I'm trying really hard to get my Quarter 4 and AOTY posts up by the end of December. It remains to be seen whether or not that will actually happen, but, in the meantime, here are 10 miscellaneous songs released this year that I never found a chance to post about. They're loosely ranked in order of how much they meant to me/how obsessively I listened to them, but the rankings don't really begin to matter until the top five or so. Honestly, now that I'm thinking about it, this whole post probably serves to gush about the top three songs specifically, so, if anything, at least carve out 10 minutes to check those out.

10. HAIM - Right Now

The fact that HAIM chose to announce the release of their highly-anticipated sophomore album, Something to Tell You, with an intimate, minimalist in-studio performance video of its penultimate track, "Right Now," raised my expectations that the sisters had significantly refined and evolved their sound since their 2013 debut, Days Are Gone. Although the punchy melodies and bright harmonies are still there, the stripped-down nature of the performance and subtle upward momentum of the song combine into something refreshingly mature and measured. The album version is still good, but the glossier production and a jarring spoken word section dull its impact slightly. Unfortunately, the rest of the album feels more like re-purposed b-sides than a true progression, proving that the magic can't always be captured a second time.

9. Lowly - Word

I wrote a bit about Lowly last year, and I was highly anticipating their debut album, Heba, but it ended up leaving me underwhelmed with how slow and homogeneous it sounded apart from the singles. Then again, I haven't tried revisiting it since February, so maybe there's still a chance it'll click with me someday. At any rate, it's got two or three absolutely wonderful songs; "Word," which initially got me excited for what the rest of the album might bring, still sounds near-perfect to my ears. Over a woozy, instantly infectious synth line, Soffie Viem's youthful, energetic vocals soar and dive through layers of hazy distortion. Amazingly, for a song that lacks a proper chorus, instead anchored by a single refrain, "We can't get a word in," repeated atop a chaotic mountain of sound, it's as catchy as any more mainstream pop song I've heard recently.

8. Ezra Furman - Driving Down to L.A.

I've become a fan of Ezra Furman in a big way lately, so the recent announcement of his new album, Transangelic Exodus (February 9th), already has me anxiously awaiting the new year. The first track released, "Driving Down to L.A.," initially seems more reserved and contemplative than the breathless sixties-pop-meets-eighties-garage-rock style cultivated on his most recent full-length, Perpetual Motion People. The verses are rangy and vaguely Western, setting a noir-like atmosphere as its lyrics hint at desultory exploits and aimless rebellion, themes that have long populated Furman's songs. Suddenly, though, the simmering embers explode into a noisy, aggressive chorus, Furman's scrappy voice straining to be heard over the crush of industrial sound effects. The spontaneity of it recalls his past music, even as the mood remains decidedly more somber.

7. Sufjan Stevens - Mystery of Love

For not releasing an album proper this year, Sufjan Stevens has been busier than just about any other artist I know, releasing a space-themed collaboration, a live version of his most recent beloved album, an outtakes and remixes collection for said album, three soundtrack songs, and two versions of a track dedicated to notorious figure skater Tonya Harding. I could select a track at random from just about any of these projects and make a case for its greatness, but "Mystery of Love," the centerpiece song for the recent film adaptation of Call Me By Your Name, continues Stevens' recent trend of beautiful (not to mention utterly devastating) lo-fi minimalism. Awash in biblical and historical references, the lyrics hit hardest when they're stripped free of allusion to their emotional core, as when Stevens whispers plaintively over warm, folky acoustics, "How much sorrow can I take?/Blackbird on my shoulder/And what difference does it make/When this love is over?"

6. Purity Ring - Asido

To mark the five-year anniversary of their album, Shrines, Purity Ring released "Asido" as a standalone single. I'm not sure if it dates from the same time as the album or is a new track, but it seems to perfectly bridge the gap between the band's broodier, more mysterious debut and the bombastic glossiness of its follow-up, Another Eternity. While, in my opinion, Another Eternity suffered not for its shinier production but for its less compelling songwriting, of all the great hooks I've heard this year, the chorus melody here is one that most often gets stuck in my head, even in all its simplicity. Megan James repeats the straightforward line, "Feel as lonely as I do," but the crystalline sweetness of her voice, hauntingly warped by distortion, combined with ghostly piano and skittering beats gives it the dark gravity of a magical spell.

5. Ought - These 3 Things

In just a few years, Ought has released two solid albums in More Than Any Other Day and Sun Coming Down and their frontman, Tim Darcy, has taken an enjoyable turn in the solo spotlight. The band shows no signs of slowing down, as they've recently announced their third album, Room Inside the World, for a February 16th release. Its first taste, "These 3 Things," is a substantial departure from their old sound, more dark, slick synth-pop than ramshackle post-punk, but it's also undeniably great. Darcy's voice is refined without losing its idiosyncrasy, and his lyrics are at their abstracted, poetic best, merging seemingly nonsensical imagery ("If you're made of stone then turn into clay") with surprisingly insightful declarations ("Wash away my body/I don't need it"). Meanwhile, the touches of violin provide an organic contrast to the song's synth-and-drum-machine-based groove.

4. ionnalee - Not Human

Over the course of the year, ionnalee (aka Jonna Lee, aka one half of the cryptic audiovisual electronic duo, iamamiwhoami) has released not one but four incredible singles, recently revealed to be the lead-up to her February 16th self-produced album, Everyone Afraid to Be Forgotten. I've already gushed about "Samaritan" at length, and though any of the remaining three would be worthy of this position, "Not Human" is perhaps the catchiest song she's released in any incarnation. Written in collaboration with electronic musician Com Truise, it's a slice of dark, synth-laden electronica not far removed from Lee's work with iamamiwhoami. But it introduces a more playful and coy side of her musical persona, courtesy of a massive, heart-pounding chorus that finds her cooing in infatuation, "With you, it's magical/The urge is animal/I'm not human."

3. U.S. Girls - Mad as Hell

Two years ago, U.S. Girls released an excellent experimental pop album in Half Free, and on February 16th (yes, this release date is very stacked), its follow-up, In a Poem Unlimited, will arrive. If its first two singles are anything to go by, it's already shaping up to be even better than its predecessor. "Mad as Hell" sounds like a Cyndi Lauper hit from an alternate dimension, Meg Remy's vocals teetering precariously on the border between saccharine and demented as she steamrolls over the funky, disco-tinged instrumentation with one of the most infectious choruses of the year. "As if you couldn't tell, I'm mad as hell," she sings, anger boiling beneath the surface of her put-on sweetness, "I won't forget, so why should I forgive?" It's a sentiment we can all relate to in this never-ending nightmare of a year. Be sure to check out "Velvet 4 Sale," too, a simmering, jazzy revenge fantasy that's just as satisfyingly cathartic.

2. First Aid Kit - It's a Shame

The lead single from First Aid Kit's January 19th release, Ruins, is a promising return to form for Swedish sisters Johanna and Clara Söderberg. While their last album, Stay Gold, wasn't exactly a disappointment, it never quite managed to reach the effortlessly transcendent heights of its predecessor, The Lion's Roar, bar a track or two. On the other hand, "It's a Shame" is probably one of the strongest feats of songwriting the duo has managed yet, a perfect amalgamation of country, folk, and pop that feels instantly timeless. It's musically breezy but emotionally heavy, its lyrics of heartbreak and loneliness - "Sometimes the night cuts through me like a knife," they admit resignedly at the song's climax - rendered in full aching technicolor by the sisters' always pristine harmonies. The music video, a whimsical Sliding Doors homage, only increases its undeniable charm.

1. SOPHIE - It's Okay to Cry

If I cared enough about music videos, SOPHIE's "It's Okay to Cry" would undoubtedly be my top video of the year. Of the 50+ plays recorded on my Last.fm, at least half of them come from watching the video alone. While I've grown to love the song in its own right - in all its earnest, unabashedly heart-on-sleeve mid-2000s twinkling synth-pop ballad glory - it's really so much more affecting in tandem with the visuals. While the background behind her cycles through an entire day in warp-speed, from pink sunrise to bright blue afternoon to stormy night, SOPHIE, the experimental pop producer previously notable for her reclusiveness, bears it all in a powerfully vulnerable display of self-affirmation. Her nudity, rather than being sexualized, is representative of rebirth, as both song and video find her reinventing herself on her own terms. She invites her audience to witness her truest self, and when she whispers soothingly, "It's okay to cry," a teasing twinkle in her eye, it empowers us to express our truest selves, too. And for long-time SOPHIE fans startled by the song's relative straightforwardness, her latest single, "Ponyboy," is an absolutely bonkers kink anthem that shows she hasn't completely abandoned her old bag of tricks.