More from the ‘lost years’ – these tunes are pretty much all ones which showed up on End Of Year lists, which were becoming my main point of contact with the contemporary ‘scene’. That’s not to say I didn’t find a place in my heart for them, just that old my avenues of discovery were crumbling and mossed-over. For an exercise like #FearOfMu21c, that’s not a disadvantage – some degree of consensus is an asset so the more normie the picks the better.
TAYLOR SWIFT – “Blank Space”: Hearing this in context of the last few years’ worth of candidates it’s obvious why I like it – she’s taken the big beat/sad girl pop template I’ve been enjoying so much and twisted it to big beat/bad girl, giving it a welcome injection of theatre in the process. “Shake It Off” and “Out Of The Woods” could also make a claim – the 1989 period is the one point I’ve really embraced my inner Swiftie. YES.
ALVVAYS – “Archie, Marry Me”: Does nothing a hundred other indie pop records haven’t done, except I can’t get enough of the lopsided weight of it, the way there’s that miniature pause in “Hey, hey” with the backing thumping in a fraction a beat later than expected, and tilting the whole song charmingly. YES.
FUTURE ISLANDS – “Seasons (Waiting On You)”: The other big Pitchfork fave of the year (we’re still just about in the era where Pitchfork had an identifiable aesthetic) was this marvellously histrionic tune. Something about the way the guy hams it up reminds me of the way Alan Davis draws the Marlon Brando analogue in D.R. & Quinch. How’s that for ultra specific music criticism? NO.
RUN THE JEWELS – “Close Your Eyes (And Count To Fuck)”: I feel like RTJ are going to suffer a bit from vote-splitting – so many great jams and I haven’t even heard their whole catalogue. I went for this grinder, which was also my introduction to them and is absolutely rammed with awesome lines as well as that great the-artist-is-the-sample beat. YES.
MERIDIAN DAN ft BIG H & JME – “German Whip”: Wonderful back to basics grime tune (about Audis I think?) – this getting in the charts was a strong sign the good times were returning to the genre. JME, predictably, steals the show but everybody gets good lines. Never seen no man chasing frisbee. YES.
TOVE LO – “Habits (Stay High)”: The famous remix of the original, which is a bit tell-don’t-show about its life of empty hedonism, whereas this sounds like you’d hope a song with the chorus “stay high all the time” would. YES.
DJ SNAKE ft LIL JON – “Turn Down For What”: Put this on after being reminded of it in the Summer Jams poll but I’m not sure I can deal with Lil Jon yelling at me on a daily basis all Autumn so while it bangs it’s also a NO.
QT – “Hey QT”: The most divisive of all the PC Music bangers, SOPHIE and AG Cook going all out for pop. It was my then 5 year old’s favourite song (tied with “Everything Is Awesome!”) for a couple of weeks so it does, in some sense, work on that level. There’s an extraordinary amount going on in the background here. YES.
JAVIERA MENA – “Otra Era”: Gorgeous washed-out low-key synth pop which only suffers because it feels like we’ve had an entire decade of these polite quasi-bangers since and another 50 of the things get nominated every time we do an end of year poll. Mena still does it better than anyone but my boredom with the sound may tell. YES.
DEJ LOAF – “Try Me”: Early sign that my rap listening for the 10s/20s would be dominated by women MCs. This shimmering, fucked-up sounding track seemed beamed in from space at the time – I couldn’t really work out if I liked it, even. Makes a lot more sense now. NO.
Hmm, that’s a worrying number of YES picks at this stage. Maybe 2015 will improve on things. In the greatest crossover event in history, we’re doing the 2015 on Twitter (or its bleached-bone skeleton) RIGHT NOW, so some of these songs are suffering a little from current exposure – or perhaps are doing EVEN BETTER because of it.
HUDSON MOHAWKE – “Ryderz”: My nomination in said poll! This was in my U50 until I discovered it wasn’t a single – but by the looser streaming-era terms of #FearOfMu21c it IS a single (was released to blogs etc prior to the album). Just as well as I absolutely love this. There’s nothing to it – variations on the theme of a 1973 soul sample – but in a decade of “drops” it has the best drop of all and is probably my single biggest mood-enhancer of the last ten years. YES.
KENDRICK LAMAR – “King Kunta”: My most-listened to 2015 song in 2015 and while I still really like it I’ve come back to it less often, unless forced to by polls. Still great, one of the beats of the decade to be sure but… NO.
RIHANNA – “Bitch Better Have My Money”: Another one competing in the current poll – this is wonderfully abrasive but not the best eligible Rihanna track so it’s going to be a NO. As an aside, the moment I realised things had Changed Forever at Pitchfork was when they did a 7-writer roundtable for this single and then ANOTHER roundtable a few months later for the video.
YEARS AND YEARS – “King”: The big UK hype for the year, which at least got this hands-in-the-air synthpop tune to the top of the charts even if they’re another band where nothing quite matched the debut single. Tremulous voice, pumping keyboards and drums, a combination I will surely never tire of. NO.
ANOHNI – “4 Degrees”: A gothic synthpop black mass for the planet. Not subtle but… these aren’t subtle times. Massive and electrifying, but I can only bear to hear it about once a year which feels like an issue with this particular challenge. NO.
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JAMIE XX – “Gosh”: I so wanted to dislike this cosy callback to pirate radio, the musical equivalent of a lavish Taschen book of warehouse rave flyers but… it’s lovely, dammit. (And I would totally buy that book, obviously) I CAN be snobby enough not to put it in a Top 50 of the century though. NO.
DEMI LOVATO – “Cool For The Summer”: The polls taketh away and they giveth – hearing this one alongside period pieces by the likes of Bieber hurtled it back into contention at least for now, even if the best I can come up with descriptively is “Katy Perry done right”. YES.
The end is nigh… covering 2016-2017 next and things get really arbitrary.