50 Great Songs From 2016

On December 29th, my "20 Favorite Albums of 2016" list drops, but there's so much good music out there that one list couldn't fully represent what the year had to offer.  It's hard to make an album that's consistently great from start to finish, especially in an age where individual songs are given more and more importance.  So this list is intended to pay lip service to some great standalone songs.  All of these come from albums that won't be on my top 20 list, either because it's a great song on a mediocre album, or one on an album that's good but not quite good enough to crack the top tier.  So, without further ado, here's a list of fifty standalone songs, listed in alphabetical order (with one exception, I limited myself to one song per artist):

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2013

Earlier this year, I wrote about how 2013 was the year of the event album, in that we saw the return of many artists who had been inactive for a long time (My Bloody Valentine, Mazzy Star, Justin Timberlake, Boards of Canada, Daft Punk) and new releases from blockbuster artists (Kanye West, Vampire Weekend).  Elsewhere, music critics wondered whether we were seeing the end of guitar rock in an increasingly synth-based world.  Additionally, I saw many thinkpieces this year about the "Emo Revival," a resurgence of bands making quality emo music (I'll just have to take their word for it).  2013 wasn't a year where you could pin down one overarching narrative; instead, there were many narratives happening at once.  It was the year that indie went pop (Haim, Chvrches), pop went indie (Sky Ferreira, Charli XCX), rap continued to make its steps into a new golden age, etc.

I've often said that I don't consider any year to be a "bad" year for music, but 2013 seemed to be a particularly good one.  Expand my list to a top 30 instead of 20 and every album would still be something I consider great.  I don't know whether it's about a true uptick in quality or an expansion of my tastes, but this was the year where it finally felt like there was too music.  Almost every week had a release I wanted to listen to, and there were some albums that could've been top 20 contenders (Janelle Monae, Blood Orange, Sky Ferreira, Beyonce) but I didn't have the time to give them more than a few listens.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my list.  I had a tough time figuring out the order -- my #1 and 2 were pretty locked in for most of the year, but after that it's much more of a grab bag -- and these last few weeks have been time for me to relisten to albums and manically switch placements around.  One thing I would've liked is for a little more diversity.  There are more pop and rap releases than there were in previous years (perhaps indie rock IS dying!!!), but these are all albums that you'll see on basically any other Best of the Year list.  Looking for an interesting list?  Well look elsewhere, because this isn't it!  Okay, now on to the actual list (with links included for the highlight songs if there's a Youtube video for it)...