the penultimate batch with some truly outstanding content:
21. Best Life (Danny Brown):
Brown is sober and reflective here. The soulful vibe of the song juxtaposed with Brown’s own reminiscences and regrets from his youth (“Get up out the hood, find a way out/ Route I’m on, either death or jail house/ Wanna get away from all this stress/ For me mama just wanted the best“) results in a song with the feel of vintage Wu-Tang Clan at their peak, sans the Shogun Assassin dialogue. It’s bittersweet, complicated even, but when Brown says, “Ain’t no next life, so now I’m tryna just live my best life,” he sounds the most at ease he’s ever been. To see him show off his Domino’s Pizza Rolex, it’s clear that he’s sincere about that. (TREBLE)
22. All I Need (Five Steez & Mordecai):
a stunning mix of ideas that indicate Steez has been listening to that very famouns Mary J Blige and Method Man jam AND Ms. Fat Booty.
23. Half Manna Half Cocaine (Freddie Gibbs & Madlib):
the newer yet sure-footed fuck boi anthem.
24. Ibtihaj (Rapsody feat. D'angelo & GZA):
a reverential nod to Ibtihaj Muhammad, the US national team fencer who became the first Muslim American woman to wear a hijab while competing during the 2016 Olympic games.
25. The Lost Angels Anthem (Blu feat Kezia):
not many can run through tracks this simply yet cleanly.
26. Taste (Ty Segall):
the feverishly frazzled loops of the album’s opener, “Taste”, gives a helter-skelter rush with Segall droning, “Our salivating makes it all taste worse,” that call to mind the mad eyes of Mans. (THE LINE OF BEST FIT)
27. The One (Marika Hackman):
wryly works humour in its sexual intent.
28. Dance (Megan Thee Stallion):
Megan really found the pocket of the melody here and her flow feels relentless as a result. There’s a pounding oscillation to the delivery that has Meg feeling like a bullet train, without having to become messy and breathless. Her technical rapping ability is so admirable. Amidst all her aesthetic plays and her range of lyricism, one thing remains true: Megan Thee Stallion came here to motherfucking rap. “He was nervous, ‘cause I’m gangster.” Another simple line that sounds worth its weight in gold, all because Megan is the meanest. (DJ BOOTH)
29. Screwed (Janelle Monae):
embodies the occasional, devil-may-care nihilism experienced by queer people of color living under a surveillance state. It also contains one of the funkiest and technically impressive basslines you’ll hear on an album already in awe of Chic and George Clinton.
30. Cellophane (FKA Twigs):
this song, which ends her sophomore album MAGDALENE on a devastating note, describes in simple, universal terms how a relationship can crumble from internal and external pressures. “Didn’t I do it for you?” she repeats over the track’s sparse piano-and-percussion instrumental. “Why won’t you do it for me / When all I do is for you?” Those plaintive lyrics are hammered home by the best vocal performance of twigs’ still-young career, with her voice rising and plummeting with trembling emotion. (TREBLE)
31. Outside (MorMor):
captures loneliness so well.
32. Part Of The Math (Panda Bear):
when Lennox finally opens his mouth, it’s to sing, “It comes out of nowhere/Like a rope/Wrapping tighter and tighter/Round the throat.” The shuffling beat is a throwback to 1990s rock/electronic fusions, like Screamadelica-era Primal Scream; Lennox’s lyrical lapses into ironic hemming and hawing suggest a character that’s part George-Michael Bluth, part Donnie Darko. (PITCHFORK)
33. Ill Wind (Radiohead):
deserves, given its quality as a song, to be highlighted in a way that only a proper studio release can. Hopefully it doesn’t slip between the cracks for too many; it’s a sublime and wonderful track and a firm testament to the superlative reputation of the group over the past three decades. (TREBLE)
34.Black Balloons Reprise (Flying Lotus feat. Denzel Curry):
dire social justice warning.
35. Tipped In Hugs (Avey Tare):
the little growling moments all add up.
36. Juice (Lizzo):
the big girl energy that has become as ubiquitous as it is infectious.
37. Acid King (Malibu Ken):
telling the story of New York murderer Ricky Kasso and his victim Gary Lauwers. Aesop Rock has mentioned this infamous 1984 case in passing before, a small-time dispute between a drug dealer and user that spiraled into a cause celebre. Law enforcement and the media lifted Kasso’s love of heavy metal and purported connections to Satanism into the spotlight, and the ill-fitting “Satanic panic” of the day would stretch far into the future. Aesop Rock’s master-class rhymes describe these players and their scene in harrowing fashion, and with nods to personal connections—Aes grew up in the same county as Kasso, and shared his affinities for metal and LSD. It’s not every day someone drops a single couplet that manages to sum up most of a man’s doomed life, but “Same year Bowie dropped/Two horns hatched and matured to gore Northport’s ’84” hangs early in the air, with the rest of the song dedicated to filling in the gory details of damaged people who spent a fateful night in the woods. All this, and as Rock’s words fly past at his standard ludicrous speed it’s really Tobacco who’s the tone-setter here. His memorably minimal synth line is as creepy and sad as the rap narrative it supports. (TREBLE)
38. Where’s The Catch? (James Blake feat. Andre 3000):
it never hurts to have Dre driving support on your track but Blake really owns his own here too.
39. Hey, Ma (Bon Iver):
a blush of shimmering chords signals a rejection of the sepulchral, electronic detritus that defined his last album 22, A Million, though Vernon borrows a certain metronomic tension from “666 ʇ” in the slow, digital pulse running throughout the track. (SPIN)
40. Noon Rendezvous (Prince):
for all his flair and theatrics when Prince stripped everything down to just vocal delivery, the quality and pureness is always stunning.
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