1 – Fatal Flaw – Titus Andronicus – The lookalike cops some drugs and falls in love and it is the best thing you never saw.
2 -Tell Your Friends – The Weeknd – I love the intro, it kinda shudders in and than Abel does broad and swift and small and minor brushstrokes in a self portrait that sounds like two parts deduction with a chorus that doesn’t soar it more likes shakes on the beat.
3 – 24 Frames – Jason Isbell – Isbell is a songwriters songwriter, the level of passionate thought, of terror and of hardship, of life as seen, and also catchiness and hookiness (all the “this is how you…” stuff), makes for an undeniable masterpiece.
4 – L$D – A$AP Rocky – As in love, sex and drugs, this is a hallucination of a mood song, though well tinged by weed as well, so everything drags behind the beat and the sex is wet and exciting but slow and druggy.
5 – I Took A Pill In Ibiza – Mike Posner – Quite possibly the most beautiful sad song of the year.
6 – Old Rock N Roll – Young Fathers – The Scottish Nigerian trio suggest here something that is just about self-evident, “I’m tired of playing the good black, I’m trying to have to hold back”. Which makes sense but not as much as Young Fathers equating racism with money and power. Which is where the real stuff is.
7 – Suede – NxWorries – A premiere neo soul band and smooth as a motherfucker
8 – The Valley – Miguel – The Prince sex song that Prince no longer performs, for our sins.
9 – Girls From Texas – Pat Green – Magnificent girl geography lesson with Lyle “that’s right they are from Texas” Lovett sharing verses.
10 – Song Of Life – David Bronson – The song allows the great singer songwriter to pinpoint his concerns and also to answer his concerns: it is where he answer the one question, how to live with love.
11 – Up Above My Head – Rhiannon Giddens – Her achievement on this is not to improve on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, nigh on impossible, but to sing it beautiful and to make make some of its heaven Rhiannon’s very own.
12 – Joan Of Arc – Madonna – An impossibly fragile Madge, shows her heart is going up in flames as scumbugs like yours truly put her through the ringer for being a middle aged diva well past her prime. Which she might well be, but you can’t tell from this song.
13 – Shoegaze – Alabama Shakes – This is the great pop move that allows the band to fuck about with the rest of the songs structures, it’s like it proves they know what they are doing because they’ve proven they can do this.
14 – That Means A Lot – The Weeklings – One of the greatest Beatles covers i’ve ever heard.
15 – All Your Favorite Bands – Dawes – I am ready to forgive Dawes every single I hate about them on the strength of this great benediction.
16 – What Went Down – Foals – The riff to this song is so colossal it singlehandedly changed my opinion about the band.
17- No Cities to Love – Sleater-Kinney – If this isn’t agitprop, than what is it. If they aren’t rebuilding David Byrne, or rebuilding where you live or why, they are teaching you how to choose better.
19 – Murder In The City – Brandi Carlile – The last song on the album, and the best, a sad story of familial regard, disregard, futures and passed, “I’m proud of you both in so many different ways”, the father says to his children. A stunning song.
20 – Jet Pack Blues – Fall Out Boy – As a lyricist Pete Wentz is a child of his emo rock urges, the strange drawn out song titles that turn and move in ways you don’t expect. Except it never quite manages to pay off well enough. Except this one does, a masterpiece of lost love which uses Judy Jetson’s mobility as a future history of a disappeared love
21 – Fool For Love – Lord Huron – I bet they don’t have another song this great in em, and I bet this is a song this great. Even the intro is excellent
22 – Love 3X – ZZ Ward – Ward the blue artist we know, but Ward the cray girlfriend as pop star is a new one.
23 – Go Out – Blur – droning guitars meets an addictive chorus, when was the last time Damon was involved in an addictive chorus.
24 – Die Young – Chinx – a real nigga writes his own epitaph
25 – Top Shelf Drug – Ryan Bingham – Terrific metaphor for love for a song that sounds like a cross between love and Exile
