{"id":8114,"date":"2019-12-13T14:58:14","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T19:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=8114"},"modified":"2019-12-13T14:58:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-13T19:58:15","slug":"top-100-songs-of-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/13\/top-100-songs-of-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 100 songs of 2019."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> I feel like this was a down year; I haven&#8217;t had this hard of a time filling out a top 100 songs list in any of the seven years where I&#8217;ve done one. That means there are a lot of artists on here 2-3 times, and I believe a record number of covers for one of my lists. If you can&#8217;t see the playlist below, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/playlist\/1q13bpbFJ4X4ujPocHqEqc?si=1fMqb-RCT62Z2wFzpsEJkg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"access it here (opens in a new tab)\">access it here<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/playlist\/1q13bpbFJ4X4ujPocHqEqc\" width=\"300\" height=\"380\" frameborder=\"0\" allowtransparency=\"true\" allow=\"encrypted-media\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p><strong>100. Hatchie \u2013 Stay with Me.<\/strong> Hatchie put three songs\non list this year, all from her debut album <em>Keepsake<\/em>, which shows off\nher ability to cook up sweet melodies that work with her slight vocal range,\nrecalling &#8217;90s alternative acts like the Cranberries and the Cardigans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>99. Floating Points \u2013 Anasickmodular.<\/strong> Just the right\namount of Floatin Points&#8217; intellectual spin on EDM, especially given the\nfast-moving, shifting drum machine on this track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>98. Danny Brown \u2013 Best Life.<\/strong> This track, produced by\nQ-Tip, was the star of the veteran rapper Brown&#8217;s latest album, <em>uknowhatimsayin\u00bf<\/em>,\nwhich made best-of-the-year lists from <em>Billboard<\/em>, <em>Paste<\/em>, and <em>Pitchfork.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>97. Supergrass \u2013 Next to You.<\/strong> I have a few covers on\nthe top 100 this year, which is unusual but I think reflects that this was a\ndown year overall for new music. Supergrass is an old favorite of mine, and\nthis cover of a modest hit from the Police marked the release of Supergrass&#8217;\nboxed set this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>96. Of Monsters and Men \u2013 R\u00f3r\u00f3r\u00f3.<\/strong> One of two memorable\ntracks from the Icelandic group&#8217;s rather disappointing third album, <em>Fever\nDream<\/em>, and the one that best showcases lead singer Nanna&#8217;s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>95. Port Noir \u2013 Champagne.<\/strong> I don&#8217;t know what &#8220;the\nblack soul choir&#8221; is, but I kind of like the potential double meaning\nthere in this track from a Swedish hard-rock trio who&#8217;ve worked with a number of\nproducers from the area&#8217;s extreme metal scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>94. Dry Cleaning \u2013 Magic of Meghan.<\/strong> You&#8217;ll either\nlove the repeated guitar line in this song or it will annoy you; I&#8217;m obviously\nin the former camp. It&#8217;s too bad nothing else on Dry Cleaning&#8217;s debut EP\nsounded like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>93. Ride \u2013 Repetition.<\/strong> Ride aren&#8217;t so much shoegaze\nany more, but indie rock, and almost positive in their vibe. I wonder if they\nlook at the audience when they perform now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>92. Longwave \u2013 If We Ever Live Forever. <\/strong>The title\ntrack from their comeback album, their first in eleven years, is a great bit of\njangly indie-rock driven by some mournful guitar lines below a Ben Gibbard-esque\nvocal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>91. Rina Sawayama \u2013 STFU!<\/strong> The song is good, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XojM2D3F-Dc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">the video<\/a>\nelevates this to another level. The song is very NSFW, by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>90. LIFE \u2013 Hollow Thing.<\/strong> I enjoy their sneering modern\ntwist on classic punk, although the hooks aren&#8217;t always there on their debut album\n<em>A Picture of Good Health<\/em>. This song shows they have the ear for it, so\nI&#8217;m hopeful we&#8217;ll get more tracks like this in their future. I look so good in black,\nI always do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>89. Temples \u2013 Hot Motion.<\/strong> The title track and opener\nfrom Temples&#8217; latest album grabs you right from the start with that swirling\nfive-note guitar riff, following by the gait of a shambling drum line, a great\nway to bring you into one of my favorite albums of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>88. White Lies \u2013 Tokyo.<\/strong> Dark synthpop, not quite up\nto their best track, &#8220;There Goes Our Love Again,&#8221; but still strong\nand the best song from <em>Five V2.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>87. The Raconteurs \u2013 Help Me Stranger.<\/strong> Jack White at\nhis best: strong melody, pronounced guitarwork, a solid beat, tight from start\nto finish. The rest of the album was very meh, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>86. Band of Skulls \u2013 Gold.<\/strong> I was disappointed by <em>Love\nIs All You Love<\/em> but this track is what I imagine their retro guitar aesthetic\nwould sound like if Mark Ronson produced them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>85. White Reaper \u2013 Might Be Right.<\/strong> The soi-disant world&#8217;s\ngreatest American band know just what they&#8217;re about: their third album, <em>You Deserve\nLove<\/em>, runs 10 songs \u2026 and 29 minutes. Power-pop jewels like this one \u2013 the second-longest\ntrack on the record \u2013 can wear out their welcome if they go too long, but this\nalbum is an exemplar of its familiar genre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>84. Pharlee \u2013 Darkest Hour. <\/strong>A new band from the ashes\nof several other San Diego-area outfits, Pharlee \u2013 sort of named after Chris\nFarley \u2013 features the snarling vocals of Macarena Rivera and some driving\nguitar work that reminds me on this track of Golden Earring&#8217;s &#8220;Radar\nLove.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>83. Flying Lotus featuring Anderson .Paak \u2013 More.<\/strong> I&#8217;ve\nnever been a huge Flying Lotus fan, but this song&#8217;s abrupt shifts also give us\nsome of Anderson .Paak&#8217;s best work yet for a genre-defying track that\nalternates between jazziness and a danceable groove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>82. black midi \u2013 Reggae.<\/strong> These British experimentalists\nhad my #3 album of the year in <em>Schlagenheim<\/em>, but it doesn&#8217;t lend itself\nto singles \u2013 my favorite track from them in 2019 wasn&#8217;t actually on the album. This\nis probably the most accessible song that is on the LP, and gives you some sense\nof their avant-garde, inverted take on rock; it&#8217;s challenging but doesn&#8217;t push\nthe boundary into abrasiveness like some of the album does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>81. Jade Bird \u2013 Lottery. <\/strong>My second-favorite track\nfrom the Welsh singer-songwriter&#8217;s self-titled debut album, after &#8220;Love\nHas All Been Done Before,&#8221; my #4 song of 2019. This track also showcases\nher Janis Joplin-esque vocals and has a solid hook in the chorus; the album was\nkind of uneven, without enough compelling hooks for that many songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>80. Ten F\u00e9 \u2013 Won&#8217;t Happen.<\/strong> These soft-rock savants\nseem to effortlessly churn out radio-friendly pop tracks that would have been\nhits in a different era; their second album in two years, <em>Future Perfect,\nPresent Tense<\/em>, is full of tracks like this one, melodic and well-rounded\nwithout cloying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>79. Fontaines D.C. \u2013 Too Real.<\/strong> I&#8217;m not in on\nFontaines like most critics seem to be; there&#8217;s something about the vocals on\ntheir tracks that ring false to me and I can&#8217;t quite put my finger on why. It&#8217;s\nas if they&#8217;re trying so hard to sound like vintage punk, but the music is two\ngenerations too late. Of all of their songs I&#8217;ve heard, this one seems the most\ncoherent, or at least has the least discord between the music and vocals, and I\nthink the guitar work here would stand with some of the better stuff from \u2026And\nYou Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>78. Lightning Born \u2013 Renegade.<\/strong> Two and a half minutes\nis just about right for this little slice of New Wave of British Heavy Metal-infused\nrock, with Corrosion of Conformity bassist Mike Dean among the new band&#8217;s members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>77. Metronomy \u2013 Salted Caramel Ice Cream.<\/strong> Yeah, it&#8217;s\nkind of twee, but it&#8217;s really catchy, and I happen to love this flavor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>76. Ceremony \u2013 Further I Was.<\/strong> Get used to seeing\npost-punk revivalists Ceremony on this list, since my #1 album of the year put\nthree tracks on the top 100 and could have put a fourth with &#8220;Say Goodbye\nto Them&#8221; or even &#8220;Years of Love.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>75. BONES UK \u2013 Pretty Waste.<\/strong> This might be the first\ntime I have ever discovered and liked a new song because of a Grammy\nnomination, but that&#8217;s how I first heard about BONES UK, a trio now based in\nL.A. that earned a nod for Best Rock Performance for this hard-edged electronic\/rock\ntrack that seems to descend every time it moves from verse to chorus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>74. Crows \u2013 Wednesday&#8217;s Child.<\/strong> The most accessible\nsong from Crows&#8217; solid, heavy debut album of post-hardcore, &#8220;Wednesday&#8217;s\nChild&#8221; reminds me tonally of Drenge, but with a wall-of-sound effect from\nmultiple guitars and heavier distortion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>73. Big Thief \u2013 UFOF.<\/strong> Every critic seems to love this\nalbum, but it did almost nothing for me \u2013 it&#8217;s aggressively boring, a callback\nto the stillborn quietcore movement that nobody really wanted to revisit in the\nfirst place. The title track was the one song that stood out to me for an\nactual melody, something you could grab on to aurally that might bring you back\nto the song for another listen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>72. FKA Twigs \u2013 cellophane.<\/strong> The first single from <em>MAGDALENE<\/em>,\nreleased seven months in advance of the album, is mostly just her voice, often\nin falsetto, and the ghost of a piano, with electronic elements only appearing\nin the last third of the song, and barely at that. Her maturation as a singer\nand songwriter was first evident on the 2016 one-off single &#8220;Good to\nLove,&#8221; and this song made it clear how much she&#8217;d grown since her first\nrecord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>71. Holly Herndon \u2013 Frontier.<\/strong> Herndon&#8217;s third album <em>PROTO\n<\/em>includes a choral ensemble and the inputs of Spawn, a &#8220;nascent&#8221;\nAI trained via vocal tracks, a process audible on other songs on the record\nlike &#8220;Canaan.&#8221; &#8220;Frontier&#8221; is a more finished product,\nHerndon&#8217;s (and Spawn&#8217;s) take on Appalachian Sacred Harp music, with the result sounding\nsimultaneously futuristic and decidedly old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>70. Wye Oak \u2013 Fortune.<\/strong> Hoping this is a harbinger of\nanother new album from the indie duo, both in timing and in sound, as this\nseems to sit between <em>Civilian<\/em> and <em>The Louder I Call, The Faster It\nRuns<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>69. Hatchie \u2013 Without a Blush.<\/strong> We can quibble over genres,\nbut this is a pop song, and I&#8217;m good with that. It&#8217;s bright and shimmering and\nthat opener gets stuck in my head for days whenever I hear it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>68. Mourn \u2013 Jumping Someone Else&#8217;s Train.<\/strong> This Catalonian\ntrio \u2013 it looks like they lost a member somewhere after their last album \u2013\ndeserves a wider audience for their raw, garage-tinged sound, but label\nproblems held them back before their 2018 album <em>Sorpresa Familia<\/em> was\nreleased. They put out a four-song EP of covers this year, headlined by this\ncover of a Cure track, along with covers of songs by Come, dEUS, and Chris\nBell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>67. Lower Dens \u2013 Hand of God.<\/strong> My favorite track from\nLower Dens&#8217; fourth album, <em>The Competition<\/em>, is almost \u2026 sunny? Bright?\nIt&#8217;s still indie-pop with a heavy synth element, but there&#8217;s something\nundeniably upbeat here that isn&#8217;t present in a lot of their music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>66. Here Lies Man \u2013 Long Legs.<\/strong> HLM&#8217;s weird blend of\nstoner rock, world music, and jazz influences coes together very nicely on this\nheavy yet grooving track that really doesn&#8217;t miss the vocals it lacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>65. Phantom Planet \u2013 BALISONG.<\/strong> Phantom Planet&#8217;s first\nnew music in eleven years turned out to be a little pop gem with an earworm of\na vocal, even though the song is about a butterfly knife (also called a balisong).\nThey released a second single this year, &#8220;Party Animal,&#8221; that was forgettable,\nbut there&#8217;s apparently a new album in the works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>64. The Ninth Wave \u2013 First Encounters.<\/strong> This Scottish\npost-punk band, which I presume took its name from the Russian painting by that\ntitle, followed the same playbook as Foals in 2019, releasing one album in two\nparts, although <em>Infancy<\/em> is shorter in total, running just 45 minutes\nacross all 12 songs. This dark, gothic song seems to blend early new wave with\nthe gloomy style of fellow Scots The Twilight Sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>63. Inhaler \u2013 My Honest Face.<\/strong> That&#8217;s Bono&#8217;s son\nElijah Hewson, if any of this sounded a bit familiar, and while the comparisons\nto <em>Boy<\/em> and <em>October<\/em> are kind of obvious, there&#8217;s enough contemporary\nindie to Inhaler&#8217;s sound that we shouldn&#8217;t dismiss them as a novelty or some\nsort of nepotism act. They&#8217;ve released a few singles so far, with this easily\nthe best and most complete-sounding one to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>62. Little Simz \u2013 Offence.<\/strong> Little Simz, just 25 years\nold, already has three albums under her belt, with 2019&#8217;s <em>Grey Area<\/em>\nearning her a Mercury Prize nomination. The London-born rapper has great vocal\nflow, both fast and precise, although the choices of backing music aren&#8217;t\nalways ideal for her style; standout tracks include this one, &#8220;Selfish,&#8221;\nand &#8220;Pressure,&#8221; but to my surprise I didn&#8217;t care for her collaboration\nwith Michael Kiwanuka on &#8220;Flowers.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>61. Hot Chip \u2013 Hungry Child.<\/strong> The longtime electronic\nstalwarts titled their latest album <em>A Bath Full of Ecstasy<\/em>, because why\nnot. They may never reach the high of 2006&#8217;s &#8220;Over and Over&#8221; again,\nbut they&#8217;re good for one or two plus songs per album, with this one and\n&#8220;No God&#8221; the standouts on this record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>60. The New Pornographers \u2013 The Surprise Knock.<\/strong> I\nthink I take The New Pornographers for granted; even when an album isn&#8217;t the\nnext <em>Twin Cinema<\/em> or <em>Brill Bruisers<\/em>, it still has a few subtle pop\ngems like this one, from their latest record, <em>In the Morse Code of Brake\nLights<\/em>. I also liked &#8220;Colossus of Rhodes&#8221; and &#8220;One Kind of\nSolomon,&#8221; although on the whole I think it&#8217;s not one of their stronger\nalbums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>59. Michael Kiwanuka \u2013 Hero.<\/strong> The first of three\ntracks from <em>KIWANUKA<\/em>, my #2 album of 2019, on this list,\n&#8220;Hero&#8221; is a great single in its own right, with two memorable guitar\ntracks and Kiwanuka&#8217;s use of an extra pause in the verses to give the song more\ntension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>58. High on Fire \u2013 Bat Salad.<\/strong> Turns out High on Fire\nis even better without Matt Pike yelling at us for an entire song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>57. YONAKA \u2013 Don&#8217;t Wait Till Tomorrow. <\/strong>The title\ntrack from YONAKA&#8217;s debut album revolves, as most of the album does, around\nTheresa Jarvis&#8217; smoky, charismatic vocals, here boosted by marching drums and arpeggiated\nchords that add urgency despite a slower tempo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>56. Working Men&#8217;s Club \u2013 Bad Blood.<\/strong> A new indie act\nfrom the UK that the <em>Guardian<\/em> compared to The Fall and even Soft Cell,\nWorking Men&#8217;s Club debut single reminded me more of Olivia Tremor Control and\nother Elephant 6 acts, although they&#8217;ve gone more synth-heavy with subsequent\nreleases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>55. James BKS featuring Q-Tip, Idris Elba, &amp; Little Simz\n\u2013 New Breed. <\/strong>Tough to argue with that guest lineup \u2013 I&#8217;m a sucker for any\ntrack where Q-Tip drops rhymes \u2013 and it&#8217;s a big sonic shift from James BKS&#8217;s\nprevious songs &#8220;Kwele&#8221; and &#8220;MaWakanda.&#8221; He&#8217;s one to watch,\nand has Elba, who signed BKS to his record label, to boost his profile too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>54. Maisie Peters \u2013 Look at Me Now.<\/strong> The 19-year-old Peters,\nwho first came to prominence when she posted her own songs to Youtube, released\nher second EP this year, the amusingly titled <em>It&#8217;s Your Bed Babe, It&#8217;s Your\nFuneral<\/em>, with more clever songs of teen angst and failed relationships, highlighted\nby this track and &#8220;This Is On You.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>53. Grimes &amp; i_o \u2013 Violence.<\/strong> I&#8217;ve had mixed\nfeelings on the singles leading up to Grimes&#8217; newest album, <em>Miss\nAnthropocene<\/em>, due out in February, but perhaps it&#8217;ll work better as a\nwhole. This is my favorite of the three singles, certainly the most coherent.\nDid you know Claire Boucher now goes by <em>c<\/em>, referring to the scientific\nterm for the speed of light? Yeah, that&#8217;s \u2026 weird. Only Prince gets away with\nthat shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>52. Lauren Ruth Ward &amp; Desi Valentine \u2013 Same Soul.<\/strong>\nTwo great voices that sound great together. LRW seems to put out a new song\nevery few weeks, while Valentine just released his debut album \u2013 the brief,\n8-song <em>Shades of Love<\/em>, this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>51. Dinosaur Pile-Up \u2013 Thrash Metal Cassette.<\/strong> Don&#8217;t\nact like you didn&#8217;t have one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>50. Broken Social Scene \u2013 Can&#8217;t Find My Heart.<\/strong> The other\nCanadian rock supergroup, Broken Social Scene put out two albums in the spring,\n<em>Let&#8217;s Try the After, Volumes 1 and 2<\/em>, with this track the best from\neither record (it&#8217;s on the second one).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>49. Benjamin Gibbard \u2013 Keep Yourself Warm.<\/strong> The best\nthing Gibbard did this year was this cover for <em>Tiny Changes: A Celebration\nof Frightened Rabbit&#8217;s &#8216;Midnight Organ Fight&#8217;<\/em>, a project finished before\nFrightened Rabbit singer Scott Hutchison&#8217;s suicide that now stands as a tribute\nto his memory. This song wrecks me and Gibbard&#8217;s voice is the perfect tone for\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>48. Bat for Lashes \u2013 Jasmine.<\/strong> One of two tracks from\nNatasha Khan&#8217;s latest album, <em>Lost Girls<\/em>, on my list. The other is more\nsoaring, while this one sounds like a pop hit from an alternate universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>47. Just Mustard \u2013 Seven.<\/strong> These Irish shoegazers bring\nthe dark guitar sounds of the first shoegaze era but with audible vocals from\nKatie Ball and sparser production that makes the wall-of-sound style even more\nforeboding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>46. Ride \u2013 Future Love.<\/strong> Speaking of the first wave of\nshoegaze, Ride has reinvented itself as a more mainstream act after their\nnearly 20-year hiatus; this lead single from the second album into their return,\n<em>This is Not a Safe Place<\/em>, is practically a pop song, and I mean that as\na compliment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>45. Joy Williams \u2013 When Creation Was Young.<\/strong> The\nsecond song, and second-best track, from Williams&#8217; second post-Civil Wars\nalbum, <em>Front Porch<\/em>, is this folk\/bluegrass track that showcases her\nincredible voice in a simple song about timeless love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>44. BROCKHAMPTON \u2013 Boy Bye.<\/strong> The best track off their\nuneven album <em>Ginger<\/em> manages to squeeze in verses by three different rappers\nin a fast-moving song that runs just 142 seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>43. Artificial Pleasure \u2013 Boys Grow Up.<\/strong> If you\nhaven&#8217;t figured out that I&#8217;m a sucker for any bands that harken back to the\nformative years of my music fandom by now, I can&#8217;t help you. There&#8217;s Heaven 17\nin here, maybe a little less Spandau Ballet than some of the tracks off <em>The\nBitter End<\/em>, and I always feel like they&#8217;re one female vocalist away from\nthe Human League, and I&#8217;m here for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>42. Sleater-Kinney \u2013 Hurry on Home.<\/strong> I might be in the\nminority on this, but I think Sleater-Kinney&#8217;s latest album, <em>The Center\nWon&#8217;t Hold<\/em>, is their worst, and I believe it&#8217;s entirely because St. Vincent\nproduced it and turned them away from their post-punk\/riot grrl roots. This\nsong was the most authentic Sleater-Kinney track on the album. They were great\nlive, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>41. C\u0153ur de Pirate \u2013 Ne m&#8217;appelle pas.<\/strong> As in, &#8220;Don&#8217;t\ncall me.&#8221; I love B\u00e9atrice Martin&#8217;s voice, and she has a somewhat European\ntwist on alternative pop (yes, she&#8217;s Quebecois); she&#8217;d said she planned to stop\nusing the C\u0153ur de Pirate moniker but then released two one-off singles under\nthe name this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>40. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard \u2013 Boogieman Sam.<\/strong>\nKG&amp;tLW released two albums this year, in totally distinct rock subgenres;\nthe first of the two, <em>Fishing for Fishies<\/em>, was more blues-rock, while\nthe latter, <em>Infest the Rats&#8217; Nest<\/em>, is aggressively metal. This track was\ntheir best this year and comes from the former album, very blues\/jam-band-esque\nbut in a digestible length.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>39. Foals \u2013 On the Luna<\/strong>. The first single from the\nfirst of the two albums Foals released this year has a driving urgency to it\nbetween the two-note keyboard riff and the thumping bass line. Between the two\nrecords, Foals probably produced one really outstanding album of solid rock tunes\nthat bring energy and strong riffs with a few songs left over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>38. Jake Bugg \u2013 Kiss Like the Sun.<\/strong> I&#8217;ve been waiting\nfor Jake Bugg to turn the tempo up since &#8220;What Doesn&#8217;t Kill You&#8221;\ndropped in 2013, and this is the track I wanted, with Bugg&#8217;s Dylanesque vocals\nand guitar sounds, but with some energy this time around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>37. TVAM \u2013 No Silver Bird.<\/strong> TVAM released this as a\nsingle for Record Store Day in April, and I had no idea it was a cover until I put\nit on a playlist in September (when it first appeared on Spotify) and tried to\nread about the song. The original is from 1968, by a little-known band called\nthe Hooterville Trolley that released just a couple of singles. TVAM&#8217;s cover is\nfar better produced, of course, but surprisingly true to the original&#8217;s psycheledic-rock\nvibe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>36. The Amazons \u2013 End of Wonder.<\/strong> Another enormous guitar\nriff from the Amazons, who seem to know exactly what kind of song gets my heart\nrate up. This makes me want to get behind the wheel and hit the gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>35. Night Dreamer \u2013 Another Life.<\/strong> Smashing Pumpkins\nguitarist Jeff Schroeder and Wam Dingis keyboardist Mindy Song collaborated to\nform Night Dreamer, releasing this broody, mesmerizing single back in the summer\nahead of their October EP release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>34. Sunflower Bean \u2013 King of the Dudes.<\/strong> The title\ntrack from their four-song EP, released in January, is a bit more of the usual\nfrom Sunflower Bean, who I think really polished up their sound on their early\n2018 album <em>Twentytwo in Blue<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>33. Charly Bliss \u2013 Young Enough.<\/strong> The title track from\ntheir second full-length album is the longest on the record, and I don&#8217;t think\nit really needs to be five-plus minutes, but it&#8217;s clearly the best song on the\nalbum, with easily its best hook and the strongest showcase for singer\/guitarist\nEva Hendricks&#8217; smoky, dewy-eyed vocals, which come off as cloying elsewhere on\nthe record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>32. The Mysterines \u2013 Gasoline.<\/strong> Three chords and a healthy\ndose of rage from singer\/guitarist Lia Medcalf. &#8220;I just love to hate you&#8221;\nfeels like a rallying cry for the next generation of riot grrls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>31. Ten F\u00e9 \u2013 Coasting. <\/strong>If this were 1978, this song\nwould spend three months in the top 10 on the <em>Billboard <\/em>Hot 100.\nSoft-rock is out of vogue, almost permanently, yet here&#8217;s Ten F\u00e9 unapologetically\nexhuming the genre and producing songs that rank up against the best from its\nheyday. This was the best track from their sophomore album <em>Future Perfect,\nPresent Tense<\/em>, thanks to that little synth line out of the chorus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>30. WOOZE \u2013 I&#8217;ll Have What She&#8217;s Having.<\/strong> WOOZE is the\nnew iteration of a band that was briefly called Movie, then changed their name\nto Screaming Peaches, that had a pair of songs in 2014 that I quite liked in\n&#8220;Mr. Fist&#8221; and &#8220;Ads,&#8221; both catchy, overtly poppy, and\nlyrically silly. This song is all of those things with a bit darker edge to the\nmusic and vocals, which I think helps offset how sugary the pop aspects are.\nThe resulting balance is just fun, like pop music should be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>29. Of Monsters &amp; Men \u2013 Alligator.<\/strong> The Icelandic\nquintet&#8217;s third album <em>Fever Dream<\/em> proved maddening in its sonic and\nmelodic inconsistencies, as the band&#8217;s sound continues to evolve but without\nany clear direction (although you could argue that&#8217;s how evolution works). This\nlead single is by far the album&#8217;s best track, though, one of maybe three songs\non the record where they manage to do something a little different musically\nwhile still producing a good hook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>28. White Reaper \u2013 Real Long Time.<\/strong> White Reaper\naren&#8217;t breaking the mold, but what they do, a sort of hard-rock-edged version\nof pop, they do extremely well. The guitar lines that open this song are reminiscent\nenough of Thin Lizzy that Phil Lynott&#8217;s ghost might as well be hanging out in\ntheir attic Duke Ellington-style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>27. Potty Mouth \u2013 22.<\/strong> I loved this all-female trio&#8217;s\n2015 song &#8220;Cherry Picking,&#8221; but they got caught up in some label\nnonsense that delayed their second album, <em>Snafu<\/em>, till this past spring.\nIt&#8217;s full of power-pop tracks led by this extremely catchy number (pun intended).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>26. Foals \u2013 The Runner.<\/strong> Foals decided to rock out\nthis year, with two albums, or one double album released in two parts, heavy on\nthe crunch. This came from <em>Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 2<\/em>, the\nheavier of the two records, more guitar-forward and muscular throughout the\nalbum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>25. Good Fuck \u2013 Flow Flow.<\/strong> Not sure why bands give\nthemselves deliberately difficult names like this, but I can&#8217;t deny the hypnotic,\nsinister sound of this song, from the fuzzed-out guitars to the tritones behind\nsome of the verses to the random shit that pops into the background of the song.\nI feel like there should be some dark ritual happening behind me whenever this\nsong comes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>24. Two Door Cinema Club \u2013 Once.<\/strong> This is the best\nthing 2DCC has ever done, easily, thanks to an exuberant chorus with\ndouble-time drumwork and cascading keyboards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>23. Tame Impala \u2013 Borderline.<\/strong> One of two singles\nreleased from Tame Impala&#8217;s delayed fourth album <em>The Slow Rush<\/em>, this\ntrack is surprisingly understated and almost poppy for Kevin Parker, but still\nhas the kind of layered, reverb-flush production you&#8217;d expect from him. There&#8217;s\na little chord change in each line in the verse, I think from major to minor,\nthat works every single time because your mind expects something different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>22. Floating Points \u2013 LesAlpx.<\/strong> Electronica generally\ndoesn&#8217;t do much for me, but neuroscientist Sam Shepherd, who records as\nFloating Points, manages to create instrumental EDM that is also melodically\ncompelling. This was my favorite track from his 2019 album <em>Crush<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>21. Michael Kiwanuka \u2013 You Ain&#8217;t the Problem.<\/strong> This\nsong opens <em>Kiwanuka<\/em> with hand-drummed sounds and the chatter of families\ndancing and talking outside, but right at the 30-second mark it slams you back\na half-century into what sounds like peak Motown, a perfect introduction to an\nalbum that will span generations and genres while delivering great single after\nsingle. The off-beat vocal lines \u2013 he starts most lines in the verses on the\nsecond beat \u2013 help keep you a little unsteady as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>20. The Amazons \u2013 Mother.<\/strong> It&#8217;s a slow build, but when\nthe guitar hits, it comes like a dam bursting, which is the sound the Amazons\nhave done well since &#8220;Black Magic.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>19. whenyoung \u2013 A Labour of Love.<\/strong> This song showcases\nvocalist Aoife Power&#8217;s voice as well as anything on their debut album <em>Reasons\nto Dream<\/em> when it gets to that memorable chorus line, &#8220;You build me\nback up, now I see it, a labour of love,&#8221; which sounds far better with her\nIrish accent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>18. Jorja Smith featuring Burna Boy \u2013 Be Honest.<\/strong> Smith&#8217;s\ndebut album, <em>Lost &amp; Found<\/em>, was on my top albums of 2018 post, mostly\nbecause of the power of her voice, which is very much on display again here in\nthis one-off single that includes the Nigerian singer\/songwriter Burna Boy\ncontributing a dancehall verse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>17. YONAKA \u2013 Rockstar. <\/strong>YONAKA&#8217;s album <em>Don&#8217;t Wait\nTill Tomorrow <\/em>tackles some serious subject matter in its lyrics, but this\node to pipe dreams and being, what else, a rock star, just works because of Theresa\nJarvis&#8217; wide-ranging vocal styles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>16. Opeth \u2013 Heart in Hand.<\/strong> The album did nothing for\nme, but this song \u2026 right into my veins, please. Ornate, brilliant guitar work,\na throwback power chord riff beneath it, multiple movements, and vocals that\naren&#8217;t just clean but add to the symphonic character of the song. Fans will\ndebate whether Opeth could still be called metal, or if they just peaked with <em>Blackwater\nPark<\/em> and have gone down ever since, but if they give me one of these songs\nevery album I&#8217;ll be quite happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>15. Hatchie \u2013 Obsessed.<\/strong> Hatchie has quite the knack\nfor creating smart pop gems, with this the best song off her debut album, <em>Keepsake<\/em>.\nI wish her voice had more depth or character to it, but she can spin a melody\nand seems able to draw on influences from any of the last four decades of pop\/alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>14. FKA Twigs \u2013 sad day. <\/strong>Such a mournful, beautiful\nsong, with thoughtful and quotable lyrics (&#8220;would you make a, make wish on\nmy love&#8221; repeats in my head every time I listen to this song), with her\nvocals interspersed by trip-hop elements that break up the dolorous mood of the\nverses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>13. black midi \u2013 Talking Heads. <\/strong>I&#8217;m not sure why\nthese British avant garde rockers, barely out of high school, didn&#8217;t include\nthis single on their debut album <em>Schlagenheim<\/em>, but I think it&#8217;s the best\nand most accessible thing they&#8217;ve done, which also lets you understand a little\nbit about their sound \u2013 which I can only describe as rock that sounds like it&#8217;s\nbeen turned inside out, or perhaps reflected through the x- and y-axes \u2013 before\ndiving into the longer and often obtuse tracks from their album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>12. Ceremony \u2013 In the Spirit World Now. <\/strong>Thetitle\ntrack from the modern new wave\/post-punk band&#8217;s new album veers more towards\nthe former of those two subgenres, with a synth track so retro it comes with\nmascara and a pastel blazer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>11. The Struts \u2013 Pegasus Saiya. <\/strong>This song, from the\nsoundtrack to an anime series called <em>Saint Saiya<\/em>, is so unabashedly bombastic,\nlike glam metal without the hairspray, with an incredible hook, that I liked it\nin spite of its overt homage to music that is thirty years out of date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>10. Jehnny Beth &amp; Johnny Hostile \u2013 Let It Out.<\/strong>\nThis song from the soundtrack to the documentary <em>Xy Chelsea<\/em> (about\nChelsea Manning) features the lead singer of Savages and her partner and\nSavages&#8217; producer; they&#8217;ve previously released two albums as John and Jehn but\nrecorded this ambient, spacey track under their individual stage names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>9. Sundara Karma \u2013 Little Smart Houses.<\/strong> This song\ncame out in February, and ten months later, it will still pop into my head at\nthe most random times, especially the chorus that seems to spill over its\nboundaries with each line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>8. CHVRCHES \u2013 Death Stranding.<\/strong> I&#8217;ll take this over\nanything from CHVRCHES&#8217; last and very disappointing album; I may be thinking\nwishfully, but it seems like Lauren Mayberry may be ready to go out on her own,\nand if this is the last single we get from CHVRCHES they&#8217;re going out on a high\nnote, a song that wouldn&#8217;t be out of place on <em>The Bones of What You Believe<\/em>\nwere it not for the higher production values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>7. whenyoung \u2013 The Others. <\/strong>An Irish trio fronted by\nthe wonderfully-named Aoife Power, they&#8217;ll never escape comparisons to the\nCranberries, but their sound is grungier and sharper around the edges, so much\nthe better for when Power dials up her voice to the top end of her range as she\ndoes on the chorus here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>6. Bat for Lashes \u2013 Desert Man.<\/strong> <em>Lost Girls<\/em> was\none of the albums that I considered for my top LPs of the year list, if I&#8217;d\nkept going past 15, and this is the standout track, the best thing she&#8217;s recorded\nsince &#8220;Laura&#8221; way back in 2012, this time powered by her voice but\nbacked by more than just a piano to give the song more texture. She does\nmelancholy melodies as well as anybody right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>5. Oh Wonder \u2013 Hallelujah. <\/strong>Thefirst 20\nseconds are a bit precious, but stay with it because the build to the first\nreal chorus pays off beautifully with the multilayered vocals and the drum\nmachine behind it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>4. Temples \u2013 Holy Horses.<\/strong> God I love this guitar\nriff. The entire song is a bit ridiculous \u2013 holy horses? \u2013 but that swirling\nguitar line is my favorite of the year, and these psychedelic-rockers have the\ngood sense to get out after three minutes before the riff wears out its\nwelcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Ceremony \u2013 Turn Away the Bad Thing.<\/strong> The opener to\nmy #1 album of the year, <em>In the Spirit World Now<\/em>, starts out with a\ndriving bass line that demands that you sit up and pay attention while pulling\nyou back to the late &#8217;70s heyday of post-punk, only to envelop you fully the\nmoment Ross Farrar&#8217;s voice drops in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2. FKA Twigs featuring Future \u2013 Holy Terrain.<\/strong> I was way out on FKA Twigs&#8217; first album, which I found full of trying-too-hard tracks that didn&#8217;t do enough to show off her tremendous voice, but her follow-up, <em>MAGDALENE<\/em>, really does so while featuring smarter lyrics and without sacrificing the trip-hop leanings she favored on the first record. I don&#8217;t know that Future adds a ton to this track, since it&#8217;s her vocals that carry the day, and the production of his one verse distorts his voice anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1. Michael Kiwanuka \u2013 Rolling.<\/strong> Buoyed by a simple yet intoxicating two-part guitar riff, &#8220;Rolling&#8221; has an incredible, bouncing energy to it, with highly textured percussion, a wandering bass line to anchor it, and Kiwanuka never sounding more like Jimi Hendrix with more vocal depth. This is the song that hooked me on this album, <em>KIWANUKA<\/em>, my #2 LP of the year, a record that everyone should listen to regardless of your preferred genres of music because it crosses so many boundaries between them. Just let this track roll right into &#8220;I&#8217;ve Been Dazed,&#8221; as there&#8217;s no real transition and the two songs work well as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I feel like this was a down year; I haven&#8217;t had this hard of a time filling out a top 100 songs list in any of the seven years where I&#8217;ve done one. That means there are a lot of artists on here 2-3 times, and I believe a record number of covers for one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1085,852,260],"class_list":["post-8114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2019-in-music","tag-music","tag-rankings","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8115,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8114\/revisions\/8115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}