Music! It’s great! My deepest desire in life is for people to find good music and incorporate it into their lives. If you find a song you like here, let me know — I’d love to hear about it.

Spotify Playlist (Official)
Spotify Playlist (Countdown, from 50 to 1)
Spotify Playlist (Clean)
YouTube Playlist

Honorable Mentions:

Gelli Haha: “Bounce House”
Kehlani: “Folded”
Addison Rae: “Headphones On”
I’m With Her: “Ancient Light”
Perfume Genius: “It’s a Mirror”
MAVI & Earl Sweatshirt: “Landgrab”
Snocaps: “Doom”
EsDeeKid ft. fakemink & Rico Ace: “LV Sandals”
CMAT: “Take a Sexy Picture of Me”
Lala Lala: “Does This Go Faster?”
Smerz: “Feisty”
Japanese Breakfast: “Here is Someone”
HAIM: “Relationships”
FACS: “You Future”
Mobb Deep: “Against the World”

50. Erika de Casier: Delusional
49. De La Soul: The Package
48. Bad Bunny: NUEVAYoL
47. Smut: Touch & Go
46. Saya Gray: H.B.W
45. World News: Don’t Want to Know
44. Kali Uchis ft. Ravyn Lenae: Cry about it!
43. MJ Lenderman: Dancing in the Club (This is Lorelei cover)
42. Taylor Swift ft. Sabrina Carpenter: The Life of a Showgirl
41. HUNTR/X: What It Sounds Like

40. DJ Premier & Roc Marciano: Armani Section
39. SZA ft. Kendrick Lamar: 30 for 30
38. Sorry Girls: Ricochet
37. Mariah Carey: Type Dangerous
36. Hayley Williams: Parachute
35. Bon Iver ft. Dijon & Flock of Dimes: Day One
34. Charli XCX: Chains of Love
33. Drake: NOKIA
32. Wolf Alice: Just Two Girls
31. Katie Alice Greer: Talk to Leslie

30. Perfume Genius ft. Aldous Harding: No Front Teeth
29. Blood Orange ft. The Durutti Column, Caroline Polachek, Tariq Al-Sabir & Daniel Caesar): The Field
28. Alex G: Afterlife
27. Addison Rae: Fame is a Gun
26. Deep Sea Diver: Emergency
25. The Beths: Metal
24. Empress Of: Blasting Through the Speakers
23. Sharp Pins: I Can’t Stop
22. Samia: Bovine Excision
21. PinkPantheress: Stateside
 

20. Bon Iver: “There’s a Rhythmn”

Justin Vernon broke onto the scene with his Bon Iver project almost two decades ago as a folk-singing sad boy (complimentary), but has since found both wider soundscapes and deeper contentment. (If you want evidence, may I point you to another of his new tracks called “Everything is Peaceful Love.”) “There’s a Rhythmn” shows Vernon at his most soulful, where warm synths adorn and optimism reigns.

 

19. Courtney Barnett: “Lotta Love” (Neil Young cover)

Neil Young’s “Lotta Love” has been the source of many covers over the years. In fact, covers are integral to the history of the song – its most famous rendition is by Nicolette Larson, who recorded a soft rock version in 1978 after hearing Neil Young’s unreleased original on a tape in Young’s car. Young ended up releasing it that same year, and many covers have followed, including by Dinosaur Jr., She & Him, Helado Negro, and MJ Lenderman. Courtney Barnett is the latest to lend her talents to the song, as part of a tribute album benefitting The Bridge School. It expertly captures the raw, simple, beautiful power of the original, and is especially apt for our current times: “It’s gonna take a lotta love to change the way things are.”

 

18. Chanel Beads: “The Coward Forgets His Nightmare”

Everything about “The Coward Forgets His Nightmare” is mysterious – cold, wistful, dreamfilled production and ambiguously nostalgic lyrics (“I thought I saw you smiling in all my memories.”) It sounds like someone seeking warmth and meaning within a desolate landscape.

 

17. Jeff Tweedy: “Feel Free”

“Feel Free” is the aural equivalent of a summer night on a back porch or a creek burbling down a hill. Jeff Tweedy, whose day job is the frontman of Wilco, applies warm, immaculate, crystal clear production, as if he’s sitting in the room with you, celebrating his newfound freedom and contentment: “Make a record with your friends / Sing a song that never ends / Feel free.”

 

16. Lucius ft. Madison Cunningham: “Impressions”

Madison Cunningham must be a great hang, because in the last two years alone, she’s collaborated on songs with Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons, Andrew Bird, Jason Collier, Whitney, Deep Sea Diver, and Margaret Glaspy. But my favorite of all of her joint tracks is “Impressions” with Lucius. It’s slow but deliberate, simple but full of depth, and boasting exceptional vocal harmonies.

 

15. Smerz: “You got time and I got money”

Norwegian duo Smerz exude a cool, cosmopolitan nonchalance, but they’re not too above-it-all to admit their desires. “You got time and I got money” is a slow-and-steady request to take things to the next level: “Put your arms around my body / I am yours and your only.” It’s like a slow-jam “Bitter Sweet Symphony” with its sweeping strings, but the rest of the production is subtly amazing as well, from the arpeggiated background vocals to the deep bass and steady beat.

 

14. The Berries: “Angelus”

I’m a sucker for “heartland rock” a la Springsteen and the War on Drugs, and “Angelus” is a solid entry into the canon. Matthew Berry, recording as The Berries, clearly has a subtle mastery of his craft, not through anything particularly groundbreaking, but through pulling all the right unsung levers that can make a song great: balancing instrumental parts, finding the right beautiful guitar sound, conjuring a pensive mood, and projecting confidence in the unhurried groove.

 

13. Madison Cunningham: “Break the Jaw”

Singer-songwriter Madison Cunningham is having a banner year career-wise (this is not her only appearance in the top 20 of this list), despite navigating some difficult personal circumstances, including a recent divorce. “Break the Jaw” tackles those circumstances head-on: “I may never forgive you / You may never forgive me / We may never forgive each other / But I may never…forgive myself.” Its unsparing lyrics are accompanied by one of the most brilliant, lush, pastoral arrangements I’ve heard, complete with strings, flute, bass clarinet, vibraphone, and more.

 

12. Lorde: “If She Could See Me Now”

Let’s catch up with Lorde. She stormed out of the gate with “Royals” and Pure Heroine in 2013 at the age of 16, followed it up with a stone-cold masterpiece four years later in Melodrama, and then fell well short of expectations with 2021’s tepid Solar Power. I wasn’t sure if we were going to see her rise to Melodrama levels again. Virgin, her fourth album, is almost a return to form. The songwriting is there, but the record is largely held down by Jim-E Stack’s restrained production (Exhibit A: “What Was That,” which has the makings of a big pop hit, but the chorus never achieves lift-off). You can hear flickers of euphoric pop here and there, but it’s not sustained. “If She Could See Me Now” is one of the major exceptions. Its blown-out synths and booming percussion lay a foundation for Lorde’s heartfelt, satisfying melody, combining to give us the quality that all great Lorde songs have: a sense of real stakes.

 

11. Geese: “Taxes”

Cue the meme of Shaq saying “I owe you an apology. I wasn’t really familiar with your game.” Geese started as a serviceable but fairly nondescript indie post-punk band from Brooklyn – I put a nice song of theirs in my 2021 year-end honorable mentions, and didn’t think much about them beyond that – but they’ve since grown exponentially both in hype (commanding insane ticket prices on the secondary market and getting namedropped by Cillian Murphy or Seth Meyers and Andy Samberg) and in creativity (expanding their sound and producing a truly unique album in Getting Killed). “Taxes” simmers for the first half, before boiling over into a cathartic release of chiming guitars and drum fills, while Cameron Winter puts forward a biblical plea: “DOCTOR! HEAL YOURSELF!”

 

10. Momma: “I Want You (Fever)”

The ‘90s-era guitars are huge and packed to the brim with juicy hooks on “I Want You (Fever),” the giant level-up single from L.A.-via-Brooklyn band Momma. The thrills generated by those guitars match the energy of the lyrics, as the singer pleads for the focus of her attention to just give into impulse already: “Pick up and leave her / I want you (fever).”

 

9. Twen: “Godlike”

Everything about Nashville duo Twen is self-contained – they write, record, and produce their own albums, create their own merch and album covers, and outfit their tour van into a mobile home. It’s impressive when such an independent band, in every sense of the description, has this complete and polished of a vision. “Godlike” is a nuanced indie rock song, filled with layers of crisp guitars and dreamy vocals that coalesce into a fulfilling whole.

 

8. Water From Your Eyes: “Playing Classics”

Sometimes the Venn Diagram overlap of “super catchy” and “super weird” can be elusive, but you can comfortably slot “Playing Classics” right in there. Multi-instrumentalist and arranger Nate Amos reminds me of Alex G in that, no matter how odd his musical output can be, he can’t help but fill it with hooks. After listening to Charli XCX’s Brat a ton last year, Amos’s Water From Your Eyes bandmate, Rachel Brown, asked him to make a song you could play at a club on their new album, and he responded with a fast, syncopation-heavy banger, providing the backbone for Brown’s inspired, monotone delivery.

 

7. ROSALÍA: “Reliquia”

Name a more beautiful combination than Rosalía’s voice paired with the string arrangement on “Reliquia.” It’s not possible. If the whole song kept going with Rosalía naming cities over those gorgeous strings, it would still be exceptional, but as the track progresses, we hear glitchy production elements, a serene Sufjan-style piano/choir section, and then an electronic freak-out at the end. Musical talent is what makes Rosalía great; innovation and vision is what makes her unparalleled.

 

6. Deep Sea Diver: “What Do I Know”

As someone who still thinks 2000s indie rock was one of the golden eras of modern music, Deep Sea Diver’s Billboard Heart was a revelation this year. It tracks that the band’s main songwriter and frontwoman, Jessica Dobson, would gravitate toward that style, considering she cut her teeth as a touring guitarist with the likes of Beck, Spoon, and the Shins. “What Do I Know” is a propulsive powderkeg, reminiscent of the tightly-wound, lush but hard-nosed rock sound of the early 21st-century, a la Yeah Yeah Yeahs (another band to which Dobson lent her craft).

 

5. HAIM: “Down to be wrong”

In 2020, HAIM dropped what might be my favorite album of this decade, Women in Music Pt. III, employing the same level of craft they had used on their previous material and its pristine pop-rock sheen, but making it more organic and rough around the edges. The Haim sisters’ bread and butter since that album is “what if a ‘90s Sheryl Crow song was recorded and released in the ‘70s?” This year’s “Down to be wrong” is from the same lineage, with its giant Crow-esque chorus combined with its “Maggie May”-era Rod Stewart acoustic rock instrumentation.

 

4. Clipse: “So Be It”

In a quiet year for mainstream rap mainstays, the genre was dominated by a pair of brothers with an average age of 50. Even though Clipse has been defunct for 15 years, as Pusha T and Malice worked on their solo careers, their style of hip-hop has remained relevant, because it turns out rapping prowess and hard-as-hell beats are timeless. “So Be It” boasts an absolutely filthy Pharrell beat built on a Saudi Arabian sample from 1970, as Pusha T lobs disses to Travis Scott. Given Pusha’s record in rap beefs, I’d advise Travis to steer clear.

 

3. Geese: “Husbands”

I could listen to “Husbands” one million times and not get tired of it. With a base of just two chords (and a third chord occasionally thrown in for good measure), the song locks into a hypnotic groove that I can’t quit. The off-kilter drums and ominous bass provide the anchor for those tiny, extremely subtle guitar licks, sprinkled throughout like little dashes of salt. And then, there are the vocals. Put Julian Casablancas’s timbre, Mick Jagger’s swagger, and Thom Yorke’s esoteric edge into a blender and you get a rough sketch of Cameron Winter’s voice. Winter’s wailing, which borders on “bleating” at times, can be an acquired taste, but I implore you to try to acquire it – it’s wholly unique, endlessly compelling, and full of passion.

 

2. I’m With Her: “Mother Eagle (Sing Me Alive)”

To my ears, this is musical performance at its peak. The three women that make up I’m With Her – Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan – have a vocal chemistry I haven’t witnessed since Crosby, Stills & Nash, best demonstrated by the wistful “Mother Eagle (Sing Me Alive).” Backed by nothing more than Jarosz’s and O’Donovan’s dueling acoustic guitars and Watkins’s fiddle, the trio sing about relying on their sisters to weather the darkness, their harmonies soaring until they reach the heavens.

 

1. Alan Sparhawk & Trampled by Turtles: “Not Broken”

In a vacuum, stripped of all context, the beauty and heartache of “Not Broken” would have still obliterated me, but knowing the backstory makes the emotion even more resonant. Alan Sparhawk and his wife, Mimi Parker, were the core members of the acclaimed Duluth slowcore/indie rock band Low for 30 years before Parker passed away from ovarian cancer in 2022. I had liked Low for a while, but Parker’s death really affected me (I wrote about the unexpected similarities between Parker and my grandmother, who both died within days of each other).

Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s dueling voices were an unstoppable tandem force, the engine that drove Low’s music. I can’t imagine how unbearable it must have been for Sparhawk to carry on making music with his creative and life partner of three decades suddenly gone. Somehow, he’s plowed ahead, releasing a collaborative album with the folk/bluegrass band Trampled by Turtles (who also hail from Duluth).

Right from the start, “Not Broken” is a gorgeous, aching folk song, with heaving strings and a tenderly-plucked banjo. Sparhawk’s emotive melody already packs a punch, but then unexpectedly, a different voice comes in to deliver the chorus. The singer is Hollis Sparhawk, Alan and Mimi’s daughter, duetting with her dad and sounding astonishingly like her mom. “It’s not broken, I’m not angry,” she insists, desperately trying to convince herself. It’s chill-inducing.