In another trying year, many of the best songs—from “Like I Used To” to “Pick Up Your Feelings” to “Hard Drive” to “Good Days”—were about picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and trying again. These tracks gave us a shoulder to cry on, but also, crucially, a kick in the pants when we needed it most. They were the soundtrack to our 2021, and we have a feeling we’ll keep turning to them in better times yet to come. These are the 100 best songs of the year.
Listen to selections from this list on our Spotify playlist and Apple Music playlist.
Check out all of Pitchfork’s 2021 wrap-up coverage here.
Halsey: “I am not a woman, I’m a god”
More than any other track on Halsey’s career-best LP If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power, “I am not a woman, I’m a god” embodies the bitter resignation of the album’s title: detachment as a mask for self-loathing. Taking the come-closer-go-away themes of previous songs like “Alone” and turning them post-apocalyptic, Halsey likens themself to a distant sort of god, an alt-pop Doctor Manhattan surveying their emotional wasteland of botched connections and might-have-been selves and finding nothing savable. Producers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross deliver their late-career coldest: an implacable sequence line, a metronomic beat, and a synth riff that prickles like a crown of thorns. Halsey vocalizes like they’re trying to outrun the thing they’re singing about, until the final chorus: a desperate belt with an abrupt end, the sounds their last few remaining feelings make before they’re soldered over. –Katherine St. Asaph
Listen: Halsey, “I am not a woman, I’m a god”
Smerz: “Believer”
Smerz, the electronic project of Norwegian songwriters Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg, released its debut full-length, Believer, early this year. The album’s cold, creeping title track is among the duo’s finest work: The song teeters on jagged synths and rattling polyrhythms, while strings surge from behind at gale force. Stoltenberg’s voice is small and slightly processed, a mechanical purr that somehow feels both vulnerable and detached. Her clipped dispatches on love are pragmatic and icy, but beguiling enough to lure you through each disorienting curve. –Madison Bloom
Listen: Smerz, “Believer”
Mandy, Indiana: “Bottle Episode”
“Bottle Episode” is repetition weaponized. The single by the Manchester-based Mandy, Indiana marches brusquely from pocket to pocket, its pacing urgent, its drums military. But it’s Valentine Caulfield’s lyrics that form the most compelling loops—the ones that upend the song’s tone. Each short verse ends with a single repeating line; some, when read straight, would be too grim to maintain the song’s relentless groove (“Sous le feu et sous les balles/Les hommes dansent quasiment,” roughly translated: “As the bullets hit them/The men dance, almost”). Yet Caulfield infuses them with a perverse playfulness, allowing you to imagine, against your better judgment, how that choreography might look. –Paul A. Thompson
Listen: Mandy, Indiana, “Bottle Episode”
beabadoobee: “Last Day on Earth”
Bea Kristi wrote “Last Day on Earth” soon after COVID-19 lockdowns began by imagining how she would’ve spent her last “normal” day. It sounds like a rom-com writing prompt, with music to match: irresistible guitar-pop jangle, a giddy wordless hook, soft backing vocals from the 1975’s Matty Healy. But the song’s sweet self-referentiality takes it someplace unexpected. Instead of looking for love or throwing a rager, Bea wanders around her house naked and alone, obsessing over a song that’s “so fucking sick” even as she’s too drunk to finish the lyrics. That’s where the hook comes in: When you have a golden riff and a perfect melody, there's nothing wrong with singing shoop-do-badoo and calling it a day. –Jamieson Cox
Listen: beabadoobee, “Last Day on Earth”
Kay Flock: “Being Honest”
Bronx teenager Kay Flock has the voice of a much older man, suitable for projecting menace and hinting at relentless pain. It’s reminiscent of G Herbo, when the Chicago rapper was pioneering drill nearly a decade ago. Herbo solidified this connection by showing up on a remix of “Being Honest,” but it’s the original, solo version of the track that gives Kay Flock the most space to express his tormented worldview. The song’s verses are stark, filled with loneliness and missed calls and death, all atop a sample of the late XXXTentacion’s “changes” made to sound as if it were an unearthed pop relic from the ’60s. In a year when New York’s mutation of drill seemed to be stagnating, Kay Flock injected it with new life. –Paul A. Thompson
Listen: Kay Flock, “Being Honest”
Doss: “Look”
A girl walks home alone at night: There are horror films written about the sheer anxiety that scenario evokes. But on her effervescent single “Look,” Doss subverts the threat. Defiant in her confident solitude, she dares us to, well, look. “You see me, on my own,” she sings in a robotic register, before a rubbery, slightly sinister synth counters. “Look” is grimy and grotesque, with wobbly basslines and EDM-style drops. Like a rave in a funhouse mirror, its rhythms are as disorienting as they are danceable. Her lyrics share that shifting perspective, transferring power between the observer and the observed. “I can do it on my own,” she insists, over and over again. By the end, it’s impossible to tell if the dip in her voice is out of fear or excitement, but either way, we’re transfixed. –Arielle Gordon
Listen: Doss, “Look”
Doja Cat: “Get Into It (Yuh)”
The best Doja Cat singles work their way into your brain, and then, when you least expect it, involuntarily funnel back out through your vocal cords. On “Get Into It (Yuh),” it’s the way she bends her voice on the hook, going from a croaky whisper to a sweet-sounding chant. Then there’s the light, dreamy melody that’s perfect to whistle along to. The only problem is, when you sing it back to yourself, it won’t sound nearly as good. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Doja Cat, “Get Into It (Yuh)”
Mavi: “Time Travel”
Mavi’s 2019 record Let the Sun Talk was a spiritual journey of self-discovery and Black liberation that established the North Carolina artist as a leader of rap’s underground vanguard. Two years later, he sounds hungrier than ever, suffering no fools. On “Time Travel,” he narrates the battle between his ego and insecurities. “Often I be embarrassed over how brazen I be,” he raps over shimmering keys, “but it beats bein’ embarrassed over how lazy they be.” For nearly four minutes, he breathlessly runs through references both Biblical and mythological in between nods to Nickelodeon cartoons and his beloved hometown Charlotte Hornets, painting a self portrait that feels both superhuman and achingly relatable. –Brandon Callender
Listen: Mavi, “Time Travel”
SPELLLING: “Little Deer”
Bay Area art-pop sorcerer Tia Cabral of SPELLLING reintroduced herself with “Little Deer,” the surging baroque opener of her fantastical third album The Turning Wheel. Evoking the audacious spirits of forebears like Minnie Riperton and Kate Bush, it is a fable-like tale of death and rebirth, of the never-quite-finished process of being a person. Joined by over a dozen musicians—brass, strings, woodwinds, conga, a choir—Cabral brings pop formalism and the questing spirit of ’70s soul orchestration into SPELLLING’s world, making a majestic entry into her sharpest album yet. –Jenn Pelly
Listen: SPELLLING, “Little Deer”
Snoh Aalegra: “We Don’t Have to Talk About It”
Here’s an R&B ballad for the ghosted, by the ghosted. Snoh Aalegra, whose elegant vocals and tight ponytail have inspired enough comparisons to Sade to cause a minor Twitter controversy, is trying to navigate the frustrations of a one-sided relationship. She wants to respect her partner’s silence even as she’s haunted by what’s been left unsaid. Atop roomy production that mirrors the empty space she’s wading through, Aalegra sounds both poised and vulnerable—straight-faced with a single tear running down. She can’t force him to talk about what’s wrong. But he can’t stop her from singing about it, either. –Ryan Dombal
Listen: Snoh Aalegra, “We Don’t Have to Talk About It”
The Armed: “All Futures”
“All Futures” introduced ULTRAPOP as the Armed’s fourth album, and also as a one-band genre: a deliberate attempt to fashion post-hardcore’s most extremist tendencies into something thrillingly accessible. In a live-performance video that has become the song’s definitive version, the band flexed the results of the absurd nutrition and exercise regimen they’d followed for the previous year, a sort of conceptual stunt aimed at visually matching the maxed-out heroism of the music. Absolutely ripped, dwarfing their instruments, they pummel out massive hooks amid organized chaos. These facets are inseparable for the Armed, a band that has dedicated its confounding existence to highbrow myth-making on one hand, and on the other, shit that immediately sounds and looks fucking awesome. –Ian Cohen
Listen: The Armed, “All Futures“
Danny L Harle: “Boing Beat”
MC Boing, the pitched-up voice on Danny L Harle’s post-trance rave-up “Boing Beat,” is a blobby blue cartoon character that looks like a cross between Crazy Frog and a character from a Red Bull commercial. Such absurd imagery suits the song’s delirious swirl of internet-addled Eurodance refractions and pitched-up sugar-rush rapping, which is credited to the animated avatar. The euphoric, otherworldly track arrived in January, while clubs across the world were still shuttered and the long nights out that “never, never, never end” were still a distant dream. Though dancefloors have filled back up, the music’s yearning is still palpable—few songs better capture the feeling of desperately straining for an ecstatic experience that’s just out of reach. –Colin Joyce
Listen: Danny L Harle, “Boing Beat”
Dijon: “Many Times”
If “Many Times” is a song about needing space, Dijon manages to use every available inch. It unfolds in the moments after a breakup, leaving the R&B-inflected singer-songwriter grasping at straws, his multi-tracked vocals growing progressively more agitated across two verses. A series of structural pivots—claustrophobic percussion giving way to a roomier chorus—mirror the narrative’s emotional trajectory, with a lively piano outro lending a glimmer of hope. –Pete Tosiello
Listen: Dijon, “Many Times”
Joy Orbison: “better” [ft. Léa Sen]
Presented as a mixtape, Joy Orbison’s long-awaited debut full-length, Still Slipping Vol. 1, is meant to be consumed as a complete, luscious whole, but album highlight “better” beautifully encapsulates the UK producer’s timeless brand of post-dubstep street soul. Dreamily drifting along the edge of the dancefloor, the track rests atop a bed of plush deep house that recalls the pillow-soft sounds of Larry Heard; its silky, dimly lit groove centers the R&B-infused vocals of fellow Londoner Léa Sen, who delivers a heart-twisting tale of late-night longing. –Shawn Reynaldo
Listen: Joy Orbison, “better” [ft. Léa Sen]
Mariah the Scientist: “2 You”
The heartbreak Mariah the Scientist sings about in “2 You” is the kind that doesn’t fade for years. Against a dreamy mosaic of a cappella fragments, she reminisces about a lover who drifted away, about how the only thing she regrets more than letting this one go was not leaving sooner. “But look at what we made/Sure was beautiful,” she sings, voice soaring up from a well of emotions heavy as gravity, a heaping stack of harmonies to tell you how her heart went threadbare. After all this time, she still can’t quite explain it: “Whenever they play our song/Don’t know why I feel ashamed.” –Anna Gaca
Listen: Mariah the Scientist, “2 You”
City Girls: “Twerkulator”
“Twerkulator” fuses regions, eras, and sounds, weaving samples from Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force’s foundational 1982 electro-rap record “Planet Rock” and Cajmere’s 1992 house touchstone “The Percolator” into a beat that throws back to the blunt minimalism of Miami bass music. Incorporating all that history made it tougher to put out—after a leaked version went viral on TikTok in 2020, sample clearance issues delayed its proper release for a year—but it also practically guaranteed its power. “Pop that pussy on some Luke shit,” Yung Miami instructs on the song, offering another nod to raunchy rap pioneer Uncle Luke. Even with this amalgam of references, the City Girls’ stamp still rings loud and clear. –Ivie Ani
Listen: City Girls, “Twerkulator”
Ethel Cain: “Michelle Pfeiffer” [ft. lil aaron]
Hayden Anhedönia’s music as Ethel Cain depicts a woman scorned by love and by society, to startlingly vulnerable, often disturbing effect. On “Michelle Pfeiffer,” the first single from her breakout EP Inbred, Anhedonia recasts Cain as Florence + The Ketamine: blurry, bleary-eyed, but colossal, the L.A.-inspired breakup anthem plays like an on-stage meltdown at the Hollywood Bowl. Anhedönia told Pitchfork earlier this year that she wants to “write about what really happens,” and the melodramatic “Pfeiffer” co-exists on Inbred with tracks about intergenerational trauma and abuse. Those songs thrive on pent-up aggression and tension; “Pfeiffer” is all release, pure unhinged gothic beauty. –Hannah Jocelyn
Listen: Ethel Cain, “Michelle Pfeiffer” [ft. lil aaron]
Leo Bhanji: “Damaged”
Leo Bhanji doesn’t write songs so much as assemble musical Frankenstein’s monsters—malformed skeletal prototypes whose guts and wiring he does not attempt to polish or hide. “Damaged” is willfully oblique in its collage of lo-fi pop, R&B, hip-hop, church music, and UK dance, with sounds that mutate in response to Bhanji’s stream-of-consciousness vocals. As the London artist's voice shifts between King Krule mumble and Auto-Tuned croon, the beat shifts with him—capturing both the anxiety and the acceptance of an intimate late-night epiphany. –Bhanuj Kappal
Listen: Leo Bhanji, “Damaged”
Shannon Lay: “Rare to Wake”
“I’m longing to grow,” sings L.A. folkie Shannon Lay on “Rare to Wake,” a ballad that traces the hinge between fear of personal transformation and excitement for it. Lay’s multi-tracked harmonies fall at soft angles over finger-picked acoustic guitar and meandering electric piano, until a dynamic swell announces a transition that never comes. The arrangement, like the song itself, seems to fidget with anticipation, finding beauty at an uncertain precipice. –Lane Brown
Listen: Shannon Lay, “Rare to Wake”
Yeat: “Gët Busy”
“This song already was turnt but here’s a bell,” Yeat raps about halfway through this track, before firing off a massive gonging sound that’s become the Portland artist’s trademark. Zoom out from that moment, though, and there’s a lot more to enjoy here: mini vocal freakouts full of garbled drug concoctions; Dr. Seuss references; twizzies, tizzies, and Lizzies. Cutting his teeth in the influential online rap collective Slayworld over the last few years, Yeat was always a little stranger than his peers, and consequently cast as a minor figure. But in 2021, his surrealist bent became his superpower. –Mano Sundaresan
Listen: Yeat, “Gët Busy”
Rostam: “4Runner”
Rostam’s twelve-string tribute to the open road would make anyone swoon, but this love song may hold special significance for queer people. “Don’t wanna be pretty like a girl,” he sings. “I think I’m pretty much your boy.” For anyone who’s ever felt like a foreigner in their own skin, being seen in the right way by the right person—handsome rather than beautiful, say—can feel like a homecoming. In “4Runner,” Rostam and his love make a new home for themselves on the highway, leaving the familiar behind and driving forward into a future that once seemed impossible. –Peyton Thomas
Listen: Rostam, “4Runner”
Water From Your Eyes: ““Quotations””
Water From Your Eyes’ ““Quotations”” manages to seem offhanded and rigorous at once, moving restlessly but with almost neurotic precision. As the Brooklyn art-pop duo stitches disconnected observations—legs stretching on grass, something in the air flying by—the music comes together as an alien collage, with errant elements meticulously arranged: bubbly synths, fractured percussive clicks, a disorienting vocal loop, a sprawling breakbeat. When the track ascends to its abrupt ending, it is as though a portal has opened up, and we’re suddenly sucked back to reality. –Kelly Liu
Listen: Water From Your Eyes, ““Quotations””
Dean Blunt: “the rot”
Dean Blunt’s music can often be sparse. He renders club rap bangers into acoustic ballads, compressing each recording to its emotional core. Black Metal 2 offers some of the most accessible music of his career, and with “the rot” the artist approaches Britpop. Blunt’s intimate, monotone croon is familiar, but the sweeping strings and lightly twanging guitars are disarmingly luxurious. As the song closes, he cedes ground to Joanne Robertson, whose airy and overdubbed vocals melt into a gentle, orchestral whirlpool. Call it Dean Blunt’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” –Nadine Smith
Listen: Dean Blunt, “the rot”
Iceage: “Shelter Song”
Iceage’s album-opening “Shelter Song” is a wearily triumphant reintroduction to the band: no longer the fresh-faced punks of records past, they slouch onto Seek Shelter like hardened rockers, armed with Screamadelica bombast and Exile on Main St. scuzz. The song builds over a jagged riff; soon, the Lisboa Gospel Collective bolsters vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s gravelly tones. As he sings of getting kicked and knocked down, the band swells in commiseration, offering shelter where they once might have added to the melee. –Daniel Felsenthal
Listen: Iceage, “Shelter Song”
Foodman: “Parking Area”
True to his name, Foodman loves to eat. Some of his favorite places to grab a snack are the michi no eki (service stations) which dot Japan’s highways—often sprawling campuses with spas, cafés, and farmers markets. Foodman pays tribute to these roadside oases on his 2021 album Yasuragi Land, and on “Parking Area,” he sketches a scenic view that might entice a weary traveler to pull over. His palette is more spacious than usual; a breezy, digitally altered guitar drives the melody, leaving more room for his nimble beats to ping-pong around than his often jam-packed tunes typically do. “Parking Area” invites you to take a moment to enjoy life’s simplest pleasures. Treat yourself. You deserve it. –Shy Thompson
Listen: Foodman, “Parking Area”
Bad Boy Chiller Crew: “Don’t You Worry About Me”
Besides standing in a wind tunnel and letting the air peel your lips back, there were few more effective ways of stretching your face into a huge, shit-eating grin this year than drinking in UK dance/rap trio Bad Boy Chiller Crew’s speedy fusion of organ house and balls-to-the-wall bass. The boys from Bradford have worked out what they do well (beers, bangers, bikes) and they’re sticking with it. “Don’t You Worry About Me” refines the formula: A whale-sized hook backed up with boisterous bars and a shot of humour to chase it down. Git up. –Will Pritchard
Listen: Bad Boy Chiller Crew, “Don’t You Worry About Me”
Helado Negro: “Gemini and Leo”
Where Helado Negro’s 2019 breakthrough This Is How You Smile was an intimate self-portrait, on followup Far In, Roberto Carlos Lange adjusts his aperture to capture something bigger: the cosmos. The twinkling funk of lead single “Gemini and Leo,” which was appropriately released on the summer solstice, radiates pure warmth. With each sweep of the chorus Lange’s voice tilts skyward, yet the elegant bassline and assured beat remain earthbound, accompanying the song’s titular star-crossed dancers as they stay locked in a groove and glide through an hour undefined. –Gabriel Szatan
Listen: Helado Negro, “Gemini and Leo”
Indigo De Souza: “Hold U”
As comfortable as Indigo De Souza is with solitude, she knows the company you keep can help further your journey to acceptance. Over the sleek, funk-lite groove of “Hold U,” the Asheville musician proclaims her adoration for the community she’s built into her own personal safety net: “I want the best things for you,” she coos, like a wedding vow exchange you can’t help but shed a tear to. “Hold U” is a cathartic reminder that the people you surround yourself with are often the clearest reflection of your own psyche, and if you find the type of friends that she describes, loving yourself feels less like a task. –Abby Jones
Listen: Indigo De Souza, “Hold U”
Bruiser Wolf: “Dope Game $tupid”
Bruiser Wolf can sound like a stand-up comedian, an Adult Swim character, and the silkiest mack alive all at the same time. On “Dope Game $tupid,” over a beat as shaky as a Jenga tower, he races through daft sex brags before getting stuck on a single point: Dealing is dumb, but it’s damn hard to quit. “The dope game stupid, but the boy still do it,” he repeats on the hook. In Wolf’s hands, the struggle sounds almost hallucinogenic, with images of coke cooking in potholes and a potential snitch keeping as silent as an imaginary friend. He’s weird and darkly funny—but stupid? Like a fox. –Dean Van Nguyen
Listen: Bruiser Wolf, “Dope Game $tupid”
Lucy Dacus: “VBS”
Lucy Dacus strolls glumly in the chasm between preteen faith and life’s holy shitshow on “VBS” (short for Vacation Bible School). She offers a few of the expected observations—blubbering worshipers, the cool pastor—but soon homes in on one other student: a poem-scrawling, nutmeg-abusing metalhead from a troubled family. “You were gonna win me over from the start,” she smiles, but her younger self is trying to win him. Pinning effortless internal rhyme to the solemn strum of campfire praise, Dacus sketches her one-time boyfriend—and her attempts at saving his soul—with incisive resignation. “All it did, in the end,” she sighs, “was make the dark feel darker than before” –Brad Shoup
Listen: Lucy Dacus, “VBS”
Jayda G: “All I Need”
Canadian house phenom Jayda G’s “All I Need” is dance music that feels like an out-of-body experience, untethering you from your most mundane worries. The lyrics are just empty enough to serve as an incantation (“Putting up, putting up our walls/I’ve given you all my worlds”) or a vessel, a container for whatever you’re exorcising on the dance floor. The retro melody evokes simpler times and simpler pleasures: sweat and oblivion, body and blood. –Linnie Greene
Listen: Jayda G, “All I Need”
Normani: “Wild Side” [ft. Cardi B]
Normani expresses her sensuality on “Wild Side” as if it’s simmering just beneath the surface, the promise of an explosion that never arrives. The song’s allure is in its restraint, the way her voice, breathy yet commanding, matches the push-and-pull of the skittering beat. When Cardi B arrives, claiming she can “suck a watermelon through a straw,” it’s a moment of raunch that brings balance to a curiously subtle R&B hit. –Michelle Kim
Listen: Normani, “Wild Side” [ft. Cardi B]
Turnstile: “Mystery”
When the return of live music started to feel a little less theoretical, two schools of thought emerged: Do we ease ourselves back in or wild the fuck out on sight? Turnstile considered all possibilities with “Mystery,” which obliges the hesitant with an introductory 20 seconds of welcoming synth bubbles and then reacquaints Turnstile’s audience with everything that’s made them synonymous with “You really gotta see it live to get it” hardcore: a rap-rock riff that moves to the exact rhythms of a sustainable headbang, a low-end punch capable of making people literally lose their shit in the pit, and instantaneous quotables like “And it’s been so long!” delivered in Brendan Yates’ ocean-sized roar. –Ian Cohen
Listen: Turnstile, “Mystery”
Yu Su: “Xiu”
秀 (xìu) is used as an English loanword, pronounced nearly like “show”—it can mean “excellent,” “elegant,” or “to show off, give a show.” Balanced on pentatonic synths that beam like carnival lights, Yu Su’s “Xiu” feels very much like that titular exhibition. The Chinese-born, Vancouver-based musician’s gentle ambient vocalizations layer like interlocking puzzle pieces over pulsating waves of drum’n’bass. As an opener, the song contrasts with the rest of the placidly flowing Yellow River Blue, but it stands proudly on its own as a lush, energetic jump start. –Zhenzhen Yu
Listen: Yu Su, “Xiu”
Dawn Richard: “Bussifame”
The lead single from Dawn Richard’s fantastic electro fest Second Line opens with a brief definition of the titular New Orleans dance style. In short, it’s all about the get-down. For the next four-and-a-half minutes, Richard lets the hi-hats and house rhythms swirl as she drops slick, stream-of-consciousness callouts like she just grabbed the mic at a club to amp partygoers leaving blood on the dancefloor. The record unravels into an elastic ball that invites you to move your feet and bust it, with one simple rule: close your eyes and be free. –Clover Hope
Listen: Dawn Richard, “Bussifame”
Armand Hammer and the Alchemist: “Stonefruit”
NYC rappers Elucid and billy woods have been making uncompromising music together as Armand Hammer since 2013, but this year’s collab with veteran producer the Alchemist, Haram, finds them at a rarified new level. The simple production on album closer “Stonefruit” centers a siren synth that sits just behind the beat of a triumphant drumroll and two repeating arpeggios. ELUCID matches the production with a gruff verse about love and its pitfalls, and billy woods follows from the opposite angle, gliding through thorny rhyme schemes (regalia, bougainvillea, marginalia) before zeroing in on the image of a woman who conquers and cannibalizes his body. If Armand Hammer’s brutal realism usually beats the listener into submission, “Stonefruit” is a fantastical balm for our wounds. –Raphael Helfand
Listen: Armand Hammer and the Alchemist, “Stonefruit”
serpentwithfeet: “Fellowship”
On this jubilant ode to friendship, serpentwithfeet’s ethereal falsetto glistens like sunlight on a lake as he details the jokes and customs he shares with those closest to him: their “crafty looks when there’s nothing to wear” and “fascination with Prosecco.” He sings with generosity over warm percussion, making it feel like you’re immersed in an amber-hued movie montage. “Fellowship” is a high note on DEACON, which celebrates supportive relationships while embracing emotional growth. It suggests we worry less, and actively embrace love in every shape it takes. –Vrinda Jagota
Listen: serpentwithfeet, “Fellowship”
Backxwash: “I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses” [ft. Ada Rook]
Rapper-producer Backxwash finds clarity in rage. The title track from her latest album channels rap, metal, and industrial into a tornado of pent-up anger, world history, and potent soul-searching. “The artistry that I’m giving, ghosted up in the matrix,” the Zambian-Canadian artist bellows. “Almost like our ancients weren’t posted up in the slave ships.” Confronting sinister specters of the past, she offers an exorcism that’s both aggressive and beautiful. –Dylan Green
Listen: Backxwash, “I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses” [ft. Ada Rook]
Lil Nas X: “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”
Who among us could resist Lil Nas X riding a stripper pole into hell to give a lap dance to the devil? “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” was his most explicitly queer track to date, and the video is undeniable proof that he is one of the most creative, unpredictable artists working today. The song itself is more familiar but still thoroughly joyful: an upbeat, desperately escalating desire-spiral towards a bad-news hookup, elevated to high drama by banjo, flamenco guitar, and lusty humming. –NM Mashurov
Listen: Lil Nas X, “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)”
Cleo Sol: “23”
Musically, “23” sounds like the best part of the summer, with a harp, chirping birds, and sunny vocal harmonies. But lyrically, it’s a somber reflection on UK singer-songwriter Cleo Sol’s relationship with her mother, occasioned by the birth of her own daughter. It all adds up to one cathartic exhale, as Sol attempts to release her mother from the burden of failing to meet her goals while promising to do better herself. “The little stars and the locked up dreams,” she sings, “the missing pieces, they’re in me.” –Veracia Ankrah
Listen: Cleo Sol, “23”
LSDXOXO: “Sick Bitch”
LSDXOXO cuts straight to the point on “Sick Bitch,” an immaculately filthy statement of intent: “I’m a sick bitch/And I like freak sex/If you want to test the limits of my gag reflex,” the Berlin-based producer growls coolly. It’s techno for the sluts who’ll emerge from all-night dick appointments with their eyeliner still looking immaculate. Over a bed of dial-tone synths, thumping kicks, and laser zaps, LSDXOXO goads someone to “go berserk” and deliver on rough sex; the pièce de résistance is cut-up moans that simulate being edged, culminating in blissed-out aaaaahhhs. It’s not for the faint of heart, but “Sick Bitch” contains so much pleasure. –Cat Zhang
Listen: LSDXOXO, “Sick Bitch”
Circuit des Yeux: “Dogma”
A dear friend’s death, a lonely artist residency, an intractable bout of writer’s block: Circuit des Yeux mastermind Haley Fohr was having a hell of a hard go of things. “Dogma,” the militantly lithe rock track on -io, an album of otherwise pillowy orchestral dimensions, serves as Fohr’s stubborn note-to-self: Keep moving and keep busy, and you might just keep it together. “Tell me how to feel right/Tell me how to see the light,” she commands over drums so mighty they stanch the synthesizer din creeping beneath her. Through this forward motion, she cultivates the strength to survive, at least until answers about what’s next come easier. –Grayson Haver Currin
Listen: Circuit des Yeux, “Dogma”
Erika de Casier: “Drama”
“Drama” isn’t fights and fireworks. Against a skittering beat and guitar loop right out of one of Kandi and She’kspere’s late-’90s productions, Erika de Casier insinuates vocal lines as nimble as Craig David and coy as Aaliyah. Her voice starts off processed and digitized, as if it’s coming from a clock radio, and she’s mic’d close to capture every purr. A fog of strings and chillout piano conjure up the pure moods, while de Casier murmurs decidedly impure propositions. Like much contemporary Y2K&B, “Drama” sounds dreamier and more delicate than the actual music of the past—fitting for this track about woozy late-night texts and the relationship rubble left behind. –Katherine St. Asaph
Listen: Erika de Casier, “Drama”
Amaarae: “Sad Girlz Luv Money Remix” [ft. Kali Uchis and Moliy]
Nothing is sexier than a woman getting paid. “SAD GIRLZ LUV MONEY,” a sleek standout from Amaraae’s 2020 debut The Angel You Don’t Know, indulges in the pleasure of nabbing that “mula-la-la-la” and going dancing; the world-conquering remix featuring Colombian-American pop star Kali Uchis—which became a TikTok sensation and then hit the Billboard charts—only heightens the opulent sensuality. Uchis’ soft, lustrous vocals align seamlessly with Amaarae’s wispy falsetto and fellow Ghanaian-American singer Moliy’s airy purrs as they trade verses over the cool, rocking beat. “I really want to get naughty/I think you’re such a hottie,” Amaarae sings, ever so blunt and coquettish. It’s “fuck bitches, get money,” this time for the ladies. –Cat Zhang
Listen: Amaarae, “Sad Girlz Luv Money Remix” [ft. Kali Uchis and Moliy]
Monaleo: “Beating Down Yo Block”
On her viral single “Beating Down Yo Block,” Houston rapper Monaleo is dauntless and defiant, a brat and a boss, a benevolent leader and, potentially, the last thing you see before you meet your maker: “I’m pretty but I’ll take a n***a life and that’s the tea, bitch,” she raps in her take-no-shit Texas drawl. Born out of horrific struggle—the 20-year-old recorded the track as a way to gas herself up after leaving an abusive ex—“Beating Down Yo Block” is a beatific clapback. Another famed Houstonite once insisted that the best revenge is your paper, but Monaleo has another idea that could be even more effective: make a song he’ll never be able to escape, no matter how hard he tries. –Shaad D’Souza
Listen: Monaleo, “Beating Down Yo Block”
Bartees Strange: “Weights”
On its surface, “Weights” is one of countless songs about clinging to a crush. In the hands of Bartees Strange, however, that familiar theme gets a redesign worthy of the pantheon. Armed with an explosive rhythm section and guitars aimed at the cheap seats, Bartees captures the most pivotal moment of post-relationship life—the decision to move on—through Bloc Party-style crescendos and throat-clearing howls. Think karaoke for the heartbroken desperately seeking confidence. Taken from the deluxe edition of his breakthrough 2020 album Live Forever, “Weights” is a personal victory lap that basks in an adrenaline spike so strong that listeners can feel it, too. –Nina Corcoran
Listen: Bartees Strange, “Weights”
Saweetie: “Best Friend” [ft. Doja Cat]
Just a few years ago, mainstream collabs between women in rap were as rare as a genuine Notes app apology. Now, there’s an embarrassment of riches, and “Best Friend” is one of those coups: two of rap’s most dominant merging to hype each other up, as good confidants do. (Who hasn’t spotted their Day One on the street and screamed, “Beep beep, is that my bestie in a Tessie”?) Over a beat that bounces like a pogo stick, Saweetie lobs bad-bitchisms at Doja Cat, whose masterful shapeshifting manifests as a bubbly, three-flow verse. As public displays of affection go, this is the kind that’s perfectly admissible. –Clover Hope
Listen: Saweetie, “Best Friend” [ft. Doja Cat]
Tirzah: “Send Me”
Stripped to synthesizer, voice, and the occasional sullen drumbeat, Tirzah’s album Colourgrade demonstrates a self-protective restraint. “Send Me” is among the record’s most spartan songs: A single guitar figure is looped over a rickety hi-hat pattern, practically without variation, for four minutes. Over this skeletal frame, Tirzah asks for healing. “Send me sun at dawn/Gonna let it heal some more,” she sings softly, as though cooing a lullaby to her newborn; the lyrics are both tender and cryptic. Then, in the final 30 seconds, she steps on a stomp box, and all that palliative energy suddenly goes up in flames. –Philip Sherburne
Listen: Tirzah, “Send Me”
Billie Eilish: “Happier Than Ever”
For much of her sophomore album, Billie Eilish is subdued, rarely rising past a melodic whisper even when she’s spitting venom at stalkers, trolls, and abusers. At first, the record’s sprawling title track feels like more of the same: “Happier Than Ever” begins with wafty ukulele, twinkly keys, and Eilish’s cozy vibrato, her opening salvo so wistfully delivered that you almost miss its underlying spite. But midway through, Billie’s inner Alanis activates. She submits to rage and cranks the volume, summoning a torrent of fried guitar and muffled screams as she reams out an ex. “I don’t talk shit about you on the internet,” she wails, before proceeding to talk a whole lot of shit. It can be tempting to air your grievances online, but Eilish knows that her burns make better lyrics than tweets. –Olivia Horn
Listen: Billie Eilish, “Happier Than Ever”
Little Simz: “Introvert”
“Introvert” is the opening in a chilling, fantastical score where Little Simz is the messiah tasked with preventing evil from ending the world. Rather than sheer gospel, the song plays like theme music for a champion boxer jogging into the ring before Michael Buffer announces, “Let’s get ready to rumble!”—except the match is taking place at a cathedral over the sounds of church horns and bells. Simz vigilantly defends her title–over 10 years in the game–with steady, precise jabs: “I see sinners in a church, I see sinners in a church.” Here, she embraces being a loner and continues throwing bows, even if it means bad manners in the house of the Lord. –Veracia Ankrah
Listen: Little Simz, “Introvert”
The War on Drugs: “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”
Adam Granduciel is looking back at the past and man, it looks so good. “I Don’t Live Here Anymore,” the sublime title track from the War on Drugs’ fifth record, is an anthem made for being covered in tanning oil on a roof while wearing aviators, or pumping your fist in the air from the back of a pickup truck. It’s iridescent, with varicolored synths and guitars as big as skyscrapers. He namedrops Dylan, and he sings about memory and how we all need to walk through “this darkness” on our own. There’s still a sense of sweet, sweet mystery in this life, he seems to say. It might sound corny, but he’s right. –Sophie Kemp
Listen: The War on Drugs, “I Don’t Live Here Anymore”
Grouper: “Kelso (Blue sky)”
On “Kelso (Blue sky),” Liz Harris chauffeurs us along the desolate road of her internal struggle. While driving home on a rural highway beside the Columbia River, Harris is consumed by fog. Between pensive hums, she expresses her discontent as the light disappears around her. The sky turns dark and so do her emotions as she sings, “Can't beliеve that I don't get to see you one morе time.” She wants to tell us she’s happy, but at night she can only tell the truth. –Arjun Srivatsa
Listen: Grouper, “Kelso (Blue sky)”
Doss: “Strawberry”
Doss’ “Strawberry” begins with breath. It’s less like an inhalation that precedes singing and more like a sudden gasp for air, a sound befitting a track about realizing one’s self-worth. “Maybe this song believes you,” the New York musician whispers, as if revealing a secret. As her voice entwines with a sturdy beat, fairy-light synths, and the faintest hint of guitar fuzz, her anthropomorphizing feels like more than mere metaphor. Sound becomes a conduit for self-discovery—and for the revelation, “Maybe I could sing too.” “Strawberry” sits in a lineage of danceable shoegaze classics like “Soon” and “Pearl,” but it feels content with being simple, ephemeral: a refreshing morsel that’s unexpectedly life-giving. –Joshua Minsoo Kim
Listen: Doss, “Strawberry”
L-Gante: “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 38”
Argentine rapper L-Gante’s “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 38” is the sticky smash driving a new urbano style called Cumbia 420 that operates at the intersection of cumbia, reggaeton, and weed. Earlier this year, the fiendish track topped Argentina’s pop chart, and it’s easy to hear why: L-Gante’s immaculately sinister croak cuts through a beat that incorporates EDM bombast and an addictive brrrrrp sound effect that could be sourced from a Hans Zimmer movie score. He whizzes through local slang, rapping about the partying and women that make him feel powerful. You don’t have to be a stoner to appreciate the song, but L-Gante’s call to light a porro with him and let go is undeniable all the same. –Gio Santiago
Listen: L-Gante, “Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 38”
Oneohtrix Point Never / Elizabeth Fraser: “Tales From the Trash Stratum”
The original “Trash Stratum,” on 2020’s Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, entwined distortion and euphony in familiar Dan Lopatin fashion. This year’s reinvention lovingly collages ’80s production motifs: pizzicato string flutters as fragrant as Enya, blobs of reverb-smudged piano that evoke Harold Budd, high-toned pings of bass that could be the Blue Nile or Seventeen Seconds. Like a bowerbird building a glittering nest, he succeeds in reeling in onetime Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser. Fraser’s contributions—ASMR-triggering wisps of sibilant breath, chirruping syllables from a disintegrated lullaby—are closer to a diva’s warm-up exercises than an actual aria, and sometimes you long for her to take full-throated flight into song. But it’s lovely to hear the goth goddess brought into the glitchy 21st century. –Simon Reynolds
Listen: Oneohtrix Point Never / Elizabeth Fraser, “Tales From the Trash Stratum”
Charli XCX: “Good Ones”
“RIP hyperpop?” Charli XCX tweeted this summer, while teasing the release of this track. Charli’s forte has always been her deep understanding of pop music’s fickle undercurrents, and just as her sound was starting to become synonymous with vocoders and late ’90s/early ’00s nostalgia, she jumped ship to deliver the kind of dancefloor banger that forcibly lifts your soul straight out of your body and into the refracted light of a disco ball. Charli has spent the last decade shape-shifting from mainstream hitmaker to avant-garde darling; “Good Ones” sees her embarking on yet another chapter, winking at us with a rhinestone eyelash in the process. –Cameron Cook
Listen: Charli XCX, “Good Ones”
Rxk Nephew: “American tterroristt”
On this nearly 10-minute barrage, the rambling and unpredictable RXKNephew reels off enough nonsensical conspiracy theories to make Joe Rogan think: This guy is really onto something! The wildest ones—about the COVID vaccine causing mutations and dinosaurs discovering electricity before Benjamin Franklin—might stand out at first, but keep listening. I mean, points are made here: The Bible does have a lot of plot holes! Algebra is some bullshit! And let’s face it, they knew Kelly Clarkson would win American Idol all along! You might not want to elect Nephew to any school boards, but hear him out. –Alphonse Pierre
Listen: Rxk Nephew, “American tterroristt”
Justin Bieber: “Peaches” [ft. Daniel Caesar and Giveon]
Justin Bieber’s sixth album Justice was a big leap from last year’s Changes because it broke out of the latter’s gnawingly inoffensive R&B to embrace Bieber’s multi-genre versatility. And yet, “Peaches,” Justice’s peak, is a pure R&B jam. At this point, Bieber has tossed so many bromides gesturing at a deep connection to faith and marital love, it’s become a defining quirk. But where words and MLK quotes fail on the album, “Peaches” hits because he leans on the sheer feeling of those aspirations. The swing of his delivery adds a shimmer to the production’s major-key bliss. –Brian Josephs
Listen: Justin Bieber, “Peaches” [ft. Daniel Caesar and Giveon]
Magdalena Bay: “Chaeri”
Over a grumbling synth loop, singer Mica Tenenbaum asks, “Was I a bad friend?” and “I’m sorry/Did you feel lonely?” But “Chaeri” isn’t quite an apology, and Tenenbaum isn’t above some finger-pointing of her own—she urges her dour ally to be just a little happier. This is the hard conversation you had last year and then replayed in your head until you got it right—except the song ends before that all happens. Magdalena Bay relishes in the ache of just remembering. –Ashley Bardhan
Listen: Magdalena Bay, “Chaeri”
Kacey Musgraves: “Breadwinner”
Kacey Musgraves’ Star-Crossed is both a divorce album and a story of tragic romance, and “Breadwinner” is its central cautionary tale—the faint siren that divides the tracklist into two acts. With her gift for wordplay, Musgraves flips the traditional role of the “breadwinner” to invent a new character, a kind of male gold digger who’s flattered and then intimidated by a woman’s success. As his shine dulls, she sees his motives clearly. Musgraves’ roots ground her: A slight twang lingers amid her glittering synth and soft rock, more country-pop symbiosis than crossover. She’s shedding a love that weighed her down, gazing through the rearview mirror and driving forward. –Julia Gray
Listen: Kacey Musgraves, “Breadwinner”
Illuminati Hotties: “MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA”
On the lead single from her impressive second LP, Illuminati Hotties head Sarah Tudzin doesn’t just sing about the disorienting whiplash of modern existence—she simulates it. Shifting voices and tones like she’s driving stick in the Alps, Tudzin tosses everything together at full speed: nonsequiturs about late-stage capitalism, nihilistic onomatopoeia, possibly earnest requests to be choked, trolling of customer-service representatives. She toggles between punk chords in the verses and surf-rock hooks in the chorus, the music as brazen and impudent as her dispatches from the brink. –Jillian Mapes
Listen: Illuminati Hotties, “MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA”
Adele: “To Be Loved”
On “To Be Loved” Adele zeros in on a relationship’s scars and scratches until there is blood. She has never controlled her vocals as precisely as on this minimal piano ballad about the end of her marriage. And, letting loose after a majestic and accusatory bridge, she pushes her voice way past the elegant restraint that is her signature, as it curdles into squalls and ragged screams. “To Be Loved” feels beyond what we know an Adele song to be, because the desperation is beyond what she has ever known. –Owen Myers
Listen: Adele, “To Be Loved”
Playboi Carti: “Slay3r”
Of all the rock bands Playboi Carti could have bragged that he “could’ve joined,” it makes sense that he chose Slayer. Many of the rapper’s obsessions are reflected in the larger-than-life thrash metal group: leather-clad showmanship, a wicked mix of catchiness and confrontation, satanism at arena-scale. Ironically, “Slay3r” sounds downright bubbly next to the post-Yeezus darkwave found elsewhere on Whole Lotta Red. But Carti’s vocals, which alternate between a stage whisper and a squeaky rasp, lend the ascending synths and distant chirps a slippery, even sinister, edge. If attitude is what matters, Carti is ready for his audition. –Mehan Jayasuriya
Listen: Playboi Carti, “Slay3r”
Madlib: “Road of the Lonely Ones”
“Road of the Lonely Ones” is the plaintive heart of Madlib’s Sound Ancestors, spare enough to stand out from the heady rush of the rest of the album. It resurrects a mournful hook from the obscure late-1960s Philly soul group the Ethics, brightening their lost-love lament with a skittering drum break. If the task of the crate-digging producer is to convey to listeners the thrill of discovery, Madlib goes further, imbuing his dusty sample with layers of grief unanticipated by the original singer, or perhaps even the producer himself. The track’s hazy melancholy plays eerily like a tribute to MF DOOM, though Madlib created it before he learned of his friend and collaborator's untimely death. –Zach Schonfeld
Listen: Madlib, “Road of the Lonely Ones”
Burial: “Dark Gethsemane”
The beloved and enigmatic Burial resurfaced this year with Shock Power of Love, his split EP with London producer Blackdown. Of its four songs, the undeniable highlight is “Dark Gethsemane,” a cinematically sprawling track clocking in at 10 minutes. Burial opens with a subtle, searching garage beat, beneath which snakes a stream of sirens, chimes, and police radio chatter. The constant vinyl crackle has a lulling quality; not so the fiery gospel cry that follows: “We must shock this nation with the power of love!” Those words loop over an incandescent choir until Burial pitches the phrase down to a darker register. Armed with bellowing horns and driving bass, the incessant sermon becomes something fiercer: a battle cry. –Madison Bloom
Listen: Burial, “Dark Gethsemane”
Doja Cat: “Kiss Me More” [ft. SZA]
“Kiss Me More” is an ode to one of romance’s greatest and simplest pleasures: kissing. This might seem a little PG-13 compared to the summer of “WAP,” but it’s far from chaste. There’s just something about a really heady kiss (or hundreds of them). And though it’s their first collaboration, Doja Cat and SZA have effortless chemistry. Their bestie energy alongside a playful melody reminiscent of Janet Jackson’s “The Pleasure Principle” and Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical,” capped with a deliciously bratty hook, made “Kiss Me More” one of this summer’s funnest pop songs. –NM Mashurov
Listen: Doja Cat, “Kiss Me More” [ft. SZA]
MIKE: “Crystal Ball”
The sampled horn that opens “Crystal Ball” brings to mind the euphoria of a Sunday morning free of all responsibility. Though MIKE’s music has often been marked by heaviness—his 2020 album Weight of the World found him grappling with his mother’s death—this single from the NYC rapper’s luminous Disco! radiates with hope. “Suppressive of a big smile, why I had to shave clean,” he proudly raps. Even though paranoia follows closely in the song’s refrain, MIKE’s cheerful words freely drift between a smoky vocal chop and slow-churning drums. Nothing can stop his glow now. –Brandon Callender
Listen: MIKE, “Crystal Ball”
Mdou Moctar: “Afrique Victime”
Those of us who speak neither French nor Tamasheq can only experience “Afrique Victime” at a remove, yet it’s a conversation we recognize all too well. Mdou Moctar, who has carried a nomadic Tuareg tradition of electric blues called assouf thousands of miles beyond the Sahara, inflames colonial and ancestral tongues with his spark-spitting guitar, lighting an African lament he sings so lovingly that a love song is all it could be. Above all, the iconoclast from Niger makes an aged form feel young again—not just assouf, but also rock music itself, which sounds newly radical in his hands. –Brian Howe
Listen: Mdou Moctar, “Afrique Victime”
duendita: “Open Eyes”
On “Open Eyes,” duendita sings about overcoming personal tumult, her voice trilling high and swaying low, deftly maneuvering through a jazz ensemble and the swirl of synthesizers. The New York artist’s final lines are imbued with a sense of purpose and serenity—“I’m wishing peace and stillness unto you”—but there’s a twist ending; at the coda, the already-loose structure unfurls completely, and a phrase from earlier in the song (“blind is our faith”) gets caught in a loop. duendita seems to be reminding us that the path to enlightenment is never linear, never easy, and never over. –Chris O’Connell
Listen: duendita, “Open Eyes”
Jessie Ware: “Please”
A sequencer, a vocal melody with hints of KC and the Sunshine Band, and the thumpiest of thumps—it shouldn’t be this easy to make a banger. This postscript to last year’s What’s Your Pleasure? continues the transformation of Jessie Ware from an artist who sighed elegantly at the end of relationships into a queen of the dancefloor. A line like “Don’t upset the rhythm tonight” might have appeared as a plea on one of Devotion’s devastating ballads; in “Please,” it’s a giddy come-on after a couple vodka sodas. Her voice wraps around the chorus like a feather boa. –Alfred Soto
Listen: Jessie Ware, “Please”
Noname: “Rainforest”
“Rainforest” is equal parts Twitter timeline cleanse and reality check. Rapper and radical thought leader Noname condemns the worship of billionaires, the emptiness of consumer culture, and rampant environmental decay, but the song isn’t a biting anthem as much as a solemn lament. Over featherlight syncopations and acoustic guitar plucks, she sounds disappointed but resolute as she lays out how racism and capitalism poison the way we feel and love. “I just wanna dance tonight,” she raps in the hook, knowing it can never be so simple. –Ivie Ani
Listen: Noname, “Rainforest”
Dry Cleaning: “Scratchcard Lanyard”
Like a high school reunion in the midst of a personal crisis, “Scratchcard Lanyard” was both oddly welcoming and creepingly surreal. The song—a tonal burst of post-punk guitars, basslines you could hang your coat on, and lyrics about ceramic shoes and bouncy balls that resonated almost despite themselves—felt like an anthem for a world knocked slightly askew. Florence Shaw’s affably dry, permanently bemused tone is at delicious odds with any kind of musical convention, a key factor in Dry Cleaning’s continuing journey through the indie rock looking glass. –Ben Cardew
Listen: Dry Cleaning, “Scratchcard Lanyard”
Azealia Banks: “Fuck Him All Night”
Like the bimbo, the bitch is a classic archetype. Half self-styled genius, half-warrior, the bitch feeds cannilly on the tender meat of respectability politics, refuses to accept an L, and embraces hostility on a level so fundamental it might be cellular. Banks is a bitch with stamina. “Fuck Him All Night” is her and producer Galcher Lustwerk’s spare take on booty house: a horny, repetitive, Chicago-indebted genre of dance music that pickles her spirit like it’s in a vat of vinegar. It’s neither her best track nor her worst, but the vim is—as promised—carnivorous, dramatic, stabby. The single’s cover has her nails splayed across her crotch in denim, spelling out the name of a fading rival (K-A-N-Y-E, right hand; ★-W-E-S-T, left) against lacquer the color of a perfect bruise. –Mina Tavakoli
Listen: Azealia Banks, “Fuck Him All Night”
Mach-Hommy: “Kriminel”
Over the summer, Mach-Hommy talked about his inner conflict as a member of the Haitian diaspora amid the country’s ongoing turmoil. “A lot of our psychological energy and makeup is kind of, like, split between two places because we have to be where we are,” the elusive New Jersey rapper told NPR. “But, we also—we can’t leave where we come from.” On “Kriminel,” the heart of his 2021 album Pray for Haiti, he raps a haunting verse about the toll of everything sent home—and what home sends back. The beat loops a spectral vocal as a parade of family members visit him in his sleep. While he’s awake, another cousin reminds him to “send that fucking MoneyGram before he crack.” Toggling between Creole and English, Mach sounds ragged with worry as he details a life in constant commune with the tragedies of the past and an uncertain present. –Ross Scarano
Listen: Mach-Hommy, “Kriminel”
L’Rain: “Find It”
Discussion of L’Rain’s breakthrough album Fatigue often focused on the Brooklyn artist’s stated desire to be illegible and confusing. “Find It” underscores that her music can be easy to enjoy, as long as you appreciate a voyage of discovery. For much of its six-minute runtime, the song is warped, genre-mashing pop-soul not unlike early Ibeyi, as a scuffed pulse, murky low-end, and swirling vocals support an epigrammatic refrain: “Make a way out of no way.” The way may seem truly lost in the dizzying middle section, where cosmic jazz meets nature sounds. But all is soon found again in a field-recorded snippet of gospel song “I Won’t Complain,” which taps into a holy fervor reminiscent of Paradise Garage staple “Stand on the Word” or watching Summer of Soul for the first time. When the drums cascade in the end, everything makes perfect sense. It’s a sublime epiphany. –Marc Hogan
Listen: L’Rain, “Find It”
Yves Tumor: “Jackie”
On “Jackie,” the shapeshifting art-rock performer Yves Tumor ruminates on torturous love and monomaniacal obsession, singing of sleepless nights and a spoiled appetite with sincerity that turns to detachment. This hot-blooded subject matter arrives via their most familiar track to date, with brightly metallic guitars and a vocal delivery that borders on pop-punk. There’s a thrilling tension between the brooding intensity of Tumor’s lyrical concerns and the propulsive accessibility of their sonic palette. It’s hard for listeners not to become obsessed with “Jackie” too. –Emma Madden
Listen: Yves Tumor, “Jackie”
PinkPantheress: “Just for Me”
The aughts revival got serious this year. With confessional lyrics alongside crushed-out 2-step and garage beats, 20-year-old PinkPantheress soundtracked the confessional side of TikTok in 480p resolution, calling back to the halcyon days of LiveJournal. “Just for me” lingers in the cutely obsessive, a diary entry that indulges the kind of vulnerability afforded by the more introverted corners of the internet. –Stefanie Fernández
Listen: PinkPantheress, “Just for Me”
Jlin: “Embryo”
More than a decade after emerging from the Midwest’s footwork scene, Jlin still sounds like she’s only just getting started. Across three albums between 2015 and 2018, she proved herself capable of head-spinning abstracted beats, globe-shrinking traditional instrumentation, and even a modern-dance soundtrack of ambient minimalism. On the title track from her first proper solo record in three years, Jlin once again shows the unpredictability that has been her enduring strength. It’s difficult to imagine this song, originally written for a contemporary classical group, being played by human hands; it’s an exercise in controlled chaos that reveals Jlin at her most maximalist—and audacious—yet. Beneath a buzzing synth, the hyper-rhythms of “Embryo” bounce like Aphex Twin in a corn popper and shift shapes like a life cycle with only one stage: constant metamorphosis. –Marc Hogan
Listen: Jlin, “Embryo”
Baby Keem: “family ties” [ft. Kendrick Lamar]
“Family Ties” is IMAX rap—a multi-suite affair that opens with a horn fanfare and proceeds to cast a hungry upstart against his rejuvenated mentor, both eager to steal scenes. Its event status is heightened even further because this is the first major song to feature Kendrick Lamar in years. But first up is his cousin Baby Keem, just 20 years old at the time of the single’s release and so excitable at the start of his verse he can hardly finish his words. Keem’s elation quickly morphs into confidence as he lets off a series of playful taunts: “The girl of your dreams to me is a fan/I netted 10 million and did a lil’ dance.” Then there’s Kendrick, who tidily addresses social unrest and a pandemic in just a few lines, reminding Keem, the Pulitzer committee, and the rest of the world that he still sits patiently at the pinnacle—a taste of fury to come. –Matthew Strauss
Listen: Baby Keem, “family ties” [ft. Kendrick Lamar]
black midi: “John L”
black midi’s debut sprawled across the barrens of outré rock, sporadically burping up gold from its rabbit-hole hooks. The London outfit’s follow-up, Cavalcade, explores leafier, spongier territories, but only after “John L” blows open a portal from one record to the next. Propelled by a chaotically catchy riff, the album opener arms vocalist Geordie Greep with his most audacious lyrics to date: Adopting the eerie neutrality of a disaster reporter, he populates the brass-spangled maelstrom with teeming crowds and a jingoistic leader whose “gargling non-song whips throng into frenzy.” His hallucinatory imagery bursts dizzyingly to life: dark surrealism scoped on the horror of our times. –Jazz Monroe
Listen: black midi, “John L”
SZA: “Good Days”
SZA unspools her anxieties over a failed relationship on “Good Days,” an achingly intimate song that spills out like a stream of consciousness. Over lush, glimmering guitar, she pleads for rest, to think of anything but her former lover, for her brain to empty out. In moments of strength, she can be cutting—“I don’t miss no ex/I don’t miss no text/I choose not to respond,” she croons—and the hope in her voice transforms introspection into something stunning. She wants to believe in recovery and redemption; and in SZA’s world, the want is enough. –Dani Blum
Listen: SZA, “Good Days”
Faye Webster: “I Know I’m Funny haha”
The stakes are low on the title track to Faye Webster’s fourth album, and that’s kind of the point. There’s no chorus, just three quick mumbled verses, about drinking saké on her front porch, the bass guitar she bought for her boyfriend’s birthday (“the same one the guy from Linkin Park plays”), an awkward encounter with his sister. Flickers of pedal steel and drums shuffle below Faye’s lyrics, as if she’s taking a drunk walk home from the bar. It’s funny, yes, but also quietly devastating in its portrayal of a young woman’s insecurities. –Sophie Kemp
Listen: Faye Webster, “I Know I’m Funny haha”
Megan Thee Stallion: “Thot Shit”
The moment Megan starts rapping on “Thot Shit,” the track begins to throb. “Booked, but I squeeze a lil’ head in my calendar/Looking at the mirror like, ‘Damn, I don’t brag enough,’” she raps. With a fantastic music video designed to push back against the moral panic over last year’s “WAP,” Megan goes from relishing her sexuality to weaponizing it; when she twerks on a garbage can steamrolling a senator or spreads her legs out on his desk, it’s clear that this is combat. “Thot Shit” is a state of mind, a no-holds-barred way of approaching the world. She snatches back a flippant word used by and for women, and turns it into a battle cry. –Dani Blum
Listen: Megan Thee Stallion, “Thot Shit”
Peggy Gou: “I Go”
“I Go” was engineered to motivate. The Korean lyrics were pulled from a note Peggy Gou wrote to herself on her phone—some words of encouragement after seeing just how exhausted she looked in an airport bathroom mirror. Her vocals are gentle, but her promise of persistence (“I go I go, I go I go”) feels powerful. Throbbing drum machines further bolster her energizing message, turning a personal pep talk into a lull-crushing banger. A six-minute ’90s dance megamix that feels 10 minutes too short, it definitely goes. –Evan Minsker
Listen: Peggy Gou, “I Go”
Tinashe: “Bouncin”
There’s something so pleasant and blithe about the line “I been sendin’ dirty pics/Hope they make it to the cloud,” that when Tinashe sings it, you can’t help but want the same. The 333 highlight delivers on the star’s unique ability to maneuver through sensual R&B with grace; her silky vocals and slick lyrics snake through the song’s beat like a gentle touch from a deft hand. She brims with confidence, assuming the role of an alluring pop icon, and projecting the kind of joy that is impossible not to join in on. –Gio Santiago
Listen: Tinashe, “Bouncin”
Big Thief: “Little Things”
Where Adrianne Lenker once might have illuminated a detail like a lawn chair or a spine tattoo, “Little Things” instead recounts the things she loves about someone in terms so sweeping as to be ambiguous. In turn, Big Thief blur their edges; buzzing guitar and lyrics sung in cursive smudge together like watercolors seeping across paper. Lenker’s lyrical longing comes into sharp focus with the line “Maybe I’m a little obsessed/Maybe you do use me.” It can feel hopeless knowing someone revels in your attention without planning on giving you the same, almost like those feelings have gone to waste. But “Little Things” encourages us to embrace our yearning, to let imaginations run wild. –Vrinda Jagota
Listen: Big Thief, “Little Things”
WizKid: “Essence” [ft. Tems]
When it first appeared on Made in Lagos in October 2020, WizKid’s “Essence” barely made a ripple, but by the following summer, the song’s melody broke through like the sun spilling from a bleak winter’s grasp. The song thrives off of the musician’s talent for slickly blending various shades of Black music, mixing Afrobeats with the sweaty R&B radio duets of the aughts. It radiates sensuality, from its beatific production to the way the track’s leading pair lustfully stretch their syllables over the instrumentals. But really, this is Tems’ showcase. When she sings her hot-blooded, “You don’t need no other body,” she wraps us all in her yearning, lovers and strangers alike. –Brian Josephs
Listen: WizKid, “Essence” [ft. Tems]
Sofia Kourtesis: “La Perla”
Berlin-based producer Sofia Kourtesis built “La Perla” from field recordings she collected in Lima, Peru, as she cared for her dying father. Inspired by their shared love of the ocean, the song feels like a brief escape to a more forgiving world, surrounding a thumping, club-friendly beat with electronic layers that burble and sigh like soft waves. Kourtesis’ tender voice develops a bittersweet edge as she sings about trying to change and forget. Like the bivalve gem, “La Perla” has a soft glow, and as the opening number to Kourtesis’ gorgeous Fresia Magdalena EP, it sets the luminous tone for the songs that follow. –Allison Hussey
Listen: Sofia Kourtesis, “La Perla”
Sharon Van Etten / Angel Olsen: “Like I Used To”
“Like I Used To” embodies Angel Olsen’s and Sharon Van Etten’s ascensions to their thrones as two of the most important indie stars of the last dozen years—a couple of icons remembering how it’s done and taking what’s theirs. Released in May, during the brief glimmer between the vaccine’s arrival and the Delta variant’s emergence, it reflects this year’s sense of getting back to life and oneself, but also a more timeless pursuit of romantic newness. Short of Van Etten’s “Seventeen,” “Like I Used To” is the most overtly anthemic song either artist has been involved with, full of Springsteenish hooks, silvery glockenspiel runs, and a mood that is both desperately hopeful and undeniably swaggering. –Jillian Mapes
Listen: Sharon Van Etten / Angel Olsen: “Like I Used To”
Japanese Breakfast: “Be Sweet”
Japanese Breakfast’s most undeniable pop song to date was originally written to be pitched to big name stars. But Michelle Zauner and collaborator Jack Tatum (of Wild Nothing) realized that they had made something too good to give up. “Be sweet to me, baby,” a beatific clustered harmony urges, pointing to that boiling point when a messy argument badly needs to simmer. It’s a song desperate for a warm blanket of trust and affection, and there’s an inescapable feeling of bliss permeating all of Zauner and Tatum’s melodic decisions. That sick slinking bassline, those atmospheric ’80s R&B guitar stabs, and Zauner’s wholehearted commitment to the kind of vocal performance and hook you’d expect from Cyndi Lauper or Stacey Q all culminate in a blast-in-your-car singalong jam. Making up takes work, but through the lens of “Be Sweet,” the payoff sounds euphoric. –Evan Minsker
Listen: Japanese Breakfast, “Be Sweet”
Olivia Rodrigo: “deja vu”
Olivia Rodrigo first broke through with the chart-conquering phenom “drivers license,” but it was on its follow-up that she truly arrived. The endlessly screamable “deja vu” is all about the brutal details we think we glean from afar, likely through screens, about people who were once the main characters of our lives. It’s a psychological pop spiral, watching an ex move on, recycling the energy and excitement they sucked from you—strawberry ice cream, “Glee,” and Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” have possibly never instigated such impassioned indignation. “She thinks it’s special, but it’s all reused,” Olivia sings, rightfully bitter. From the outside, their lives might look like movies. Maybe the ex-boyfriend would get a credit. But in the drama of “deja vu,” Olivia is directing. –Jenn Pelly
Listen: Olivia Rodrigo, “deja vu”
Arooj Aftab: “Mohabbat”
In “Mohabbat,” the centerpiece of Arooj Aftab’s breakthrough album Vulture Prince, the Brooklyn-based, Pakistan-born composer is accompanied by harp, flugelhorn, synth, guitar, and percussion—but you could be mistaken for imagining she’s the only person in the room. The arrangement coheres into a gentle cycle of the notes of a major chord, somewhere between an ambient arpeggio and the fingerpicked intro to a folk song, the kind with endless verses. As Aftab sings about grief and sadness in her calm, dusky voice, she doesn’t just tell you the way those feelings can isolate and suspend you in time. She and her collaborators make you feel it with every note, with every breath. –Sam Sodomsky
Listen: Arooj Aftab, “Mohabbat”
Snail Mail: “Valentine”
Lindsey Jordan loves hard. On “Valentine,” the young indie rocker is spiraling in the aftermath of a breakup. It’s not as if the relationship was picture-perfect: Atop a ghostly synth she describes unequal power dynamics, conflicting desires. But that insight doesn’t make the notion of her ex moving on any less devastating: In fact, the intricacies of her narrative make it all the more thrilling when Jordan erupts on the song’s chorus over thunderous guitars, imbuing every word with an aching urgency. Heartbreak is as old as time itself, but on “Valentine,” Jordan transforms the feeling into rocket fuel, blowing a kiss as she blasts off. –Quinn Moreland
Listen: Snail Mail, “Valentine”
Mitski: “Working for the Knife”
The saying goes that if you do what you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. Mitski would like to have a word on that. After a long and grueling world tour supporting her breakthrough album Be the Cowboy, the singer took time off in 2019, saying she needed a break from the “constant churn” of performance. “Working for the Knife" is her brooding, melancholic first major single back from this respite, and acts as an incisive warning about how much of our identity we give to our life’s greatest undertakings, and who we’re giving it up for. The song unfolds as a balancing act of vulnerability and expectation, of altruistic self-expression and the vanity of wanting to be seen, or even adored. There’s some humor to it all; forlorn, she recognizes that the world never stops turning, and that it’s fine to lie to ourselves if it helps pass the time. It’s a one-act play of existential malaise and a sardonic anthem for those who can't help but seek out the spotlight. –Puja Patel
Listen: Mitski, “Working for the Knife”
Tyler, the Creator: “Lumberjack”
We’ve always known that Tyler was one of the best rappers working. And yet, for the last decade, he’s seemed to delight in withholding this ability while pursuing other opportunities: orchestral pop, cherry-colored funk, songs about the Grinch. With “Lumberjack,” he returns to hard-nosed rap, though it hardly feels like a capitulation—if anything, it sounds like he’s still thumbing his nose at naysayers. The beat pulls its trembling keys from a Gravediggaz song (probably a nod to critics that tried to pigeonhole Odd Future as “horrorcore”) and the song’s chorus (“Rolls Royce pull up/Black boy hop out”) is delivered like a middle finger. “That’s my nuance, used to be a weirdo,” he deadpans at one point, reminding us that hip-hop’s ultimate insider used to be an outsider. –Mehan Jayasuriya
Listen: Tyler, the Creator, “Lumberjack”
Lana Del Rey: “White Dress”
The pop music Lana Del Rey is making right now feels unattainable, like you simply have to cock your head and admire it through glass. Who is this person casting Sun Ra and Kings of Leon in a similar light? Who is using an Orlando business conference as a catalyst for Proustian reverie? Who is whispering these chipped-paint choruses so high in her register that they are impossible to sing along to? Who are you? is a question that has dogged Lana’s entire career, a question her songs answer mythically, cryptically, truthfully—sometimes all at once.
This is what happens on “White Dress,” co-written by Jack Antonoff, a delirious highlight from her album Chemtrails Over the Country Club. Lana—a goth who wears all white in an attempt to be the most goth—is our melodramatic tour guide through her past, our “waitress/white dress” near-homophone queen. Sure, it’s a trip down memory lane to a simpler life before all the tabloid brouhaha, but when she sings about how waiting tables “made me feel like a god,” it’s as if she’s staring into a swirling cauldron, casting a spell to deify herself once more. –Jeremy D. Larson
Listen: Lana Del Rey, “White Dress”
Jazmine Sullivan: “Pick Up Your Feelings”
Breakup songs tend to fall into one of two categories. The first include ones that luxuriate in the aftermath of a relationship, reminiscing on what was lost and finding something like solace on the other side. Then there are those from the perspective of the jilted partner who wants to let it burn, pour a drink, and dance on the ashes. Jazmine Sullivan’s smoldering “Pick Up Your Feelings” belongs firmly with the latter. Here, whoever messed things up picked the right one on the wrong day. “You’re off the lease/Run me my keys,” Sullivan demands in the opening verse, voice pirouetting through octaves. The song rightfully claims a spot in the pantheon of definitive R&B dismissals like “Tyrone” and “Irreplaceable,” where specificity (“Need a ride?/Call that bitch/Gas way too expensive”) creates a vividly relatable portrait. If you need a sign to dump the two-timing partner in your life, Sullivan is graciously here to deliver. –Eric Torres
Listen: Jazmine Sullivan, “Pick Up Your Feelings”
Low: “Days Like These”
“Days Like These” is a song in the form of an eclipse: the first half made of blinding light, the second an uncanny, disembodied stillness. Singing into a static blur that sounds like wind noise on video, or like someone’s sawing through the tape, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker describe a vast and subtle longing, a desire for a kind of transcendence not found on Earth. “Know that I would do anything,” they cry, their fried-out vocals taking on the call-and-response pattern of a hymn. But in this strange, desaturated grief, there’s no action to take. Even the song doesn’t end, really; it just stretches out, twinkling in the distance, a lone satellite pressing on toward the edge of space. –Anna Gaca
Listen: Low, “Days Like These”
Cassandra Jenkins: “Hard Drive”
“Hard Drive” is part self-help podcast, part hero’s quest, part breathing exercise. Some of the song is spoken plain like a story, some of it sung. People pass through, including a security guard and a driving instructor, all with grounding lessons to impart. Its instrumentation is dotted with wandering saxophone and guitar tones as dewy as a fall morning. The combined effect is curiously invigorating, like a perfume with an underlying note of dill pickle.
As the centerpiece of New York City songwriter Cassandra Jenkins’ album An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, “Hard Drive” is also a kind of mission statement. Her search for guidance to quell neuroses both philosophical and practical eventually leads her to a psychic, who advises her to close her eyes, breathe in deeply, and count to three. As Jenkins repeats the numbers like a mantra, the song’s drum beat stiffens its spine and the sax starts to really blow. By the end, we’re floating, if only for a moment. –Ryan Dombal
Listen: Cassandra Jenkins, “Hard Drive”
Caroline Polachek: “Bunny Is a Rider”
Who is Bunny? In Caroline Polachek’s vision, she is a figure of undeniable intrigue. Sexy and beguiling, untraceable even by satellite, she goes where she wants and is beholden to no one. You wish you were Bunny; we all do.
Casting off the gossamer avant-pop of 2019’s Pang, Polachek and producer Danny L Harle opt for a sound that is both commercial and weird: a deep, juicy bassline befitting of the Top 40, a “yoo hoo” whistle, a sample taken from Harle’s giggling baby, even marimba plinks that conjure an island vacation with Kygo. It’s a characteristic display of PC Music alum Harle’s impulse to simultaneously send-up and pay homage to popular forms, with results too deliciously crisp to read as a joke.
Meanwhile, as if recreating the slipperiness of Bunny, Polachek darts through various images (blazing fireworks, a wet palette, a cut check), never resting long enough for you to grasp what’s next. She enters a new dimension in the chorus, switching from narrator to first-person, trading a Drake-like rhythmic delivery for her usual lithe, crystalline singing. She may be channeling the want to be immaterial, the ability to evaporate like a wisp of smoke, but when she sings “I’m so nonphysical,” it comes with embodied longing, as if she’s aching for touch. The thrill of the song is wrapped up in how it skirts any pressure to lay out its intentions, how it moves at its own whims. Bunny keeps you guessing. –Cat Zhang
