16 Songs of 2016
One of the most apt tweets I've read in the past month was from Emmy Kegler: "2016 has been, for almost all intents and purposes, a garbage fire. But a couple of things have been really great and I wanna collect them all." Nearly all of my better-than-garbage-fire moments of 2016 have been musical, and these are some highlights of my collecting.
Making a list of songs from a year is incredibly challenging, especially from a year that has been far more interested in providing us with fantastic albums. Please do not hear that as a complaint - far from it! I am so happy that the art of an album is alive and well in our digital world. It's just that a plethora of great albums makes for a myriad of memorable songs.
In order to make this task of choosing 16 songs somewhat more possible, and to allow for profiling a few more artists, this list does not include songs that are featured on records that have made my 2016 Albums list (although there might be the odd, but justifiable exception). Enjoy exploring some new music or comparing your own lists with mine! Let me know what I missed in the comments or on twitter @PlayListedPod. If a song does not include an embedded video, make sure to click the link in the title to hear it for yourself.
#16 Dang! - Mac Miller featuring Anderson Paak (from the album The Devine Feminine)
This song has very quickly become my feel-good track of the last several months. I have never given Mac Miller a real chance before (being a white rapper and all), but his playful, goofy verses match perfectly with Paak's laid back vocals. I find it especially satisfying to dance to while cooking or doing dishes.
#15 Don't Mind - Kent Jones (from the mixtape Tours)
I need at least one guilty-ish pleasure every year, and I'm still not 100% sure whether I spin it at parties for anyone other than myself. It's basically Jason Derulo's "Talk Dirty" reimagined, but I think the Kent Jones version is slightly less terrible lyrically, and far more catchy. Plus it will forever remind me of some amazing teens I met this summer in Pennsylvania who taught me the dance (which you can always find me doing behind the turntables).
#14 Worry - Jack Garrett (from the album Pulse)
I first listened to this song early this year as I was helping a friend put together a break-up playlist - the track fit perfectly, but I forgot about it for a few months (probably sometime after Lemonade took control of all my listening time). "Worry" manages to marry the bitter and sweet of moving on from a relationship in both its lyrics and melody, over a chill beat that works for nearly any occasion.
#13 I Need a Forest Fire - James Blake featuring Bon Iver (from the album The Colour in Anything)
I love this collaboration so much that I'm shipping James and Justin... at least for the sake of a collab album. I have to be careful what playlists I add this song to, because it stops me in my tracks whenever and wherever it's playing. The ethereal quality is perfect for reflecting upon regrets, distant memories, and other big life questions and feelings. Best listened to from fetal position.
There is a reason why after only a few months of this track going viral, more than 10 other rappers, including Nicki Minaj and 50 cent, have already been part of remixes. "OOOUUU" has quickly become a phenomenon, and there is something very refreshing about having a lesbian rap the gangsta anthem of the year.
#11 Room in Here - Anderson Paak featuring The Game (from the album Malibu)
Anderson Paak's debut was the hardest not to include in my Albums of the Year list. Instead I'll focus on the track that stands out to me the most, which is this groovy love song about wanting to spend alone time with the girlfriend. And not to distract from the brilliance of Paak himself, but The Game's verse here is on point.
#10 The Greatest - Sia featuring Kendrick Lamar (from the album This is Acting)
Warning: the video above does not contain the Kendrick Lamar verse, which means you should probably go listen to that later too. Still, the video seems like the best way to fully experience this song as both an energetic dance/work-out track and a touching homage to the victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in June. Maddie Ziegler and Sia together demonstrate how we can pick ourselves up in the face of tragedy and threat, and move forward in joyful protest.
#9 One Dance - Drake featuring Wizkid and Kyla (from the album Views)
I never thought I'd be playing so much Drake at parties, but now that I'm in Toronto and Drake is pretending he's from the Caribbean (perhaps to woo his longtime crush?), I'm almost convinced. With one of his best samples/featured vocals from Kyla, this song is straight-up contagious.
#8 Find Me - Sigma featuring Birdy
Don't ask me to differentiate between the song and the music video, which features everyone's new favourite 12-year-old actor, Millie Bobby Brown. Does anyone else imagine Eleven singing this from the Upside Down? All I know is that since watching this beautiful and dramatic video, all I need to do is listen to this song in order to feel all of my feelings again.
#7 Bourbon - Gallant (from the album Ology)
I tend to be a sucker for songs named after beverages, but it's a done deal when said song introduces me to a falsetto as smooth and strong as Gallant's. Once I started paying attention to the lyrics and asking whether he's comparing love for a woman or his struggle with faith and doubt to addictions, I'm completely slain.
#6 Good As Hell - Lizzo (from the EP Coconut Oil)
If you have had any conversation with me in the past several months, you've probably heard Lizzo's name once or seven times. She seems to specialize in self-confidence anthems, and this is my favourite, although "'Scuse Me" is also a contender. In my job searching this fall, "Good As Hell" and the rest of the Coconut Oil EP became my interview prep soundtrack, and I highly recommend it for any kind of boost you need.
#5 Overcome - Laura Mvula featuring Nile Rogers(from the album The Dreaming Room)
This was a song that 2016 needed - a rally cry to keep on keeping on, while most likely borrowing from Maya Angelou's biography title "All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes," in the outro's refrain. Mvula is a queen, and although her album The Dreaming Room didn't make the same kind of impression on me as her debut in 2013, Sing to the Moon, I will always anxiously await any projects she undertakes.
Every once in a while I put TLOP on, but every time I'm reminded that it's all downhill after this opening track. Not that there aren't a couple of other great songs, but as an album this is admittedly Kanye's most unfinished and scattered collection so far. But oh, the hope "Ultralight Beam" creates, reaching deep into gospel and providing space for one of Chance's best feature verses yet. I think it's proof that even as Kanye continues to spiral, there is still some connection to his own humanity and brilliance, despite his angry ego.
#3 Show Me Love - Hundred Waters featuring Chance the Rapper #4 Show Me Love - Hundred Waters featuring Chance the Rapper
There is something beyond special about this track, and that something is a kind of holy trinity of Hundred Waters' spooky earnest prayer-song and the pure joy of Chano mixed over the contagious drums of Skrillex's keen ear and imagination. This song has become a mantra for me whenever engaging with folks who tempt me to violence.
#2 At Your Best - Frank Ocean (from the album Endless)
There are very few songs that have had the kind of effect on me as this song, Frank Ocean's cover of Aaliyah's version of the Isley Brothers' "You Are Love." I cannot do anything, even write this blurb, while this song is playing. It's like Frank's falsetto has a magical spell that whispers to me: "No typing, No eating, No thinking... Ok, I guess you can breathe a little bit." I recognize that this experience is due to a number of factors. Like so many of you, I spent a lot of time anticipating the visual album, Endless. Nothing could have prepared me for beginning with this. Sometimes it still takes a couple tries to continue the album past "At Your Best." Endless indeed. *Warning - the link above is a slightly lower-pitch version that ends up also being remixed. If you have access to an Apple Music link, that's the best (and only legal) way to have a listen.
#1 Formation - Beyoncé (from the album Lemonade... sort of)
No surprises here, ironically, since this song was initially such a huge surprise to everyone. Do you remember where you were when this song/video was released? It shocked and stopped the world, and was yet another example of Beyoncé refusing to play by music industry rules. Instead of releasing it as a single or even a video on her website, "Formation," was shared as a private youtube link, individually via email, until everyone knew about it whether they had managed to see it yet or not. Then of course, she performs her brand new song - never mind that it is full of very explicit southern, black, female pride - at the Superbowl halftime show. World stop. Carry on.
I'm not even going to write about the video because there are articles upon articles already out there, analyzing scene for scene. I'll just say that the song prepared us for Lemonade in the way that I think the spirit of Lemonade prepares us for the work of "Formation." Although the song is intricately connected to the album, they have been, and are meant to be experienced separately. This song is simultaneously a dance track, a marketing campaign, a protest march, a rally call, a think piece, and an anthem - and it's damn good at each and every role.