These year-end lists get harder to pull off when the number of children in your household doubles. I considered just posting an unadorned list of my favorite songs of the year, but I love music too much and want other people to love it too much to not at least write about the some of the best tracks. So here it is – my 50 favorite songs of the year, with some more detail provided for the top 20. You’re welcome.
Before we get to the 50 best, here are links to various playlist options, followed by 15 honorable mentions that just missed the cut.
We are well into 2020 by now, and a deluge of good music has already come out in the new year. But that doesn’t mean we should shortchange 2019, so at long last, here are the 50 best songs of last year. It took me so long because I got burned out from writing about the 200 Best Songs of the 2010s, but I’ve rallied since then. Better late than never…? Hopefully you’ll agree, because these songs are well worth your time.
With the gradual proliferation of streaming services and curated playlists, for a while it didn’t look likely that the “album” format would survive. Yet here we are, at a time where the biggest pop stars are releasing cohesive, fully developed ALBUMS, in capital letters. I will always have a soft spot for the album as a concept, whether contained on discs of vinyl or within links to Spotify pages. Smash hits lie alongside deep cuts to form one 30-70 minute statement reflecting the artist’s pain and joy, their view of the world, their quest to express the words in their head and the riffs in their gut. Here are my 25 favorite albums of 2016.
Grad school and work at the same time is hard. Sorry for the huge delay in posting my favorite tracks from September. Hopefully you don’t shrug this off as *so last month*, because September was pretty cool, music-wise. Let’s dive in.
1. Local Natives: “Dark Days”
One of the most underrated albums of the current decade is Gorilla Manor, the 2010 debut album from L.A. band Local Natives. In an indie rock genre saturated with cookie-cutter versions of the same band, Local Natives stood out with their wide-eyed songs and incredible, unique gift for complex harmonies. They’ve now released their third album, Sunlit Youth, which features a song we’ve already showcased as a quality track back in May (“Past Lives”), but the album is full of solid songs.
“Dark Days” is a joyous, hopeful, exhilarating 3-minute slice of winsome pop. Vocals, both lead and background, have always been the band’s strong point, and “Dark Days” showcases their vocal talent with subtle beauty. Kelcey Ayer takes lead, sounding vulnerable as he sings about the dark days of summer, while the band harmonizes behind him. They bring on guest vocalist Nina Persson of The Cardigans (the band that brought you the smash ’90s hit “Lovefool”) to sing the second verse and duet with Ayer towards the end, complementing each other beautifully. “Dark Days” gets into a groove right from the beginning and never lets up — the hook is full of guitar flourishes and drum fills, all anchored by a simple, effective bass line. The whole song is just so catchy and well-executed.
D-Brad Music 