Tei Shi - Bassically
A slinky, sexy synth track that builds and builds, with a vocal performance that commits to really going there. Those show-stopping vocals saunter and slide until they go all-in, which provides one of the most satisfying payoffs of the year.
Yumi Zouma - Alena
This group of laid-back sounding kids kept the ball rolling with their second great EP in a row, and really showed what they can do with high-point, "Alena". It sounds like a group of stoner art students got inspired after a day spent binge-watching VHS tapes of 1992 E! Channel programming. The song strolls along until the stiff, gay-anthem piano hits right before the chorus to let you know that things are about to get dancy. Cool, breezy, and irresistibly danceable.
Tamaryn - Hands All Over Me
An 80s synth statement with shoegaze tendencies, "Hands All Over Me" anchored a solid effort from Tamaryn Brown and Rex John Shelverton's Tamaryn project. The song drives along with an elegantly lush new-wave aesthetic that might be the best sounding song of the year.
Torres - Strange Hellos
Torres's latest effort found her sorting through her own post-religious disillusionment and general young-adult angst with a new sound that had to come from a recent 90s female rock discovery. PJ Harvey is the muse of choice in the standout lead single from the album. Torres builds sinister energy until releasing all of the fury she must have felt at the end of the failed relationship about which the song is written. One of the best all-out vocal performances of the year.
Neon Indian - Annie
The first "real song" on Neon Indian's great Night School, "Annie" dances its way through a post-party where's-my-friend labyrinth that feels, appropriately, like daylight through the curtains that wakes you up at noon with a dry mouth and a lot of questions.
Susanne Sundfør - Accelerate
Sundfør's stellar Ten Love Songs had plenty of highlights -- "Kamikaze", "Fade Away", and "Slowly" to name a few -- but none higher than the wonderfully malevolent "Accelerate". The swooning, ethereal opening of the album gives way to the track's driving off-pitch drumbeat that doesn't relent until the next song ends. What follows is a winding, ever-escalating walk, then run, through a nightmare so thick with horror atmosphere and imagery you can practically see the fog roll over the floor. "Water erupting like volcanoes. Blood streaming down the walls. It's out of our hands, so, baby, let go." There's even a menacing organ solo right in the middle of the song. A bit much? Maybe. Creepy? Definitely. Sundfør makes the most of it, chewing the scenery with each line. Every word is delivered with hauntingly detached resignation. Love has never sounded so deliriously enticing or dangerous. "This must be paradise, because I am numb. Let's have fun. Let's have fun." *shudder*
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Multi-Love
Ruban Neilson's UMO knows how to nail a grimy soul vibe. He uses it to great effect on "Multi-Love", utilizing his sandpaper voice, tinkering pianos, late 70s-Motown synths, and McCartney-like busy basslines to paint his ain't-right love story. Like a sunny Kodachrome photograph of a street in the Warriors' New York, the tune is hazy, dirty, a little run down, and full of character.
Miguel - waves
Opening with a distant rally-howl, immediately followed by a loose drum fill and then that cowbell, Miguel let's you know it's a party right away. The surfboard/surfing metaphor for sex is nothing new, but damn if it doesn't sound so good here that you couldn't possibly care. Miguel's David-Ruffin-mode scratchy voice keeps you rolling along until he hits the bridge that keeps adding layers and layers of background vocals until the climax that absolutely delivers. It's the best feel-good music moment of the year. Miguel also somehow walks the very thin line of using a driving cowbell for a whole song without ever crossing over into can't-unnotice-that-sound territory. Bonkers.
Missy Elliott - WTF (Where They From)
Regardless of what some artists may think, crazy costumes and a few offbeat delivery choices alone do not a icon make. It takes personality, undeniable charm, truly unique ideas, and boatloads of talent to pull off a weirdo persona and sound that don't seem contrived or excessive. Missy's got it all, and uses her formidable reserve of Missy-ness to bring her cartoonishly whacked out visions to life. Here, she walks right back in and shows the world that she hasn't missed a beat. So much so that it feels like she must have been producing next-level great stuff for the past several years and we were all just looking in the wrong direction. Welcome back, Missy.
Christine and the Queens -
Half Ladies
Christine and the Queens released (in the U.S.) a great album in 2015, and on it, it doesn't get much better than "Half Ladies". Like most of the album, the track is a beautiful, personal exploration of gender and sexuality. Lines like "A half breath away from changing my mind, cause just when you thought I'd be still a little girl, I'm one of the guys" sound heartbreakingly anecdotal. Others, like "Every insult I hear back, darkens into a beauty mark", come off sounding defiantly powerful, not indulgently sappy. This is largely due to Héloïse Letissier's quietly emotive delivery of every line and her ability to say big, potent things in small, intimate ways. The result is a stunning of-the-moment track that anchored a solid effort featuring plenty more of the same.
Drake - Hotline Bling
Even that video can't erase how effortlessly cool Drake comes off in his runaway hit that somehow moved him even further into ubiquity. There's famous, and then there's country-music-loving-soccer-mom-at-your-office-singing-your-song-while-she-gets-coffee famous. With a loop that sounds like an iPhone 2 ringtone called "Tropical Breeze", Drake chill-croons his way through a jealous rant about an old flame who, apparently, "got a reputation" for herself after he left town. It's not particularly flattering stuff, but Drake still has that can't-help-but-like-him charm that keeps you vibing to the song while he talks his ex girl up and down for, you know, moving on. The message is as clunky as those talked-to-death dance moves, but they do nothing to stop the earworm's tractor-beam pull.
Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face
2015 is the year when the Weeknd went full-MJ. He's acknowledged their on-the-nose vocal similarities before, with his cover of "Dirty Diana" on the final installment of his epic Trilogy. This year, though, he picked up some pretty dope moves along with some more danceable beats to give himself an excuse to use them. He also teamed up with may-not-know-his-name-but-you-definitely-know-his-work co-writer extraordinaire, Max Martin, to put down the bizarro-Thriller track that put him on top of the charts. Beauty Behind the Madness, his poppiest effort to date, had another pretty great Michael callback, the "The Way You Make Me Feel"-beat-jacked angel-on-a-pole anthem "In the Night", but "Face" is the track that most captures the King of Pop's complete control over the dancefloor. Not to say that the Weeknd doesn't sound like himself. He's still using drug-and-sex debauchery as his go-to theme. He's just doing it on an album that doesn't always feel like it's meant to only be played in dimly lit sin basement. Hard to believe that just a few years ago this was a guy that made serious waves with three out-of-nowhere, basically anonymous mixtapes. It's even harder to tell which is crazier, the fact that he somehow kept his image and identity a secret for so long in a post-privacy world or that the same guy had the biggest single of the year in 2015.
Taylor Swift - Style
Is there anything more classically "pop" than a song about a top-40 queen's on-again/off-again relationship with the most-visible dreamboat in the most popular boy band? Didn't think so.
CHVRCHES "Leave a Trace"
CHVRCHES might have suffered from the sophomore slump, unreasonable expectations, or both, but their follow-up to 2013's wonderful Bones of What You Believe, Every Open Eye underwhelmed. Fair enough. People say you spend your whole life writing your first album and the rest of your life trying to top it. A lot of EOE felt like that. That isn't to say that the album was bad or even just OK. There were a lot of really great moments*, none better than "Leave a Trace". The song showcases the fact that the band actually did, in many ways, move forward. Lauren Mayberry's vocals are stronger and more confident, her lyrics more self-assured and even-handed. Martin Doherty's arrangements are reigned in, allowing for some space in the mix for the first time. And then there's that chorus. That adult contemporary smoothness lets the song sneak up on you. You may think the song isn't really getting there on the first listen, but you'll find yourself singing it nonstop for the next 4 months all the same. "Leave a Trace" might be CHVRCHES best song to date, and it is more than enough to keep fans excited to hear whatever comes next, albeit with slightly more well-managed expectations.
*Also, maybe the best "when did that happen" moment of the year was primary songwriter and occasional vocalist Martin Doherty debuting his new sexy(!!) voice on "High Enough to Carry You Over". How you doin', Mr. Doherty.
Tame Impala - Let It Happen
Tame Impala's impressive Currents starts with what might be the year's best side-one-track-one: the dreamy groove "Let It Happen". With the group's psych days mostly behind them -- sonically, at least -- this is hazy, danceable pop at its best. Lush and occasionally sweeping, the song rolls over you like a pleasant, dancy daydream. Parker's sleepy-John-Lennon vocals keep the vibe laid-back and maintain the smooth over the alarm-clock synth line and airtight drumbeat. Even when the song starts to glitch awake in its back-third, there's a great groggy guitar riff to ease you in with a yawn.
Courtney Barnett - Depreston
On an album full of the laid-back charm, wit, and self-deprecating humor that define Barnett's songwriting, the best track is the one that combines all of that with a bummer house-hunting trip. Her deadpan, is-she-even-singing delivery makes it feel like you're actually part of her really clever conversation about suburban real estate. Barnett uses the mundane subject matter and scenery to make a thoughtful statement about coming to terms with the realities of growing up and aging. As boring and depressing as that sounds, Barnett pulls it all off with a breezy, mid-day drive vibe that provides some extra levity to buoy the song and keep it floating along to the next house.