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.

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.

9. Sarah Slean - Day One

Sarah Slean has never found the success she deserves in the United States or her native Canada; if it were up to me, she'd be ranked popularity-wise alongside other contemporary piano-pop songwriters like Regina Spektor, Ingrid Michaelson, and Sara Bareilles. During her peak period, 2002's Night Bugs and 2004's Day One, Slean was writing smarter and catchier songs than any of them. Although many fans decried its more mainstream tendencies at the time, Day One has always been my personal favorite. It's full of effervescent pop tunes with a theatrical flair, like the soundtrack to the next hip Broadway production everyone will be clamoring to see. Slean's dramatic vocal inflections, rich cabaret-inspired tone, and bright piano-playing further add to this impression, from the bubbly title track to the brooding noir of "The Score." Even the lyrics are rife with stage-ready calls to action: "Fight the war!/What are your hearts and your wheelbarrows for?/Lean on me, man, I don't keep score," she crows on "Out in the Park." The imagery, too, seems tailor-made for intricate production, as on the dark, frenetic highlight "When Another Midnight," where Slean warns, "All the commuters will hear our words and hide in garages like frightened birds/But you can't stop the moaning of the earth and the midnight crackling of my nerve!" Such high drama wouldn't work were it not rooted in an unshakable foundation of composition. Even potentially schmaltzy ballads like "Mary" and "Your Wish Is My Wish" shine like jewels for their spare intimacy and understated sincerity.


8. Deas Vail - Birds & Cages

Deas Vail can be a hard sell because of two polarizing words: emo and Christianity. However, they're really only emo by association and more accurately make beautiful melodic pop, and if the God thing bothers you, it's easy enough to focus on music over lyrics. The real draw is Wes Blaylock's voice, which could sing the McDonald's drive-through menu and still leave you dabbing tears from your eyes. His falsetto is one of the most pristine and effortless I've ever heard. He glides through octaves as smoothly as a knife slicing through hot butter - just try listening to his performance on the slow-burning closer "Atlantis" without getting chills. It isn't only the technical proficiency of his vocals that stuns but the emotional potency behind them, and the mid-album one-two punch of "Cages" and "Birds" is a powerful display of both. These songs, along with "Sunlight" later on, serve as the pinnacle of the band's songwriting by emphasizing all of their greatest strengths at once: a seamless transition from driving, aggressive rock to lushly orchestrated swells of pure beauty; gorgeously intertwined vocal harmonies; surprising melodic turns; and choruses that refuse to vacate your head for days at a time. This band has more hooks than they know what to do with, which means that even their most straightforward songs ("Growing Pains," "Excuses") never grow any less exhilarating than they are the first time through. After releasing Birds & Cages in 2009, the band struggled to match its greatness before falling off the map completely; even with that knowledge, the album still bursts with ceaseless potential.


7. Nerina Pallot - Fires

When an album isn't even available on Spotify, you know you're onto a real hidden gem. Nerina Pallot had just crossed the threshold of her thirties when she released her sophomore album, Fires, in 2005, which doesn't come as a surprise once you've heard it. The album has the descriptive lushness and emotional specificity of a sprawling bildungsroman: it tells the story of a bright, neurotic woman coming of age in a society where her place and worth are not always clear. "I've played a role so long that I've forgotten myself," she admits frankly and elsewhere, "You say you see heaven/I see hell but want to try." Instead of buckling under the pressure, though, she transforms her battle wounds into badges of courage: "I'll scream until I'm hollow/I'll carve it in my skin/Save it for tomorrow." But the personal resonance of Fires is only half its story because it also happens to be one of the catchiest, tightest pop albums I've ever heard - it's pop music for adults, but in a way that still has fun with itself rather than being stodgy or stilted. Pallot's effortlessly lightweight vocals are the perfect vehicle for the breathless melodies of "Everybody's Gone to War" and "Heart Attack," which remain buoyant even as their lyrics go dark ("I've got a friend, he's a purebred killing machine/I think he might be dead by Christmas"). At the same time, her voice holds enough emotional weight to sell the more somber moments, too, from the brooding and atmospheric "Damascus" to the driving piano-led furor of "Idaho" to the reflective tenderness of "Sophia."

6. The Rosebuds - Loud Planes Fly Low

Musical couples are always a precarious thing because if one relationship falls apart, the other likely will, too. However, breaking up seems to have been mutually beneficial for Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp, the musical duo known as the Rosebuds. After all, they wrote and recorded an entire album about it in Loud Planes Fly Low, which is arguably their best work to date and ranked as my top album of 2011. It's a painful listen (the lyrics are brutally honest in their heartbreak), but it's also oddly uplifting, in not only the laid-back effervescence of the music but also the fact that it has the feel of a final bloodletting, from which Howard and Crisp emerge newly-formed. The gentle, breezy opener, "Go Ahead," hints at the necessity of balance between letting go of the past and fondly recalling old memories, particularly in its closing metaphor: "Go ahead and leave two notes/And place them down inside old library books/And fold back the pages/Put them back in their spaces, undisturbed/And we'll come back and see inside/Who checked them out and if they replied/Or if they're still there, unread and unanswered." More impressionistic tracks like "Limitless Arms" serve as dreamy counterpoints to their emotionally potent surroundings. In the '70s pop-styled "Come Visit Me," Crisp makes a desperate plea in the guise of a catchy chorus: "I want to feel something way out here/I need something happy now/Even if it fucks me up." And the wistfully romantic swells of "Waiting for You" are tinged with regret by Howard's freshly post break-up confession: "In the middle of the night, I don't know who I am."


5. The Anniversary - Designing a Nervous Breakdown

I bet you didn't know you needed early '00s Midwestern emo backed by '80s-influenced synthesizers galore in your life, did you? Well, I'm here to tell you that you definitely do. The Anniversary is so ridiculously slept on, even by supposed aficionados of their scene/era, who seem to be too busy waxing nostalgic over bigger acts like Sunny Day Real Estate, American Football, and Mineral to branch out. The band released their debut, Designing a Nervous Breakdown, in 2000, and, in my opinion, it actually holds up a lot better than many of their contemporaries' albums do. I know I'm always raving about hooks but, my god, the hooks. This is one of my go-to albums for dialing my emotions, positive and negative, up to eleven because every song sounds like it was assembled in a factory specializing in pump-up music. "All Things Ordinary," "The D in Detroit," "Emma Discovery," "Till We Earned a Holiday," "Without Panasos" - pick any one of these out of a hat and you're guaranteed power pop perfection. You can easily make the same argument for the other half of the album, too. The vocals are split three ways between Josh Berwanger, Justin Roelofs, and Adrianne Verhoeven. What any of them lack in technical proficiency they make up for in volume and energy, often capitalizing on call-and-response and gang vocals for maximum impact. Their lyrics are occasionally clunky and juvenile, but, oddly enough, this makes them even more cathartic. For example, a line like "Dear Dad, I'm having trouble feeling sad" looks ridiculous on paper but feels great when shouted along to at the top of your lungs.


4. Carissa's Wierd - Songs About Leaving

There are a lot of things about Carissa's Wierd that shouldn't really work. Their purposely misspelled band name (they even have an album titled I Before E, that's how serious they are about it). Mat Brooke's apathetic baritone mumble, often barely audible over its musical accompaniment. Jenn Ghetto's equally elusive voice, so slight and haunting it seems to float like an apparition. Their song titles, which alternate between sounding like the product of a bratty teenager ("Ignorant Piece of Shit," "Sofisticated Fuck Princess Please Leave Me Alone") and a pretentious teenager ("September Come Take This Heart Away," "Low Budget Slow Motion Soundtrack Song for the Leaving Scene"). The way their quivering, classical-leaning piano and string arrangements clash with their blunt, confrontational lyrics. But, somehow, they mesh these disparate components together in a way that makes complete sense, especially on their standout album, 2002's Songs About Leaving. Emotionally, the album alternates between utter despair ("Won't tell a single soul that my soul's gone/It's hard to write this song/It's all a joke/It's all been wrote down by someone who's probably dead") and tongue-in-cheek cynicism ("Telling everyone you know/Maybe I'll be bad for you/Maybe you're too good for me/Everyone is getting screwed"). It hurts to hear, but it's also too beautiful not to. The soaring instrumentation and delicate vocal harmonies turn each song into a tiny heartbreaking symphony. Even after you think you've got a handle on the band's patented formula for build-up, they take your breath away every time.


3. Mandy Moore - Wild Hope

Public awareness of Mandy Moore is fairly scattered these days. You may know her as the disembodied voice behind Rapunzel in Disney's Tangled or as the teenage pop star who sang the uncomfortably oversexed one-hit-wonder "Candy" or, most recently, as a Golden Globe-nominated actress on NBC's This Is Us. People rarely seem to connect the dots and realize she's actually accomplished a great deal for being just over thirty years old. This includes a nearly forgotten period from about 2003-2009 when she reinvented herself as a folk-pop songstress part Joni Mitchell, part Carly Simon. While this wasn't a commercially successful move, in 2007, she managed to craft an utterly perfect album in this style called Wild Hope. With assistance from Americana and folk heavyweights like Chantal Kreviazuk, Lori McKenna, Rachael Yamagata, Sara Watkins, and the Weepies, every song becomes a masterclass in pop composition. You've got kiss-offs for every mood, from quirky mid-tempos ("All Good Things") to slightly twangy alt-rock ("Most of Me," "Latest Mistake") and from jazzy missives ("Ladies' Choice") to stark balladry ("Gardenia"). But the songwriting and vocal support of these collaborators always boosts rather than supplants Moore's individuality. As it turns out, her rich timbre is perfectly suited to the style. She's particularly adept at delivering barbed one-liners: "In time, you will fade into the nothing that you are;" "the burns on my fingers were all that was left of the spark." I've still got my fingers crossed she'll follow up 2009's nearly-as-good Amanda Leigh eventually.

2. Now It's Overhead - Dark Light Daybreak

No one truly knows me until they know one of my darkest secrets: I am unnaturally obsessed with Andy LeMaster. This is a difficult obsession to maintain because he no longer seems very interested in pursuing his own music. I can't say I blame him when his pet project, Now It's Overhead, has never broken free from the shadow of his behind-the-scenes work with others, which you've probably heard at some point. He's most commonly associated with Saddle Creek mainstays like Bright Eyes, Azure Ray, and the Good Life, but he's also worked with R.E.M., Drive-By Truckers, and countless more. But this isn't about them. This is about Now It's Overhead and a perfect little electronic album called Dark Light Daybreak, which, released in 2006, remains the band's most recent output. It's one of those albums I think everyone should listen to, even though I have trouble articulating why. The primary draw for me is LeMaster's voice: I have a thing for sort of cerebral, nerdy, nasally male vocals, a style which LeMaster encapsulates to a T. Oddly enough, his twangy delivery, often coupled with subtle harmonies courtesy of labelmates Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink, marries perfectly to the icy, detached atmosphere cultivated in many of the album's songs ("Believe What They Decide," "Night Vision"); it's also a perfect fit for the soaring intensity of the title track, where every syllable seems ripped directly from some deep interior chamber of emotion. In the end, though, the best track here isn't even electronic in nature: instead, it's the acoustic-based "Let Up," the toe-tapping nature of which obscures some serious pain.


1. Rainer Maria - Long Knives Drawn

Like the Anniversary, Rainer Maria is another underrated band that rode out the final wave of late '90s/early '00s emo before the genre came to be erroneously associated with "edgy" teens and the bands that commercialized their angst. (Not that I have anything against these bands or the people who loved them; they were just never for me and unfairly colored my perception of the genre for too long.) Honestly, I think a lot of it comes down to misogyny, intentional or not, as the band definitely deserves to be listed alongside other greats of their time. Caithlin De Marrais is a vocal phenom; the power and urgency she conveys is staggering, and 2003's Long Knives Drawn finds her in top form. Songs like the title track, "Ears Ring," and "CT Catholic" have this intensely anthemic quality that I've never found quite replicated in anything else. In large part due to De Marrais' lung-emptying vocal performances, this is just as much a result of the blistering guitars, chaotic drumming, and full-speed-ahead melodies. The melodies are especially intriguing because they initially seem to follow very straightforward, no-nonsense rock structures - that is, until the band reconstructs them and fits them back together in ingenious ways that keep the listener constantly guessing. The lyrics, too, are memorable for the off-balance feeling they convey; cryptic declarations ("Have faith in the blue lady") coexist alongside gut-punching confessions ("Maybe now we can lay our weariness down"). But it's not all bluster and bombast: in moments of vulnerability ("The Awful Truth of Loving," "Situation: Relation"), De Marrais' voice becomes a muted murmur, quietly straining beneath the lyrics' emotional weight.

Everyone loves a good curse word, right? Especially the ever reliable and versatile "fuck." Sure, it could be argued that overzealous use of the word comes across as immature and unimaginative. Yet, sometimes, a single perfectly-placed "fuck" can increase the emotional impact of a song tenfold, creating an unparalleled moment of catharsis. Other times, it's just really fucking fun to say and no ulterior motive is needed. So here are ten of my most favorite uses of the word in song - or at least the ten I most instantaneously remembered upon conceiving of this post.