When I first heard "Curse of the Contemporary," it got me very excited to hear more from LUMP, a collaborative project between folk wunderkind Laura Marling and Mike Lindsay. It's a driving, energetic rock track with touches of electronica that's a refreshingly far cry from Marling's solo work. Her husky voice works surprisingly well in this context, reaching heights of smooth, soaring effortlessness I had no idea she was capable of, particularly on the verbose chorus, which she rattles off with ease. While the rest of LUMP's short album continues to find her voice at its stunning prime, unfortunately, the other songs are pretty but a bit dull in comparison to this darkly glistening gem.

I always end up dragging these out until the absolute last minute, don't I? Anyway, my listening last month was pretty heavy on the new releases again, but I did discover a few other cool things, too! Most importantly, I discovered a lot of incredibly fun and catchy summer bops I will most definitely be blasting through mid-August. Honestly, I'm not sure if I'll have enough material to do one of these for June without it overlapping too much with my other planned posts (my quarter two round-up, obviously, and also a very special and very indulgent post I hope to have up within a week or so, the content of which you can probably guess if you know me and my recent obsessions at all). So I might end up skipping it or doing a shortened version, but we'll see. Anyway, onward with the music!

10. Kyary Pamyu Pamyu - Drinker

It's pretty clear from my recent posts, but I've been gravitating a lot more toward upbeat, bouncy pop music this year than ever before. Honestly, I think a lot of it has to do with the state of the world right now and the fact that music is the one thing I can count on to provide temporary escape - but I don't want to dwell on the depressing. Instead, I'll talk about Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and her totally adorable yet totally demented and, most importantly, totally addictive songs. It's only logical that my intense PC Music addiction would eventually dovetail into cutesy J-pop, especially when it's masterminded by producer/songwriter Yasutaka Nakata, who, as I understand it, is a master of auto-tuned uncanny valley bops. As the voice that brings his ultra-sugary compositions to life, what Kyary Pamyu Pamyu lacks in range she makes up for with her bubbly personality. I can't even pretend to know what "Drinker" is about, but I do know it's technicolor cotton candy fluff of the tastiest variety.

9. Galantis - Spaceship (feat. Uffie)


I've never listened to Uffie before, but last month she released her first song in quite some time, "Drugs," and it's a cute little auto-tuned bop that satisfies my desire for more Pop 2-esque sounds. A couple weeks later, this massive-sounding collaboration with Galantis landed, and it's everything I could possibly want in a summer banger. "Spaceship" hits hard and fast, wasting absolutely no time with preamble or subtlety. Uffie's voice is a rapidly-shifting chameleon, warped and twisted into a dizzying assortment of shapes, some more recognizably human, others fully alien. Its digitally-aided elasticity is buffeted by appropriately spacey-sounding synths, propulsive and bass-heavy, that blast off and power down every time the song loops back around to its repetitive but highly addicting hook. This is definitely the type of song I would expect to soundtrack an extraterrestrial rager, broadcasting out from the surface of Mars to the entire rest of the galaxy for one epic dance party.

8. Janelle Monáe - Screwed (feat. Zoë Kravitz)


The contradictory nature of "Screwed," one of the most compelling tracks on Janelle Monáe's new album, Dirty Computer, is fascinating to me in that, when you take it apart and consider its components more carefully, it really shouldn't work. On one hand, it's easily one of the catchiest and most joyous-sounding songs I've heard all year, Monáe's voice alternating with guest Zoë Kravitz's on the verses to energetically saucy effect as the sexual innuendos fly, backed by danceable, funky instrumentation and plenty of hand claps. On the other hand, the double meaning of its title reveals a more political nature, which comes to light in the chorus' lyrics: "Let's get screwed/I don't care/You fucked the world up now/We'll fuck it all back down." These lines are delivered with a sort of desperate giddiness, their message a mix of nihilism and optimism. It's a brilliant subversion of the expected Prince-inspired, oversexed groove into something with a bold intellectual bite.

7. Natalie Prass - Lost


My interest in Natalie Prass' sophomore album, The Future and the Past, was peaked by the delightfully retro groove of "Sisters," and "Lost" may be even better. Comparatively, it's a much subtler effort, but its simplicity is no hindrance or crutch; in fact, it's the song's biggest asset. The tastefully sparse piano and string arrangements allow Prass' voice, bright and clear as a bell and searingly emotive, to steal the spotlight. "I get lost when I'm with you," she croons romantically before stomping all over the listener's heart with the follow-up question, "But at what cost do I let you do what you do?" The combined effect of the lyrics, instrumentation, and vocals could easily veer over the edge into treacly sentimentality, but there's just enough restraint on display to avoid such pitfalls. Instead, the song ends up feeling utterly timeless, like it's already existed for centuries before now and will continue exist for centuries beyond.

6. Braids - Collarbones


Braids make some of the most cathartic music I've ever heard, and Raphaelle Standell-Preston's lyrics speak to the experiences of being a 21st-century woman with startling bluntness and accuracy. "Collarbones" is a beautifully intimate ballad that places Standell-Preston's impassioned vocals front and center, where they punch the listener squarely in the gut as she explores what it means to exist as a woman in the Internet age. With filters and angles at hand to manipulate her image, she can turn herself into whatever version others want to see: "Do you think it makes me look pretty when I soften all my lines away?/When I make myself look as far away from real?/Breasts pushed up, I'm trying to show you/I have collarbones and cleavage you can rest in." But this ultimately only complicates reality, putting pressure on women especially to live up to their romanticized forms, feeding feelings of unworthiness and shame: "When my clothes are off and we're together/I probably won't look this way again/And I wonder will you still want me then?"

5. Kate Tempest - Grubby


Kate Tempest is a name I've seen a lot, but between my lack of exposure to hip-hop until recently and my leeriness toward white rappers (which I still hold as a general rule), I never gave her a proper chance. Recently, a few random Spotify plays convinced me to try Let Them Eat Chaos, and it's actually one of the more compelling things I've heard recently, based specifically around the lives of seven strangers at the exact same moment in time and generally around navigating the capitalistic demands of modern London as a young adult. While Tempest has impeccable flow (which steers clear of appropriation), she draws just as much from her background as a poet. "Grubby" tells the story of Pious, who has a one-night stand with a woman she barely knows while still pining for her ex-lover. "She doesn't love/She just devours," Tempest intones as the omniscient narrator. A minute in, it explodes into a stream-of-consciousness jangle of first-person nerves and self-loathing: "I'm fighting my darkest parts/I'm frightened/Nightmares/Tighten my hands 'round my own throat/Because you're the snake charmer and I'm the old rope."

4. Ariana Grande - Be My Baby


I've been in an Ariana Grande spiral recently, and while My Everything is not actually a very consistent album (it's about half great and half borderline-awful), "Be My Baby" has to be one of the best pop songs of the last five years. It has one of the absolute catchiest choruses I've ever heard, which the song clearly knows, seeing as it wastes no time going straight into it. Seriously, I dare you to find something as satisfying to sing along to as the repeated "Be my/Be my/Be my/Be my/Be my baby" at the end. Cashmere Cat's bright, springy production touches give the song a further lift, and Grande, who's been accused of lacking charisma, gets the chance to display a real personality in the flirty second verse: "I'll give you all of my trust if you don't mess this up/You ain't trying to get no other girls when you in the club/All you got is eyes for me/I'm the only girl you see." I could possibly listen to this song on loop for the rest of my life and die happy.

3. EASYFUN - Be Your USA


"Be Your USA" is a fizzy and infectious synth-pop anthem that arrives just in time for blasting from your open car windows all summer long and adds to the body of evidence that EASYFUN is low-key one of PC Music's most valuable players. The song enlists Estonian singer Iiris for vocal duty, and I honestly don't know anything about her, but her light, bubbly (and heavily-processed) voice is the perfect vessel for its frothy sentiments, in which impossibly high expectations ("I don't want to be your USA/Never going to be your everything") are eschewed for a more intimate and meaningful bond ("I just want to be your music"). The song is essentially all chorus, but when you've written a hook this good, why not give it the showcase it deserves, hypnotically building up to a soaring release? Along the way, EASYFUN's signature screechy synths and well-timed glitchy vocal samples push it over the edge from fun to genius.

2. Half Waif - In the Evening


Honestly, Half Waif's 2016 album, Probable Depths, is so special to me that I was initially afraid to even listen to Lavender - so much so that I held off on doing so for a couple weeks after it was released. As it turns out, the album does have a very different vibe, less whimsical and more straight-up devastating, but I fell deeply in love with it almost immediately. "In the Evening" literally took my breath away with how meditative and serene it is on the surface and how dark and angry it is underneath. There are certain lines you might initially interpret as sweet - "In the morning, there'll be tea and coffee and milk/Just the way you like" - until others soon arrive to warn you there's something more sinister going on: "Don't expect me to be happy to see that you're happier than me/I don't owe you that." Ultimately, it's a song about loss, the loss of one's sense of self to the throes of an intense and tumultuous relationship, driven by Nandi Rose Plunkett's smoldering vocal presence. "There's a life going on/But it doesn't feel like me," she sings sadly before her voice is kaleidoscoped  into a digitized watercolor smear.

1. Beach House - Drunk in LA


I don't know if it was me or the music itself, but I started to lose interest in Beach House around the time Depression Cherry and Thank Your Lucky Stars were released. (I've recently revisited both and have decided I quite like the latter, but the former is still a snooze to me, even though I know it has a lot of pretty intense devotees.) For this reason and the fact that none of the pre-release singles until "Black Car" really grabbed me, I wasn't overly excited to hear their latest release, 7. Once I actually listened, though, everything clicked into place, to the point where it may very well be on its way to becoming my third favorite Beach House release - but more on that later. "Drunk in LA" in particular is a track I've been playing the shit out of because it feels so quintessentially Beach House, encapsulating everything I love about their sound without seeming stale or uninspired. In fact, if anything, the band sounds revitalized. Victoria Legrand's smoky, seductive voice is at its best, the atmosphere is perfectly woozy, the melodies are golden, and the lyrics are reliably evocative. Hearing it for the first time transported me back to hearing "Zebra" for the first time, which is high praise considering it was the first Beach House song I ever fell in love with.

I know this is hopelessly late, seeing as it's already almost the end of May. To be honest, I had a very hard time forcing myself to finish this post and considered skipping it entirely, but my incessant need to maintain consistency talked me down from that. My reluctance to do the hard work of writing about them implies nothing about the quality of these tracks, which, in my opinion, remains excellent. I've also decided to re-brand these posts within their own proper category, as the original intent behind Top Ten Tuesday was more to get me thinking about tangible, interesting connections between songs, which the fact that I fell in love with them all in the same month is decidedly not. (it remains to be seen whether it will return to that purpose or be abandoned entirely).

10. Charli XCX - You're the One (Blood Orange Remix)



Listen, I've been fairly restrained about showing it here, but I haven't been able to stop listening to Charli XCX for a good six months now. After spinning the hell out of Pop 2, Number 1 Angel, and Vroom Vroom, I decided to lay off a bit before I wore them out entirely and dig into her earlier work. Unfortunately, I'm not too big on True Romance as a whole, but this song is probably my favorite from it, and I especially love this remix by Dev Hynes. It seems almost tailor-made for my current tastes in the way it straddles the line between Cupid Deluxe-era Blood Orange (the marimba/xylophone/whatever rhythms are reminiscent of one of that album's major highlights, "Chamakay") and some almost proto-Pop 2 flourishes (particularly the unabashedly heavy use of wavy auto-tune voice effects).

9. Kelsey Lu - Shades of Blue


A couple years ago, cellist and vocalist Kelsey Lu released a very promising EP entitled Church, and if "Shades of Blue," which I truly hope is the precursor to a larger project, is any indication, she's ready to deliver on that promise and then some. It's a jaw-droppingly gorgeous track that unfolds and expands with such patient, easy subtlety that it feels far more expansive than its sub-four minute run time would indicate. Over rich, lullaby-esque acoustic guitar strums, light brushes of percussion, and a late-arriving burst of cello, Lu lets her dusky, deeply emotive voice do the song's heavy lifting, adding infinitely complex layers of feeling to the simple declaration expressed in the chorus - "I'm not over you/Not over you/But I'm over feeling shades of blue" - every time it is repeated.

8. Empress Of - In Dreams



Since releasing Me in 2015, Empress Of (aka Lorely Rodriguez) has shared only a handful of standalone tracks, but they prove that she is quickly growing as an artist. "In Dreams," the b-side of her latest two-song single, is less high-energy and more melodically subtle than almost anything she's done in the past, but it's worth the pay-off of multiple listens to unpack its intricacies. Its lyrics alternating seamlessly between Spanish and English, the song has a hypnotic, mesmerizing effect, its pulsing electronic backdrop perfectly synchronized to Rodriguez's commanding yet delicate vocals. Rodriguez has yet to announce if this song and its companion, "Trust Me Baby," are the first taste of a bigger release, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

7. Blood Orange - The Complete Knock



Speaking of Blood Orange, I decided to continue my backwards exploration of his discography with Coastal Grooves. It's neither as immediate as Cupid Deluxe nor as lingeringly impactful as Freetown Sound, but it's still got its fair share of earworms and is actually quite charming in how comparatively lo-fi and tentative it sounds. "The Complete Knock" is an undeniable highlight, a preview of the complexity and versatility displayed on later releases. It expertly builds up from a minimal but propulsive bass line to a groovy, highly danceable whirlwind of electric guitar, synth and dreamily overlapping vocals, with a surprise robot twist near the end. As accusatory as it is, Dev Hynes' wounded complaint, "I just don't know what the hell is wrong with you," sounds almost sensual in his soulful wail.

6. Sky Ferreira - I Blame Myself


When Sky Ferreira released her debut (and, so far, only) album Night Time, My Time in 2013, I listened to a few songs, but I wasn't as open-minded about pop music back then and quickly dismissed it as not my thing. But I've lately come across it again on my quest to revisit some of the recent pop touchstones my past snobbery caused me to miss out on. And you know what? It's an incredibly addictive album that quite ingeniously melds contemporary pop perfection with eighties rock pastiche. "I Blame Myself" was the track that most immediately got me scrambling for the repeat button. The instrumental backing is delightfully retro, Ferreira's voice oozes charisma, and it's got the kind of instantaneous, undeniable hook I can't imagine anyone being able to stop themselves from wailing along to after even a single listen.

5. Solange - Lovers in the Parking Lot



Apparently I spent much of the last month fixated on a very specific sound because Solange's True was co-produced and co-written with Dev Hynes, which means it essentially sounds like Solange fronting Blood Orange, a combination I am absolutely here for. Almost every song on the EP is a jam of the highest order, but there's something special about "Lovers in the Parking Lot." It strikes that perfect balance of sounding simultaneously classic and forward-thinking, blending a more traditional piano melody with futuristic synths for an insidious combination. Of course, Solange's voice is the star of the show, and it goes down as smoothly as ever, gliding through the verses with effortlessly laid-back cool and achieving maximum impact in the fluttery, soulful chorus.

4. Ariana Grande - No Tears Left to Cry



Of all the current mainstream pop sweethearts, I have the biggest soft spot for Ariana Grande. While she may not have the most charismatic presence, her powerful voice is nearly enough to make up for it. Coupled with an ear (whether on her or her team's part) for insanely catchy melodies that sit just slightly outside the norm, it's almost certainly enough. I'll admit, I wasn't sure about "No Tears Left to Cry" the first time I heard it; the vast, rich, and soaring classic pop chorus seemed at odds with the more urban-leaning refrain that follows it. But it didn't take me long to decide that the unexpectedness of this juxtaposition is what makes the song just refreshing enough to stand out. It also doesn't hurt that I had said chorus playing on a loop in my brain within 24 hours and still haven't shaken it.

3. LIZ - Super Duper Nova



LIZ is a musical chameleon, in that she sounds like a different type of pop star in almost every single one of her songs. While an identity crisis isn't typically something to be praised, she largely makes it work on the basis of her music being so damn catchy and immaculately produced. Her latest single, "Super Duper Nova," casts her in the role of a bubbly and flirtatious extraterrestrial ingenue, and the result is as bizarre as it is infectious. Book-ended by a blaring approximation of a spaceship lifting off, the song features vocals auto-tuned and pitch-shifted into cutesy alien chirps, sparkly intergalactic washes of synth, about three different potential hooks, and way too many space-related euphemisms to count. It's just really, really fucking cute and really, really fucking weird, and I can't get enough of it.

2. Let's Eat Grandma - It's Not Just Me



Judging by its first three singles, Let's Eat Grandma's upcoming sophomore album, I'm All Ears, is aiming to shoot straight to the top of my AOTY list, an outcome I definitely could not have predicted at the beginning of the year. "It's Not Just Me" gives "Hot Pink" a run for its money in terms of sheer quality, but sound-wise they're almost entirely opposite. Where the latter is dark, metallic, and cold, the former is an effervescent and frothy summer synth-pop bop. This contrast is especially interesting considering the production is handled on both tracks by Faris Badwan and SOPHIE. (Bet you thought I'd managed to keep her name out of my mouth this time around, didn't you?) This seamless sonic versatility, as well as the youthful vocal charm that elevates both tracks, leaves the direction of the rest of the album excitingly wide open.

1. Hop Along - Not Abel



On paper, Hop Along is a band I should very much be into, but they've never managed to click for me beyond a couple songs. That all changed by the end of my first listen to their recently-released third album, Bark Your Head Off, Dog. I'll save my more sweeping praise of the album, other than to say that it's near flawless, for later and instead zero in on the track I haven't been able to shake from my head for weeks. On "Not Abel," Frances Quinlan seems to channel her inner Joanna Newsom both vocally and melodically. Her throat-straining warble conveys a cryptic but chillingly ominous narrative, drenched in biblical allegory ("Shirt blood-stained and yet it was not Abel/But Cain who got to hear/The voice that for so long had been a stranger") and reaching its climax in a bruised and bloodied submission to fate ("This has happened/This will happen/This is happening").

I'm doing better! This post is much more equally split down the middle between brand new releases and past stuff I've been digging into. I listened to a lot of cool stuff in March, which meant I had to make a few painful cuts to get down to 10 tracks. Mostly, I ended up taking out songs from albums I'll inevitably talk about whenever I get around to making a quarter one review post. While you're waiting in breathless anticipation for that (anyone?), enjoy my other favorite discoveries of the month.

10. Kelis - Runnin'


Kelis' Food is one of those albums I've had saved in my Spotify forever while I keep getting distracted by shinier, newer things. It probably would have sat there a while longer if the opening track, "Breakfast," hadn't come up on shuffle and captured my attention immediately with its raspy, soulful vocals and captivating chorus. Luckily, the rest of the album lives up to its promise and then some. "Runnin'" is the track I can't get over at the moment. The melodies feel timeless, as do the vocals; both are understated but in a simmering, intense way, underpinned by cinematic strings and stately horns that tug expertly at the heartstrings. It's a song that may go down smoothly, but its emotional impact lingers an unexpectedly long time afterward.

9. Digable Planets - Examination of What


I was reluctant to listen to Digable Planets' first album because I love Blowout Comb so much and it feels like one of those really special albums that's near impossible to match. I have to say, though: Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) is pretty formidable in its own right. While it's more traditionally-structured and ultimately less revolutionary than its follow-up, at 14 tracks, it has barely any filler, which is impressive for any album yet alone a debut. "Examination of What" is the closer, and it sounds like Digable Planets' mission statement in terms of both sound and politics. The beats are chill, the vocal chemistry is off the charts, and the lyrics tackle social issues - among them, abortion rights and racial profiling - that are sadly still as relevant now as they were in the early 1990s.

8. Joni Mitchell - Coyote


My slow but steady exploration of Joni Mitchell's discography continued in March with Hejira. Initially, I found it more difficult to penetrate than her earlier works, as the songs are longer, more subtle, and less melodically diverse. Instead, Mitchell's voice, which here hits that perfect sweet spot between serene and husky, and her lyrics, which are more heavily focused on storytelling, are emphasized. Luckily, the songs start to differentiate themselves from one another with repeated listening. I loved the opener "Coyote" from the first moment I heard it, though. Mitchell's delivery is playful without sacrificing gravitas, and the earthy force of the instrumentation complements its evocative, road-tripping lyrics: "You just picked up a hitcher/A prisoner of the white lines on the freeway."

7. Natalie Prass - Sisters


I wasn't particularly impressed by Natalie Prass' debut album when seemingly everyone was raving about it three years ago, and "Short Court Style," the first single from her upcoming release, The Future and the Past, didn't do much besides pleasantly glide through my ears either. But "Sisters" has single-handedly dialed my interest level up several notches. It's another low-key, vintage-sounding, lightly groovy pop number, but something about this one just sparkles. "You got to keep your sisters close to you," Prass croons before breaking into a choir-backed, gospel-infused chorus: "I want to say it loud/For all the ones held down/We got to change the plan/Come on, nasty women." Sure, it's fairly surface-level as far as messages of solidarity go, but, in times like these, such self-empowered calls to action, in any form, are sorely needed.

6. Kelela - All the Way Down


Take Me Apart has remained one of last year's most consistently listenable albums for me, and I still haven't gotten tired of it. However, before I risked ruining it for myself, I decided it was time to investigate Kelela's other offerings. For the last couple of weeks, I've been listening almost exclusively to Cut 4 Me, but what really started me off down that road was "All the Way Down," from her 2015 EP, Hallucinogen. It's a song that didn't particularly stick out to me at first but has proven to be more than worth its weight with every additional play. It's a chilled-out song with surprising emotional heft. My two favorite parts: the effortless cool with which Kelela delivers the shoulder-shrugging one-liner, "Cared before but, baby, now I don't give a fuck," and the dark, downbeat eeriness of the subtly distorted bridge.

5. Neko Case - Hell-On


Neko Case is one of my all-time favorite singer-songwriters, and I'm so glad she'll be back with her first solo album in five years on June 1st. "Hell-On" is the album's title track, a dark and atmospheric slow-burner that has more in common with brooding deep cuts like "Prison Girls" and "Dirty Knife" than past rollicking lead singles like "Man" and "People Got a Lotta Nerve." In my opinion, this bodes very well for the rest of the album, as I've always loved Case's more introspective and moody side. Here, her voice sounds as pristine as ever, even as the gorgeously evocative lyrics try to convince you otherwise: "My voice is not the liquid waves/The perfect rings 'round a heron's legs/My voice is straight garroting wire/A stolen mile of fingerprints/Peeled the quiet from the dunes/Captured and re-spooled as ruin to be used/At a different time."

4. Iceage - Pain Killer


It's been quite the wait for Iceage's follow-up to their staggering 2014 release, Plowing Into the Field of Love, but it'll finally be over on May 4th, when their fourth album, Beyondless, arrives. "Pain Killer," an utterly addictive amalgamation of post-punk and pop sensibilities, is my favorite song from it thus far. From the start, it's total cacophony, brazen horns colliding with crashing drums and driving guitars, all equally vying for the spotlight. They constantly compete, too, with the voices of Elias Bender Rønnenfelt and guest Sky Ferreira, whose harmonizing is charmingly blurry and imprecise, like they spontaneously decided to wander into the studio after a night of hard drinking and tonelessly wail their lungs out. Combined, it's all a bit of a teetering-on-the-edge-of-falling-over mess, but that's what makes it so great.

3. Cashmere Cat - Love Incredible (feat. Camila Cabello)


Cashmere Cat's 9 brings together an interesting blend of top 40 vocalists and wonky electronic experimentation to catchy and captivating ends. Although "Love Incredible" may be huge-sounding, its actual melodies are more insidious than immediate, and the aggressively-processed vocals at the end, pushed to their synthetic extreme, are initially quite jarring. However, there's enough charm in its overblown style - and Camila Cabello's quirky, auto-tuned affectations - to keep you listening until you fall in love. Mostly, I can't get over the fact that it involves both Cabello and SOPHIE, who's credited as a co-producer (and I swear to God, I will go an entire post without invoking her name, but today is not the day); they represent such opposite wavelengths of the pop spectrum that it's mind-boggling to even see their names in the same sentence.

2. Let's Eat Grandma - Falling Into Me


Either I seriously misjudged this band or they've really upped their game recently because their newly-announced June 29th sophomore album, I'm All Ears, is suddenly one of my most anticipated releases of the year. "Falling Into Me" erases any doubts I had about only enjoying "Hot Pink" as much as I do for the SOPHIE factor (there I go again). Between the dramatic synths, fairytale-nightmare vocals, darkly vivid imagery ("I pave the back street with the mist of my brain"), infectious melodies, and saxophone-soaked finale, it's unbelievable how many of my favorite musical boxes it checks off at once. If you, like me, are impatiently awaiting new Purity Ring, desperate for more synth-pop spookiness a la iamamiwhoami/ionnalee, or disappointed by the growing blandness of CHVRCHES, I could not recommend either of Let's Eat Grandma's new singles more.

1. Sevdaliza - Human Nature


As much as I talk about music like it changes my life on a daily basis, it's rare for me to have a truly visceral physical reaction to a song. But the first time I heard "Human Nature," it was 12:30 AM, I was lying in complete darkness, and I had to cover my mouth with my hands to hold back the actual screams that threatened to erupt from my throat the moment Sevdaliza wails at distorted dolphin pitch, "Our so-oo-oo-oo-ooULS have been separated." And when she asks for the last desperate time, "Have you met an angel," the final syllable stretched into what sounds like the dying breaths of a self-eulogizing android, I was literally shaking with ecstasy. If comparisons must be made, Sevdaliza sings like a space-age Sade, and this song is like if you were to take that brilliant voice-into-pan-flute effect at the end of Charli XCX's "Lucky" and invert it into its spooky underworld twin.

Okay, I meant for these posts to be a way for me to highlight music I've freshly gotten into outside of new releases. (Just like I meant to post something a little different between this and the last Top Ten Tuesday, but it's still in the works. I'm trying really hard to have it ready for next week.) But the problem is I didn't listen to a whole lot besides new releases last month, so that objective has mostly fallen by the wayside, at least this time around. At any rate, it's still a list of 10 really good songs, as usual accompanied by my wordy, gushing descriptions! It's pretty pop-oriented again, because that's just who I am lately, but hopefully there's still enough diversity that something peaks your interest, no matter your taste.

10. Janelle Monáe - Django Jane


Janelle Monáe will forever be one of my favorite artists because The ArchAndroid revolutionized my musical life back in 2010 when I was otherwise listening almost exclusively to cute indie pop bands and sad folk singers. And while I'm happy for Monáe's newfound success as an actress, the announcement of her new album, Dirty Computer, couldn't have come at a better time because I've been hungry for new music for a while. So far, she's released two tracks, and while "Make Me Feel" may be the bigger critical darling, I have to champion "Django Jane" a bit. Monáe's rap skills are vastly underrated, in my opinion, so to have an entire track devoted to them - and one with such an empowering and necessary message, at that - just feels right. A lot of attention has been paid to the instantly iconic line, "We gon' start a motherfucking pussy riot/Or we gon' have to put 'em on a pussy diet." But Monáe also speaks more specifically to her own critics and the sidelining of black female voices with rhymes like, "Remember when they used to say I look too mannish?/Black girl magic, y'all can't stand it."

9. Phoenix - Fior Di Latte (A. G. Cook Remix)


I'll be honest: I don't care much at all about Phoenix, I've never heard the original version of this song, and I doubt I'll be seeking it out. But none of that matters because this remix isn't really about Phoenix; it's about A. G. Cook and his ability to turn a song completely inside out in the most satisfying way possible. Aesthetically, it draws on the same universe of sounds as Charli XCX's Pop 2 and Hannah Diamond's recent releases, which means it's right up my alley. The first minute and a half is almost normal (well, if you consider wavy processed vocals and discordant electronic layers normal, which I do at this point), even a bit beautiful. Then everything starts to break down, the vocals cutting in and out, abrasive bursts of drum machine kicking in, the synths forcefully embedding themselves into the main melodic line. By three and a half minutes, there's not really a "song" left in the aftermath of Cook's gleeful destruction, just vaguely recognizable elements of it that have been smashed up into thousands of crystalline rock candy pieces.

8. Nadia Oh - Is That You


Okay, I'll admit this up front so no one gets the wrong idea: Colours is not a very good album. I was curious about it because I'd seen it described as PC Music before PC Music was really a thing, and that's true to an extent. But, to me, the best PC Music releases are only deceptively shallow, in the sense that what at first seems very frivolous and surface-level is actually a front for emotions that are very earnest and real. Colours, on the other hand, is just shallow, and it doesn't help that Nadia Oh's voice lacks personality and, even auto-tuned to death, melodicism. Why, then, have I included her on this list? Because, very occasionally, she and producer Space Cowboy hit upon something that actually works for an entire song. "Is That You" is silly and empty and cheap-sounding but in a super fun and addictive way. Its two crowning achievements: the Blogspot-referencing lyric that definitely lets you know this song is from 2011 (I say, while posting on Blogspot in 2018) and Nadia's wobbly, pitch-shifted chirp of "Is that you," which has the surreal quality of an auditory hallucination.

7. Carly Rae Jepsen - Your Type


For some reason, ever since Emotion was released in 2015, I've made the active decision to avoid jumping on the Carly Rae Jepsen bandwagon. It's not that I had anything against her personally. I think I was just stubbornly resisting the massive hype for fear I wouldn't get it. Well, now seemed like the perfect time to finally give her a real shot, since I've been so high on pop music in general. Final verdict: I've definitely been missing out. Emotion is a top-shelf pop album that's undoubtedly joining my permanent rotation. In my opinion, it reaches its peak with the back-half trifecta of "Making the Most of the Night," "Your Type," and "Let's Get Lost," and it's the midpoint of this trio I find myself returning to the most. Although the verses are delivered with Jepsen's patented sugary sweetness, her voice takes on a more mature tone in the impassioned chorus, which is one for the ages in how fully it leans into its white-hot '80s-styled melodrama. This is the sort of song that's probably blasting through stadium loudspeakers in another dimension because it's almost certainly too good for this one.

6. Kero Kero Bonito - Only Acting


Leave it to Kero Kero Bonito to pull the rug out from under me just as I was falling in love with the cutesy, hyperactive candy-floss sheen of Bonito Generation. When I first listened to "Only Acting," I had no idea what I was hearing; it was abrasive, jarring, and weird as fuck. But further listens revealed the core KKB qualities that originally drew me in: Sarah Midori Perry's exaggeratedly adorable vocals and a simple but effective chorus melody that'll be bouncing off the walls of your brain for days. The only difference this time is that they're buried beneath grungy, lo-fi instrumentation. But just as you settle into this stylistic shift, unsettling cracks begin to form. "You should be able to feel a performance with your whole body and soul," Perry instructs, "and now I'm going to teach you everything I -" Her words are then cut off by what sound like snippets of her own exorcism. Afterward, the song briefly proceeds as usual until, midway through the final chorus, Perry's voice skips like a bad record and the entire production falls off a cliff into the glitchy depths of hell.

5. Ezra Furman - No Place


Ezra Furman's last full-length release, 2015's Perpetual Motion People, was pretty undeniably delightful, between its diverse mishmash of musical influences and its bright, toe-tapping melodies. But beneath many of these melodies lay lyrics that explored themes much darker and more serious than implied by their shiny, boisterous wrapping. On Transangelic Exodus, the divide between music and lyrics is bridged, as its sound is much heavier, grungier, and rawer overall. The result is intense emotional catharsis at best and damn fine rock and roll at worst. "No Place" is particularly bracing, its non-stop energy propelled relentlessly forward by booming drums, fuzzy horns, and distorted guitar. If I were to describe the song as a feeling, I'm guessing it might be kind of like being a passenger in a car about to crash that never actually does. Instead, the moment just before impact loops over and over again, equal parts terrifying and thrilling. Furman's voice is raspy and rough, sometimes even verging on tuneless, but it's hard to imagine the song hitting as hard if sung with technical perfection.

4. Wye Oak - It Was Not Natural


Jenn Wasner has one of those voices I could listen to sing the phone book. It may not be particularly technically versatile, but it has such an idiosyncratic tone to it, calming and serene but with enough grit and gravity to hold its own against even the most towering walls of guitar and synth. While her solo release as Flock of Dimes, If You See Me, Say Yes, was enjoyable, nothing quite matches what she and Andy Stack can do together as Wye Oak - which makes the upcoming release of The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs, their first proper album since 2011, all the more exciting. "It Was Not Natural," as one of those pristine, sweeping ballads that usually shows up to give the listener goosebumps at least once per Wye Oak album, allows the full impact of Wasner's voice to come through loud and clear. It floats atop a spacey spiral of piano, synths, and percussion, doling out simple declarations - "Only human hate could give us something so unforgiving" - with such measured weariness that they feel heavy with deeper meaning.

3. ionnalee - Joy


I am continually disappointed by how thoroughly Jonna Lee's experimental synth-pop, first as iamamiwhoami and now as ionnalee, gets slept on by major music publications. (Pitchfork, for example, gave iamamiwhoami's albums lukewarm reviews and hasn't even touched ionnalee's.) Maybe it's the fact that iamamiwhoami began life as a viral Youtube campaign and has never quite shaken off that novelty, or maybe it's the fact that everything has been self-released by Lee's own label and therefore flown under the radar. Whatever it is, to my ears, Lee (alongside, as iamamiwhoami, her collaborator Claes Björklund) is making the most consistent and interesting music in this style right now. "Joy" is another showstopper, opening with a haze of ominous synths that sounds like a shadowy artificial intelligence breathing itself to life. It builds to a dizzy pitch before shrinking away at the arrival of Lee's spooky, enigmatic vocals and returns for the massive chorus, where Lee's voice rings out like a chime, "This is the sound of joy, coming from my innermost."

2. SOPHIE - Faceshopping


I'll only warn you once: as long as SOPHIE keeps being the most interesting person in electronic music (a claim I'm willing to call only slightly hyperbolic), I'm not going to stop posting about her. "Faceshopping" sounds like the soundtrack to a dystopian but stylish future, one in which the noises of a malfunctioning android assembly line become strangely musical. I've said it before, but I'm continually amazed by how SOPHIE makes chaos sound so clean. There are so many moving parts here, all equally clamoring for the listener's attention, which could quickly devolve into a mess if they weren't designed and layered so precisely. The lyrics are cryptic but meaningful upon closer inspection. Serving as SOPHIE's vocal conduit, singer Cecile Believe murmurs in the unconventional hook, "I'm real when I shop my face." SOPHIE has spoken previously of her fascination with plastic surgery, and she's recently employed prosthetics and makeup to present a sort of hyper-exaggerated version of herself. But, "Faceshopping" seems to insist, no matter how altered, it's still herself, perhaps even most authentically so, because it represents her interior ideal: "So you must be the one I've seen in my dreams," begins the song's surprisingly soulful bridge.

1. Ought - Desire


"Desire," the third single released from Ought's (excellent) new album, Room Inside the World, is pretty easily my favorite song of the year so far. Like the album's prior two singles, it represents a marked departure for the band, from frenetic post-punk to brooding and expansive indie rock, Tim Darcy's voice transformed from an off-kilter shout to a richly expressive drawl. At the same time, despite the shift in sound, there's no denying this is still the same band who released the charmingly sloppy debut, More Than Any Other Day, four years ago. They've matured, certainly, but they've also retained their particular brand of magic in the process. A large part of the charm lies in Darcy's lyrics, which at times resemble poetry in their vivid, unique imagery: "The feel of your honey in the corner of my mouth/Like a loop around the block/Like a shadow in your notebook." This descriptive flair is offset by the direct gut punch of the late-arriving refrain, in which Darcy wails simply, "Desire, desire/It was never going to stay," accompanied by stirring choral backing as his own voice devolves into a wordless howl. It's like the world-weary older sibling of their debut's "Habit," which (until now possibly) has always been my favorite Ought song.