2015: My Year in Music - Part 1
My friend asked me what my Top Ten Songs of 2015 were, luckily immediately after I happened to spend a lot of time listening to music that came out after. So I have more to say than just what are my top ten favorite songs of the year, since this has been kind of a pretty catchy year after 2014 has proven to be at once my favorite year for movies I’ve ever lived through and my least favorite year I’ve lived through for music. So, here I go with some superlatives (save for my Top Ten Favorite Albums of the Year, which I will post sometime this week)…
BEST SURPRISE:
“Run Away with Me” — Carly Rae Jepsen. Now I can’t just think of her as that one one-hit wonder I like to sing over with Nine Inch Nails lyrics. No, this song is just to bouncy and expansive to ignore on its own terms — even when the whole album is just a giant attempt to recapture 80s pop in all its European fever. That doesn’t get in the way with this.
SONG THAT MAKES ME LAUGH MYSELF TO DEATH:
“Welcome to New York” — Father John Misty. Father John Misty pretending to be Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground while covering Ryan Adams’ cover of Taylor Swift’s hit from 1989. This is just too much and that guy knew damn it was too much and did it anyway. Plus, unlike his “Blank Space” cover, it doesn’t sound like he just lazily pasted a Velvet Underground track under him and struggled to shape the lyrics around it, this really fits together. I think we found the whitest recording ever.
(NOTE: I would rather not get myself in trouble by linking an illegitimate copy since Joshua Tillman has since removed the two recordings from SoundCloud, but you could probably find it on that one site that rhymes with “oofoob”).
MOST WELCOME REUNION WITH AN OLD SOUND:
“Superhero” or “Separation Anxiety” — Faith No More.
Sol Invictus didn’t break any ground for me, but it still felt most like vintage Faith No More counting down each of their eras and so the more Mike Patton the better. That probably makes more sense if you know how much I absolute love Mike Patton — he’s my single biggest influence as a vocalist-and I swear to you that Faith No More is only the tip of the iceberg for him.
SONG TO LISTEN TO WHILST BROODING IN THE DARK:
“Cirice” — Ghost.
This surprises nobody. Ghost is my Blue Oyster Cult fix since it’s been a while since Blue Oyster Cult released music [yeah, I’m a Blue Oyster Cult fanatic — like I can name songs that are not “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper”, “Godzilla”, or “Burnin’ for You”.] I even listened to it enough times to conceptualize a music video for it, but obviously I’ve been beaten to the punch. Hail Satan.
SONGS THAT MIGHT HAVE RANKED IN MY TOP TEN FROM HOW CATCHY THEY ARE IF THE BANAL LYRICS DIDN’T MAKE ME SO CYNICAL:
“Hotline Bling” — Drake and “Trap Queen” — Fetty Wap.
God, “Hotline Bling”… I hate you so much, it feels like Drake taking the easy way out, but I can’t get youuuuu outta my head. And I really have an allergy to trap music that makes Fetty Wap’s ability to keep auto-tuned hooks that are bombastically memorable turn me really antagonistic now. How dare you make catchy songs!
SONG THAT WAS SO FANTASTICALLY AND LIBERALLY PRODUCED THAT I REALLY HAVE TO WONDER HOW THE HELL IT COULD WORK IN A BROADWAY MUSICAL:
“Satisfied” — Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda; Performed by Renee Elise Goldsberry, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Philippa Soo from the musical Hamilton.
It’s that “rewind” part. There’s actually a lot in this album that seems studio-exclusive, but the fact that this entire song requires skipping between time periods and speaking to the audience at once and the rewind audio is just surrounding. I need to know how it’s done on stage.
ALBUM I REALLY ALMOST WANTED TO CONSIDER ONE 30-MINUTE SONG BUT COULDN’T PULL THE TRIGGER:
Hold Me Forever (in memory of Nancy York Carroll) — Buckethead. Buckethead’s album here seems like a continuous one-guitar symphony of emotions with only the track listing separating it into movements of musical representations of his grief and remembrance of his mother.
(NOTE: You can find the majority of Buckethead’s music on YouTube illegally, but I don’t think I could encourage it in good conscience. The guy’s an extremely independent artist who dedicates so much time and work to making music he loves. Purchasing his music is worth it.)
And now the MY TOP TEN FAVORITE SONGS OF 2015
10. “Should Have Known Better” — Sufjan Stevens. If I’m gonna talk about songs on grief, Sufjan Stevens’ willingness to use lyrics to express himself actually doesn’t get in the way of how much emotive and beautiful the song is in its simplicity and repetition, like an endless sink. That Stevens is one of my favorite artists (along with FNM and Buckethead) and yet is surpassed should be a sign of the quality of the songs beyond.
9. “WTF (Where They From)” — Missy Elliott feat. Pharrell Williams. Also my favorite music video of the year, since it just happily showcases that even after a long break, once you get Missy started her lips don’t stop moving until she’s said her piece. Relentlessly percussionary to keep my head nodding.
8. “Brought to the Water” — Deafheaven. When I say 2015 was a strong year for music in my eyes, I don’t mean metal. It was honestly kind of disappointing for me, and maybe I’m not digging too deeply as I should — Apex Predator is maybe the only other metal album I remember from this year making my jaw drop. But Deafheaven brought the thunder, taking the “progressive” in “progressive metal” to real heart… even in their opening track here, they just aren’t happy with getting comfortable with any of their melodies… they need to explore more to the next logical break and it all just comes together throughout the album beautifully. But you never forget your first and this kickstart to the album is a real screamer.
7. “Here” — Aleissa Cara. All I can say is I really think if I showed Bret Easton Ellis or Lana Del Ray this song, they’d tell me to fuck off. That image puts a huge fucking grin on my face.
6. “Beautiful Blue Sky” — Ought. Is it Talking Heads? Is it Pavement? I don’t know, but this post-punk rhythm makes me really have to move my feet erratically.
5. “I Can’t Feel My Face” — The Weeknd. I think it’s quite a time to be alive when Frank Ocean and The Weeknd are putting out some really romantically hallucinatory tracks to just pass out to and forget where you are, but The Weeknd is the one that’s a hell of a lot more efficient and his albums don’t seem to have a single low note to it. Plus, he sounds closer to Michael Jackson having found a synth machine and worked his way around it.
4. “Let It Happen” — Tame Impala. When the track begins to use the rewind to construct a stutter of a rhythm for itself halfway through that psychedelic swelling, I really felt the floor disappear from under me. You don’t see that kind of inventiveness in music nowadays, the willingness to really break down the tracks to give us something more without being too obnoxiously DJ about it.
3. “Pedestrian at Best” — Courtney Barnett. Loud and mumbly at once, like someone fumbling to write some kind of confessional song in their garage, so they just drone on their electric guitar while spilling haphazardly about themselves, just the way I like it.
2. “Realiti” — Grimes. Remind me again why the fuck she left this off of Art Angels? I mean, I love the album enough, but man, this is the perfect little appetizer to get you in the momentum with all its descriptive lyrics on re-adjusting your current perspective that you could just hop right onto “California” from there. This will be one of the greater battles in my mind for a long time.
1. “I Know There’s Gonne Be (Good Times)” — Jamie xx feat. Young Thug & Popcaan.
HA! FUCKING HA! JAMIE XX AND YOUNG THUG MADE A MORE CATCHY SONG THAN YOU, DRAKE AND FETTY WAP. And better yet, the kaleidoscopic work on overlapping vocals and the beat underneath really make good on the album’s name of In Colour.
You will notice a very suspicious lack of Kendrick Lamar in that list simply because I couldn’t pick a single song out of To Pimp a Butterfly and I really wanted to keep it to one song per artist. I was like “The Blacker the Berry” but then I’m like but dat “Alright” tho, then dat “King Kunta” yo, then dat “How Much a Dolla Cost”, then dat “Wesley’s Theory”, then dat “For Free”, then dat “i”, then dat “u”, then dat “Hood Politics”, then dat “Mortal Man”, then dat “Institutionalized”, etc.
I seriously could not pick a single song, so I opted instead not to force myself to make a decision and just remove it from consideration. Mess with me.
Anyway, I’ll see you guys later this week when I elaborate on my ten favorite albums of the year…
Salim Garami swears to Odin he is more eloquent when talking about movies rather than music, so check out his commentary on Film at his wordpress blog Movie Motorbreath (also on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook). Or, sure, you can follow him hereon Medium for more thoughts on Film and Media, as well as short fiction. Either way, be sure to also follow Panel & Frame for more emerging voices in Film, Comics, Literature, and Art! Thank you for reading!
