We've looked at the worst tracks of 2019, but what about my favourites? Here are just a few of the tracks that I kept returning to throughout the year, complete with descriptions of why I love them.
PS: There are a lot of embedded Youtube videos here, so I apologise now if it this page takes ages to load.
PS. PS: Also, if you like lists, don't forget to check out my favourite tracks of 2018, 2017 and 2016.
20. ‘Suicide City’ - Onoe
Caponoe
This
lo-fi funky beat gives me tingles – props to producer Jae Genius, whose SoundCloud you can check out here. UK rapper Onoe Caponoe meanwhile matches the energy with
some speedy bars and lovably abstract lyrics about fucking a cactus and smoking
with Draculas (that’s about all I could make out). The trippy visuals are the
cherry on top.
19. ‘Activate’ – Elle Shimada
ft. Abbey Howlett & Cazeaux O.S.L.O
It’s a
bit all over the place (as are many of the songs this week), but the sheer
creativity of this track makes it worth it. The beat produced by Melbourne
artist Elle Shimada is a speedball of woozy jazz samples and frenetic 808s.
There’s some breathy singing from Abby Howlett and a rapped verse from Cazeaux
O.S.L.O. All in all, it’s a lot of fun. The
track is off the Wondercore Island mixtape SURF JAZZ – it features
a medley of experimental artists and its proceeds go towards an Australian surf
charity.
18. ‘Vossi Bop’ – Stormzy
I can usually take or leave Stormzy, but this track is fire.
The beat is mental, the hook’s super-catchy and I appreciate the sentiment
‘Fuck Boris’. It’s also probably the biggest budget UK hip hop video I’ve seen
to date (Idris Elba even makes a cameo!).
17. ‘All In Your Head’ – Clipping
ft. Robyn Hood and Counterfeit Madison
Clipping never fail to impress me with their sonic
inventiveness. This track comes straight off of the experimental hip hop band’s
latest album There Existed An
Addiction to Blood. It starts off cold and abrasive – over noisy
clangs and whirrs, Daveed Diggs trades gritty bars with guest rapper Robyn
Hood. Then towards the end, the track takes a euphoric melodic shift. Second
guest Counterfeit Madison delivers some gospel-flavoured singing and slowly
from out of the darkness rises triumphant instrumentation until it reaches a
loud and bright crescendo.
16. ‘Paramour’ – Anna Meredith
This instrumental track from UK composer/musician Anna
Meredith is truly genre-bending. It begins with a hyperspeed oscillating synth
that is gradually joined by more instruments from cellos to electric guitars,
taking various twists and turns but never losing momentum. The exciting musical
journey is visually captured in a music video following a Lego train, filmed in
one shot. I can’t imagine how many takes it took to get it right!
15. ‘God of Love’ – Liturgy
Hipster-metal band Liturgy may sometimes be a little
pretentious, but this latest single is an utter thrill-ride (providing you like
avant-garde extreme metal – otherwise it’ll likely sound like pure noise). The
intense instrumentation making up this track has so much detail in it, slowing
and speeding up, even briefly glitching out (I thought my computer had crashed)
and the settling into a more melodic breakdown with vocal oo-oohs and
Sugar-Plumb-Fairy twinkling celestas (at least, that’s what I think they are). I’d
prefer if the screaming wasn’t as buried, but the wild instrumentation makes up
for it.
14. ‘Old Town Road’ – Lil Nas X ft.
Billy Rae Cyrus
I usually can’t stand country and tend
to automatically despise any rapper with Lil in their name. But this hit country-rap
crossover is a work of genius. After the thousandth time of hearing it on the
radio it has lost some of its appeal - but given that I initially loved it, it
still deserves a place on this list.
13. ‘Don’t Go Riding Down The
Cosmic Drain’ – Syrup, Go On
This exciting track from Gold Coast indie band Syrup, Go On
ticks all the right boxes for me – the music video is stylish, the guitars are
groovy and layered, the male/female vocal harmonies are catchy and there’s
plenty of reverb to give it that dreamy finish (but not so much that the detail
is drowned out). The lyrics are also motivational without being syrupy (which I
expected, given the band name). Fans of this track can check out their new
album here.
12. ‘I Love My Computer’ –
Hollowlove
It amazes me how this duo are able to tackle serious social
messages whilst crafting ridiculously fun songs in the process. This time the
topic is tech addiction, sung from the perspective of a lovestruck digital
junkie to the accompaniment of glossy synths funky enough to rival Jamiroquai.
If I ever get married to my laptop (I hope she says yes – I’m yet to pop the
question), this is the song I’ll use for the first dance.
11. ‘Titanium 2 Step’ – Battles
‘Titanium 2 Step’ is a
quintessential Battles track – which is to say it sounds nothing like any other
music you’ve heard. It stomps along mechanically, whilst the guitars blip and
whirr as if threatening to fall apart at any moment. I’m still yet to listen to
the new Battles album – if all the tracks are as good as this, I’m in for a
treat.
10. ‘Puff Daddy’ – JPEGMAFIA
Eccentric Baltimore rapper JPEGMAFIA joins forces with
producer Kenny Beats, resulting in this abrasive banger. I still haven’t got
round to dissecting Peggy’s bars – every time I’ve tried to focus on the lyrics
the beat has distracted me. Is that a distorted 808 kick or a laser gun?
Whatever it is, it slaps hard.
9. ‘A Boy Is A Gun’ – Tyler, The
Creator
All of the beats on Tyler’s latest
album Igor are phenomenal, but this might be the best of them all with its
choppy Motown sampling, twinkling pianos and synth arpeggios. The lyrics
meanwhile centre around the dangers of unrequited love with a man – progressive
material for a rapper that was delivering homophobic bars at the beginning of
the decade.
8. ‘Inner Paths (To Outer Space)
– Blood Incantation
This is largely an instrumental (there’s a lone growl at the
end, but otherwise it’s an instrumental) and it slowly transitions from
time-stretched cinematic ambience to prog rock to full out death metal. All the
while, the video takes the listener on a trippy journey through space before
drowning the viewer in blood. The talent that has gone into the production and
composition of this track is incredible. To steal a comment I read on the
Youtube video, it makes ‘Tool look like Smash Mouth’. The band have a new
album out that I’ll
definitely be checking out over the weekend.
7. ‘Together’ – Katie Rush
This
heartbreak-themed pop song has some really left-field production. The sugary
groove feels like a hybrid of 80s/90s electropop, whilst wailing guitars are
layered over the top, which – to quote the PR email – ‘mock the cries of
coyotes, hungry for love’. There’s nothing else out there that sounds quite
like this. The NYC-based singer has a new album out titled Stage Life which
you can check out here.
6. ‘Jan 3’ – Improvement Movement
There’s a lot going on in this three-and-a-half minute
frenetic, genre-bending rollercoaster of a track from Atlanta band Improvement
Movement. The drummer sounds like he has more arms than a hindu deity and I
love the cartoonish interplay between the vocals and psychedelic keys. The band
offer their own description: ‘This song is an instruction manual on how to not get mugged, written and
recorded the night I got mugged. It's a 3AM walk down Mitchell Street, scored
by Oscar Peterson, dunked in a bucket of Fuzzy Fun Machines and chilled to 11
degrees Fahrenheit. We hope this helps you not get mugged’.
5. ‘Lullaby for my Insomniac’ –
James Blake
I wasn’t the biggest fan of James Blake’s latest album, but
this track is absolutely beautiful. It sees
the alt-pop singer gently crooning against a percussionless backdrop of
swelling chords. The silence itself is an instrument, giving this track a
dreamy weightlessness. Towards the end, Blake builds upon the chords with vocal
harmonising that sounds almost like Gregorian chanting. I thought lullabies
were meant to help you drift off to sleep – this has me hooked from start to
finish.
4. ‘Mountain of Dreams’ – FEVRMOON
If the ascending piano and
dreamy vocals don’t put you in a trance, then the symphonic strings most
certainly will. This track is utterly hypnotic – I have a tendency to overuse
that word, but honestly, this is some Derren-Brown-level shit. I’m not even
sure what genre to classify this as? Parts of it feel very digital such as the
warping sub-bass and numerous vocal effects, but other parts such as the piano
and sighed-out vocal delivery have a very earthy feel. It’s one of the most
fascinating sounds I’ve heard all year.
3. ‘Tempo’ – Lizzo ft. Missy
Elliot
I’m not usually one for ass anthems or skinny-shaming, but
this banger is so ridiculously fun that I couldn’t care less. These two seem
like the perfect pairing for a track for this, both bringing ample amounts of
attitude. As for the beat, well, it’s absolutely filthy.
2. ‘Tu Es Belle’ – Starwolf
Starwolf
aren’t from around here. As their Facebook bio
explains: ‘After traveling
as stardust for 13.8 billion years through the universe, Starwolf has morphed
into human form to satisfy your ears’. It makes sense given
that this track is out of this world. Commencing with some beautiful guitars,
the track then evolves into a funky synthpop number with Daft-Punk-esque
vocoders before soaring into a heavenly climax of jazz flute and triumphant
saxophone. It’s barely two and half minutes long and I feel like I’ve just been
on an epic journey across the cosmos.
1. ‘It Might Be Time’ - Tame
Impala
‘You ain’t as young as you used to be’. I hate how depressingly relatable these lyrics are. The
fact that those synths sound like the Kill Bill siren also adds to the anxiety.
And yet the groovy pounding drums and gorgeous keys make this the most
enjoyable panic attack I’ve ever had. Tame Impala will be releasing
a new album in 2020 and I’m absolutely
psyched.