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10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2018) - #9

“harutosyura” - Haru Nemuri, from the album harutosyura

Haru Nemuri’s music is built around the vocals. She’s a singer, but also a rapper, often with the energy and full-speed-ahead-delivery of a slam poet. While the pummeling punk rock backing her up is a force itself, this song and the rest of the tracks on harutosyura don’t work without Nemuri. Her backing band may be a force, but Nemuri is the whirlwind. And I don’t have any idea what she’s saying. Who knows, maybe I should be really embarrassed about this. For all I know, tomorrow I’ll stumble across a translation of Nemuri’s lyrics and come to the realization that she’s Japan’s lyrical equivalent of Avril Lavigne.

But then, there’s something in the performance that makes me doubt that. The energy of her band is worth some initial attention, but it’s the other details that convince me that, language barrier or not, Nemuri is something special. The impassioned vocals tear her songs apart and the atypical song structures and unconventional production choices crystallize her as a unique voice no matter the language.

10 Songs Rich Really Liked This Year 2018

9) “harutosyura” - Haru Nemuri

10) “Last Girl” - Soccer Mommy

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2018) - #10

“Last Girl” - Soccer Mommy, from the album Clean

Girls are usually dressing more for each other than they are for any guy in the room. At least that’s a little line of “wisdom” that’s been dropped on me over the years from multiple women in my life. Decades later, I understand that’s not quite right. It isn’t a gendered thing, we can all be insecure and at our worst everything about where we stand in the social order - from who we’re dating to who that person dated last - is more about ourselves than the person we’re spending time with. A better word of wisdom (from a physicist/neurosurgeon/test pilot/rock musician, so you know it’s true), “No matter where you go, there you are.”

Sophie Allison of Soccer Mommy understand this in a way that convinces me that she’s wise beyond her 20 years. It takes more than a sweet melody to craft a smart and fresh take on teenage insecurity. The lyrics of “Last Girl” are genuine to the voice of Allison’s youth while simultaneously crafted with the wisdom of hindsight that she shouldn’t have. It works because, unlike the lot of us, Allison knows that when we idolize those around us, whether its obsessing over a boyfriend’s ex or stan-ing for a celebrity on Instagram, most of the time we’re actually just talking down to ourselves.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2016) - #10

“Welcome to Earth (Pollywog)” - Sturgill Simpson, from the album A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

I wish I still had the text, for the exact quote. When I first heard Sturgill Simpson, I reached out to my friend Tony, a working musician that recently relocated to Nashville, to take the temperature of Simpson in the country music capitol of the nation. Like I said, I don’t have his exact response, so I’ll paraphrase: half the city thinks he’s a plague on country, the other half thinks he’s saving it.

And I get why. I’m not about to argue that this is the greatest country song in any length of time, because I’m certainly not paying attention to that scene. All I know is that the masculine vulnerability of a man singing to his newly born son in the first half of this song is the kind of genuine, touching song writing that country music hangs it’s hat on. The second half, that euphoric eruption of Memphis soul... well maybe I was asking in the wrong part of Tennessee.

soul-vintage-deactivated2019031

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2015) - #8

“Leroy and Lanisha” - Kamasi Washington, from the album The Epic

Have you heard? Kamasi Washington has singlehandedly brought jazz into the 21st Century. He’s thrown out your laptops and your guitars. He’s made something real. He’s made a Coltrane record.

Really though, no single piece of writing about Washington this year wasn’t without its own moment of hyperbole; it was almost as if critics needed to make sure their praise was as grand as the three disc album itself. And honestly, I can’t personally tell you whether the claims of The Epic being the first jazz record in decades worth the attention is bullshit or not. I certainly haven’t been paying attention. I’m as guilty as the next contemporary record nerd of being roped in by the Brainfeeder affiliation, the Kendrick and FlyLo associations and the celebrity endorsements. All I know is, once my attention was brought to this music, it enjoyed it, immensely.

I have a feeling that “Leroy and Lanisha” might seem like an odd choice to single out among three LPs worth of material, but I’ll make my case: If any single track on The Epic actually does sound especially 21st Century, it’s this one. There’s a touch of hip hop in its rhythms that have a slight feel of a Dilla beat. It’s a great jazz tune with a lot of character (Leroy and Lanisha as characters are absolutely present in “Leroy and Lanisha”) and plenty of impressive performances as solos too, so the fundamentals are there. Whether or not this track is made up of the stuff that jazz has been missing for the past couple of decades,I’d like more of this please.

10 Songs That Rich Really Liked This Year 2015

8) “Leroy and Lanisha” - Kamasi Washington

9) “Making the Most of the Night” - Carly Rae Jepsen

10) “For Marmish” - Floating Points

10 SONGS RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2015) - #9

“Making the Most of the Night” - Carly Rae Jepsen, from the album E*MO*TION

The fact that E*MO*TION is a solid pop album, front to back, in a post-album era, from an artist that became famous off of a one hit wondrous debut single is reason enough for something from its tracklisting to be mentioned at the end of the year. Picking a particular song to single out is difficult, but also kind of irrelevant. Nearly all of them are great.

I’m going with “Making the Most of the Night” though, because the pop vagueness of the lyrics happened to hit me when I needed it to this year.There really isn’t much more to say other than that: this is an incredibly solid pop song with great momentum to it and a chorus that rises and turns like a spiral staircase. This time around Jepsen doesn’t seem to have struck even a fraction of the success that her infamous song of the summer from a few years ago, but I can only hope she’s sticking around.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2015

9) “Making the Most of the Night” - Carly Rae Jepsen

10) “For Marmish” - Floating Points

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2015) - #10

“For Marmish” - Floating Points, from the album Elaenia

Call it the “Omnivore’s Dilemma” - in the post-modern era of 2015, it seems as though it’s been nearly impossible for artists to fuse disparate genres and influences to create something that sounds truly natural and unique. All too often, the combination of styles and genres afforded by a 21st Century encyclopedic relationship to music result in playlists of homages and references instead of new sounds. And then, even in the cases where a new sound emerges, it frequently sounds self-aware, or worse, self-conscious.

The subtlety in Floating Points’ debut album Elaenia sidesteps these mistakes with such grace that I hadn’t really realized I was listening to something new until I reflected on the album at the end of the year. It’s a record mixing electronics and jazz, but it never leans too hard in one direction or the other. Instead, it approaches each opportunity to go digital or analogue with such intelligence and confidence that the resultant blend sounds enough like it’s own thing that it doesn’t have to yell at you to make you notice that it’s doing something special. A song like “For Marmish”, as it noodles with a delicate chord progression, flirts with a shy melody and hiccups are garage beat, just ends up sticking with you.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #1!

"Carissa" - Sun Kil Moon, from the album Benji

"Never Catch Me" brought me to the state of mind that I needed for the hospital from week to week, but "Carissa" is the kind of empathetic statement of intent that I think I might need now to appreciate a lot of art in general. That's a big statement, but Mark Kozelek's rambling poetry manages to make the case for the act of creating art as a form empathy in a way that I personally had never quite meditated on.

"Carissa" is an elogy for a passed family member, certainly, and it's also clearly an example of a songwriter dealing with complicated emotions in a way that comes naturally for his own solace. But for as navel gazing as song writing can be, verses like the following demonstrate a touchingly empathetic aspect to the creation of art:

"Carissa was 35

You don't just raise two kids, and take out your trash and die

She was my second cousin, I didn't know her well at all

But that doesn't mean that I wasn't

Meant to find some poetry to make some sense of this, to find a deeper meaning

In this senseless tragedy, oh Carissa I'll sing your name across every sea"

10 Songs That Rich Really Liked This Year 2014

1) "Carissa" - Sun Kil Moon

2) "Never Catch Me" - Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar

3) "Hot Dreams" - Timber Timbre

4) "Problem" - Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azelia

5) "Pendulum" - FKA twigs

6) "Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #2

"Never Catch Me" - Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar, from the album You're Dead!

You're Dead! is FlyLo's hip-hop jazz fusion album about transcending the physical world, so it's only appropriate that its lead single transcended genres as well. Despite being the most straightforward feature on a Flying Lotus track to date, Kendrick's rapping and Ellison's production end up being more than the sum of their parts simply because each of them go so hard and so very much all-in with their respective unique sounds. It's strange: nothing going on in this track sounds completely alien, and yet, I don't think I've ever heard anything quite like this before.

The higher up on my favorite songs lists I get every year, the more a song's coincidental ability to line up thematically with my particular momentary station in life is usually what's making it click and this year and this song is no exception. I would listen to You're Dead! on the way to my nursing school clinical session at Hunterdon Medical Center every Friday this fall and it's curiosity driven, philosophical and celebratory view of death was clutch for me. Even at my limited experience level at the hospital, I ended up seeing or hearing about some heavy subject matter and this album's hubris in the face of mortality put me in a good and confident and healthy state of mind week after week.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2014

2) "Never Catch Me" - Flying Lotus ft. Kendrick Lamar

3) "Hot Dreams" - Timber Timbre

4) "Problem" - Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azelia

5) "Pendulum" - FKA twigs

6) "Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #3

"Hot Dreams" - Timber Timbre from the album Hot Dreams

Timber Timbre make music more Twin Peak-y than David Lynch ever has. I've been thinking been thinking about a concise way to describe the uncanny, neon-lit, sinister balladry of Taylor Kirk and his band since I first heard Hot Dreams earlier this year, but that's really it. Audrey Horne would love this album.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the track's best trick though, and it comes at the end. It's a trick that shouldn't work: when the sax phrase at the end repeats, an extra bar added each time, "Hot Dreams" exemplifies what makes Timber Timbre truly unique. It's out of time signature, out time, out of place and brings you with it.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2014

3) "Hot Dreams" - Timber Timbre

4) "Problem" - Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azelia

5) "Pendulum" - FKA twigs

6) "Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #4

"Problem" - Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea, from the album My Everything

As much as I truly (unironically) enjoy pop music and Top 40 Radio, "Problem" and Ariana Grande prove that I don't quite understand it. From the very first time I heard it, I was sure that "Problem" would be a huge, Song of the Summer-sized hit and the fact that "Break Free" ended up being a bigger song for Grande is perplexing. I mean, I enjoy "Break Free" just fine, but "Problem" is built to pop perfection.

And the general pop-ulace seem to have a problem with that too: the fact that "Problem" puts together several successful elements of well known hits of the past. The bubble-gum, primary colored Jackson 5 chord progression of the verse, the 90s J-Lo sax loop, the Mariah Carey Jr. coos of the "you hoo hoo" bridge - none of this reads to me as anything close to plagiarism so much as cribbing notes from some of the most successful pop music of all time. What exactly, is the problem with that?

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2014

4) "Problem" - Ariana Grande ft. Iggy Azalea

5) "Pendulum" - FKA twigs

6) "Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #5

"Pendulum" - FKA twigs, from the album LP1

The best tracks on FKA twigs' debut full length actually start of kind of unfinished. "Lights On", "Video Girl", "Pendulum" - these songs definitely sound as if they're missing elements at first, only to slowly coalesce, seemingly forming out of the ether as they progress until they're unstoppable. In my opinion, "Pendulum" pulls this trick off the best, its chorus' melody moving like its namesake until it's practically crashing back and forth by the song's end. It gives the song a real visceral feeling of force, selling its emotions physically.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2014

5) "Pendulum" - FKA twigs

6) "Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #6

"Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown, from the album Green Language

"Got the game on lock like we changed the keys."

It's been several years now that America rap music has been cribbing the production style of UK maxlimalist electro and house. Whether it's been Kanye throwing trap drums on a Hudson Mohawke beat or the inspirational inverse, rap and R&B producers have been trying to find the right ratio and split the difference between sides of the Atlantic, but I'm not sure that it's ever really been nailed down until Rustie and Danny Brown recorded "Attak".

And it makes sense, things needed to be switched up; a traditional MC was never going to mix with this kind of production. Rustie, TNGHT, Arca - these producers make over the top, incandescent beats that flow in neon and a proper match had to be made at the mike. Enter Danny Brown, who somehow manages to sound completely at home among one of Rustie's brightest marches yet. The perfect match reminds me of Basement Jaxx teaming up with Dizzee Rascal for "Lucky Star". It worked there for the same reason that this works here: Rustie and Danny's otherworldly personalities don't try to bring each other back down to earth, instead they push each other further into space.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2014

6) "Attak" - Rustie ft. Danny Brown

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #7

"Girl" - Jamie xx, from the Girl b/w Sleep Sound single

While Coexist maybe have been a big, fat sophomore slump for his band The xx, Jamie xx's own solo work has only become progressively stronger with every single he's dropped. This year saw two separate releases from the London DJ, and while "All Under One Roof Raving" seems to be the fan favorite, I personally enjoyed "Girl" much more. It's the only a-side he's released without his trademark steel drum sounds, trading that bright signifier for a much more sultry sound. It's a track that trades entirely on atmosphere and a great bass line, layering on the coo's and ah's to make a much moodier, sexier track than The xx managed to on their entire last album. Hopefully Jamie can bring some of this work back to his band.

10 Songs That Rich Really Liked This Year 2014

7) "Girl" - Jamie xx

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #8

"Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels, from the album Run the Jewels 2

What I like most about "Angel Duster" is that not only does it read as a summery or statement of intent for Run the Jewels, it also uses it's closing spot on 2014's best rap record as a moment of clarification. Most of the braggadocio and shit talking on RtJ2 is so delightfully cartoonish that this tracks' slightly more subdued choice of words buoys the album as a whole. In the process, Killer Mike ends up delivering my favorite bars of the year:

A pope is a fraud A church is a lie A queen is the same damn thing You should pray to your fake god that she die God really exists I tell you like this it reside inside And anybody telling you different, just selling you religion, tryin' to keep your ass in line I kill my masters I mentor none That means when I die that's it My style is gone I'm a one of one One half of the great RTJ Defeated the odds went to war with the gods Earned all our scars and came back straight

The eloquence of that verse - that balance of spirituality and skepticism - is the sort of thing that pushed me from simply enjoying Run the Jewels as rappers to converting me to a devoted jewel runner. With "Angel Duster", El-P and Killer Mike go from something to admire to something to believe in.

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR 2014

8) "Angel Duster" - Run the Jewels

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and the Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #9

"Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister, from the album Mr Twin Sister

If nothing else, with album opener "Sensitive" Mr Twin Sister prove that they know how to set a scene. With their 2014 eponymous release, the Long Island band renamed themselves - slightly, sort of - and turned the lights out on the sunny, hazy pop of their older records for a batch of songs that distinctly recall the dead of night.

"Sensitive" swirls to life as if it's reanimating a sleepy space around it. The band co-produced the album alongside Johnathan Low and due and proper credit must be given: this song is beautifully recorded and immaculately put together. Things only continue to effortlessly built once it gracefully kicks off with every bass groove, double-timed kick drum and New Wave guitar wail practically gliding into view. For a song with a fair share of moving parts and attention-grabbing elements, nothing is ever buried and everything is impressively balanced. Singling a track out and highlighting it for particularly clean production may sound kind of boring, but Mr Twin Sister manage to build an entire world for the rest of their nocturnal album to exist in within seconds of "Sensitive" starting. "Is this romantic yearning? Is it just a illusion?" sings Andrea Estella on the song's refrain. Perhaps. It's certainly teleportive.

10 Songs That Rich Really Liked This Year 2014

9) "Sensitive" - Mr Twin Sister

10) "Ain't That Easy" - D'Angelo and The Vanguard

10 SONGS THAT RICH REALLY LIKED THIS YEAR (2014) - #10

"Ain’t That Easy" - D’Angelo & The Vanguard, from the album Black Messiah

Long gestating albums are a tricky thing and the past year or so has seen some of the 90s’ and early 00s’ most reclusive artists unearth some of their most mythical work. Unfortunately, for every Syro, there’s a m b v. It isn’t that a record like My Bloody Valentine’s is out and out bad per se, but even the best nostalgia runs the risk of playing underwhelmingly when removed of it’s historical context and offered up in the focused moment of the present day. Smart artists are able to strip their own work back and figure out what to keep (those elements that are timeless, those that were utterly unique to themselves) and what to toss out (namely sound production and design that serves as nothing other than historical touchstones).

Of course, the truly successful reemergences have strong song writing under all of that. What makes D’Angelo’s rushed-to-release 2014 bookend Black Messiah most impressive is that not only does it strut the right strut right past the previously mentioned pitfalls, but that it’s also manages to seem completely necessary; it already plays like a cultural artifact of the moment. Upon the album’s release last week, D’Angelo and his label told the New York Times that while the album had been in works for years, current events including the Micheal Brown trial ended up catalyzing the overtime and all-nighters that finally coalesced the record and pushed it out the door. That makes a lot of sense even if none of the tracks such as “Ain’t That Easy” specifically address any of 2014’s events or politics. In fact, it’s pretty much a love song about the most vital aspects of life being those that are the hardest won. It’s B.Y.O.Subtext, but it’s going to end up playing just as funky in 2028 as it does now.

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