2015 is drawing to a close, but it's been such a stellar year for music I hate to see it go! There have been absolutely killer albums filled with some amazing songs. Now, a lot of these amazing albums are full of vulgarity, and I've decided that I don't want to listen to those in full (To Pimp A Butterfly, I Love You Honeybear, We Cool? to name a few). Thankfully, though, a lot of my favorite songs on these albums aren't vulgar. So, while they won't appear on my list of clean albums, you'll see them here!
Anyway, to remove any spoilers, I'm putting the playlist for the songs on this list at the bottom. So, check it out! Give some of these a listen, especially the top 10, and let me know what your favorite songs of this year were!
37. Beach House - "Sparks"
Yes, this is one of my favorite songs of the year, but don't misunderstand: I was incredibly frustrated with Beach House's Depression Cherry. It's literally the same album they've written for the past 5 years; it even has the same keyboard voices and drum samples.
But "Sparks" is something else. It was Depression Cherry's lead single and we all thought the band had evolved into something new. It's a distorted, hazy, beautiful mess of a song, more like shoegaze than dream pop. I see Victoria LeGrande and Alex Scally performing this on the surface of the sun. It's a brilliant moment of electro-pop songwriting, "and then," for the rest of the album, "it's dark again, just like a spark."
36. Maserati - "End Of Man"
Each Maserati album, like its sister band Zombi, is the soundtrack to a futuristic, 80's throwback B-movie that doesn't exist. "End of Man" must be the track playing during climactic final showdown between the hero on his neon motorcycle and the 80-foot robot trying to destroy humanity. Or, since the robot voice on the track is chanting, "Institutional, institutional, let's get out, let's get out, are you with me, are you with me," maybe it's the other way around? But that's kind of beside the point. Really, Maserati have created, yet again, an exciting and cinematic post-rock track that I couldn't help but play in my decidedly non-futuristic car at high velocities.
35. City and Colour - "Killing Time"
Metalcore fans, when their moms stumble upon the harsh heaviness of their Alexisonfire or Underoath CDs, defend their beloved genre with the classic line, "You don't understand! Some of it is really beautiful and melodic!" Well, none of those bands, Alexisonfire included, never came close to touching the beauty of "Killing Time." Dallas Green aka City and Colour, ex-singer of Alexis, crafts a stellar piece of alt-rock, rich with country and classic rock influence, but still more modern and colorful than any of it roots. There's something really haunting and universal about the lyrics, too: "I'm running from the shadow of my former shadow's life."
34. Blackalicious - "The Sun"
Blackalicious was one of my first hip hop loves, along with Jurassic 5 and Tribe, all of these artists being arguably some of the cleanest and most positivity-focused artists in the genre. Blackalicious' new album Imani, Vol. 1, while not completely devoid of vulgarity, lived up to that reputation. "The Sun" is my favorite of the clean songs on this record, featuring lush, golden-age-inspired production from Chief Xcel and Gift of Gab's warm, speedy flow. It's a classic message from this crew about leaving behind darkness and stepping out into the light, a message much needed in such a dark year for the black community.
33. Kamasi Washington - "The Rhythm Changes"
I'm going to start by saying this: I strongly feel that I, and even a lot of other music critics who named this album as one of their favorites this year, only cared about this album because Kamasi Washington played sax on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly. I mean, were there any other jazz records on those lists? There weren't. So were there no other jazz records worth noting that were written this year. There were. This leads me to the conclusion that we have no business pretending to be jazz critics when we aren't.
Now, don't get me wrong: The Epic was a fantastic, if colossal, album, and "The Rhythm Changes" may be the most memorable track. It's certainly the most easily digestible and poppiest, being one of the few tracks with singing (fantastically done by Ms. Patrice Quinn) and a verse-chorus-verse structure. Even still, Kamasi doesn't spare any of the fantastic jazz orchestration and soloing that defines his sound. Definitely one of the best songs this year, no matter if you're a jazz aficionado or a casual pop listener.
32. Jamie xx - "Gosh"
There was a lot to unpack on Jamie xx's critical smash In Colour, a lot of densely experimental tracks, a lot of features on straight hip hop tracks. It's what propelled the album to the top ten of so many end of the year lists. But the track that stole my heart the most was the subtle, dynamic, and lighthearted "Gosh." The downtuned sample of "Oh my gosh!" from a voice that sounds like it should be saying something with more hip hop swagger on top of the breathless beat that builds layer by layer into a colorful climax made it a really unforgettable track.
I'm going to start by saying this: I strongly feel that I, and even a lot of other music critics who named this album as one of their favorites this year, only cared about this album because Kamasi Washington played sax on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly. I mean, were there any other jazz records on those lists? There weren't. So were there no other jazz records worth noting that were written this year. There were. This leads me to the conclusion that we have no business pretending to be jazz critics when we aren't.
Now, don't get me wrong: The Epic was a fantastic, if colossal, album, and "The Rhythm Changes" may be the most memorable track. It's certainly the most easily digestible and poppiest, being one of the few tracks with singing (fantastically done by Ms. Patrice Quinn) and a verse-chorus-verse structure. Even still, Kamasi doesn't spare any of the fantastic jazz orchestration and soloing that defines his sound. Definitely one of the best songs this year, no matter if you're a jazz aficionado or a casual pop listener.
32. Jamie xx - "Gosh"
There was a lot to unpack on Jamie xx's critical smash In Colour, a lot of densely experimental tracks, a lot of features on straight hip hop tracks. It's what propelled the album to the top ten of so many end of the year lists. But the track that stole my heart the most was the subtle, dynamic, and lighthearted "Gosh." The downtuned sample of "Oh my gosh!" from a voice that sounds like it should be saying something with more hip hop swagger on top of the breathless beat that builds layer by layer into a colorful climax made it a really unforgettable track.
31. Adele - "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)"
Hey all, Rachel here, I'm Andy's wife and guest writing (is that the term?) on this top 40 songs list. So, I didn't make this master list, however how could Adele not be on here? I mean really. Adele stole all of our hearts, had us crying and eating Ben 'n Jerry's by the pint full once again this November when she released her third studio album. "Send My Love (To Your New Lover)" stood out to both Andy and I immediately. Produced by a middle age Scandinavian who has a penchant for writing pop songs for white girls, this song is the perfect soundtrack for any dramatic walk you might have this next year. Hot dog, the woman can write a breakup song. Adele's vocals are, of course, spot on with a melody that'll have you singing it and annoying random patrons at the grocery store for sure. But in all honesty Adele has a talent, a true talent, for taking pain and turning it to pleasure.
30. Faith No More - "Superhero"
Faith No More came back this year, for this first time in this millennium with new music, but it feels like they were never gone. For one, even after being canonized as The Pioneers of Rap Metal, Alternative Rock, and Maybe Even Funk Metal, they still don't quite fit in in today's popular music climate. They're still outsiders at best, ostracized at worst.
For two, "Superhero" sounds like 20-something year old young men playing their first radio rock single. It has all the classic FNM tropes: the Middle Eastern keyboard lead a la "Smaller and Smaller," the piano outro like "Epic," the million-dollar voice of Mike Patton sounding impressive but never quite intimidating. And like the best songs on The Real Thing or Angel Dust, this track will likely be a timebomb: it make look like a dud now, but it's just waiting to explode 10 years from now.
29. Tobias Jesso, Jr. - "Without You"
If you don't think Tobias Jesso Jr.'s favorite band evar is the Beatles, you're wrong. When his debut album Goon shined, it was because he was channeling the spirit of McCartney and Lennon into his own compositions and emotional experiences. A lot of the time, I wondered if he knows how to play the piano (he has only been playing for three years). Other times, it sounded like his lyrics were recycled plastic or just awkward. But on "Without You," the star aligned. The emotion with which he sings is perfect--tender and subtle--and it especially connects well with the subdued instrumentation. One of the best ballads I heard this year.
If you don't think Tobias Jesso Jr.'s favorite band evar is the Beatles, you're wrong. When his debut album Goon shined, it was because he was channeling the spirit of McCartney and Lennon into his own compositions and emotional experiences. A lot of the time, I wondered if he knows how to play the piano (he has only been playing for three years). Other times, it sounded like his lyrics were recycled plastic or just awkward. But on "Without You," the star aligned. The emotion with which he sings is perfect--tender and subtle--and it especially connects well with the subdued instrumentation. One of the best ballads I heard this year.
28. Deerhunter - "Breaker"
I'm still trying to figure Deerhunter out. More specifically, I'm trying to figure out what makes their music so magnetic. Take "Breaker." Really, it's an unassuming little track in the middle of an album filled with muscular singles. It's really just a rock song, just guitars and drums and a voice. But Deerhunter are magicians. They wow not with impressive technicality or inventions of new genres. They wow with their mastery of subtle songwriting: a little, earworm guitar flourish at the place in the mix; a sunny chorus that draws off just enough of the 70's; a celestial choir of voices instead of a guitar solo or key change. It's infuriatingly brilliant.
27. Deradoorian - "A Beautiful Woman"
"A Beautiful Woman" was one of those lead singles that is so good it makes you cautious. It drops as the first taste of a new project, and it blows you away, but simultaneously makes you question, "Can she sustain this for the rest of the record? Or is this as good as it gets?" Angel Deradoorian proved on the rest of The Expanding Flower Planet that she is indeed full of an album's worth of truly unique and exciting ideas, not the least of which being "A Beautiful Woman." Its smoky, purplish, Middle Eastern-flavored, gorgeous. The technically complex vocals prove that she wasn't just a pretty voice in the musical crowd of Dave Longstreth's Dirty Projectors. She is a mature, focused, and capable songwriter herself, and "A Beautiful Woman" is one of the biggest victories in indie rock this year.
26. Wilco - "Random Name Generator"
If Star Wars was a full-length jam session (and it definitely felt like that), "Random Name Generator" was the reason they convened the session. It's as fuzzy and quirky as any other track on the album, or indeed as Mr. Kitty up there, but more than any other song on the album, it's got staying power. The opening riff is instantly memorable, from the first time you listened to it. I expect to hear this ditty and its fuzzed out riff at Wilco shows until the day Jeff Tweedy and co. die.
If Star Wars was a full-length jam session (and it definitely felt like that), "Random Name Generator" was the reason they convened the session. It's as fuzzy and quirky as any other track on the album, or indeed as Mr. Kitty up there, but more than any other song on the album, it's got staying power. The opening riff is instantly memorable, from the first time you listened to it. I expect to hear this ditty and its fuzzed out riff at Wilco shows until the day Jeff Tweedy and co. die.
25. The Mountain Goats - "Foreign Object"
Funniest song by a non-comedy artist. I crack up every time I hear "I will literally stab you in the eye with a foreign object." It's as entertaining and cartoonish as the pro wrestlers to whom John Darnielle is paying homage throughout this quirky WWE/luchador tribute album. It's moments like these, short and memorable, that made Beat the Champ such a fun listen. Don't think about it too hard: just sing along and enjoy.
24. Blur - "I Broadcast"
Damon Albarn and co. take the Clash's "Lost in the Supermarket" and his Gorillaz tune "M1A1" and smashes it into an instant britrock classic that Keane or 2000s Coldplay would envy. Definitely the highlight of their comeback record, The Magic Whip, for sure.
23. Panda Bear - "Boys Latin"
I did not dig Panda Bear's January record Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper. At all. But "Boys Latin" was something else. Where the rest of the album was hypnotic in the way that your American History professor's monotone was, "Boys Latin" was hypnotic in the way that watching rain fall on a lake is, with the echos of children playing and painful memories fading into the "dark clouds descending again.
22. Björk - "Stonemilker"
It's pretty intimidating for a newcomer to the world of Björk's singular universe of sound. There's literally decades of music to study up on and even more when you try mapping her web of influences. My whining aside, it's a pleasure to bask in Björk's vision on Vulnicura, of which "Stonemilker" is the overture, setting the tone for her statement on healing and loves lost. "Moments of clarity are so rarity, I better document this," she sighs, and the angelic string compositions are so enlightening, they transform this line from a good lyrical gesture into a multi-dimensionally poetic experience. Björk has always been ahead of the curve, and on "Stonemilker," she showed us right off that bat that she's still a step ahead of the rest.
21. Joywave - "Nice House"
How have Joywave not blown up into indie stardom yet? They have everything perfectly in place here on "Nice House": an impeccable song structure with deliberately timed dynamics, a killer sing-along chorus with quirky lyrics, acoustic instruments electrified by generous production. If anything, they're like that band at your local Battle of the Bands that is a little too good, like... maybe they're robots? Definitely likely.
20. Young Fathers - "Rain Or Shine"
I hailed this song earlier as the song that got me interested in new music again. It deserves that recognition. It's indeed captivating, since I'm still not quite sure who Young Fathers are and whether "Rain or Shine" is hip hop or lo-fi indie rock. Do I dance to it or sit with my headphones and ponder it? Is it a statement on religious disorientation or a drug trip? It's got me guessing and coming back again and again to try and figure it out.
19. Baroness - "Chlorine & Wine"
"Chlorine & Wine" was a new beginning for Baroness. Untangling themselves from Yellow & Green's attempt to get a Baroness song played on rock radio, the Georgia "sludge metal" powerhouses delivered a stunningly emotional piece that progressed from one beautiful motif to the visceral next, kinda like gazing at a painting of four nude women surrounded elegantly by geese and purple flowers. Oh wait.... Vocalist John Baizley has never sounded better, more honed and emotive, even though that means he's never sounded more like James Hetfield. The song also characterize's Purple's knack for mathy subdivisions of time and killer hooks.
And let's be clear about something: Baroness have always been too gorgeous, too celestial to deserve the label "sludge metal." Can we invent something new for them?
18. Battles - "Dot Com"
One of the secrets to listening to Battles is that your imagination is required. You have to treat their songs like they're the score to something really wacky and cybernetic. You're hearing the one-minute intro of "Dot Com," developing at a snail's pace, and you have to envision the first anticipatory moments of a neon-colored podrace. You hear the bouncy keyboard riff and it must be a robot's birthday party. You hear the glitched out ending, like they accidentally left the keyboard running, and you have to imagine circuit boards and glitter showering from the sky in slow motion. There's no other explanation.
17. St. Vincent - "Teenage Talk"
Following the recent trend of artists releasing songs immediately following incredibly successful albums and in the wake of Album of the Year accolades for 2014's self-titled album., St. Vincent rather randomly dropped "Teenage Talk." The song was made for the new season of HBO's "Girls," but really is one of St. Vincent's most straightforwardly accessible singles yet. In the lyrics as on the single artwork, we get a rare glimpse into Annie Clark's adolescence: crashing the family Chrysler, puking in azalea bushes, getting tattoos. It proved that the mysterious Queen of Indie Rock is not a sorceress from the future but a normal girl.
16. Destroyer - "Times Square"
"Times Square" is the centerpiece of Dan Bejar aka Destroyer's sweeping, dramatic Poison Season. It marks a turning point in the album, from sleepy, melodramatic ballads to intricate and upbeat indie-adult-contemporary. Featuring a Latin jazz-inspired recontextualization of the lyrics of "Poison Season I" and "Poison Season II," it's almost a magical metamorphosis that unfolds over the course of a few minutes.
15. Animal Collective - "FloriDada"
I'm going to be completely honest with you. I was beginning to lose faith in Animal Collective. After the very spotty and underbaked Centipede Hz and some very underwhelming solo albums by lead members Panda Bear and Avery Tare, I've been wondering if Animal Collective had used up all of their freak pop/electronica/folk magic n 2009's Merriweather Post Pavilion. Then came "FloriDada" earlier this month, the first single in anticipation of their new album, Painting With, coming out in February. Once that chorus hit, arguably their most catchy yet, I knew they still had it in them. Needless to say, I'm very pumped.
14. more eaze - "sure"
Who knew that avant-garde folk could be this accessible and enjoyable? Texan composer Marcus Maurice (more eaze) is still working to rise to national acclaim out of the teeming pool of musicians that is the local scene in Austin. "sure" shows that he deserves just such recognition. A banjo plucked I-V-I is his playground, a folk backing band his classmates, and he takes other avant-garde artists to school.
13. Grimes - "Kill V. Maim"
All of Grimes' adoring fans waited with baited breath to see if Art Angels would live up to it's hype as the follow-up to 2012's Visions. "Kill V. Maim" answers with a resounding, "Oh yeah. It does." She hops vocal techniques like a dance pop Mike Patton, from girly croons to guttural screams to demented cheerleader chants. It's awesome. And backing her vocals are her gorgeous, self-produced dance beats. This song, to me, single-handedly solidifies Claire Boucher as one of the most consistent and talented songwriters in pop today.
12. Courtney Barnett - "No One Really Cares If You Don't Go To The Party"
Courtney Barnett is being hailed as one of the freshest voices in indie rock right now. This may be true, but I think what's making us fall in love with her slacker rock is how it reminds us of some of our favorite bands from adolescence, like Nirvana or even Pavement. She took bits and pieces from our millennial nostalgia and, in her Australian monotone, made them fresh and exciting again. One thing's for sure: the girl can write stellar choruses, and "Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go to the Party" may be her best. And that guitar is something Kurt himself (Cobain, not Vile) would be proud of.
11. Kurt Vile - "Pretty Pimpin"
Who knew that someone as aloof and unassuming as Kurt Vile could write a song so good that Keith Urban Himself would say he wished he had written it? But I must say, I agree with Mr. Urban. Kurt stumbled upon or maybe invented (it's so hard to tell with him) an incredible formula, combining stream-of-consciousness lyrics, an earworm guitar riff, and country swagger. It's one of those rare songs that seems to, in 4 minutes' time, capture the essence, the soul of a songwriter. And that's gotta be why it's Kurt's biggest song to date.
And now presenting...
The Top 10
The Top 10
10. Alabama Shakes - "Gimme All Your Love"
I think all I need to say is that the funk organ explosion is the embodiment of soul and gives me goosebumps each time I hear it. Brittany Howard is an incredible frontwoman who has the pipes and the heart to earn her the title of "Most Soulful Singer in Rock Today."
9. Ought - "Beautiful Blue Sky"
David Byrne and Mark E. Smith, we've found your heir. Tim Darcy and his troupe of post-punk revivalists captured my heart with Sun Coming Down and the indisputable album highlight was "Beautiful Blue Sky." It has all the ingredients for an unforgettable post-punk song: simplistic music motifs that have incredible appeal, a ridiculously charismatic and dry frontman, and lyrics about boring, everyday aspects of suburban life.
What makes the watercooler talk "How's your family? How's your family? How's your family? How's your family?" so catchy and meaningful is the same thing that made us love "fuh-fuh-fuh-fa fuh-fuh-fuh-fuh-fa-fa better."
8. Lupe Fiasco - "Mural"
There was a very brief moment in 2015 that Lupe Fiasco was dominating the ever-present need for conscious hip hop. The moment was basically the month of February, which was the month before Kendrick Lamar blew him and every other rapper out of the intellectual water.
Even still, while that masterpiece made the rest of Tetsuo & Youth sound like Lupe was really trying too hard, "Mural" succeeds brilliantly in conjouring a universe all its own. For some reason, the lyric that really captivates me for the whole 9 minutes is "I like my pancakes cut in swirls." Lupe isn't making any real statement here. He's just spinning a swirl in his pancake, "forging poetry like a young ornery Morissey," painting a self-image out of fractured images like street art on a wall.
7. Modest Mouse - "Lampshades On Fire"
Modest Mouse's first album in seven years Strangers to Ourselves turned out to be one of the biggest disappointments of the year for me. Among all of the disappoints, there was a peculiar quality to it, unique among other Modest Mouse projects: the singles, not the deep cuts, were the album highlights.
Drawing off of this weird phenomenon, "Lampshades On Fire" snuck its way into being one of the most essential songs of 2015. It could be the urgency behind the fact that someone as esoteric as Isaac Brock felt the need to speak so directly on what we're doing to our planet. It could be how the psuedo-disco indie rock romp, so stale now in Mouse's discography, still felt so fresh in today's indie rock landscape, with thousands of Lumineers or Mumford & Sons wannabes oversaturating the market.
6. Shamir - "Make A Scene"
Shamir is nothing if not charismatic. Though I'm not one to party (see number 12 on this list), if anyone was going to convince me to go crazy for just a night of fun, it would probably be Shamir on "Make A Scene." The beat is funky. The bass is popping. Shamir's effeminate voice is carefree and enthralling. It's Saturday. I'm bored. Then comes the rave-ready synth break that is the chorus and... yeah, I'm mean... why not go out and make a scene??
5. Titus Andronicus - "Dimed Out"
Titus Andronicus' 5-act, 29-track rock opera was deliberately characterized by moments of crushing lethargy and then other moments of manic ecstasy, musically representing frontman Patrick Stickle's struggle with manic-depressive disorder.
Listen to 5 seconds of "Dimed Out" and you know which side of that emotional swing we're listening to. In fact, in the context of the other 28 tracks, this song is unequivocally the triumphant climax of the whole ordeal. Just listen to that key-changed bridge, an anthemic guitar solo backed by epic strings. Then, Stickles shreds his throat apart screaming, "I took it up to four, I couldn't feel it. I turned it up to five it wasn't real yet ... But I only really liked it when it dimed out." Such an infectious and totally balls-to-the-wall protest song against mental illness is something that I definitely connected with this year.
4. Father John Misty - "True Affection"
Ah, Father John Misty. Without question what made I Love You Honeybear so dadgum enjoyable was the Father's cynical and brutally witty way with words. Tearing apart ex-lovers for their flaws, tearing apart himself for his propensity for sin and degradation, tearing apart America for its backwards system of greed-based morality... Father John Misty spared no one in his lyrical holocaust. Though it made the album a fun roller coaster ride, never knowing what was going to come out of his mouth next, it did make it something a downer, too.
But then there was "True Affection." Not only did it undermine anybody's ability to write off the Father as merely a folky traditionalist, but it also proved that he can get really beautiful and tender if he wants to, too. His gorgeous pipes coo a plea to his honeybear for real, human-to-human interaction, "instead of using all these strange devices," ironically and not accidentally over an entirely electronic soundscape. This song, to me, shows the best of Father John Misty, his musicianship and smarts, while leaving the negativity, vulgarity, and hedonism at the door.
Ah, Father John Misty. Without question what made I Love You Honeybear so dadgum enjoyable was the Father's cynical and brutally witty way with words. Tearing apart ex-lovers for their flaws, tearing apart himself for his propensity for sin and degradation, tearing apart America for its backwards system of greed-based morality... Father John Misty spared no one in his lyrical holocaust. Though it made the album a fun roller coaster ride, never knowing what was going to come out of his mouth next, it did make it something a downer, too.
But then there was "True Affection." Not only did it undermine anybody's ability to write off the Father as merely a folky traditionalist, but it also proved that he can get really beautiful and tender if he wants to, too. His gorgeous pipes coo a plea to his honeybear for real, human-to-human interaction, "instead of using all these strange devices," ironically and not accidentally over an entirely electronic soundscape. This song, to me, shows the best of Father John Misty, his musicianship and smarts, while leaving the negativity, vulgarity, and hedonism at the door.
3. Jeff Rosenstock - "Get Old Forever"
The first track on Jeff Rosenstock's criminally overlooked We Cool?, "Get Old Forever" to me perfectly represents what made this album of third-wave punk revival bliss so blissful: subversion of expectations. The guitar strumming beginning sounds more like The Mountain Goats or Ben Folds-gone-guitar than Bomb the Music Industry, Jeff's motherband. Then an electronic drum beat kicks in, shattering that impression, only to have it all ripped apart by purely punk power chords and 8-bit key lead, with Jeff wailing, "Stale regrets are a waste of time. Only one thing remains for sure: that we all get old forever."
This theme of time slipping through one's fingers was a major part of what made this album so engaging and personally relevant to me. This was a year of transition for me, of changes from boyhood to manhood in a lot of ways, and I needed someone like Jeff, with the humor, immaturity, and charisma of an old high school friend to remind me: getting old happens to the youngest of us.
2. Kendrick Lamar - "How Much A Dollar Cost"
I'll always remember where I was and what I was doing when To Pimp A Butterfly really hit me. I was on a concrete schoolyard in late March, listening to the album on headphones. I was walking home from school. For the fifth time, Kendrick Lamar was reciting an iteration of his conceptual poem, adding the lines "But while my loved ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new. Then, with the opening piano chords courtesy of Robert Glasper, "How Much A Dollar Cost" unfolded before me.
What drew me in to the song at first, which is what drew me into Kendrick's masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly at first, was the gorgeously produced, classic sound of the instrumentation. It sounded like the classiest Jurassic 5 or Tribe beat I had ever heard, brought forward in time to the year 2015. Over it all, Kendrick spins a fable-turned-parable of a fateful meeting with God in the guise of a homeless South African. He displays his mastery of rhyme and metric flow over the song's three verses, as well as a mastery of narrative. Each line builds the tension of the experience and the mystery of the stranger, and exposes Kendrick's human nature as he struggles between choosing between his head and his heart, between what he's been taught all his life and what he knew all along.
This sort of raw display of humanity is what has driven a lot of the fans that Kendrick acquired through the radio away, and it's also what makes this album so instantly timeless. In Kendrick's raw, rasp-voiced self portrait, we can see clearly Kendrick the mortal man; America the institution; and ourselves, the human family, trying to make something beautiful together in spite of our humanity.
But we can't really talk about emotional rawness without talking about Sufjan Steven's new album. Sufjan surprised the entire indie community with Carrie & Lowell's stripped-back, return to folk form, and we marveled that he did so without sparing any musical intricacy or harmonic depth. Perhaps more so, Sufjan's new album surprised us by being incredibly personal and emotionally naked, and not about schizophrenic, prophetic dreams of cyber-Apocalypse or the detailed history of Midwestern States.
While there are plenty of beautiful pieces to choose from on this album, "Fourth of July" stands out as being characteristic of these monumental and courageous changes Sufjan made to his music. It is the most personal song he's ever written, being about his emotions and thoughts at the precise time and place that his mother died. "The hospital asked should the body be cast before I say goodbye, my star in the sky. Such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth. Do you find it alright, my dragonfly?" I get chills just reading those tender, delicate words.
In a year full of violence, chaos and confusion, such a sweet ballad of pure familial love comes as a welcome respite, an opportunity to appreciate the people we love.
This theme of time slipping through one's fingers was a major part of what made this album so engaging and personally relevant to me. This was a year of transition for me, of changes from boyhood to manhood in a lot of ways, and I needed someone like Jeff, with the humor, immaturity, and charisma of an old high school friend to remind me: getting old happens to the youngest of us.
2. Kendrick Lamar - "How Much A Dollar Cost"
I'll always remember where I was and what I was doing when To Pimp A Butterfly really hit me. I was on a concrete schoolyard in late March, listening to the album on headphones. I was walking home from school. For the fifth time, Kendrick Lamar was reciting an iteration of his conceptual poem, adding the lines "But while my loved ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new. Then, with the opening piano chords courtesy of Robert Glasper, "How Much A Dollar Cost" unfolded before me.
What drew me in to the song at first, which is what drew me into Kendrick's masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly at first, was the gorgeously produced, classic sound of the instrumentation. It sounded like the classiest Jurassic 5 or Tribe beat I had ever heard, brought forward in time to the year 2015. Over it all, Kendrick spins a fable-turned-parable of a fateful meeting with God in the guise of a homeless South African. He displays his mastery of rhyme and metric flow over the song's three verses, as well as a mastery of narrative. Each line builds the tension of the experience and the mystery of the stranger, and exposes Kendrick's human nature as he struggles between choosing between his head and his heart, between what he's been taught all his life and what he knew all along.
This sort of raw display of humanity is what has driven a lot of the fans that Kendrick acquired through the radio away, and it's also what makes this album so instantly timeless. In Kendrick's raw, rasp-voiced self portrait, we can see clearly Kendrick the mortal man; America the institution; and ourselves, the human family, trying to make something beautiful together in spite of our humanity.
1. Sufjan Stevens - "Fourth of July"
But we can't really talk about emotional rawness without talking about Sufjan Steven's new album. Sufjan surprised the entire indie community with Carrie & Lowell's stripped-back, return to folk form, and we marveled that he did so without sparing any musical intricacy or harmonic depth. Perhaps more so, Sufjan's new album surprised us by being incredibly personal and emotionally naked, and not about schizophrenic, prophetic dreams of cyber-Apocalypse or the detailed history of Midwestern States.
While there are plenty of beautiful pieces to choose from on this album, "Fourth of July" stands out as being characteristic of these monumental and courageous changes Sufjan made to his music. It is the most personal song he's ever written, being about his emotions and thoughts at the precise time and place that his mother died. "The hospital asked should the body be cast before I say goodbye, my star in the sky. Such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth. Do you find it alright, my dragonfly?" I get chills just reading those tender, delicate words.
In a year full of violence, chaos and confusion, such a sweet ballad of pure familial love comes as a welcome respite, an opportunity to appreciate the people we love.
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