The Best Songs of 2020: #50–#26

ISSUE #132

As we enter the Top 50, you know the routine—this is not a race but a retrospective, and while I do admit that the closer we get to #1, the closer these songs get to my heart, I will not be handing out any trophies. Check here you want to read #100–#76 and #75–#51. Follow my lead:

50. CAROLINE ROSE | I Took a Ride
This song is built like a carnival ride—one of those that swings while you spin, like a roulette wheel glued to a trebuchet. The g-force hits when you hear the synthesizer start to phase and oscillate; at its peak, all sounds seems to stretch and squelch. Then, almost four minutes in, the arpeggios switch and start to descend, embodying all the dizziness of love and its subsequent loss. When you're finally back on solid ground, there's only one question: “Want to go again?”

49. RUN THE JEWELS | out of sight (feat. 2 Chainz)
For as consistent as RTJ4 is, it was hard to latch onto a single track—El-P's hammy delivery of "Ooh, la la / Ah, oui oui" always puts me off balance. He brought it all back by making "out of sight" sound hydraulic, every hertz moving together like a trash compactor, proving he still wears the crown with Killer Mike by making music that sounds like burning buildings.

48. SOCCER MOMMY | bloodstream
Hooks seem to fall off of Soccer Mommy’s Sophia Allison like maple pods, taking root and blooming in your head for days after you first listen. This song builds a row of three of them—verse, chorus, bridge—then stands back to watch them grow.

47. JESSIE WARE | Spotlight
On her incredible fourth album, Ware makes dance music that suggests style and class without being stuffy—a bass that's using its indoor voice, a hi-hat almost whispering to the night. This perfect production calls for me to linger in its light, evoking an eternal 1:50 a.m.

46. TEENAGE HALLOWEEN | Stationary
It's always a good time for more angsty rock music—Teenage Halloween sound like the progeny of Jeff Rosenstock and Alkaline Trio, born on the streets of New Jersey. Their opener plays like dynamite flung from a homemade slingshot, signed by one of our coolest band names.

45. CHROMATICS | TOY
Freddy Krueger may not technically exist, but anyone plagued with nightmares will eventually learn what he stands for—we're all helpless to whatever visits us in our dreams. The only cure is to stay awake at all costs. This song captures the bleary-eyed struggle, with synths that bleed into each other like midnight into noon and the precise tempo of walking just to stay awake.

44. PORRIDGE RADIO | 7 Seconds
If Blondie had grown up post-Nirvana, they might sound like this. Named for the seven second rule to cope with regrets—focus on each as they arise for no more than seven seconds, then put them away for good. Easier said than done, of course. I suggest Porridge Radio as Plan B.

43. OPEN MIKE EAGLE | I'm a Joestar (Black Power Fantasy)
Open Mike Eagle accrued a lot of good will from me over the years as a personality, even while his albums didn't fully click. His latest brought me the unique pleasure of watching an artist finally nail it. Adding humor to music tends to sideline the music part, but Eagle writes jokes that feel like part of an effortless whole—some of them ("Relatable") get a laugh from me every time.

42. MARY LATTIMORE | Pine Trees
This year, I needed as much relaxing harp music as the world was willing to give (who are we kidding—I need that every year). I always have Mary Lattimore, first artist to ever be on Earwyrms, whose latest album sounds closer to heaven than Earth. I hear this as a spiritual sister to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, evoking the same crisp days and restless nights.

41. JESSY LANZA | Lick in Heaven
This song came out on my birthday, so we're both Pisces—forgive me my soft spot. I may be projecting, but it sounds like an aquarium: the bells glimmer like mermaid jewelry and the percussion sounds like tapping on the glass. It's about anger so strong it makes you dizzy, and I find it beautiful that Lanza could take that feeling and alchemize it into something so weightless.

40. VIAGRA BOYS | Lick the Bag
Of course a band named Viagra Boys would give off demented Wonder Showzen energy. This is scum punk born as much from DFA records as Richard Hell, but it has the sense of humor of Andrew W.K. It's pleasantly shocking, like a joke shop pen, the only song on the list to include a chicken's squawk.

39. YAEJI | WAKING UP DOWN
This introvert's dance song climbs like a fantasy staircase, spiraling up from the dreams that come when songs are half-heard through the wall. If you’ve ever taken a depression nap while your roommates throw a house party, you know what's going on here—when we finally pry our eyes open, we'll either be down or we'll still be down.

38. CARLY RAE JEPSEN | Window
No matter how much sugar Jepsen puts in her songs, they work because she knows the power of the verse differential—hold back on the sweetest hook until right before the chorus. When we reach it, phrases stop and start abruptly like a game of hopscotch or a deafening heartbeat (the kind that comes from having to sneak through your high school partner’s window). Maybe it's adolescent, but that's what she's so damn good at.

37. COUCH PRINTS | Faces
This could be what the water cycle sounds like—floating until notes clump like moisture and fall in a shower of rhythm. Follow the drops to the street and you’ll find I'm rolling down the window, ignoring water on the door for a few minutes of cool bliss.

36. BLACK NOI$E | Mutha Magick (feat. bbymutha)
The first non-Earl release on Sweatshirt's label is from Detroit producer Black Noi$e, whose songs are strengthened with rebar and made from the hollow clanging of steel pipes. This song covers more ground in 90 seconds than most EPs do by daring to ask, “What would it sound like to throw a party in the air ducts?”

35. JAMIE XX | Idontknow
A break from his prior minimalism, “Idontknow” comes as a surprise from Jamie xx and mirrors the drama of terrible news, a buzzing of frantic thoughts that builds until it breaks. It's a great running song—a brisk tempo and a beat that’s never too sinister (though that bass could reach the bottom of the English Channel). True to form, he uses the last minute to blossom into melody, giving everyone on the floor the release they've been waiting for.

34. LIANNE LA HAVAS | Weird Fishes
By taking this Radiohead classic and cutting it down to half-time, Lianne La Havas brings new focus and weight to Yorke's lyrics about hitting bottom and getting out. Eschewing the "Arpeggi" portion and going heavy on keys, she brings the song a new context of emancipation and what it means to die free—and oh, what an ending she makes of it.

33. CLIPPING. | Say the Name
Daveed Diggs can make just about anything sound intense with his surgical delivery—so when he pivoted to actually writing about horror movies, it felt like fate worth of Paimon. The demonic hook here is taken from Geto Boys' "Mind Playing Tricks on Me," followed by punches that echo through the mix like thunder as Diggs delivers his homage to Candyman and cements their status as the most vital makers of horrorcore today.

32. SAULT | Wildfires
This song was essential the moment in mysteriously dropped in the middle of this summer of reckoning. Protest songs as founded by Woody Guthrie and Joan Baez sound more like nursery rhymes when placed next to the kinetic "Wildfires," and this one holds just as much literary weight. The third chord in the chorus zags by rising against musical convention—a perfect example of form mirroring content.

31. FIONA APPLE | I Want You to Love Me
This might be the most remarkable piece of songwriting this year for its simple arrangement of complex elements—the rolling piano paired with the fraying of that voice or the hold and suspension of the “Yoooooooooooou” over the chorus—but it's a line in the second verse that makes this song unimpeachable: “And I know none of this'll matter / in the long run, / but I know a sound is still a sound / around no one, / and while I'm in this body / I want somebody to want / and I want what I want.” Dare you to listen without spinning like The Sound of Music.

30. CHARLI XCX | pink diamond
With "pink diamond," Charli drops us into How I'm Feeling Now by smashing the eject button in our fighter plane. We’re expected to hit the ground running, chased by whatever we call the patron demon of F.O.M.O. Meanwhile, she lands barely breaking a sweat, looking bored in the middle of the street as reality cracks all around her.

29. WAXAHATCHEE | Can't Do Much
I knew this list was in trouble when the third single from her new album was still this perfect. It's a great premise, all about the inconvenient love—the strongest, arguably—the kind that grips you despite all reservations or past mistakes, spilling levees which took years to put in place. The beaming guitar mirrors the feeling, miraculous as our entire nervous system. The heart can push us through new doors whether we like it or not. Can't do much about that, after all.

28. PHOEBE BRIDGERS | Kyoto (Copycat Killer Version)
I love the original “Kyoto” for being one of Phoebe’s few songs that gets within miles of what we'd call pep. Still, I couldn't help but crumple when she brought out the big strings for this version and proved once again why she makes the best sad songs. The "I'm gonna kill you" of the chorus holds that much more weight when spoken softly, especially when her voice is full of cobwebs—a whisper from the ghost in the attic.

27. ADRIANNE LENKER | anything
Lenker is a winter artist—her fingerpicking sounds like falling snow. She even recorded this album in a cabin in Massachusetts. It was after a break up, if you couldn't guess—a story which mirrors other classics like For Emma, Forever Ago and American Weekend, repeated over and over because when you learn that everything ends only one of two ways, the only solution is to get as far away as possible until you're once again ready for the moments when you don't have to talk to about anything.

26. PERFUME GENIUS | On the Floor
This is the perfect song to spin about an hour or two into a night on dance floor, when nature's drugs are really kicking in. Oxytocin's set free like a dove, in time with the sway of the man you love as he spins like a kaleidoscope. Forever now, this is how you'll think of him—your love turned into a play, with every light a spotlight, at the center of everything yet dissolving like we never existed at all.