The Best Songs of 2020: #100–#76

ISSUE #130

This will be my first year trying a Top 100—in filling the silence of this year's lonely days, I found myself falling in love with too many songs to limit this celebration to only 25 contenders. Know that lists like these are flawed by their very nature, limiting art the same way pinning an identity to your infinite spirit will limit what you feel you're able to become. With that in mind, these numbers are not a hierarchy—they are more like tree tags marking a path through a dazzling forest. Think of this more as a guided tour of nature than a tournament or competition. That being said, I'd like to point to our first stop on the way:

100. WESTERMAN | Confirmation (SSBD)
Initially out in 2018, Westerman finally released his debut this year, giving "Confirmation" a proper album release. It has the tonality of an ever-shifting puzzle box or the Rorschach rainbow of oil on a puddle's surface. Both culminate in overwhelming moments of clarity that ring true and clean as a kiss—mirroring the creative process itself.

99. MOLLY BURCH | needy
I find songs about vulnerability more filthy than the actual explicit ones. Naked need is so nasty it can turn your stomach. This cover from thank u, next was released by Burch on Valentine's Day—the last moment we could release an unburdened love song—and ticks down the tempo until it swims in the pizzicato plucks of mimicked violins. The result tingles like the last breath that tickled your neck.

98. TSHA | Sister
Complexity is often no more than the layering of simple pieces. Like the best electronic music, each instrument in "Sister" is playing a simple part, but it's the weaving of these individuals that makes the fabric of a beautiful thing—noticing can feel like just waking up.

97. Dua Saleh | hellbound
Dua Saleh does nothing less than redefine genre—the weaving poetry of these lines are like a Frankenstein's monster made of melody and rhythm which springs from the operating table, backbends to the floor, and crab walks its way straight to the labyrinth of hell.

96. tricot | おまえ
The Japanese band tricot thinly veils their math rock rhythm section behind hooks that My Chem would kill for, sounding like both a throwback and a leap forward at the same time. This fits well as theme song to an anime about telekinetic high schoolers.

95. PROTOMARTYR | Processed by the Boys
Easy to draw a line straight from Protomartyr to other Michigan proto-punks like MC5 and Iggy Pop—the name is almost certainly a hat tip. They earn it with this groove and lyrics that match our dystopian reality, sounding as if The Wall was written not by Pink Floyd but by The Stooges instead.

94. RAVEENA | Headaches
Raveena can make a sad song so gentle it engulfs you. This one lights the room and makes space for feelings, defies the belief that caring is a crime to be buried with the body. Instead, it's a clay to be molded and baked it until it's sturdy enough to bear the weight of the ones you love.

93. Laura Stevenson | Time Bandits
This song was written back in 2016 to help Stevenson get through these past four years. She decided to finally release it back in March, as she entered lockdown at 38 weeks pregnant. In it, she does what she does best by pulling us with that dawn-beam voice through whatever terror we may be facing, minute by endless minute. It's for all who've promised to quit even with a pack still in our pockets.

92. MAGDALENA BAY | Story
Magdalena Bay are D.I.Y. galaxy pop—all space suits, VHS, and science fiction, like Ziggy Stardust born from the marriage of Rush and Eurythmics. "Story" takes the vaporwave of the past ten years and pulls it by tractor beam into the hangar of bombastic pop.

91. 6LACK | Float
The king of midnight songs, 6BLACK put out "Float" on his birthday this year, and it drips with lunar reverb—perfect for cutting through the thick putty of 3 a.m.

90. HAYLEY WILLIAMS | Simmer
Growing better and better every year, Paramore's discography continues to stand as their new songs get tighter—and now Williams has come out with a rad dance record that carries the band's tradition of exploring what it's like to have so much anger in want of control.

89. DAN CLIFFORD & THE TALL BOYS | Existence
Dan writes some of the cleanest existentialist lyrics I've ever heard here, following through on long drives with nothing to think about and reaching far enough to confront the stark truth at the center of all this malaise—the sooner we address our lack of purpose, the sooner we can build our own. Proud of my boys.

88. ANDY SHAUF | Living Room
Shauf's brilliant album The Neon Skyline is best experienced in its entirety, preferably with a lyric booklet in hand and a braille living room ceiling at which you can stare. It's written like none other, less an album than a short story in eleven parts. This song comes as a striking moment, written with a poet's control of meter, that captures such a powerful snapshot of someone's day it sounds like penetrating their entire being.

87. Roger & Brian Eno | Blonde
Sleep is something we all desperately need right now. Sometimes, I wish I could do it forever. This song always helps me get down to it, and reminds me that there's beauty to find if I just remember to wake up.

86. SUN JUNE | Singing
Signed to Run for Cover for this first single, Laura Colwell sings like she's a cloud over the open road. Sun June wrote a song that sounds like a waving cactus in a sunbeam morning, the loud silence which can only come in a car you share with a love who can't help but fight with you.

85. NOVA ONE | violet dreams
This sounds like how it feels to stare in the mirror for a long time, long enough to float above yourself and wonder why you'd ever let yourself forget what you need for the sake of meeting standards in a world so stupid and cruel.

84. SZA | Hit Different
SZA has invented a new stream of consciousness, taking the sound of looping thoughts and phrases that morph into hieroglyphs the longer you stare at them, stringing them together like perfect kernels of popped corn—happy to have her back.

83. TIERRA WHACK | Dora
I can't believe we get to live in a world where Tierra Whack keeps making songs that sound like they're written by action figures who drum with bouncing marbles and they're all masterpieces.

82. GRIMES | IDORU – Algorithm Mix
As hard as it can be to stomach her recent public dissolution, this song is nice and refreshing.

81. THE WEEKND | Blinding Lights – Chromatics Remix
This slowing down of the original by Chromatics is exactly what I wanted them to bring back from The Weeknd—a return to the midnight cities of the House of Balloons days, sprinkled with a little Kavinsky-driving-down-Mulholland chic.

80. JESS WILLIAMSON | Wind on Tin
It's been a long time since I've heard something sound so completely like a sunset. The clouds turn bubblegum pink under the deep reverb of this mix, the crash of that tambourine spills a glowing crimson into the heavens, and Williamson's breathy crooning sounds just like hearing God.

79. TOPS | I Feel Alive
We've heard enough TOPS by now to understand their incredible consistency, but this one tweaks the formula ever so slightly. It's more direct and less mellow than their other tracks, full of church-camp energy which brings the climbing chorus the type of muted exuberance you can only get from a nice, bright morning.

78. MAUDE LATOUR | Furniture
The best pop-punk connects to the juvenilia we can't help but hold onto—everyone's just an idiot kid in grown-up clothes anyway. "Furniture" has the same brave spirit which embarrassingly says everything that people hate to hear, my favorite being "I don't wanna be famous / but I wanna sing until I drown."

77. SIR CHLOE | Easy on You
Even if she'd kept the straightforward candy-crunch of the verses throughout, this song would still yank—but it all cracks open when she cries "Coming for blood this time" and Sir Chloe opens us up like a full moon, bringing out those claws we should've unleashed just to leave some scars as deep as the ones we're forced to bear.

76. HELENA DELAND | Truth Nuggets
This is a steady and lumbering beast, perfect for a cold walk with two cigarettes in your jacket pocket, passing lending libraries full of Ibsen and Yeats, a Canadian summer which feels like an Atlanta winter. We have a long way to go—smoke one now, but save the other for when we're closer to home.