2016 has almost drawn to a close and it's time for me to unveil the songs that got the most run around my house, van and earbuds this past year. As with 2015, I checked back over the monthly lists of songs I was playing a lot and recommending to everybody either in person or on this blog and assembled another YouTube playlist for those of you who like perusing playlists that way. I don't think every track is on Spotify so I couldn't quite put a playlist together on that site. Then again, Beyonce, Kanye and Disclosure made it relatively impossible to even assemble a YouTube playlist so my apologies for strange versions of those songs in the playlist. Click here to go listen to the whole list. The songs are organized from #100 down to #1 so nothing is spoiled by just starting at the top of the list. Well, unless you keep reading this post.
Without further ado, my top 10 songs of the year. Okay, one bit of ado - Kaytranada's "Lite Spots" is notably absent from this list as it only crossed my radar late in the year. It will definitely appear on the j500 someday, it just didn't have enough total longevity this year to crack the top 10.
#10: "Good Help (Is So Hard to Find)", Death Cab for Cutie
Yes, Kintsugi was released in 2015. I heard "Black Sun" last year and mistakenly let that song (for which I didn't care very much) represent the entire album. Like a total dork, I found Kintsugi at the public library this past year and took it out. Good thing: "Help", "No Room in Frame" and "El Dorado" became three of my favourite songs of the year. If only I had an infinite amount of time to go through all of the albums of artists I'm interested in to mine gems like this. And if only my library had more of those albums available when I stop in :).
#9: "Flesh Without Blood", Grimes
Another song from an album released in 2015 but that really took hold with me from the early part of this year through the summer. This is also the second of two acts in the top 10 that I was fortunate enough to see perform at Osheaga this past summer. DCFC didn't vomit offstage in the middle of their set, though. The video here features "Flesh" backed with the brief (related) video for "Life in the Vivid Dream".
#8: "Evil Twin", Krrum
I still don't know too much about Krrum. Then again, with only 200,000 streams of this track (2 or 3 of which are probably mine), few others do either. He's 21, from England and has both a beard and an electronic EP to his name. This past year seemed to be the year that I stumbled across a large number of horn-infused electronic tracks. Not sure if that's a thing or a coincidence...
#7: "Learning for Your Love", Chet Faker & Marcus Marr
I was a little surprised that I had listened to this song so much this year. It's doesn't jump off the page as much as (spoiler alert) the other CF & MM track in the top 10 but I was hooked nonetheless. Australian Faker and Londoner Marr apparently recorded the EP Work, released in December 2015, in a scant four days. The EP is chock-full (as much as possible in only four tracks) of catchy fusions of electronic beats and Faker's soulful vocals. I'm awaiting Faker's next album, although apparently he will be releasing it under his given name, Nick Murphy.
#6: "Omen (featuring Sam Smith)", Disclosure
One of my major musical disappointments this year was missing out on seeing Disclosure live this summer. They were set to play right before festival-closer Radiohead at Osheaga, but a missed connection from Lollapalooza left them on the wrong side of the border. Sadness. At least I got to play their album Caracal to death this year. This track, bringing back Sam Smith after "Latch" helped break Disclosure to the mainstream, was my favourite off the album. Wiki says that if you're interested in watching the whole series of music videos, the video for "Holding On (featuring Gregory Porter)" precedes this one and the story is continued in "Jaded".
#5: "The Trouble With Us", Chet Faker & Marcus Marr
OK, not a lot of sonic variety on this year's list it seems. Sorry. This funky little number was the first release from the Work EP and actually spent a bit of time on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Songs chart this past year. It was also up for an ARIA for Song of the Year, but lost to Troye Sivan's "Youth".
#4: "Sorry", Justin Bieber
Two. Billion. Views. Insane. I remember that a few music sites put this on their "videos of the year" lists last year as a beautiful answer to the assortment of lyric videos out there. Why just read lyrics when you can watch dance troupes get down to your favourite songs? The ladies in this video are members of the New Zealand ReQuest and Royal Family dance crews. Also, who knew that two Canadian boys would bring dancehall (influences, at least) to the masses this year? After Skrillex teamed up with the Biebs for his comeback hit "Where are Ü Now?", Skrillex also produced this track. In the end, this was Billboard's #2 song of the year, right behind JB's own "Love Yourself" (a track I don't care for much at all), making him only the third artist to score the top 2 songs of a year (after Usher and The Beatles).
#3: "Morning Sun", Melody Gardot
Finally, some diversity. Nothing like a little jazz to take it down a notch. Jazz seems to be experiencing a bit of a comeback, as noted in The Hype Machine's Zeitgeist 2016. The jazz of which they speak is not quite in the same vein as this slow jam, though. Out of curiosity, I checked out her discography on Wikipedia and it looks like she's a bigger hit in Europe than anywhere else. People in Germany and France, in particular, seem to be buying most of her albums.
#2: "St. Ides", Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
Man did this album ever get panned when it was released. As with Kintsugi, I dodged it despite my affection for the artist, based on the first track released ("Downtown" in this case), yet ended up discovering it thanks to the local public library. I didn't care for the album as much as "The Heist", but did enjoy some of the tracks ("The Train", "Kevin", "Bolo Tie", the hilarious "Dance Off"). "St. Ides" came out on top, though, and reminded me of some sort of cross between "Neon Cathedral" and "My Oh My".
...drum roll...
#1: "Rewind", Kelela
Although this was buried in the middle of the pack of songs highlighted in my March post, "Rewind" rose up to dominate my 2016 playlist. Airy vocals coupled with a good beat (0:43 mark drop ftw!) and that old-school Miami bass vibe. I'll be playing this song for years. If you want to listen to Kelela deconstruct "Rewind", I invite you to check out Episode 63 of the excellent podcast Song Exploder.
Thanks for listening and Happy New Year!
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