fuck a$ap but omg fat joe
Best Songs of 2011: 20-11
20. Mornin’ - Star Slinger
fun as shit, mayne, and probably the feel-good song of the year/my lifetime. and if you can’t tell why I love this song just from listening to it, then I sure as hell can’t describe it to you. star slinger can do no wrong.
19. Wilhelm Scream - James Blake
the most out-of-left-field musical experience I had all year. listening to wilhelm scream for the first time is a singular experience. the negative space lulls you into this blearily rapt mind frame- in a haze but totally entrenched in every beat and vocal flourish. even as the song changes from a simple r&b refrain to something more, something layered and complex, the heart of the song is never obscured, giving the listener a clean focal point while chaos reigns around it.
18. Motivation (Diplo Remix) - Kelly Rowland feat. Lil Wayne
hands down the sexiest song of the year. diplo turns the beat on its head and keeps flipping some strange gravity switch that only he knows about. kelly rowland sings like she hasn’t ever before, her voice writhing and moaning all over the track. but it’s the way diplo turns rowland into some club goddess at the end of the song that you really get a sense of just how IN HEAT she is.
17. Honey Bunny - Girls
I honestly can’t begin to count how many times my friends & I have sang or quoted this song to each other. there’s an energy that permeates the room the second someone hits play on this song and it’s because you immediately remember what you are in store for: an abbreviated, but fully formed and endlessly rejuvenating pop-rock jam.
16. How Deep Is Your Love? - The Rapture
for a song about a broken heart, it sure is hella danceable. although this word has been overused about a million times, this song is nothing short of epic. the first three minutes could be a song by itself, setting the stage with a catchy piano line, thumping drums and handclaps everywhere. but after that, when the bottom falls out of the song and the desperate yelp of a question emerges- “how deep is your love?”- that’s when the rapture become dance floor gods. everything starts piling on more and more, faster than before. the saxophone jumps in and all hell breaks loose and suddenly a “hallelujah!” is floating over the whole song and a solid minute of grade-a bliss serves as the outro to a song you never want to end.
15. Gotta Have It - Jay-Z & Kanye West
this song comes in with one of the creepiest, most foreboding beats the neptunes have ever crafted building over two bars until kanye bursts in, literally tripping over himself to cheerfully greet “white america.” (right?) this track had some of the most exciting and engaging rap on the entire album. jay & ye trade off lines and sometimes words, and while both sound just as pompous and filthy fucking rich as ever, there is something that is absolutely and undeniably thrilling about hearing kanye spit “maybachs on -bachs on -bachs on -bachs on -bachs.”
14. Bizness - tUnE-yArDs
there is a pure, tangible and visceral power that exists in this song, resounding from merrill garbus in both words and sounds. she makes music that has never been made before, not even close. and what a bad ass bitch, honestly. her voice is not only her primary instrument, it is also her strongest. she weaves the entire song around it, from the fluttering opening notes to the totally convicted shouts of “what’s the bizness, yeah!” and “don’t take my life away!” it’s a rally cry for nothing or for everything or for herself, and it’s this universality that makes it so powerful.
13. Nothing - Young Man
the best cut from what was probably the most overlooked album of the year. warm and inviting from the get-go, this song is the apex of the layered, hypnotic effect that young man loves to employ. there’s a quality to it that I can’t quite put my finger on that makes me want to listen to this song over and over. maybe it’s the shoe-gazey guitars or super-dramatic drum machines or maybe this song just rules and there’s no other way to put it.
12. Look What You’ve Done - Drake
a touching, honest ballad steeped in sincerity (lol.) drake gets down to what truly matters and spends the song thanking his mother and uncle in really specific and surprisingly ADORABLE ways. it’s a simple song with a nostalgic piano line over a rolling beat, but the way drake expresses his in-debtedness makes the song as good as it is. drake re: his uncle- “I never really had no one like you, man, this all new shit. made the world I knew bigger, changed the way that I viewed it.” awwwww
11. Baby Missiles - The War on Drugs
baby missiles was my own personal anthem this summer. it’s galloping and raucous from the very beginning but it builds with shouts of desired triumph rising above the clang and a blaring harmonica reminding you just how alive you should be feeling. this song so blatantly calls upon springsteen, but it never feels imitative or dated. Perhaps that’s because it possesses such a timeless heart; it’s filled with an urge to just let it all roll off of you, to just move on.
previously-
best songs of 2011: 30-21
best songs of 2011: 40-31
best songs of 2011: 50-41
best songs of 2011: 100-51
best songs of 2011 (not from 2011)
