic tie. This gives Beck more to work with than just rippling arpeggios and while it would have been easy to slip into beat-driven remix mode he exercises considerably more imagination. It's a strange algebra that makes Philip Glass equal the Field times Animal Collective, but that's about what Beck works out in his cool-headed romp through the urban jungle, soulful and pensive and desolate at abrupt turns. It's so much Beck's own that the passages that remain truest to Glass’ works (check in around the 13-minute mark) seem somewhat incongruous when they crop up. Instead of embalming a so-called minimalist's influence, Beck hears the music as something vibrantly alive and repays it in kind, with the kind of cheeky-sincere mojo he's been missing for a while. --Brian Howe
61.
"110%"
[PMR]
Most of Jessie Ware’s full-length debut, Devotion, found her exploring the edges of soulful pop music but on "110%", the UK singer trained her focus on bubbly, even-keeled house. And she gave unrequited lovers a new theme song while she was at it. The Julio Bashmore-produced track is easily her LP's most understated offering. When she quietly pines, "I know you hear me, but can you reach me/ Feel free to touch me, and we can play hard," each airy nuance of her vocal melody imbues the stripped-down production's quiet radiance with a potent desire. We all know what she's looking for. Ware's song is about needs and wants, the yearning that inundates sidewalks, workplaces, bars, and dancefloors in unspoken passion. So when she closes with, "I'm still dancing on my own," it feels less like a coy request for a dance partner and more like a mission statement for those content to step to their own rhythm. --Patric Fallon
60.
"Nautilus"
[Moshi Moshi]
Anna Meredith boasts the bona fides of a promising young British composer: She's written for the National Youth Orchestra, had her work performed in Royal Albert Hall, served frequently with the BBC and earned raves from the European press. She's also as maximalist as Skrillex. "Nautilus", the triumph that leads her debut *Black Prince Fury *EP, initially suggests an intriguing hybrid of György Ligeti, Steve Reich, and John Philip Sousa. Horns march high and low, ecstatically pulsing with the help of violins. The rhythms blur, counterpoint lines nesting inside of one another. And then there's the drop-- a brutal-given-the-context bassline that swivels with the brass above a simple drum beat, left standing still so as to emphasize the intricacy and insanity of what's happening overhead. "Nautilus" could run the risk of painting Meredith into a corner of gimmickry, where the composer is more interested in appealing to the kids with splashes of relevancy than by turning old ideas on their mortal heads. But remember those mammoth antecedents, and listen for the way Meredith treats these five minutes like a tiny symphony, full of foreshadowing and returns and interwoven motion. Also, listen for the drop. --Grayson Currin
59.
"Ode to Viceroy"
[Captured Tracks]
A handful of songs have completely changed my relationship to a word. I hear the name "Loretta" and my in my head I sing it like Stephen Malkmus and add the word "scars"; I mentally draw "sycamore" out into 10 syllables, Bill Callahan-style; "sabotage" brings Ad-Rock's adenoidal whine into my consciousness. This year, I received another contribution to my music-induced linguistic imprinting in the form of Mac DeMarco's "Ode to Viceroy". For the rest of my days, regardless of context, I'll be hearing the word "Viceroy" set to DeMarco's profoundly simple two-note melody, a melody that makes it sound like two notes is all anyone ever needs. The man can economize; he knows what it means to try just hard enough to get the job done. The song that follows that initial word is loose and groovy, a blurry little super 8 film that's sort of a paean to his favorite smoke but really more about a vibe, something you screw in like a red lightbulb. It starts with the sun coming in and ends as "it's getting later." Nothing much happens in between during this little movie, but you never want to look away. --Mark Richardson
58.
"Fineshrine"
[Last Gang / 4AD]
The Edmonton electro pop duo Purity Ring's song titles sound like things kids would say ("Amenamy", "Obedear", "Saltkin") and vocalist Megan James emotes with a childlike lilt full of wonder. Live, they surround themselves with shining lamps that hover like sprites and colorful globes that light up when they're hit with a drumstick, but James' lyrics about glimmering guts, dead voices, and piles of bones complicate the duo's fairyland. On "Fineshrine", she sings incisive directives like, "Cut open my sternum and pull/ My little ribs around you." The way James combines and playfully blurs words here is reminiscent of a poet like e.e. cummings, and her deliberate pacing lands like verse, too. Surrounding those cadences with equally inventive sounds, Corin Roddick constructs fantastical instrumental backdrops that feel like tiny, pulsing creatures. It's a song about loving someone so much you want to move into their chest cavity and build a shrine-- the year's most committed love story as well as an addictive dose of solitary, stay-at-home dance music. --Brandon Stosuy
57.
"Big Beast" [ft. Bun B, T.I. and Trouble]
[Williams Street]
"Big Beast" displays almost none of the qualities that made Killer Mike's* R.A.P. Music* his critical breakthrough: It's about as nuanced, humane, and political as a tire iron to the skull. But if there's anything subtle about this track, it's that it never really calls attention to how every one of Mike's explosive exclamations ("pow, motherfucker, pow!") is the sound of a barrier being kicked down. Killer Mike, Bun B, and T.I. on an El-P beat, and it's released by a subsidiary of Cartoon Network? That sort of thing would've never happened even five years ago. So it’s fitting that "Big Beast" works as a revolutionary call-to-arms, envisioning a future where rappers are judged not by their label associations, but by their ability to make dystopian bangers. --Ian Cohen
56.
"Beautiful Son"
[Mexican Summer]
"Beautiful Son" is a tribute to the newborn son of Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis, the Wisconsin couple who make up Peaking Lights, and it's a touching expression of new discovery. The fact that it's built around interlocking parts that circle in place feels just right. It creates a humble, understated innocence for Dunis' words (“My blueberry eyes/ Full of love for life/ Can’t set his feet/ Through starry skies”) to bask in, causing the whole track to radiate an uncommon warmth. Discussion of this band often centers on their use of dubby, low-end textures, but lightness and grace dominates here. There's no clutter, no fuss, and not a single part feels like it shouldn't be right where it is. Each element locks tightly together to etch out its sweetly uncomplicated sentiment. --Nick Neyland
55.
"Do You"
[RCA]
…as in "Do you like drugs?," which is the only information Miguel wants to know about you. He promises "matinee movies, morning secrets, midnight summers, swim private beaches," and a whole run of clichéd activities that sound clichéd precisely because he's never actually done them. What he has done is drugs-- and he would like to do you like drugs, too, which is to say compulsively, vigorously, and until you're all gone.
Miguel takes the luxurious tempo of a ballad, but the drum tics and guitar flourishes all work in doubletime-- the twitchy hands of the undernourished and chemically overstimulated. Now he wants to dance real close, and you let him, because you like drugs too, so you believe him when he confesses his fears, but understand that his is the love song of someone who has no idea what love is-- vulnerability at its deepest and irony at its highest. It's a character sketch that puts Miguel in league with writers like Frank Ocean, but also with people like Chris Owens, formerly of Girls, whose disaffected subjects often take a lot more than they've learned to give. What people like this want is to be cradled and nurtured through the dark night of their soul. What they need is a glass of cold water, a good squeeze on the shoulder, and their cab fare. --Mike Powell
54.
"Husbands"
[Pop Noire]
We were introduced to London's Savages through a series of electrifying black-and-white live videos that evoke the claustrophobic so vividly they could pass for outtakes from Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic, Control. Ten months later, the circumstances couldn't have been more different, as the group performed their single "Husbands" amid the bright coloured lights of the "Later... With Jools Holland" stage.
But if Savages appeared decidedly out of place on a program that also featured Mumford & Sons, Lisa Marie Presley, and Neil Sedaka, "Husbands" tapped into feelings to which most of the show's national viewing audience could no doubt relate: middle-class ennui, and the exhausting effects of unfettered materialism. Where Gang of Four famously equated bad romance with faulty products, "Husbands" goes one further, with singer Jehnny Beth tossing her various paramours onto the trash heap along with the rest of her unwanted junk. "Husbands" indulges your desire to escape your surroundings while deviously reinforcing the reality of being trapped in them: those shocks of noise that intrude upon the song's steely bass like a jackhammering construction crew outside your bedroom window at 7 a.m. on a Sunday. --Stuart Berman
53.
Rhye
"The Fall"
[Polydor / Seven Four / Innovative Leisure]
"I'm just attempting to express love and sensuality in a very honest way." That's Rhye's Mike Milosh discussing how his songs stand in contrast to how love and sex are often portrayed in modern music. On "The Fall", the first single from the new project, you could hear romantic sentiments, lush string arrangements, and muted horn stabs that could've been ripped from a vintage Bacharach and David song, but it never approaches schmaltzy or melodramatic territory. This is quiet, soulful music dripping with atmosphere, and Rhye anchor the song's airy leanings with a firm beat. In a soft, androgynous voice, Milosh sings phrases that cut right to the point: "Make love to me." "Why can't you stay?" --Evan Minsker
52.
"Serpents"
[Jagjaguwar]
Sharon Van Etten wrote "Serpents" in secret. A friend had given her an electric guitar, but she didn't have much faith in her playing, so she squirreled away a batch of stormy songs and didn't bring them out until years later, when she was recording her third album, Tramp. While she's made her name with carefully paced, emotionally harrowing indie-folk songs and performances so quiet they become loud, "Serpents" is Van Etten at her wisest and boldest. The track's barbed guitars whip and tangle around her as the singer turns that delicate folk-singer voice of hers into a pained, angry, accusatory howl. She spits her lyrics like venom: "You enjoy sucking on dreams, so I will fall asleep with someone other than you." It's an uncharacteristic tune that finds her at her most fearless. --Stephen Deusner
51.
"Backseat Freestyle"
[Interscope]
Kendrick Lamar's portrayal of youthful braggadocio and naïveté draws lines between pills and fast cars, gunplay and chemical tendencies, physical force and sexual desirability. His character is a preteen indulging adult vices, wielding a youthful sense of immortality like a pick-up line for the whole world. "All my life I want money and power," he reckons in the hook, before returning to three increasingly fierce verses that detail his drive for those tangibles. Lamar delivers these proclamations over a Hit-Boy beat that has no such ambitions; rather than surge into a chorus or redirect the motion into a high-energy sprint, the producer lets the bass throb monotonously around a simple percussive patter. In essence, he hands Lamar the keys to the Maserati: "Vroom, vroom! I'm racing." --Grayson Currin
50.
[Atlantic / Big Beat / Company 10]
Every single line of this dive-bombing electro-pop breakup burst is shouted in unison by Icona Pop's Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo, as if the two Swedish singer/DJs were jumping up and down on tiptoe. Because ultimately, "I Love It" isn't just a glorious dancefloor fuck-you to an ex-boyfriend. It's also a celebration of the liberating power of female friendship and 2012's answer to "Since U Been Gone". Throwing that ex's shit into a bag and pushing it down the stairs is always exhilarating, but it's even more fun with your BFF. And in a year in which the War on Women intensified on every front, from politics to the blogosphere to the continued existence of Chris Brown, we needed as much of this kind of camaraderie as we could get. --Amy Phillips
49.
"Turn On The Lights"
[Epic / A1 / Free Bandz]
No artist this year made a virtue of their flaws like Atlanta rapper Future. His lyrics simultaneously raised and lowered the bar for spur of the moment profundity as his hook-laden yet tone-deaf emphysemic mutterings nestled into the cracks between rap and R&B, while Auto-Tune choruses left him sounding like gloriously damaged goods. Somehow, this alchemic combination makes him a consummately relatable and vulnerable everyman, lost in a world of paranoia and fleeting glory.
It works brilliantly on his exuberant anthems, but even better on pseudo-ballads like "Turn on the Lights", where, addled by drink and drugs and thwarted desire, he searches in vain for the ideal girlfriend. His guttural exhortations may sound spontaneous, but the gravity of his task is underscored by an involuted arrangement courtesy of Mike WiLL Made It, featuring plaintive, harpsichord-like synth arpeggios that embrace spectral gothic choirs, wordlessly dooming the rapper's quest. Future himself, lost in third-hand idealizations of the perfect woman and torn between boastful fantasy ("I wanna tell the world about you just so they can get jealous") and remorseful realism ("If you see her 'fore I do, tell her I wish that I met her…"), somehow knows he doesn't deserve the prize, and it's that undercurrent of deflated wistfulness that makes "Turn on the Lights" as loveable as it is startling. --Tim Finney
48.
"Nova"
[self-released]
Collaborations between Four Tet and Burial are beginning to feel like something we can look forward to on a semi-regular basis. "Nova" wasn't met with the high-profile enthusiasm of the pair's star-powered 2011 release with Thom Yorke, but the lack of promotional push reflects the unassuming nature of the track, with the pair working loose ideas around house-y piano stabs and itchy beats that bear hallmarks of their prior work. It's fun to guess at who did what on these types of collaborations, but here the distinction is blurred, perhaps highlighting an inevitable consequence of two distinct artists becoming more comfortable working with one another. The word "mystery" is often invoked when discussing Burial, but his alliances with Four Tet progressively represent the work of someone who's figuring out how to adapt to a new space in public view. It's hardly the equivalent of either artist laying their whole process bare, but "Nova" does feel like the subtle twist of a lens that's bringing a bigger picture into focus. --Nick Neyland
47.
[Warp]
Whether it's the Yellow House, Veckatimest island, or the endless stream of faraway places that populate Ed Droste's Instagram, Grizzly Bear seem to thrive on isolation. Shields opener "Sleeping Ute", with its grey hills, dark visions, and dizzying awakenings, conjures up just such a disengagement from the juxtaposed glass condos and vinyl-sided shacks of the band's Brooklyn home. Fragile and earthbound one minute, towering and otherworldly the next, "Ute" feels like an escape; a few shaky seconds in, Daniel Rossen's guitar crashes through the seawall, and a flood of drums and a shimmering undercurrent of keys pour from the fissure. "Ute" finds Rossen mired in conflict; he wants to stay but he knows he can't, and so, with a heavy heart, off he goes. But Rossen's solitudinous streak can't keep the sweeping "Ute" from feeling like an invitation, drawing you deep into Grizzly Bear's weird world. --Paul Thompson
46.
"I Bought My Eyes"
[In The Red]
Even though you know the punch is coming, you're not quite sure how to brace for it. Ty Segall and Mikal Cronin spend the first 40 seconds of "I Bought My Eyes" harmonizing ethereally, singing what sounds like a traditional folk song over guitar tones that seem ready to give out any second. Then, Emily Rose Epstein's drums strike and never stop pummelling as the verses slowly disintegrate into a punishing run-through of the coda riff with brief intermissions for Segall to mangle his strings. As the coda returns and cycles back around repeatedly, along with a squealing, sidewinding, anti-solo, the power gains fury with each passing run. "I Bought My Eyes" represents a heavier, more visceral side of Segall, and it's solid evidence that he's beginning to set his sights on unlimited musical destinations. --Martin Douglas
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45.
"Hey Jane"
[Double Six / Fat Possum]
Leave it to Jason Pierce to release a nine-minute single filled with character-study lyrics, choir-like backing vocals, and an extended epilogue, and still make it feel more like two-chord garage rock than "Layla"-style bombast. "Hey Jane" could rightfully be called epic, but it's as grounded as it is soaring, with its repetitive chords and driving bass closer to kraut groove than symphonic rock. The first half is gritty and basic, with Pierce doling out lyrics about a "troubled soul" who "hit the fast lane" and would "run so fast you get no place." But he reinvents these tropes through his aching, world-weary delivery, which can make even the hoariest sentiments sound worthy of re-examination. Then everything collapses into silence, and the song comes back even simpler and stronger, chugging toward the heavens like Jane inevitably will ("Hey Jane when you gonna die?/ Live life like a butterfly"). But between gloomy predictions and self-conscious references, the rest is all about repetition. At the end, Pierce and his choir's chants of "sweet heart, sweet light" disintegrate triumphantly, like the embers of fireworks falling to the ground. --Marc Masters
44.
[Tri Angle]
In the great tradition of 1980s UK electro pop duos, from Yazoo to Eurythmics, AlunaGeorge unite a strikingly voiced female singer/songwriter with an era-embracing male producer. While on paper they scream focus-group wet dream, there's more at work in their breakthrough single than cultural trainspotting. A passing listen might mistake Aluna Francis' tone as saccharine-sweet, even childlike, but a lean-in reveals a curl of her lip. "If you want to train me like an animal/ Better keep your eye on my every move," she warns, eyebrow arched. With a hook so pop it hurts, George Reid could've easily delivered up a wrinkle-free backdrop but he instead presents a gently warping collage of post-dubstep wobble and R&B trills and chimes. They're tempering the obvious, proudly of-the-times while nudging things forward. --Ruth Saxelby
43.
[Sub Pop]
"The bliss I found in ignorance/ A slow burning of Icarus," was one of the most evocative couplets to grace a troubled love song this year, but it's a small measure of just how much this band has grown since early singles "Jail La La" and "Bhang Bhang I'm a Burnout". The old energy of those songs is still very much present, but it's now tempered with crimson and clover. "Lord Knows" fairly towers above those old fuzzy rockers and dream pop studies, and the windswept apology of its chorus rings with conviction as it rises. Dum Dum Girls make very fine albums, but End of Daze is the second suggestion that they may just be masters of the EP format; here, they've struck a near-perfect balance of fast and slow, hard and soft, light and shadow, filling 18 minutes with as much drama and complex emotion as possible. "Lord Knows" is the way in-- a song about being afraid to fall in love and realizing, too late, that the self-defeating fear is hurting someone else most. --Joe Tangari
42.
"Jump Out"
[Maybach]
Imagine someone older who grew up thinking that the purpose of music was to offer relaxation and illuminate beauty. Imagine this person is maybe a little narrow minded, a little conservative, a little worried that younger people are dragging the world into gutter. Imagine that this person has had very little contact with rap music but assumed before they'd even heard any that they would hate it, that it was all about guns and violence and drugs and terrible language and general contempt for humanity. When our hypothetical person pictures the worst of what rap music has to offer, they're picturing something that sounds pretty much exactly like Gunplay's "Jump Out".
The towering highlight from his Bogota Rich: The Prequel mixtape is an amoral ode to fucking up everything in sight. The production is an experiment to see how many instruments can be replaced by gunfire. Recurring vocal hooks come from terrorized women shrieking bloody murder. Synthetic string plucks that would normally add tension instead lend an air of grim inevitability. On top of it all is the rapper himself, who seems to be having a very good time inside the mayhem, running down threats and keeping a running log of laws broken, all with boundless energy and professional skill. It's exhilarating to move rapidly back and forth between identifying with Gunplay's character and feeling inside of this hyper-violent and visceral world and pulling back to feel something that approaches shock. --Mark Richardson
41.
"The Full Retard"
[Fat Possum]
Going "full retard," as Robert Downey Jr. warns in Tropic Thunder, is something you should never do. The idea is to give a vulnerable performance that promises the possibility of redemption. But El-P isn't concerned with redemption here. His frantic mind is too filled with images of social and political collapse to hope for deliverance: churches of murder, polluted house speakers, and microchips implanted in skin rage through the rapper's rattled consciousness. "The Full Retard" is full-on apocalypse rap, a hurried dispatch from an underground bunker recorded moments before government agents and zombie armies storm the gates. Part alarm call, part last-will-and-testament, the song is dedicated to those in "the bread line, the prison... your floating whip system." El-P delivers this sermon with a mix of impotent rage and unsettled acceptance, over skittering synths and a percolating beat that counts down with the relentlessness of a terrified heart tapping its final rhythms. --Steven Hyden
40.
"Open Your Heart"
[Sacred Bones]
"Do what you want / Be who you want to be," Nick Chiericozzi begs of a reluctant muse on the title track of the latest Men record. And in urging his crush to shed her hang-ups, he also neatly summarizes his band's recent aesthetic trajectory: Open Your Heart left behind its predecessor's blown-out sound to make room for everything from strummy roots-pop to long, shimmering jams. The song itself isn't the same kind of stylistic curveball but it feels just as radical. The template remains wiry and wired as ever, but the message, conveyed in crisp chord changes and a sing-songy hook, is an undisguised plea for connection. --Hank Shteamer
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39.
"Hands On The Wheel" [ft. A$AP Rocky]
[Top Dawg]
"Hands on the Wheel" is a nonstop succession of bad ideas. It celebrates drunk driving, being too high to feel your own face, mixing uppers with downers, and not giving a fuck. It's also delivered by two of this year's most compelling rap figures and comes wrapped in an insanely catchy chorus that samples Midwest folk-rocker Lissie covering a Kid Cudi song that was produced by Ratatat and featured guest vocals from MGMT. You'd think this would add up to a complete disaster but that hook is golden, and Schoolboy Q, with his breathlessly blunted growl, still sounds rapt by the subject matter, despite his obvious familiarity with it all. --Sam Hockley-Smith
38.
"Flutes"
[Domino]
Hot Chip excel at juxtaposing drippy sentiment and dancefloor nonsense, to the point that any perceived negative aspect of these qualities becomes an immediate positive. So it's only natural that one of their best singles to date features an extra drippy sentiment ("One day you might realize/ That you might have to/ Open your eyes") juxtaposed with dancefloor woodwork ("Work/ That/ In/ Side/ Out/ Side/ Work that more/ Work/ That/ Right/ Side/ Left/ Side") that is aggressively nonsensical. "Flutes" is beautiful, underscoring the versatility of Alexis Taylor's freaks-and-squeaks croon. It also flips the script on Hot Chip's traditional pop-song-dressed-as-dance-song technique: it's a long, arcing dancefloor track, reliant on an insistent kick and cavernous bass, dressed up as pop. That the band drives the action by playing Tetris with Taylor's gibberish makes it all the more theirs. --Andrew Gaerig
37.
"Reagan"
[Williams Street]
Just in case you missed it, 2012 was an election year, and a weird one at that: Super PACs bulked up, liberals wrung their hands, conservatives ignored the numbers. It wasn't pretty. And putting it all in chilling context was Killer Mike's "Reagan", pundit-rap at its finest. Sounding like he's just watched all five seasons of "The Wire" in one marathon sitting, Mike's connection of political dots is equal parts scary and satisfying. In just over four minutes, atop a raging El-P beat, he maps out a persuasive juxtaposition of foreign and domestic policy as they relate to arms-for-hostages, the drug war, racial profiling, the U.S. prison industry, and rap culture's enduring self-destructive streak. It could have easily come across as cynical sermonizing or a whacko's paranoid conspiracy theory, but his heartfelt conviction that providing information to his listeners is a means of fighting back serves as the track's exclamation point. Knowledge is power. --Stephen Deusner
36.
"Inspector Norse"
[Smalltown Supersound / Olsen]
Norwegian space-disco warlock Todd Terje's last fit of brilliance, 2011's "Snooze 4 Love", was a slow-building steamroller that unfurled over eight patient minutes. By comparison, "Inspector Norse" is staccato burst of energy. It starts with a playful thump and wastes no time getting to the song's melodic core, hitting a peak designed to destroy everything around it before retreating back to a sugary modification of that opening thump. The pleasures derived from the song are basic, elemental, and intangible. The narrator of the song's music video says it best: "There are certain types of electronic music that gives me the urge to dance, and I feel I have to dance when I hear it." --Larry Fitzmaurice
35.
"Every Single Night"
[Epic]
When Pitchfork interviewed Fiona Apple earlier this year, she discussed her internet habits, half-bemoaning her desire to find "all the information about everything." This shouldn't be surprising. For an artist whose aesthetic and pace of production decidedly predates the internet era, Apple's concerns with consumptive anxieties seem tailor-made for it. The Idler Wheel opener "Every Single Night" is the album's sparsest track, backed by little more than producer Charley Drayton's music-box celeste plucks. And yet it details the most monumental battle that a creative person (or internet user) must face-- the one with their own brain. "I just want to feel everything," she repeats in the track's coda, stretching the words "I" and "feel" and "everything" to their extremes and seemingly taking a childlike joy in doing so. It turns out "Every Single Night" is more of a ballad than a lament, a love song to consumption and sensation. --Andrew Nosnitsky
34.
"Stay Useless"
[Carpark]
"Life moves pretty fast these days," someone once said. "If you don't stop and look around once in a while, tl;dr." In 2012, reflection's a luxury; at best, when things happen, you've got as many seconds as it takes to come up with 140 characters. So "Stay Useless" finds Cloud Nothings frontman Dylan Baldi kicking around his own head, seeking out the time and space to get his mind right, and offering a running commentary on his own unsettled nature, knowing only one thing: he could use another minute or two. Something's happened to Baldi by the time we arrive at this mid-album Attack on Memory highlight, but what it is isn't exactly clear; he's hardly had the time to process it before sitting down to bash out the song. The searching results in a one-mope-fits-all, power-chord-assisted paean to passivity a la Superchunk's "Slack Motherfucker". It's a soundtrack to your next mental health day, and an examination of a peculiarly modern form of anxiety. --Paul Thompson
33.
"Grown Up"
[Fool's Gold/SCION A/V]
A savvy manipulator of his own mythology, Danny Brown has realized that the crazier he seems, the more traction he gains, fitting in perfectly with the current spell of molly-popping freakazoid MCs. But the other, more submerged aspects of his persona-- music lover, steadfast Detroit representative, nostalgic thirtysomething-- are all immediately present once you venture past the surface of his catalog. "Grown Up" combines all three of these characteristics, evoking the more abstract moods of early 90s hip-hop while recollecting specifics like eating Cap'n Crunch for dinner and skipping out on homework. But the hard times are over now, and Brown's the greatest; shining while his haters are "looking like a sour patch." It's the kind of track only a rapper versed in the schizophrenic history of his genre could execute so well. --Jonah Bromwich
32.
"Everything Is Embarrassing"
[EMI]
Languishing in artist-development purgatory since the age of 14, the now-20-year-old Sky Ferreira's career has been littered with frustrations and false starts. But "Everything Is Embarrassing", the excellent standout from her Ghost EP, possesses the commanding presence of a born-again debut. The song's whirling, roller-rink ambiance, courtesy of producers du jour Dev Hynes and Ariel Rechtshaid, places just the right emphasis on cavernous percussion, kaleidoscopic textures, and the sort of melodramatic lyrics you can imagine shouted during a particularly operatic couples skate ("Hurts so bad, I don't know what you want from me," Ferreira pleads, "You know I'm trying.") Ferreira sounds perfectly at home in the song's gloomy depths. More than anything else she's recorded to date, "Everything Is Embarrassing" holds the promise of a career she can steer on her own terms. It's one of those atmospheric pop bangers that transforms a room and perfumes the air. --Lindsay Zoladz
31.
[Def Jam]
About a week before Frank Ocean appeared on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" to perform this song, he published a now-famous note in which he touchingly professed his love for another man. "Bad Religion" was the most direct expression of his newfound freedom on the world-beating full-length Channel Orange, and the gut-wrenching lyric, "I can never make him love me," is packed right into the already-potent hook. With that, a stunning performance became a transcendent one, and a sublime ballad was gilded with fresh significance. Frank sang steeply and beautifully, strings rushing in as he ascended through the phrase, "If it brings me to my kneeees," the most acute moment of ache in a song pregnant with it. It was among the year's strongest performances and proudest arrivals: pure and heart-wrenching amid a hurricane of commotion and indecipherable chatter. --Corban Goble
30.
"Mercy" [ft. Big Sean, Pusha T and 2 Chainz]
[Def Jam/GOOD]
Some of the year's most ubiquitous words were also among its eeriest and the most difficult to decipher. The stuttered backdrop sample on G.O.O.D. Music's chilling rallying cry goes: "It is a weeping/ And a moaning/ And a gnashing of teeth." Those words, originally recorded by late dancehall artist Fuzzy Jones, have rattled ominously out of car speakers across every city in America for months with such beguiling ferocity that they've become a mysterious cultural force unto themselves. Jones' deeply pained, tongue-twisted patois has helped cultivate a vision of Kanye West's crew as prophetic, leather-clad bandits coming for blood, as opposed to say, the type of guys who rap irredeemable lines like, "Built a house upon that ass-- that's an ass-state." The refrain is salvation in the form of pure terror. --Carrie Battan
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29.
Carly Rae Jepsen
[Boy/Interscope]
Just when we thought the internet had finally shattered the idea of the all-consuming Song of the Summer into a million little niches, along comes this: A perky 26-year-old "Canadian Idol" cast-off masquerading as a moon-eyed teenager managed to get everybody from the U.S. Olympic Swim Team to Colin Powell to Cookie Monster singing along to her mating call. "Call Me Maybe" is weirdly old-fashioned; for one thing, she's asking the guy to actually pick up his phone and call her. (Then again, "Text Me Maybe" doesn't have quite the same ring...) And in the context of the monolithic Euroclub stomp of so many other 2012 mega hits, this song's zinging strings, dinky disco beats, and honest-to-goodness bridge sound almost quaint. It's enough to remind you of a time long ago, when everyone wasn't famous for 15,000 views. --Amy Phillips
28.
"Nothin But Time"
[Matador]
The first 30-something seconds of "Nothin But Time" feel like walking in on a song already well underway, as if there's some encrypted numbers station on which it has always been playing. There's something desperate about it: Who can hear Marshall drawl "I see you, kid, alone in your room," and not imagine her and wizened collaborator Iggy Pop singing to their younger selves? So I think about this manic mantra with its giddy Bowie appropriation and hypnotic empathy and howls of "you wanna live?" and then I think about Moon Pix's pensive "Colors and the Kids", my go-to binge-listen from ages 15 through 17 ("Must be the colors and the kids that keep me alive/ 'Cause the music is boring me to death"), and I am profoundly jealous of my current self. --Rachael Maddux
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27.
[Warp]
People talk a lot about craft when they talk about Grizzly Bear, as though the band is building furniture instead of making music. But the angle works: their songs are not unlike gorgeous buildings, rich with ornamental detail and constructed so that each room leads into another, with new décor and a unique function. "Yet Again" is a marble mansion of a song-- reverberant, beautiful, and slightly chilly. Ed Droste wanders these meticulously kept rooms uneasily, though he's not one to be too specific about the source of his anxiety. Here, he and his partner hide romantic discord from the world and their thoughts from each other, steering around confrontation. Daniel Rossen's guitar plays with the space between them, his big, sharply strummed chords breezing through while drums rumble and electronics nibble at the edges before consuming the noisy coda. Craft is what keeps all those elements so expertly balanced, but it's feeling that make them compelling and lets us feel the ill wind blowing through. --Joe Tangari
26.
[Warp/Luckyme]
The surprise partnership between powerhouse producers Lunice and Hudson Mohawke pulled a door-smashing ambush this year on an unsuspecting bass music scene still wrapping its head around trap. It bum-rushed the summer so authoritatively that Flying Lotus made it the secret weapon of his Pitchfork Festival set; by fall, BBC 6Music's Gilles Peterson got Kendrick Lamar to freestyle over it, and the damn thing nearly knocked the surefooted rapper off his axis. ("That's a monster," he enthused.) The ingredients are deceptively simple: some forceful claps-and-snares interplay; a frantic chop of garage house diva Julie McKnight; fired-up turbine whirs; a fist-pump-provoking tuba riff that stomps like a sumo Godzilla. It captured that same essence that makes people go nuts over Brick Squad atmospherics and translated it into a space-expanding sound that's well on its way to a point beyond the next big thing. --Nate Patrin
25.
"Genesis"
[4AD / Arbutus]
This song lapped at my brain for months before I realized I didn't have a clue what words Claire Boucher was singing. In flashes, I'd catch what I thought were bits about "black dogs" or "bags of hearts." Lyric site guesses range from "playing the deck above" to "I am a vegabond" (sic). Like the more lyrically direct "Oblivion", "Genesis" may be best considered in the context of its video, where Boucher and apparent finalists from "America's Next Top Model: Beyond Thunderdome" cavort through some desiccated landscape, subverting feminine stereotypes like there's no tomorrow (and, by the looks of it, there's not). Here is Boucher, dressed as a schoolgirl and wrapped in a python; there she's standing in six-inch platform wedges, holding aloft a flaming katana-- these festering notions of girlhood and fragility splayed out alongside the trappings of sex and power-- and all I can make out is one word, over and over: "Everything, everything, everything." --Rachael Maddux
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24.
"I Don't Like" [ft. Lil Reese]
[Interscope]
The old cliche about how rap music is the black CNN was never exactly accurate. Rappers, and street rappers in particular, aren't so much concerned with reporting as they are with just publishing. It's more of an Instagram feed than a news feed-- a series of disconnected images without annotation from a demographic that would otherwise go unrepresented in the media. And this is why Chicago teen Chief Keef's rise to become the preeminent gangsta rapper in a city where the murder rate is spiking has been fitting. He does glorify the violence that plagues his community, to be certain, but at the same time he serves as an indictment of the broken system that created it.
Like "The Message" before it, "I Don't Like" is a unrelenting portrait of the young black man pushed to his edge by poverty. But where Melle Mel remained optimistic-- or at least self-aware-- about the world crumbling around him, Keef speaks for a generation that's become completely numb to the decay. There's no explicit commentary in "I Don't Like", no build or release of pain or aggression, just dead-eyed threats and an endless haunting flatness. Producer Young Chop's beat is little more than a two bar melody looped ad infinitum as Keef and rhyme partner Lil Reese rarely break their scowls or their stunted ten-syllable cadence. They don't even muster up enough emotion to hate. They simply don't like. And frankly, that's a lot more frightening. --Andrew Nosnitsky
23.
[Domino]
The simplest song on Dirty Projectors' most straightforward album; Dave Longstreth, for all his furious theoretical machinations, might sigh impatiently at the suggestion that this represents his greatest and most resonant work ever. The melody is so pure and transcendent that if you strip away its signifiers, Bob Marley could have sung it. It is almost certainly the campus-green acoustic-guitar Dirty Projectors song of choice. But "Dance For You" is a simple song only in the sense that it is uncluttered. It's about surrendering to the mystery of momentary joy: "I wanna feel the breath of a force I cannot explain," Longstreth sings, allowing the iron will and overactive imagination that has guided his brilliant band to fall silent for a charmed moment. --Jayson Greene
22.
"I've Seen Footage"
[Epic]
"What's that? Can't tell," MC Ride barks at the top of the first verse of "I've Seen Footage", an aerobic, acerbic highlight from the first of two records Death Grips released in the past eight months. It's actually a valuable question when applied to the band itself, considering the year that the rapper and his drummer/producer partner Zach Hill have had. Labeled as shock-mongers, hucksters, and phonies while at the same time being heralded as the only punk band that matters right now, their mutant-strong brand of noise rap felt defiantly vital in either context. And it was going to take more than some leaked emails and a few other pieces of low-hanging fruit to distract from something as funk-demented as "I've Seen Footage", anyway.
Sounding weirdly like Salt-n-Pepa's "Push It" if it had been performed by boy soldiers, this is not only the most accessible thing on The Money Store, but a token of the band's innate ability to repulse and attract at exactly the same time. Cancerous guitar noises moan like a melted Furby over a panting beat, as Ride freaks out like a kid watching a bootlegged Faces of Death video for the first time. What's actually on the tape? Can't tell, but to resist a peek would be as perverse and difficult as it would be to just give in and stare. --Zach Kelly
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21.
[PMR]
In different hands, this is an easy love song, a gift-wrapped ode to summer romance or a sweaty fling. The genius of the track, though, is how Ware flips the arrangement to create something much darker and more complex. Sure, there's love here, but it's the thorny kind-- the type of relationship that isn't working and both parties know it. "From the outside, everyone must be wondering why we try," Ware sings. They stick it out against their better judgment for the dream of something greater. With warmth and force, Ware vocally commands this tightrope act, expressing a whole range of emotions-- doubt, regret, tenderness, but ultimately, hope-- sometimes all at once. Love songs and sad songs are a dime a dozen, and here Ware raises goosebumps with something so messily in the middle. --Joe Colly
*Photo by Dan Monick
*20. Kendrick Lamar: "Swimming
Pools (Drank)" [Interscope / Top Dawg]
Everybody who's ever picked up a bottle has had to look on down that line-- the one that you step over to go from being someone who drinks to a drinker, from getting buzzed to blacking out, from good times to a blurry, precariously maintained stasis. On an already-conflicted album filled with soul-searching ambivalence, "Swimming Pools (Drank)" comes off like Kendrick Lamar's brightest moment of clarity, a flash of insight where everything that drives people both towards and away from self-destructive habits merges into one bleary-eyed overview of celebratory oblivion.
Kendrick's slippery voice on the verses is enough to pull you away from the message, but when those verses rise out of and then collapse back into the numb, robotic cadence of "pour up, drank/ head shot, drank/ sit down, drank/ stand up, drank/ pass out, drank/ wake up, drank" it draws out sensations of wobbly-footed head swimming and the next day's hangover at the same time. But things really open up once Kendrick gets at why they call it liquid courage. When the peer-pressure hook pushes him over the brink, there's a familiar pathos in the ensuing struggle between his abuse-wary conscience and his urge to ride that tore-up vibe to some level of emotional freedom he might not reach otherwise. But that freedom, it turns out, doubles as a straitjacket. The key goes minor, the beats turn brittle, and the consequences dawn on him: "All I have in life is my new appetite for failure/ And I got hunger pain that grow insane/ Tell me, do that sound familiar?" Maybe, but rarely in a context this deep. --Nate Patrin
*Photo by Erez Avissar
*19. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Only In My Dreams" [4AD]
There was a two-week stretch this summer where I listened to nothing but "Only in My Dreams". The infatuation got so heavy that I started singing it in public without the slightest provocation. It became cripplingly annoying to everyone around me, but I had no shame. The lovelorn beach blanket single from Ariel Pink's Mature Themes is an instant bizarro karaoke classic-- try it sometime, preferably accompanied by tenor and falsetto backing vocals to handle the hook and the bridge. Or do it solo and perfect your best soft British lilt, romantic-cowboy bellow, and tenderhearted slacker. Don't forget to air-strum the 12-string Rickenbacker.
The line on "Only in My Dreams" is that this is Ariel Pink's best blend of the Byrds and Frank Zappa. It aligns him as the unlikely spawn of the Sunset Strip-- the lost tapes from the gifted fuchsia-haired customer at Brian Wilson's Age of Aquarius health food store. But it's more than that. "Round and Round" might have proved once and for all that Pink could write a pop song on par with his predecessors, but "Only in My Dreams" proved that he could do it largely free of irony. It never feels like a put on; he wants the girl, the beach, the ocean, the sing-a-long. We never had so much fun. --Jeff Weiss
18. Nicki Minaj: "Beez in the Trap" [ft. 2 Chainz] [Cash Money / Young Money Entertainment / Universal Republic ]
"Man," she starts. "Man." Nicki Minaj doesn't usually give you this moment of repose, this last chance to turn and run before she opens her mouth and shits on your whole life. Not like you could. You know the second she cocks her head to the side and italicizes that second "man" that you're done, paralyzed by this laconic charisma that makes you realize what John Wayne and the baddest Barb on the playground have in common. It has been well documented that we are all Minaj's sons, but never before has she done Disappointed Dad as scathingly as she does on "Beez"-- her lines pointed, authoritative, terse. Even the roll call at the end of the track is somehow withering. Texas? Miami? Delaware? She's not shouting you out; her flow is straight McKayla Maroney. Nicki has been to your city, she has met with your leaders and your most attractive local news personalities, she has sampled your most beloved regional cuisine, and she is not impressed. --Lindsay Zoladz
*Photo by Kirstie Shanley
*17. Chairlift: "I Belong In
Your Arms" [Columbia]
It's probably pure happenstance, but when Chairlift downsized from a trio to a duo, they wrote one of the best songs about blissful monogamy in recent memory. "I Belong in Your Arms" stands as the true jewel in the crown that is Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimberly's sophomore effort Something, a dizzying rush that takes precisely 10 seconds to hit the ground running. It doesn't look back. Like many of the best love songs, everything you need to know about the message of "I Belong in Your Arms" is right there in the title: I'm here, for you, and nothing else makes sense right now, so just take me.
Lyrically, Polachek runs through a series of love-letter fragments that any 15-year-old would be proud to have scrawled on the back of their spiral notebook: "Swear to God/ Double-knot/ What would I do you if I stole ya?" Then, things get a little weird. "Nothing to say/ Just put my head on your shoulder," Polachek sighs, kicking off the second verse before letting loose a string of half-formed non-sequiturs. Banana split? Remote controller? It all barely makes sense, and why should it? Love is an extreme emotion that makes people feel, say, and do insane shit, from faking their own death to staging a police raid--with helicopters!-- in order to propose their affection. "I Belong in Your Arms" is that heart-popping irrationality-- distilled, bottled, ready for consumption. --Larry Fitzmaurice
*Photo by Ebru Yildiz
*16. Solange: "Losing You" [Terrible]
Upon the release of "Losing You", a question emerged: How much of it was Solange and how much was the doing of producer Dev Hynes? Hynes, fresh off critical acclaim from his Blood Orange work and Sky Ferreira's heartbreak freeze-frame "Everything Is Embarrassing", lent enough of the same wistful chill to "Losing You" that the songs almost sounded like companion pieces.
Solange and Hynes go back a ways-- she'd sung with Blood Orange for quite a while-- and "Losing You" demonstrates why the pairing's brilliant. The intro's a sparkly party with snappy beats and a vocal sample that squeals to greet you. But then the party recedes soon enough behind Hynes' hazy synth pad, as if Solange has wandered off into another, quieter room, while the excitement still crackles in the background. The effect is striking; each sound unsettles the other. Amid all this, Solange is brooding-- her relationship's basically kaput, and her thoughts wander in circles. From a lesser artist, this might be excruciating, but just when the track seems to have exhausted its one trick, the fog clears so Solange can take to the forefront, her lightweight adlibs and suddenly plaintive delivery coming off as a final plea. It's not closure, exactly, but who'd want it to be? --Katherine St. Asaph
*Photo courtesy of Modern Love
*15. Andy Stott: "Numb" [Modern Love]
The threshold between the academy and the dance floor proved to be especially rich territory this year: Between Holly Herndon's mix of thumping radiance and disorienting experiments and Ital's pop-laced, noise-friendly sprees, the terms producer, composer, and arranger commingled in surprising shapes. That's perhaps most true for Manchester's Andy Stott, whose wonderful whisper of a record, Luxury Problems, surrounds adequately propulsive hooks in unexpected layers and moods-- fireside warmth, soul-singing poignancy, and electroacoustic grace, among them.
Stott has often incorporated beautiful voices into his transcendentally mysterious techno, but he one-upped himself for Luxury Problems by using the sound of Alison Skidmore, his childhood piano teacher, as primary source material. Skidmore opens the album's exquisite lead cut "Numb" by repeating the word "touch"; Stott loops her smoky intonation above a web of luminous drone, cutting clips of her voice in and out of the track. He smartly uses a single syllable to create the song's first miniscule rhythm, her iterative linguistic click suggesting the sound of a faucet dripping into a basin of water. A proper beat eventually arrives, but even this throb tucks itself beneath her sampled one-woman choir-- not subservient to Skidmore's beautifully intersecting lines so much as supportive of them, helping push them to several tiny climaxes. Within their collaboration, Stott and Skidmore deflect several binaries-- pop or techno, soul or electronica, composer or performer, producer or arranger, and, more important, to dance or to dream. --Grayson Currin
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14. M.I.A.: "Bad Girls" [self-released]
First issued in abbreviated form on M.I.A.'s Vicki Leekx mixtape just a few months after her divisive 2010 album *///\Y/*, "Bad Girls" dispensed with that album's hypermediated screencap insurrectionism in lieu of a straight pop-rap banger, her most instantly ingratiating single since "Paper Planes". Then, at the top of this year, the track was rightly fleshed out to single length, with producer Danja's beat proudly wearing his mentor Timbaland's influence and blending dancehall stutter-step with touches of Arabic and Indian pop.
The video made a splash of its own. Shot on location by Romain Gavras (of the ginger-assassinating clip for "Born Free") in Ouarzazate, Morocco, the clip features men and women in traditional Arabic garb stunting with souped-up cars on some "Otis" shit. There were political underpinnings, too: in many Arabic societies, a female taking the wheel is a politicized act of civil disobedience. Regardless, Maya's hard as fuck in the video, leading burqa-clad backup dancers and filing her nails while sitting high on the passenger door of a BMW driving on two wheels. Another car-culture anthem from the woman who sampled "Roadrunner" and threateningly thumped on Hummer doors. --Eric Harvey
*Photo by Erez Avissar
*13. Chromatics: "Kill For Love" [Italians Do It Better]
Chromatics mastermind Johnny Jewel favors the noirishly cinematic, 80s-redolent style known as Italo disco. Kill for Love applies Italo's propulsive rhythms and the rich analog synth tones of minimal 80s film scores to a songwriting framework borrowed from classic rock. It's a successful combination, and a sneaky one-- all of the synthesizers and modulated organic sounds make the record read as purely electronic, which allows Jewel to make use of well-worn rock melodic and dynamic blueprints without them coming off as cliche. "Kill for Love" uses the same pattern of build and release that's underpinned an untold number of rock songs, beginning with just a few burbles before dialing up the tension and finally letting it explode in a transcendentally beautiful chorus. It's a deceptively simple and quiet song, with an arrangement that allows it plenty of room to breathe, but it still feels monumental. --Miles Raymer
*Photo by Ebru Yildiz
*12. Miguel: "Adorn" [RCA]
The beat for Miguel's "Adorn" is glittering perfection, a purring retooling of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" so frictionless that the singer just seems to be exulting in having discovered it, or perhaps simply excited to be alone with it for a few minutes. He enters the song with a series of infectious glottal pops and vocal hiccups, like a teenager circling a new car and running his disbelieving hand over the hood. When his voice emerges from behind the wheel, it beams with puppyish joy: Miguel's doing a loverman routine, but he's not pleading. He's just excited for you to find out how good his love will look on you. "These lips can't wait to taste your skin/ And these eyes can't wait to see your grin," are his opening lines, and Miguel lets the anticipation of the song flutter up into his ecstatic, astonishing vocal take, a four-minute mini-aria of giddy butterflies that hovers at the break between his head and chest voice like the surface of a champagne glass. The song's gelatinous thumping bass line is the song's cartoon heartbeat, each pulse sending his voice a little higher into the ether. --Jayson Greene
*Photo by Erez Avissar
*11. Frank Ocean: "Thinkin
Bout You" [Def Jam]
"Thinkin Bout You" traveled a long road before sitting atop one of the biggest breakout albums in recent memory. It first appeared last summer as a bewitching demo that displayed the then-nascent Ocean pushing himself towards the radio with a slinky beat and a creaking falsetto. Then it popped up as "Thinking About Forever", the supposed debut single from Jay-Z protege Bridget Kelly-- a nice gift from Ocean, no doubt, but one that never came close to sticking. It finally appeared anew in March, polished and accented with radiant strings courtesy of Beyonce collaborator Shea Taylor, and took its earned place as one of Ocean's most enduring songs. Maybe it wasn't the track that caused a journalist to float questions about his sexuality, but it's hard not to see "Thinkin' Bout You" at the forefront of a sea change for music. Quietly slipping into rotation next to artists like Trey Songz and 2 Chainz, it was far from the most boisterous song on the dial, but it was the most powerful. Ocean sung softly, but his words ("My eyes don't shed tears, but boy, they bawl/ When I'm thinkin' bout you") rang loud. --Jordan Sargent
10. Jai Paul: "Jasmine" [XL]
While the rest of the music world seems to run at the speed of light, Jai Paul moves at his own pace. "Jasmine" is only his second official single after 2010's "BTSTU", which means he knocks out one classic every other year. The paucity of material has created a fervor: There's a 50 page (!) thread over on this Kanye West forum, where users have traded everything from information on where members of Jai's family work, to a community-curated EP of demos. Even with his limited amount of material, Jai has managed to craft his own language: the combination of quick cuts of silence, gurgling synths, and wah-wah guitar doesn't sound like anything else in music at the moment. In the middle is Paul's feather-soft falsetto, sounding distant as ever, yet grounding things in reality. It's impressive just how distinctly Jai Paul this song is, given that we haven't got much to go on so far.
His disorientating universe hints at deeper trough of material too; it's difficult to imagine that he's arrived at such a spectral place on a first (or second) attempt. "Jasmine" itself suggests something to be discovered, its pleas half-sunk beneath a slowly encroaching funk that finds space between Daft Punk and Dilla. Like "BTSTU", the track is custom made for infinite listens-- its undulations lining up with some ineffable sense of human rhythm-- which, considering his careful rate of productivity, is not only good but necessary. --Hari Ashurst
*Photo by Dan Monick
*09. Fiona Apple: "Werewolf" [Epic]
Fiona Apple's words possess a quality that feels broad and universal while being specific and personal enough that you'd swear she has clairvoyant insight into your failed relationship, your anxious morning, your latest convoluted epiphany. The Idler Wheel's soaring piano ballad "Werewolf" takes the Fiona experience beyond brooding self-pity and moves gently toward self-improvement. "I could liken you to a werewolf, the way you left me for dead/ But I admit that I provided a full moon," she sings, shifting some of the burden to her own shoulders-- and to ours. "I could liken you to a lot of things/ But I always come around/ Because in the end I'm a sensible girl/ I know the fiction of the fix." It's a cathartic lyrical heave that prods your demons and demands you confront them.
But as exacting as those lines can be, "Werewolf" is still about reassurance and understanding that everything will probably be OK, even if you have to rewrite your definition of the word "OK." Apple gets this across with an arrangement that complements her lyrical choices: Like a storied relationship, the music blooms and withers, swaying from a tiny tinker out of a wheezing piano to a full-bodied beast swollen with the sounds of screaming children. "Nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key," she generously explains throughout, and "Werewolf" is proof. --Carrie Battan
*Photo by Liz Flyntz
*08. Beach House: "Myth" [Sub Pop]
"Nothing happens to shatter the perfect surface," The Guardian said in a review of Beach House's fourth album, Bloom. It wasn't meant as a compliment. But that bright, mirror-like surface is what makes "Myth" one of the Baltimore dream-pop band's most powerful songs to date and places it among the purest versions of the enveloping sound they've refined for almost a decade. Of all the qualities you might have guessed this band would develop after hearing only their introverted debut, "authority" had to be near the bottom of the list. But for these four minutes and change, Beach House sound genuinely commanding, tapping into something larger and wiser than themselves. "If you built yourself a myth," Victoria Legrand sings evenly, "you'd know just what to give." The one she built is stocked with texture-- fleeting bliss, sunlight, and flying ashes-- in an evocative language of unblemished blankness and malleability. This is just as it should be. A myth is polished by time and use; it's supposed to shine. --Brian Howe
*Photo by Maciek Pozoga
*07. Tame Impala: "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" [Modular]
More than 40 years after the rise and fall of Syd Barrett, there's no shortage of bands making lysergic-laced psych-rock. The bomb could drop tomorrow and within a few months the cockroaches would probably be writing songs influenced by Magical Mystery Tour. And yet the form isn't fully exhausted; in fact, as Tame Impala proved on the fantastic Lonerism's best track, "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards", this music can still blow your brain back to its most purely joyous and least cynical recesses.
The Australian band's more obvious influences are immediately apparent on first listen: the Lennon-esque whine of Kevin Parker's processed vocal, the ethereal Pink Floyd keyboards, the jazzy Ginger Baker drum fills. But like the rest of Lonerism, "Backwards" is more than a collage of record-collector fetishes. Listen closer and you'll hear the piano loop that kicks the song into the stars, and beyond the woozy drums is an exploratory bassline that never abandons its deep, trance-like groove. Tame Impala's music might be informed by the past, but there's a reason why the group is rarely called "retro". "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards" cherry-picks great sounds and integrates them into a world that only exists in the space of this song; in 2012, few worlds were as inviting. --Steven Hyden
*Photo by Shawn Brackbill
*06. Bat For Lashes: "Laura" [Parlophone / EMI]
"Laura" is an unadorned piano ballad that appears in the middle of Bat for Lashes' The Haunted Man and serves as its raw emotional core. On first approach, the song resembles White Chalk-era PJ Harvey covering John Lennon's "Working Class Hero" and, like the Lennon classic, "Laura" blurs the line between compassion and contempt for its subject: in this case, a girl who's the life of the party but dead inside, a tragic figure oblivious to her own tragedy. But despite its threadbare production, "Laura" is not wanting for added instrumental embellishment. Its air of isolation is crucial to capturing the helplessness and frustration of Khan's narrator, whose pleas are clearly falling on deaf ears.
"Laura" was co-authored by Khan and Lana Del Rey's "Video Games" wing-man Justin Parker. Like the latter song, it subtly transforms languor into splendor, as slowly unfurling verses gradually yield to a spellbinding chorus ("Laura, you're more than a superstar") that initially scans as motivational-speaker sloganeering. But the tremble in Khan's voice delivers those words with bitter disappointment. She knows that, in a time when YouTube novelties can set new standards for pop-cultural consumption and Grammy nominations can be attained through strategic "nourishing," being a superstar just isn't all that. --Stuart Berman
*Photo by Tom Spray
*05. Japandroids: "The House That Heaven Built" [Polyvinyl]
My favorite live moment of the year involved watching a crowd, not a band. It happened during the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. I was checking on something behind the stage during Japandroids' set and when I climbed up the stairs at stage right, I found myself staring at thousands of kids in their teens or early 20s who were singing along to this song's words like they were scripture: "When they love you and they will/ Tell them all they'll love in my shadow/ And if they try to slow you down/ Tell them all to go to hell." Watching that joyful connection brought to mind my original reaction to "The House That Heaven Built". At first, Japandroids reminded me of music and a sensibility from my youthful wanderings: basement shows, photocopied zines, couches you only saw once. But seeing that sing-along made me think about how punk spirit, however you define it, is something that can't be relegated to the past. There will always be rock kids who go to a show wanting to be saved. In 2012, this was their anthem. --Brandon Stosuy
*Photo by Mitch Manzella
*04. Kendrick Lamar: "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" [Interscope]
Kendrick Lamar is part anachronism, part alien, a hood mystic trying to find out what currency creativity still carries in our reblogged world. You see this in "Radio Run", a short documentary that follows Lamar through a press junket a few months before good kid, m.A.A.d. city dropped. It's a portrait of an artist poised between past and future, underground and mainstream, questions and answers. Naturally, everybody was asking about the names he'd recently become associated with: Dre, J. Cole, Lady Gaga. "I love it," Lamar said, with genuine gratitude, "People would probably pay millions of dollars to get these people to back them, but they love my music just like that." When asked who he'd like to collaborate with next, he answered with a sly smile, pointing out the dangers of spreading himself too thin. "It gets corny after a while."
That's the crux of "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe," good kid's early centerpiece and Lamar's clearest statement of purpose: He respects the praise, but he's not trying to make it to the top on anyone's name but his own. And it was almost a very different song. Outspoken Kendrick fan Lady Gaga was slated to sing the hook, but her version was scrapped, reportedly due to behind-the-scenes red tape. And that was lucky. A "featuring Lady Gaga" might have garnered the track more radio play, but when she leaked the demo last month, it was obvious that her glinting presence would have violated the song's first and most crucial commandment: "Sometimes I need to be alone."
"Vibe"'s a quiet menace: its tone is so even and introspective that its insults ("with all disrespect") almost pass right over you. The track's hazily unfurling structure and spiritual devotion to the power of creativity make it feel like a long-lost Aquemini cut; Lamar is a man unashamed to be caught talking souls and muses in public. And yet, never once does it get-- to use his feared insult-- "corny." Lamar's a fearlessly imaginative rapper who can talk about his third eye and mean something more profound than a dick joke. To me, that's amazing. --Lindsay Zoladz
03. Usher: "Climax" [RCA]
In a year where pop icons like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift married their own musical agendas to the moment's most popular sound-- DUBSTEP-- Usher's gurgling collaboration with Diplo is the master class of this modern arrangement. And unlike most other tracks mining this popular vein, "Climax" doesn't rush to the genre-defining-to-the-point-of-parody drop. Instead, Usher and Diplo approach dubstep from another direction, attacking from the subdued James Blake style of sub frequencies. Diplo's chilly, climbing electronic soundscape brings us to the brink without ever fully delivering blind dancefloor revelation, and Usher matches him letdown for letdown, detailing a relationship's crumble with acute poignancy. "Climax" is an unconventional single that boasts conventional strengths-- a memorable bridge, themes of lost love-- put together un-fussily, and performed by one of pop's most enduring personalities. --Corban Goble
*Photo by Erez Avissar
*02. Frank Ocean: "Pyramids" [Def Jam]
If you'd have told anyone at the beginning of 2012 that one of the year's most exhilarating singles would be a 10-minute-long R&B burner with three movements and a scorching John Mayer guitar solo so arena-courting that you can almost hear the hydraulic lift whirring under his feet, they'd probably be all: "Oh, nice-- undiscovered Michael Jackson track?"
Listeners got something much better with Channel Orange, a debut of such unusual quality and breadth that it spawned arguments about which of its songs was actually the standout, or which of a handful of soul, funk, and R&B giants was Ocean's truest inspiration. "Pyramids" makes the case for Ocean as a proto-Prince, its alternately wet and starry arrangements shifting in and out of focus while Ocean expertly piles on verses that sketch out a story of "Cleopatra" through perspectives and eras; first as the revered pharaoh, then as a modern day stripper living under a pimp's watch, then as a lust object, as admired by her powerless boyfriend.
That such an ambitious lyric could succinctly nail the master-and-servant dynamic from so many angles proves Ocean's talent as a storyteller; that he could do so while also shading the word "cheetah" with three different meanings (animal, West Coast strip club chain, adulterer) proves his wit; that all of this happens in a song that's light, hooky, and epic all at the same time explains why folks are losing their minds for him. --Mark Pytlik
*Photo by Erez Avissar
*01. Grimes: "Oblivion" [4AD / Arbutus]
Some songs reveal themselves to you right away; others take time to figure out. When "Oblivion" began circulating as an mp3 in October 2011, certain things were immediately apparent. It was clear that Grimes' music was growing and changing rapidly. Its steely, hyper-minimal beat, layered vocals, and hypnotic, circular melody represented a marked progression from where she'd left off earlier that year with the fine* Darkbloom* EP. "Oblivion" was an in-between kind of song; it sounded both chilly and machine-like but also radiated human warmth and imperfection.
That's how we heard it as 2011 came to a close, and of course, it boded well for her upcoming album, Visions. But as Claire Boucher's star rose in 2012 and Visions racked up plaudits and she found her way into glossy magazines and was seen on late-night TV, "Oblivion" developed a life of its own. The song became a major highlight of Boucher's live sets, which grew wilder and tighter as her crowds and venue capacities increased in size. Part of its beauty is that its meaning was never precisely fixed; the lyrics hinted at dark nights, the threat of violence, the difficulty of finding love and companionship when you can't stay still. But the song was beautifully fragmented and open to interpretation.
"Oblivion" will be remembered in part for its video, which found Boucher cheerfully dancing and singing amid scenes of cartoonish masculinity. "Art gives me an outlet where I can be aggressive in a world where I usually can't be," she told Pitchfork, "and part of it was asserting this abstract female power in these male-dominated arenas." Late this year, she told* SPIN* that "the song's sort of about being-- I was assaulted and I had a really hard time engaging in any types of relationship with men, because I was just so terrified of men for a while." So now the image of walking alone at night and fearing a broken neck could mean something more, something specific. It was information from the artist about where the song came from, but even this knowledge didn't define the song completely, and that's to its considerable credit. "Oblivion" is a shapeshifter, just like its creator, a song with open spaces and hairline cracks in which you can see parts of yourself. And being impossible to pin down kept it sounding fresh and new again and again, each listen feeling a little like the first one. --Mark Richardson
Next:> The text of the full list.
1. Grimes, "Oblivion"
2. Frank Ocean, "Pyramids"
3. Usher, "Climax"
4. Kendrick Lamar, "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe"
5. Japandroids, "The House That Heaven Built"
6. Bat For Lashes, "Laura"
7. Tame Impala, "Feels Like We Only Go Backwards"
8. Beach House, "Myth"
9. Fiona Apple, "Werewolf"
10. Jai Paul, "Jasmine"
11. Frank Ocean, "Thinking Bout You"
12. Miguel, "Adorn"
13. Chromatics, "Kill for Love"
14. M.I.A., "Bad Girls"
15. Andy Stott, "Numb"
16. Solange, "Losing You"
17. Chairlift, "I Belong in Your Arms"
18. Nicki Minaj, "Beez in the Trap" [ft. 2 Chainz]
19. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, "Only in My Dreams"
20. Kendrick Lamar, "Swimming Pools (Drank)"
21. Jessie Ware, "Wildest Moments"
22. Death Grips, "I've Seen Footage"
23. Dirty Projectors, "Dance for You"
24. Chief Keef, "I Don't Like"[ft. Lil Reese]
25. Grimes, "Genesis"
26. TNGHT, "Higher Ground"
27. Grizzly Bear, "Yet Again"
28. Cat Power, "Nothin But Time"
29. Carly Rae Jepsen, "Call Me Maybe"
30. Kanye West, "Mercy" [ft. Big Sean, Pusha T, and 2 Chainz]
31. Frank Ocean, "Bad Religion"
32. Sky Ferreira, "Everything Is Embarrassing"
33. Danny Brown, "Grown Up"
34. Cloud Nothings, "Stay Useless"
35. Fiona Apple, "Every Single Night"
36. Todd Terje, "Inspector Norse"
37. Killer Mike, "Reagan"
38. Hot Chip, "Flutes"
39. Schoolboy Q, "Hands on the Wheel" [ft. A$AP Rocky]
40. The Men, "Open Your Heart"
41. El-P, "The Full Retard"
42. Gunplay, "Jump Out"
43. Dum Dum Girls, "Lord Knows"
44. AlunaGeorge, "You Know You Like It"
45. Spiritualized, "Hey Jane"
46. Ty Segall Band, "I Bought My Eyes"
47. Grizzly Bear, "Sleeping Ute"
48. Burial/Four Tet, "Nova"
49. Future, "Turn on the Lights"
50. Icona Pop, "I Love It"
51. Kendrick Lamar, "Backstreet Freestyle"
52. Sharon Van Etten, "Serpents"
53. Rhye, "The Fall"
54. Savages, "Husbands"
55. Miguel, "Do You..."
56. Peaking Lights, "Beautiful Son"
57. Killer Mike, "Big Beast" [ft. Bun B, T.I., and Trouble]
58. Purity Ring, "Fineshrine"
59. Mac DeMarco, "Ode to Viceroy"
60. Anna Meredith, "Nautilus"
61. Jessie Ware, "110%"
62. Philip Glass, "73-78 (Beck Remix)"
63. Passion Pit, "Constant Conversations"
64. Julia Holter, "In the Same Room"
65. Metz, "Wet Blanket"
66. Rick Ross, "Stay Schemin'" [ft. Drake and French Montana]
67. DIIV, "How Long Have You Known"
68. TNGHT, "Goooo"
69. Le1f, "Wut"
70. Four Tet, "Pyramids"
71. Thee Oh Sees, "Lupine Dominus"
72. John Talabot, "Destiny" [ft. Pional]
73. Juicy J, "Bands A Make Her Dance (Remix)" [ft. Lil Wayne and 2 Chainz]
74. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, "Baby"
75. Angel Haze, "Werkin' Girls"
76. Blawan, "Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage"
77. The xx, "Angels"
78. King Tuff, "Bad Thing"
79. Rich Kidz, "My Life" [ft. Waka Flocka Flame]
80. Baauer, "Harlem Shake"
81. Liars, "No 1 Against the Rush"
82. Schoolboy Q, "There He Go"
83. How to Dress Well, "Cold Nites"
84. Lower Dens, "Brains"
85. Major Lazer, "Get Free"
86. Chief Keef, "Love Sosa"
87. Lotus Plaza, "Monoliths"
88. A$AP Rocky, "Goldie"
89. Jeremih, "773 Love"
90. Daphni, "Yes I Know"
91. Antony & the Johnsons, "Cut the World"
92. King Louie, "Val Venis"
93. Cassie, "King of Hearts (Richard X Remix Edit)"
94. Saint Etienne, "Tonight"
95. R. Kelly, "Share My Love"
96. Merchandise, "Time"
97. Twin Shadow, "Golden Light"
98. Odd Future, "Oldie"
99. Blur, "Under the Westway"
100. Swearin', "Just"
