Daily Playlist — Top 200 Tracks of 2017 (60–41)

The eighth part of the series

60. Tove Styrke — “Say My Name”

The texture of the instrumentations reminds us of Adele’s “Send My Love”, but “Say My Name” is comprised of even fewer elements, while much more fun and loose.

59. The xx — “Say Something Loving”

One of the tracks that shows how the band has grown, while still keeping their trademark sound. Similar to the lead single “On Hold”, which made it to last year’s list, “Say Something Loving” makes use of a sample that would have never appeared on their sophomore effort Coexist. Furthermore, as much as the expansive production helps move things forward, the vocalists remain in the center, with their matured vocals delivering each line with deliberation and consideration.

58. Lil Uzi Vert — “XO TOUR Llif3”

What did Lil Uzi Vert do when he lost two phones filled with unreleased materials? Instead of fretting, he simply leaked everything he recorded for his debut album, including “XO TOUR Llif3.” With no marketing and no artwork, the song gained traction on SoundCloud before becoming one of the most ubiquitous hits of the year, garnering more than 1.3 billion streams worldwide.

57. Priests — “Nothing Feels Natural”

Unlike other tracks the band released, or many other rock tracks on this list, “Nothing Feels Natural” begins with a shimmering rock sound, but rather than shifting into a frenzied tirade, Katie Alice Greer surprises us by maintaining the subdued melody, allowing for more melancholic singing.

56. Brand New — “Same Logic/Teeth”

The centerpiece of their new album “Same Logic/Teeth” takes a stern but empathetic look at cyclical self-destruction. It builds up slowly throughout its five-and-a-half-minute runtime, but the texture changes rapidly, resonating longer and carrying more weight.

55. Father John Misty — “Pure Comedy”

It is doubtful that any song captures all the sociopolitical turmoil we went through this year better than this track. Josh Tillman turns his rant into a beautifully disturbing song about the human comedy that is soon to become a tragedy.

54. French Montana ft. Swae Lee — “Unforgettable”

While his album is only decent at best, “Unforgettable” is one rare moment where his persona doesn’t overshadow the quality of his music. However, you would have to give to Swae Lee the lion’s share, with his memorable feature riding a reggaeton beat to make a radio-friendly track.

53. Kendrick Lamar — “FEAR.”

“FEAR.” is likely one of the more underrated tracks on DAMN. with its quiet contemplative mood. The track traces Lamar’s 7-year-old childhood to maturity 20 years later. Coming in at nearly eight minutes, the song revisits a lot of the topics he touched on, like issues of domestic abuse and adulthood paranoia. However, the track goes deeper and is more elaborated on the stories previously goes in abstraction.

52. St. Vincent — “Slow Disco”

The stirring “Slow Disco” is about how the life you’re actually living and the life that you should be living are running parallel, and how one haunts the other. The multi-instrumentalist Anne Clark backs away from the instrumentations, letting a string section accompany her so that she can focus on pouring her heart out.

51. 21 Savage — “Bank Account”

“Bank Account” sounds right out of a movie set in Gotham city. Savage deadpans through the darkness, never raising his voice or cracking a smile. Braggadocio is ubiquitous, but few is as laid-back or menacing as this one.

50. Moses Sumney — “Doomed”

Set to swelling ambient synths, “Doomed” captures desolation that comes with loneliness with the utmost rawness. Sumney’s falsetto sometimes unfurls like smoke, other times pierces through the darkness, looking for an answer to the existential question he’s wrestling with.

49. The National — “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”

“The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness” sounds heavy and surprisingly aggressive, partly due to the guitar solo midway through the track, but mostly because it was written in response to the 2016 Presidential Election. “The system” here represents the sociopolitical climate of our world, and the population only dares to be idealistic and hope for a better world when things seem very bleak. However, the band sounds confident and energized, like they’re ready to fight away the darkness.

48. Slowdive — “Sugar for the Pill”

“Sugar for the Pill” is a disarming heartbreak ballad, sparing but warm with a gentle mood and a catchy 80s soft-rock sound, while the undulating melody and the steady bass and drums draw out the sadness the comes with the heartbreak.

47. Porches — “Country”

“Country” reminds us of compositions by Frankie Cosmos — straight-forward, breezy pop songs that pack a whole universe of ideas within its two-minute length. Unlike those tracks, however, “Country” trades the upbeat sound for melancholy. And its melody is even simpler, consisting of four verses rather than one long verse like Cosmos does. Still, Aaron Maine still manages to create an emotional climax in the lack of insistent beats with whispering synths, piano, and a three-part harmony with different textures to layers up the track.

46. Kelela — “LMK”

“LMK” makes an NSA night sounds as urgent as it is freeing. Again, less is more on this track: she croons on the song’s hook over handclaps and sensual synths, supported by a bass-heavy production. The production complements Kelela well, blending the club sound and sultry R&B.

45. SZA — “The Weekend”

SZA confronts the complexity that comes with dating in this date and age with the myriad of dating apps available. On “The Weekend” sings about sharing a boyfriend with other women (yes, that’s plural), comparing themselves to the weekdays and the weekend.

44. Playboi Carti — “Magnolia”

Playboi Carti was probably gunning for the song of the summer with the standout track from his mixtape. “Magnolia” enjoys bounce beat, filled with booming grooves and rattling low-end bass, lightened up with the flute further back in the mix, and surely is a heavy hit at parties last summer.

43. Big Thief — “Mythological Beauty”

On this meditative track, vocalist Adrianne Lenker reflects on her childhood and empathizes with her young parents over graceful guitar plucks and drum beats. “You held me in the backseat with a dishrag/Soaking up blood with your eye/I was just 5 and you were 27/Praying don’t let my baby die,” she hums with compassion. While recalling this traumatic incident, Lenker realizes that her mother’s mistakes are only human.

42. yaeji — “drink i’m sippin on”

The fact that she’s singing mostly in Korean doesn’t help the already elusive lyrics. But then that’s the point: she’s going through the things she did, wondering why yesterday is all a blur. The chorus repeats the same phrase over and over, like the motion of repeating things you do day-to-day.

41. Lorde — “The Louvre”

“The Louvre” captures an immersive but ephemeral bliss with its guitar strummings, gleaming synths and heartswell harmonies. It bottles teenage emotions with utmost precision, while each line of it sounds like it was written to be quoted. But then again, its greatest moments are when the lyrics are gone. “Broadcast the boom, boom, boom, boom/And make ’em all dance to it,” it goes, unraveling all those emotions and let them out, glittering and shimmering, over the one-and-a-half-minute long outro.