SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 30. Kelly Lee Owens - Cbm (that whirring sound that comes in at 1:27 is the best thing in the world and no one finna tell me otherwise!) Spoiler 29. Tyler, the Creator f/ Kali Uchis - See You Again (this ......... breaks my heart) Spoiler 28. King Krule - Dum Surfer Spoiler 27. Rapsody f/ Kendrick Lamar & Lance SkiiiWalker - Power Spoiler 26. Slowdive - Go Get It (this one is legit shoegazey, I'm very glad they included it) Spoiler 25. Lorde - The Louvre Spoiler 24. Priests - Jj Spoiler 23. Paul White f/ Danny Brown - Accelerator (Atrocity Exhibition 2: This Time It's Personal) Spoiler 22. Frank Ocean - Chanel (everything he dropped this year was flames tbh, but when he starts SINGING here the deal is just sealed) Spoiler 21. Kesha - Praying (just straight the soul, don't ever tell me context shouldn't matter when listening to music. I could barely even listen for a while after it came out, but that speaks to its sucess I guess) Spoiler
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 20. Selena Gomez - Bad Liar (you already know who it is!) Spoiler 19. Denzel Curry - Bloodshed Spoiler 18. 21 Savage - Bank Account Spoiler 17. yaeji - raingurl (ooo boi but drink i'm sippin on was CLOSE) Spoiler 16. Vince Staples - BagBak Spoiler 15. N.E.R.D. f/ Rihanna - Lemon (first listen it seems like Rihanna's verse is the only thing worth salvaging here, but give it a few and the rest starts to fall into place. when you're a timeless genius (Pharrell) you don't need to pay attention to radio trends and you get to the point where you can kinda just do whatever the **** you want and it still works. having said that, what a verse. :deadbanana:) Spoiler 14. Goldlink - Crew (smoothest chorus I've ever heard in my life. this was a little bit of a DMV secret anthem) Spoiler 13. St. Vincent - Sugarboy (so Bowie it hurts. the bisexual overtones are always a clear path to my heart, but so are songs that sound like they're spiralling out of control from the moment they start. love the Los Ageless riff peeping its head through the door) Spoiler 12. Metro Boomin, Offset & 21 Savage - Rap Saved Me (it's true!) Spoiler 11. Fever Ray - This Country (lyric of the year, no question. nooo question) Spoiler
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 10. Charli XCX - Track 10 For all I know this is just a remix of a simpler song with lyrics we've come dangerously close to hearing before. But in execution it plays like everything she's been building up to over her whole career, and as it builds towards the climax it almost feels like she's evolved past the point of conventional pop structure as a whole. So exciting and so good
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 9. Playboi Carti - Magnolia I gave a better descrip of his appeal in the album writeup, but I'll just say not many songs are THIS hypnotic while also providing such an insane jolt of energy. Definitely a top singalong pick once you can work your way into the rhythm.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 8. Calvin Harris f/ Frank Ocean & Migos - Slide There are a lot more pieces to this/credits to give than "Frank finally does a radio song," but yeah this is perfection. Such an instant mood lifter and just another amazing song to sing along to in the car. "We gon pipe up and turn up!" "Offset! Good gracious!" ... not to mention the challenging but rewarding experience of trying to nail every I might! from the top. Some dude at this party last night was telling me about the boy with a pipe line and I hadn't ever gotten the reference. I'm still learning things!
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 7. (Sandy) Alex G - Bobby (Again,) I love the bisexual overtones but I also love the mystery so really I don't care too much who Bobby is or who else this song is about. For a slowish, emotionally-affecting country ballad this is SO compulsively listenable for me, and overall just hella comforting no matter what type of way I'm feeling. That fiddle hook clearly putting in a lot of work.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 6. The War on Drugs - Up All Night I'm not crazy to say this is their Running Up That Hill, right? An absolutely stunning build up to that noisy freakout section, which I just wanna take at max volume and IV into my bloodstream forever. At 6 minutes it never ever lasts long enough.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 5. Japanese Breakfast - Diving Woman A little bit of a similar vibe as #5, but instead of Running Up That Hill, more Deerhunter - Nothing Ever Happened (huge compliment). Never thought I'd peg her for a song like this but guess she just needed to get out of that Bandcamp budget zone. First I wanna get lost forever in that riff, then when the feedback hits I wanna get lost forever in that instead. It's a nice back and forth.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 4. Kelela - Frontline There it is. There's that perfect chorus we'd been waiting on for a couple now, and there she is teasing us by bringing it in a little fainter each time than the last. Love the precision of basically everything in the first half compared to how it sprawls out at the end (+ car noises!). But yeah, that chorus.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 3. Kendrick Lamar - DNA. Damn! Instead of making us wait for that big MOMENT (think Sing About Me, Blacker the Berry), Kendrick is nice enough to gut punch us just 2 minutes into this album, then again 2 minutes later when Geraldo comes in to bring in the beat switch of the life. He's always known how to make a song ****ing bang and get you thinking at the same time, but credit to him for doing it again and still catching us off guard.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 2. Sampha - Plastic 100°C I'm maybe a little surprised this never came up as a bigger consensus pick, but if that means I can keep it to myself then I'll take that too. Nothing else this year hit me with such a blast of raw emotion, but as raw and down as Sampha sounds (that performance...), there's that current of hope that somehow takes the song into uplifting-ish territory for me. Going from high to low and back again, major Ultralight flashbacks in that department. Between the hospital sounds in the beginning and the space talk samples that drive it home, there's a mysterious vibe that somehow exactly transmits the feeling of hopelessness and well, melting.
SLIME Posted January 15, 2018 Author Posted January 15, 2018 1. Lil Uzi Vert - XO TOUR Llif3 "Are you alright?" How many times are we asked that, or a similar question, and how many times do we hit em back with the "I'm fine," "yeah I'm great," "don't worry"? If this doesn't ring a bell, well I'm happy for you! But bringing your darkness out into the light isn't always the easiest thing, and if you're under the spotlight of being (soon to be) one of the biggest rappers in the world, it can't get any easier. First time I heard XO I was already a little behind the curve on it blowing up big, and I still didn't really get it. Right up front, someone is crying; someone's friends are dead; someone's been pushed to the edge. Then the verses start and we're right back to money cash hoes, business as usual; it's hard to know which Uzi is the real Uzi. It took until one day I absent-mindedly honed in on that scream for me to realize they're both the real Uzi. There's a black hole of death and despair staring right out from the center of this song, but it's Uzi's (and TM88's) borderline indifference to it all that amplifies the pain, not covers it up. In that way it's one of the most striking and accurate depictions of unhappiness I've seen in a minute, and many many levels beyond anything I should have expected from a Soundcloud loosie that accidentally turned into one of the biggest songs of the year. It's closer to numbness than any sort of active misery, but we get hints of both. There's layers here. Personally there was a lot to grapple with when it came to this song, both in terms of my own interpretation and seeing it get as big as it did, as other people did the same. And unlike a lot of other music I dig, I only came to love it more as I got closer to its center. It wasn't even my #1 for most of the planning stages of this list, but the more I think about it, it's the only thing that makes sense. And my money's right........
jose168 Posted January 15, 2018 Posted January 15, 2018 Omg your list is alot more poppy than I expected. Great#1 legend
MP2K Posted January 19, 2018 Posted January 19, 2018 Taylor Swift - ...Ready for It? Katy Perry - Chained to the Rhythm What are these doing there, dear, here on this good list? And go back to 2017 and swap #1 and #2
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