Top songs of 2010

In the 2010s, technology made creating, distributing, and listening to music easier than at any previous point in history. Producers and artists collaborated through the cloud, mixing styles like potions, from emo trap to EDM ballads to indie R&B to bedroom pop. A million modes of distribution meant you could hear those songs milliseconds after they were born. Artists started releasing music at an unprecedentedly rapid pace. The infinite scroll of social media made listeners insatiable. The result of all this was both a blessing and a curse: There was more great music out there than ever before, but it was nearly impossible to keep up. Here at Pitchfork, we sure tried. Here are our top 200 songs of the decade.

For more about how we put together this list, read this letter from our editor-in-chief Puja Patel. And check out all of Pitchforks 2010s wrap-up coverage here.

Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.

200.

Avicii: Levels (2011)

As sampled in Aviciis Levels, Etta James relatively modest claim that Oh, sometimes I get a good feeling felt impossibly aspirational for a generation of entry-level millennials dumped into an indifferent economy. In 2011, good feelings were rare and expensive, but it was possible to get one for free via a sparkling EDM hook. Levels, with its monumental synths and jetstream whooshes, took that potential and conquered the world with it.

In hindsight, its sheer scale still feels staggering, but theres a sinister undertone to it. Tim Bergling, who took his own life in 2018, at age 28, got his stage name from Avici, the hell-like realm in Buddhism where dead sinners are reborn. There is something punishing about Levels, which, like the office drone pushing a boulder up a mountain in its music video, seems to climb and climb without actually going anywhere, an illusion of transcendence thats actually just plain old limbo. Electronic pop music of the early 2010s, from Harlem Shake to Turn Down for What, was punctuated by images of people in their boring jobs and dumpy apartments exploding into uncontrollable, spasmodic dancinghalf joyful release, half exorcism. Levels is the sound of a generation hell-bent on having a good feeling, reality be damned. Emily Yoshida

Listen: Avicii, Levels

199.

Stormzy: Big for Your Boots (2017)

Before he was a world-famous MC, Stormzy got his start uploading DIY freestyle videos in which he spit nonstop bars over hard-edged grime beats in streets and parks near his South London home. So it makes sense that the knockout track from his eclectic debut album, Gang Signs & Prayer, simply showcases his high-octane rapping and palpable charisma over a jagged instrumental, proving that he deserves to take a seat next to grime greats like Dizzee Rascal and Wiley. On Big for Your Boots, Stormzy fires off a barrage of disses directed at his enemies and rap rivals. Youre getting way too big for your boots/Youre never too big for my boot, he raps in the chorus, emphasizing the last syllable with maniacal glee. Considering the fact that hes 6-foot-5 and wears a size 12 shoe, any detractors would be wise to heed his warning. Michelle Kim

Listen: Stormzy, Big for Your Boots

198.

dvsn: The Line (2016)

It's not explicitly about God, but the debut single from singer Daniel Daley and producer Nineteen85better known as dvsnis some kind of gospel, particularly if you consider falling in love to be a religious experience. Arriving the year before mainstream hip-hop reclaimed gospel via Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book and Kanye Wests Ultralight Beam, The Line has Daley showing off a preachers sense of mesmerizing repetition as he fills the songs skeletal framework with melisma capable of stretching moments into eternities. By the time the choir hits about halfway into this epic slow jam, dvsns romantic redemption is secured. Rich Juzwiak

Listen: dsvn, The Line

197.

Icona Pop: I Love It [ft. Charli XCX] (2012)

Manic and apathetic at once, I Love It is a perfect display of post-breakup hedonism, written over a drop that keeps on dropping. Penned by then-upstart Charli XCX, it was delivered to Swedish twosome Icona Pop by the producer Patrik Berger, whose credits include Robyns similarly anthemic Dancing on My Ownthough the duo differentiate their electropop catharsis by adding an edge of vengeance. Turn the bass up enough, Icona Pop suggest, and it can drown out the throbbing of your broken heart. Olivia Horn

Listen: Icona Pop, I Love It [ft. Charli XCX]

196.

John Maus: Believer (2011)

Like many of his lo-fi pop contemporaries in the early 10s, reclusive Midwesterner John Maus pushed underground music forward by looking backwardrejecting digital studio techniques in favor of old drum machines and wonky synths, excavating the dramatic excesses of 80s stadium pop and sentimental radio jingles as though they held clues to some hard-to-pinpoint generational subconscious. But his actual relationship to such sources could be hard to read: Was Maus poking fun at musics power to manufacture an emotional response, like when we find ourselves crying in the middle of a commercial, or celebrating its potential to offer us a fleeting moment of ecstasy, a glimpse of a world that is better than our own? Arriving at the end of 2011s We Must Be the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves with the cathartic finality of perfectly curated exit music, this songwith its glittering harpsichord arpeggios, briskly pulsing bass, and grandiose allusions to borderless loveis the closest Maus has ever come to being a true believer. Emilie Friedlander

Listen: John Maus, Believer

195.

Cloud Nothings: Im Not Part of Me (2014)

Out of the glut of lo-fi pop-punkers who emerged at the turn of the decade, Cloud Nothings frontman Dylan Baldi was the only one who got nastier with age. At the dead center of the bands catalog lies Im Not Part of Me, a song where Baldi lets all of his seemingly unworkable contradictions fight themselves into an exhausted standstill while tossing out an albums worth of hooks in less than five minutes. Its an insular type of empowering breakup song: Im not, Im not you/Youre a part of me, Baldi howls, a compact mantra for giving up the character defects and trauma that people hold onto because they confuse it with their identity. Dont look back in anger, says Im Not Part of Melet it guide you forward. Ian Cohen

Listen: Cloud Nothings, Im Not Part of Me

194.

Lil B: Wonton Soup (2010)

Two true things: Lil B is a beatific vessel for galaxy-brain-level peace, love, and understanding. He also once tweeted buttcheeks party grandma. But spirituality need not bend to reason, and over this decade the Based God remained committed to his vision of untrammeled optimism and unbridled creative confidence, evolving from Bay Area blog savant into legitimate folk hero for the new school. Wonton Soup is the peak from this early period, when he first exploded into semi-mainstream consciousness. All his stylistic trademarks are on display: endless woop ad libs, hazy production, a monotone delivery that makes his absurd lyricshe brags about being able to achieve orgasm like 36 ways, then compares himself to J.K. Rowlingsound like blissed-out Zen koans. Its the best possible argument for BasedGodism, even better than a sermon. Jeremy Gordon

Listen: Lil B, Wonton Soup

193.

Nilüfer Yanya: Baby Luv (2017)

London upstart Nilüfer Yanya does a lot with a little on Baby Luv. The song spotlights her insistent guitar strums, her urgent vocals, and little else. Yanya makes the best of repetition, wielding certain words and phrases like blunt instruments. When she asks, Do you like pain? she follows the question with a single wordagainsaying it over and over again until the word turns numb. Its a great example of her restraint as a songwriter: Instead of spelling things out in bright red block letters, she selects a couple of choice words and blows them up for maximum impact. When she sings call me sometime in the songs bridge, the familiar phrase assumes a new and menacing shape. Madison Bloom

Listen: Nilüfer Yanya, Baby Luv

192.

Tame Impala: Feels Like We Only Go Backwards (2012)

Tame Impalas music is often pegged as brain-melting sonic exploration, but mastermind Kevin Parker also has a pop stars understanding of emotion. Stripped down to melody and lyrics, Feels Like We Only Go Backwards, from 2012s Lonerism, is a crushing meditation on dashed hopes and rejection. But with its galloping bass and kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting textures, it seems wistfully nostalgic, if not downright celebratory. You can hear why Kendrick Lamar, fresh off the contradictory impulses of his hit Swimming Pools (Drank), was drawn to rap over the song. And you can hear how Parker, in the span of a decade, went from headphones auteur to Coachella headliner. Marc Hogan

Listen: Tame Impala, Feels Like We Only Go Backwards

191.

Rico Nasty: Smack a Bitch (2018)

Go to a Rico Nasty show and youll see a swirling mob of teenage girls thrashing and jumping along to her every word. In the spirit of Bikini Kills girls to the front rallying cry, the rapper always calls for a female-only mosh pit when shes about to play her most unruly material, purposefully making space for other young women to share their rage, too.

This sense of uncontainable fury is what makes her breakout single, Smack a Bitch, so transfixing. Over a lurching, guitar-fueled instrumental produced by Kenny Beats, Rico yells, Thank God, I aint have to smack a bitch today, as if delivering blows is part of her normal routine. Pushing her delivery into near-psychotic territory, she declares, Your ass is done, before cackling maniacally. Rico takes absolutely no shit, and its refreshing to see. Michelle Kim

Listen: Rico Nasty, Smack a Bitch

190.

Ty Dolla $ign: Paranoid [ft. B.o.B] (2013)

Ty Dolla $igns biggest, best single was one of many hits in the early half of the decade to flaunt producer DJ Mustards minimalist touch, realigning R&B with house music. Still, Paranoid stands out, its spacious snap-and-pop production setting the stage for our narrator to hit the club only to encounter two girls hes seeing, both of whom are wearing matching heels and the same damn fragrance. Ty wonders if its some sort of set-up or if its all just in his head. This internal debate is punctuated by his own quivering backing vocals, a Greek chorus commenting on a twisted spin through modern romance. Jordan Sargent

Listen: Ty Dolla $ign, Paranoid [ft. B.o.B]

189.

J Balvin / Willy William: Mi Gente (Remix) [ft. Beyoncé] (2017)

Much of what makes Colombian singer J Balvins Mi Gente sizzlethat audacious drumbeat, that insistent five-note vocal melodyis lifted from Mauritian-French singer Willy Williams 2017 track Voodoo Song, which itself reinterprets a sample from the Indian composer Akassh. No wonder Mi Gente was such a global, cross-culture sensation.

Balvin worked with William to reinvent the source material, adding Spanish lyrics, chants, and ferocious Latin percussion. His lines like el mundo nos quiere (the world wants us) transform the song into a universal call to the dancefloor, an embrace of solidarity and unification at a time of enormous worldwide polarization. Aided on the remix by Beyoncé, who audaciously tackles Spanish and ups the diva ante, Mi Gente became the first all-Spanish song to reach the top of Spotifys Global Top 50 chart. It remains a testament to pop musics ability to push back against growing neo-nationalist fervorthere was no border, no wall, that could keep people from coming together and loving this song. Jason King

Listen: J Balvin / Willy William, Mi Gente (Remix) [ft. Beyoncé]

188.

Future: Incredible (2017)

On Incredible, Futures giddy ode to rebound romance, he and his new woman do hot yoga together and send each other XO texts. But he isnt just intoxicated with this fresh lovehis zeal for money and jewelry (and Vicodin) loom just as large in his lyrics. Meanwhile, the songs hook is so simple and so instantbasically, an Auto-Tune hiccup of the title phrasethat its a wonder it hadnt been done before. Producer Dre Moon frames the rappers warble in moonlit synths and limber bass for an effect as frothy as an island cocktail. Theres an extra glimmer of hope in hearing such unabashed exuberance from Future in light of his long history of zonked-out moroseness. Ima do whatever its gon take to keep my baby spoiled, he vows happily, sounding like he truly means it. Marc Hogan

Listen: Future, Incredible

187.

Thom Yorke: Dawn Chorus (2019)

The death of Thom Yorkes longtime partner, Rachel Owen, in late 2016 casts a shadow over Dawn Chorus, the emotional center of his solo album Anima. Though the pair had split about 18 months before her passing, its impossible to not feel like hes reflecting, however obliquely, on his own loss. I think I missed something, but Im not sure what, he says in a murmur that makes it seem like hes dragging his voice across the floor reluctantly. In the middle of the vortex the wind picked up/Shook up the soot from the chimney pot into spiral patterns of you my love.

The term dawn chorus describes the sound birds make at sunrise during mating season. Nature lovers cant get enough of it, but here, Yorke calls it a bloody racket. That seems off for him, to criticize the organic world. In a state of mourning, though, something that should be sweet can often turn sour. With this song, at least, Yorke makes it sound beautiful. Matthew Schnipper

Listen: Thom Yorke, Dawn Chorus

186.

Skepta: Shutdown (2015)

Skeptas 2015 hit Shutdown serves as the decades ultimate London anthem: catchy enough to elevate slang to lexicon, hard enough to burst from the worlds weediest soundsystem, and worldly enough to shut down both the Arc de Triomphe and Central Park, as the rapper teases in the song. In a satirical mid-song skit, an unfeasibly posh woman laments the intimidating presence of men in hoodies on her TV, alluding to Kanye Wests grime takeover of the 2015 BRIT Awards, which featured Skepta alongside many of the genres stars. With this flourish, Skeptas single rejects battle-rap showboating and zeroes in on the real bête-noire: the snoots who clutch pearls when black MCs breach the nations living rooms. The promise of a new, emancipatory grime wave has since resonated loud and clear, on the UKs biggest stages and beyond. Jazz Monroe

Listen: Skepta, Shutdown

185.

Sharon Van Etten: Seventeen (2019)

Sharon Van Ettens best songs are often marked by their restraint: Theres a feeling that her husky and wide-ranging voice, along with her roiling guitars, could run off the rails, but theyre held in place by her steadfast sense of control. Seventeen, from this years Remind Me Tomorrow, stretches this idea to the limitand then careens right past it. The song is immaculately arranged, a lockstep keyboard-rock anthem thats artfully mussed with synth wobbles and Van Ettens quavering vocals. But then, as her ambivalent reflections on a youthful doppelgänger wind down, she unleashes a full-throated scream: Afraid that youll be just like me, she bellows, losing her cool but gaining something even fiercer. Marc Hogan

Listen: Sharon Van Etten, Seventeen

184.

Frank Ocean: Chanel (2017)

After releasing Blonde in 2016, Frank Ocean spent the next year trickling out a series of singles that built upon that albums fluid confidence. Chanel is the first and best of them, capturing an artist in total command of his faculties as a singer, writer, and rapper. There isnt much to it in terms of melody or structure. The piano chords are simple and translucent; the beat ambles casually. Its all about Frank and the places his words can take you: a heated swimming pool in the hills, a Tokyo back alley, the first-class lounge at the Delta terminal. Listen closely, and Chanel also reveals itself to be a meditation on masculinity, one that alternately embraces it, subverts it, and points out its absurdity. Beneath it all, theres a romantic ripple, too, as a relationship that seemed casual and disposable is revealed, almost shyly, to mean something more. This is Franks gift, the ability to build worlds of meaning and emotion into a song that has the casual grace of a freestyle. Jamieson Cox

Listen: Frank Ocean, Chanel

183.

Young M.A: OOOUUU (2016)

Young M.As breakthrough single oozes the kind of confidence you cant fake. Against a loose, snare-heavy beat, she raps breezily about sex with other womena rarity in hip-hop that she plays off nonchalantly amid lines about getting drunk and cracking jokes with friends. An out stud in an industry thats still deciding how to digest queer musicians, M.A used OOOUUU to carve out a judgment-free zone where she can be herself and feel herself, where she isnt an outsider but the queen of her own domain. The coyote howl of the title is both a tease and a triumph, the sound of finally feeling at home in your own skin and inviting others to play along with you. Sasha Geffen

Listen: Young M.A, OOOUUU

182.

Beyoncé: XO (2013)

XO is about more than the saccharine simplicity of dreamy hugs and kisses. It begins with a clip of the crew of the Challenger realizing the malfunction on their spaceship, giving the love story that follows an undercurrent of mortality. On the surface, the slow-building track is an airy breather after the erotic, liberatory journey of the rest of Beyoncés self-titled 2013 album; the synth drops, and so does the snare drum, creating a soundscape that draws from rock, reggae, and EDM. Meanwhile, Beyoncés voice is raw, almost growling, a sound we have never heard from her before. (Turns out she had a sinus infection during the recording.)

In the video, Beyoncé is at a carnival, flashing us one gorgeous smile after another. But carnivals themselves are a form of trickery: youthful joy on the surface, covering a shadowy underbelly. Like the spell of love and the threat it could end, XO deftly balances joy and sorrow; its a cautionary tale of beautiful things that sometimes head to untimely endings. Samhita Mukhopadhyay

Listen: Beyoncé, XO

181.

Migos: Bad and Boujee [ft. Lil Uzi Vert] (2016)

The runaway success of Bad and Boujee created its own pop culture ecosystem. The Migos became mainstream stars. Rain drops, drop tops became a catchphrase. Takeoffs absence from the track became a memeable conspiracy theory. The song itself is a perfect distillation of everything that makes the Migos irresistible: a Gucci Mane-derived gift for quotables, a sizzling Metro Boomin beat, ad-libs for days, and an ear for perfectly placed guest starsin this case, a before-he-was-huge Lil Uzi Vert, rapping about falling asleep in a jacuzzi. Soon enough, the Migos were matching chart feats once set by the Beatles, cementing their status as generational titans. Jonah Bromwich

Listen: Migos, Bad and Boujee [ft. Lil Uzi Vert]

180.

Sons of Kemet: My Queen Is Harriet Tubman (2018)

The U.S. Treasury Secretary continues to balk at the rollout of a new $20 bill featuring abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Meanwhile, do-it-yourself Tubman rubber stamps are perpetually out of stock, suggesting that many Americans might concur with Sons of Kemet and the British-born, Barbados-raised saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings bold declaration that My Queen Is Harriet Tubman. The unrelenting highlight of the bands Impulse! debut, Your Queen Is a Reptile, Harriet Tubman unites African-American jazz and Afro-Caribbean soca. But UK sounds also bubble up on the track, from the punk sneer inherent in that title to the dubstep wobble in tuba player Theon Cross huffed frequencies. And then theres Hutchings own breathless solo, his staccato shrieks matching the rapidfire flow of grime. Drawing on many musical heritages, Harriet Tubman also moves forward, its sound igniting the spirit of all future freedom fighters. Andy Beta

Listen: Sons of Kemet, My Queen Is Harriet Tubman

179.

Rich Kidz: My Life [ft. Waka Flocka Flame] (2012)

My Life feels like it came from a different century. The uncut bombast of Atlanta rap group Rich Kidz towering tune was laced by producer London on da Track, but its pure sonic overload was lovingly ripped from the gigantic sound popularized by Lex Luger, before a variety of issues drove him off the map for the rest of the decade. Waka Flocka Flames contributions to the song resemble a pack of sound effects played all at once, evoking the smoking-barrel chaos of his own 2010 masterpiece, Flockaveli, though the rappers career is currently mired in reality-TV purgatory. Even Rich Kidz Skooly and RK Kaelub are no longer making music together anymore. But no matter whats happened since, My Life is still a Kool-Aid-colored diamond that hasnt lost any of its blinding sparkle. Larry Fitzmaurice

Listen: Rich Kidz, My Life [ft. Waka Flocka Flame]

178.

The 1975: The Sound (2016)

The Sound has all the hallmarks of a great 1975 song: a sticky chorus, bouncing neon synths, Matty Healy name-dropping Greek philosophers and promptly calling himself a cliché. Its fun and clever and anthemic while taking the piss out of big anthems at the same time. Above all the roaring maximalism, Healy is tuned to the sound of his many, many desires: for attention, sex, intellectual validation, intimacy, and, quite possibly, immortality. With this, he embodies a very millennial mindset: as eager to promote himself as he is to air all of his insecurities. Matthew Strauss

Listen: The 1975, The Sound

177.

A Tribe Called Quest: The Space Program (2016)

A Tribe Called Quest have never been conscious or woke in the way that so many of the best-intentioned rappers are. Instead, they adopt the playful, nihilistic tone of high cultural gatekeepers, turning it back onto those same gatekeepers over kick snare and hi-hat. So it was deeply satisfying to hear the group strike as strongly as ever after 18 years of downtime on The Space Program, where they chuckle at the idea that NASA is anything more than a segregated train car, meant to take the rich to space and leave everyone else right where were at. Over soft-touch keyboards and guitars that pick up where 1996s Beats Rhymes and Life left off, the song opens up We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service, Tribes final album of tongue-in-cheek musings on the current state of the world and the weekend. Let's make something happen, is the mantra, one anybody with a pulse can feel. We got it from Here... is fossilized by the passing of Phife Dawg shortly after its release, and this track captures a group, a sound, and a spirit that fought to the last second to exist in a world that remained alien to it. Matthew Trammell

Listen: A Tribe Called Quest, The Space Program

176.

Sampha: (No One Knows Me) Like the Piano (2017)

When it came time for Sampha to write and record his debut album, the UK singer was in mourning. His mother, whom hed lived with and cared for in London, had died of cancer. The resulting LP, Process, is a deeply personal look at the painful and, at times, transformative power of grief, and nowhere is that more apparent than on (No One Knows Me) Like the Piano. The ballad finds Sampha anthropomorphizing the piano in his mothers home, which was purchased by his father, who passed away when Sampha was young. The instrument is likened to a childhood friend who helped him channel his despair into song. As Sampha narrates his coming of age, the hiss of room tone and the cooing of birds can be heard deep in the mix. The effect is one of intimacy, of being welcomed into a private moment of respite. Gabriela Tully Claymore

Listen: Sampha, (No One Knows Me) Like the Piano

175.

Nicki Minaj: Come on a Cone (2012)

Nicki Minaj may have become a star off of sugar-rush pop-rap anthems, but her status as one of the fiercest MCs of the decade was established by tracks like Come on a Cone: punchy, barb-laced polemics displaying crushing levels of pettiness and animus. Easily one of the most dynamic rap performances of the past 10 years, Come on a Cone is unswerving, deservedly smug, and incredibly funny. Nicki wields her flashy fashion show front-row status as a weapon that reinforces her power: When Im sittin with Anna/Im really sittin with Anna/Aint a metaphor, punchlineIm really sittin with Anna, she barks. Just admit that Im winnin, she declares, and if you dont, well... theres a certain appendage Nicki would like to stick in your face. Sheldon Pearce

Listen: Nicki Minaj, Come on a Cone

174.

Florence and the Machine: Shake It Out (2011)

Take a look at the YouTube comments for Florence and the Machines Shake It Out: Eight years after its release, the song is still helping people get through breakups, depression, illness, and even a prison sentence. Such are the healing powers of Florence Welchs gale-force vocals delivering a message of hope and perseverance over florid gospel-pop that sounds like the sun breaking through after a storm. Florences multi-platinum 2009 debut album Lungs introduced the London singer to the world stage, but it was Shake It Out and its accompanying album, 2011s Ceremonials, that cemented her place as an arena and festival headlinera position she maintains to this day. Few moments in pop this decade have delivered this level of ecstatic catharsis; only big rooms and big crowds can do it justice. Amy Phillips

Listen: Florence and the Machine, Shake It Out

173.

DJ Khaled: Im on One [ft. Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne] (2011)

Youd be forgiven for wondering why the guy who does the ad-libs has top billing on this star-studded 2011 posse cut. But here, DJ Khaled shows his gift for executive production, assembling a showcase for three of hip-hops biggest artists. Everyone sounds laid-back and in their zone: Rick Ross leans into the fabulist drug kingpin fantasy he established on Teflon Don, and Lil Wayne is at his most casually confident (You niggas on the bench like the bus coming). But Drake steals the show, drowning in his double cup while taking shots at the throne, perfectly paired to a beat from fellow Canadians T-Minus, Nikhil S., and Noah 40 Shebib thats laced with synthesizers that sing like sirens. Considering the hook is also lifted from Drakes Trust Issues, this song is as much his as Khaleds, a summer anthem that helped reinforce the hit-making status of all involved. Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: DJ Khaled, Im on One [ft. Drake, Rick Ross, and Lil Wayne]

172.

Sleep: Marijuanauts Theme (2018)

Doom metal trio Sleep became legends by doing a few simple things very well. They played slow. They played loud. They made smoking pot sound like an epic journey on par with Lord of the Rings. So when the band returned with their first new album in 15 years in 2018, the fact that their gnarly riffs sounded just as inspired as they did in the 90s was worth celebrating.

Metal played at torpid speed often seems to invoke the apocalypse, and a colossal solo from guitarist Matt Pike in Marijuanauts Theme certainly suggests some kind of destruction. But Sleeps new music was remarkable for sounding equally combustive and comfortable in its freefall through space. Close your eyes, they seem to say, There is a band playing in your head, and they are getting high. Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Sleep, Marijuanauts Theme

171.

Adele: Rolling in the Deep (2011)

In the first line of Rolling in the Deep, Adele warns us of a coming fire, then she burns everything to the ground. The lead single from the mega-selling breakup album 21 transformed her into a global star, and she has hardly made anything like it since. The lyrics quickly abandon hell-hath-no-fury cliché: By the pre-chorus, the boiling anger has cooled into sadness, revealing protruding scars. The music follows suitAdele once described the song as dark bluesy gospel disco, which feels like the made-up sub-genre she was born to sing. Her vocal control, the way she allows melisma to curl around the edges of her voice, is like a superpower that needed this song to reveal it. Rich Juzwiak

Listen: Adele, Rolling in the Deep

170.

Lil Peep: Kiss (2016)

Lil Peeps Kiss sounds like two or three songs staggering home together. The sampled guitars might be from a Modern Baseball song, or maybe another Lil Peep song entirely, and the first voices on the track are a half-buried sample of the California pop-punk band Better Luck Next Time; the echoes run together the same way that incoming headlights smear into one beam when you squint. Produced by Smokeasac, Peeps closest and most intimate creative partner, the song begins pickled in that signature Peep weariness, but then a second song seems to yawn and wake up inside the first one. This is a cautiously exultant one, a rare Peep anthem of bashful hope instead of despair: One more chance, baby give me a kiss/Ya got one more chance for a night like this, he sings. It has the lifespan of a soap bubble, this fleeting burst of euphoria. You feel the urge to protect it. Jayson Greene

Listen: Lil Peep, Kiss

169.

St. Vincent: New York (2017)

Surrounded by hypersexual synth workouts and fuzzed-to-all-hell basslines, this bare piano ballad is the heartrending centerpiece of MASSEDUCTION, Annie Clarks fifth album as St. Vincent. The songs intimate verses, cribbed from Clarks own text messages to old friends, honor people and places who may have drifted away but will never be completely out-of-mind. Youre the only motherfucker in the city who can stand me, she sings. The chorus, meanwhile, zooms out into the cosmos, as she pays homage to fallen musical heroes like David Bowie and Prince. Its a song about living, loving, and losing in the big cityand not regretting any of it. Noah Yoo

Listen: St. Vincent, New York

168.

King Krule: Dum Surfer (2017)

On Dum Surfer, King Krules Archy Marshall showed that, aside from his beatmaking prowess and lounge-lizard loucheness, he could also pen a terse rocker. Singing with the affect of a boxer with a plugged nose, he veers between emotional extremes, calling out a band as fucking trash while sounding miserably convinced of his own fallibility. A snaking baritone sax and smoky dub effects blur the songs edges until even the name-calling title subtly shifts to a gentle adage: Dont suffer. Had it come a few generations before, it might have made Krule into alternative rock royalty alongside the Pixies or Sonic Youth. Instead, it made fans of everyone from weirdo-jazz ensemble Standing on the Corner to Beyoncé. Andy Beta

Listen: King Krule, Dum Surfer

167.

Tinashe: 2 On [ft. Schoolboy Q] (2014)

Produced by L.A. hitmaker DJ Mustard, 2 On is widescreen and intricately sculpted: Its curling, high-toned bassline seems to whir and chime, and its descending roll of pizzicato synth-drums are so ear-catching that they compete with the gorgeous vocal melody. 2 On is Tinashes term for being too highintoxication chased to the edge of oblivion. Her lyrics ripple with references to liquor and smoke, and the songs forthright celebration of getting faded till we trip may well have contributed to it only reaching No. 24 on the Hot 100. (Live fast, die young, thats my choice does sound nihilistic, admittedly.) But Tinashes sensuous, slurred lingering over the chorus I luuuuu to get 2 on is joyous and life-affirming, a million miles from the deadened hedonism of so much trap. Dissolution has never sounded so delicious. Simon Reynolds

Listen: Tinashe, 2 On [ft. Schoolboy Q]

166.

Bad Bunny: Caro (2018)

Bad Bunny was already one of the biggest acts in música urbana when his knockout debut LP X 100PRE dropped in 2018, and the albums fourth single, Caro, offered the clearest picture of his brilliance. Its the perfect vessel for his suave sadboi aesthetic: laid-back yet full of bounce, draped in woozy synths and atmospheric coos that ground his nimble flow. Its romantic yet political in its expression of the universal human desire to live ones truth freely: ¿En qué te hago daño a ti?/Y solamente soy feliz, he croons (How have I hurt you?/Im just happy).

Caro became a defining moment for Bad Bunny: In the wake of a homophobic backlash to his whimsical sartorial choices and predilection for freshly manicured nails, its video doubled down with a rejection of traditional gender roles and toxic masculinity. The stunning clip includes a female Bad Bunny stand-in and a drag queen working the runway, and, during the songs incandescent bridge featuring none other than Ricky Martin, Bad Bunny himself is seen receiving kisses from both a man and a woman. With Caro, the Puerto Rican star flipped a few scripts that badly needed it. Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Bad Bunny, Caro

165.

Jessica Pratt: Back, Baby (2014)

Like waiting out a snowstorm indoors, Jessica Pratts sophomore album On Your Own Love Again has an isolating power. Amid its hazier material, Back, Baby is its clearest transmission, with a melody as familiar as an oldies radio standard. And yet Pratts deliverystrange, sad, slightly off-kiltergives the sense of someone more interested in drowning out the world than inviting it in. Alongside strums of a nylon string guitar, she cycles through the songs bobbing refrains and wordless choruses, her voice sewn through with an intensity that belies its understated presentation. Sometimes I pray for the rain, she sings as the sun peeks through the blinds. But even at her most upbeat, theres a tinge of sadness, knowing all storms must pass. Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Jessica Pratt, Back, Baby

164.

Andrés: New for U (2012)

Saying theres not much to Andrés New for U might not be wrong, but it misses the point. Simple tools are almost always the most effective, as the Detroit DJ proves here. Using a lovely little string melody as its main flourish, New for U straddles the line between symphonic disco and house music. With its occasionally washed out vibe, it has the feel of being prewritten to play the way a great DJ would deploy it, teasing out its peaks. Once the DJ for the Motor City rap group Slum Village, Andrés released a considerable amount of music this decade, but nothing competed with this tracks restrained power. Matthew Schnipper

Listen: Andrés, New for U

163.

Davido: Fall (2017)

Prior to 2017, Nigerian Afropop singer Davido had already established himself as one of Africas premier artists, but Fall turned him into a star the world over. Who can blame everyone for falling in love with the songs soft melody and Davidos tricky charisma? Every line is uttered with both mesmerizing cockiness and vulnerability. I dont wanna be a player no more, he pleads, raising his pitch. In the back half of the 2010s, Afropop exploded in popularity, with countless artists attempting to hop on the trend. Fall was instrumental in continuing to widen the influence of Nigerias music on Western culture, becoming an international anthem along the way. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Davido, Fall

162.

Chance the Rapper: No Problem [ft. 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne] (2016)

The most maximalist single from Chance the Rappers Coloring Book, No Problem drapes layered gospel samples from every corner, like streamers bedecking a birthday party. The song bursts with childlike joy, from Chances raspy laughs in the hook to the dizzying turns by its superstar guests. 2 Chainz comes in with swift, blunt punches, while Weezy takes his time, delivering the best flex of the entire track: Fuck the watch, I buy a new arm. But all those bells and whistles cant conceal the sharp knives these MCs have tucked behind their backs. If one more label try to stop me, Chance barks, Its gon be some dread head niggas in ya lobby. Its a threat uttered through a smile, making this jubilant ode to independence sound that much more determined. Madison Bloom

Listen: Chance the Rapper, No Problem [ft. 2 Chainz and Lil Wayne]

161.

Vybz Kartel: Clarks [ft. Popcaan and Gaza Slim] (2010)

Months after squashing a bitter rivalry with fellow dancehall icon Mavado that involved a dizzying stretch of singles, a peace concert, and a summit shepherded by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, Vybz Kartel dialed things back to deliver a fashion anthem that paid homage to that most classic of song topics: simply keeping the fit straight and the kicks clean. Kartel is both light-hearted and funny over the Mad Collab riddim, giving his pops fashion daps (Mi pattern mi daddy from mi was a youngster), explaining proper Wallabees hygiene (Toothbrush get out the dust fast), and styling a whole look (Real badman no model inna shorts). He also allowed his protégé, a young upstart named Popcaan, to bless the track with a verse that includes the line the queen fi England haffi love off Yardie, honoring a Jamaican predilection for the British footwear brand Uptown Yardie that reflects Jamaican migration to England. But more than anything, Clarks offers Kartel a chance to rep his own shoe rack. As he told The Guardian in 2010, I personally have more than 50 pair of Clarks. I have more than there are states in America. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Listen: Vybz Kartel, Clarks [ft. Popcaan and Gaza Slim]

160.

Odd Future: Oldie (2012)

Oldie is a Russian nesting doll where the prize at the center is the first Earl Sweatshirt appearance following his fabled exile in Samoa. Though the last song on The OF Tape Vol. 2 features the whole creweven Franktaking turns rapping, the whole point is that one verse. Its a knotty, 40-bar exercise that confirmed what those whod waded through Tumblr to find his early work already knew: bar for bar, Earl is a generational talent, impervious to hype. A few years later, on his album I Dont Like Shit, I Dont Go Outside, Earl plainly stated what had been true all along: If Im on the track, these niggas skip to me. Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Odd Future, Oldie

159.

Katy B: Katy on a Mission (2010)

Katy on a Mission began as Man on a Mission, a dubstep cut by producer Benga. But then Katy Bs remake went Top 5 in the UK, decisively punting out the titular Man, and making the young London singer not just the face of underground dance music, but a mirror for dance-pop at large too. Katy is neither a belter nor a cooing soubrette but an everygirl, imbuing her vocals with relatable frankness and yearning. On Katy on a Mission, shes both a poised singerher vocal tenses and slacks alongside Bengas track effortlesslyand an audience surrogate. She moves back and forth between cool confidence and total surrender at the speed of a strobe light flicker, taking listeners along like a hand pulling them onto the dancefloor. Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Katy B, Katy on a Mission

158.

Waka Flocka Flame: Hard in da Paint (2010)

Waka Flocka Flame worked hard to conjure an image of out-and-out raucousness, but his debut record, 2010s Flockaveli, is sneakily varied: He slides slickly into pockets, at turns vicious or playful; he revels in whatever material goods are right in front of him while still lamenting the way life might have gone better. His booming, Lex Luger-produced warning shot, Hard in da Paint, contains all of these well-trodden modes while feeling totally singular. At first he brags about having not only a main bitch, but a girlfriend and a mistress; by the end hes admitting, When my little brother died, I said fuck school. This is not a dichotomy of man thing, where the point is to feel the tension between warring impulses. The point is that this is all happening, all at once. Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Waka Flocka Flame, Hard in da Paint

157.

Beyoncé: 1+1 (2011)

When Beyoncé performs 1+1 live, she often kneels. Its a fitting posture for a ballad about the divine nature of love. On the recording, her voice is sparingly framed with a handful of elementsa Prince-esque guitar line, gospel organ, and the shimmer of chimesso when Bey conjures up a primal growl before launching back into a tender falsetto, theres little to distract from the sheer force of her vocals.

The songs structure is simple: Beyoncé admits that she doesnt know about somethingbe it math, guns, or warand then quickly pivots back to her devotion to her partner, finding reassurance in his strength and permanence. The resulting message is one thats beautiful in its near-spiritual wisdom: trust in love, and it will anchor and guide you through all of lifes uncertainties. Michelle Kim

Listen: Beyoncé, 1+1

156.

Girl Unit: Wut (2010)

What makes Wut such a propulsive blast of energy is both its dexterous manipulation of tension and release, and its seemingly hyperdimensional use of texture. Drawing on the dynamics of 808-fueled rap instrumentals, and replete with a mischievous vocal sample, wobbly synths, and well-timed use of an airhorn, Wut is one of the cheekiest peak-time tracks to emerge from the transatlantic club scene this decade. Its one of those impossible-not-to-move-to tunes, a crystallization of the clubs love affair with hip-hop. Ruth Saxelby

Listen: Girl Unit, Wut

155.

Kanye West: Blood on the Leaves (2013)

Blood on the Leaves is a microcosm of what made Kanye both great and awful this decade; it was because of everything he did so beautifully that we endured everything else he did poorly. The beat: a 2 Fast 2 Furious-style collision of Nina Simones Strange Fruit and TNGHTs R U Ready thats about as tasteful as a 10-car pileup. The vocal: a mangled Auto-Tune yelp about paternity paranoia, cheating, and child support that includes a comparison between serial infidelity and apartheid. The song is about as ugly a piece of music as was made this decade, and yet it was leeringly ugly, purposefully so. The music Kanye was cooking up to feed his overheated imagination was so lurid and tactile that, for this blazing moment and others, it held everything together. Jayson Greene

Listen: Kanye West, Blood on the Leaves

154.

Japanese Breakfast: Everybody Wants to Love You (2016)

In Everybody Wants to Love You, Japanese Breakfasts Michelle Zauner offers a vision of romance that is gloriously unrestrained. She lets her imagination run wild as she outlines the course of a hypothetical relationship, jumping from the quiet intimacy of a shared toothbrush to impromptu marriage. Can I get your number?/Can I get you into bed? she coyly asks over a celestial synthesizer. When we wake up in the morning/Will you give me lots of head?

Featuring a jangly guitar solo and propulsive backing vocals, the song is deliriously catchybut with repeated listens, its upbeat surface begins to crack. Is Zauner singing about a new relationship, or is she desperately trying to breathe life into one that has grown stale? Is the repeated title phrase a genuine celebration of attraction, or a mockery of romantic idolization? Like love itself, Everybody Wants to Love You is more complex than it first appears. Quinn Moreland

Listen: Japanese Breakfast, Everybody Wants to Love You

153.

Danny Brown: 30 (2011)

More rap careers end at age 30 than begin at age 30. In 2011, Danny Brown was acutely aware of this fact, as he said goodbye to his 20s and made his final push towards rap stardom after spending years trapped in the industry spin cycle. The frantic 30 is imbued with the desperation of a man with his eye on the hourglass, realizing his last best hope is slipping away. What begins as absurdist punchline rap quickly devolves into a catalog of personal chaos. Producer Skywlkrs horns sound like an accordion, wheezing and deflating cartoonishly, as Brown is terrorized by an alternate future where his lifelong calling goes unrealized. He has visions of ODing without knowing his daughter, of dying unloved and unfulfilled. The last 10 years I been so fucking stressed/Tears in my eyes let me get this off my chest/The thought of no success got a nigga chasing death, he cries out. Even listening to the song now, in the wake of eight years of triumphs for the Detroit MC, it still devastates. Sheldon Pearce

Listen: Danny Brown, 30

152.

Miley Cyrus: Wrecking Ball (2013)

August 25, 2013: During her performance at the VMAs, Miley Cyrus mimes anilingus on another woman, pleasures herself with a foam finger, and twerks all over Robin Thicke. She instantly destroys any remnants of her purity-ring-wearing Hannah Montana image, transforming from Americas Sweetheart into Americas Nightmare in a matter of minutes. That same day, she releases Wrecking Ball, the song that ensures shell still have a career when the dust settles.

A perfect vehicle for Mileys burnt-cigarette voice, Wrecking Ball spectacularly captures the agony of losing a love after coming on too strong. Its one of the great torch songs of the 21st century, destined to be wailed by the drunk and heartsick at karaoke bars until the end of time. The video, in which a tearful Miley fellates a sledgehammer and gyrates naked on top of a wrecking ball, will likely be used in highlight reels to evoke the 2010s for decades to come, too. Unfortunately, the legacy of both the song and video are tainted by associations with two of the #MeToo eras biggest villains, producer Dr. Luke and photographer/director Terry Richardson (not to mention Mileys own myriad controversies). But when that chorus hits like a you-know-what, its impossible not to sing along at the top of your lungs. Amy Phillips

Listen: Miley Cyrus, Wrecking Ball

151.

Gang Gang Dance: Glass Jar (2011)

Grown from the same New York art-noise ooze that produced Animal Collective and Yeah Yeahs Yeahs, Gang Gang Dance blurred lines, participating in the Whitney Biennial en route to a global stage. Opening 2011s Eye Contact, the bands nearly 11-and-a-half minute Glass Jar is prelude, overture, and banger all at once. The song is one of their many continuing tributes to late bandmate Nathan Maddox, who was struck by lightning on a Chinatown rooftop in 2002, and a door to the next phase of their career. First comes a slow shift from spoken-word drift to full-on groove; then, synths that rain down with a classical sense of drama. The drums dont coalesce into a steady rhythm until slightly more than halfway through. Samples, references, and arty details abound on Glass Jar, but the destination is a Brooklyn-style drop, recognized on dancefloors the world over. Jesse Jarnow

Listen: Gang Gang Dance, Glass Jar

150.

Nicki Minaj: Beez in the Trap [ft. 2 Chainz] (2012)

In 2012, Nicki Minaj was at the center of a burning debate about rap, pop, and credibility. Onstage at New York rap station Hot 97s Summer Jam concert that June, blowhard DJ Peter Rosenberg blasted her frothy hit Starships as the antithesis of real hip-hop, adding that it was for chicks. It was a small-minded, chauvinist argumentNickis very strength was always about how her wily versatility took rap to unprecedented placesbut the concurrent success of Beez in the Trap was also a perfect retort. You want real hip-hop? Here was Nicki flipping bars over an alien beat as thrilling as the rapper herself, filled with synths and drums that buzz and bang and bubble. That Starships and Beez in the Trap were from the same album, and hits at the same time, showed precisely who Minaj was: a woman in possession of a strange and singular talent who could appeal to seemingly everyone, from tweens to twinks to rap obsessives. Alex Frank

Listen: Nicki Minaj, Beez in the Trap [ft. 2 Chainz]

149.

Björk: Stonemilker (2015)

Björk spent the decade increasingly entangled in complex experiments involving VR and bitcoin, with each new album presented as part of a wider technological narrative. It felt quietly ironic, then, that her best song of the era would plug into an emotional well older than time: heartbreak. Stonemilker, the first track to be taken from Björks eighth studio album, Vulnicura, was inspired by her separation from artist Matthew Barney, her raw feelings splattered all across the lyrics. Show me emotional respect, she demands on the hook, while volcanic beats pound and strings dive around her. In the future, the songs VR video will seem as charmingly antiquated as a silent film reel, but its message of fierceness in the face of heartache will remain state-of-the-art. Ben Cardew

Listen: Björk, Stonemilker

148.

GoldLink: Crew [ft. Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy] (2017)

Long after the summer breezes by, its anthems live on. Hear a song like Crew, and everything about the summer of 2017relationships, moments, the weather on that one Friday you cut out earlycomes rushing back in vivid detail. At its core, Crew was destined to be a song that put on for GoldLinks native DMV, but it became so much more. Links rapid delivery, Shy Glizzys conversational bars, and Brent Faiyazs silky throwback melody each feed into each other seamlessly. Together, the trio turned out a track as catchy as it is charming, one that should go down as a memorable addition into the backyard barbecue canon. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: GoldLink, Crew [ft. Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy]

147.

Ella Mai: Bood Up (2018)

Ella Mais breakout single Bood Up is a luxurious track unconcerned with the passing of time, with a glistening instrumental by DJ Mustard and a vocal that moves through the melody like falling into someones arms. Its also an exceedingly unlikely Top 10 hit. So many factors worked against Bood Up: the fact that Ella Mai was largely an unknown; that women in R&B, once the genres heart, had become the genres outsiders throughout the 2010s; that the songs languid pace, unassuming sound, and besotten emotional clarity werent particularly marketable. And then people heard it, and all those factors floated away, irrelevant. Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Ella Mai, Bood Up

146.

Gunna: Sold Out Dates [ft. Lil Baby] (2018)

So many collaborations lean on clichéd narratives about two artists rising to some grand occasion of shared interest. Atlanta rappers Gunna and Lil Baby, it seems, just want to make a run of impossibly fun songs and enjoy each others company. Out of their many team-ups, Sold Out Dates is the most infectiousthe one where their voices blend to seamless heights, until its unclear where one ends and the other takes over. The constantly unfurling chorus leaps across the songs electric guitar riff, finding one soft landing spot after another. If there is a sports analogy to be made, it is less Stockton and Malone, and more Stockton and Stockton: Gunna and Baby find each other in perfect position, then pass out of it, to an even more perfect position. Their dynamic has the same feel as Watch the Throne-era Kanye and Jay, not trying to make a mark by outdoing each other, just ruminating on the ever-evolving idea of hedonism, and emerging with no answers. Hanif Abdurraqib

Listen: Gunna, Sold Out Dates [ft. Lil Baby]

145.

Charli XCX: Gone [ft. Christine and the Queens] (2019)

After nearly a decade of branding herself as a rave-happy club kid who parties until five in the morning, Charli XCXs facade cracked. On Gone, she feels adrift at an event and spirals into despair. I feel so unstable/Fucking hate these people, Charli sings over an 80s funk-pop beat. These lines about unbelonging also double as a metaphor for the constrictions she faces as a major-label artist who is expected to churn out chart hits but prefers to tweak and deconstruct them instead. Joining the rampage is fellow pop rule-breaker Héloïse Letissier of Christine and the Queens, who descends into paranoia, posing some truly mystifying questions about whether shes the smoke or the sun. The madness escalates into a breakdown of glitching vocal chops, metallic clanking, and dramatic power-synth fills. Its the soundtrack to a mental breakdown, the kind that ensues right before you come back even stronger. Michelle Kim

Listen: Charli XCX, Gone [ft. Christine and the Queens]

144.

Spoon: Inside Out (2014)

A Spoon song is typically defined by what you cant hear as much as what you can: They are stripped and reduced to their elements, allowing the band to build music with visible architecture and plenty of open space. All this matters because Inside Out is quite possibly the most lush Spoon song ever written. Built on a rigid rhythm that acts as a backbone for a harp solonot exactly their signature soundand frontman Britt Daniels raspy lyrics about how life can be pretty simple if you know what you want and avoid getting dragged down by everything else, its not quite Spoon gone new age, but it also doesnt sound a whole lot like any other Spoon song. The greatness of Inside Out lies not just in its unexpected softness, but in Daniels ability to be wise and brash at the same time. Earned wisdom is a part of getting older; rarely does it sound this accomplished. Sam Hockley-Smith

Listen: Spoon, Inside Out

143.

Rick Ross: B.M.F. (Blowin Money Fast) [ft. Styles P] (2010)

You know those old monster movies, the ones where an almighty beast lumbers through a terrified city, toppling buildings and swatting planes out of the sky as bullets bounce off his torso? At some point, Rick Ross must have leaned forward in his leather chair and thought to himself, What would it sound like if that monster were rapping right now? Ross channeled that energy on B.M.F., his quaking collaboration with producer Lex Luger. For four minutes, the rapper takes the form of an all-powerful, coke-fueled leviathan laughing with maniacal disdain as he demolishes any obstacle standing between him and his bottom line. You cant stop him. You cant negotiate with him. All you can do is build a statue in his honor and marvel at the merciless efficiency of his wrath. Evan Rytlewski

Listen: Rick Ross, B.M.F. (Blowin Money Fast) [ft. Styles P]

142.

Rihanna: Needed Me (2016)

Needed Me offered a clear crystallization of Rihanna as a well-traveled, yeehaw-pioneering outlaw: People needed her, and she needed no one. It should feel normal, but it was thrilling to witness a woman governed only by her own rules, acting like a man. On the other hand, Needed Me is tender and sadly wise, a song about someone who is capable of being strong in a relationship and has learned they cant expect to rely on anyone. And why bother? Put to music with radio heavy-hitters DJ Mustard, Frank Dukes, and Starrah, the song is sexy and savage, a way for Rihanna to flex her unique ability to inhabit the tastes and feelings of both Gen Z and Gen X. It resonated massively but quietly, becoming her longest-charting hit without ever hitting the Top 5. Naomi Zeichner

Listen: Rihanna, Needed Me

141.

Gil Scott-Heron: New York Is Killing Me (2010)

Gil Scott-Heron had a love-hate relationship with the city he called home for most of his life. In the mid 70s, not long after President Ford told the city to drop dead, Scott-Heron wrote a love letter simply called New York City extolling the place as beautiful and benignly energetic. Thirty-five years later, when JAY-Z and Alicia Keys were still riding high on their local anthem Empire State of Mind, Scott-Heron presented a different, much darker depiction of the city.

New York Is Killing Me portrays a place sapped of all promise and opportunity, defined by an alienation and isolation that Scott-Heron suggests is fatal. The production, courtesy of XL Recordings owner Richard Russell, is constricting, as if its been breathing exhaust fumes all day. The music is busy yet austere, prodding and cajoling Scott-Heron with jump-rope rhythms, disruptive clatter, and a bassline that pulsates like the jarring rumble of a subway car. Eight million people, and I didnt have a single friend, he sang, his voice heavy with worry and regret. The past tense hurt when the song was released in 2010, and it only stung more when he died a year later. Stephen Deusner

Listen: Gil Scott-Heron, New York Is Killing Me

140.

Rae Sremmurd: No Type (2014)

In 2014, Rae Sremmurd stepped into the spotlight with the infectious No Flex Zone, backed by Mike WiLL Made-It at the height of his superproducer powers. The two baby-faced brothers had a club anthem on their hands, though many were skeptical about their ability as rappers and wrote them off. But within months they topped their first hit with No Type, which elevated Swae Lee and Slim Jxmmi from predicted one-hit wonders into bona fide stars. At the songs irresistible core is Swaes gliding chorus, but No Type is more than just a catchy hook: It established the duos yin-yang balance of sparkling melody and raucous energy. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Rae Sremmurd, No Type

139.

Iceage: The Lords Favorite (2014)

Iceage mellowed the hardcore chaos and angst of their first two records in favor of tightly-strung cowpunk with The Lords Favorite. The song finds frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt playing the part of a lovesick megalomaniac intoxicated by the allure of expensive wine, cheap makeup, and five-inch heels. In the darkness of a seedy club, these gaudy vices spur Rønnenfelts sloshed barfly to proselytize about his divine privilege. After all I think its evident that I am Gods favorite one/And now is the time I should have whatever I desire, he moans, letting that last word ooze from his lips. As the Danish band kicked up a rockabilly storm, they showed that they have more to offer than clenched-fist angst. Quinn Moreland

Listen: Iceage, The Lords Favorite

138.

Drake: Hotline Bling (2015)

A pastiche artist of the social media age, Drake seamlessly exchanges music and cultural references like a Tumblr teen mashing up Spongebob GIFsand this is the song that solidified his status as hip-hops supreme memelord. Drake first conceived of it as a remix to DRAMs Cha Cha, with producer Nineteen85 flipping Timmy Thomas 1972 soul classic Why Can't We Live Together onto an impossibly catchy syncopated drum sequence. DRAM and Drake bickered over credit as Hotline Bling blew up, largely thanks to a music video that cribbed visual artist James Turrells 2013 installation Breathing Light and its Instagram-ready rooms bathed in neon pastel tones. Within months, the high priestess of neo-soul, Erykah Badu, made an entire mixtape riffing on the hotline concept, expanding it into a treatise on the role of phones in modern society (featuring bars from a Drake soundalike named Aubrey, no less). A veritable human centipede of modern art, the most lasting legacy of Hotline Bling may just be the inextricable ties to the work it inspired and was inspired by. Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Drake, Hotline Bling

137.

Yaeji: Drink Im Sippin On (2017)

One of Brooklyns most exciting young electronic artists began with deliberate secrecy: Yaeji initially sang in Korean because she didnt want others to understand her, then came to love those arch, elegant syllables with new ears. Her breakthrough single is clear in that affection; she roves over narcotic synths and trap drums with icy vocal tones, her gently libertine words delivered in an unhurried rap cadence. A bit of English peeps into the bridgemore as an aside than an accommodationafter shes just murmured the line Thats not it in Korean several times, a lovely and winking moment of benign miscommunication. That elastic bass drop, though, cant be mistaken. Stacey Anderson

Listen: Yaeji, Drink Im Sippin On

136.

CupcakKe: Duck Duck Goose (2018)

Sending nudes of such high quality that the recipient uses up all their data. Comparing a dick to the Statue of Liberty. The lines, Coochie guaranteed to put you to sleep so damn soon/Ridin on that dick, Im readin Goodnight Moon. These are some of CupcakKes tamer moments on Duck Duck Goose. The Chicago rappers salacious humor is on full display here, in an endless barrage of X-rated jokes. The track also shows that she can spit better than anyone in the room, and is able to lace her verses with the wit, puns, and vivid imagery of an elite songwriter. CupcakKe delivers it all over an instrumental ready for an overstuffed, sweaty clubthe perfect place to experience her brilliance. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: CupcakKe, Duck Duck Goose

135.

Robyn: Honey (2018)

Honey is one of Robyns filthier tunesa 3 a.m. booty call set to a pulsing house beat. The song flows slowly, picking up rattling hi-hats and strobing synthesizer as it oozes along the dancefloor. Meanwhile, the Swedish star allows plenty of space for her visuals to bloomthe strands of saliva laced with glitter, the emeralds glinting on pavement. Each syllable is drawn out like taffy, and her voice hovers just above a whisper, as if she wants you to lean in a little closer. But her message is so clear theres no need to shout it: A decade after she danced alone, Robyn made a triumphant return to the discotheque. But this time, she wont be leaving solo. Madison Bloom

Listen: Robyn, Honey

134.

Kamasi Washington: Truth (2017)

Kamasi Washington is an artist who needs room to meditate, sculpt, engineer. His songs, each their own island of brewing affect, are where his ideas find pulse, where theyre outfitted with all the sensory trademarks that accent his catalog. Truth is the finest, and perhaps most-psalm-like, of the saxophonists musical regionsthe wet bass, the godly orchestral wails, the intoxication and pure-cut adrenaline reminiscent of master architect Phraroah Sanders. Its Washingtons very own Odysseyonly funkier, Afrod, and regaled in a Senegalese dashiki. You know, king shit.

Originally composed for an exhibit at the 2017 Whitney Biennial and later packaged as the closer on Washingtons Harmony of Difference EP, Truth is about journeys: spiritual, musical, human. Its a track so complexly layered in its artistic command that it places him alongside historians whove mined the folkways of Black Los Angeles in their work, from poet Wanda Coleman and director John Singleton to visual artist Betye Saar and producer DJ Quik. Listen closely and youll hear the tension and swoop of life, the emotional velocity of love, the drama of drawn breath. Jason Parham

Listen: Kamasi Washington, Truth

133.

Future: Mask Off (2017)

Futures music constantly dramatizes the tragedy of excess and indulgence by celebrating those very things. The strategy should be nearly impossible to pull off, and yet the Atlanta star is one of the most gifted stylists in contemporary rap. Mask Off, his highest-charting single, should be an over-the-top breaking pointhe repeats the words molly and Percocet in the chorus more than he does the title. But still he rises to the occasion by plumbing the depths of drug abuse. Future offers his chilling description of lean in two wordsmy guillotinewhile a flute sample of Prison Song, from the 1978 musical Selma, a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, snakes around his vocals. Cold chills, prison cells, the screwed vocals from Prison Song intone at the outro. Mask Off is one of Future's most cartoonish songs, but perhaps thats the best way to encapsulate a reality thats careening dangerously into the unreal. Ross Scarano

Listen: Future, Mask Off

132.

Kurt Vile: Babys Arms (2011)

Babys Arms is the sound of Kurt Viles slacker-Zen persona snapping suddenly into focus. The opening track of 2011s Smoke Ring for My Halo felt like a reintroduction for the Philadelphia songwriter, who had previously hidden behind a curtain of reverb. Working with his band the Violators, producer John Agnello, and an expanded cast, Vile replaced the bleary atmosphere of his earliest releases with crystalline finger-picking, and the mumbled aphorisms with odes to his loved one. Babys Arms is cool and sweet, intimate and resonant. It sounds full while barely rising above a whisper. Jesse Jarnow

Listen: Kurt Vile, Babys Arms

131.

Chromatics: Kill for Love (2012)

Johnny Jewel takes a lot of flack for perfectionism, but listen to a song like Kill for Love and the infamously exacting Chromatics ringleader looks a lot more rational. The title track from the groups 2012 album is their mission in miniature: the sound of ennui in search of bliss. Ruth Radelets deceptively blasé vocal performance articulates the craving for novelty lurking within habit: I drank the water and I felt all right/I took a pill almost every night/In my mind, I was waiting for change. The fractured synth stabs are sharp enough to split geodes; the guitars dizzy and sentimental, melty and echoing; the cymbal rattles nonstop. Under the anxiety and damage are the same elemental urges, where every momentary escape holds the promise of nothing, now and forever. Anna Gaca

Listen: Chromatics, Kill for Love

130.

A$AP Rocky: Peso (2011)

Did any rap song this decade open with five words more immediately iconic than I be that pretty motherfucker? From the moment Peso broke, it was clear that it was going to vault A$AP Rocky to a stardom built atop sounds from Memphis and Houston, but presented as the New Yorkers alchemic birthright. In the video, he mugged with diamond teeth and coiled-up charismashirtless, venomous. The money started rolling in, followed soon after by the jokes: Can you believe hes named after Rakim but he raps like this? And true, nothing about Rockys music is as intricate, groundbreaking, or downright mean as the great stars of New Yorks past. But you cant tell him he isnt pretty. Paul A. Thompson

Listen: A$AP Rocky, Peso

129.

Lorde: Royals (2013)

At the start of the decade, pop music taught teenagers what their desires were, not the other way around. According to the radio, teen dreams were filled with earth-shattering parties and unconscionable excess tracked to wall-of-sound synth production best suited for football stadiums. And then New Zealands 16-year-old Lorde strolled into the charts like a supremely over-it exchange student, singing her chilly, nearly a capella manifesto about just how tired she was of songs about tigers and jet planes and Cadillacs.

While Royals pillory of rap-video tropes attracted accusations of racism, the song propelled Lorde to stardom and transformed pop in the process. In the years since, the genre has grown bleaker, replacing maximalist odes to excess with bummed-out songs stressing isolation and anxiety. And a new generation of artists who speak to the same sense of teen ennuiHalsey and Clairo and Billie Eilishhave proliferated, working to override the industrys male gaze instead of playing into it. As it introduced a new kind of pop star, Royals challenged the worlds biggest artists to be not just enviable, but relatable. Hazel Cills

Listen: Lorde, Royals

128.

Young Thug: Danny Glover (2013)

In 2013, Young Thug descended from an unknown planet equipped with a language that everyone was dying to learn and a melody that reshaped what we thought we knew about rappers who sing. For many outside of Atlanta, Danny Glover was their introduction to this otherworldly persona. Thug raps fast and coos punchlines that stick: I dont like using profanity, but the Young Thugger will gut you. He has quirks on top of quirks, but theyre all coddled inside go-to producer Southsides signature trunk-rattling hi-hats and 808s. When Danny Glover arrived, Thug sounded like no one else; now its hard to imagine what rap would sound like without him. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Young Thug, Danny Glover

127.

James Blake: CMYK (2010)

James Blake charted the next step in bass musics evolution with CMYK. Sampling both Kelis and Aaliyah, the song looked backward to late-90s R&B, whose ribbon-like vocals and plush harmonies would become hallmarks of the young British producers music. More important was what he did with those vocals: chopping, re-pitching, and layering them with his own processed voice, creating a strange, hybrid call-and-response that floated, web-like, over synths as spongy as marshland. It was the sound of a new world coming into focus, and it would guide his music for years to come. Philip Sherburne

Listen: James Blake, CMYK

126.

Ciara: Ride [ft. Ludacris] (2010)

In her video for Ride, Ciara shows off her remarkable dance skills and sheer athleticism. She also straddles a mechanical bull while wearing a drenched undershirt. BET reportedly banned the sultry clip from its airwavesa decision Ciara called very unfortunate and refused to back down from, never making a toned-down version for them. She didnt need their cosign. On Ride, the Atlanta singer flaunts her artistic command, meeting the tracks distorted beat with an almost-clipped vocal performance that underscores her confidence. Not even an audaciously horny Ludacris feature can derail Ciaras show: She makes no concessions. Matthew Strauss

Listen: Ciara, Ride [ft. Ludacris]

125.

Lykke Li: I Follow Rivers (2011)

Lykke Li once compared the overwhelming desire that ignited I Follow Rivers to a nature force, one in which youre at the mercy of another person so completely that you almost have no voice. She expresses that cataclysmic metaphor in a storm of stomping girl-group drums, dissonant organ, and stuttering vocals. The song signaled an about-face from the more delicate, hushed tracks she first broke out with, affording her a deeper layer of darkness that shed then yet to unearth. She may have been simply trying to satisfy some serious thirst on I Follow Rivers, but her pained, lusty delivery gives her yearning a cosmic pull. Eric Torres

Listen: Lykke Li, I Follow Rivers

124.

Nicki Minaj: Super Bass (2010)

One of the reasons Super Bass is such a banger is its emotional depth: Just take a close listen to the mournful chords that run beneath the verses, providing contrast and context for the tracks hot-blooded desire, as well as its siren call to party. Having shared a male-gaze-flipping list of what she finds attractive in a man, Nicki Minajs quickfire bars race the beat to the chorus, which boom badoom boom bursts like a rainbow after a downpour. A trance-y bridge with digital strings seals the deal on this masterclass in contemporary pop. Ruth Saxelby

Listen: Nicki Minaj, Super Bass

123.

Clairo: Bags (2019)

Clairos Claire Cottrill had uploaded plenty of relatable and catchy bedroom pop songs before Bagsincluding her viral hit Pretty Girl, which lamented the unfair sacrifices women often make in their romantic relationshipsthough they ultimately felt slight, like she was holding something back. The lead single of her debut album, Immunity, reintroduced her with new vigor and undeniable shine. Co-produced with Rostam, Bags leaves her lo-fi origins firmly in the past. The song is a flurry of action as drums shimmy, synths whirr like insect wings, and keys clamor drunkenly, yet Cottrills voice is composed and calm as she recalls her love walking out on her. It vividly captures the tremendous effort that goes into maintaining a cool façade after the door slams shut. Vrinda Jagota

Listen: Clairo, Bags

122.

Playboi Carti: Magnolia (2017)

There are album artists and singles artists, and then theres Playboi Carti, a rapper whose work is most ravenously devoured via compressed-to-hell snippets ripped from Instagram. Hailing from the most anarchic corners of the social internet (but also Atlanta), Carti is someone whose promise will always outpace his official output, and that is by design. Magnolia is the rare moment when all his significant skills are put to use in the same direction: Its a sinister song with an instantly quotable hook that otherwise functions mostly as an extended ad-lib. The hit also served as producer Pierre Bournes national introduction, launching him from relative obscurity to rap productions A-list. Magnolia is the single best distillation of Carti and Pierres chemistry, which, amid raps rapidly moving generational drift, has already spawned its own legion of pounding, skeletal imitations. Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Playboi Carti, Magnolia

121.

DJ Rashad: Feelin [ft. Spinn and Taso] (2013)

Footworks relationship to time has a lot to do with a kind of musical sleight-of-hand. Some of the genres sonic elements run at triple-time while others dawdle, yet a sense of urgency remains consistent. And no one has ever wielded that energy as fluidly as DJ Rashad. Feelin, from 2013s Double Cup, the only album he released before his death the following year, pivots off a languid sax riff from Roy Ayers Brand New Feeling and distills soul singer Merry Claytons formidable vocal into animated squiggles that ride atop Rashads frenzied beat. (Its worth noting that members of Rashads Teklife crew, DJs Spinn and Taso, joined the producer in fleshing out Feelin from an earlier version he released in 2012.) Ayers original is about the transformative power of the first flush of love. Rashads take is more a rumination on the everyday search to feel somethinganythingamid the frantic pace of life. Ruth Saxelby

Listen: DJ Rashad, Feelin [ft. Spinn and Taso]

120.

Justin Bieber: Sorry (2015)

Sorry is a strange creature. By grafting a fashionably clipped pop melody over a retro, Shabba Ranks-inspired Caribbean fusion beat, producers Skrillex and BloodPop created one of the best tropical house hits of the decade. The ethereal hook, crafted from Justin Biebers pitched and manipulated vocal, squares off against a synth horn line and a surging drop. But what truly elevates Sorry are its witty lyrics: I know you know that I made those mistakes maybe once or twice/By once or twice, I mean maybe a couple of hundred times, Bieber coos, managing to sound pensive, subdued, and even a little sexy at the same time. That this fallen teen idol, the decades emblem of white male petulance and bad-boy behavior, was crooning for redemption and second chances in an age of #BlackLivesMatter protestsespecially in the context of his enduring appropriation of urban cultureshouldnt be lost on anyone. Jason King

Listen: Justin Bieber, Sorry

119.

Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues (2011)

Here is an anthem for anyone who has felt adrift, abandoned, unsure of their purpose in the world. The title track to Fleet Foxes impressionistic second album revealed a more intriguing side of frontman Robin Pecknold; something dark and complex had lurked beneath the songwriters soaring harmonies from the beginning, and Helplessness Blues represented all of his neuroses writ large. In the verses, he contemplates what it means to be useful, to others and to yourself, before the songs passionate strumming rips open to reveal miles of wide-open drum fills and dreams of a simpler life in (where else?) the country. Someday Ill be like the man on the screen, Pecknold claims in the songs closing seconds. Its a line thats just ambiguous enough to drive home how frequently his generation has caught a glimpse at a different life and, for a brief moment, pondered the worth of the tools weve been given. Larry Fitzmaurice

Listen: Fleet Foxes, Helplessness Blues

118.

Travis Scott: Sicko Mode [ft. Drake] (2018)

By any conventional wisdom, a five-minute, three-part suite of a song should have never become a phenomenon in a climate where dwindling attention spans are leading to shorter and shorter hits. But Sicko Mode is fueled by the power of Travis Scott and Drake, two of the eras defining rappers, operating at an energized high. The songs first part is a short Drake verse that cuts off abruptlya tease that only makes you want more. Once the funky second beat hits, you forget about Drake as Travis takes center stage with some of the best rapping of his career. The gradual build meets a grand finale, where Travis and the Toronto icon fuse for one of the decades signature back-and-forths. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Travis Scott, Sicko Mode [ft. Drake]

117.

Usher: Climax (2012)

Usher once ruled R&B so decisively that the music industry spent over a decade churning out clones of him. But by 2010, he was reduced to guesting on anonymous Max Martin and will.i.am tracks, just another pop singer. Then came Climax, which single-handedly rescued his critical reputation from lyrics like, Honey got some boobies like wow, oh wow. Co-produced by an uncharacteristically restrained Diplo, the 2012 hit was quickly compared to alt-R&B newcomers like James Blake and the Weeknd. But instead of conveying intense feelings with a chilly shrug, Usher is clearly pained as he eulogizes a failing relationship in a lonely falsetto. The verses try to build, dont, try again, dont again. At one point, Usher abruptly turns the whole thing into what seems like a final roaring emotional plea, a would-be climax, but it isnt enough, and the track recedes again. As a match of song to message, its brilliant. As a microcosm of Ushers career, its sadly prophetic: He would spend the rest of the decade trying to recapture Climaxs highs. Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Usher, Climax

116.

Burial: Kindred (2012)

Agonizingly, Burial never gave us a proper follow-up to his classic 2007 album Untrue this decade, instead resorting to intermittent singles and EPs. But this strategy still resulted in tracks that lived up to the mysterious producers lofty legacy, none more so than Kindred. While still rooted in his lifelong obsession with the feral jungle choons of his youth, the song sunk even deeper into the turbidity of our modern world, embracing decay and loss much like William Basinskis The Disintegration Loops did a decade prior. Kindred feels haunted, its errant noises both disrupting the flow and somehow cohering everything into a jaw-dropping, 12-minute opus. Its a corrupted symphony of a dozen open YouTube tabs, the sound of the flames burning all around us. Andy Beta

Listen: Burial, Kindred

115.

The Weeknd: The Morning (2011)

Here is the pop American Psycho, a work that sums up all thats decadent and a little disgusting about our era. Its also the greatest song the Weeknd, that dark knight of R&B, ever made. Ostensibly a druggy party track, its called The Morning as if to dare us to look at the bacchanal in the glare of day, when the abandoned Solo cups are spilled onto the carpet. It was Abel Tesfayes first big statement to the world, so resonant it would make him famous: There are strippers and codeine and money atop a hungover tempo that feels like a symbol of generational malaise. The Morning might even qualify as horror, as Tesfaye refers to himself and his friends as zombies of the nighta pretty terrifying way to characterize a bar crawl. The song made the Weeknd an unlikely yet unflinching chronicler of fucked-up times, the man well put on the stereo when we want to remember exactly how good and terrible it all felt. Alex Frank

Listen: The Weeknd, The Morning

114.

Daft Punk: Get Lucky [ft. Pharrell] (2013)

Get Lucky debuted as a four-bar loop in a commercial, which Daft Punks obsessive fans promptly re-looped and re-looped until it lasted 10 hours. When the full song finally arrived, the instrumentation was pretty much just those four bars over and over, and it was still engrossing. Thats the thing about this song: Its so simple someone made a chintzy MIDI version of it, but so sinuous that its also inspired debates by music-theory journals about what key its in. Its clearly a 70s pastiche, but it also sounds immediate, even before the robo beeps and boops come in.

Daft Punk take the right parts of this song either incredibly seriously or not seriously at all. The disco groove is an immaculate, unironic homage to Nile Rodgers Chic, produced alongside the man himself, who plays guitar on the song. The irony is saved for the lyrics, where Pharrell does not even remotely try to keep a straight face while singing his lines about the legend of the phoenix. After four lines, he gives up the philosophizing and focuses on the task at hand: getting lucky. But unlike the other huge disco-funk hit of 2013, Blurred Lines, this song doesnt come off too sleazythere just isnt enough there. Within those four bars, its hard to hear anything but precisely executed joy. Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Daft Punk, Get Lucky [ft. Pharrell]

113.

Jenny Hval: Conceptual Romance (2016)

In theory, the Norwegian artist Jenny Hval set out to create an experimental pop album about period blood and vampires with 2016s Blood Bitch. Really, the record was a deeply accomplished inquiry into the possibility of a feminine sound that gravitated towards the grotesque. At its emotional core is Conceptual Romance, a song that floats like a cloud, its hazy procession tempered by the rigor of Hvals lyrics. A self-described love letter to Chris Kraus 1997 novel I Love Dick, which helped shape a generation of feminist artists and intellectuals, Conceptual Romance is about the mind-altering power of infatuation. My heartbreak is too sentimental for you, Hval croons, slyly chipping back at emotionless masculinity. Between each dreamlike note, Conceptual Romance acknowledges thinking and feeling as equally consequential pillars of our lives. Jenn Pelly

Listen: Jenny Hval, Conceptual Romance

112.

Paramore: Aint It Fun (2013)

After three albums of careening mall-punk thrills, Paramore reinvented themselves with Aint It Fun. Still their highest-charting single, the song brought groove and soul to their sugar-rushing soundnot to mention a gospel choir and real-world resilience. Its easy to ignore trouble/When youre living in a bubble, Hayley Williams sings, but this is the sound of the bubble of youth freshly burst, of beginning to smash your rose-tinted glasses, of not looking back. Williams has never sounded more monumental or self-possessed. Aint It Fun proved Paramore to be a legitimate pop force, authors of a new, genre-blurring paradigm of what Top 40 guitar-rock could sound like in the 2010s. They may have made their name on rollercoaster hooks fit for Warped Tourinfluencing the likes of Snail Mail, Princess Nokia, and Lil Uzi Vert in the processbut here they grew into themselves, anticipating the influence of blown-up Hot Topic emo in the unlikeliest of places. Jenn Pelly

Listen: Paramore, Aint It Fun

111.

A$AP Ferg: Shabba [ft. A$AP Rocky] (2013)

We were always weirdos, Ferg once said of his A$AP cohort, and the proof is this song, which remains a New York party staple six years later. Theres nothing formulaic about pairing a menacing sample from a twisted 60s horror flick about a family scalping business with lavish praise for Jamaican dancehall king Shabba Rankswhich makes it perfectly appropriate for Ferg and his crew. Along the way, there are bizarre, ear-twisting moments like Fergs full-bodied Master Bruce! yell and the unsettling, falling-down-a-mineshaft ad-lib that comes immediately after. The real Shabba Ranks makes a cameo in the video, and the gold jewelry enumerated in the chorus is true to his powerful life, but the strange detailsthe guts of the songare Fergs alone. Ross Scarano

Listen: A$AP Ferg, Shabba [ft. A$AP Rocky]

110.

Chairlift: I Belong in Your Arms (2012)

Brooklyn synth-pop aesthetes Chairlift were a sneakily influential act right up until their split in 2016. Along with fellow blog-era Columbia signees Passion Pit and MGMT, their off-kilter approach to pop songwriting resonated throughout the music industry; dig through the roster of any major label at the start of this decade and youd find a few acts who were trying to replicate Caroline Polachek and Patrick Wimberlys approach, albeit without the duos left-of-center weirdness. I Belong in Your Arms is the crown jewel of their strongest album, 2012s Something. Polachek delivers lyrics as if shes gasping for air, spitting stream-of-consciousness non-sequiturs (Banana split/Honestly/Youre my remote controller) amid drum machines and synths so perpetually ascendant that they touch the sun. What comes through is the giddy sensation of falling so deeply in love that nothing quite makes sense except a warm embrace. Giving so much of yourself to someone else is always a risky proposition, but for three and a half minutes, Chairlift make the act of devotion sound worth it. Larry Fitzmaurice

Listen: Chairlift, I Belong in Your Arms

109.

Drake: Nice for What (2018)

Aubrey Graham took a confident leap of faith in himself by rapping on a sample of Lauryn Hills bad-boyfriend soul classic Ex-Factor in Nice for What, a track that stepped out brazenly on a bounce beat with extra vocals from NOLA icon Big Freedia. But Drakes message landed like a grown mans mea culpa for the dog gospel hes spread for much of the decadea twerking devotional to all the Insta queens whove been wronged by rudely emotional, blame-denying men like Drake. As often as hes been dismissed as making music for girls, the rapper really did so in good faith with Nice for What, a celebration of self-sustaining women who keep it movinghad a man last year, life goes onand prefer glowing up alongside their crew to mollifying sweet-talking dudes. The songs video had director Karena Evans female-gazing upon a cast of accomplished womenMisty Copeland, Tracee Ellis Ross, Olivia Wilde, Tiffany Haddishmaking Drakes magnanimity seem that much more legit. Fatherhood matured him, maybe; perhaps hes even graduated from the Supreme rug and basketball hoop in his bedroom. Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Listen: Drake, Nice for What

108.

Girlpool: Before the World Was Big (2015)

The title track from Philadelphia duo Girlpools debut album, Before the World Was Big, distilled the anxieties Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker faced as their little band took off, painting an honest portrait of what it means to come of age in the 21st century. The song starts with the amateurish tinkling of a xylophone, the type you might find on the floor of a childs bedroom. Its delicate notes are pierced by a prickly guitar before Tividad and Tucker launch in, singing in tandem. Together, they reminisce about how easy life felt when they were childhood friends, when reality confined itself to the surrounding neighborhood and the complexities of life had not yet made themselves known. Together, they stand on the precipice of adulthood and eulogize a time when the future was just another question waiting to be answered. Gabriela Tully Claymore

Listen: Girlpool, Before the World Was Big

107.

Fetty Wap: Trap Queen (2014)

On its face, Fetty Waps Trap Queen is as straightforward as its opening line: Im like, Hey, whats up, hello? Made up of only a handful of rhyme schemes, its a pop-rap song designed to burrow into your head and never escape, complete with glittering trap production and a drug-pushing, Bonnie-and-Clyde-type love story. What prevents it from being overly repetitive, though, is the New Jersey rappers irregular voice; his electronically enhanced vibrato is so deep and tremulous, it welcomed comparisons to yodeling. But like Roger Troutman of Zapp and other funk pioneers of the past, Fetty used effects not to sanitize or correct his voice, but to inject even more emotion into it. So every time he sings, Baby, yeahhhh, each slightly mechanical crack and quiver rings with extra devotion. Michelle Kim

Listen: Fetty Wap, Trap Queen

106.

Christine and the Queens: Tilted (2015)

When chart-dominating acts like Ed Sheeran have fashioned superstardom from a corny outsider narrative, where does that leave the real weirdosthe ones who dont even fit the basic binary of high glamour and humdrum convention? Christine and the Queens Tilted elegantly articulates that liminal territory, and, more elegantly still, avoids commodifying it with a hashtagable definition. (That satisfying slipperiness may be a quirk of the French singers impressionistic approach to writing in English.) Tilted makes room for all manner of imbalance as it advocates for neutrality rather than ticker-tape positivity: When she sings actually in the line I am actually good, the word shrugs off the idea that self-loathing should be a natural state. And when the synths in the verses lurch like warm blood rushes of adrenaline, or arousal, Chris conveys a real-time sense of being overcome by acceptance for the first time. Laura Snapes

Listen: Christine and the Queens, Tilted

105.

Kendrick Lamar: DNA. (2017)

Its a rappers true test to not only string together rhyming lyrics but to frame them, couching in themes and smoothing big ideas into mantras. Its why word-soup rap enjoys a cult following but falls on deaf ears to everyday audiences; keep it simple is a motto many lyricists cant hold to. In this way, Kendrick Lamar is an anomaly: As dense as his lyrics can be, he zooms out onto big ideas that are resonant and impactful to the masses. He does this on DNA., a blistering personal statement from 2017s DAMN. that digs back generations and stamps a moment of collective tensing among Black Americans. In the face of a growing, grinning wave of genocidal hate-speech delivered with the presidential seal of approval, Lamar shouts forth the steely confidence of a people ready to bark and bite back, standing on roots that run centuries deep. The songs riotous second half lets the final battle wage in all its chaos, as Lamar lets off a breathless stanza that even brought the Pulitzer committee to a hush. Matthew Trammell

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, DNA.

104.

Amen Dunes: Miki Dora (2018)

In the primordial 60s of yore, Californian surfer Miki Dora was a counterculture icon, a lawless criminal, and the distillation of American masculinitythe stuff of Tom Wolfe books and Dennis Hopper flicks. In 2018, he lived on as one of the subjects of Amen Dunes fifth album, Freedom. Here, Doras life is a mirror to indie rock songwriter Damon McMahons own. Miki Dora is about the surfer, but its also about the end of McMahons youth, and what it means for him to grapple with maleness. Those big West Coast waves that Dora surfed half a century ago are rendered endless in the mesmerizing rhythm of the song. Eventually the guitar gets a bit roomier, and McMahons perma-stoned vocals rise ever so slightly, but there are no riptides in Miki Dora, only surf, sun, and pearl-white flotsam. Sophie Kemp

Listen: Amen Dunes, Miki Dora

103.

Erykah Badu: Hello [ft. André 3000] (2015)

Erykah Badus 2015 mixtape But You Caint Use My Phone reimagined other artists telephone-based songs to delve into the nature of long-distance communication; landlines connected people, she mused, while smartphones more often create distance. The tapes origin may have been a Hotline Bling thought experiment, but its logical endpoint is Hello, a dreamy Isley Brothers interpolation (by way of Todd Rundgren) that musically reunites Badu with André 3000, the father of her eldest child. She coos sweet salutations into the receiver, he untangles verses about the terrors of opening upbe it the digital fear of unlocking your phone for a snoopy lover or the analog fear of sitting by, waiting, and having to bear your soul when the phone is finally answered. It feels like two people figuring things out. Roughly half of American households dont have landlines anymore. But here, the joys and anxieties of twirling a cord around your finger while sinking into a lengthy call arent yet antiquated. Sheldon Pearce

Listen: Erykah Badu, Hello [ft. André 3000]

102.

Katy Perry: Teenage Dream (2010)

In the context of Katy Perrys cartoonish early hits, the Teenage Dream music video is downright stark. No pyrotechnic breasts, psychedelic candy landscapes, or glow-in-the-dark alien abductions: just Katy, her ripped beau, and some similarly photogenic pals on a sepia-toned drive along the beach. The track is similarly svelte and irresistible: a sunny, major-key melody that shares a lineage with Don Henleys Boys of Summer, New Radicals You Get What You Give, and other pop hits that arrived pre-loaded with nostalgia and widescreen emotions.

At the time Perry recorded it, she was attempting to become more than a pop novelty. As if realizing her ambitions mid-sentence, she once explained in an interview, I want people to think of me as that pin-up poster in their roomor hopefully I can invade their dreams and be their teenage dream. And just like that, her music turned bold and sweeping, owing more to the 80s pop stars with whom shed soon share chart milestones. Meanwhile, she was midway through her 20s, about to get married, and entering a decade where her propensity for unsubtle gestures of positivity would fall in and out of fashion. But as she gazed toward the camera from the passenger seat in this songs video, she seemed to have it all figured out. Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Katy Perry, Teenage Dream

101.

TNGHT: Higher Ground (2012)

Listening to Higher Ground is like getting hit by a freight truck while chugging a liter of cold brew. The track had TNGHT producers Hudson Mohawke and Lunice bridging the gap between Lex Lugers dirty South production and modern dance music, preluding (and arguably helping birth) the EDM-trap craze. Its guttural brass line, ferocious breakdown, and vocal sample lifted from Julie McKnights 2002 club anthem Home combine to erect an imposing electronic music monument. The popularity of the track led its makers to recoil from the spotlight and quietly switch off the TNGHT signal, which is fair enough. In its sheer sonic magnitude, Higher Ground is essentially insurmountable. Noah Yoo

Listen: TNGHT, Higher Ground

100.

Jamie xx: I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times) [ft. Young Thug and Popcaan] (2015)

Who knew the shy producer from whispery indie rock trio the xx could also throw a great party? Dancehall star Popcaan, trap royal Young Thug, and the sampled voices of 70s a cappella group the Persuasions meet in I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times), a snare-rolling standout from Jamie xxs 2015 solo debut, In Colour. Popcaans deft sing-song amplifies the Caribbean roots of Jamie xxs steel drums, while Thug giddily squeals through the songs empty space: When he declares, Ima ride in that pussy like a stroller, his glee is contagious. Marc Hogan

Listen: Jamie xx, I Know Theres Gonna Be (Good Times) [ft. Young Thug and Popcaan]

99.

Mac DeMarco: Ode to Viceroy (2012)

A heartfelt tribute to a notoriously terrible brand of cigarettes became a career-making moment for Mac DeMarco. With his inaugural solo mini-album Rock and Roll Night Club, the Canadian singer established himself as a weirdo skeez with a shit-eating grina guy whose songs showed tons of promise if you pierced through the thick coats of deep-voiced, slow-motion gimmickry. On Ode to Viceroy, he sings tenderly about his unforgiving tobacco addiction and frequent trips to the bodega to buy another pack. Dont let me see you cryin, he croons. Again, hes singing to a pack of cigarettes, but any inherent absurdity barely registers. The unlikely love song ends with the sound of him lighting up, inhaling, and collapsing into a fit of echoing coughs. Evan Minsker

Listen: Mac DeMarco, Ode to Viceroy

98.

DAngelo & the Vanguard: Really Love (2014)

DAngelo is such a naturalist that you can almost overlook his eccentricity. Really Love evokes the rapture of deep love, the blissful sensation of falling into orbit around the object of your affection. DAngelos honeyed coo, Im in really love with you, is disarming in its sincerity and in its faint aberrationreally is used oddly, as an adjective rather than an adverb. It sounds off at first, but as the strings quiver and the unquantized drums tick along, every instance of the word becomes a knowing wink, a flash of intimacy.

The song includes a spoken word intro in Spanish, along with violin, viola, contrabass, sitar, multiple guitars, horns, synthseven a Curtis Mayfield sample. (It shouldnt be surprising that DAngelo plays many of these parts.) When Really Love was released as the single to Black Messiah in 2014, its richness felt like a statement: DAngelo had been largely out of sight for 14 years, but hed never been idle. Stephen Kearse

Listen: DAngelo & the Vanguard, Really Love

97.

Snail Mail: Pristine (2018)

Uplifted by chugging guitars and crashing drums, Snail Mails Lindsey Jordan mourns a relationship thats crashing to the ground on Pristine. The young indie rock musician leans into the grandiosity of her pain, layering anguished thought over anguished thought. Any one line from the songI know myself and Ill never love anyone else, Dont you like me for me? Ill still see you in everything, tomorrow and all the timedistills the exquisite, all-consuming pain of teenage heartache. With these words, Jordan builds a scarecrow outline of her relationship just to torch it all to the ground. Pristine burns and burns, fueled by an urge to create one last beautiful spectacle out of failed romance. Vrinda Jagota

Listen: Snail Mail, Pristine

96.

Thundercat: Them Changes (2015)

For a virtuoso whose music explores the outer reaches of funk, yacht rock, and astral jazz, Thundercat has always shown a sensitive undercurrent. In his first two solo albums, he slowed down a George Duke love anthem, sang adoringly about his cat, and composed a heart-wrenching tribute to a late friend. Them Changes, from his 2015 EP The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam, pairs this vulnerability with one of his best grooves. Its a burbling stomp about being emotionally and literally destroyed, about how his heart has been ripped from his chest and his floor is covered in blood. (Its worth noting that this man has a well-documented love of samurai films.) Thundercat seems dazed and panicked here, unable to process whats happened as he begs for help. Then, in an interlude, his trusty bass falls away and he sings some ethereal oooohs, pinpointing a sweet spot between boldness and fragility. Evan Minsker

Listen: Thundercat, Them Changes

95.

Rihanna: Bitch Better Have My Money (2015)

This was the music video that launched a thousand pearl-clutching critiques, along with about as many think pieces about its radical significance. In it, Rihanna nonchalantly threatens her accountant with a phrase often wielded by men. In the process, she kidnaps and tortures his wife, before taking a chainsaw to his neck. There are umteen ways to read into the politics of this video: What kind of violence are we sensitized to, and what makes us squirm? What does it look like for a woman to be powerful and angry while also being feminine? How are white women complicit in and benefitting from the bad behavior of white men? But ultimately, determining whether this video is Good and Feminist or Bad and Cancelled is futile; what freedom looks like for any woman cannot be simplified into one set of rules. This is for certain though: Bitch Better Have My Money is a song and video about Rihanna putting herselfher money, her friends, her revengefirst. Vrinda Jagota

Listen: Rihanna, Bitch Better Have My Money

94.

Hurray for the Riff Raff: Palante (2017)

In his 1973 poem Puerto Rican Obituary, the Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri urged his people onward toward self-knowledge and self-love. More than 40 years later, Alynda Segarra, the singer-songwriter behind Hurray for the Riff Raff, used the poem as fuel for Palante, the penultimate track from her bands 2017 album, The Navigator. The record found Segarra staking a new claim to her Puerto Rican identity, after a lifetime of finding most of my heroes in white men. But this song didnt find its ultimate purpose until later that year, when Hurricane Maria arrived. Since the storm hit, Segarra continuously tried to find her way back to her ravaged ancestral homeland in a way that would allow her to give without taking. She finally made it in December 2018. While there, playing Palante for her people, she fully understood its time-warped origin. As she told Billboard: It felt like I didnt write the songwe wrote the song. Jonah Bromwich

Listen: Hurray for the Riff Raff, Palante

93.

Radiohead: True Love Waits (2016)

Until it resurfaced as the last track on A Moon Shaped Pool, True Love Waits was best known among Radiohead fans as the earnest acoustic ballad that got away. Written more than 30 years earlier and unsuccessfully retooled for each of the bands peak-era masterpieces, the song was squandered at the bottom of the 2001 live album I Might Be Wrong. But Yorke never abandoned the studio version, eventually forgoing the experimental synthesizers and Rhodes piano he kept trying to make work in favor of soft piano chords. In its final form, True Love Waits remains obliquely romantic, but instead of begging and pleading with his partner, Yorke sounds resigned to a more solitary fate. In the context of the bandsand the songslong-term trajectory, this shift in tone shift feels major: Yorke and co. know that the older you get, the more you realize how little is in your control. Jillian Mapes

Listen: Radiohead, True Love Waits

92.

Meek Mill: Dreams and Nightmares (Intro) (2012)

When posterity whittles an artists music career down to a few ripe seconds (and it will), they are lucky to be left with a single drum crack or a yelped ad lib to testify that they once existed. Meek Mill had a turbulent decade, but with Dreams and Nightmares, he notched 200 glorious, uninterrupted seconds onto hip-hops wall. You cannot abridge the intro to his album of the same name; Dreams and Nightmares has to be taken in full or not at all.

May the gods protect the DJ who cut away from the weepy grand pianos before the beat changethat switch-up is the point, the gas pedal. This songs so goddamn potent, it spawned a subgenre: From Tee Grizzleys First Day Out to Cardi Bs Get Up 10, the ensuing years were littered with tracks directly mimicking its lush intro/pummeling coda structure. None of them came close to matching Meek Mills blood-curdling intensity. Jayson Greene

Listen: Meek Mill, Dreams and Nightmares (Intro)

91.

Haim: The Wire (2013)

The Wire is the most locked-in groove from Haims debut album Days Are Gonea record not exactly lacking in locked-in grooves. The song has the groups three sisters, who up to that point had spent a literal lifetime honing session chops while mastering a soft rock-meets-90s R&B sound infused with Laurel Canyon vibes, reaching maximum vocal synchronicity as they glide over hand-clap melodies and airy lyrics about giving a bruised lover the brush-off. They are technically the ones apologizingYou know Im bad at communication, its the hardest thing for me to dobut anyone who sounds this unbothered while saying sorry clearly has the upper hand, and always will. Jeremy Gordon

Listen: Haim, The Wire

90.

Blawan: Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage? (2012)

Blawans Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage? just might be the most cheerfully mean-spirited song of the decadean evil, glowering spirit that barrels ahead like a bull on a rampage. Over a punishing drum groove of hammered anvils and sharpening knives, the UK producer flips a Fugees sample into what sounds like a serial killers accidental confession. Then, for extra horror-core effect, he adds a blood-curdling scream every few bars. Its a song so ludicrous in its malevolence that even Skrillex started playing it in his sets, bringing the techno underground together with EDMs fuzzy-boots set by way of a good, old-fashioned murder fantasy. Philip Sherburne

Listen: Blawan, Why They Hide Their Bodies Under My Garage?

89.

Frank Ocean: Pyramids (2012)

In the middle of 2012, Frank Ocean was still the shadowy Odd Future affiliate who put out a charming mixtape of skewed R&B, or the guy who guested on JAY-Z and Kanyes Watch the Throne and wrote a song with Beyoncé. He was not yet an icon, and the world hadnt really seen all that he could do. Then came Pyramids, and the ground beneath us shifted. The three-part, 10-minute hyperspace cruise through time, styles, and cool-eyed character observations offered monumental proof that he was capable of miracles. Egyptian pharaohs, Las Vegas sex workers, uncredited John Mayer guitar solossomehow, he made all of it sound like it belonged. Most impressively, the result was light and catchy enough not to collapse under the weight of Oceans vast ambition. Marc Hogan

Listen: Frank Ocean, Pyramids

88.

Japandroids: Younger Us (2010)

Younger Us is a self-fulfilling rocknroll prophecy. When Japandroids frontman Brian King graduated college, he watched his friends from small town British Columbia, Canada quickly settle into normalcyweddings, mortgages, babiesand thought, Well, fuck that. So he started a band with drummer Dave Prowse and dreamed up a song about teenage abandon, blooming lust, and jumping out of bed to grab a beer with your best friend. Younger Us was written during the sessions for Japandroids breakthrough album, 2009s Post-Nothing, when the duo were essentially making music for themselves. So its manic nostalgia, driven by Kings gushing distortion and Prowses incessant cymbal crashes, looks backward and forward at the same time: The song doesnt lament lost youth so much as its hellbent on recapturing it. By the time Younger Us was released in 2010, Japandroids were drinking through sunrises en route to the next sold-out gig, far from home. Ryan Dombal

Listen: Japandroids, Younger Us

87.

Rich Gang: Lifestyle (2014)

In 2014, Cash Money Records co-founder Birdman, one of the keenest A&R men in rap history, brought together two buzzing Atlanta artistsinfectious eccentric Young Thug and malleable crooner Rich Homie Quanfor a feel-good jam of perfect synergy. On Lifestyle, their Auto-Tuned warbles sounded as lush as the manners of living they envisioned in song: Thug bursting at the seams, puffing on clouds from the top of a mountain, Quan reclining with commas in every bank. It marked Thug and Quans biggest hit to date, and the trio would birth an exceptional mixtape together, Rich Gang: Tha Tour Pt. 1. But the alliance that had seemed to foreshadow many more seasons of Cash Money primacy instead dissolved rather quickly, and all three artists have feuded with each other on and off ever since. Lifestyle remains a snapshot of what could have been, a look inside a dynasty before it was irreparably broken. Sheldon Pearce

Listen: Rich Gang, Lifestyle

86.

Destroyer: Chinatown (2011)

The opening track on Destroyers Kaputt unfurls like a waking dream. Everything in it feels simultaneously vivid and unreal; the blurry saxophone seems to beckon from beyond the song itself, while Dan Bejars vocals sound plucked from a metaphysical overheard conversation: You cant believe/The way the winds talking to the sea, he marvels. You might not know what he means, exactly, but those windswept waves are indelible once hes pointed them out to you. I cant walk away, he repeats, sounding more obsessed than trapped. Whatever Chinatown means to Bejars narrator, its somewhere deliciously inescapablea state of mind forever disappearing over the horizon. Madison Bloom

Listen: Destroyer, Chinatown

85.

Charli XCX: Track 10 (2017)

Charli XCX is sonic science fiction. Delightfully robotic and whimsically spacy, she got the best grasp of where she was going, and could go, on 2017s Pop 2 mixtape. Tucked at the end is Track 10, which, after a production swap and a Lizzo feature, became her blaring 2019 single Blame It On Your Love. But in its relatively spare original form, the song relies not on bass drops but rather a heavily accumulating chorus that loops and loops, burrowing its way deeper into the mind and limbs with each rotation. At her best, which she is here, Charli XCX cracks a key pop music code: doing as much with as little language as possible. The chorus of Track 10 consumes and consumes, until it ends, and the listener cant remember living in a world before they heard it. Hanif Abdurraqib

Listen: Charli XCX, Track 10

84.

Kelela: Bank Head (2013)

Released six years ago, Kelelas Bank Head is a proof-of-concept thats still recouping. Today, an R&B vocalist pairing with electronic producers is a familiar idea; during the more wide-eyed summer of 2013, though, Kelela and Kingdoms mp3 demos sounded like a future the club kids and R&B purists had both intuited, where the black queer underground got its just due as cultural alchemists. Kelela was an easy sell as an underground icon: Her vocals flexed with all the acrobatic skill her generation had learned from Janet, Brandy, and Mariah, while her style whet the palates of the ultramodern Opening Ceremony devotees who run the fashion world. The beats did the rest: The handclaps that drive the track forward are a call-to-action for hips and tongues across genres, from Miami bass to baile-funk to house, drenched in a synth-bed that sounds like a sunrise let-out from a Bed-Stuy afterhours club. Time goes by really slow, Kelela sings here, but it feels like it was just yesterday when she was sketching out the sounds of tomorrow. Matthew Trammell

Listen: Kelela, Bank Head

83.

Deerhunter: Desire Lines (2010)

Unlike most of Deerhunters catalog, Desire Lines has little to do with frontman Bradford Cox. Sung instead by guitarist Lockett Pundt, the highlight of their fifth album, Halcyon Digest, found Deerhunter at their nocturnal best: Two screeching guitar riffs hurtle around each other for a few frenzied minutes and collapse, while the band hammers at the tune over and over again, just to check that its dead. Youd be forgiven for thinking you were listening to Arcade Fire at firstDesire Lines opens with the same anguished chug as 2004s Rebellion (Lies)though Deerhunter wield a sharper edge, paring down the tunes raw materials into a darker and more elegant shape. Jo Livingstone

Listen: Deerhunter, Desire Lines

82.

Dej Loaf: Try Me (2014)

2019 rap enjoys subverting gender norms at both ends. At one are pipsqueak-pitched brats racing to see who can sound the most infantile and coy while spouting hyper-masculine, R-rated lyrics; its easy to picture that Looney Tunes cigar-smoking baby when listening to the latest verses from Playboi Carti or Lil Uzi Vert. On the other end are pencil-sharp female rappers dragging the genre to new edges from behind cat-eye makeup. They aren't concerned with celebrating femininity, or anything else for that matterthey simply grab for your throat, no matter how you identify. One could argue that a touchstone for both styles was Dej Loafs Try Me, the shimmering street anthem that took 2014 by storm from a Detroit front porch. With her unisex wardrobe, buttersoft voice, and vows to turn her enemies into pasta, she carved out space for female rappers to be sour and sweet while giving dudes some lessons in melody: A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, for one, must know he owes his radio-ready flow to Dej Loafs pioneering style. Matthew Trammell

Listen: Dej Loaf, Try Me

81.

Cass McCombs: County Line (2011)

By the time Cass McCombs released this pillow-soft meditation on the ache of loneliness, hed already established himself as a slippery figure in American folk-rock, with a penchant for cryptic, out-of-time songs. Casting his feathery falsetto front and center, County Line is the rare McCombs track that sees him fully resisting the urge to obfuscate his best melodic instincts in bizarre chord changes and jarring industrial sounds, opting for a comforting backdrop of ambrosial organ, wispy drums, and twangy guitar licks. Its power resides in the way it offsets all that beauty with the wretched, delicious pain of its subject matter, elevating a highway marker into a metaphor for the invisible boundaries we cross and recoil from as we move in and out of each others lives. And yet, with McCombs, even a lyric as naked as You never even tried to love me is never straightforwardto understand why, just look at the County Line music video, which features footage of a line of cars awaiting passage at the U.S.-Mexico border. Emilie Friedlander

Listen: Cass McCombs, County Line

80.

Blood Orange: Youre Not Good Enough (2013)

Its a cliche for an artist to say that their music is their therapy, but Dev Hynes really does share things in his music that most of us would only say inside patient-doctor confidentiality. Youre Not Good Enough, from his breakthrough as Blood Orange, Cupid Deluxe, is not a pleasant thing to say, to sing, or to even think while breaking up with someonebut why, if its so cruel, does it sound so good? Perhaps its Hynes Prince-lite funk orchestration and the delicate vocal interplay between him and his then-girlfriend, Samantha Urbani; perhaps its how weve all thought something similar at some point about someone who disappoints us. But even more so, its probably the sheer wonder of enjoying an artist whos so open that even his darkest ideas become ours. Thats who Hynes has been to a generation: the sensitive, vulnerable, sometimes-sour poet of emotional contradictions, the singer of our thoughts, both clean and otherwise. Alex Frank

Listen: Blood Orange, Youre Not Good Enough

79.

Lana Del Rey: The greatest (2019)

On The greatest, Lana Del Reys world is aflame. Carefree nights have been poisoned by the constant threat of nuclear warfare; her beloved Malibu is ravaged by monstrous wildfires; nothing feels like it used to, and holding onto hope no longer seems plausible. The culture is lit, and if this is it, I had a ball/I guess that Im burned-out after all, she concludes over a noir swell of strings and keys. Despite its tongue-in-cheek fatalism, The greatest doesnt submit to nihilism; it feels like the logical apex of Del Reys ever-present nostalgia. Surfing on a languid 70s guitar wave, her blasé murmur wraps each turbulent image in a gauze of comforting warmth. The end of the world has never felt so assured. Quinn Moreland

Listen: Lana Del Rey, The greatest

78.

Jeremih: Oui (2015)

Is there a contemporary R&B singer more selfless than Jeremih? Between his sporadic solo projects, the Chicago serenader has doubled as one of the industrys most overqualified session musicians, lending his silken falsetto to tracks from dozens of rap and R&Bs biggest namesand plenty of smaller ones, too, often without so much as a feature credit in return. When you've been gifted with a voice like this, itd be cruel not to spread it around.

After his 2009 breakout Birthday Sex, most of Jeremih's singles saddled him with rap features that rarely added much, but Oui was a reminder of how transcendent he could sound when given the chance to carry a track on his own. For four heavenly minutes, the song suspends gravity, accompanying Jeremih with production as weightless as his voice: plinking pianos, gentle swooshes, and helium-infused trap drums that float toward blue sky like a bouquet of heart-shaped balloons. Jeremih isnt just singing about bliss. Hes creating it. Evan Rytlewski

Listen: Jeremih, Oui

77.

Kanye West: Ultralight Beam (2016)

Given the kaleidoscope of egomania and petty grievances that make up Kanye Wests world, the most immediately surprising thing about Ultralight Beam is that he barely appears on it. Yes, hes there, hobbled by Auto-Tune, a pilgrim in rags ascending the mountain. But the Life of Pablo opener is a group effort: an imperiled Kelly Price, an ecstatic Chance the Rapper, a reverential Kirk Franklin, a gale-force choir. See? West seems to say. I know when to shut up.

As uplifting as the songs message is, the music here is pretty leaden: The trudging drums, the vast silences, the choir struggling against the inertia of it all. But thats the songs power: Instead of capturing triumph or even reprieve, it fixates morbidly on burden. And yet Kanye is there, his friends are there, he fucks up and asks forgiveness, the seasons turn. If West continues to seem sympathetic, its in part because no matter how much he achieves, he still manages to make himself look like hes climbingsteadily, painfully, an avatar for the possibility that one can be both weak enough to buckle and strong enough to go on. As for whether or not he deserves the redemption hes asking for, well, if you really believe in God, you know that even assholes deserve to stand in His light. Mike Powell

Listen: Kanye West, Ultralight Beam

76.

The National: Bloodbuzz Ohio (2010)

The National are very good at making buttoned-up music about weariness and despair, and the time theyve spent perfecting such downcast moodiness makes their explosive moments hit that much harder. Bloodbuzz Ohio, from their 2010 album High Violet, is one of their finest anthems, a slow-building roar that gathers momentum with every measure. Bryan Devendorfs drums, halfway between a backbeat and a fill, give the song its relentless forward motion, and his rhythm seems to shove each additional instrument into place and send it on its way by sheer force of will. Singer Matt Berninger offers typically cryptic lines about owing money to the money and being carried to Ohio by a swarm of bees, but the true meaning of his words comes from the way he sings themresigned, a little bewildered, somehow still hopeful in spite of it all. Mark Richardson

Listen: The National, Bloodbuzz Ohio

75.

DJ Koze: Pick Up (2018)

Impervious to trends, DJ Kozes specialty is creating warmly funky tracks coated with light psychedelic mist, tracks that braid together yearning, hope, and sadness into a fundamentally human ache. Pick Up, a towering highlight from his 2018 album Knock Knock, condenses his fundamental Koze-ness into six and a half minutes of shimmering disco bliss. That the song is built around a vocal sample from a Gladys Knight & the Pips ballad is perfect, reminding us that Koze is as much a listener as he is a creator. We hear what he heard in Knights voice, and then we follow him as he takes that feeling someplace all his own. Mark Richardson

Listen: DJ Koze, Pick Up

74.

Jack Ü: Where Are Ü Now [ft. Justin Bieber] (2015)

What a difference a perfect pop song can make. In the couple of years before Justin Biebers Where Are Ü Now, produced by Skrillex and Diplo under their Jack Ü moniker, the baby-faced star was in the middle of an awkward transition from tween-pop hairball to tattoo-covered fuckboi, his countless transgressions splashed across TMZ on what seemed to be an hourly basis. When he wasnt pissing in a mop bucket in the kitchen of a restaurant, he was throwing eggs at his neighbors house, or visiting the Anne Frank House only to write how he hoped the tragic Holocaust victim would have been a belieber in the guestbook. For a moment, he was the most hated man-child on Earth.

Then came this song, and everything changed. It started off as an affectingly whiny Bieber demo before the vocals were sent to Diplo and Skrillex, who tweaked and distorted and pitch-shifted them to match their future-pop dreams. Where Are Ü Now was released in 2015, when EDMs trademark drops had all but lost their adrenaline-spiking effectiveness. Sensing this shift, the one time drop-mongers inverted their own style here: Instead of concocting a hands-in-the-air buildup to a blaring hook, Diplo and Skrillex sucked out all of the tracks air at its peak, like an astronaut suddenly floating in space. The result was discombobulating to the point of deliriousnessa reimagining of what Justin Bieber could be, and what a Top 10 hit could sound like. Ryan Dombal

Listen: Jack Ü, Where Are Ü Now [ft. Justin Bieber]

73.

Perfume Genius: Queen (2014)

Over his first two albums, Mike Hadreas hollowed-out music as Perfume Genius relied on waterlogged recordings and funereal vocals befitting pitch-black subject matter: desperation, addiction, abuse. But with Queen, he cleared away the reverb to deliver his most assertive beam of clarity yet. He used the showy elements of glam rock to swan triumphantly against gay panic: No family is safe when I sashay, he cried over a crash of cymbals and guttural vocals, ushering in a brash sound for Perfume Genius that went hand in hand with a newly unambiguous lyrical approach. A full year before the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the U.S., Hadreas was locking horns with those who clutched their pearls at the faintest whiff of homosexualitythe same kind of bigoted personalities that now populate some of Americas highest offices. Let Queen be the rallying cry against them, ad infinitum. Eric Torres

Listen: Perfume Genius, Queen

72.

Tyler, the Creator: Yonkers (2011)

Yonkers is like an indoctrinationbefore you know it, Tyler, the Creator has swept you up in his breakneck realm. And as Tylers first release on a proper label, the song served as the catalyst for the Odd Future movement, bringing the L.A. kids off the internet and onto Jimmy Fallons back. It begins abruptly with its sickly, skittish beat that sticks like a broken delete key. Just as swiftly, the rapper starts dropping names of then-mysterious figuresAnwar, Jasper, Sydas he inverts rap cliches into menacing quips. Theres nowhere to sit, nowhere to hide. You just want to follow this guy wherever he goes, even when he eats a cockroach in the video. Matthew Strauss

Listen: Tyler, the Creator, Yonkers

71.

Adele: Someone Like You (2011)

Be sure to stretch before putting on 21: Its still a marathon of human misery. Adele didnt just languish in the agony of sudden heartbreak on her second album, she found the glory in surviving itof turning her scratchy soul belt into a conduit for bewilderment and betrayal. After fixating, fantasizing, and hypothesizing her way through the record, Adele showed just how far she had come with its closing track, Someone Like You. The ballad is an atom bomb of yearning, but its not permitted to freewheel into self-pity. Singing with hoarse gravity, Adele holds every note like a steely challenge to move forward even as she looks back, rarely flickering into melisma as the piano arpeggios churn below. Listen to Someone Like You in the depths of despair, and its a lifeline; listen to it from the other side, and its a medal for a battle well fought. Stacey Anderson

Listen: Adele, Someone Like You

70.

Beach House: Zebra (2010)

Beach House singer Victoria Legrand listened to her bandmate Alex Scallys instrumental demo, with its pendulum riffs and dramatic crash cymbals, and thought of zebras. It was what I was seeing, she told KEXP recently, patterns crossing. So she wrote a song about that striped animal running among horses, simultaneously distinguished and camouflaged by its markings. It became the lead-off track to Beach Houses third album, Teen Dream, and a pivotal moment for the duo. On its surface, Zebra sounds like a song about deceptionperhaps a prelude to the breakup album that follows. But it also gets at something much deeper: Patterns crossing may be the most apt description of the Beach House sound, which thrives on the contrast between textures and feelings, between Scallys stoic guitar and Legrands soulful vocals. Zebra expresses something about how they create together, how they use their stripes to capture ineffable feelings, and how theyve managed to remain so mysterious for so long. Stephen Deusner

Listen: Beach House, Zebra

69.

Caribou: Cant Do Without You (2014)

Cant Do Without You initially scans as a relatively straightforward love song. In it, Caribous Dan Snaith and a sampled Marvin Gaye sing the titular phrase over a simmering nü-disco beat that swells into a euphoric banger. But any sweetness inherent to those few words eventually gets smothered by the claustrophobic nature of how theyre delivered: Its about love, for sure, but it also starts to sting as a reflection on obsession and codependency. So by the end of the track, its hard to shake the feeling that youre basking in the rapturous glow of a relationship thats become dysfunctionally intertwined. Evan Minsker

Listen: Caribou, Cant Do Without You

68.

FKA twigs: Two Weeks (2014)

A lot has been made of the sexually explicit lyrical content of Two Weeks (such as: My thighs are apart for when youre ready to breathe in), but less has been said about how much of an orgasm the song is musically. There are all these elongated soundsslowly arching snares, spilt treacle synths, vocals that stretch into the horizonthat act as lines of tension, gently bracing themselves for the inevitable. Theres even what appears to be a cracked whip just after the one-minute mark. When the drop finally comes (again and again), it carries twigs voice off into the abyss. While theres plenty to savor in the artists clit-sure lyricism, what makes her tale of desire and release a keeper is how its sound embodies the rise and fall of our protagonists thirst for her would-be lover; a death and a rebirth, swallowing one another whole. Ruth Saxelby

Listen: FKA twigs, Two Weeks

67.

Kacey Musgraves: Slow Burn (2018)

By picking up on narrative threads of past country rebels, from Loretta Lynns sexual frankness to Willie Nelsons penchant for mind-expanding flora, Kacey Musgraves lyrics have been defiant and open-minded, even when her music has sounded more traditional. But on Golden Hour, her third album, its the arrangements that catch your attention. Its opening track, Slow Burn, begins by evoking sunny Laurel Canyon soft rock as much as it does country, with a serene melody and gently strummed acoustic guitar. But midway, after the introduction of a drumbeat and bassline, it takes on shades of trip-hop, as though filtering Patsy Cline through a Portishead prism. Slow Burn is not so much a genre crossover as an open-ended journey, like the acid trip in the desert that inspired Musgraves to write the song. Rather than leaving country behind, the songwriter has chosen to explore the limits of its territory, and to expand them. Shuja Haider

Listen: Kacey Musgraves, Slow Burn

66.

King Krule: Out Getting Ribs (2010)

Its still a bit shocking to hear that voice coming from that body in the DIY video for Out Getting Ribs, Archy Marshalls breakout song. He was just 15 years old when he posted the clip, but his weathered warble suggested someone several decades olderas do the lyrics, which had Marshall pulling from his adolescence while also transcending the simple angst typical of such an age. He touched up Out Getting Ribs for his 2013 debut album as King Krule, 6 Feet Beneath the Moon, taking out some reverb and cleaning up the guitar and bass. But the original version, rough and raw and bracing, stands up best. Matthew Strauss

Listen: King Krule, Out Getting Ribs

65.

Drake: Worst Behavior (2013)

In 2013, we were introduced to Tough Drake. Nothing Was the Same was his coming-out party, and Worst Behavior was his anthem. If young Drake strained awkwardly to make his points, Tough Drake romanticized his misbehavior with ease, burning time just yelling Remember?! Motherfucker?! Years before he became the worlds most-streamed act, Worst Behavior was Drakes chest-beating play for pops center, even with its gloriously rattled, oblong beat (which producer DJ Dahi once called literally, like, a mistake). Drake was 26 then, and Tough Drake felt like a costume hed eventually take off. But it wasnt a phase. Six years later, Drake still isnt in a forgiving mood. He still hasnt settled down, and maybe he never will. (Hes not the only one who thinks permanently coupling up might actually make you lonelier.) When you have everything, do you stay on your worst behavior forever? Naomi Zeichner

Listen: Drake, Worst Behavior

64.

Phoebe Bridgers: Motion Sickness (2017)

The lyrics to Motion Sickness, a highlight from Phoebe Bridgers slow-burning debut Stranger in the Alps, eulogize a toxic relationship. I hate you for what you did/And I miss you like a little kid, she sings softly over layers of echoing guitars and an insistent rhythm. In the climax, she offers a particularly damning lineYou were in a band when I was bornand holds out the last syllable like a primal howl. Its a lyric that now feels inextricable from a New York Times article from earlier this year in which Bridgers and other musicians alleged abuse at the hands of Ryan Adams. But for all its first-person directness and lingering questions, Motion Sickness is the beginning of a story, not an ending: Its steady rise of adrenaline sounds like a vow to keep moving. Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Phoebe Bridgers, Motion Sickness

63.

Bobby Shmurda: Hot Nigga (2014)

New York needed something fresh. It was 2014 and the city was less than a year removed from famed Compton, California native Kendrick Lamar claiming he was the King of New York on record. Then, in March, Bobby Shmurda released the music video for Hot Nigga on YouTube. It began as a New York street-rap hit; the city fell in love with Bobbys Brooklyn cockiness and the songs booming Jahlil Beats production. The hook could be heard playing out of cars across all five boroughs, while the rappers Shmoney Dance found its way into schools and, eventually, Vine. Looking back, its unreal that Hot Nigga was ever more than a local phenomenon, especially since the NYPD cut Bobbys career short before he got a chance to benefit from his success. But for a moment, his energy and personality brought New York hip-hop back into the spotlight. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Bobby Shmurda, Hot Nigga

62.

Rihanna: We Found Love [ft. Calvin Harris] (2011)

Hopelessness is not a common thing to find in a pop song. Sadness? Sure. Heartbreak? Of course. But the word hopeless implies a sense of disrepair thats hard to face directly, let alone dance to. Yet somehow, it took less than a minute for Rihanna and Calvin Harris to lodge the idea into the radios vocabulary with their glittering collaboration We Found Love. While her words gesture toward the worlds darkest corners, the warmly insistent, lite-house thump suggests starry skies, packed dancefloors, human touch. Like a lot of things concerning Rihanna, We Found Love inserted itself into popular culture with idiomatic ease, and the generational gravity of its message only adds to its appeal. Lately, Rihanna has used her platform to speak out for a number of prominent causes: for reproductive rights, for Colin Kaepernick, against the president. Shes at that point in her career where every move she makes suggests a feeling of invincibility: Just because she found what shes looking for doesnt mean shes done searching. Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Rihanna, We Found Love [ft. Calvin Harris]

61.

EMA: California (2011)

California, the droning centerpiece of Erika M. Andersons first album as EMA, is a gospel song at heartan invitation to surrender in the face of impossible odds, to lay down ones burden at the feet of a force more powerful than the self. Beatless, ceaseless, the track sounds more like weather than music, a storm from which Anderson cant quite find refuge. The catharsis of California isnt so much that the storm passes but that she surrenders to it, and in doing so, gives herself a shot at starting over.

As the song reaches its peak, Anderson quotes Camptown Races, an old minstrel tune about playing the horses: I bet my money on the bob-tailed nag/Somebody bet on the bay. Historically, it was presented as comedy, the story of an enterprising young guy getting ready to try his luck. Then theres Anderson, 150 years later, detoxing from manifest destiny at the edge of America with nothing to show for it but the knowledge of what it means to have failed. Mike Powell

Listen: EMA, California

60.

Future: March Madness (2015)

The bulk of March Madness found Future detailing his lavish lifestyle. Especially at the time, this rang very true. The Atlanta rapper had an enormous year in 2015, with the release of his Drake collaboration What a Time to Be Alive along with one of his best albums, Dirty Sprite 2. Hed reached hip-hops A-list, and March Madness offered a view from the top. Yes, its a song about getting fucked up and driving too fast in an expensive car, but its also a song where Future reveals that hes not insulated from the outside world. All these cops shootin niggas, tragic, he sang, months after the deaths of Michael Brown and Laquan McDonald. Over ethereal synth arpeggios, digital bells, and 808s, Futures vocal acrobatics amplify the tension that plays out in his lyricsthe highs of luxury butting against the violence thats brought upon the unarmed and unprotected. Evan Minsker

Listen: Future, March Madness

59.

David Bowie: Blackstar (2015)

Im not a pop star, Bowie insists in this mercurial, nearly 10-minute amble of woodwind jazz bleats, group moans, and tinny vocal shearing. Having reinvented himself so many times, his last musical effort was to bid farewell with that same grace and eternal curiosity. The title track of Blackstar, his 25th album, set this tone immediately; its surreal lines about nonchalant executions and bright, heavenly bodiesbeautiful in their doomed infernosare sung with comforting humanity, an empathy that overpowers the songs proggy grandeur. Its skittish, multi-act structure and glacial sax tones resist easy resolution; the most catharsis we are offered comes in the poetically macabre music video, in which the lonely corpse of Major Tom is exhumed and, with him, all Bowies spectacular former guises are laid to rest. Then all that remains is the man, staring straight into the unfathomable and having the wisdom to offer no answers. Stacey Anderson

Listen: David Bowie, Blackstar

58.

Miguel: Adorn (2012)

In 2012, R&B was in the midst of an identity crisis. Even the genres brightest talents found themselves shut out of Top 40 radio, and the few that managed to infiltrate its playlists did so by surrendering to the overblown EDM of the moment. But on his inventive run of early 10s singles, Miguel posited another way forward. Adorn was one of the years few crossover R&B hits that still felt like R&B. It was also a wild studio experiment: an 80s Marvin Gaye/Lionel Richie homage that sounded like it was recorded in a racquetball court. All throbbing synths and bubbling bass, Adorn freed Miguel to roam the songs alien terrain, exploring how his desirous falsetto bounces off its oblique angles. He cartwheeled through the track, singing in swooning howls, and in the process coining an inimitable sound that bottled the sensation of ecstatic liberation: whawp! Evan Rytlewski

Listen: Miguel, Adorn

57.

Taylor Swift: All Too Well (2012)

All Too Well, the hidden gem of Taylor Swifts Red, captures everything that makes her a world-class songwriter: her emotional intelligence, her candor, her economy of words, her ability to find beauty in vulnerability. Swift tells a big story by freezing time and honing in on small details, the kind that could seem like background noise to others: the scarf that her ex (reportedly, Jake Gyllenhaal) kept as a memento, the refrigerator light that illuminated midnight dance parties. All these hyper-specifics, rigorously chronicled, protect Swifts pain so she can tend to it; when she sings, It was rare/I was there, she asserts her own experience against those who would trivialize it. As the song builds, its initially mild-mannered guitar gains energy, cymbals begin to crash, and Swifts voice steadily rises. But she doesnt really need volume to convey the magnitude of the damage. Its the quietest moments that serve this story bestthey make you lean in close enough to see every tiny fissure in her broken heart. Olivia Horn

Listen: Taylor Swift, All Too Well

56.

Vince Staples: Norf Norf (2015)

If you were to compile a map of the United States as told by rappers, no locale would be rendered as crisply as Vince Staples Long Beach. On the norf side, Yankee hats are in style, snitches are hunted to extinction, and the shotgun that offed Boyz n the Hoods Ricky Baker remains at large. As Staples slides from parties to shootouts, danger is courted and eluded. Death is defied and embraced. Gangster rap is disparaged; gangsters endure.

Though every detail is in 4K, the screen flickers. Obamas promises of hope and change remain unfulfilled; Vinces family sticks around, yet so do his gun-toting rivals. Embodying that relentless tension, Clams Casinos production is a twitchy fusillade. The bass quakes and smolders; the synths blare and pulse; the claps tingle. Proud of his home, Staples is at ease within this discord, but he doesnt shy away from its costs. Because he sees his city so clearly, he has no illusions: No one can run forever. Stephen Kearse

Listen: Vince Staples, Norf Norf

55.

Bat for Lashes: Laura (2012)

The title character of Laura is a dreamer in crisis, a partied-out socialite left behind by the crowds. Only Natasha Khan remains by her side, and in her sweetest and deadliest ballad, she dedicates every ounce of her formidable self herself to propping up her lost friend. We all yearn for someone like Khan to swoop in and declaim our innate superheroism to the world, and Laura isnt just a tribute; its a devotional, a monument. Youll be famous for longer than them/Your name is tattooed on every boys skin, Khan wails. Laura may have been overlooked but, within the aura of Khans belief, we know her glory. Jazz Monroe

Listen: Bat for Lashes, Laura

54.

Disclosure: Latch [ft. Sam Smith] (2012)

With Latch, Disclosure managed to land a rare one-two punch: Not only did the UK duo become dance music heavies in their own right, they practically minted an entirely new pop star to boot. As the song slowly made its way toward ubiquity, eventually peaking at No. 7 in America two years after its initial release, it wooed an EDM audience that was tiring of 12-ton drops and dudes screaming at crowds to put their hands in the air. As a refreshing alternative, Guy and Howard Lawrence created a track bound to an indestructible house beat and filled with the types of chord extensions more commonly found in jazz (or Steely Dan albums) than standard chart fare, allowing for Sam Smith to unleash their jaw-dropping vocals. Today, the song remains a testament to a brave new world of democratized production, one where two brothers, a laptop, and an unknown superstar can move the world. Noah Yoo

Listen: Disclosure, Latch [ft. Sam Smith]

53.

Solange: Losing You (2012)

Losing You was the conclusion of a love story, but it was also the beginning of a new Solange. The song was released between two pivotal projects: four years after her album Sol-Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams, an almost quaint love letter to Motown, and four years before her culture-shifting political purge, A Seat at the Table. Produced and co-written with Blood Oranges Dev Hynes, both Losing You and its parent EP, True, turned Solange into an indie R&B darling with a clear vision that was destined to be refined. As breakup ballads go, this ones deceptively cheerful. Disoriented by the end of something irreconcilable, she sees her relationship devolve from all-night makeout sessions to total static. The melody lags, at odds with the backdrops retro claps and squeals, but perhaps its a sign that the loss is actually a gain. Clover Hope

Listen: Solange, Losing You

52.

Camp Cope: The Opener (2017)

Since the dawn of time, women have been fed up with the patronizing antics of men in music. And with The Opener, Melbourne-based punk trio Camp Cope use the misogynistic injustices they have faced over the years as creative jet fuel as they crush industry bros who use feminism for their own self image, bookers convinced that the band cant sell out a room, and bored stoner dudes who treat women like meat sacks. Over Georgia Maqs nervy alto, a driving bassline, and grunge-of-center percussion, the band presents a withering critique that does not hold back even a little. Near the end of the song, when Maq yelps, Now look how far weve come not listening to you! she cements Camp Copes place as a no-bullshit punk band that will be emblazoned on denim jacket patches in perpetuity. Sophie Kemp

Listen: Camp Cope, The Opener

51.

Kendrick Lamar: Bitch, Dont Kill My Vibe (2012)

In 2012, newfound fame was weighing on Kendrick Lamar. He was surrounded by people he didnt know, while adapting to life as the new voice of Compton. On Bitch, Dont Kill My Vibe, he took a break from the reflective coming-of-age story he narrated throughout good kid, m.A.A.d city to address keeping his musical virtues intact amid so much change. Im tryin to keep it alive/And not compromise the feeling we love, he rapped. But he also acknowledged, in the songs lingering opening line, I am a sinner whos probably gonna sin again. Despite the heavy content, the Sounwave-produced track sounds like a jazzy backseat ride through Cali, with Kendricks vocals cycling through nasal-voiced singing, smooth-talk flows, and rapid-fire sprints. He delivered the message that Comptonand everyone elsecould put their faith in him. He hasnt let us down yet. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, Bitch, Dont Kill My Vibe

50.

Arcade Fire: Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (2010)

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) served as the climax of 2010s The Suburbsas well as of everything Arcade Fire had done up to that point. Its about a very particular archetype: the artsy misfit, the daydreamer trapped in a place that stifles creativity and smothers dreams. The character fits into the bands past, with its dark anthems about kid-level conspiraciesbrothers bitten by vampires, secret cities where no cars gobut this song adds a new urgency. Régine Chassagne sings her exurban angst with big-hearted wonder, adding nobility to the tired concept of escaping the concrete jungle for more bucolic landscapes, as the rest of the groups pearly dance-pop avoids any note of bitterness or pessimism. Listening to Sprawl II, it feels clear that the songs heroine got out of whatever grey hell she was in, and found her kind. Stephen Deusner

Listen: Arcade Fire, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

49.

Gyptian: Hold Yuh (2010)

Everyone wants a song of the summer, but few people realize the song that defines a summer doesnt necessarily arrive as the season is fully blossoming. There are tracks like Hold Yuh that poke their heads Stateside in the spring, before getting played in clubs or on the radio until the melody affixes itself to a moment, then an entire seasonand maybe even a whole half-decade worth of seasons. Gyptian had been flourishing on the Jamaican dancehall charts for over five years with songs like Serious Times before Hold Yuh became a crossover success. It is almost unfair how irresistibly danceable this song is, how it articulates a desire for closeness while laid over the kind of sparse but infectious beat that practically demands bodies shifting together. Hanif Abdurraqib

Listen: Gyptian, Hold Yuh

48.

Ariana Grande: thank u, next (2018)

Navigating romance publicly comes with being a public figurewhich can be good when it is good, and agonizing when it is agonizing. Ariana Grande has had to do this through several iterations of her career, in ways that have sometimes felt unfair. All this came to a head in the fall of 2018, when she was mourning both the death of her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller and a broken-off engagement to Pete Davidson. thank u, next was her response, the polished product of bouncing back from many heartbreaks.

The song itself works against the somewhat dismissive sentiment of the title: The twinkling chorus is steeped in a kind of corny but joyful gratitude, for the past but also for the present self. Crooning angelically, Grande reminds the masses that we choose to love people for a reason, even if that love is brief. thank u, next might even be considered a little bit of a troll because of how it challenges the voyeurism of her situation: It would have been salacious to air an ex out for the world to see, but it is more fascinating to draw an eager audience close before offering what is merely a small token of gratitude. Hanif Abdurraqib

Listen: Ariana Grande, thank u, next

47.

Tame Impala: Let It Happen (2015)

If you cant understand a damn thing Kevin Parker sings during the bridge of Let It Happen, youre not alone. The vocals are complete gibberish, placeholder words given emotional heft by his performance and vocoders time-tested by 80s icons and French robots alike. It doesnt matter that hes singing raw syllables, though, because you can feel the wistful acceptance in every note. Its the most affecting part of this nearly eight-minute-long song, which opened 2015s Currents and introduced a new era of Tame Impala. No more trivial accusations of retrofetishism or John Lennon idol worship; with this heavy slab of space disco, Parker decidedly broke free of any preconceived notions about his abilities. The riffa simple, octave-leaping groovestands alone, but the punchy drums and elaborate synth arrangements throughout cleared the stage for Tame Impala to claim their place as true psych-rock originals. Noah Yoo

Listen: Tame Impala, Let It Happen

46.

The Knife: Full of Fire (2013)

Theres an alternate reality in which the Knife never stopped sounding like the sunny electro-pop band who inspired that one José González song at the turn of the century, thereby ending up in the third-biggest font size on the Electric Daisy Carnival poster and probably collaborating with Marshmello once or twice. But in our actual reality, Karin and Olof Dreijer got dark with their 2006 classic Silent Shout before making their grand return seven years later by inhaling radical theory and fully metamorphosing into their namesakesomething steely, cutting, dangerous when necessary. Full of Fire, the first single from 2013s Shaking the Habitual, is a nasty patchwork of sawtooth synths, hissed vocals, and guttural drum patterns, perennially teetering on the brink of manic collapse. It primes you to leave it all on the dancefloor before waking up ready to throw a brick through the patriarchy. Jeremy Gordon

Listen: The Knife, Full of Fire

45.

Robyn: Call Your Girlfriend (2010)

Only Robyn, the Swedish teen-pop phenom turned self-directed superstar, could shimmy through a scenario as thorny as the one in Call Your Girlfriend. In it, she plays a woman whos been covertly seeing someone whos already paired off with someone else. But her character shows no bitterness for the girlfriend in question. Instead, she gently coaches her lover through breaking up with the other woman, urging him to spare her feelings. The klaxon call of the chorus makes Call Your Girlfriend a dance-pop triumph, one of many Robyn songs to arc toward euphoric release. But the glittery production only deepens the sinister lyrical narrative: Now its gonna be me and you, Robyn concludes, having successfully manipulated her man into her arms. Maybe shes scheming, but its impossible not to celebrate along with her. Sasha Geffen

Listen: Robyn, Call Your Girlfriend

44.

Big Thief: Mary (2017)

Mary, the emotional center of Big Thiefs breakthrough album Capacity, takes the form of a late-night reverie. Band leader Adrianne Lenkers voice is hushed and hesitant, as though shes trying not to wake anyone as she sifts through a box full of private memories, their outlines turned silvery and strange with time. Over a reassuring backdrop of organ and piano, her voice gathers strength as she is swept away in a flood of images, words so vivid you can feel them beating in your hand like small, frightened birds. It is a nostalgic song, shot through with a sense of loss, but it is ecstatic in its synesthetic rush, its sublime sense of everything coming on at once. Philip Sherburne

Listen: Big Thief, Mary

43.

Lorde: The Louvre (2017)

Lorde is a sneering romantic: Shell dissect love like its a frog in biology class while still falling under its spell. Thats the mode in which she operates on The Louvre, narrating a whirlwind summer romance thats lighting her from within even as shes rolling her eyes at the whole thing. As the song begins, she could be working out a sketch in her childhood bedroom, her voice just above a whisper and hung over rumbling, muted chords. An intensely physical connection settles into something deeper, and you can hear her fighting off love until her facade starts to crack. When she drops her guard to embrace love in all of its supernatural glory, it feels as bracing as a dip in a frozen lake. The Louvre isnt the most readily melodic or explosive song on her 2017 opus Melodrama, but its the one that best conveys Lordes preternatural skills. She can take a feeling everyone knows and transform it into something fresh, as if youre experiencing it for the first time. Jamieson Cox

Listen: Lorde, The Louvre

42.

SZA: The Weekend (2017)

SZA baited a new lovestruck generation by presenting herself as a work-in-progress, shamelessly hooked on rash decisions. The Weekend, from her debut album CTRL, is an imagined agreement between partners, sung from the perspective of the Other Woman who isnt fully in charge. While the girlfriend spends the mundane hours of the week with the man, SZAs character gets to absorb his stress, be in command, and make him lose his mind on the weekends. SZAs singing conveys all the euphoria and uncertainty of this arrangement: She presents desire as a transaction between multiple people, singing with the confidence of a person who loves to indulge but who realizes the idea of possession in relationships is slippery. The shades of acceptance, sadness, and hope in her voice, slung over a moody, slow-drip tempo, give The Weekend its sober dimensiontheres a sense that performing the feel-good service of satisfaction is a thankless act, and that she knows she wants more. Clover Hope

Listen: SZA, The Weekend

41.

Courtney Barnett: Avant Gardener (2013)

The song that made Courtney Barnett an indie rock star involves a startlingly detailed narrative about the tension of literally being unable to breathe. In it, she sets out to garden, and after some small talk about vegetables with a neighbor, she pulls her first weed and quickly has an asthmatic episode. Avant Gardener is a languid song, and Barnetts delivery is deadpan, but her anxiety in every observation gives the whole thing a nail-biting intensity. Someone calls an ambulance, and her first thought is about how much this shit is going to cost. She gets a shot of adrenaline and instantly conjures Uma Thurmans near-death scene in Pulp Fiction. As she watches her day go off the rails, she always grounds the song in a seven-word chorus that is as simple as it is profound: Im not that good at breathing in. Evan Minsker

Listen: Courtney Barnett, Avant Gardener

40.

Frank Ocean: Nights (2016)

On Nights, the space-bending centerpiece of Blonde, Frank Ocean distorts and collapses all sense of time. It begins with him singing over sunny guitars about an ex-lover, taking bitter swipes at their character. Then, after about three minutes, the track starts to descend into a frenzy of distorted guitars, frantically circling through arpeggios like its bracing for a crash landing. As the track switches into a woozy trap beat, Frank plunges back into the past. He tells how he first met his ex by flashing a series of small images that transports you back to the scene: his familys old Acura, going to the Southern restaurant chain Shoneys, transferring colleges from New Orleans to Texas after Hurricane Katrina. Throughout Nights, Frank establishes an ultra-thin line between past and present, day and night, and nostalgia and regret, effortlessly dancing between each binary. Michelle Kim

Listen: Frank Ocean, Nights

39.

SOPHIE: Bipp (2013)

Before there was SOPHIE the transgressive pop icon, there was SOPHIE the divisive electronic music producer, and Bipp was her calling card. Like all the best future-thinking pop music, Bipp caused equal parts delight and bemusement when it was released in 2013, thanks to its combination of pitch-shifted vocals, elastic synths, and nonchalant percussive hits that seemed to roll around like a raver on an endlessly pitching deck, nauseous but giddily excited. Bipp skirted musical genres, from rave to R&B, UK garage to EDM, in a way that frustrated purists and confused the hell out of commentators, straining at the leash of electronic musics tightly patrolled genre borders. And yet the track proved to be SOPHIEs breakthrough, its envelope-mangling, sugar-rush energy paving the way for collaborations with everyone from Madonna to Vince Staplesa day-glo warning shot that indicated just how wonderfully weird pop was going to get in the years that followed. Ben Cardew

Listen: SOPHIE, Bipp

38.

Kanye West: Monster [ft. Justin Vernon, Rick Ross, JAY-Z, and Nicki Minaj] (2010)

Monster packs enough objectively insane moments to fill an entire episode of Scooby-Doo: Kanye hiking up his high-waters to quote Napoleon Dynamite, JAY-Z moaning looooooove like a mummified Heathcliff on the moors, Rick Ross using a chunk of his 10-second prologue of a verse to refer to himself as a fat motherfucker. Yet the decades most opulent posse cut ends up far greater than the sum of its ridiculous parts. Over yawning synths and brusque, almost-industrial bass, these hip-hop hellions offer a quick peek into the vulnerabilities of the super rich and famous while allowing us to ride the wave of their incomprehensibly lofty egos. Of course, Monster is remembered most for the burgeoning star it made inarguable: Nicki Minaj, still a month away from releasing her debut album, slaughtering everyone in her path with 32 bars of demented Barbie BDE. Consider our brains eaten. Stacey Anderson

Listen: Kanye West, Monster [ft. Justin Vernon, Rick Ross, JAY-Z, and Nicki Minaj]

37.

Jai Paul: BTSTU (edit) (2011)

Though Jai Pauls first single wears its influences on its sleevethe wonky rhythms of J Dilla, the menacing sweetness of Princeand though it would go on to influence the borderless sound of pop in years to come, BTSTU (edit) still sounds like nothing else. At first, the falsetto murmur of dont fuck with me that runs through the track is disorienting. By the time its been buried under woozy synth combustion, its clear that the disorientation is the point. BTSTU works because it sounds like the biggest piece of bedroom pop ever, because it is club music designed to be heard by one person at a time. Sam Hockley-Smith

Listen: Jai Paul, BTSTU (edit)

36.

Carly Rae Jepsen: Run Away With Me (2015)

The proposal is simple and familiar: escape, hand-in-hand, from reality. Still, Carly Rae Jepsen sells it with invigorating conviction on Run Away With Me. Shes high on romantic possibility, and her infatuation feels so unstoppable that the only logical solution is to let it carry her away completely. Fueled by a yearning saxophone riff and colossal drums, Jepsen gleefully repeats her heartfelt invitation until the rest of the world melts away. Over the weekend, we could turn the world to gold, she murmurs with a quiet devotion, letting the image of two gilded lovers linger in the air. Quinn Moreland

Listen: Carly Rae Jepsen, Run Away With Me

35.

Rae Sremmurd: Black Beatles [ft. Gucci Mane] (2016)

Calling yourself a rock star became a rap norm this decadeit simultaneously affirmed hip-hops centrality in the culture, laid claim to an inheritance of artistic grandiosity, and turned decadence into an aspirational ideal. Despite strong bids from Kanye and Future, despite Post Malone chanting it into numbing cliché, Rae Sremmurd own the idea for all time thanks to Black Beatles.

Propelled to No. 1 off the back of the mannequin challenge meme, it truly deserved the top spot for its unusual sound and magical, mystical mood. Producer Mike WiLL Made-Its loping beat and haunting synth conjure a feeling of floaty suspension that pairs perfectly with the songs lyrics about stepping through the looking glass into a dreamworld of super-fame. Theres something strangely pure-hearted about the fey, sighing way Swae Lee murmurs lines like quick release the cash, watch it fall slowlyas though Rae Sremmurd have somehow gone through the excess of lust and ego and now levitate serenely above it all. In a song crammed with great lines, Slim Jxmmi sees off Lee and guest Gucci Mane with his kicker: me and Paul McCartney related! The impudence is adorable, the hubris hilariousand yet, at its core, Black Beatles really is a psychedelic pearl as radiant as Rain. Simon Reynolds

Listen: Rae Sremmurd, Black Beatles [ft. Gucci Mane]

34.

Future Islands: Seasons (Waiting on You) (2014)

Years before their network television debut, Future Islands earned a reputation for playing raucous shows at small clubs. So when the Baltimore band brought that same energy to play Seasons (Waiting on You) on The Late Show With David Letterman, frontman Samuel T. Herrings unabashedly earnest performance went viral. Channeling the bravado of a Broadway actor, Herring sang to the studio audience as if it were his last chance. His gamble endeared the band to a new legion of fans and made Seasons a hit.

Even without the visual, the song is still a triumph. Its arena-ready synth pop that mourns the end of a relationship, a dissolution as predictable as summer turning into winter. The muscular new wave beat softens under Herrings croon, his delivery shifting from rugged to wounded from one verse to the next. He sings of losing love as if it were an apocalyptic reckoning, and Seasons is the resilient epic written in the aftermath. Gabriela Tully Claymore

Listen: Future Islands, Seasons (Waiting on You)

33.

LCD Soundsystem: Dance Yrself Clean (2010)

James Murphy has always seemed unusually aware of times passing. From LCD Soundsystems very first single, the kids were coming up from behind. By Dance Yrself Clean, the opener to 2010s This Is Happening, Murphy was staring at the clock like someone awaiting final judgment: Everybodys getting younger, he moaned. Its the end of an era, its true. But this song doesnt offer a way of beating back the advancing years, or of marking them; its a cleansing fire, momentarily releasing us from times grip. Simmering in nervous funk before boiling over into thudding synth-pop, Dance Yrself Clean is a nine-minute jam about Marxism, divorce, and generalized misanthropy that could serve as the collective freak-out moment at a wedding reception. Its a stomping, screaming last call of sorts, an invitation to get it all out before the opportunity disappears. Marc Hogan

Listen: LCD Soundsystem, Dance Yrself Clean

32.

Fiona Apple: Every Single Night (2012)

After seven years away, Fiona Apple returned to a world that better understood her, and she did it with music that seemed to better understand itself, too. On her fourth album, The Idler Wheel..., Fiona charged not just her lyrics but each raw, blistering note with her spirit of defiance, resilience, and fury. Every Single Night, the opener, is a surreal lullaby about constantly fighting with your mind. Fionas metaphysical lyrics trace the psychosomatic impact of mental struggle, charting the butterflies in my brain as they percolate the mind, trickle down the spine, swarm the belly, swell into a blaze. She has always been an artist aware of her body, but Every Single Night feels like a step further. You can hear clenched teeth, whitened knuckles, and a throat about to be shred. Its so breathtakingly, quintessentially Fiona: romancing omnipresent internal frictions for three-and-a-half minutes as a method of survival. I just want to feel everything, she trills, illuminating the truest theme of all her work: hard-earned aliveness. Jenn Pelly

Listen: Fiona Apple, Every Single Night

31.

Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti: Round and Round (2010)

If you squint, Ariel Pinks Round and Round starts to resemble Becks Loser. Both were generational anthems that made no literal sense, made by inveterate L.A. weirdos who rode the line between sincerity and irony until it seemed to crumble. Both reinvented what was considered cool, too. Pinks reference points were like no one elsesAM radio, commercial jingles, Steely Dan. Countless chillwave, vaporwave, and whatever-else-wave artists followed his lead, but few of them proved capable of the magnificent pop architecture of Round and Round. It may be inseparable from its moment, an odd interlude between the peak-indie 2000s and a decade where indie and pop became unashamedly inseparable. But if theres any coherent message behind Round and Round, its that pop songs, trends, and life itself are a constant cycle of death and renewal. Ian Cohen

Listen: Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti, Round and Round

30.

Cardi B: Bodak Yellow (2017)

In early 2017, a few of Cardi Bs songs had landed well enough to lock in BET Awards nominations and a magazine cover, but she needed more music by summer to take full advantage of those looks. So she went to work and came back with a hit that made thoughtful use of its key elements: action-movie intensity, a proven flow courtesy of Florida rapper Kodak Black, and a bottomless array of bars that were easy to parrot and pre-baked for captions. Like Meek Mills famously instigating Dreams and Nightmares (Intro), it got people going; DJs loved it, and influencers did too.

It was released in June with little initial promotion, while Cardi showed up for cultures early adopters, at queer parties and Southern clubs. By July, it was in radio rotation. By August, all kinds of fans knew the words. And in September, it was a verified smash, unseating Taylor Swift at No. 1 on the Hot 100, making Cardi B the first woman solo rapper to hit that peak in 19 years. Her victory was genuinely ground-up and people-driven. That it was possibleor inevitable, and a precursor for more success to comestill feels triumphant. Naomi Zeichner

Listen: Cardi B, Bodak Yellow

29.

Joanna Newsom: Good Intentions Paving Co. (2010)

Good Intentions Paving Co. is the story of two journeys, one literal and one figurative. Theres a road trip to a concert through an unfamiliar countryside, under stars that shyly emerge in a pastel sky. Then the drive exposes a second, inner tale, of a relationship paved with good intentions but now fraught with misgivings and anxieties. With her lover behind the wheel, Newsom addresses some regrets that haunt the romance, namely her own confusion. How I said to you, Honey just open your heart/When Ive got trouble even opening a honey jar, she chirps apologetically. Nodding to Joni Mitchell, Newsoms piano arrangement follows the idiosyncratic rhymes of her inner monologue, twisting and turning to the tenor of her puzzled soul. Though she is at her most musically ambitious on this seven-minute opus, the heart of Good Intentions Paving Co. is painfully simple: She just wants to be led away from her own indecision. Quinn Moreland

Listen: Joanna Newsom, Good Intentions Paving Co.

28.

Beyoncé: Countdown (2011)

If being in love has a sound, its the euphoric vocal run that opens Beyoncés Countdown. The song quickly gives way to steady snare-drum taps and staccato horn bleats that match the singers heartbeat, as she and songwriter The-Dream carefully mix the best sounds across genresfunk, reggae, dancehall, and R&B (thats a Boys II Men sample)into one stutter-stepping, ecstatic, instant classic. The premise of Countdown has Beyoncé running down all the ways she loves her man, using a lot of clever wordplay that culminates in a tip-your-head-back, shout-it-in-the-club chorus. At the time, she had been with her husband, JAY-Z, for almost a decade; ever the old soul, she isnt singing about new love, or one-night-stand love, or ephemeral love. This is an effusive ode to her broken-in, ride-or-die, monogamous romance and a swaggy reminder of exactly what will happen to him if he ever messes around. Countdown walked so Lemonade could enter couples therapy and run. Allison P. Davis

Listen: Beyoncé, Countdown

27.

M.I.A.: Bad Girls (2010)

In the decade since M.I.A. originally released Bad Girls on her Vicki Leekz mixtape, the cultural concept of badass women has evolved into a meaningless capitalist construct. Now children are reading books about rebel girls, aka complex women from history smoothed down by cutesy illustrations and aspirational rhetoric. Bad Girls maintains the case for defiance through spikiness: Maya Arulpragasams rapping is a blunt and effectively indolent instrument; that clipped, Middle Eastern-inspired synth commands attention like a siren igniting a neighborhood; the S.O.S. signal buried in producer Danjas beat needles incessantly about the global imperative for women to defy repressive norms (and/or fuck in cars until the windows steam up and the dashboard caves in).

Crucially, Bad Girls is no manifesto. M.I.A. reclaims rebelling without a cause from the white, male cult hero, her tracks stubborn swagger an incitement to fecklessness. Proof of concept: The single version of Bad Girls came out five days before she flipped the bird at the Super Bowl, a powerfully petulant display that showed up Americas prudish hypocrisy and earned her years of legal strife. My life, but I broke it, indeed. Laura Snapes

Listen: M.I.A., Bad Girls

26.

Bon Iver: Holocene (2011)

Holocene is the magical realism centerpiece of 2011s Bon Iver, transforming ordinary life into a beautiful kingdom soaked in cosmic meaning. Justin Vernons inscrutable falsetto is your shepherd through the wilderness, soft and reaching for the sky. His sonic landscapes on Holocene are composed of rolling drums, keyboards, and humming horns, grounded by one looping, acoustic guitar lick. Its vast yet simple, and can feel almost too sentimental to be sincere. How can this guy be this seriously existentialreflecting on magnificence and the hallways of his lifewhen he hardly seems to be saying anything at all? Holocene is about letting go, imagining the place where you gain clarity, and basking in the feeling. Matthew Strauss

Listen: Bon Iver, Holocene

25.

FKA twigs: Cellophane (2019)

In 2018, after three years without a major release, FKA twigs shared a note on her absence: six fibroid tumors had grown in her uterus, causing massive swelling and excruciating pain. For a performer whose force lies in mastery of the self, the medical crisis posed an existential threat: Where to go when the body becomes a site of conflict? Cellophane and its surreal video begin inside the question and end somewhere beyond it, plunging the singer into a new phase of self-inventioneven as the lyrics fret over romantic inadequacy. Where earlier productions contrasted fragility with strength, Cellophane is all transcendent vulnerability. Beneath her vocal acrobatics, the lullaby piano warps and degrades without ever changing key, and its three-and-a-half minutes occupy and stretch out the brief tremor we experience when something cherished threatens to break. Jazz Monroe

Listen: FKA twigs, Cellophane

24.

Todd Terje: Inspector Norse (2012)

On Inspector Norse, Todd Terje nails his signature trick: a dancefloor classic thats somehow both coy and preposterous. From the mothership-landing intro to the laser-gun synth pings, you know straight off he has something up his sleeveyet when he beckons towards the trapdoor, you cant help but follow. I have what you want, the elastic bassline promises. But you need to come a little closer. To seal the false sense of security, the Norwegian producer layers up familiar ingredientsa kitschy snare, some fog-machine sighs, a little synth calligraphy, all sounds one might hear in moderation at the IKEA café. He preserves the air of cocktail-bar elegance until the last moment, when a distant siren whooshes into the periphery. By then its too late. A coil of otherworldly tension, a sensational swing into ecstasy, and were plunged into Todds magic box.

Some bliss-out tunes adapt easily to your surroundings, scaling down to soundtrack housework or a morning commute. But listening to Inspector Norse on a minor occasion feels scandalous, like hanging a Rembrandt in the bathroom. Then again, thatd be another classic Terje prank. Smuggling mystery into the mundane on neon-lit dancefloors, he shows us that nothings as plain as daylight would have us believe. Jazz Monroe

Listen: Todd Terje, Inspector Norse

23.

Rosalía: Malamente (Cap.1: Augurio) (2018)

Malamente marked the arrival of one of the decades most remarkableand unexpectedtalents. Even Rosalías early fans could hardly have seen it coming: Before Malamente, the young Catalan singer was known only for the stripped-down flamenco of her debut album, Los Ángeles, a spine-tingling affair of acoustic guitar and voice. Malamente seemed to come from a different universe entirely. The songs age-old flamenco roots were audible in its fluttering handclaps and in Rosalías vocal trills, but every other elementthe lurching beat, luminous keys, hiccupping ad-libs, and samples of breaking glasswas unmistakably contemporary. The songs video filled out that hybrid vision by twisting Spanish iconography old and new (Catholic penitents, bullfighters, tattooed truckers) into a dizzying set of images. Malamente jacked into a heretofore undiscovered matrix of possibilities, and a whole new world flashed into being. Philip Sherburne

Listen: Rosalía, Malamente (Cap.1: Augurio)

22.

ANOHNI: Drone Bomb Me (2016)

The horror of drone warfare is that it has no constraints. Operated remotely, designed for stealth, and unburdened by national borders or human rights, drones can deliver war at any time, to any place. On Drone Bomb Me, ANOHNI channels all that dread and horrible potential by invoking drones as objects of affection. Blow me from the mountain/And into the sea, she sings with sweet resignation. Its a desperate, masochistic request; drones are gods, essentially, and her narrator has chosen to embrace their limitless power.

What makes Drone Bomb Me so potent is that this fatalism is not weakness. ANOHNIs voice is full and resonant even as she solicits a grisly death. Hudson Mohawke and Oneohtrix Point Nevers production is defiantly colorful despite the grim backdrop: The synths swell and twinkle, the drum programming chitters and slaps. Its jarring for such warmth and personality to be invoked in the context of the cold, mechanical nature of drone warfare, and thats the point. Lost within those body counts, mission logs, and intelligence reports are real people. For ANOHNI, they may be beyond saving, but they can always be recognized. Stephen Kearse

Listen: ANOHNI, Drone Bomb Me

21.

Drake: Hold On, Were Going Home [ft. Majid Jordan] (2013)

In later years, tinkering with global sounds and codes, Drake would cement himself as one of the decades preeminent pop maximalists. Before that, though, there was Aubrey Graham at the horizon, hungry and eager to prove his prowess. In the fall of 2013, Drake released Nothing Was the Same, which found him at the summit of his powers. The albums biggest single, Hold On, Were Going Home, may very well be the Toronto rappers most timeless artifact. Its raw seduction, a disco-reminiscent ballad that borrows from Marvin Gayes Sexual Healing. In an interview from that year, Drake said Hold On was not the typical fare fans had come to expect, explaining that he wanted the song to be played at weddings and bar mitzvahs in the decades ahead. That sense of legacy is what you hear, cushioned by R&B duo Majid Jordans dim coos, and satin-soft production from Noah 40 Shebib and Nineteen85. Hold On is not consumed with the moment, as Drake songs routinely are, but with forever. Jason Parham

Listen: Drake, Hold On, Were Going Home [ft. Majid Jordan]

20.

M83: Midnight City (2011)

With Midnight City, a whole new generation of teenagers were handed a testament to the life-affirming power of synthesizers. The track catapulted Anthony Gonzalezs band M83 from beloved indie act to global festival stalwarts through a sublime mix of dream pop, new wave, and neon-lit nostalgia. (Theres also an argument to be made that the pealing outro single-handedly brought saxophones back from the brink.) By now, its clear that the song has transcended all of the 80s tropes that serve as its backboneif anything, its filtered keyboards and massive, pitched-up hook served as something of a blueprint for countless EDM drops to come. Noah Yoo

Listen: M83, Midnight City

19.

Vampire Weekend: Hannah Hunt (2013)

In 1968, Simon & Garfunkel released America, a road-trip song about love, ennui, and the search for a countrys soul. Hannah Hunt, a patient, folky standout from Vampire Weekend's third album, is built from the same musical and narrative bones, and feels like a worthy update of that boomer touchstone. But where Simon & Garfunkel ultimately grasped for unity amid the tumult of the 60sTheyve all come to look for America, goes their full-throated finale Vampire Weekends Ezra Koenig, a weary millennial, focuses his faith. At the climax of Hannah Hunt, snares crack like fireworks, a stately piano enters, and his voice leaps from a croon to a cry as he pledges allegiance to just one person. If I cant trust you then damn it, Hannah/Theres no future, theres no answer, he yelps. It's the most desperately human Koenig has ever sounded, as he clings to the only thing he can still believe in. Ryan Dombal

Listen: Vampire Weekend, Hannah Hunt

18.

Kanye West: Runaway [ft. Pusha T] (2010)

In 2010, Kanye West was just starting to lean into his heel turn. A year after rushing the VMAs stage to defend Beyoncés honora stunt that still ripples across pop culture, or at least Taylor Swifts psycheWest released his great redemption, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Its second single was a self-aware, if not quite repentant, exploration of what it means to be a chronic dickhead. Anchored by a cavernous beat and a 16-note piano line ready to soundtrack a movie about a haunted 18th-century doll, Runaway is an exquisite piece of music. But the songs enduring legacy is in its hook: Once West started toasting the douchebags and the assholes, he couldnt stop. His unbridled, unapologetic id became the governing force of not only his increasingly dodgy career decisions but of the nation, too, so steadily we barely even noticed. Steve Kandell

Listen: Kanye West, Runaway [ft. Pusha T]

17.

Jamie xx: Gosh (2015)

Gosh opens Jamie xxs In Colour on a brutal, post-human note: a stripped-down flurry of clattering percussion, a bassline like the emergency alert system on a spaceship about to self-destruct. At the time, the producer said that his albums copious samplespulled from old pirate radio snippets, documentaries on early UK garage, and, in the case of Gosh, a never-aired pilot for the BBC Radio 1 show One in the Junglewere all from sources that reminded him of London when he got homesick touring for months at a time. Jamie, like many of his listeners, was barely walking in that era, much less raving. But this isnt merely borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 90s; its active and interpretive and alive. Gosh feels like the transmission of a memory, the transformation of an old bootleg or VHS recording from inert data into something that flourishes in a whole new era. Theres something cosmically optimistic about the track, and when its melody finally emerges, swooping down from the ceiling and careening around in loop-de-loops, it fully transcends space and time. Emily Yoshida

Listen: Jamie xx, Gosh

16.

The 1975: Love It If We Made It (2018)

If any song summarizes this decadeliterallyits Love It If We Made It. According to 1975 singer Matty Healy, for all its promises of progress, modernity has failed us, and hes got the receipts. Over gigantic drums and gleaming synthesizers, he unleashes a torrent of horrors pulled straight from the headlines, including but not limited to: police brutality against black people, fake news, the Syrian refugee crisis, the prison industrial complex, and the opioid epidemic. Had he delivered these realities as a long, sober list, the track would have been too grim, too exhausting. But the 1975 pair this We Didnt Start the Fire-style litany with a technicolor chorus that offers hope in the face of darkness. And Id love it if we made it, Healy bellows over and over with increasing fervor, both a plea and an avowal to make a difference. Quinn Moreland

Listen: The 1975, Love It If We Made It

15.

Rihanna: Work [ft. Drake] (2016)

On Work, Boi-1das gleaming dancehall beat provides an unlikely home for Rihannas vulnerable portrayal of the whiplash of a complex love, of being between heartbreak, longing, and self-assurance. The rolling patois of songwriter PARTYNEXTDOORs reference track is left intact on the final version, though in Rihannas hands, Work loses its tempestuousness and gains perpetual-song-of-summer status. Released in the midst of pop radios renewed interest in tropical sounds, this No. 1 hit was not the Bajan singers first foray into the music of her culture but, perhaps until the arrival of her long-rumored reggae album, it is her most complete. Rawiya Kameir

Listen: Rihanna, Work [ft. Drake]

14.

Angel Olsen: Shut Up Kiss Me (2016)

An aching rave-up and a frenzy of desire, Shut Up Kiss Me anchored My Woman, Angel Olsens vibrant, wide-screen third album. The song enters a long line of kissability anthemspart girl-group yearning à la the Shangri-Las Give Him a Great Big Kiss, part Lucinda Williams sass à la Passionate Kisses. Olsen steps up with deceptively cool-headed intentions: We could still be having some sweet memories, she wagers, but as each word becomes a staccatoed punch, she lets herself fly. When she hollers Im still young! it is a full-body grasp at life itself. Shut Up Kiss Me is a glitter-bomb testament to the mania of longing, a fight song for the human heart in all its exhausting complexity. Jenn Pelly

Listen: Angel Olsen, Shut Up Kiss Me

13.

Chief Keef: I Dont Like [ft. Lil Reese] (2012)

In the early 2010s, Chief Keef was a True Religion jeans-wearing teenager whose main concern was escaping house arrest. He released I Dont Like in an effort to solidify his local Chicago fame, but he ended up stumbling into virality and worldwide renown. With its harsh, gut-wrenching street talk over a Young Chop production that incorporated thudding drums, tinny chimes, and horror-film melodies, the song established drill music as a legitimate hip-hop subgenre. Kanye West would even tap Keef for a remix of the track, which landed on G.O.O.D. Musics Cruel Summer compilation. At the time, hip-hop didnt know how to respond to this rugged teen; the industry couldnt account for the level of internet and street popularity Keef had achieved. Years later, its still trying to catch up. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Chief Keef, I Dont Like [ft. Lil Reese]

12.

Sky Ferreira: Everything Is Embarrassing (2012)

There is no more perfect way to describe life than as embarrassing. Painful? Sure. Fun? Sometimes. Weird? If youre lucky. But embarrassing? Always. This song, written by Blood Oranges Dev Hynes, is nominally a breakup song. But when Sky Ferreira sings, You know Im trying, I was always trying, she may as well be outlining a thesis on how best to live in the face of daily humiliation. What could be more mortifying than living earnestly in a world determined to make a joke out of everything? Ferreira, an L.A. singer with a husky voice and a difficult past, has a flair for making the dramatic seem commonplace (and vice versa), especially in contrast with Hynes signature funk-lite guitar strutting. It all turns Everything Is Embarrassing into a quirky, 80s-tinged anthem for anyone flinching through their days. Matthew Schnipper

Listen: Sky Ferreira, Everything Is Embarrassing

11.

Bill Callahan: Riding for the Feeling (2011)

Bill Callahan has become a master of portraying isolation throughout his three-decade career, but few of his songs do so more acutely than Riding for the Feeling. Its sung by a man perpetually exiting crowded roomsa freeze-frame on desolation that offers no solutions, just invisible companionship. The songs arrangement is sparse but stirringbrushed snare and twangs of electric guitar neither overpower nor dissolve under Callahans weighty baritone. At one point, he describes the final exchange between a longing crowd and a reticent performer. I asked the room if Id said enough/No one really answered, Callahan deadpans. They just said, Don't go, don't go A picture of outstretched arms comes into focus, but its clear that their reach provides no comfort. Later, he finds himself on a hotel bed, tuned in to a muted television. That scrap of information sets an entire scene; you get the sense that the hotel isnt a very nice one, and the TV, though silent, emits just enough light to make it feel a little less lonely. Madison Bloom

Listen: Bill Callahan, Riding for the Feeling

10.

Lil Uzi Vert: XO TOUR Llif3 (2017)

Lil Uzi Verts XO TOUR Lif3 was never supposed to be a hit. The single was included as part of a throwaway four-track EP that was meant to fill time leading up to the Philadelphia rappers major label debut, Luv Is Rage 2. But as soon as the track was uploaded to SoundCloud, gloomy lyrics like Push me to the edge, all my friends are dead and Xanny help the pain went viral; so did Uzis delivery, which made him sound like a pop-punk prince. Even the instrumental, which producer TM88 recorded using an old computer and a Beats Pill, is irresistible. For a while, few took Uzi seriously as a hitmaker. But as XO TOUR Llif3 wormed its way toward ubiquity, becoming the SoundCloud generations most influential song, it established Uzi as one of hip-hops most distinctive voices. Alphonse Pierre

Listen: Lil Uzi Vert, XO TOUR Llif3

9.

Lana Del Rey: Video Games (2011)

When Lana Del Rey first arrived, she was bored and glamorous, looking by turns like a queen of Old Hollywood and like she was too young to be smoking. Her makeshift visual for Video Games confronted the incongruity without shame: The retro-gazing torch singer uploading webcam footage to YouTube, the beautiful pop star acquiescing to feeling ignored. The most familiar version of Video Games is actually the rough mix, a working draft built over live vocals and piano. Its not quite polished, and like the grain on a photograph, thats part of its charm. Tolling church bells, harp arpeggios, and chilly gasps of electric air swirl around submerged 808 hits, as Lana, low and smooth, sounds self-assured or desperate or even sarcastic. They say that the world was built for two/Only worth living if somebody is loving you, she sang, pining after a man-shaped vacancy, as if self-sacrifice could make her any less alone. It was outright depressing, and she made it look good. Anna Gaca

Listen: Lana Del Rey, Video Games

8.

Solange: Cranes in the Sky (2016)

Solange dropped A Seat at the Table less than six weeks before America elected Donald Trump as its 45th president. For people who had been listening to the album on repeat during that time, putting on Cranes in the Sky, its most moving track, was like popping an Emergen-C for a flu we didnt even know we were in danger of contracting.

Cranes is a soft-power anthem for frightening times, noncoercive yet still inspiring. Its the product of Solange working through the trauma, sadness, and disappointment of being a black woman in this society. Its the song you hear when you break through to the other sidewhen you are stepping firmly into joy and identityand its musically structured to mimic the journey: airy and peaceful and ponderous, sometimes a little bit fragile, but bold in its choices. Theres so much space around Solanges calm, and the songs jazzy, soulful rhythms are carefully selected to evoke a whole history of black musicians, black culture, and black spirituality. Its notable that Solange never belts, and the climax of Cranes isnt a noisy ascension but a quiet one, right at the end: her voice, delicately scaling the mountain to reach Minnie Ripperton heights.

At a time when power is something loud and dangerous and brash, Cranes in the Sky is an atypical song of revolution. It will be played endlessly, hopefully in less toxic timesnot during rallies, or when a candidate walks onstage, but in quiet moments when we need to reflect, recharge, and rediscover our own beauty. Allison P. Davis

Listen: Solange, Cranes in the Sky

7.

Mitski: Your Best American Girl (2016)

Sometimes, love isnt enough. On Your Best American Girl, despite how Mitski strives and stretches to fit into the world of her all-American boy, it doesnt quite work. The Japanese-American indie rocker feels the pull of her heritage and the traditions her parents raised her with, and must accept they are incompatible with his.

Puberty 2, Mitskis fourth album, runs deep with such moments of questioning, as she navigates themes of loneliness, depression, and lust. Love isnt the deus ex machina to solve any of them; thats the stuff of blonder romantic heroines onscreen. Instead, she offers rougher truths, and none wiser than in this song: Over grandly ringing arena guitars and the kind of distortion that can drown out saner thoughts, Mitski elegantly releases her love, in a sad yet prideful push, valuing herself above tempting conformity. How did her Captain America take this? Did he object? Well never know, because his voice and thoughts are not heard. This song is not about his experience. Its about hers. Stacey Anderson

Listen: Mitski, Your Best American Girl

6.

Azealia Banks: 212 (2011)

212 launched the force that is Azealia Banks by way of the sweet-voiced theater nerds sneer of, Ima ruin you, cunt. Its a ratatat MC in the Harlem tradition, twisting her claymation cadences around a frothy house beat. Its a New Yorkers goodbye to New York, an overdue stars coming-out party, and a warning to herself. (It was also a YouTube smash before the industry knew what to do with those.) Flipping a previously obscure Belgian dance track, Azealia Banks was one of the decades first to recognize that the sound of vogue culture would reverberate far beyond the city. Celebrated French-Canadian producers Lunice and Jacques Greene make cameos in the unforgettable black-and-white video, but only cameos: 212 felt like pure Banks, the unfiltered arrival of a fiery new voice. And although her personal controversies have largely overshadowed her music by now, this singular track can still raze anything that dares get in its way. Marc Hogan

Listen: Azealia Banks, 212

5.

Frank Ocean: Thinkin Bout You (2012)

On December 27th, 2011, in the thin air of a commercial airliner flying back to Los Angeles, Frank Ocean typed a few hundred words that slowly darkened the glow of a laptop screen. They told the story of his first lovea manand that nameless summer longing that whistles through us all. He kept his thoughts private for awhile, and instead posted a cryptic message on his Tumblr: fuck. that was hard to write. When he did publish his writing, an open letter, it was on July 4th the following year, still three years before the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down the ban on same-sex marriage, but just days before he surprise-released his official debut, Channel Orange. I feel like a free man, Ocean concluded in the letter. If I listen closely.. I can hear the sky falling, too. What an unprecedented act of bravery in the history of black music, of queer music, of all music; he opened the door so that we could at once pour ourselves into his light. It was the lens through which we listened to Channel Orange, and no song echoes the love, the glow, the tectonic impact of Frank Ocean more than Thinkin Bout You.

Call it R&B, or nü-doo-wop, or the music from the guy in Odd Future who sings, whatever you want, Thinkin Bout You belongs in a delirious world of its own. The songs direct address is shaded with nostalgia and fabulism, its vision so wide it takes cues from 70s songwriter Albert Hammond, Princes Sign O the Times, and country legend George Strait. Every single moment, from the tornado to Southern California to the beach house in Idaho, feels like Ocean is flying at the ceiling unlimited: when the snare eighth-notes lock-in with Oceans vocals, when he leaps out of nowhere to the falsetto in the chorus, when he sings, Yes, of course I remember/How could I forget how you feel? For Ocean, its a foregone conclusionyes, of coursethat those endless days and nights feeling that new feel will last forever. We all have that one summer, that one love that altered the course of our lives. This was Frank Oceans, and he graciously let it be ours, too. Jeremy D. Larson

Listen: Frank Ocean, Thinkin Bout You

4.

Beyoncé: Formation (2016)

The day after Trayvon Martins birthday, Beyoncé unceremoniously uploaded Formation onto her website. The tension of the song was immediate from the siren of Mike WiLLs hypnotic two-note opening: It felt viscerally reactive to the moment, a response to the murder of black people at the hands of the police, a remindervia the opening voice of Messy Mya from beyond the gravethat the cyclical nature of violence is heightened among communities forgotten by the government. It reminded me of the story behind Nina Simones Mississippi Goddamn, a furious song Simone wrote in 1964 as an antidote to internal anger, delivered with the pep of a show tune, that reflected on the murder of civil rights activist Medgar Evers and a white-supremacist attack on an Alabama church that killed four young girls. Simone once said, We will shape and mold this country or it will not be molded and shaped at all anymore. When Beyoncé performed Formation at the 2016 Super Bowl halftime show, the day after its release, wearing the bandoliers of the Black Panthers, it felt like she was ready to take the reins and be seen doing so.

In the unforgettable video, Beyoncé crouches on a cop car submerged alongside houses in New Orleans devastated by natural disaster, the scene interspersed with images of people dancing in the darkits the no-fucks vibrancy of a culture that persists when the systems surrounding them have been sucked into the muck and left to languish. Beyoncé celebrates the Southern black vernacular and Southern black culture: marching bands, cowboys, step squads, Mardi Gras, and bounce queens appear in the video, and in the song, she flaunts her baby hair and afros and her negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils.

Though the song was thoroughly and specifically for and about black women and their unseen labor, the whole world was quick to rally behind another Bey hit. Hillary Clinton, hot on the campaign trail, would mention she had hot sauce in her bag on an interview with long-running hip-hop radio show, The Breakfast Club, Etsy would commodify her language and iconography, so that women of every race could get in formation. The next year, Formation would lose two Grammys to Adeles Hello, but the phrase OK ladies, now lets get in formation would appear across signs at the Womens March and in allyship alongside the #MeToo movement, reinvigorated from a decades existence by the Weinstein allegations. The songs initial appeal was an awakening for a country in crisis. But it will live on as a reminder of the slow, persistent, daily work of organizing and the power of resilience and protestthe importance of holding grief, anger, hope, and pride side by side. Puja Patel

Listen: Beyoncé, Formation

3.

Robyn: Dancing on My Own (2010)

New York Citys subway system is typically associated with maddening delays, twitchy vermin, and, occasionally, traces of the bubonic plague. It is a place where you strap on headphones like armor and try to block out humanity. But everything changed for a few minutes on the night of March 8, 2019. Thats when a hundred-strong gaggle of Robyn fans, clinging to the thrill of just having seen their hero onstage at Madison Square Garden, began singing, jumping, and goofily smiling along with a song about stomping through heartbreak, turning a filthy subway platform in the middle of Manhattan into an ecstatic summit. Such is the power of Dancing on My Own.

A month after that impromptu party, the bubbling anthem, which first hit the internet in the spring of 2010, was finally certified platinum in Americacosmic justice for a song that never touched the Billboard Hot 100 but still served as a lodestar for so much of this decades pop. With Dancing on My Own, from her defining album Body Talk, Robyn took the euphoric ache of classic house and disco, spiked it with her own obsessive brand of vulnerability, and set a blueprint for everyone from Lorde to St. Vincent to Taylor Swift to worshipfully follow.

At its core, the song is an exploration of contradictions: between the mechanized backbeat and Robyns all-too-human vocals; between a dancefloors collective catharsis and the isolation of being trapped inside your own skin; between the despair of the heart and the resilience of the body. Im right over here, why cant you see me? Robyn pleads to an oblivious ex making out with someone new across the club. For all of its invisible voyeurism, though, Dancing on My Own has a regenerative ability to make anyone who hears it feel hopelessly, resolutely seen. Ryan Dombal

Listen: Robyn, Dancing on My Own

2.

Grimes: Oblivion (2012)

In the seven years since Grimes released her breakout hit, increasingly outlandish cycles of outrage have engulfed the Canadian singer, songwriter, and producer born Claire Boucher. Most recently, it was her loyalty to a future A.I. dictatorship that got people wondering whether she was some kind of techno-fascist. But what Grimes critics fail to realize is that she has always looked to whats next in order to soothe her present. You can hear it on Oblivion, with its gargled bass line that still sounds tailor-made for the exact moment when aliens lower their drawbridge onto Earth.

Boucher wrote the Visions single after experiencing an assault she described as one of the most shattering experiences of my life, the kind that leaves you on the back foot in perpetuity. And now Im left behind, all the time, she sang, a devastating sentiment rendered in succubus sing-song, and a setback transcended by the tracks forward-thinking production. Ultimately, Oblivion galvanized Bouchers pain into a complex anthem of vulnerability and nihilism that defiantly eludes a clear readinga reminder to never stop searching for nuance as you look ahead. Laura Snapes

Listen: Grimes, Oblivion

1.

Kendrick Lamar: Alright (2015)

Its not every day, or even every decade, that a song will become platinum certified, Grammy recognized, street ratified, activist endorsed, and a new nominee for Black National Anthem; that itll be just as effective performed before a massive festival audience or chanted on the front lines at protests; that itll serve as a war cry against police brutality, against Trump, for the survival of the disenfranchised. Inspired by a trip to South Africa, Kendrick Lamars Alright bears a message of unbreakable optimism in the face of hardship: We gon be alright! repeats Pharrell, who helped write and produce the song. Endurance, it assures, will ensure a more positive tomorrow. Alls my life Ive had to fight, nigga! Kendrick howls, echoing writer and activist Alice Walker on the black American experience. Fighting is the only way we know forward.

The centerpiece of Kendricks most ambitious opus, To Pimp a Butterfly, Alright permeated the collective consciousness in the spring and summer of 2015. It was around the time people became tragically familiar with names like Freddie Gray and Sandra Bland, and when nine black people were shot and killed inside of a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina. As a cornerstone of the #BlackLivesMatter canon, the song seemed like a beacon of light ushering us away from terror. You could argue that things are worse now than they were then, that its hope was misplaced. But Alright isnt promising a better world, just that well find a way to survive the one we have. It is a defense mechanism, pining for an aspirational futuremaybe even a nonexistent oneas it helps us cope with our chaotic present.

For the entire 2010s, from Section.80s survivalist stories of the post-Reagan hood to good kid, m.A.A.d. citys autobiographical cinema on the futile fight to escape the quicksand of street life, Kendricks work has often dealt with persisting under perilous circumstances. To Pimp a Butterfly considers oppressions sprawling impact, from colorism to survivors guilt, longing for a way we could all make it out together. To that end, Alright serves as a thesis statement of sorts: that the path through lifes trials begins with striving for more, for better. You can imagine the characters who cycle in and out of his songs whispering We gon be alright to themselves, or reassuring loved ones between sighs, trying to make it through the next day. Here, as horns wail and drums snap, there is a sense that the we is actually unfathomable, a force that can overcome anything when banded as one. Sheldon Pearce

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, Alright