The 100 Best Songs of 2017

This year, music was all about context: artists addressed a tumultuous world or created a new one, pushing boundaries in voice and instrument. Pop stars parsed love and heartbreak, electronic producers found inspiration around the globe and in their backyards, and hip-hop morphed and changed at light speed. As voted by our staff and contributors, here’s our list of the 100 Best Songs of 2017.

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

Maggie Rogers: “On + Off”

As a humble music student from Maryland, Maggie Rogers rose to fame after catching Pharrell's ear with her enigmatic pop song “Alaska.” The upbeat electro track showcased Rogers’ keen intuition as a songwriter and arranger. Now “On + Off” finds her a brilliant alchemist, joining styles from across the sonic spectrum under a swooping arc. Brittle synth pop, heartland folk, quiet storm R&B, deep house, velvety dream pop, even a trace of gospel choir: They’re all here, in the brilliant stained glass mirror through which she sees the world. –Zoe Camp

Listen: Maggie Rogers, “On + Off”

Kamaiyah: “Build You Up”

Between signing with Interscope and landing a spot on XXL’s Freshmen class of ’17, Kamaiyah Johnson made plenty of power moves over the past 12 months. Her greatest may be “Build You Up,” a punchy neon pep talk that repurposes Tony! Toni! Toné!’s 1990 chart-topper “Feels Good” into a burst of R&B optimism.

Kamaiyah has said she wrote “Build You Up” to empower young women within a cultural landscape where such anthems are scarce. True enough, in her catchy track, the Bay Area MC lifts up her peers as she stresses their right to love and respect. “If he don’t show you love, then he’s less than/Never stress it, tell that brother get to steppin’,” she instructs. Words to live by. –Zoe Camp

Listen: Kamaiyah, “Build You Up”

Charly Bliss: “Percolator”

The 2001 film version of Josie and the Pussycats was a commercial failure, but many of us grew to love its power-pop soundtrack anyway, and some even formed bands. Charly Bliss stand out among them by favoring pop over force: “Percolator” offers a few moments of grimy guitar before attacking the listener with hooks instead. Eva Hendricks’ voice has the capricious shape of an inner monologue, squeaking out each wry line: “Swimming in your pool, I am pregnant with meaning/Could I be more appealing, writing slurs on the ceiling?” It’s sardonic, self-deprecating, and utterly serious all at once. Satirizing the music industry as a psy-ops conspiracy, Josie and the Pussycats also suggested how much fear and disdain youthful ardor can provoke. Call it power—something “Percolator” has. –Chris Randle

Listen: Charly Bliss, “Percolator”

DJ Khaled: “Wild Thoughts” [ft. Rihanna and Bryson Tiller]

“Wild Thoughts” is proof that DJ Khaled’s sheer determination to engineer Top 40 hits can actually pay off. Strategic in his appeals to nostalgia, Khaled essentially recreated Santana and the Product G&B’s 1999 hit “Maria Maria,” retaining its shuffling Latin percussion and seductive guitar lines. Perhaps Khaled knew a Latin-tinged pop song could rule the U.S. charts for the summer—but only if an English-speaking superstar jumped on it, as evidenced by Justin Bieber’s remix of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito.”

After eight years of trying to get Rihanna on a track, Khaled finally landed an elusive feature, and her ability to exude carefree sex appeal proved a perfect match for the slinky beat. Confident and restrained, Rihanna dips to the lowest parts of her range to make playful phrases about temptation sound as sensuous as possible. Bryson Tiller contributes a just-fine verse that expectedly mentions D’usse and not-so-expectedly references The Waterboy. Add in the occasional over-exuberant ad-lib from DJ Khaled, and you have the recipe for a great summer bop. –Michelle Kim

Listen: DJ Khaled, “Wild Thoughts” [ft. Rihanna and Bryson Tiller]

Yo Gotti: “Rake It Up” [ft. Nicki Minaj]

For decades, strip clubs in the South have served as a testing ground for hip-hop songs, and Yo Gotti handcrafted “Rake It Up” as a pole-friendly anthem. But instead of the usual “make it rain” tropes centered around the power of the patron, the Memphis rapper shifts the energy to the dancers raking up wads of cash after a successful night on the job. Producer Mike WiLL Made-It finesses hi-hats and big bass into a spacious beat that’s filled out by Gotti and Nicki Minaj, who makes rhyming the word “China” five times in a row sound ingenious on one of her most showstopping features in recent memory. Here, the women are moneymakers, and Nicki is center stage. –Kristin Corry

Listen: Yo Gotti, “Rake It Up” [ft. Nicki Minaj]

Downtown Boys: “A Wall”

Earlier this year, as the White House bungled the implementation of its “Muslim ban,” sparking airport protests and civil rights lawsuits, Downtown Boys were holed up in Steve Albini’s Chicago studio cutting their Sub Pop debut, Cost of Living. Vocalist Victoria Ruiz and guitarist Joey DeFrancesco earned their activist stripes organizing for labor and civil rights in their home base of Providence, Rhode Island; they’re not used to watching from the sidelines. But the record they cut will endure long after the current administration has left office, and “A Wall,” its opening salvo, perfectly captures their righteous rage. In between the driving bassline and soaring sax melody, Ruiz and DeFrancesco shout down jingoistic imperialism. It’s an extension of the band’s live shows, which are equal parts dance party and discourse. Ruiz confronts and challenges her audience, encouraging us to decolonize our minds while examining our own complicity in oppressive structures rooted in white supremacy. On a record full of defiant statements, “A Wall” is among the most forceful. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Downtown Boys, “A Wall”

Vagabon: “The Embers”

Lætitia Tamko never says anything about fire on “The Embers,” the opening track of Vagabon’s debut album, Infinite Worlds. In a rougher version, at the end of Vagabon’s 2014 EP Persian Garden, the same song was titled “Sharks.” You could argue the original title made more sense, because Tamko sings here—laconically, unforgettably—about being “a small fish” in a sea of voracious predators. But “The Embers” fans her artistic statement of self-belief into a glowing, quiet-loud opus that evokes both classic Modest Mouse and recent Hop Along. It’s proof that there are other seas for small fish, particularly the New York D.I.Y. community that nurtured Vagabon. And yet, in showing how someone made to feel marginal can transform that sense of vulnerability into strength, the song also reveals determined souls can set any situation brilliantly ablaze. –Marc Hogan

Listen: Vagabon, “The Embers”

Big Shaq: “Man’s Not Hot”

It was a banner year for grime-related humor, first seeing Roll Safe achieve meme-level fame, and then Big Shaq’s “Man’s Not Hot” proving itself the most quotable British product since Lethal Bizzle’s “Rari Workout.” Casual observers might wonder if grime parodies are better than grime tracks, but “Man’s Not Hot” renders that distinction moot by being an excellent example of each. Indeed, it joins in a tradition of songs (e.g., the Darkness’ “I Believe in a Thing Called Love”) that so expertly lampoon their chosen genre they become part of its firmament.

“Man’s Not Hot,” which originated as a freestyle on BBC Radio 1Xtra, is the brainchild of British comedian Michael Dapaah, who builds the track around one wry observation—why are young toughs always mugging in parkas?—and withholds the punch line long enough to practice his gun noises and turn “donut” into an insult. He also brags about his deodorant and ups the stakes (“Man can never be hot/Perspiration ting”), wrapping the track so tightly in patois and bravado that it hardly matters whether you’re doubled over laughing or marring your search history with “uckers.” –Andrew Gaerig

Listen: Big Shaq, “Man’s Not Hot”

Jessie Ware: “Midnight”

“Midnight” is the sound of walls tumbling down, the kinds used to shield a heart from love. Upon its release, Jessie Ware described the song as one she’s “always wanted to be able to sing” and it exudes a newfound confidence, shining with every note. Ware sounds powerful and poised as she embodies the full force of falling for someone. “Can I miss you in the daylight?” she sings, underscoring the question’s idyllic naivety. But for all the vulnerability contained within these lyrics, Ware’s vocals are the grandest revelation here, capturing the beautiful discomfort of such a feeling. She employs her higher register to stunning effect, and this iteration of old soul-tinged pop is Ware at her most impressive. –Briana Younger

Listen: Jessie Ware, “Midnight”

CCFX: “The One to Wait”

“The One to Wait” begins quietly, with a wash of guitar and a gentle breakbeat. And then Mary Jane Dunphe, a singer who always sounds like she’s announcing herself to the world, announces herself to the world, and CCFX sounds for a moment like the type of brilliant post-punk act that arrives like a summer storm to reorganize your thoughts about rock music.

The end result isn’t quite so dramatic, thankfully. CCFX is Dunphe’s collaboration with Trans FX’s Chris McDonnell, and the dream pop they conjure is the most luxurious environ she's inhabited yet. On “The One to Wait,” her voice swoops and eddies through a tale of longing and indecision, her phrasing and tone almost sculpture-like in its exaggerated poses. The lyrics and puddled guitars suggest sadness, but the song’s melody seems to slope ever upward, never quite cresting. It creates a fidgety, nervous energy that carries the track as you wonder if Dunphe is going to let loose. She doesn’t, because some storms just drizzle all day long. –Andrew Gaerig

Listen: CCFX, “The One to Wait”

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

It is a strange sign of the times that after a hurricane struck Houston in late summer, there was a faction of the internet mad at Beyoncé for not responding quickly enough to help her hometown, as though she were a public servant or president (oh were it so!) and not a Pepsi-sponsored pop star. Of course, Beyoncé always answers her detractors with statements so powerful, no further comment is needed—and so, not only did she personally go to Houston herself to hand out food to those in need, she later dropped a remix of Colombian singer J Balvin’s massive Latin hit “Mi Gente” to benefit hurricane relief all around the hemisphere in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Balvin is about as big as B in Latin America, and his track was already massive globally without her help. But the Beyoncé charity co-sign put reggaeton on the speakers of kids in America who might never have heard it before, and made her as effective—if not more—at helping to fix the world’s ills than some actual heads of state who shall remain nameless. –Alex Frank

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

Dirty Projectors: “Little Bubble”

Camouflaged as a breakup album, Dirty Projectors’ self-titled, eighth full-length was a reinvention for songwriter Dave Longstreth, and nowhere more so than on the empty-bed lament “Little Bubble.” Featuring Longstreth, a string quartet, and a heroically minimalist drum part by Michael Johnson, “Little Bubble” bypasses the deeply specific references that dot many of the album’s songs and aims for something more universal, straightforward, and ambitious. The self-harmonized verses take about half the song’s length to achieve its central, sad thought. En route, Longstreth finds a new mode for his nearly decade-and-a-half old project via a gently glitching keyboard, barely perceptible bubble-shaped bleeps, and the barest of rhythm tracks. The moody dynamic, casting the music with the song’s “cold October light,” frames his R&B vocal tendencies in a way both legitimately poppy and true to his weirdness. Downsized but still intricate, Longstreth’s return to mostly-solo recording manifests as self-resolution on “Little Bubble,” pointing to a future with new paths to discover, but no less filled with loss. –Jesse Jarnow

Listen: Dirty Projectors, “Little Bubble”

Hurray for the Riff Raff: “Pa’lante”

The phrase “pa’lante,” meaning “forward,” was a rallying cry for the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican civil rights group that took to the streets of Spanish Harlem in the late 1960s. On Hurray for the Riff Raff’s album The Navigator, leader Alynda Segarra makes “Pa’lante” into a powerful ode to perseverance. Starkly swaying piano chords meet Segarra’s raw-throated musings about work, romance, gender identity, and, yes, post-colonial assimilation. There’s a brightly affirmative midsection (“Any day now, I will come along,” Segarra promises) and a searing poetry reading before the itinerant Nuyorican folk-rock bandleader widens her gaze further “to the ghost of Emmett Till” and beyond. In a year of Hurricane Maria, of tragic headlines for so many who were historically marginalized, Segarra’s repetition of “pa’lante” sounds like an intersectional “amen”: a universal prayer to be something, feel something, move forward. –Marc Hogan

Listen: Hurray for the Riff Raff, “Pa’lante”

Harry Styles: “Sign of the Times”

The saddest shift of youth arrives the day your favorite tousle-haired boy-bander leaves your daydreams and abruptly needs to get off your lawn. More depressing still are the stabs at trendiness that eclipsed teen heartthrobs often take: mealy-mouthed EDM sex ballads, hammy Broadway residencies, Xeroxed pop-soul trifles. Harry Styles was one of the rare ones who hopscotched neatly over all these awkward phases once One Direction went on hiatus. Instead, on his debut solo single, “Sign of the Times,” Styles embraced the musical forms that his peers might deem uncool, from Elton John ivories-melting pomp to Glen Campbell–style lurid balladry. Grim lyrics that could seem fatalist (or given his age, just a bit emo) are delivered with earthy insight, Styles showing his true crooner abilities as he warns of bleak times to come. Well, maybe for everyone else—this golden child seems to have blue skies ahead. –Stacey Anderson

Listen: Harry Styles, “Sign of the Times”

Baths: “Dream Daddy”

“Dream Daddy” was not presented to the world as Baths’ new masterwork. There was no PR blast announcing its arrival, and it can’t be purchased on vinyl like his impressive new album, Romaplasm. It lives primarily as the opening title music for its video game namesake, and although the 96-second song’s primary function is to transition us into a world of scrumptious virtual DILFs, it’s so much more than a throwaway sonic blurb. Will Wiesenfeld weaves an earworm for the ages, a melody so beatific that the term “dream daddy” transcends its meme status and becomes a universal idyll. With only a handful of words and some celestial vocal effects, he paints an impressionistic portrait of fresh crush elation. The beat makes it danceable and heightens the euphoria—a mood that’s easy to consume again and again, making it perfect for pre-game repetition. Maybe one day, it’ll get a good, long 12'' dance mix—but until then, that title screen will just have to stay on repeat, postponing gameplay indefinitely. –Evan Minsker

Listen: Baths, “Dream Daddy”

Missy Elliott: “I’m Better” [ft. Lamb]

It’s been a staggering 12 years since Missy Elliott, still the grande dame of hip-hop, released her last studio album. As such, any morsel of music she releases is a blessing, and for the past few years, she has been slowly but surely teasing a full-blown comeback. So far, the syrupy-slow “I’m Better” is the apex of these new tracks, and one that is quintessentially Missy: a lean, funky beat coupled with mind-bending wordplay in her iconic half-bar drawl. The song shows a subdued maturity that separates it from the classic Missy tracks we know and love, without holding back on her sense of innovation. Before, Missy was eager to show us the impressive range of tricks in her arsenal, from groundbreaking production work with Timbaland to her legendary music videos. Here, she’s more thoughtful and controlled, but just as impactful, and her lyrics just as witty (somehow managing to rhyme “I’m from VA” with “the car that I drive be Ferrari”). The core tenets of Missy’s persona—body positivity, black female empowerment, Afrofuturism—have only become more prescient with time, and while awaiting her true second coming, she is still demanding we get our freak on—but on her terms, and in her own time. –Cameron Cook

Listen: Missy Elliott, “I’m Better” [ft. Lamb]

Broken Social Scene: “Hug of Thunder”

Looking back at a scribbly teenage journal, decades later, can be bittersweet: Here is, word for word, who you were and will never be again, all rendered in the glorious freedom of youth. For her first star turn on a Broken Social Scene song in 11 years, Leslie Feist revisits her own adolescent musings—the Syd Barrett surrealism, the broken teeth, the days when “the bus stop was the size of the entire world”—with a sense of awe. This isn’t nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake; there are layers of remembrance, half-memories, creases made up of meaning. Lilting through her past over a gently surging backbeat, she fills “Hug of Thunder” with the wisdom of a sentimentalist. Each line, old and new, is memorable enough to feel real, with blank pages to spare. –Ryan Dombal

Listen: Broken Social Scene, “Hug of Thunder”

Playboi Carti: “Location”

Playboi Carti’s self-titled breakthrough album is best known for charismatic singles like “Magnolia” and “wokeuplikethis*”—songs that sharpen the Atlanta rapper’s hypnotic languor into trunk-rattling bangers. But in many ways, album opener “Location” is more true to form, a mood piece that’s equal parts triumphant and narcotic. The song is built around a sample of Allan Holdsworth’s jazz fusion classic “Endomorph,” which producer Harry Fraud treats like Silly Putty, pitching it up and slowing it down until the soaring synths become smears of sound. Carti matches Fraud’s impressionistic beat with a heavy-lidded, laconic flow, rapping like he’s being taxed per word. His bars are snapshots that slowly dissolve through repetition, just another texture in the neon haze. Like all of Playboi Carti’s best songs, “Location” is an exercise in economy, a vivid picture painted using a limited palette of colors. –Mehan Jayasuriya

Listen: Playboi Carti, “Location”

Zola Jesus: “Siphon”

The songs on Zola Jesus’s Okovi contain a lot of straight talk, and “Siphon” is one of its bluntest. Writing about a real-life friend’s second attempt at suicide, Nika Danilova avoids couching the event in metaphor or stand-in characters. Instead, she talks directly to her friend, insisting that everyone wants him to stay alive and will do everything they can to make sure that happens. Such earnest lyrics, filled with references to dark nights and warm blood, could venture into sentimental cliches. But the boldness of Danilova’s vocal delivery, the gathering storm of her synths, and the hard industrial pound of her beat give “Siphon” the urgent sonic edge its words deserve. Danilova sounds sure that matters of life and death deserve direct action, and that conviction makes “Siphon” sound like a siren blaring toward an emergency. –Marc Masters

Listen: Zola Jesus, “Siphon”

The National: “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”

The National don’t do guitar solos. Across the band’s first six albums, they favored an inward emotional gaze, a reflective austerity that limits such sudden, shrieking outbursts. But halfway into “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness,” guitarist Aaron Dessner rushes in to relieve Matt Berninger, who’s so vexed by the world around him that he can only shout out his confusion on repeat, his steadfast baritone splintering at its oaken edges. Dessner dives headlong into the bridge, bending the song’s snarling lead riff with the rhythmic acrobatics of Robbie Robertson and the irascible tone of Neil Young. Berninger inveighs against something he can’t quite define here, a world of inadequate faiths, power vacuums, and “lonely secrets.” Dessner’s star turn, though, puts a knife point on this frustration, weaponizing the song. Guitar solos work like curses; overuse them and they lose their rhetorical power. The National smartly saved this—a bona fide rock’n’roll rip through time—for an anthem that admits even trying to articulate the mess we’re in can be goddamn tiring. –Grayson Haver Currin

Listen: The National, “The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness”

Moses Sumney: “Quarrel”

Moses Sumney has said that his songs tend to hover somewhere in the interstice between sleeping and waking. The cinematic harp rolls and floating vocal embellishments that outfit “Quarrel,” from his debut album, Aromanticism, certainly seem like snippets of dream language written into reality. Sumney could be speaking from within the kind of early-morning fog that lets dreams linger, clouding out everything but personal truth from the subconscious mind—which would explain his brutal honesty in addressing the emotional distance between him and his lover. After singing most of “Quarrel” in an icy falsetto, Sumney slips into a lower, more conversational register to deliver its stinging final couplet: “We cannot be lovers/Long as I’m the other.” He’s referring to the implicit power dynamics that wreak havoc on relationships—from class disparities to less obvious differences, like preference of attachment type—and make it impossible for lovers to negotiate as equals, dooming their prospects from the start. His cynicism could rattle the most die-hard romantic. –Olivia Horn

Listen: Moses Sumney, “Quarrel”

The Black Madonna: “He Is the Voice I Hear”

In the handwritten liner notes to this single by Marea Stamper, aka the Black Madonna, the “He” in the title is legendary Paradise Garage DJ Larry Levan, answering a prayer by the “I” that was the equally iconic Frankie Knuckles. Stamper adds more names to shout out—Arthur Russell, Patrick Cowley, Sylvester, Loleatta Holloway—and underscores the tribute in the structure of the song, which starts with the ghost-jazz piano of Christoforo Labarbera and builds from its mournful intro into a string-sweetened old-school Moroder pulse that blurs history into a cyclical continuum of euphoric remembrance. Gripes about “pastiche” miss the point. You can hear snatches of ’74 soul or ’79 Italo or ’85 house or ’88 acid in certain rhythms and chord progressions, but it’s all refracted into a greater whole, where the most important history is emotional. It’s ultimately about all the connections that people make through decades of music, of finding a path to old feelings and remembering how your heart connects to your feet. –Nate Patrin

Listen: The Black Madonna, “He Is the Voice I Hear”

The xx: “On Hold”

The typical xx song plays like a conversation between best friends—lovers, if you use your imagination—confiding their innermost secrets to each other. That intimacy among singers Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim casts a powerful spell, but it can also leave producer Jamie xx in a tough spot, like a guy trying to lure his friends onto the dancefloor while they stubbornly insist on standing in the corner. On the group’s previous albums, Jamie’s overtures usually amounted to a gentle tug on the sleeve, but “On Hold”—the first taste of I See You— marks the moment he finally just grabs his bandmates by the arms and pushes them under the bright lights.

Powered by a strobe-lit bass and a showy Hall & Oates sample, the song forces Madley Croft and Sim to relinquish the comfort of their insular safe spaces and hash out their issues as if yelling over a neighbor’s car stereo. It’s a therapeutic exercise that draws their pent-up feelings to the surface, an emotional cleansing by way of the beat. –Evan Rytlewski

Listen: The xx, “On Hold”

Stormzy: “Big for Your Boots”

Hands down the best childhood sound is that winded, rubbery “OOEEHH” gasp that comes in the wake of a cheap plastic soccer ball being thwacked across a field. By some feat of vocal magic, grime ambassador Stormzy captures that exact noise every time he repeats the word “boots” on this song about kicking down pretenders. It is incredibly satisfying. “Big for Your Boots” is regal, gothic, brutally cheeky, dexterous, and utterly assured: Stormzy can pull off schooling wannabe bad boys and nicking meat out of his mum’s stew pot in a single breath. The song tethers the pitched-up vocal samples of grime’s past to a pop present where its creators no longer have to compromise to break the mainstream in their native UK. Because, finally, they are the mainstream. –Laura Snapes

Listen: Stormzy, “Big for Your Boots”

Kelly Lee Owens: “Anxi.” [ft. Jenny Hval]

There was a strong current of techno-feminism flowing throughout 2017, from UMFANG’s playful, scrappy Symbolic Use of Light to Kelly Lee Owens’ meditative self-titled debut. Owens’ album reminds us that techno doesn’t always have to be stark or severe, and she makes the best use of her gentle touch on “Anxi.” The track coaxes you into its orbit with delicate, reverberating percussion before guest artist Jenny Hval and her lullaby-like vocals meet sunny synths—it is both a restorative balm and minimalist mover. But a deeper listen proves to be less light: “Always failed at the romantic/I did baroque badly,” Hval sings, with her characteristically calm caution, as the brightness subsides and coldness sets in. It is a somber reminder that things aren’t always what they seem or what we want them to be; that tranquil places can still be disrupted by our own muddy minds. –Claire Lobenfeld

Listen: Kelly Lee Owens, “Anxi" [ft. Jenny Hval]

21 Savage: “Bank Account”

Until this year, 21 Savage had succeeded mostly as a specialist, someone whose thin, sneering deadpan was best suited to short bursts over Metro Boomin’s sparsest, most ambient production. Issa Album revealed the Atlantan as something more, someone capable of mining rote consumption or clawing survival to find its psychological crevices. That album’s breakout hit, “Bank Account,” which 21 produced, gives trips to the mall and to Wells Fargo a crushing weight, like 21 is going to buckle under all those millions. He’s become a deceptively slippery vocalist, sliding in and out of cadences that have dominated Atlanta rap for last half-decade, leveraging a limited vocal range for maximum effect. There’s also a delightful absurdity to how specific the references get: at times, 21 references a character from the movie Shottas and warns that “the Draco make you do the chickenhead like Chingy.” It’s grim and impossibly fun. –Paul A. Thompson

Listen: 21 Savage, “Bank Account”

SahBabii: “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” [ft. Loso Loaded]

It’s fun now to think about how the simplest of melodies changed SahBabii’s life, but the Atlanta rookie once considered the catchy riff on “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” too basic to be released. Recorded in his brother’s bedroom using a broken microphone, his breakout track narrowly made the cut for his S.A.N.D.A.S. mixtape last year; after snippets of the song went viral online, Young Thug hopped on the remix this summer.

Throughout “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick,” SahBabii and Loso Loaded make multiple references to firearms—“Draco with a drum” and, of course, “a stick”—without once using the most colloquial terms. The song’s controversial and incredibly popular video features an unholy amount of weaponry, and is thus more direct in its messaging—but even without it, the track scores as both a street anthem and an irrepressible shot of confidence. With this song blaring, anyone can pull up to the function and feel like the most important person there. –Vanessa Okoth-Obbo

Listen: SahBabii, “Pull Up Wit Ah Stick” [ft. Loso Loaded]

(Sandy) Alex G: “Bobby”

“Bobby” is not the first song that (Sandy) Alex G has quite longingly named for a boy, but it’s so lovely and lovesick that it’s the one you’re likely to return to when your next relationship rips apart and you’re left all alone. Alex had been better known for a sound that pulled from emo and indie, but on his 2017 album, Rocket, he was seemingly inspired by one of his heroes, Lucinda Williams, to make work that sounds almost Appalachian at times. With violin and lazy guitar, “Bobby” is a worn-out country duet between him and frequent collaborator Emily Yacina, her voice soaring when his collapses. Alex’s talent has always been an almost adolescent capacity for wonder and intimacy, and this song is either a tender tale about a bisexual love triangle or a metaphoric marvel in which he personifies his own crippling self-doubt as a kid named Bobby. The subject maybe doesn’t matter: His voice crackles with feeling, as though he had picked his bruised self off the floor and struggled through the words with tearstained cheeks and clenched fists. You could say you hear his heart breaking right there in the music, but “Bobby” is so powerful, it might just be your own. –Alex Frank

Listen: (Sandy) Alex G, “Bobby”

Haim: “Want You Back”

Listening to a Haim song is kind of like getting a disjointed lesson in contemporary music history. In their distinct strain of left-of-center pop, sisters Danielle, Alana, and Este simultaneously revere disparate genres through their ages, from soft-focus ’70s rock to doo-wop group vocals to thoroughly of-the-moment pop tropes. Delivered a week after a fakeout of a lead single, “Want You Back” was the first proper taste of the trio’s second album, Something to Tell You. True to form, it compiles a playful assortment of sounds: power ballad–worthy piano chords, pitch-shifted vocal riffs, and what sounds like a horse neigh. Within the space of two lines in the chorus (“I’ll take the fall and the fault in us/I’ll give you all the love I never gave before I left you”), Danielle achieves a rhythmic flow that simultaneously flexes her strengths as a lyricist, vocalist, and percussionist. That dexterity, paired with a healthy dose of idiosyncrasy, had us singing the chorus right back at Haim. –Olivia Horn

Listen: Haim, “Want You Back”

Perfume Genius: “Die 4 You”

The precision of Mike Hadreas’ singing is a perfect fit for balladry. But the invention of his songwriting often makes for surprises that are even more affecting. Here, during the mournful, rubato feel of the opening verse, you may wonder about his description of this tune as a “love song” (even if the breathy singing style delivers lyrics that reference erotic asphyxiation). Yet the underlying aim is unmissable by the song’s hinge point. As one conflicted couplet—“Each and every breath I spend/You are collecting”—is cut off, unfinished, the composition moves to a new melodic line, driven with mid-tempo swagger. When Hadreas sings “Oh my love, take your time,” the song’s new air of pleasure has all the license it needs to stick around for the remainder of the track. –Seth Colter Walls

Listen: Perfume Genius, “Die 4 You”

J Hus: “Did You See”

East London rapper J Hus’ Common Sense is an album that sidesteps another false start of an American grime crossover, preferring to survey everything from Afrobeats to turn-of-the-century Roc-A-Fella instead. Its lead single, “Did You See,” starts off like so many radio pop songs from the last handful of years: delicately, with a sound palette imported from West Africa. Throughout the track, Hus stays in a comfortable pocket, showing off his skills as an evocative and often hilarious writer: At one point, after comparing his changing cars to a magic trick, he remarks that the girls in the club have never seen such a skinny guy in such a big puffer jacket. –Paul A. Thompson

Listen: J Hus, “Did You See”

Brian Eno / Kevin Shields: “Only Once Away My Son”

Since commissioning avant-garde guitarist Sonny Sharrock to write the theme song for “Space Ghost Coast to Coast” in 1993, Cartoon Network has occasionally served as an unlikely patron of experimental music. And this track from the Adult Swim Singles Series plays like a cartoon superhero reboot with the unexpected, fully welcome, and deliriously successful pairing of professional ex-glam sound genius Brian Eno and his new sidekick, My Bloody Valentine noise sculptor Kevin Shields. Begging to be listened to on noise-canceling headphones or very, very loud speakers, the duo blast off with a drum track that is instantly, almost comically subsumed into a nine-minute sound-cleanse of bells, drones, and a soaring rocket flare that may be a guitar. Ambient but hardly static, its tones and textures return throughout, as if tracing long and inaudibly developing melodies. Not immediately identifiable as either Eno or Shields’ work, “Only Once Away My Son” is a rich, enveloping piece of music—and the cartoon superhero franchise we never knew we needed. –Jesse Jarnow

Listen: Brian Eno / Kevin Shields, “Only Once Away My Son”

Oneohtrix Point Never: “The Pure and the Damned” [ft. Iggy Pop]

At the end of the tightly wound modern noir Good Time, the film’s metallic score melts away as sumptuous piano chords begin to rumble, a moment of clarity finally washing over the film. Then Iggy Pop utters the word “love,” and the elegiac “The Pure and the Damned” blooms in full. “Every day I think about untwisting and untangling these strings I’m in/And to lead a pure life,” he confesses in a croon that brings to mind Ian Curtis’ wistful delivery on Joy Division’s “Atmosphere.” He’s singing of that foolhardy quest to turn the turbid reality of our world into something exquisite, giving voice to that all-too-human notion where, in the face of imminent doom, we still somehow hope for the ideal. –Andy Beta

Listen: Oneohtrix Point Never, “The Pure and the Damned” [ft. Iggy Pop]

BROCKHAMPTON: “GUMMY”

The opening track of BROCKHAMPTON’s Saturation II sounds like a combination of the young rap collective’s favorite turn-of-the-millennium artists, calling to mind the Neptunes’ off-kilter production, Timbaland’s affinity for Eastern melodies, and M.I.A.’s brash attitude. Despite the mélange of influences, each member that appears on “GUMMY” offers a distinct verse that stands out from the others—and saves BROCKHAMPTON from being dismissed as mere copycats. De facto leader Kevin Abstract sounds incredulous, gasping for air; Merlyn rages in a short and effective post-hook section; Ameer Vann contributes his laid-back Houston flow. With each new track, BROCKHAMPTON seem to be getting more daring, more willing to experiment with vocal deliveries, and just smarter. As individual personalities emerge, BROCKHAMPTON continue to build their own identity. It’s thrilling to watch. –Michelle Kim

Listen: BROCKHAMPTON, “GUMMY”

Vince Staples: “BagBak”

Vince Staples recently—and possibly, facetiously—maintained that his second studio album, Big Fish Theory, should be awarded the Grammy for electronic album of the year. It’s not an entirely silly thought. Trading in the swampy sonics of his debut for brighter hues and faster tempos, Big Fish Theory finds the Long Beach rapper taking a hard left into club music. It still bears his fingerprints, though, especially in its lead single, “BagBak.”

Here, atop synth arpeggios and an aqueous bassline, Staples offers sharp stream-of-consciousness insights on sex, justice, race, and power—all converging in the moment he insists, “We need Tamikas and Shaniquas in that Oval Office.” When his frustration finally boils over, Staples’ directive for his president, the government, and the one percent to all “suck a dick” feels less like a sophomoric taunt and more like a protest chant: heartfelt, direct, cathartic. –Mehan Jayasuriya

Listen: Vince Staples, “BagBak”

Sheer Mag: “Need to Feel Your Love”

When we first encounter Tina Halladay on Sheer Mag’s debut full-length, Need to Feel Your Love, she’s taking to the streets on Inauguration Day with “bottles and bricks.” Then, a few tracks later, she’s upgraded her anarchist tool of choice to bayonets. But en route, the singer tiptoes out of the protest and dips into a basement disco to recharge her batteries and remember who and what she’s fighting for. With its gleaming, glitter-balled jangle, ghetto-blaster groove, and VHS-tape patina, Need to Feel Your Love’s title track doesn’t just introduce a dramatic change of scene for the Philly raunch-rock rebels; it’s a disarming expression of desire and vulnerability from a band that normally exudes swagger and fury. It’s also a necessary reminder that romantic surrender and organized resistance are two sides of the same burning heart. –Stuart Berman

Listen: Sheer Mag, “Need to Feel Your Love”

Nilüfer Yanya: “Golden Cage’’

It only happens a few times during the year in music, and sometimes it doesn’t happen at all. We wait for a song from some total newcomer that just wrecks you, grabs you by the lapel, and beckons you to listen over and over again. “Golden Cage,” by Nilüfer Yanya, is one of those songs. At 22, Yanya has the nonchalant vocal prowess of Amy Winehouse singing over a King Krule-style jazz-pop beat. And “Golden Cage” is an attractive blend of jagged guitar riffs and blasts of saxophone bliss played by Yanya’s friend, the amazingly named Jazzi Bobbi. It all comes together on a track that’s effortlessly cool, infinitely playable, and too special to sleep on. –Kevin Lozano

Listen: Nilüfer Yanya, “Golden Cage”

Julien Baker: “Turn Out the Lights”

Loneliness isn’t just an emotion—it’s a physical sensation, often a debilitating one, and nobody captures it quite like Julien Baker. The title track from the songwriter’s aching second album finds her once again feeling numbed and powerless, almost paralyzed by the bum hand the world has dealt her. There she is, staring at a hole in the drywall she’ll probably never fix, trying to convince herself she prefers it that way.

But “Turn Out the Lights” ends with a twinge of hope, building to a rare eruption of sound. At that moment, it’s as if a stray twinkle of her guitar connects with an open gas line, setting off a combustion that engulfs the song and shakes her from her funk. Nothing’s solved, of course—she’s still terrified of being alone—but she sounds determined to do something about it. She’s still got some fight left. –Evan Rytlewski

Listen: Julien Baker, “Turn Out the Lights”

French Montana: “Unforgettable” [ft. Swae Lee]

After two albums and a walloping 22 mixtapes, it seems like French Montana is finally coming into his own. He’s always had the makings of a pop-rap icon, from his litany of exotically-set music videos and his heavily documented lavish lifestyle. Too often, though, his musical output has paled next to his Versace-bathrobe-and-Gucci-flip-flops persona, but that trend ostensibly ends with “Unforgettable,” an ultra-catchy, radio-friendly track that features an arresting turn from Rae Sremmurd’s Swae Lee.

Amid rolling waves of steel drums, Lee’s vocals sound murkily echoed, as if he’s delivering his lines from right under the surface of his and Montana’s aqua green swimming pool. In contrast, French sounds fresh and crisp, riding a reggaeton beat around atmospheric keyboard swells. Reportedly, the rapper was so confident that “Unforgettable” would be a hit that he paid $300,000 out-of-pocket to clear the rights to the song, which started off as a demo by Jeremih. Evidently, his intuition paid off, and “Unforgettable” may very well mark the moment he became an altogether different kind of artist. –Cameron Cook

Listen: French Montana, “Unforgettable” [ft. Swae Lee]

Girlpool: “123’’

Girlpool rose to acclaim making anthems that weren’t particularly anthemic—no swollen guitars, no reverbed drum rolls, no broad lyrics. And this track seemingly continues that trend as it starts off with Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad whispering over viscous guitar. But then big guitars, bigger drums, and full-throated vocals crash the quiet. Their (and our) world’s gotten a lot louder in the two years since their debut, and this song goes big to meet the surrounding noise. The emotions are still ambiguous, but they’re now rendered all-consuming, like a giant, bolded question mark. –Ian Cohen

Listen: Girlpool, “123”

Mount Kimbie: “Marilyn” [ft. Micachu]

Squalls of punk noise, industrial haze, and churning rhythms jut up throughout Mount Kimbie’s third album, Love What Survives, but “Marilyn,” the record’s most hushed song, resonates the loudest. Recalling the gentler moments of post-punk icons like This Heat and the Raincoats, the UK duo bring a filigree of thumb piano and buzzing melodica to flutter around the track. Alongside them, Micachu and the Shapes’ Mica Levi provides the song’s murmuring heart with disorienting lines that ultimately reveal a quiet, secret space shared by two people. –Andy Beta

Listen: Mount Kimbie, “Marilyn” [ft. Micachu]

Julie Byrne: “Natural Blue”

“Been a long time since I’ve been moved,” Julie Byrne sings in “Natural Blue,” the slow, captivating centerpiece of her breakthrough album, Not Even Happiness. It’s a disquieting realization in a song about touring life—an existence shifting between thoughts, moods, and state lines. But “Natural Blue” doesn’t wallow; it arrives in a clear-eyed moment of understanding. The title could be read as a commentary on accepting one’s emotions, though Byrne doesn’t focus too long on her own state of mind. Her thoughts wander to the world around her until she’s left speechless, expressing wordless gratitude for the intangible things that hang above us, wherever we go. –Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Julie Byrne: "Natural Blue"

Kendrick Lamar: “LOYALTY.” [ft. Rihanna]

The moment Kendrick Lamar heard the sample that became the backbone of “LOYALTY.”—a warped, reversed sliver of Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic”—he made a declaration: He needed Rihanna in the studio. Perhaps it was the sample’s high-pitched whinny, strangely suggestive of Rihanna’s most languid hooks, that inspired his decision. Or maybe it was the stuttering drums, so suited to her seemingly effortless melismas. But on their first collaboration, the duo’s voices become lock-and-key, tongue-and-groove, perfect complements for a casual chorus with an ironclad grip.

Rihanna and Kendrick don’t tell us what kind of loyalty to have, making no judgments on whether romantic, communal, or material faithfulness is best; having risen through hip-hop’s ranks, they simply celebrate the virtue itself, of maintaining relationships and prerogatives that existed before superstardom. Indeed, “LOYALTY.” feels like an unearthed gem from the heyday of Timbaland or Jermaine Dupri, with a high-end music video of fast cars and special effects to boot. It puts two of the world’s biggest stars in conversation; their fun sounds natural, their chemistry real, their loyalty earned. –Grayson Haver Currin

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, “LOYALTY.” [ft. Rihanna]

Father John Misty: “Total Entertainment Forever”

Technology promises us so much: efficiency, independence, enlightenment. But in the end, it’s most reliable function has been to facilitate the cheap and plentiful distribution of pornography. According to Father John Misty, it won’t be long before we’re all strapping on headsets to enjoy a little virtual hoo-hah with our favorite pop stars after supper, just as we once congregated around the TV on Thursdays to watch “Friends.” But “Total Entertainment Forever” is more than just a cheeky commentary on the disassociating effects of our wired world: It’s a postmortem on the entire history of human civilization and a despairing indictment of a society in which the pinnacle of progress is a guy sitting in an easy chair, wearing robot goggles, and jerking off. We’ve spent an inordinate amount of time this past year worrying about whether the president’s next tweet will trigger World War III, but “Total Entertainment Forever” reassures us that we’re already well on our way to the apocalypse, and it won’t be the bombs that do us in. –Stuart Berman

Listen: Father John Misty, “Total Entertainment Forever”

King Krule: “Czech One” 

“Czech One” operates within its own dream logic. Filled with eerie, screwed-down voices, subterranean beats, and distant keyboard lines, the song was inspired by Archy Marshall’s Eastern European ancestry as well as a trippy dream sequence from “The Sopranos,” from which he also pulls an errant line of dialogue. Amid this woolgathering, Marshall packs his production with plenty of negative space in order to explore his thoughts. His King Krule project has always seemed to have a striking self-awareness to it, but on “Czech One,” Marshall gives that same insight a new, gripping dose of strangeness. –Eric Torres

Listen: King Krule, “Czech One”

Four Tet: “Planet’’

Four Tet’s ninth album, New Energy, is shot through with a gossamer optimism, making it a dance-music outlier in a year understandably lacking in high spirits. But Kieran Hebden’s hopefulness is carefully measured, and in keeping with this tone, standout “Planet” concludes the album on an even keel, but also with arresting intricacy. Atop a familiar 4/4 beat, samples are layered one-by-one: a four-note bell melody, a breathy female coo, and then the bright, classical finger-picking that ultimately defines the melody. He surfs smoothly between analog and digital, and while it seems like he’s barely doing anything to meld these elements, they cohere in a lovely textural harmony. Noted for his slippery moves between electronic styles genres, Hebden asserts a streamlined language that’s distinctly his own. “Planet” is a gentle escape, but to a place that’s not altogether implausible. –Thea Ballard

Listen: Four Tet, “Planet”

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: “An Intention”

The music of Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has always felt interlocked with nature, evolving like plants that sprout up and curl back into the ground. The Kid is her most elemental album to date, filled with physically affecting music that verges on catchy synth-pop, and on “An Intention,” that physicality manifests as a heartbeat rhythm. The song is about early stages of life, and grappling with being born into a name; her looping synths and expansive lyrics circle around as she contemplates discarding the ego and merging with the universe. That’s a lot for one four-minute song to contain, but in Smith’s hands, vast expanses get boiled down to just a few powerful words and notes. –Marc Masters

Listen: Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, “An Intention”

Kehlani: “Undercover”

An undeniable highlight from Kehlani’s major label debut, “Undercover” is a tropical jet stream of a track. The burgeoning 22-year-old star sings with a brash confidence, her vocals effortlessly gliding across the effervescent beat, as if Aaliyah were covering a monumental trap song from the future. But “Undercover” sets itself apart with its clever mishmash of stylistic influences; for example, when a crystal-clear guitar riff opens the song, it reads much more “No Scrubs” than “No Flex Zone.” “Undercover” is proof that a steadfast vision and stylistic precision are more than enough to create a forward-thinking hit. –Cameron Cook

Listen: Kehlani, “Undercover”

Future: “Incredible”

The stories around Future’s soulful rap have always been dramatic and borderline melancholy. Nuclear breakups, clinical depression, copious amounts of codeine—these are the themes that often serve as a window into his consciousness. So what makes “Incredible” so remarkable is its ecstatic happiness. On the song, Future finds himself steeped in a budding relationship so pure that his past demons drift away like purple haze. Extolling the virtues of both hot yoga and recreational Vicodin, he raps in a warbled Auto-Tune over a rubber-band bassline and a keyboard riff that is part present-day Rihanna, part Afropop-era Peter Gabriel. As he repeats the track’s title like a mantra, Future sounds like a man reborn. –Cameron Cook

Listen: Future, “Incredible”

Paramore: “Hard Times” 

Perky and despairing, “Hard Times” maps the chasm between a generation’s sunny online personae and the gaping existential holes within. It introduced a vibrant new sound for the former emo band, though the song is not as nuclear as it could be: Zac Farro’s percussion sounds like it’s played on old milk bottles, Taylor York’s guitar is a last nerve cajoled into funky discipline, and singer Hayley Williams exposes the effort of sustaining her rictus grin. That’s what makes “Hard Times” so satisfying—it’s not hollow empowerment pop, but a bittersweet dispatch from a year that felt like a punch line to some cosmic prank. “I still don’t know how I even survive,” Williams despairs. But this is how: Paramore always remake, remodel. –Laura Snapes

Listen: Paramore, “Hard Times”

Thundercat: “Show You the Way” [ft. Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins]

Yacht-rock icon Michael McDonald has shown up on newer artists’ songs here and there in the past few years, but he’s never met a younger foil as well-suited to his legacy as Thundercat. Over plush production here, McDonald’s monolithic baritone is the perfect counterbalance to Thundercat’s upper register—no surprise when you recall McDonald’s wealth of iconic duets alongside Kenny Loggins. And therein lies the other ingredient that makes “Show You the Way” full-on magic: Loggins shows up too, and the contrast between those two voices together still sounds fresh and vital decades later. The three behemoths of smooth invite us on a journey into the unknown, and while they warn about darkness, “Show You the Way” is inherently joyful. Thundercat affects a smarmy lounge persona to introduce his cohorts, while Loggins and McDonald slip into their soulful, familiar tones to reassure us that things are easier than they might seem. With music this effortless, it’s easy to believe them. –Evan Minsker

Listen: Thundercat, “Show You the Way” [ft. Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins]

Big Thief: “Mythological Beauty”

On this finger-picked origin story, Big Thief frontwoman Adrianne Lenker addresses her mom—and her own nativity—in the most unromantic terms possible: “Seventeen, you took his cum/And you gave birth to your first life.” Such matter-of-factness runs throughout “Mythological Beauty,” as Lenker details the traumatic events that shaped her upbringing, including an older brother given up for adoption and a devastating head injury suffered from a railroad spike falling from her makeshift treehouse. The singer’s autobiography tempts histrionics, but Big Thief opt for mesmerizing understatement instead, allowing the nuances of her vocals to show which parts of the story are still raw. While it’s nearly impossible to relate to “Mythological Beauty” on a literal level, Lenker carries it through with a quiet determination that anyone can aspire to. –Ian Cohen

Listen: Big Thief, “Mythological Beauty”

Selena Gomez: “Bad Liar”

The Selena Gomez song that was everywhere this summer was her collaboration with Kygo, “It Ain’t Me,” yet another exercise in EDM guys reducing female vocalists to anonymities. The Selena Gomez song that should have been everywhere is “Bad Liar,” the best recreation of a hopeless crush since “Call Me Maybe.” It has songwriter Julia Michaels, who is well-experienced at turning songs into monologues. It got the OK from Talking Heads to strut to “Psycho Killer”’s bassline, the most poised sample major-label cash can buy. And as it has Selena singing syllables that trip over one another, would-be flirtations about your king-size bed turning into awkward tangents about rental amenities and the Battle of Troy that trail off, abashed, to nothing. The bridge is the last-ditch confession: an impassioned yelp, an over-earnest confession, a hasty retreat. Maybe it was never meant to be. –Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Selena Gomez, “Bad Liar”

GoldLink: “Crew” [ft. Brent Faiyaz and Shy Glizzy]

On his debut studio album, At What Cost, GoldLink proudly held up a mirror to his hometown of Washington, D.C. So when the single “Crew” snowballed into a smash, it felt like an inclusively feel-good celebration. On the song, GoldLink manages to distill his city’s amorphous hip-hop scene into a single sound, throwing it all on the same canvas without any overspill. He tucks into the beat so fluidly that his warm, slurring mumble clutters the music by burrowing into its nooks. Fellow D.C. rapper Shy Glizzy darts around with a shouted giddiness, stealing the show with his fist-pumping momentum. Their game is bookended by Brent Faiyaz’s monotonous, elegant chorus, the type that could appear on the song two more times and not be enough. But like the best summer hits, “Crew” instead begs to be repeated in full. –Jay Balfour

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

Slowdive: “Star Roving”

The big risk of taking 22 years to release new music in the genre you helped codify: sounding like a copy of a copy of a buzz band. The somewhat smaller, even likelier risk: getting the schtick done just good enough to have some cursory content for the inevitable reunion tour. Undoubtedly, this was on Slowdive’s mind upon their return this year, but any worries were misplaced. There are innovations in “Star Roving,” chief among them a notably beefier guitar line. But what’s here is largely what you know and missed: Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell’s vocals trailing sculpted paths like air currents, lyrics like snapshots of fleeting moments of love. It doesn’t seem implausible, given a little reshuffling of history, that 500 bands might have lived and breathed off this. –Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: Slowdive, “Star Roving”

Perfume Genius: “Slip Away”

The title promises something demure, even shy, but the music generously reneges. “Slip Away” is a rapture of excess, layering drums atop each other as if daring the tower to crumble. Mike Hadreas allows himself to get swept up in it; compression gives his singing a disembodied intimacy, his voice seeming to hover between various frequencies. The transcendence “Slip Away” describes is fleeting and overwhelming, concluding nothing, a reverie in the midst of survival: “It’s singing through your body/And I’m carried by the sound.” –Chris Randle

Listen: Perfume Genius, “Slip Away”

Fever Ray: “To the Moon and Back”

On its own, “To the Moon and Back” passes for mindless hedonism. “I want to run my fingers up your pussy,” Karin Dreijer sings, sounding merry, almost, her litany of come-ons recited in sing-songy groans over a cartoonish hook. The song trades her 2009 debut’s surrealism for something more sensual, the naked thrill of fuzzy lips and creamy kisses, and it sounds euphoric. But considered as part of her second album, Plunge, this song assumes a new, insurrectionary subtext. “This country makes it hard to fuck,” Dreijer cries on “This Country,” another of the record’s queer anthems declaring that liberation begins in the bedroom. “Every time we fuck we win.” “To the Moon and Back” is the sound of that victory. –Jazz Monroe

Listen: Fever Ray, “To the Moon and Back”

Jay Som: “The Bus Song” 

Is there anything romantic about a city bus? It’s cramped and loud and lurching and, as a companion of Jay Som’s Melina Duterte protests here, often smells. But it’s also a public place where you can be alone with your thoughts, even if you’ve got someone’s elbow in your face, as you stare out the window and slowly roll toward your destination.

“The Bus Song” moves at that same unhurried pace. Its route is circuitous, meandering lazily through Duterte’s restless mind. A one-woman band in her bedroom studio, she strums and drums with a light but steady hand while unfurling her sleepy croon over plainspoken expressions of frustration. She is observant enough to know her relationship is a car about to break down, and she’s doing the mature thing—giving the other person space—even as she stews in desire and suspicion. There is nothing romantic about a city bus, which makes it the perfect vehicle for letting go of your sentimental attachments so you can keep creeping forward. –Judy Berman

Listen: Jay Som, “The Bus Song”

Lorde: “The Louvre”

The emotional precision of “The Louvre” is overwhelming. It bottles the ecstasy of a beginning, when you still float with the conviction that your nascent love is, or could be, an artwork of “Mona Lisa” proportions. It’s as if Lorde devised each line of “The Louvre” so that we might have a more perfect language for this state of mind—lines to tweet and put in captions and type, all-caps, into a sacred group text (i.e., “I AM YOUR SWEETHEART PSYCHOPATHIC CRUSH”). Nothing could better capture the unruly, self-possessed feeling of chasing your heart when you know it’s wrong than “blow all my friendships to sit in hell with you.” No line more readily or immaculately transfers the anxiety of text-based infatuation, the fundamental imperfection of a DM, than “I overthink your punctuation use.”

Formally, “The Louvre” contains a sly inversion: winding all of its tension and bombast into its verses and then letting them slowly unravel in the anti-chorus. “Megaphone to my chest,” it goes, “Broadcast the boom, boom, boom, boom/And make ’em all dance to it.” It’s an elegant description of putting your own vulnerability on blast, one that could just as easily apply to tweeting your feelings as to releasing the best breakup album of the year. –Jenn Pelly

Listen: Lorde, “The Louvre”

Priests: “Nothing Feels Natural”

Katie Alice Greer is not the kind of lyricist who hides behind abstractions. On early releases, the Priests singer called out Barack Obama and cited the number of slaveholders who signed the Constitution. But the Washington, D.C. rock quartet’s first proper album, Nothing Feels Natural, is partially an object lesson in the impossibility of communicating clearly—as an artist and as a human—while you’re buried under personal and political crises, and its title track is a mess of pronouns and negatives that feels purposefully disorienting.

When Greer finally makes a concise statement here, it’s one of disillusionment: “To people in sanctuaries/All I can say is/‘You will not be saved.’” The clarity comes from the texture of the music itself, like a dream that captures a feeling the conscious mind can’t articulate. Equal parts surf rock and the Cure, Taylor Mulitz’s bassline slithers through a dense forest of rumbling drums and clanging guitar. Greer’s wail sounds uncharacteristically remote, as though she’s in breathy pursuit of a melody forceful enough to tame her unruly thoughts. The words “nothing feels natural” never come up in the song, but that sense of altered perception is present in every sound. –Judy Berman

Listen: Priests, “Nothing Feels Natural”

Tyler, the Creator: “911/Mr. Lonely” [ft. Frank Ocean and Steve Lacy]

In some songs, loneliness is a nagging undercurrent or the trigger for a moment of deep regret. For Tyler, the Creator, it’s an emergency. Wiping out in the supercars that he buys to fill an emotional void that’s grown massive since his early outsider skater days, the Tyler of “911/Mr. Lonely” is blunt to the point of honesty about his isolation—even when that isolation’s in front of a sold-out crowd of thousands. It all pivots on the song’s narrative shift, from sweating his thirst levels in the first half to admitting that so much of what he does is an attempt to break a feeling of detached alienation. Sure, he’s got other people to rely on—Steve Lacy from the Internet and singer Anna of the North weave in and out of Tyler’s voice on the hook, and Frank Ocean evokes early-morning and late-shift restlessness in the same short bridge. But Tyler opens up so much about his own deep ennui that the song still feels like you’re being situated between one man’s set of headphones, sinking into the meditative space. –Nate Patrin

Listen: Tyler, the Creator, “911/Mr. Lonely” [ft. Frank Ocean and Steve Lacy]

Kendrick Lamar: “LOVE.” [ft. Zacari]

Kendrick Lamar has made his name on an intense type of endlessness. His ability to stuff so many words and meanings into a song, verse, or even a single line constantly astounds, burnishing his reputation as a genius who is mesmerizing in his density. In this light, “LOVE.”—the most straight-ahead pop song of Lamar’s career thus far—sounds utterly radical. Amid Kendrick’s furious lightning storms, this blissful rap ballad is a blue-diamond sky punctuated by the puffiest of clouds.

“LOVE.” glides like an update on every great R&B slow jam of the ’90s, nodding to simpler times. In between spaced-out beats and utopian synths, Kendrick’s flow matches the simplicity of the song’s message: He’s not cracking skulls with triple entendres, but he’s not phoning in a sappy Valentine’s card, either. Currently engaged to his high school sweetheart, the 30-year-old is familiar with commitment and the ease that can come along with it. “I’d rather you trust me than to love me,” he attests on the hook, offering wisdom beyond infatuation. His word is his bond. –Ryan Dombal

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, “LOVE.” [ft. Zacari]

Charlotte Gainsbourg: “Deadly Valentine”

It seems fitting that this song comes from one of modern cinema’s most compelling actors. Charlotte Gainsbourg’s “Deadly Valentine” drips with dramatic tension and celluloid fantasy, wrapped up in a perfectly attuned blend of mournful melody and disco production. The latter is courtesy of producer SebastiAn, who marries the well-loved traits of French house—foot-stomping disco beats, filter sweeps, pulsating synth harmonies—to electrifying string rushes. To this, Gainsbourg adds the kind of infuriatingly simple vocal melody that destroys the heart and gets stuck in the head, her understated delivery adding mystery to the song’s dramatic sweep, like an actor subtly raising an eyebrow. Her twists, turns, and contrasts make “Deadly Valentine” both instantly satisfying and enduringly rewarding, a tour de force of musical storytelling that you can still bug out to on the dancefloor. –Ben Cardew

Listen: Charlotte Gainsbourg, “Deadly Valentine”

Ibeyi: “Deathless” [ft. Kamasi Washington] 

French-Cuban twins Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé Díaz are no strangers to death. Their 2015 debut as Ibeyi is haunted by the ghosts of departed kin, including their father, the famed percussionist Miguel “Angá” Díaz. But “Deathless” turns their elegiac songwriting inside out, trading mourning in for triumph. Singing lead, Lisa-Kaindé recalls an incident from her teenage years when a Parisian police officer harassed her in the subway, and though her normally dulcet voice is streaked with the jagged scars left by that episode, she turns the story into a statement of solidarity with “everybody that feels that they are nothing.” The Díaz twins push back against the epidemic of police brutality via assists from Kamasi Washington, whose turbulent saxophone licks feed off the urgent tone set by Naomi’s drumming, and the raucous cries of a gospel choir. Ibeyi may not be able to fix one of the most prevalent issues facing people of color around the world, but they sure as hell won’t stay silent about it. –Olivia Horn

Listen: Ibeyi, “Deathless” [ft. Kamasi Washington]

Moses Sumney: “Doomed’’ 

Moses Sumney’s ghostly falsetto has the ability to raise hairs and tingle spines, and “Doomed” features one of his finest vocal performances yet. Minimally accompanied by sighing synths, his expressive flutter swoops and soars, always precisely calibrated in service of emotion, with a creaking timbre that reminds us this amazing instrument is part of an actual human body. That Sumney is using it to convey an existential void, born from lack of love, only renders the overall impact more devastating. The prospect of impending doom has rarely sounded so purely beautiful. –Marc Hogan

Listen: Moses Sumney, “Doomed”

Jorja Smith: “On My Mind’’ 

Jorja Smith’s feature on Drake’s More Life track “Get It Together” made her a name to watch on both sides of the Atlantic. In the past, this might have seen the 20-year-old UK artist funneled into a music industry strategy where her Englishness was watered down in the name of broad transatlantic appeal. On the contrary, though, “On My Mind” feels utterly, quintessentially British. A kiss-off to a former lover that’s done her wrong, it’s a collaboration with Preditah, whose productions trace lines between grime and its immediate predecessor, UK garage. The skippy beat is a perfect canvas for Smith, whose voice carries bruised wisdom and a budding defiance. “Nothing sweet about my misery,” she sings. But this track—a rapturous hymn to love, heartbreak, and getting over it—begs to differ. –Louis Pattison

Listen: Jorja Smith, “On My Mind”

LCD Soundsystem: “How Do You Sleep?” 

As a keen student of rock music, James Murphy must be aware of John Lennon’s 1971 track “How Do You Sleep?,” a scathing attack on Paul McCartney. Murphy also likely knows “Dead Souls,” a Joy Division B-side from which LCD Soundsystem’s “How Do You Sleep?” cribs its rolling drum rhythm. But Murphy has always been adept at remodeling rock history to his own means and he proves it again on this savage character assassination.

Lyrically, the song is a pin-sharp takedown of Murphy’s former DFA Records partner Tim Goldsworthy, poetic and even funny without dropping its predatory intent. Musically, it marries funereal drum patterns to a synth line so monolithic, it might crack your speakers. But what makes the track really pulsate is Murphy’s vocal, a wild howl into the void that sounds as if he’s trying to reach Goldsworthy’s UK headquarters all the way from Brooklyn without the distraction of a microphone. It’s furious, intense, and borderline unpleasant—and it opens up new emotional territory for LCD Soundsystem, right when they need it most. –Ben Cardew

Listen: LCD Soundsystem, “how do you sleep?”

Frank Ocean: “Biking” [ft. JAY-Z and Tyler, the Creator]

Everyone has a secret obsession. Not necessarily a passion, just a fascination that you can’t shake—the static thoughts that lull you to sleep after a long day. For Frank Ocean, this preoccupation appears to be riding his bicycle, and “Biking” is about a feeling of freedom and solitude, the moment of mindless solace between life’s challenges. JAY-Z and Tyler, the Creator frame the track, respectively playing the out-of-touch uncle who fails to relate and the gearhead who can’t grasp the substance beyond the wheels. But the key perspective comes from Frank, whose musings on the weather and heavy thoughts about love and commitment flit by with equal levity; it’s all the same when he’s on his bike. –Matthew Strauss

Listen: Frank Ocean, “Biking” [ft. JAY-Z and Tyler, the Creator]

Jlin: “Nyakinyua Rise”

At first, Indiana producer Jlin’s “Nyakinyua Rise” feels like a prelude: It sounds as if a half-dozen component parts are restlessly arranging themselves, waiting for a climax that never comes. In the meantime, they riff and fight and are enjambed on one another until a rhythm emerges. Djembe patterns are punctuated by chanted vocals, auxiliary percussion is panned frantically left and right. In the song’s latter half, the pace picks up and the sound bed grows thicker—skewing closer to traditional footwork—and those vocals, which first were allowed to breathe, start to get triggered and shortened like the sample clips they are. And then it’s over. –Paul A. Thompson

Listen: Jlin, “Nyakinyua Rise"

Vince Staples: “Big Fish’’ 

Vince Staples likes to leave his work up for interpretation, and his refusal to dictate the meaning of his music has a marked effect on the way you receive a song like “Big Fish,” the quasi-title track on his bracing LP, Big Fish Theory. At a bare minimum it’s a club-rap slapper, one that feels like it never stops ascending thanks to its thick, tinny production. Staples slots in two economic verses, while Juicy J’s hook lets the good times roll. It’ll do wonders for you on a workout playlist.

But, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll notice “Big Fish” is pockmarked with the same anxiety and guilt that colors so much of Staples’ work: The margins between cruising around town in a foreign supercar and ending up broke or dead are slim. The rapper pays his debts by working hard and keeping kids on the straight and narrow, but he can’t shake the darkness in his rearview mirror. It’s in this context that Juicy’s introductory promise—“You can get anything you want, know what I’m saying?”—starts to sound less like a celebration than the start of some devilish bargain. The world might be your oyster, but you can never really leave your past behind. –Jamieson Cox

Listen: Vince Staples, “Big Fish”

Carly Rae Jepsen: “Cut to the Feeling”

You know the feeling: sinking, stomach-twisting, life-consuming longing—the kind that seems to grow from the earth and take hold of your whole self, cell by cell. It sits at the very edges of total euphoria, and “Cut to the Feeling” is crucially about that pull toward the ecstatic. Carly Rae Jepsen wants to cut to the feeling; she’s not there yet.

How is it possible that this perfect pop song didn’t spend 2017 hovering at the top of every chart in existence? Who let her keep it off E•MO•TION? Jepsen’s best single since “Call Me Maybe” was allegedly axed from her 2015 album for being “too cinematic,” but the song will now soundtrack millions of lives that feel like movies for the rest of time. It is the dark and glittering sound of running full speed on a boardwalk at night, of sitting on a roof under the stars, these perfect places with proximity to the infinite. –Jenn Pelly

Listen: Carly Rae Jepsen, “Cut to the Feeling”

Kamasi Washington: “Truth”

Kamasi Washington, a composer of largely vocal-free songs, nonetheless stands among the most politically articulate artists around. On his I EP, the saxophonist uses broad titles—“Integrity,” “Knowledge”—to root his warm, communal jazz in concepts that are at once timeless and urgent. “Truth” is a nearly 14-minute suite comprising six movements, each entangled with the knotty conflicts of the last, surging toward a collective redemption. When his sax finally arrives, it sounds soft and assuring; in successive phrases, his solo grows sprawling arms and beckons the rhythm section into them. He’s soon greeted by a gospel-choral motif that sounds like a sigh contorted with hope. Like many feelings aroused by Washington’s work, the harmonic mesh has the feeling of something lost so long ago, you begin to wonder if you dreamt it. –Jazz Monroe

Listen: Kamasi Washington, “Truth”

Lana Del Rey: “Love” 

Lana Del Rey seemed less like an old soul when she emerged from the shadows of internet novelty six years ago. In fact, she seemed like something entirely new. But over the course of four albums, she has evolved into the poster child for all things vintage—an aesthetic evolution that’s paired nicely with her increasingly world-weary wisdom.

“Love” is not simply a song about being in love; it reflects on the thrilling possibilities of the heart and asks the kids not to squander the moment. This deliberate, mid-tempo ballad is not something a 19-year-old starlet could get away with singing. The signature LDR blend of the future and the past is present, as muted gunshots and swirling sirens fly over warm mellotron, Phil Spector-style drums rendered in slo-mo, and a touch of tenderness borrowed from the Beach Boys. “Don’t worry, baby,” she deadpans, never quite promising that everything will turn out all right. –Jillian Mapes

Listen: Lana Del Rey, “Love”

Sampha: “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano”

Sampha’s gripping debut album, Process, is a record full of anxiety and mourning around his mother’s death, and on “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” he spins that pain into a stunning piano ballad. It is ostensibly an ode to the instrument he has played since he was 3, but the detail that rings loudest is its location: in his mother’s home. The song serves as a way of addressing Sampha’s profound loss, and the resilience needed to survive it, by praising the instrument that helped him cope. The warbles of the London artist’s vibrato glide like melting butter over sparse keys as he unearths feelings that he kept close while serving as his mother’s primary caretaker. Before Sampha’s voice begins, and after he fades out, we are left with just notes and chords, a reminder that sometimes words pale in comparison to the quiet comfort of a piano. –Vrinda Jagota

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

Kelela: “LMK’’ 

The immediate pleasure of “LMK” lies in its hook’s uncomplicated message: Just let me know how you feel already, because otherwise, what the hell are we doing here? It’s transparency delivered to a new flame in order to receive the same in return, simple and easy yet crying out. Kelela’s divine debut album Take Me Apart examines plenty of these kinds of back-and-forths, especially ones between strangers on dark dancefloors, but “LMK” winnows such interactions down to their essence. The singer conveys her death blow to indecision through exacting yet playful kiss-offs and an elastic mix of deep bass, booming handclaps, and low synth lines. But ultimately, it’s her uncontrived candor, no-nonsense and vulnerable at once, that makes “LMK” such an effective floor-filler. –Eric Torres

Listen: Kelela, “LMK”

Camp Cope: “The Opener’’ 

“The Opener” is a manifesto of survival. It’s built around the gendered criticism that has been leveled at Camp Cope during their years in Melbourne, Australia’s indie scene: that their success is just dumb luck and not the outcome of hard work, that women can’t sell out venues, that bookers often see them as a box to tick off. Mimicking a clueless promoter, songwriter and guitarist Georgia Maq seethes, “‘Yeah, just get a female opener/That’ll fill the quota.’” Despite her fury, “The Opener” never explodes into a chorus of rage. Instead, Camp Cope maintain a measured, hookless guitar-drum-bass chug throughout, their consistency emphasizing their formidable chops. The song’s only real dynamics come from Maq, whose jagged voice lands with force while still revealing a profound hurt. When she bellows, “Well, see how far we’ve come not listening to you” at the end of the song, it’s a triumphant reminder that their persistence has paid off. –Quinn Moreland

Listen: Camp Cope, “The Opener”

St. Vincent: “New York’’ 

The literary genre of “Why I’m Leaving New York” essays had a moment a few years back before becoming a full-blown cliché. It remains difficult not to roll your eyes at coast-swapping writers wistfully denouncing downtown filth (and not just because they’re friends you hope don’t become Hiking People). But somehow, Annie Clark escapes our skepticism. She positions her move west around a conundrum also faced by those who’ve never stepped foot in Manhattan: What do you do when everywhere you go reminds you of the one you loved and lost, when city and significant other blur into one aching mass?

The question at the heart of “New York” is more direct than those typically addressed in Clark’s songs, underscored by a pared-back but still palpable piano melody and a heart-swelling combo of strings and synths. “It is easy to see the beginnings of things, and harder to see the ends,” Joan Didion famously began when she said goodbye to all that. But “New York” offers a counterpoint as it perfectly articulates a moment when the city suddenly seems a lot less interesting. –Jillian Mapes

Listen: St. Vincent, “New York”

Yaeji: “Drink I’m Sippin On”

Yaeji flits between genres and languages with quiet self-assurance. Throughout “Drink I’m Sippin On,” she raps and sings in both Korean and English, always sounding calmly centered over an 808-anchored trap beat with a nebulous house vibe. It’s a song of and about repetition, ostensibly a swaggy night-out anthem as outlined in the title, but actually agnostic to booze or drugs. On the chorus, she softly sings a phrase in Korean—translation: “That’s not it, no, that’s not it”—over and over, refusing to be pinned down and sounding almost spiritual in the process. It’s often tempting to describe a house singer’s voice as “soaring” because of the way the genre creates space on top of the beat instead of inside it. But on “drink i’m sippin on,” Yaeji’s actually floating in the middle of the mix, levitating on her own gorgeously meditative mantra. –Jay Balfour

Listen: Yaeji, “drink i’m sippin on”

SZA: “The Weekend” 

“The Weekend” details a mind-blowing, part-time affair, but it largely comes from a Sunday perspective, that feeling of leaving and lacking. SZA’s man has an arrangement that’s all business, weekday 9-to-5 stuff: one girl clocking in, one girl clocking out, dirty deeds scheduled to the exact hour and minute. She uses a sample of a Justin Timberlake track about setting the mood, transplanted into the moment when that mood’s slipped away, seen off by a wistful sigh of guitars and keys. SZA slips between the perspectives of girlfriend and girlfriend-in-waiting, neither of whom are exactly satisfied, neither of whom quite commit to bragging or complaining or wanting much more. The situation is just a rigged game, one you can only win for a couple days at a time. –Katherine St. Asaph

Listen: SZA, “The Weekend”

Migos: “T-Shirt” 

Given their utter triumph over the mainstream this year, it’s become easy to forget that Migos have been doubted every step of the way: by traditionalists, competitors, even followers. And more than any other song on their crossover opus, Culture, “T-Shirt” feels like a riposte to those naysayers who said the trio would never make it this far. 

Did you write off Migos as a triplet-spitting one-trick pony? Behold as they effortlessly wield a variety of flows over a disorienting, codeine-slow beat. Thought the other members would never emerge from Quavo’s shadow? Watch Takeoff steal the show with his staccato delivery, and Offset flash a vocal range and command of melody previously unseen. Accused them of not paying due respect to their elders? Well, here’s an entire hook built around a lyric by the late Southern rap ambassador Shawty Lo, just to remind you how deeply rooted in Atlanta the group remains. But the best thing about “T-Shirt” might be the fact that you don’t need to know a single thing about Migos’ long journey to the top to enjoy it. It’s a lean rap song that places the emphasis where it belongs: on a group of certified hitmakers who are only now hitting their stride. –Mehan Jayasuriya

Listen: Migos, “T-Shirt”

Calvin Harris: “Slide” [ft. Frank Ocean and Migos] 

There is, at once, everything and nothing calculated about the magic of “Slide.” The song is built around not just the idiosyncratic sound effects of Migos’ Offset but also Frank Ocean, a vocalist so talented and yet so seemingly bored with singing normally that his go-to aesthetic tic is now a balloon-sucking yelp. And yet, set against Calvin Harris’ graceful disco piano lines, relaxed-fit funk grooves, and soft-focus ’80s drum machines, Frank’s pitched-up nonsense rhymes give “Slide” an edge of newness. The summertime hit cements Frank’s guest spots as the main course of whatever friend’s dinner party he deigns to attend. –Jillian Mapes

Listen: Calvin Harris, “Slide” [ft. Frank Ocean and Migos]

Fever Ray: “IDK About You”

The synths Karin Dreijer uses sound like blades being sharpened. They are present on “IDK About You,” the thrilling center of her second album as Fever Ray, Plunge, and the vein-busting beat, made by the young Portuguese producer Nídia, make them seem covered in blood. Listening to Dreijer interrogate some mortal plebe over whether they are worthy of her is exhilarating—and intimidating: “Anybody’s coming with me/Gotta love my tracks/And swing an ax.” Got half of that covered; just let me check on Amazon’s ax-shipping policy. –Jeremy D. Larson

Listen: Fever Ray, “IDK About You”

Nilüfer Yanya: “Baby Luv”

Last month, at her first American show, the London-based singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya closed with this song. She stood alone onstage, gently pulling chords out of her electric guitar. “Baby Luv”’s subtle dynamic shifts, little revs within the verse, tease out its wistful nature before the confrontational chorus hits: “Do you like pain?” But the real marvel is in Yanya’s indie-pop precision, her preternatural ear for something both dramatic and effortless, as if the act of kicking puddles were turned into a song. She dives and alights on her words like Young Marble Giants by way of Joni Mitchell, and her voice can light candles and snuff them out in the same breath. Surely one day there will be a band behind her, and a full album with bells and whistles, but an indelible pop song like this needs no ornaments to improve it. –Jeremy D. Larson

Listen: Nilüfer Yanya, “Baby Luv”

The War on Drugs: “Thinking of a Place”

In the War on Drugs’ music, you’re never quite sure where the road leads, but you have faith it’s safe to travel. Bandleader Adam Granduciel’s romantic, mysterious vision of America is at its most expansive on the 11-minute “Thinking of a Place.” It’s a slow, loping epic that takes familiar elements from Granduciel’s discography—gauzy synths, wheedling harmonica, a guitar solo that stumbles around the beat—and stretches them into unfamiliar positions. And like much of his work, it doesn’t tell a love story in any traditional sense. Instead, it approaches the idea of transcendence from multiple angles: Love is a ghost just beyond our grasp; lovers melt into each other entirely; and thinking of a place is enough to make it real. Meanwhile, melodies blur and stack like thin clouds on the horizon, and the knockout hook lands after you’ve long since passed into a meditative state. Granduciel once titled an album Lost in the Dream, and “Thinking of a Place” feels like the culmination of that idea: You can lose yourself in this song forever, moving through a twilight that never fades. –Jamieson Cox

Listen: The War on Drugs, “Thinking of a Place”

Playboi Carti: “Magnolia”

“Mumble rap” has become somewhat of a loaded term, criticized by both appreciators and detractors of the style. But when it works, it works. Twenty-one-year-old Atlanta rapper Playboi Carti’s “Magnolia” raised the standard for infectious, mainstream hip-hop this year, using a blend of perfect production and slurry rhymes. Tumbling across  the fattest, shakiest, dirtiest bass to ever be blasted from a Maserati, Carti’s droning cadence hypnotizes as he cycles through the same images: crack dealers, police altercations, careening through New York decked out in Rick Owens. It’s a lilting loop of a song, repetitive to the point of delirium. –Cameron Cook

Listen: Playboi Carti, “Magnolia”

Björk: “The Gate”

For all the playfulness she can conjure with her videos and stage shows, Björk approaches creative renewal seriously. It’s one of the traits her hardcore fans treasure, but this unpredictability can go both ways; when you want bangers, she may give you chamber-music abstractions. On “The Gate,” she splits the difference. The first minutes are devoted to whispery trails of sound, before an arpeggiated motif teases a new momentum. When the low-end eventually hits, a sense of release is tied to a pair of refrains: “care for me” and “care for you.” As she alternates between those chants, the song’s arrangement turns its most galvanizing percussive figures loose, and reciprocity becomes a reality. –Seth Colter Walls

Listen: Björk, “The Gate”

Mount Eerie: “Real Death”

Taking place a week after the death of Phil Elverum’s wife, Geneviève, “Real Death” describes his failing, grief-stricken mind and body. It culminates in an unforgettably harrowing scene where Elverum collapses in tears on the front step of the house they once shared. The song is at once a negation—art about death that addresses the futility of making art about death—and an affirmation. Like the gift from his wife that arrives at his doorstep in that pivotal scene, “Real Death” is a sign of love, one that can bring you to your knees even if you know exactly what’s coming. –Sam Sodomsky

Listen: Mount Eerie, "Real Death"

JAY-Z: “The Story of O.J.”

On “The Story of O.J.,” JAY-Z repeats the ugliest epithet in American history with relentless purpose. The track’s sample source is Nina Simone’s haunting 1966 classic “Four Women,” which dramatized how the legacy of slavery encircled black women, and the mogul’s point here is similar: America will always see him, first and foremost, as black. With self-deprecating intimacy that’s rare for Hov—and exaggeration-prone cleverness that’s not—he argues for his empire-building as a step forward for racial progress. Provocative? Of course. But it’s also a brilliant anthem for the era of Black Lives Matter, as complex and irreducible as an individual. –Marc Hogan

Listen: JAY-Z, “The Story of O.J.”

Drake: “Passionfruit” 

Throughout Drake’s segue from sad-boy rap architect to world music ambassador over the last few years, few songs have nailed the universal sound he’s coveted as much as this one. Throughout the track, Drake’s tone, as genteel as it is unfussy, is hypnotizing as it wafts over dancehall-lite rhythms. It’s the most assured he’s seemed in this direction since “One Dance,” playing up a struggle for control with a long-distance lover. There’s still some angst—this is a Drake song—as he sounds put off by the prospect of not being the center of someone else’s universe. But amid this song’s smoothness, such troubles feel easy to sweep aside. –Sheldon Pearce

Listen: Drake, “Passionfruit”

Kendrick Lamar: “HUMBLE.”

Kendrick Lamar has long exhibited the masterful ability to dip his toes in the mainstream while keeping one foot firmly planted on the street. “HUMBLE.,” his first-ever solo Billboard No. 1, cements that legacy. Mike WiLL Made-It’s production deserves equal praise; the sinister piano melody that dominates the song strikes with as much percussive force as the drum beat itself, instantly recognizable as it thundered from car windows and storefronts all summer. But Kendrick’s bars still take center stage. He remains comfortably in the pocket, right through the moment he summarily executes the ubiquitous “ayy” flow, as a bevy of lesser rappers fight over who started it. Despite its name, “HUMBLE.” is a righteous exercise in braggadocio. –Matthew Ismael Ruiz

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, “HUMBLE.”

Charli XCX: “Boys”

Charli XCX’s most effective bursts of bubblegum pop take place in a sphere all their own: not in the club, not in the street, not in the hotel room, but dreaming while at all three. “Boys,” her sparkling ode to male objectification, is a party song that’s about missing the party altogether: Her friends are blowing up her phone, and she’s ignoring them, lost in a daydream that doesn’t fixate on any romantic interest in particular so much as “boys” the plural noun, the natural resource, the element.

The chiptune squiggle that punctuates the word in the song’s chorus makes it sound like Charli’s racking up boys like coins in Super Mario Odyssey—a shower of boys in each city, boys raining from the heavens, boys streaming through the gutters, boys like tokens redeemable for oversized stuffed animals. Note that Charli isn’t idly contemplating her chosen currency: She’s “busy thinking ’bout boys.” This is work, and she reaps the rewards every time she names her prize. –Sasha Geffen

Listen: Charli XCX, “Boys”

Kelela: “Frontline”

Throughout her debut album, Take Me Apart, Kelela built on all the strengths of her previous mixtapes and EPs: meticulousness, emotional clarity, and those stunning, bold vocals. “Frontline” is the acme of this careful practice; as Kelela recounts her decision to leave a relationship, a sense of resolve washes over the listener in a luminous wave. The song is an invitation to view the entire R&B landscape from Kelela’s vantage point—to understand how she looks to both the past and future with limitless possibility. This isn’t easy to do. With each passing year, as R&B gets gradually subsumed by other genres, Kelela insists that the influence of the cherished artists that came before her still deserves its spotlight. “Frontline” proves that she is the right person to make sense of R&B today and lead the charge. –Vanessa Okoth-Obbo

Listen: Kelela, “Frontline”

Future: “Mask Off”

When Future released two albums within a week of each other early in the year, he was banking on a song called “Draco” to push him over the top. But “Mask Off” had other ideas. The song’s buttery-soft flute lick—lifted lovingly by producer Metro Boomin from Selma, a late-’70s musical about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.—quickly mesmerized #FutureHive, spreading alarmingly from there. Fan tribute versions flooded the banks of social media; the loop was recreated with flutes, violins, alto saxophones, trumpets, and hilariously off-key caterwauling. Grover got in on the action, as did SpongeBob. It spawned its own dance. It was maybe the most deathless doodled bit of music of the year, the sound of the entire internet whistling to itself. –Jayson Greene

Listen: Future, “Mask Off”

King Krule: “Dum Surfer”

How ugly can you make a song without sacrificing its groove, its swagger, its sex appeal? That question lies at the heart of King Krule’s “Dum Surfer,” a track so sullen, so contorted with disgust, so miserly with its compassion, that it can’t even bother to spell its own title right.

As a deeply British snapshot of a drunken night out, the song is as unsparing and brutal as photographer Dougie Wallace’s portrayal of the nation’s pub crawls and stag parties. A post-punk bassline sounds like it’s ricocheting down a back alley, and that implied distance only reinforces the sense that there’s no warmth here, no belonging—just wasted bodies dodging disaster on unforgiving streets. You can practically smell the desperation: The lyrics reek of puke and warm piss, “skunk and onion gravy,” potato mash. Musically, though, the song makes something nearly beautiful out of all that damage, as jazz guitar and baritone sax drip like red velvet curtains. Archy Marshall’s feral snarl sounds like self-laceration with a dull knife, but it’s also strangely seductive. When he warbles, “Now my brain’s diluting with blame and guilt and hash,” it’s almost enough to make you sidle up to the bar and order a shot of whatever he’s having. Almost. –Philip Sherburne

Listen: King Krule, “Dum Surfer”

Frank Ocean: “Chanel”

Given the drought that preceded Blonde, the handful of singles Frank Ocean released this year felt nothing short of a blessing. The first and most potent of these songs, “Chanel,” quietly reveals a new era. Though the track is built on a melancholy piano phrase, it ultimately trades the wistful air that marked Blonde for an attitude that’s present and self-possessed—speaking not as the Frank of relationships past, but as the Frank of now.

Its musical flourishes—a winding flute, muted percussion, the occasional cash-register click—represent another understated step forward for Frank’s future-leaning pop, which drips with easygoing cool. His wordplay is dense, though, as it meanders through locales and references, from Tokyo to that recurring swimming pool, from provocative director Gaspar Noé to 21 Savage. These are, of course, all secondary to the French fashion house and its double-C logo: “I see on both sides,” he sings. Locating oneself on both sides of a dichotomy is, for Frank, a source of strength and even opulence: His guy is pretty like a girl and he’s got fight stories to tell. “Chanel” flexes a muscular sense of self, redefining what it sounds like to assert power. –Thea Ballard

Listen: Frank Ocean, “Chanel”

Lil Uzi Vert:“XO TOUR Llif3”

The unlikely story of this song began when Lil Uzi Vert took a stage dive into a Geneva, Switzerland crowd in February, losing two phones filled with unreleased material amid the throng. Instead of fretting, he simply leaked everything he recorded for his debut album, including “XO TOUR Llif3.” With no marketing and no artwork, the song gained traction on SoundCloud before becoming one of the most ubiquitous hits of the year, garnering more than 1.3 billion streams worldwide.

This unlikeliness extends to the song’s sound, which blends trap production with Uzi’s emo lyricism about his now-ex-girlfriend and substance abuse issues. Channeling the goth-tinged emotion of some of his favorite rockers, including Marilyn Manson, the Philadelphia rapper turns a morbid hook—“Push me to the edge/All my friends are dead”—into a delirious sing-along. –Kristin Corry

Listen: Lil Uzi Vert, “XO TOUR Llif3”

SZA: “Love Galore” [ft. Travis Scott]

“Love Galore” is the perfect introduction to the compelling character that SZA inhabited on her debut album, Ctrl: the petty, sexy, confused, high, confident, complicated, dismissive, cool twentysomething unafraid to air out her business (and yours). There is something cinematic about the way SZA paints her scenes in this tale of toxic romance, the way she is able to write language as it is actually spoken, the way she draws you into her world, like all of the best protagonists. By the time Travis Scott shows up for a verse that’s basically a booty call, everyone who is listening knows that she deserves better; let’s hope, by now, she does too. –Alex Frank

Listen: SZA, “Love Galore” [ft. Travis Scott]

Lorde: “Green Light”

From the ashes of burnt romance rises “Green Light,” 2017’s most defiant expression of pop euphoria. Lorde has said that the song channels the spirit of a drunk girl dancing herself clean, calling bullshit on her ex, and waiting for—no, demanding—a new reality. Like its spiritual and sonic predecessor, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own,” “Green Light” demonstrates that emotional self-discovery does not follow a straight path but yo-yos between extremes. While opening herself up to new sounds, the New Zealand singer jumps from whispered intimacies to ecstatic, explosive choruses that encourage denting the roof of your SUV while wearing a gown and Adidas Superstars. It is an anthem of fluorescent catharsis that gave a dark year some much-needed brightness. –Quinn Moreland

Listen: Lorde, “Green Light”

Kendrick Lamar: “DNA”

On “DNA.,” Kendrick Lamar dances breathlessly on the head of a pin, unwinding a single idea about origins, nature, nurture, and destiny. “I got power, poison, pain, and joy inside my DNA," he declares in the first verse. This animating thought—that we carry the seeds of our greatness and our undoing inside us at all times, that we are forever just one breath from our most exalted and debased behavior—runs like a vein of gold beneath Lamar’s catalog, and he’s never before drilled into it with the fierceness and precision of “DNA.” Over its escalating and spiritually replenishing three minutes, he doubles down and subdivides this notion so many times, from so many angles, that there is almost no interpretive work left for his listeners. He’s lived the life, done the work—“Born inside the beast/My expertise checked out in second grade”—and we simply receive his story.

In this way, Kendrick is maybe our closest modern analog to Chuck D—like Chuck, Kendrick doesn’t beg you to see the world through his eyes, or ask that you enter into his mind. He proclaims. But where Chuck’s messages and voice were crisp and clear, Kendrick’s isn’t here to offer you slogans. He’s hoping that his all-devouring intelligence, his actorly control of inflection, and his sheer technician’s ability to dart around, inhabit, or smother the beat will help him devour the world, in all of its impossible contradictions. You can almost feel his imagination thrashing itself apart: “I know murder, conviction, burners, boosters, burglars, ballers, dead, redemption/Scholars fathers dead with kids/And I wish I was fed forgiveness.” What is there to do with this tidal wave of information except to simply stand in front of it, letting it envelop you? –Jayson Greene

Listen: Kendrick Lamar, “DNA.”

Cardi B: “Bodak Yellow”

Cardi B is not just a rapper; she’s everything we needed, just when we needed it. And “Bodak Yellow” is not just the banger of the year; it’s an unignorable antithesis to a political landscape built around xenophobia, racism, and sexism. The first solo female rap track to hit No. 1 in nearly 20 years, it emboldened many of the people—especially women of color—who were marginalized for the very things that anchor the Afro-Latina star’s impenetrable pride. It let them lift their middle fingers a little higher and shout a little louder over the voices that wished them silent. All year long, Cardi B was a mesmerizing display of what it looks like to win without having to code-switch or shrink, and “Bodak Yellow” was her blaring anthem of purpose.

By now, the story of Cardi B’s rise is legend: A fed-up grocery store cashier quits her job to become a stripper, then parlays Vine and Instagram notoriety into reality TV stardom before achieving ubiquitous fame with her first single for a major label. Could there be a more modern depiction of the American Dream? That “Bodak Yellow” was the flash point makes the victory even sweeter: It’s full of charismatic bravado, endless flex, and abundant joy. Cardi’s cadence, inspired by Kodak Black’s “No Flockin,” is injected with her unfuckwithable energy, as authentic as it is contagious, igniting a blend of enraptured aggression and bona fide club hysteria.

Her voice is fiery and insistent, her Spanish-hued Bronx accent clipping and languishing as she offers clever wordplay about getting head and getting paid; even without knowing her hard-hustling rise, the celebration in her voice has an inclusive edge. Her braggy lines also belie a thoughtful core. Cardi may be on top, shuffling through praise, diamonds, and dudes at her whim, but in her glee she’s opening the door to her listeners, her sisters: This lifestyle, or any triumph they so choose, feels like it may just be in their reach, too.

On and off wax—in a wholly demoralizing year that still became, indisputably, hers—Cardi B owned who she was. Her confidence, which disallows shame and silence, spilled into “Bodak Yellow” and created a perfect storm: a song that feels good from someone who rose to dominance at a time when women and their stories were simultaneously under attack and given more cultural space. At its heart, Cardi’s breakout demands that its listeners reclaim their power, jumping over all barriers of race, class, and gender. She did it. And while there’s still a long way to go for many like her, her existence and this song served as beacons across 2017, liberating us from our own realities, four minutes at a time. –Briana Younger

Listen: Cardi B, “Bodak Yellow”