Now for the finale:
1.Strangers (Danger Mouse & Black Thought feat. ASAP Rocky & Run The Jewels):
the entire four minutes is non-stop electricity led by Thought, with impeccable rhythm from Danger Mouse’s production. (BEATS PER MINUTE)
2. Abomination (Shamir):
rapping over a grinding, undulating beat, Shamir casts himself as a profit and pundit, a pop Cassandra who sees a grim future for his listeners. The song serves as a worried and urgent call, tackling social and economic injustice. Seeing through superficial liberal sloganeering, he astutely points out, “Unless it’s just for optics, say my life matter, but it’s just an option/madam vice president a cop, don’t cop shit, being pushed to you as progress, for profit.” Shamir’s contempt looks at a broken system that needs a reset, and he refuses to indulge in happy talk. (POPMATTERS)
3. Mercury (Steve Lacy):
mixes meaningful words with non-lexical vocals, yet the coos of “Bababababababa” feel purposely free rather than nonsensical. “Speeding when I should ease in/Oh I know myself/My sins/Dug my pit then I fell in.” Lacy continues to navigate through the harsh truths many refuse to confront. Message aside, “Mercury” is a little slice of heaven, like sailing a gondola down the Riviera. His frothy vocals scale up and down the bongos and Spanish guitar strums. (HIPHOPDX)
4. Church Girl (Beyonce):
a slow-building trap bounce and gospel record (we don't know how she pulled it off either), Beyoncé and crew pen a slew of lyrics that are sure to be memed (and embedded on T-shirts) in the coming weeks, with lines like "Drop it like a thotty" or "Must be the cash 'cause it ain't your face. (EXCLAIM)
5. Space Rabbit (Freddie Gibbs):
a particularly soul-bearing track that talks about the “gun fights and sleepless nights” that plagued Freddie’s past. Kevin Durant also shows up just to say hi, like a primary source name drop. These moments are probably supposed to be cheeky, but just come off as tacked on. The songs themselves are already exhilarating; we don’t need Joe Rogan’s self-effacing DMT reference to tell us we’re having fun. (HIPHOPDX)
6. Everybody’s Gay (Lizzo):
weds ringing guitar chords courtesy of 1980s new wave and neo-disco electro beats circa early Daft Punk. Rather than serving as a predictable pro-diversity manifesto, as the title suggests, the song unfurls as a carnivalesque portrait of the American dance scene. (POPMATTERS)
7. President The Rock (Marlowe):
back and brasher, the duo slaps verses between beats with braggadocio.
8. Saoko (Rosalia):
finds Rosalía confronting the changes that she’s undergone in the past several years since her rise to fame, reveling in their contradictions and possibilities. (SLANT)
9. N95 (Kendrick Lamar):
Lamar calls out for a massive strip-off, from fake jewelry to fake social media highlight reels to getting hooked up on Wi-fi and luxury brands. On top of this, Kendrick Lamar also claims that the whole world was lied to during the pandemic. (JUST RANDOM THINGS)
10. Dead Inside Shuffle (Louis Cole):
a perfect union of jazzy texture and vocal gymnastics.
11. Underwater Boi (Turnstile):
finds its insane gritty yet groovy core and blossoms.
12. America Has A Problem (Beyonce):
she’s thrown out these type of pop ditties before but she grabs a retro vibe and elevates it even higher.
13. Bad Religion (Cat Power):
Chan Marshall is known for her song deconstruction skills but to totally reinvent Frank Ocean’s gay panic into an even more love-obsessed ode that ultimately leads to dire consequences, is quite a magnificent feat.
14. American Teenager (Ethel Cain):
the most arena-ready song in Cain's arsenal, might have you picturing Preacher's Daughter as a moodboard for a certain "Don't Tread On Me" splendor: Budweiser, NASCAR, purple mountain majesties. We meet our protagonist drunk on whiskey and crying in the football bleachers, and when she sings of the neighbor's brother coming home in a box, her voice is clear and pure — a '90s strain of angel. (NPR)
15. Walkin (Denzel Curry):
depicts Curry as a lone traveler navigating the desert of a spaghetti Western, while the music gives off a contemplative boom-bap sound. He raps about the systems in place that hold him back; “They ready to set us up for failure / it’s systematic / But when I felt it, my eyes melted / The selfish are constantly profitin’ off the helpless.” However, the beat suddenly switches into energetic trap as if Curry is waking up from his malaise; “Bullshit fly my way, I keep walkin’,” he proclaims. Curry has witnessed the “dirty, filthy, rotten, nasty little world we call our home,” and instead of letting it all happen, he pushes for change through his music. By rapping about everyone’s commonalities and collective predicament, he intends to bring people together when the world does everything to tear them apart. (BEATS PER MINUTE)
16. Angels & Queens (Gabriels):
with that falsetto, Lusk can really do no wrong but he juxtaposes the retro and contemporary textures so lusciously that one can only dance gleefully and not even focus on the torture-filled lyrics being spit back at you.
17. Cheat Codes (Danger Mouse & Black Thought):
works through the mindset of the "young gunners" running stickups in Philly, only to zoom out at the end and account for the larger systems that created them, using the mic like a bullhorn. (NPR)
18. Blame It On The Weather (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard):
a phenomenon of psych-rock sound. It's loud, distorted, disruptive, and on top of all that, fantastical. It has a growing sound and flowing vocals that go from all-out hyper rock, into soft blues intermissions. (INDIE SHUFFLE)
19. Lullaby (Grace Ives):
there’s no denying the slick beats that Ives utilizes well but the real coup is the overall production that helps to mask her obvious break-up pain.
20. The Same (The Smile):
no matter the band or expression, Thom Yorke’s vocals are unmistakably his and as shown on “The Same”, even decades in, can evoke such abstract sadness yet hope.
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