OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES, experimental pop producer SOPHIE's first release since the 2015 singles compilation Product and, in many ways, her proper debut, is more than an album: it's a fully immersive experience. "There's a world inside you," she sings partway through the opening track, and OIL is an encapsulation of that world, created by herself and shared with her listeners. In this "whole new world," which transcends the restrictions of our current, often frustratingly limited reality, we can explore and embody the ideal versions of ourselves, as SOPHIE seems to do on the album's cover. Posed with regal opulence against a hyper-surreal landscape, with her sharp cheekbones, fiery crown of hair, and iridescent clothing, she resembles a Renaissance painting from the future, a sort of 31st-century mermaid-human-cyborg. The word "nothingness" appears, almost brand-like, on her gloved arm, but this isn't a negative label forced upon her by others. It's her basest desire: immateriality, the incorporeal freedom to "be anything I want." This extends beyond her personal identity as a transgender woman to a transhumanist examination of how to exist and evolve in an often antagonistic and confusing society, a theme investigated through a dizzying array of stylistic lenses across the album's nine tracks.

SOPHIE has expressed wariness at the idea of critical engagement with her music. Her goal is to make music "that goes straight to the senses, straight to the body . . . Just how does that make you feel? Is it fun and furious?" At the same time, there are clearly layers to what she's doing, which is what makes it so compulsively listenable. This is truer on OIL than ever before. Its songs are first experienced in a primal, visceral way, as adrenaline-pumping sensory overload injected straight into the veins. You're not sure what you're hearing, but you're inexplicably drawn to it even in its weirdest and harshest moments. Once you're hooked on the sound, you then realize how surprisingly deep these songs go, how much densely-embedded meaning they contain, and you can't stop listening until you feel like you've fully unlocked the enigma of them.

One of these enigmas is the album's sequencing, which at first comes across as haphazard but makes sense in accordance to SOPHIE's vision of what pop music can be. Back in 2012, she described the ideal impact of her music using the metaphor of a rollercoaster, "where it spins you upside down, dips you in water, flashes strobe lights at you, takes you on a slow incline to the peak, and then drops you vertically down a smokey tunnel, then stops with a jerk, and your hair is all messed up, and some people feel sick, and others are laughing - then you buy a key ring." Before OIL's release, her 2014 single "Hard" perhaps best embodied this philosophy, with its equally nauseating and exhilarating mash-up of industrial clamor, cutesy high-pitched vocals, and constant interruptions of shimmering synths and jagged electric-guitar-styled bursts, all synchronized to cheeky BDSM-themed lyrics ("Latex gloves, smack so hard . . . Ponytail, yank so hard").


SOPHIE employed this metaphor again in April of this year, stating, "At theme parks, when you're a child, you'd have this visceral experience of being human and I want music to feel like that . . . Just the way that rollercoasters tend to be designed - with the tension and the release and feeling those nerves and being locked into the seat - I feel like pop music could take you on that sort of journey." OIL's track order seems to be organized according to this principle. Opener "It's Okay to Cry," a sparkling synth-pop ballad about self-acceptance that sets up the album's recurring motif of fully embracing one's interior truth as a means of overcoming anxiety and doubt, is unassumingly tranquil. (Upon its video release in October, it was also unexpectedly personal, relying for the first time upon the producer's own voice and image.) It's the rollercoaster's slow, steady ascent to the top of the slope, where it hangs for a moment in breathtakingly perfect suspension before hurtling downward at top speed. The song's explosive, cathartic finale previews the descent. Then the post-industrial aggression of "Ponyboy" and "Faceshopping" arrives to furiously drop you into the ride's darkest pits.

These two tracks also introduce Cecile Believe, the primary vocalist for much of the album and, presumably, SOPHIE's creative partner in shaping it: she's credited as co-writer on six tracks and plays a vital role in the accompanying live performances. Here, her voice helps SOPHIE explore a multitude of contradictions that might be more complementary than they seem. On "Ponyboy," her squeaky, coquettish intonation during the chorus is juxtaposed against SOPHIE's vocals in the verses, distorted beyond recognition to sound militantly robotic. On "Faceshopping," a melisma-drenched bridge suited for a pop diva is plopped jarringly into the middle of a thrillingly abrasive synth drop. This relentless back and forth between loud and quiet, hard and soft, difficult and accessible, all of it tied up in stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, begins to break down the barriers that create these dichotomies in the first place to get at the raw, emotional center of what such sounds can provoke.

Thematically, "Faceshopping" is particularly relevant to the album's larger arc. With its catchy refrain, "I'm real when I shop my face," it plays with the idea of body modification, in both physical and digital realms, as a means of accessing a more authentic self. The rules dictating what can and cannot be deemed genuine expression are another social construct for which SOPHIE has no use, in both life and art. As she explains, "[With] things like body augmentation, you can find something that's actually more real," a statement that applies equally to electronic music: its artificiality can be used to access truths just as easily as more organic forms of music. Similarly, when SOPHIE growls phrases like "hydroponic skin, "chemical release," and "plastic surgery," she evokes procedures that are often perceived as vain but actually help bring many people (particularly trans individuals) closer to their true selves. This coincides with the theme of immateriality in the song's bridge. "You must be the one that I've seen in my dreams," Cecile Believe croons lovingly before commanding an ideal, interior self to "reduce me to nothingness." This goes a step beyond mere transformation, suggesting a desire to transcend the trappings of a body altogether and find more meaningful ways to define one's relation to the world.


It's at this point we reach the "dipped in water" portion of the rollercoaster ride, only it's more like being plunged into a bottomless sea. Having provided a thesis statement for what artificiality can represent emotionally, SOPHIE now sets about proving it. The hypnotic waves of arpeggiated synth in "Is It Cold in the Water?" create a sensation of being adrift and alone, questing and uncertain, that's intensified by the sparse lyrics: "I'm freezing/I'm burning/I've left my home." The chorus repeatedly asks the title question, the single syllable of "cold" stretched out endlessly, like someone on the precipice of change but hesitant to take the dive (think a futuristic spin on Kate Bush's "Under Ice"). The transition into "Infatuation" is seamless, and the songs feel like two sides of the same coin. The narrator in "Is It Cold in the Water?" is not alone but supported by someone close to them (or maybe even an alternative self) who insists, with increasing intensity, "I want to know/Who are you deep down?" It's an important inquiry, one with which the entirety of OIL grapples, and the relief of hearing it asked informs the atmosphere of the entire song, which is ethereal and serene, anchored by an inchoate synthesized voice that sounds like something being reborn.

Of course, even with support, such a complete transformation is a difficult and frightening process to undertake, and the next two tracks are a sonic representation of this. "Not Okay" is a sub-two-minute tsunami of ear-splitting bass stabs, nauseatingly ominous synths, and choppy bursts of vocal samples, under the oppressive weight of which SOPHIE's whispered "I believe in you" is barely audible. Through this, we experience firsthand the helpless thrashing against a heavy current, the drifting further and further off from the safety of an outstretched hand at shore, the final exhausted surrendering to the water's pull. The subterranean sensation of sinking slowly into the cave-like depths at the bottom of the ocean is represented in "Pretending," a six-minute ambient piece. Its muffled, slow-motion grumblings are at first peaceful, almost lovely, but they slowly morph into moans and screeches and roars, the facade of beauty peeling away to reveal terror underneath.


At this, the album's bleakest and most hopeless moment, "Immaterial" arrives like a life raft, its thumping chorus a distant but steady heartbeat as it cuts through the murk to return us skyward. As a future bubblegum pop song that's more in line with Product than anything else here, it's deceptively lightweight in sound; in substance, it's the album's linchpin, condensing its recurring themes into one ultra-catchy package. If "It's Okay to Cry" is a pep talk to one's innermost self, "Immaterial" is that self fully-realized and ready to take on anything. There are clear parallels between the opener's lyrics and those in the bridge of "Immaterial," the pitch-shifted exuberance of which delivers a shot of pure euphoria. "I think your inside is your best side" in "It's Okay to Cry" is mirrored by the breathless admission, "I was just a lonely girl in the eyes of my inner child." And where "It's Okay to Cry" offers reassurance - "I don't even need to know your reasons/It's okay, it's okay, it's okay" - "Immaterial" issues a defiant battle cry: "I don't even have to explain/Just leave me alone now/I can't be held down."


In live performances, SOPHIE stands alongside Cecile Believe as she sings these lines, passionately lip-syncing along. It's hard not to view them in light of accusations of appropriating femininity leveled against her before it was publicly known that she's a woman and SOPHIE's reluctance to address them. Here, she insists that she doesn't owe society the explanations they demand. She doesn't have to prove anything to anyone but herself, and neither does anyone else. The dawning of this realization coincides, as in "Faceshopping," with a call to discard the everyday trappings of gender expectations and stereotypes for a freer and more enlightened existence. Even layers of biologically-imposed identity are shed - "Without my legs or my hair/Without my genes or my blood" - until the possibilities are literally endless: "With no name and with no type of story, where do I live?/Tell me, where do I exist?" Having reduced to nothingness the restrictions of the body one was born into, the expectations it creates also vanish into irrelevancy. In the whole new world erected in their place, there is finally freedom to exist "anyhow, any place, anywhere, anyone, any form, any shape, any way, anything I want."


However, the staggering nine-minute closer "Whole New World/Pretend World" is less a celebration and more an admission that this ideal is largely interior and mostly untenable in our current reality. This is made apparent in the buried lyrics of the verses, where SOPHIE inhabits "visions in my head" and "feelings in my skin" before "waking up wanting growth." Then, in a tone that's half conviction and half desperation, Cecile Believe belts, "I looked into your eyes/I thought that I could see a whole new world," and the accompanying shouts of "whole! new! world!" feel similarly desperate, particularly as the song progresses and the vocals begin to warp and disintegrate as the melody falls into shambles around them. With each repetition of the main synth line, there's a subtle tweak until it finally disappears in an all-consuming wash of white noise. There are many possible ways to interpret this, but it seems more in line with OIL's philosophy to understand it as a symbol of compromise rather than defeat, of modifying the ideal to make it workable in the here and now. This seems to match SOPHIE's personal point of view when she says, "The range of knowledge available to us is so confusing. But also it's surreal and it's ridiculous. I'm trying to get to a point where I can just embrace that feeling fully, as a human." From this perspective, OIL ends on an imperfect but hopeful note.

OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES is about the danger of adhering to a hierarchy of authenticity and using it to police or devalue self-expression, but it's also about how to break free of this restraining system. In a recent interview, SOPHIE expressed frustration at how "It's Okay to Cry" was received by media outlets that had previously held little regard for her work. "Do you have to sing a ballad crying for someone to take notice of something?" she asks. "Is that what emotion feels like to people? It doesn't feel like that to me." By expanding our perception of what it means to be with this album, SOPHIE simultaneously expands our perception of what it means to feel. Are the emotions accessed truer in "It's Okay to Cry" than in "Faceshopping" because one's a pretty, sappy ballad and the other's a cold, metallic banger? Is the sentiment more valid in "Is It Cold in the Water?" than in "Immaterial" because one's artfully brooding and the other's "cheap" and "mainstream?" Is SOPHIE herself any less genuine when she alters her appearance with prosthetics than when she does not? I think her answer to these questions would be a resounding no, if she even deigned to answer them at all. She might just as well tell everyone to enjoy the music for how it sounds and shut the hell up about any deeper meanings it could contain. Herein lies the beauty of it: just like each of us, it can be anything it wants, and every permutation is as bold and challenging and innovative as the last.

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.

There are no shortage of breathtakingly stunning moments on Half Waif's newly-released album, Lavender, but "Back in Brooklyn" stopped me dead in my tracks the first time I heard it. Aside from its sheer gorgeousness, something about its overall mood felt familiar in a way I couldn't quite pinpoint. When I heard it in the context of the entire album and paid closer attention to its lyrics, the reference point I was reaching for finally clicked: Laura Nyro's 1969 masterpiece, "New York Tendaberry." Of course, I can't say for sure how much of an influence (if any) Nyro has on Nandi Rose Plunkett's songwriting, but the more I thought about it, the stronger the connection grew in my mind. Naturally, the former English major in me started itching to dig deeper into the parallels between the two tracks.

On a superficial level, they're both intense, smoldering piano ballads that subtly build up from hushed beginnings to a cathartic and raw moment of vocal release then retreat back to a near-whispered finale. Lyrically, where "Back in Brooklyn" is more tangible and straightforward, "New York Tendaberry" is more abstract and free-associative. Despite their different approaches, their themes are comparable. In a vast sea of musical odes to New York City, there's a rare intimacy in the way both Plunkett and Nyro tie their relationship to the city to very personal, very emotionally honest narratives rather than relying on generalities. In this way, they reveal that the city is more than just a place to them but an experience and a feeling, a piece of their own identities they wouldn't feel complete without.



Yet it quickly becomes apparent that their feelings are not as simple as pure, unfiltered love. Each song is just as much about the ways in which the city undoes their narrators because it's full of memories - good ones, certainly, but also ones that might be best left forgotten. As long as they remain in the city, no matter how much it means to them, they'll remain unable to shake the most painful parts of the past. In both cases, their immediate resolution is to run as far away as possible, find an entirely new environment where they can shake off their baggage and be someone else.


But, of course, the city soon beckons them to return, a temptation they seemingly give into without much struggle or hesitation. Its pull on them is too strong, its influence on their sense of self too intrinsic to deny for long. The songs diverge when it comes to the question of what specifically draws them back. It's interesting to note that the "you" in Nyro's song is the city itself and that the imagery throughout - "sidewalk and pigeon," "sweet kids in hunger slums," "Quakers and revolutionaries" - is more about her fascination with its culture and history. On the other hand, Plunkett's "you" is likely a single person, whether that be a friend, family member, or romantic partner. Her irrevocable attachment to the place, then, seems largely driven by her desire to remain close to this person.


Both songs appear to reach the conclusion that as tempting as it occasionally can be to escape as a means of avoiding painful memories, it's ultimately better to make peace with the past to prevent it from ruining the sacredness of one's most meaningful spaces. Although this "lesson" is expressed more opaquely by Nyro, it's summarized with staggering lucidity in the emotional climax of "Back in Brooklyn," where Plunkett admits that running away only causes her to lose sight of herself and that she is made stronger through her reckoning with past grief.


"New York Tendaberry" and "Back in Brooklyn" are both songs that transport the listener to a place so completely that one can see, hear, and feel it, even if one has never physically been there. They also transport the listener inside the narrator's head in a way that turns the personal universal. The emotions expressed feel familiar, even if they aren't, making it all too easy to relate. These are songs that bury themselves deep and refuse to let go. "New York Tendaberry" has already proven itself a classic, and I think "Back in Brooklyn" is capable of getting there, too - in my eyes, at least.

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").

At the beginning of the year, I decided I was going to be less relentless in keeping up with new releases. Of course, this still means I listened to quite a lot, but I tried to stick primarily to things I was already anticipating and things that got so much praise they were impossible to ignore. I've also stopped listening to albums all the way through if I'm not feeling them after five or so songs, which was something I wasted a lot of time doing last year. Maybe I'm missing out on that one magical song or that album that suddenly clicks and becomes an all-timer, but I figure if I'm meant to hear them, the universe will eventually make it happen. For now, I'm enjoying actually having time to digest music (both new and old) before hastily rushing forward to the next shiny distraction. Here are eleven albums and one EP released in quarter one that I've thoroughly enjoyed getting to know.

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.

To my ears, a lot of mid-to-late 2000s indie rock and pop, while not necessarily homogeneous in sound, shared this very specific quality of unabashed earnestness, a bold willingness to be as emotional and intense as it wanted to be, even if that meant being more than a little melodramatic at times. It balanced rich, sunny melodicism with deeply cathartic lyricism in which everything mattered. No experience or feeling or reaction was too inconsequential to make a big, bright, messy spectacle out of.

My responses to the bands that made this sort of music were equally dramatic and oversized. I very rarely fall head over heels in love with new artists now as intensely and frequently as I did back then, and I often get nostalgic for how life-changing each of those discoveries felt, even though I realize that my taste now is a lot more interesting and diverse overall. On one particularly nostalgic night a few months ago, I compiled a massive playlist of what 18-year-old me would have considered my signature bands then began slowly narrowing it down to the 18 songs here. I even tried to channel my teenage self in making the delightfully garish cover above.

As usual, be sure to hit the Spotify playlist at the very end of the post for maximum convenience (bar one song because there always has to be that one unavailable song, doesn't there?).

1. Ra Ra Riot - Ghost Under Rocks


I have no idea what this song is about, as the lyrics seem purposefully opaque, but whatever it is, it feels urgent, incendiary, nearly life or death. Between the propulsive cello and violin stabs, breathlessly frenetic drums, and theatrical passion of Wes Myles' vocal delivery, if this song doesn't immediately get your blood pumping, you may want to confirm you actually have a pulse. It's a shame Ra Ra Riot has settled for becoming a middle-of-the-road synth-pop band because I feel like there's so much more they could've done with the chamber music influences of their early work. Their debut, The Rhumb Line, is melodramatic and excessive in the best way possible, and "Ghost Under Rocks" wastes no time setting that standard.

2. Rilo Kiley - Paint's Peeling


Rilo Kiley will always be that band for me, the one that came into my life at precisely the right time and seemed to encapsulate everything I had ever experienced or felt, even when they didn't. Jenny Lewis' lyrics are unrivaled in terms of their depiction of what it means to be a young, self-doubting, and confused 21st-century woman. But what really twists the knife blade deep is her spit-fire voice, alternating between chirpy send-offs to "the assholes that made me" and desperate, white-knuckled questioning: "Hey, how could you love me this way?" Add Blake Sennett's laid-back guitar riffs and understated harmonies, and you've got a musical chemistry for the ages. I'll perpetually keep my fingers crossed, however improbably, for a reunion.

3. Bright Eyes - Something Vague

Conor Oberst gets a lot of flack for his overbearingly emotional songwriting and delivery, particularly in his early Bright Eyes material, and I can see where it comes off like calculatedly performative angst. But, to me, that pain has always seemed very raw and real. Of course, it's not something I want to hear very often anymore, but the cathartic release it provided was vital for my younger self's survival. I spent hours listening to Fevers and Mirrors on repeat (and probably sobbing buckets) when I first discovered it. Its best songs, like this one, are all about the slow build-up to a cathartic climax, from a gentle and dusty acoustic guitar whimper to a bruised knuckles, bloody fingernails, shredded vocal chords bang and back again.

4. Eisley - Invasion


"Invasion" was the first single released from Eisley's sophomore album, Combinations, and I still remember the chills that ran down my spine upon my first listen. It's the perfect hard-edged pop song, like a dark, glittering, and slick slab of obsidian mined from deep within the earth. Drawing on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the lyrics are ominously elusive, slip-sliding from the listener's grip. The protagonist, under a "bloodless moon," flees an encroaching alien enemy, whose "colorless words" threaten, "Go to sleep, this won't hurt a bit/Shifting your shape to our shells." The sci-fi mood is intensified by a blaring synth line and Sherri and Stacy DuPree's voices, like fluttery, omnipotent phantoms who know their warnings fall upon deaf ears.

5. Tegan and Sara - The Con


For a while, I hung out on the borderline of Tegan and Sara fandom, never quite compelled to commit myself fully, but The Con shattered those apathetic feelings almost instantly. Even now, despite knowing every note of it by heart, it's one of those rare albums that still retains its initial charm, only further enriched by the many experiences through which it's accompanied me. While Sara handles the more experimental tunes, Tegan delivers one catchy as fuck indie rock rager after another. On the title track, she wails like a wounded animal, "Nobody likes me/Maybe if I cry," atop an immense wave of guitar and keyboard, establishing a sing-along chorus that persists years on (and will probably never be bested in their career).

6. Mates of State - Parachutes (Funeral Song)


I went through a pretty significant phase wherein I only listened to cutesy indie pop bands with dual male/female vocals (which, I must admit, is still a musical niche I'm very into). Of groups that occupy this category, husband/wife duo Mates of State is one of the most reliably delightful. Objectively, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel do not have very great voices, but somehow the sound of their full-throated but discordant shouting in unison is charming as hell. My favorite thing about them is that, even on what should ostensibly be a pretty and gentle ballad like this one, they can never stop themselves from belting their lungs out like their lives depend upon it. Try matching their energy when you sing along, and you'll see why they're so much fun.

7. Tilly and the Wall - Brave Day


Another holdover of the above-mentioned phase, I think Tilly and the Wall was unfairly perceived by many as a novelty band (there's a tap dancer, oh my god!) that would age poorly. In actual fact, they made some really killer pop tunes that I continue to come back to regularly. "Brave Day" is a deep cut from their second (and best, in my opinion) album, Bottoms of Barrels, that puts to rest any attempts to categorize their music as amateur. Accompanied by soulful organ and twangy guitar, the band's three vocalists harmonize like old pros. Everything coasts along smoothly, like gently rolling ocean waves, before cresting in the motivational mass shout, "When you going to get back up?!?" This is followed by a board-pounding tap dance solo, naturally.

8. The Good Life - Inmates


An additional phase that has already been overwhelmingly represented: listening almost exclusively to Saddle Creek adjacent artists. The Good Life is the solo project of Tim Kasher, more well-known as the frontman of Cursive, and I will forever consider "Inmates" one of my favorite songs. It's the linchpin of Album of the Year, which documents the rise and fall of a tempestuous relationship. A nine-and-a-half-minute behemoth of a folk song, it finds Kasher laying out his romantic failings with brutal honesty via the perspective of his soon-to-be-ex-lover, as voiced by Jiha Lee. Innumerable soul-crushing lines litter its winding trajectory, topped off by a single-sentence finale - "I can't be your prisoner" - that serves as both celebration and funeral.

9. Neko Case - Star Witness

Neko Case receives a lot of praise for her voice, but she's also almost certainly among the greatest contemporary songwriters. Fox Confessor Brings the Flood is another all-timer for me. After its release, I listened to it multiple times a day, to the point of falling asleep and waking up to it, for at least six months. Case is a master of Southern Gothic storytelling and a descriptive wordsmith of the highest order, as evidenced by this song, which may be about a car crash but may also be about growing up in a dead-end town and falling in love for the first time and watching someone die while everyone else looks away. Case's voice reverberates with such deep sorrow and longing that it sells all of these potential meanings and more simultaneously.

10. Straylight Run - Buttoned Down


Straylight Run always seemed a little misunderstood to me. Two of their members were originally in Taking Back Sunday, which I think made people expect them to sound like Taking Back Sunday. Moreover, their most well-known song, "Existentialism on Prom Night," took off as a sort of quintessential bleeding heart ballad for emo kids, which pigeonholed them further. Honestly, though, their sophomore album, The Needles, the Space, is a highly enjoyable amalgamation of whimsical indie pop and passionate melodic rock. "Buttoned Down" is one of its highlights because it's so musically and emotionally pure, John Nolan's ragged voice smoothed over by warm acoustic guitar strums and his sister Michelle's dreamy harmonies.

11. 1997 - In Your Car


A guilty pleasure of mine used to be reading my sister's Alternative Press magazines, despite loudly and aggressively claiming to despise any music categorized as "emo." I'm glad I've lightened up since then. At any rate, I discovered 1997 through an advertisement in that magazine, though I no longer know why I felt so specifically compelled by it. The music, once I heard it, compelled me because it so effectively utilized those male/female harmonies I love. The vocal chemistry is undeniable, upgrading the otherwise trite sentiments of this song's chorus - "Drown the pain of this one to the sound of my guitar" - until, as the next line proclaims, "This song becomes our anthem." It also helps that, melodically, it's just really well-written pop.

12. Be Your Own Pet - You're a Waste (not available on Spotify)


Be Your Own Pet was a band that burned quickly but brightly, though, if I recall correctly, at the time, they were quite roundly dismissed as a bunch of privileged teenagers with connections trying to pass themselves off as bad-ass punk-rockers. And, yeah, there's probably a kernel of truth to that. Really, they wrote simple pop songs dressed up in loud, brash clothing. But they were good pop songs and still are. "You're a Waste" is full of proudly immature (and insanely catchy) one-liners - "You've been a dick to me all along," "Go ahead and tell your sob story/All I have to say about it is blow me" - delivered by Jemina Pearl with a sugar-coated snarl charismatic enough to hold its own against a wall of grungy guitars and blown-out drums.

13. Land of Talk - Speak to Me Bones


I only recently realized the brilliance of Land of Talk's entire discography, but I loved their debut EP, Applause Cheer Boo Hiss, within seconds of first hearing its jaw-dropping, mind-obliterating opener. There's no gentle easing in here, just blistering guitars and crashing cymbals from the start, blasting their way into a relentless adrenaline rush of a grungy groove. Over top, Elizabeth Powell's lackadaisical, slurred vocals at first seem an odd fit. But by the time the first chorus rolls around, they ooze rock star charisma, which makes it hard to believe her when she brashly wails, "I love anyone but me." In a rapid-fire eruption at the song's finale, she repeatedly insists, "What about right now," her voice growing more unhinged with every syllable.

14. Los Campesinos! - Knee Deep at ATP


Los Campesinos! have stealthily become one of the most consistent bands in indie rock. The fun thing about their debut, Hold on Now, Youngster..., is that in its bright and boisterous sugar-rush high you can hear both hints of the band they would become and confirmation of the band they've always been. "Knee Deep at ATP" serves as a sort of microcosm of this effect, its thoughtful blend of weeping violin, intermittent electronic bleeps, and soft, wistful vocals book-ended by a manic looping guitar and synth melody, over which the entire band shouts haphazardly during the coda, "They said, 'It's not what you like, but what you're like as a person'/Well, I need new hobbies, that's one thing for certain!"

15. Margot & the Nuclear So and So's - Talking in Code


As much as I find the later work of Margot & the Nuclear So and So's to be generally enjoyable (Richard Edwards is too good of a songwriter not to), there's something magical about the perfect blend of chamber folk and indie rock achieved on The Dust of Retreat that the band never quite managed to capture again. There's a warmth to the instrumentation and vocals, like sitting in front of a fireplace in your favorite worn-out chair with a mug of warm tea in your hands. Here, the various instrumental flourishes - pedal steel, muted vocal harmonies, violin, horns - may have easily become overkill in lesser hands. Instead, they slowly rise to a nuanced, natural pitch in tandem with the increasingly pained crackle of Edwards' voice.

16. The Narrative - Libra

The Narrative absolutely deserved to blow up, and I'm still upset they never did. Perhaps part of the reason was that their debut EP, Just Say Yes, was so remarkable as to be near impossible to best. Simply put, Jesse Gabriel and Suzie Zeldin make magic together, and they obviously put their entire hearts and souls into this release. On "Libra," Zeldin takes the vocal lead, her serene voice the perfect vessel for the song's sense of melancholy. Its sweetness conceals the bitterness of the lyrics, as on the second verse, when she croons, "We'll pretend that we'll be friends/Oh, an ideal lie, you only last a little while." The final chorus gives way to an atmospheric instrumental outro that seamlessly interweaves post-rock influences and pop melodies.

17. Stars - Soft Revolution

Bands that unabashedly wear their hearts on their sleeves can be polarizing. Their passion is often perceived as melodrama, a word which tends to provoke a visceral reaction: love or hate. Stars' music has always been unapologetically ornate, and this song is no exception. Between triumphant burst of strings and horns intertwined with Amy Millan's blissful harmonies, Torquil Campbell delivers the verses with smooth, effortless cool. The lyrics speak to a generation of artistic romantics who strive to leave the world more beautiful than they found it: "The revolution wasn't bad/We hit the streets with all we had/A tape recording of the sound of the Velvet Underground/A K-Way jacket torn to shreds/And a dream inside our heads."

18. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Turn Into



As great as Karen O is at screaming her throat raw, there's something so earnest and lovable in her voice when she attempts to sing more prettily. "I know what I know," she insists with chirpy confidence at this song's opening, and there's something about such a boldly-made assertion that stops the listener dead in their tracks. It's simple but effective, much like the song as a whole, which proved, at a time when it was not yet clear, that beneath their bratty lo-fi punk posturing, Yeah Yeah Yeahs knew their way around how to write a damn song. The build-up is subtle but assured, growing from acoustic beginnings to a high-octane rush of electric guitar, drums, piano, and synth, only to deconstruct itself back down to Karen O's distant, vulnerable warble.