Top Ten Best Hits of 2015 (10-6)

Posted on December 19, 2015 by bgibs122

Welcome back for Day 4 of Listmas! After looking at the worst of the worst yesterday, we’re back to examine the bright spots of this year’s pop chart. Same rules apply (gotta make the cut, peak this year, no repeats), and before we get started, I just want to say that 2015 was a solid enough year that picking the ten best was substantially harder than picking its ten worst. Well done. Anyway, let’s get started.

Honorable Mention to the Honorable Mention: iLoveMemphis – “HIt the Quan”
This mention has much less to do with the song itself than the fact that its use in the video for Kendrick Lamar’s “These Walls” has never failed to brighten my day.

Alright, that and “We are both thots so WE ARE BOTH CRAZY!” is actually a good punchline.

Honorable Mention: Drake – “Back to Back”
One of my favorite shows this year was Marvel’s Daredevil. A key scene happens after crime boss Wilson Fisk is interrupted on an endearingly awkward dinner date by a Russian gangster who wants to do business with him. We then see Fisk, who has been portrayed as a soft, hunched introvert barely capable of speaking above a whisper until this point, arrange for the gangster to be driven to the water front, where Fisk beats the man within an inch of his life before decapitating him with a car door (you can watch the scene here, but fair warning, it’s as graphic as it sounds). It’s a brutal but compelling scene that serves as Fisk’s establishing character moment.

I’m reminded of that scene when I hear Drake’s supervillain move on “Back to Back”, the second diss track he released during his beef with Meek Mill this summer. Over a beat that’s downright frigid, Drake pulls out every passive-aggressive or cheap shot possible, a good number of which involve Nicki Minaj, whom Meek Mill is dating and is Drake’s good friend. Bringing her up in lines like “Is that world tour, or your girl’s tour?” and “I don’t wanna hear about this ever again, not  even when she tell him that they better as friends” is a cheap shot, but part of being a cheap shot is that it works. Even as you whisper, “Aubrey, you can’t say that“, it’s hard to deny “Back to Back” did its job damn well.

Maybe a little too well. It was hard to not see the lousier parts of Drake’s persona (possessiveness, manipulation, condescension, and overall Nice Guyness) crystallize into something newer and colder during 2015. His status as an underdog dissipated this year, and the “Hotline Bling” video struck me as #branding manipulation at its finest. It’s kind of soured me on him. But, just as it’s hard to look away from Fisk smashing a Russian’s head to a pulp with a car door, so too was it hard to stay away from “Back to Back”. These guys will do anything to be on top.

10. DJ Snake & AlunaGeorge – “You Know You Like It”
DJ Snake’s commercial high point this year was helping with Major Lazer and MO’s “Lean On”, but I prefer this remix he did of AlunaGeorge’s “You Know You Like It”. It still has the sleek groove of “Lean On”, but has a more powerful low-end and percussion. The snares during the chorus build-up are great, and AlunaGeorge keeps enough of her cool from the original to keep the song from feeling like a “Turn Down For What” retread. Lots of dance tracks this year favored a light, tropical bounce, making something a little darker like “You Know You Like It” a welcome change. AG’s original is quite nice, too. They know I like it because, well, I do.

9. Adele – “Hello”
Adele’s welcome back single to us heartbroken mortals is comforting in all the familiar ways. It’s big, it’s powerful, it’s sad. All this means that “Hello” should have felt stale on arrival, but like most of Adele’s work, it’s gotten more enjoyable over time. Adele gets the craft; her best songs won’t be the greatest thing you’ve ever heard (hence its ranking here), but they’re approachable and lend themselves well to multiple listens. The peculiars of “Hello”–its SNL performance, that damn flip phone in the video–will fade, but it already feels like the song will endure. Adele’s good at those.

8. Skrillex and Diplo featuring Justin Bieber – “Where Are U Now?
As of writing this, Justin Bieber has three songs in the top ten. I think one of these songs is okay, one is much better than okay, and one much worse, but I also think none of them would be here without “Where Are U Now?” Aside from the fact that it’s the template for two of them, “Where Are U Now?” is what convinced the public that Bieber could be trusted with a good song. I used to write off his presence on what’s already a stacked tropical EDM track as stunt casting by Skrillex and Diplo (the instrumental percussion interlude after the chorus is still my favorite part of the song), but lately, I’ve realized that his brand of melancholy vocals give the song a leg up, and he is the one who did that wordless hook. It’s not quite “nothing but the beat”, after all.

7. Big Sean ft. E-40 – “I Don’t Fuck With You”
This is the “hard-to-defend pick, but I’m gonna try anyway. From the jump, you’ve got that sneering beat: a near perfect synthesis of Kanye West chipmunk soul sample and DJ Mustard banger that sounds larger than life. The production alone makes “I Don’t Fuck With You” appealing.

With the lyrics, it’s harder. It’s like the defense Chris Rock has for Ludacris’ “Move Bitch”: “Well, as you can see, there’s a bitch whose a stupidass that he no longer fucks with. Thus the term, ‘you little stupidass bitch, I ain’t fuckin’ with you’. You need to open your eyes so you can stop fuckin’ with stupidass bitches.” “IDFWY” is ugly and petty, but also ineffectual. With lines like “I got a million trillion things I’d rather fucking do/Than to be fuckin’ with you” and “I mean for real, fuck how you feel”, Big Sean has all the impotent rage of a petulant toddler; it’s not some Tyga and Future shit (Tyga and Future also didn’t have E-40). Preening asshole has always been part of Big Sean’s appeal, so when he goes off like this, it works. That and try to say “I don’t. Fuck wit. Chuuuuu” a few times and not feel gratified.

6. Alessia Cara – “Here”
Sometimes, you just don’t want to go out, you know? I’ve had a blast on nights where everyone’s screaming, the music’s too loud, something got spilled on my shoe, and I’m shit-talking everyone with a friend by the patio, and I’ve had nights at the same spot where I’ve asked myself “Oh God why am I here?” Alessia Cara’s murky jazzy piano, strings, and drums jam “Here” is for those off nights, where you’re there out of obligation and counting down the minutes to leave. You can hear strands of Lorde’s “Royals” in Cara, both in her smoky delivery of a song whose message is a little holier than thou, and in the detailed production. Aside from genre–minimal electropop vs. soulful R&B–the biggest difference between Lorde and Cara is voice: while Lorde has a cool delivery that compliments her sound, Cara has more warmth and character. That likeableness goes a long way to selling “Here”: She’s here, she’s over it, but she probably won’t bug you. Just don’t kill her vibe.

Listmas 2015 Schedule
December 16th: Favorite Albums
December 17th: Worst Hits (10-6)
December 18th: Worst Hits (5-1)
December 19th: Best Hits (10-6)
December 20th: Best Hits (5-1)
December 21st: Favorite Songs
December 22nd: Year in Rant: Odds and Ends

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Top Ten Worst Hits of 2015 (5-1)

Posted on December 18, 2015 by bgibs122

Another one.

5. Selena Gomez ft. A$AP Rocky – “Good For You”
Selena Gomez has made a career out of adaptability. While that normally goes in her favor, it also means she’s sunk when a song can’t connect, such as with “Good For You”. This minimal, cloudy track aims for smolder, but ends in slumber. Gomez works best with material that sounds grounded, either with a capable hook or emotional center; she’s not the kind of artist who can skit by on ~aesthetic~. It’s dull, repetitive, and a flatfooted A$AP Rocky verse (no clue why it’s not in the video) only makes things worse. I get that “Good For You” mines the same vein as “The Heart Wants What It Wants”, but that song had momentum and actual presence. If you want to hear what “Good For You” should sound like, check out “Music to Watch Boys To”, a narcotized come-on where the artist is breathing smoke, not lost in it.

4. Silento – “Watch Me”
I was going to leave this one-off, you know? It’s more meme than song, and you see videos of people whipping and/or nae naeing, and hating on “Watch Me” almost makes you feel like a grump. “Sure, it’s not a good song.” you rationalize, “But at least people are having fun with it.”

Then I actually listened to “Watch Me” again.

Look, if I’m ever somewhere and “Watch Me” comes on in context, I’ll shut up and dance. I will whip. I will nae nae. I will do the stanky leg. I will yule then superman like it’s Homecoming 2007 again. I will even dab if appropriate. And I will enjoy myself. But, I will still know that “Watch Me” by Silento–he whose voice is like styrofoam on styrofoam brought to life, and whose only originality is to cobble all these dances together with a beat that had to come from a DAW’s presets–is still one of the worst songs of the year it came out. I thought it was impossible to do both, but “Watch Me” is just bad enough to pull it off. And beside, I feel like I’m allowed to be a grump; it’s all there in the site name.

3. Shawn Mendes – “Stitches”
Again, Vine is entertaining, but fucking terrible for brokering artists. Seventeen year old Vine star (a term that definitively proves there’s a level of Internet Famous even lamer than “YouTube celebrity”) Shawn Mendes is basically a cut-rate Bieber: he possess all of Bieber’s mopey, faux-tortured delivery, but without the vocal talent, performance chops, or ability to find the little melodies that makes Justin memorable. He just sounds like a kid who can kind of sing, and is in way over his head with truly terrible material; “Stitches” is the end result of locking someone in a room for twenty minutes with a guitar, a picture of someone they’re thirsty for, and a rhyming dictionary and telling them to get cracking (“Before/sore”, “knife/life”, “under/lover”, “kisses/stitches”, “thread/head”, “thread/dead”). With Justin aging out and One Direction going on hiatus, get ready to meet your new teen pop overlord. Those stitches should suture his mouth shut.

2. Wiz Khalifa ft. Charlie Puth – “See You Again”
In a year where our hits were either decent songs or at least fun, “See You Again” dared to be neither. Instead of a heartfelt tribute to Paul Walker, “See You Again” is a cloying, wooden cash-in of a ballad. Nothing about it works: this pedestrian beat’s straight out of a Hallmark special, Puth is trying entirely too hard to wring something out of this turd, and Wiz Khalifa is just not the guy to tap for a song with any sort of emotional depth (Ludacris–not typically an emotional rapper, but certainly a capable one–was actually close to Walker, and why he wasn’t asked to write something is beyond me). The whole thing just feels cheap both musically and emotionally, and while “See You Again” isn’t the worst song of 2015, it’s certainly the year’s biggest brick. It’s reminder of how long it’s been since “Black and Yellow”, and as Charlie Puth’s first major exposure, this song’s a misfire. Tell me we never see this kid again.

1. Charlie Puth featuring Meghan Trainor – “Marvin Gaye”
This poor song never had a chance. It wouldn’t matter if Paul McCartney and Pharrell coproduced it, Kelly Clarkson sang the chorus, and Kendrick did a verse, there is just no overcoming “Let’s Marvin Gaye and get it on” as an opening lyric. The song’s myriad other of poor choices: reheating “Stand by Me”, Puth’s yelpy vocals, “It’s a karma sutra show and tell”, the awkward beat drop during Meghan “trap queen” Trainor’s sung verse, and total lack of sensuality on what I assume was meant to be a sex jam only sink it further. I’m normally for doo-wop/girl group revivalism, but “Marvin Gaye” has all the quality of a Glee cover, right down to the whitebread plasticity and dead-eyed performances. If you’re looking for that healing, listen to some Marvin Gaye, some Luther Vandross, or a little Anita; that will definitely set this party off right.

Listmas 2015 Schedule
December 16th: Favorite Albums
December 17th: Worst Hits (10-6)
December 18th: Worst Hits (5-1)
December 19th: Best Hits (10-6)
December 20th: Best Hits (5-1)
December 21st: Favorite Songs
December 22nd: Year in Rant: Odds and Ends

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Top Ten Worst Hits of 2015 (10-6)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by bgibs122

Welcome back for day 2 of Listmas!

Today begins four days of coverage on the pop charts looking at the best and worst hits of the year. Pop was odd in 2015: it was a pretty good if not astronomical year quality-wise, but also a somewhat quiet one. Most of the songs that qualified on the year end list were good, and even the dull songs were at least competently made or performed (Nicki alone saved like, three songs). That’s not to say I wasn’t able to get ten of them together for the Worst songs list, but this year’s failures didn’t fail loudly.

Before we get started, the annual rules:
-Undercards Need Not Apply: only songs that made Billboard’s year-end list qualify.
-No Leftovers: Songs that peaked in Q4 of last year and only placed because they had a long descent in January or February aren’t “2015” enough for consideration (this rule took Maroon 5’s “Animal” out of the running).
-Double Dipping Is Forbidden: It’s 2015, and I still think Ed Sheeran’s “Don’t” sucks, but I won’t yell about it here again.

Dishonorable Mention: Taylor Swift – “Blank Space”
The Dishonorable Mention has taken the role of my personal Two Minutes Hate for a song I can’t stand, but also can’t justify ranking higher. And this year, that spot’s filled by “Blank Space”, a song that gets more irritating with every listen.

My bone to pick with “Blank Space” comes down to this. sick. beat. Even for the chilly synthpop of 1989, “Blank Space” feels iced over in the worst way possible; not only is it chilly and aloof, but its elements sound like they were recorded and mixed in isolation, leaving the song without a center. “Blank Space” never finds a good sense of rhythm, and the hyperpolished snare feels more like getting kicked in the head than anything else, and Swift’s vocals suffer from similar overproduction. It’s just an abrasive, robotic hellscape of a song that paints Max Martin’s mathematical approach to producing in the worst light possible. And this is even more disheartening because I actually really like the message to the song, which shows self-awareness while the video’s a pretty great clapback at Crazy Girlfriend Taylor Swift. Too bad this makes “Blank Space” a better thought than a song.

10. Andy Grammar – “Honey, I’m Good.”
I like to think I’m a pretty upbeat person. I’m chatty if you want to be chatty, I’m always sure to be nice to wait staff; I feel like I’m fairly bright.

So when I say that Andy Grammar needs to calm the fuck down, I mean it. Even if “Honey, I’m Good.” wasn’t a three and a half minute alarm of blaring hand claps, kick drums, “Nah nah!”s and “Hoo hoo”s, and twang bullshit vocals, I’d hate it for being peppier than a barista after five shots of espresso and their boss over their shoulder. Then you have the content of the song, which expects me to think Andy Grammar, a man who possesses the raw sexuality of a nondenominational pastor, is really the dude whose gonna turn someone down with some humblebrag horseshit like, “No thanks, I already have someone. I mean, yeah, I could totally leave with you, too, if I wanted, but I’m not that guy.” I’m not buying that for a damn minute, nor am I buying that anyone involved with this cornball likes it. Even that period in the title annoys me.

9. Luke Bryan – “Kick the Dust Up”
Aw, Luke. Bryan’s part of the much loathed bro-country movement, but there’s always been something endearing about his barrel chested, overly earnest demeanor that’s made him harder to hate than, say, Florida-Georgia Line. He seems like someone his friends call “the nicest guy.” But, all that niceness can’t save something that flails as much as “Kick the Dust Up.” The banjo riff feels too belabored and noodling to be memorable, and the same can be said for the chorus; it’s reaching for a hook that it can’t quite find. I can’t get a good read on this song, the stomping tempo and guitar solo suggest it wants to be a lumbering rocker, but its strangely too light for that description to stick. Somehow, it feels too chintzy. It could be that Bryan’s tired of making these; he discontinued his Spring Break series this year approximately for being “too old for this shit,” and “Kick the Dust Up” strikes me as similarly tired. He couldn’t even be bothered to do a full video.

8. T-Wayne – “Nasty Freestyle”
Vine remains great at being entertaining, but terrible for brokering artists. Take T-Wayne for example, a guy who wouldn’t have made it out of Houston if the first line of “Nasty Freestyle” hadn’t caught on for its drop. The videos are usually pretty great, but unlike Bobby Shmurda with “Hot N*gga” last year, the artist isn’t the main draw. And that’s because T-Wayne is pretty bad: he doesn’t have any originality, his flow’s not really impressive, and he’s virtually bankrupt in the charisma department. Shmurda at least jacked someone else’s beat and made it into his own creation. T-Wayne just got used by everyone else. Is it possible to amend fifteen minutes of fame to six seconds?

 

7. Meghan Trainor – “Dear Future Husband”
Even if I didn’t like “Blank Space”, I was still happy that Taylor Swift was one of many female artists this year making dope and assertive music and music videos breaking down gender norms.

And then you had Meghan Trainor.

Is it possible for an artist to devolve during a lone album cycle? I know I defended “All About That Bass”, but everything she’s done since then has just underlined her worst qualities: the pettiness, the obsessiveness, the nasaliness, and her inability to try anything remotely different musically. “Dear Future Husband” is a weak song that’s incredibly derivative as a composition, and lyrically confusing as hell. Trainor kinda riffs on some gender roles, and then plays others deadly straight like how she’s always right, and needs a classy guy to buy her ring. It’s almost stupid to believe that someone in 2014/2015 would sell schtick like “We’ll never see your family more than mine” at face value, but nothing about the song or the pastel, Target-sponsored brand of Hell we see in the video suggests otherwise. Meghan Trainor’s version of the ideal husband is someone she can basically own. Wonder what she’d think of Father John Misty.

6. Nick Jonas – “Jealous”
Speaking of shitty gender norms, one of the weirder recurring themes in 2015 pop was dudes being lowkey creepy. You had Drake being a little too worried about what you’d been up to since he was away, Usher and Juicy J not quite avoiding hangups about dating a stripper, and, well, everything relating to The Weeknd. Then you have “Jealous”, which says “fuck it” and leads with “I don’t like the way he’s looking at you/I’m starting to think you want him, too”. From there, the red flags only get red-flaggier with “I’m puffing up my chest/I’m getting red in the face/You can call me obsessed”, and it’s like, you start wondering how this song doesn’t end with a line about punched dry wall or a restraining order. It gets even more uncomfortable because while Drake’s being passive aggressive to a nameless “you” and The Weeknd is playing a character, Nick’s like “yeah, you know how it is.” And the song’s bland, Miguel-biting production leaves its ugly lyrics out in the open. I wonder how Jonas’ model girlfriend feels about this song.

Listmas 2015 Schedule
December 16th: Favorite Albums
December 17th: Worst Hits (10-6)
December 18th: Worst Hits (5-1)
December 19th: Best Hits (10-6)
December 20th: Best Hits (5-1)
December 21st: Favorite Songs
December 22nd: Year in Rant: Odds and Ends

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Top Ten Favorite Albums Of 2015

Posted on December 16, 2015 by bgibs122

Merry Listmas, y’all!

Welcome to Listmas, Ranting About Music’s annual year-end week of coverage, where I recap my favorite albums, favorite (and least favorite!) hits of the year, songs of the year, and recap the year it was in music. It’s a lot of fun, and, per usual, will include full length updates every day this week, starting today with favorite albums.

2015 had a lot of great records. Practically every genre had a good year, and from veteran acts to fledgling groups just finding a voice and a label, there were very few disappointments; I could have made a top twenty this year, and still been faced with hard cuts. There were a ton of albums I connected with and obsessed over this year. I hope you can say the same.

Honorable Mentions
15. Florence + the Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
14. The World Is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die – Harmlessness
13. Modern Baseball – MOBO Presents: The Perfect Cast EP featuring Modern Baseball
12. Sleater-Kinney – No Cities to Love
11. Donnie Trumpet & The Social Experiment – Surf


10. Father John Misty – I Love You, Honeybear
I did stage technical theater for around ten years, and in tech, there’s a guideline called the Thirty Foot Rule. The Thirty Foot Rule states that, if you can’t get a set detail quite perfect, it’s fine so long as it looks right from the audience view of about thirty feet away.

I mention this because I applied the Thirty Foot Rule to I Love You, Honeybear. Just about anything you read about Father John Misty starts with an overwritten prelude on how brilliant and meta he is, when really, all he’s done is split the difference between “Silly Love Songs” and Guy In Your MFA. Beside, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to think FJM is some cynical genius (gag) to appreciate the orchestral pop of “I Love You, Honeybear”, the joy in “Chateau Lobby #4”, how great love song “Holy Shit” is, or Josh Tillman’s excellent vocals throughout. It’s just a wonderfully arranged and sung album with memorable songs. Ditch your overreaching point about how he’s only an asshole because he cares and it’s really because he hates himself: just call him an asshole, but an asshole with tunes. It works for me.

9. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit
There’s something mesmerizing about watching talent being actualized. I’m not talking about someone with just an ability, I’m talking about the rush from watching someone whose honed an innate skill set to a point nearing perfection so effortless it’s near clinical. Listen to the way Australian indie rocker Courtney Barnett threads her lyrics and delivery together on the verse of “Pedestrian At Best” like she’s coming up with it on the fly, and try to not be impressed. Be it the characters in “Elevator Operator”, the commentary in “Dead Fox”, or the scene sketch in “Depreston”, her work feels lived in and relatable in a disarmingly personal way (hell, I’ve been the dude in “Elevator Operator” who goes to a building top for “perception and clarity”). It’s an album that reminds us we’re more thoughtful than we might think.

8. Bully – Feels Like
This was a great year for zippy alternative/punk rock records with charm, melody, and ramshackle energy in equal measure (see also, that MoBo EP in the honorables), but Feels Like stands a cut above the rest because no other band had Bully’s Alicia Bognanno calling the shots. Bognanno’s as much a student of late 80’s/early 90’s alternative as I am a fan of it: Feels Like is built on loud-soft dynamics, nimble guitar lines, confessional lyrics, and caustic singing and was produced at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio where Bognanno (who acted as the album’s coproducer) interned. From scorching opener “I Remember” onward, Feels Like grabs you and doesn’t let go as one of the best emo records of the year.

7. Bjork – Vulnicura
Bjork’s ninth album Vulnicura is one you can’t let sneak up on you because it will ruin your day. The album chronicles Bjork’s separation from her longtime partner, but to call it a “break up album” feels disingenuous. It’s not about a break up as much as it is about your world ending; the tortured double vocals on “Lionsong” sound like a psyche being ripped apart, while “Family” has the rotted dread necessary to soundtrack a murder sequence. Coproducing with Arca and The Haxan Cloak, Bjork’s made a record great at bringing the listener into its shattered galaxy, one whose very string and electronic arrangements telegraph instability. Close “Quicksand” is bright enough to suggest a light at the end of a harrowing tunnel, but the immediate ending leaves nothing answered. Some emotions demand to be felt, and Vulnicura feels every bleeding second.

6. Beach House – Depression Cherry
Something about me: I really like world building albums. They don’t have to be explicitly conceptual, but I love albums that reward you for walking into their world, and connecting on some deeper level. Depression Cherry does a brilliant job of that, from the floating away sensation of “Levitation” to the enveloping shoegaze of “Sparks” and centerpiece “PPP”. In terms of sound, it reminds me of the sad-eyed dream pop The Smashing Pumpkins dabbled in during the second disc of Mellon Collie and explored on Adore, all shimmering guitars, sparse percussion, breathy vocals, and tons of atmosphere. It’s a gorgeous album full of aching, and the best pick me up of the year. If you haven’t read Caitlin White’s disarming write-up, do yourself a favor; she describes the album better than I ever could.

5. The Wonder Years – No Closer to Heaven
What happens when you age out of the Warped Tour circuit? Frontman Dan Campbell and the rest of The Wonder Years are still beloved by the scene and were part of the Tour this year, but 2013’s The Greatest Generation was the best Warped-style pop punk record they could make. So, for No Closer to Heaven, there’s no going back to Melrose Diner or your parent’s basement, but the world at large, moving on, and (as always) your friends. The result is a slower burn than anything else in TWY’s discography, but one that focuses its angst into grief and longing for a better society. It’s a relatively mature album, one with some of the singer-songwriter influence from Campbell’s Aaron West side project brought into focus. And, so long as they can write songs like “Cigarettes & Saints”, “A Song For Patsy Cline”, and downright love song “You in January”, The Wonder Years will have a long life ahead of them, maybe even one outside Warped.

4. Grimes – Art Angels
Art Angels remains just as much of a delightful oddity now as it did last month. Even moreso, in fact; given a little bit of distance, each of these songs gets a little more room to breathe on an album that threatens to turn claustrophobic in the best way. The best pop albums are the ones that run away with you, and Claire Boucher runs with the idea that anything from songs about trees to gender-switching vampire mobsters might be awesome, and it’s impossible not to get caught up with her.

3. FKA twigs – M3LL155X (Melissa)
To me, the most exciting part (so far) of FKA twigs’ career comes at about 3:43 of M3LL155X centerpiece “In Time”. What’s already been one of her best, most grounded songs blossoms into an honest to God chorus with twigs singing in a full, unprocessed voice. The moment, much like the EP as a whole, is a burst of confidence that retains all of twigs’ artistry while pumping her songs full of more sound. Last year’s LP1 was great, but could be called wispy since it relied on atmosphere and space. She does away with that space on the shrieking “Glass + Patron”, and demented “I’m Your Doll” while still retaining her works’ sensuality and sense of motion. M3LL155X is a compact creative statement with both eye-popping songs and visuals. twigs the pop star? She could do it, she’s got a goddamn nerve.

2. Antarctigo Vespucci – Leavin’ La Vida Loca
Ask any music fan (or musician) why they love music, and inevitably, escapism will come up. Antarctigo Vespucci, a duo made of Fake Problems’ Chris Farren and former Bomb the Music Industry! leader Jeff Rosenstock, get that just about better than anyone. Leavin’ La Vida Loca is an album about desperately seeking chill, but only because it beats the fuck out of dealing with your own hangups and insecurities. It sets these tales of self-doubt to some of the prettiest, catchiest, best made guitar pop possible: Rosenstock brought the beachy shoegaze pop punk sound from BTMI! with him, which pairs nicely with Farren’s relaxed croon. Antarctigo’s the sound of two veterans making music that sounds as fresh as someone’s first album, and you can check it for free.

1. Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp a Butterfly
I know.

I know that To Pimp a Butterfly is, empirically, the consensus pick of the year, and I hate going with consensus picks. And I tried another option, I really did, but any other choice involved a contrived argument against TPAB that just didn’t hold. It is simply, and honestly, my favorite. In a twisted, confusing year, it was a twisted, confusing album that I still don’t always agree with, but it made me wonder why I didn’t agree with it; you couldn’t Thirty Foot Rule your way out of something this complicated. And while the record has these high concepts, it’s still a blast to listen to Kendrick: boasting on “King Kunta”, unchecked rage from “The Blacker the Berry”, storytelling in “How Much a Dollar Cost?”, or mental breakdown of “u”, he’s rapping at what has to be the top of his game over tracks that ensnare you in layers of soul, funk, prog, and jazz. It’s a rich album that I’ve come back to again and again over the year, and it still dazzles as much on the hundredth listen as the first. You can make all sorts of arguments about its importance to 2015 overall, but for this list, it was important to me, and that’s enough.

Listmas 2015 Schedule
December 16th: Favorite Albums
December 17th: Worst Hits (10-6)
December 18th: Worst Hits (5-1)
December 19th: Best Hits (10-6)
December 20th: Best Hits (5-1)
December 21st: Favorite Songs
December 22nd: Year in Rant: Odds and Ends

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